Lauren
Kylie’s Disco: New Mastery of a Familiar Genre
LaurenMark Yin
Kylie’s 15th studio album brings a newfound sense of self to a genre that she knows better than perhaps any of her contemporaries. The result is a disco-pop album that feels familiar at first, but this time—and surprisingly for the first time in her career—on her own terms.
Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land: A playlist to celebrate First Nations music
LaurenIsabella Ross
The Australian Indigenous music scene is growing rapidly. From acoustic jams to silky smooth pop, hip-hop and all the avenues between, First Nations musicians have got you covered. This playlist is one that will hang around for my life.
How Your Favourite TV Characters Would Act in Lockdown
LaurenChristina Savopoulos
I’m 100% sure that Homer Simpson wouldn’t even be aware of the pandemic happening. If he did (by some miracle) find out and understood what it meant, he would most likely try and eat a bat to reverse the virus, in a Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror turn of events. Us mere mortals just can’t argue with Homer’s logic.
ENOLA HOLMES: Energetic and Headstrong Enola Steps Out from Sherlock’s Shadow
LaurenChristina Savopoulos
It’s now time for a new member of the Holmes family to take centre stage. Netflix’s Enola Holmes might not be on par with some of the great mysteries such as Murder on the Orient Express, but it does provide an insightful glance into women’s roles during the Victorian period through an observant and outspoken protagonist.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Down to an Acceptable Number of Drummers
LaurenMaddison Moore
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard drummer Eric Moore has announced his departure from the band. Moore is stepping back as member and manager to one of Melbourne’s most prolific bands to focus his attention solely on growing his independent record label, Flightless Records.
Mixing Colours Expanded: Polyphonic Bliss in Monotonous Times
LaurenMark Yin
The expanded edition of Roger and Brian Eno’s Mixing Colours is a timely injection of effervescence into the dullness of a Melbourne winter; 25 richly-layered yet elusively nebulous tracks, depicting all the colours, minerals and textures we might forget by the time we’re out of this supposedly interminable present.
Fodder Blog Content List 2020
LaurenIs writing for Pitchfork your dream job? The Fodder Blog publishes a range of written pieces and audio-visual content about creative industries, ranging from concert and album reviews, to interviews with artists, to promotional material for performers and more! Please email pitches, enquiries and cold submissions to our editor Lauren.
FOLKLORE IS A GAY ALBUM WHETHER TAYLOR SWIFT INTENDED IT OR NOT
LaurenMarkella Votzourakis
Folklore is a series of whimsical, cleverly-produced songs that sucker-punch you with nostalgia whether you want it or not. If this album were a day of the week, it would be Thursday. Season? Autumn. Vibe? Forest, witch, youth, love, stories… the queer experience. Stay with me.
My Lockdown Viewing Diary – What I’ve Watched During These Incredibly Long Months
LaurenKeely Tzoukos
What good would all my recent binge-watching be if I couldn’t share it with all of you? I’ve cobbled together my viewing diary, an eclectic mix of programs that pinpoint the many vicissitudes of housebound life. Hopefully it inspires you with ways to get through another five weeks of lockdown!
21 Reasons Why Missy Higgins is the Only Musician for Me
LaurenSarah Peters
4. ‘Lies will lock you up with truth the only key’ — her lyrics are honest and expressive.
8. “I’ve had a couple of bras thrown at me onstage, which is pretty awesome.”
10. Her music feels like home. I am safe there.
Experience of a (Cinematic) Lifetime
LaurenJames Gordon
It’s fun to regard films as a detached version of “experiencing a lifetime”, to view them as little lives we can watch over with a comfortable God-like mentality. We can even watch them and associate them with ‘eras’ of our own lives. And while we fill our lives with these fictional ‘lifetimes’, it’s simultaneously tempting to believe our own lifetime will be like the lifetimes we’re watching.
Spectrum Playlist
LaurenMarsya Ali
As someone who struggles with depression, music has been a constant factor in helping me feel better when the blues come. This playlist is full of songs that I feel reflect the pondering, sinking and drowning sort of feelings that come on now and then.
