Category: Features

On ‘Libba’ & How Folk Musician Elizabeth Cotten Inspired Laura Veirs

Acclaimed singer songwriter Laura Veirs is a longtime fan of the music of Elizabeth Cotten, the folk musician known as ‘Libba’, who is the subject of her beautiful picture book published by Chronicle Books. Cotten’s story is astonishing – a self taught guitarist who was only discovered in later life due to an unexpectedly wonderful twist of fate. Continue reading “On ‘Libba’ & How Folk Musician Elizabeth Cotten Inspired Laura Veirs” →

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Most Anticipated Music of 2018

At this moment it’s hard to believe that 2018 could be as good a year for music as 2017, such was the breadth and depth of brilliant albums released by female artists. Still this time last year I hadn’t even heard of many of the acts who ended up on my favourite albums list so I’m hoping for more hidden gems to surprise me over the next few months. Read on to find out who you might be listening to this year. Continue reading “Most Anticipated Music of 2018” →

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2018 Blog Resolutions

I loved reading the old Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash new year resolutions that have been making the rounds on Twitter so much that I have decided to write a few of my own. I would definitely steal most of Woody’s including ‘read lots of good books’, ‘love everybody’ and ‘dream good’ but this post will focus on my personal blogging resolutions for 2018. Continue reading “2018 Blog Resolutions” →

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What the ‘Album of the Year’ Polls Tell Us About Female Representation in Music

The ubiquitous end of year album lists might seem arbitrary but they are an important way for people to find new music and I believe they have a significant impact on an artist’s overall career. So this year I decided to do a very unscientific analysis of various polls to see how well female voices were represented overall. Continue reading “What the ‘Album of the Year’ Polls Tell Us About Female Representation in Music” →

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Top Twenty Favourite Songs of the Year

Picking favourite songs of the year turned out to be a little more challenging than I thought – some songs were easy to choose as they connected instantly, others slowly worked themselves into my consciousness after listening over a longer period of time. My only criteria for inclusion on the list was that the songs must appear on albums released in 2017, so any singles from albums released last year or next year were excluded. I have loved so many songs this year – writing the blog has opened my ears to so many amazing artists and it was so hard to decide on only a few but here goes my top twenty, for what it’s worth. Continue reading “Top Twenty Favourite Songs of the Year” →

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Should We Still Listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album?

The unmasking of many powerful men in Hollywood as abusers and serial sexual harassers has been a long time coming. The music industry too has been rife with troubling behaviour for decades, from Ike Turner to Michael Jackson to Kesha’s recent case against Dr Luke. This year has proved what women have known all along: the voices of victims must be heard and respected no matter who is being accused. Continue reading “Should We Still Listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album?” →

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