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Music

American Odyssey- The world building of Lana del Rey’s music

"The past decade of Lana del Rey’s music has ventured  from the deserts and neon-lights of Las Vegas to the streets of New York, Hollywood, and eventually rural California."

‘Spectacular throughout’: OUO at the Sheldonian- review

"The Sheldonian Theatre was treated on Saturday of 4th week to a display by some of the University’s best musical talent."

Five Songs for the Fifth Week Blues

"I believe that music makes a lot of things in life better. Fifth week at Oxford is no exception."

Forget Her Not: Rediscovering Women in Music- Week 1

At fifteen, I was fully and completely obsessed with the Californian soul/alternative R&B/jazz/funk band...

Grammys 2024: Reflection of Profitability or Recognition of Artistry?

The 2024 Grammys were everything they should be: glamorous, monumental, and of course, controversial. Taylor...

Music for the end of the world: a Plastic Beach retrospective

"Plastic Beach serves as a poetic, wonderfully produced and musically brilliant reminder that the world is slowly ending, everything is artificial and no one seems to be doing very much about it at all."

Following the money: the meaning of “selling out”

‘I love selling out’ declared Charli XCX when speaking to NPR about Crash, released in March, a project which sees her lean into mainstream pop, ironically playing the part of an industry ‘sell-out’.

Defying Gravity: In conversation with Stephen Schwartz

“I tend to be attracted to stories about outsiders,” Schwartz tells me at the beginning of our call, “about people who feel themselves not part of the culture or not part of the mainstream if you will, and are trying to figure out how to fit in, and what the cost is of doing so.”

Father John Misty’s “new world of old characters”

"In Chloë and the Next 20th Century, Tillman succeeds spectacularly at creating a new world out of old characters."

‘Stirred to breathless heights’:  Wolf Alice Concert Review 

"This was the second of three successive sold-out nights for the four-piece at the London venue, and it proved one for us and the remaining five thousand people in attendance to remember."

Remembering SOPHIE

"SOHPIE’s tragically early passing froze music in time. What stands, crowned by Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, is an impressive but truncated body of work. While we lament SOPHIE’s untimely death, we can also enjoy the music and celebrate the legacy left behind. SOPHIE continues to inspire – both as a person and as a musician – and stands as someone we all can look up to."

‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You’, Big Thief Album Review

In the midst of the pandemic, Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief’s lead singer) ventured into the wilderness, fresh from heartbreak, and released two new solo...

‘It leaves you in awe’, Ants From Up There – Black Country, New Road Album Review

Ants From Up There is the sophomore album from acclaimed experimental rock outfit Black Country, New Road – equal parts anthemic and introspective, the...

Reclaiming Taylor Swift’s Songwriting Genius

On Tuesday 25th of January 2022, Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn woke up and chose violence – or at the very least, a...

Laurel Hell review: Unapologetically unresolved

“I will neglect everything else, including me as a person, just to get to keep making music. And even if it actually sometimes hurts,...

Pythagoras’ Nightmare: Reincarnation, Coldplay and the Music of the Spheres

Don’t get me wrong. The album is upbeat, cheerful, maddeningly optimistic and, at least intermittently, catchy for most of us mortals. But something tells me it’s not quite the empyreal sound Pythagoras would have had in mind.

Juggling a degree and career: In conversation with Manmzèl

Maintaining a non-academic hobby alongside an Oxford degree is a challenge. Pressures from tutors, friends and oneself conspire to clog up time that could...

Night at the Sheldonian: Oxford Millennium Orchestra Play Bruch, Beethoven and Schumann

"Out from the November night an easy orange glow invited me into the Sheldonian. I trotted up creaking stairs to the top floor, into the jaws of death – the jaws of death being an archaically unintuitive seating set up. The seats on the upper stalls are just three big steps – if you arrive late, sidling along the upper rows in front of those already seated requires deft footwork and a lot of 'excuse me's."

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