Anachronisms, Madonna Comparisons and Gaga’s Chromatica
LaurenMark Yin
In the ’00s and ’10s Lady Gaga became legendary. She took dance music and put it in a blender, shat on it, vomited on it, ate it, gave birth to it, and that is why she’s beloved. Is ‘Chromatica’ good music? Undoubtedly. But did it have this effect? Unfortunately not…because it’s already been done before…about a decade ago. By her.
The Actor Paradox
LaurenJames Gordon
Isn’t it interesting that actors aren’t actors in the world of the films they act in? The characters of these films must watch something in their spare time, and it can’t be the same stuff we watch (with them in it!). If only we could enter the universe of any film and watch the subsequent films that only exist in that film’s universe, and then we could go inside the cinematic universes of those films. A babushka doll of cinematic universes that never ends.
Top 5 NPR Tiny Desk Concerts
LaurenElektra Flaskas-Troaditis
The NPR Tiny Desk – a Youtube music haven for all music lovers. The true top five performances embody authentic artistry and skilfully experiment with their own sound, pushing boundaries and peaking creatively.
Five (Mostly) Relaxing Albums to Help You Coast Through Your Time at Home
LaurenDominic Barr
If the walls of your own home are starting to feel a bit suffocating, or if you’re just feeling a bit bored, music can be the breath of fresh air you might need to traverse this uncertain time. These five albums span a range of genres and emotional qualities, but they’re all here to comfort you though the most menial and mundane of your days at home.
Need a laugh? 7 Sitcom Episodes That Will Cure Your Iso Blues
LaurenKeely Tzoukos
It’s easy to feel lonely in times like these. But have no fear!
Whether you’re missing family and friends, juggling anxiety over uni grades and an impending global recession (it’s weird how the mind of a student can easily equate these two things), or just having a bad day, I’ve got you covered.
New Releases: Nostalgic Bops For When We Used To Be Able to Leave the House
LaurenMark Yin
They say that, in a time when all you want is to be able to go outside again, music helps. It helps you remember what life was like Before All This. Some of these artists are local heroes, others are global superstars. Some of their songs are filled with 80s synths, others draw influence from the eclectic sounds of the 2000s, but what their music has in common is an evocation of simpler times. Of times before COVID-19, at least.
Review—Netflix’s Anne with an E
LaurenBridey Ellis
It’s hard to become obsessed with watching a series with so many options right at our fingertips. But driven by well-thought out plot lines, stunning cinematography and breathtaking costume design, Anne with an E, an adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables, shines through as a series too good to be missed. It’s a three-season epic to be binge watched to your heart’s content.
The Persistent Genius of Bob Dylan: Unravelling Murder Most Foul
LaurenWill Minack
After an eight-year drought of original material, the enigmatic folk icon returns with a 17-minute cultural odyssey centred on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Interview—Calico Sunday: Fresh Band, Fresh Single, Refreshing Sound
LaurenLauren Berry
Young Melbourne rock n’ roll band Calico Sunday’s new single ‘She’s My Gun’ is out now. The song represents the band’s essence; it has a classic sound, rich, golden female vocals, sizzling lead guitar breaks and hard, honest drum beats. The up and coming band’s music is familiar, yet twinged with new flavours…convention pushing its way into innovation.
Blanket Songs for Staying Calm and Staying Inside
LaurenRadio Fodder Music and Blog Teams
If a soothing cup of tea ☕️ could make noise it would sound like this playlist.
Niall Horan ‘Heartbreak Weather’ Album Review: PLEASE SIR, MAY I HAVE SOME DEVOTION?
LaurenMarkella Votzourakis
Niall Horan uses his second studio album Heartbreak Weather to analyse the rise and fall of a relationship from different points of view. But he is rarely accusatory or even particularly self-pitying throughout, which is refreshing and consistent with his clean, easy-going marketing image. How coincidental!
11 Greatest Television Theme Songs of All Time
LaurenKeely Tzoukos
It’s time for me to dust off my novelty Central Perk coffee mug, serenade my neighbour’s stinky feline, and dance wildly in the fountain behind the Royal Exhibition Building, because the cast of Friends is reuniting.
