Hip Hop

Just days after the official release of his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye’s been given ten out of ten by Pitchfork and five stars from Rolling Stone.

For those of you who don’t subscribe to the music bibles, that’s unheard of. Critics are acting like it’s the second coming - and for hip hop, it basically is.

Hip hop used to be that stuff only the naughty kids listened to… the kind of music your mum used to ban you from buying… and the sort of album you’d put in your collection if you wanted people to think you walked on the wild side.

Continue reading "Firearms be damned, he’s got Brand Kanye" »

Nobody wants to be a gatecrasher.

And for viewers of the Arias last night, it felt like we’d stumbled into some raging A-list party and we definitely weren’t invited.

Staged for the first time at the Sydney Opera House, in an ultra-casual outdoor telecast, the awards seemed to be a cracker, but only if you had the all-important gold lanyard around your neck.

Continue reading "Worst ARIAs ever?" »

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" »