Music

"In his adolescence, the Church told Montero that being gay would send him straight to Hell – so the singer reckoned, why not get into his thigh-high stilettos and slide down there on his own terms?" Beth Ranasinghe dives deep into Lil Nas X's recent single "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)".

"It is prefaced: “What if Beethoven’s Für Elise… Had been written by Ludovico Einaudi?”... ‘Reimagining’ Beethoven in the style of Einaudi would entail a translation of Beethoven’s ‘classical’ harmonies into the more accessible language of modern film/popular music, potentially downsizing the role of melody and musical form in favour of communicating a more homogeneous ‘background’ sound." Yundi Li discusses the role TikTok and other new media play in changing dialogues of genre fusion.

"Production is not the greatest sin ‘Holy’ commits. Indeed, I actually really like the gospel piano that kicks the song off, and Justin’s opening verse (“I know a lot about sinners/guess I won’t be a saint”) and pre-chorus (“the way you hold me… feels so holy”), while nothing special, definitely fit and set the mood. Yet, this is immediately ruined by the lyric “Oh God/Running to the altar like a track-star”, which, accompanied by the muddy-too-modern pop bass farting through the timeless instrumentation preceding, wrecks the song beyond all recovery." Raman Handa reviews 'Justice', the latest offering from Justin Bieber.

"One of my favourite parts of Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece, Things Fall Apart, is a ferociously intense public wrestling scene. It buzzes with an ever-moving pulse, choreographed by the beating of drums. They rise with the intensity of the fighting, and older men 'remembered the days when they wrestled to its intoxicating rhythm.'" Jimmy Brewer explores how Kerouac, Proust and Achebe capture the experience of live music in their works.

"Is the hit single really a triumph of Korean music and the result of successful diversification of the globalised music industry? Or is it an omen of homogenised world music, blanched and pureed under Anglophone influence?" Coral Kim discusses whether BTS disprove the model of "l'exception française".

"Start your day off with this dance track and you can’t go wrong." Flora Dyson picks out some selections to help keep you company during the final stretch of restrictions and drive you into the spring and summer months.

"Ultimately, the album is about the human experience: the joys and monotonies; the passions and anxieties; the connection and solitude". Karan Chandra reviews Weezer's latest record, OK Human.

"Dawson’s lyrics aren’t poems; the music is too important to the cadence and stress of the lines for the words to retain their power without it. Still, they do pass that age-old test which can be used upon a line of verse to distinguish the animating spirit of poetry: they’re often almost impossible to gloss in prose." Oscar Jelley tries to unravel the complexities of Geordie folk singer-songwriter, Richard Dawson.

CW: Mentions of alcoholism, substance abuse. "'Little Oblivions', then, is a battle diary published long after nadir itself, with retrospective editing. The full-band sound makes it extremely listenable, and Baker’s silvery voice is snugly at home amidst metallic textures." Irene Zhang looks at Julien Baker's latest release.

"Arctic Monkeys' sentiment of local identity is perfectly surmised in the closing track ‘A Certain Romance,’; though it bemoans the towns low fashion and ‘kids who scrap with pool cues in their hands,’ it resolves into a statement of "this is our town, our culture, and we’re owning it."" Greg Halliwell looks back at what the Sheffield quartet's debut album meant to Northern music culture, 15 years' on.

"It feels almost like an Alice in Wonderland journey of sound – despite the constant growing and shrinking, we still know that we’re down the rabbit hole." Lily Kershaw looks back at André 3000's side of Outkast's 2003 double album, "The Love Below".

"The sanitiser that coated my hands before entering Vintage and Vinyl was sticky. I was conscious of every fingerprint I might leave– a world away from thumbing through endless stacks of records in a pre-COVID world." Shreya Banerjee discusses her lockdown love affair with the LP.

"By putting on Katy Perry or Jessie J, you’re probably not looking for a quasi-religious experience. There’s no need for overly philosophical lyrics or boundary-pushing orchestral accompaniments; rather, you want catchy hooks, relatable lyrics, and, above all else, fun. Jepsen does this all flawlessly." Katie Kirkpatrick advocates for justice for Carly Rae Jepsen

"You’re not going to get high quality from me today, nor a sophisticated taste. But I’m going to give you the honest truth." .

"The songs that have now been crystallised on 'For the first time' have always existed, and will always exist, in a state of perpetual evolution – they talk to each other, to their own predecessors, and to the rest of the cultural sphere in which they exist."

"What kind of living is this? I don't wanna simply exist. I wanna punch with my fists…grab life by her wrists…and say I want this". After lockdown number three was announced, the lyrics hit me in a completely new way, as if I was listening to the song for the first time again.

"'Emo’ music did not suddenly materialise when Gerard Way screamed ‘IM NOT O-F*****G-K’ into a microphone."

"Collapsed in Sunbeams is a tender portrait of her microcosm of the world that feels universal."

"Alt-rock is characterised by experimentation with texture, timbre, and structure, especially drawing on the raw, distorted punk rock sounds and new wave’s energetic appeal." Jimmy Brewer takes a look back at five bands who defined the sound of the genre.

"If you asked me “what am I proud of?”. I did Couch to 5k. Okay, so going with that for a running song I would say Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (1985). Definitely one of my pandemic songs."