In honour of the forthcoming reunion special, I’ve compiled a list of the best television theme songs of all time. Because we all know Friends would be nothing without those four – NOT five – iconic claps…
The Good Place—Blazingly Clever Yet Misfiring Series Comes to a Poignant End (Review)
LaurenKeely Tzoukos
Only after you’ve endured The Good Place’s dreary and shambolic final seasons, does it become clear that the earlier seasons were truly magnificent. Likewise, it’s only after the finale, as you find yourself surrounded by tear-stained tissues, that you connect emotionally with the series and its overarching message.
Review—Scott & Charlene’s Wedding at The Tote Hotel
LaurenWill Minack
Scott & Charlene’s Wedding returned to the Tote last month, launching a batch of wry, restless tracks from their new EP When in Rome, Carpe Diem.
Craig Dermody and co. took to the stage nearly an hour late, just moments before midnight. Nobody in the Tote crowd seemed to mind. The Melbourne-based band were playing on their home ground – and kicking into the wind.
Big Cats Come Out to Play—The Cat Empire at Melbourne Zoo Twilights Review
LaurenLauren Berry
Dance-party aficionados The Cat Empire brought a musically-ferocious, family-friendly fiesta to Melbourne Zoo’s Twilights event this summer. I went along to check out the cats playing at the zoo, in awe at their ability to connect us all in a serotonin-explosion of human celebration.
Mariah Carey, Three Decades On
LaurenMark Yin
She’s the only artist ever to top the Billboard Hot 100 in four decades, from ‘Vision of Love’ in 1990 to ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, the last chart-topper of 2019 and the first of the 2020s. 2020 will also mark the 30th anniversary of her eponymous debut album, still serving as an inspiration to a generation of artists.
Music moods for Valentine’s Day
LaurenRadio Fodder Music Team, Bec Meier
Valentine’s Day is a day of many emotions, whether you love the idea of the day or hate it. So, to help move the day along, we made playlists to suit all and any of your Valentine’s needs.
Review—Carly Rae Jepsen, The Dedicated Tour 2019 Melbourne
LaurenMonique O’Rafferty
Last Monday 2 December, Canadian pop sensation Carly Rae Jepsen brought The Dedicated Tour to The Forum, Melbourne for a sold out show that could only be described as a modern-day disco extravaganza.
Review—Middle Kids, New Songs For Old Problems Tour 2019 Melbourne
LaurenMonique O’Rafferty
On Sunday 17 November, Sydney alt-rock band Middle Kids returned to The Forum for the Melbourne leg of their New Songs For Old Problems Tour.
And boy was I blown away.
Blurring Genres—Gorillaz, and the Art of Indescribable Music
LaurenLauren Berry
As with other art forms, music resonates with the body—it plucks at your heart strings, or, if it’s not especially poetic, it at least stimulates exhilaration throughout your blood, or jams with the inner snare drum of your soul. Music makes us feel something indescribable—and perhaps it shouldn’t have to be described in words, but left as a beautiful craft and stimulus for our wordless inner contentment.
Alex Cameron—‘Miami Memory’ Album Review
LaurenWill Minack
On Miami Memory—an intimate portrayal of a modern-day relationship—Alex Cameron sheds his skin. He empties out the wardrobe of elaborate costumes he spent years crafting across his first two albums. In place of these characters, Cameron steps into the spotlight as himself, showcasing a skilled ability to write songs with naked sincerity.
When Did It All Stop Making Sense?
LaurenLauren Berry
‘How did I get here?’ and other questions you may ask yourself…
The Grogans ‘Just What You Want’—Album Review In Brief
LaurenIan Cranfield
In early October, Melbourne surf-Rock band The Grogans released their debut album Just What You Want. It’s the album you didn’t know you needed.
