Beyonce

The SMH called her a “mediocre pop star” and a “fashion victim.” Every FM breakfast presenter worth their salt has cracked jokes about her having a penis, which is not very nice.

The Daily Telegraph today speculated she didn’t even have the stamina to make it through her Australian concerts.

And The Sunday Telegraph on the weekend wondered if the film clip for Telephone was too racy for her young fans. The video does address the penis rumours, to dramatic effect, and contain a bit of girl-kissing-girl. If you’re still shocked by that in 2010, you need to get out more.

Why is everyone giving Lady Gaga such a hard time?

Continue reading "Why are people so unkind, to Lada Gaga" »

Let’s call this a pre-emptive strike, or in the least a kind of Kanye West moment: “Yo Penbo, I’m gonna let you finish but your list is unsatisfactory”. Having not contributed to The Punch’s best albums of the decade I’m going to beat you dear readers to the first critique of the list.

Needless to say the 30 album list chosen by Punch editor David Penberthy, resident critic Dennis Atkins and contributor Alison Piotrowski is full of great and deserved music.

Atkins’ list is limited only to the best albums of 2009.

Thankfully there’s not a lot of cross-over, although both The Strokes and M.I.A get on two lists so maybe they have to be considered artists of the decade.

But as always is the case with these lists it’s the omissions that we seem to look out for more than the choices themselves.

Hip hop’s pretty underrepresented in Penbo and Alison’s decade lists, (no Eminem or Kanye) and whether you like them or not Radiohead probably deserved to make it somewhere - if only for the devout following they’ve inspired amongst so many.

The best indy rock album of the decade (in my opinion) was left off the list entirely: The New Pornographers Electric Version . No Elliot Smith either for you introspective types. 

But probably the best band of the second half of the decade was also left off completely: The Killers. Specifically their second album Sam’s Town which could’ve taken out the title but in the least deserved a mention. I was heartened to learn that the readers of Rolling Stone also thought Sam’s Town ripped-off in the magazine’s list of the decade.

Without further complaining (by me anyway) we give you The Punch’s best albums of the decade.

Continue reading "The best albums of 09 and the decade" »

I’m still not sure how it happened. We headed out to Olympic Park on Friday with two other couples to see Beyonce’s Sydney show, planning to bop the night away to her awesome collection of insanely catchy dance tunes.

We ended up wiping away tears and struggling to speak as the concert turned into an emotionally-charged celebration of the best features of life in the west – women’s rights, civil rights, democracy, freedom of expression, a philanthropic sense of community.

The word “pop” of itself sounds frivolous and popular music is generally ignored or ridiculed as the shallowest cultural genre. But at some point during Beyonce’s show, the concert underwent a strange transformation, as if she’d read the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” passage from The Declaration of Independence and decided to build a stage show around it.

Continue reading "Beyonce for President" »

Kanye West has once again shown up off his guts to an award show and gotten all boisterous about who should or shouldn’t get a silly trophy, his fourth strike for the same offence.

At this week’s MTV Video Music Awards the prodigious hip hop talent leapt on stage to proclaim the clip for Beyonce Knowles’s floor-filler Single Ladies ‘one of the best videos of all time’.

I admire his passion for the music video form, but can only deride his timing: West made the statement during 19-year-old popstress Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for the best female video award, which she’d won ahead of Knowles.

Continue reading "Kanye’s rant exposes the stupidity of awards nights" »