Angel Olsen’s Lesson in Knowing Yourself—‘All Mirrors’ Album Review
LaurenTiia Kelly
Although Olsen’s record takes place in the aftermath of a breakup, it resists the typical conventions of a ‘breakup album’. Here, the past is not a source of pain, but a catalyst for reflection. The album does not mourn, so much as it makes peace.
5 Date-Spots in Brunswick to Impress Your Hipster Crush
LaurenJoy Ong
Want to impress that cute alternative boy/girl in your African-Drumming breadth class? Take them on an indie film-esque date to Brunswick, the hipster suburb of your dreams.
Photos—Lazy Ghost at The Gasometer Hotel
LaurenIan Cranfield
Photos from Lazy Ghost’s live performance at The Gasometer Hotel on September 22.
Review—Troye Sivan, The Bloom Tour 2019 Melbourne
LaurenMonique O’Rafferty
There is nothing like seeing an artist perform live in their hometown, and pop-icon Troye Sivan was no exception. On Wednesday 25 September, Troye performed a sold-out show to 7,000 adoring fans at Margaret Court Arena. And boy did he blow us all away!
Only one song into his set, Troye was already pulling out his signature dance moves: hip thrusts, body rolls and slut drops! The arena felt like such a safe space to be unapologetically yourself and really let loose.
Review—Doja Cat at Listen Out 2019
LaurenAlana Bolger
“Shout out to all the big butts, the small ones, the medium ones” shouts Doja to the crowd.
Doja is aware of her presence – she knows what she’s doing and isn’t afraid to sell it. She clearly doesn’t let any ideas of what a rapper ‘should’ be – or what a ‘female rapper’ should be – dictate any aspect of her image or output.
Another Romantic Sadboi Soundtrack—Surf Curse’s ‘Heaven Surrounds You’ Album Review
LaurenIan Cranfield
Two years after their sophomore release, Nothing Yet, Surf Curse have yet again created another soundtrack for sad boys and girls.
This “coming of age epic” features track titles inspired by cult films they’ve cherished throughout their young adult lives.
Review—Vera Blue, The Way That You Love Me Tour 2019 Geelong
LaurenMonique O’Rafferty
Vera emerged in a haze of shimmering yellow to a teaser of ‘The Way That You Love Me’. She wore a sheer, yellow ensemble over a yellow bodysuit with chunky sneakers. I could never! With a cheeky grin towards the audience, she opened the show with ‘Private’, giving the crowd a first taste of her signature dance moves and vocal range.
11 Nostalgic Pop Rock Songs From Our Teen Days
LaurenLindsay Wong
Pop rock – I loved the guitar riffs, low bass lines, intense drumming and raw vocals of this genre. At one point in your teenage life, you’ve probably had some of these songs on your iPod playlists. When I’m in a particularly nostalgic mood, I give these songs and artists a listen.
Review—LANY World Tour 2019 Melbourne
LaurenMonique O’Rafferty
When I first saw that LANY was bringing their World Tour to Margaret Court Arena on July 19, I wasn’t really sure whether I wanted to buy tickets.
Was I really prepared to be moshing amongst a sea of children, covered in the superfluid of teens—a mix of sweat, tears and cheap vodka smuggled into the area in yoghurt pouches?
Albums vs. Playlists—The Great Debate
LaurenLucy Myers
It’s a debate as old as time. Well, as old as the technological developments that allow for different modes of recording and publishing sounds in a variety of different formats… at least.
Late Night Thoughts on Tyler the Creator’s Album Artwork
LaurenElektra Flaskas-Troaditis
Completely intrigued at how he explains his interest in character development, I can’t help but voice my completely biased opinions on the way he creates a different persona in each album cover and reinvents his sound without sacrificing his radical edge. However, there is a real aesthetic consistency to this artistry, as he possesses an innate capacity to work with a complex and multi-faceted character within his extensive body of creative work.
Interview with Josh Dykgraaf
LaurenAnastasija Svarevska
Josh Dykgraaf, a photo-shop artist playing with images as one would play with Lego.
Mudfest Comedy Gala—Meet Foolery Press
LaurenLauren Berry
“Foolery Press is – and we make no apologies for this pun – hot off the press.”