My life in music
Oct. 17th, 2025 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeWhen I have disposable income, I spend it on concert tickets.
So back in January I went to see Irish country-pop singer CMAT live. My friends and I were the oldest people in the room and we all got covid, and it was absolutely worth it. In terms of "best gigs I've been to", I'd put it on par with Florence + the Machine as The Actual Best, only at a fraction of the scale and price.
Her new album came out at the end of August, and I have an embarrassing number of feelings about the title track. Embarrassing because I was a fully grown adult and also Australian when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, but growing up in suburbia and feeling like your whole generation has been fucked over by neoliberalism is A Mood.
She's touring early next year, and I have tickets secured and a note in my planner to get a covid booster three weeks before the date.
I also have tickets to see Lorde, whose fourth album came out in ... June? July? What is time? Anyway, I've been a fan of Lorde since she dropped "Royals" 30,000 years ago, and I've really enjoyed watching her grow as a person and an artist, and grapple with the way she was embraced as a Teen Prodigy/Jailbait and then people turned ambivalent when it became clear she was a complicated adult woman.
Which is to say, hi, I'm a Solar Power defender, I think that album (which dropped in mid-2021) perfectly captures the feeling of being in the southern hemisphere while the north is enjoying its summer -- surrounded by beachy feelings and the memory of warmth, but also being very isolated and alone. And it appeared in the middle of Melbourne's lockdown, so it felt appropriate that it was constantly reaching for a musical catharsis, but never getting there.
All this makes for a good album but one that's hard for me to listen to. Virgin was perceived as Lorde responding to the Solar Power backlash and pivoting back to her old sound, but I think there's a lot of the more organic/acoustic sounds in Virgin, incorporated into a deeper and more intense soundscape as she reckons with adulthood, gender, fertility and the people (producers, record company executives, boyfriends, her own fandom) who have groomed and exploited her since she was a teen. Music subreddits keep telling me that Lorde is in her flop era, which obviously explains why her stadium gigs kept selling out and I couldn't get a ticket until she added an extra date.
I'm seeing Canadian girl rockers The Beaches when they tour with Australian non-binary artist G Flip. G Flip is a singer-songwriter, and also a drummer. They blew up a couple of years ago with a queer cover of Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer", and make pop-rock for the girls, the gays and the theys.
They feel like a good fit for The Beaches, and it's gonna be a fun night -- ironically held at the Margaret Court Arena, named for the tennis star turned preacher turned full-time professional homophobe and transphobe.
I haven't even listened to G Flip's new album properly yet, because I went and bought tickets to the Laneway Festival. I do not do festivals, because I am old and tired and need to sit, but the headliner next year is one Ms Chappell Roan. So really I had no choice. (I got VIP tickets, because that area will be less crowded and there might be more places to sit.)
But you can't go to a festival for just one artist, so now I have a playlist comprising nearly 300 songs, being representative samples of every single artist on the line-up. And so far my impressions are:
I'm also into Cooee, an Indigenous artist with exactly two songs out so far. (I'm not super ahead of the curve, I just get a lot of Australian music content on my TikTok algorithm, except when it's taken over by Taylor Swift Discourse, as it is right now.) Her first song sounded like something I would sing to my cat, but her second track, "Daisies", is a slow burn which has taken over my heart.
Finally, I listened to the new Taylor Swift album, and I think the post-Folklore "I will give every Swift release a listen" era is over. I've never been a huge fan, but this is her first album since Speak Now where I didn't want to add a single song to my playlists. The new album raises interesting questions like "are billionaires even capable of creating art" and "are those racist dog whistles intentional, or sneaking through as a symptom of creative burnout and too many yes-men", but at this point I will wait for the academic breakdown in twenty years' time.
So back in January I went to see Irish country-pop singer CMAT live. My friends and I were the oldest people in the room and we all got covid, and it was absolutely worth it. In terms of "best gigs I've been to", I'd put it on par with Florence + the Machine as The Actual Best, only at a fraction of the scale and price.
Her new album came out at the end of August, and I have an embarrassing number of feelings about the title track. Embarrassing because I was a fully grown adult and also Australian when the Celtic Tiger collapsed, but growing up in suburbia and feeling like your whole generation has been fucked over by neoliberalism is A Mood.
She's touring early next year, and I have tickets secured and a note in my planner to get a covid booster three weeks before the date.
I also have tickets to see Lorde, whose fourth album came out in ... June? July? What is time? Anyway, I've been a fan of Lorde since she dropped "Royals" 30,000 years ago, and I've really enjoyed watching her grow as a person and an artist, and grapple with the way she was embraced as a Teen Prodigy/Jailbait and then people turned ambivalent when it became clear she was a complicated adult woman.
Which is to say, hi, I'm a Solar Power defender, I think that album (which dropped in mid-2021) perfectly captures the feeling of being in the southern hemisphere while the north is enjoying its summer -- surrounded by beachy feelings and the memory of warmth, but also being very isolated and alone. And it appeared in the middle of Melbourne's lockdown, so it felt appropriate that it was constantly reaching for a musical catharsis, but never getting there.
All this makes for a good album but one that's hard for me to listen to. Virgin was perceived as Lorde responding to the Solar Power backlash and pivoting back to her old sound, but I think there's a lot of the more organic/acoustic sounds in Virgin, incorporated into a deeper and more intense soundscape as she reckons with adulthood, gender, fertility and the people (producers, record company executives, boyfriends, her own fandom) who have groomed and exploited her since she was a teen. Music subreddits keep telling me that Lorde is in her flop era, which obviously explains why her stadium gigs kept selling out and I couldn't get a ticket until she added an extra date.
I'm seeing Canadian girl rockers The Beaches when they tour with Australian non-binary artist G Flip. G Flip is a singer-songwriter, and also a drummer. They blew up a couple of years ago with a queer cover of Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer", and make pop-rock for the girls, the gays and the theys.
They feel like a good fit for The Beaches, and it's gonna be a fun night -- ironically held at the Margaret Court Arena, named for the tennis star turned preacher turned full-time professional homophobe and transphobe.
I haven't even listened to G Flip's new album properly yet, because I went and bought tickets to the Laneway Festival. I do not do festivals, because I am old and tired and need to sit, but the headliner next year is one Ms Chappell Roan. So really I had no choice. (I got VIP tickets, because that area will be less crowded and there might be more places to sit.)
But you can't go to a festival for just one artist, so now I have a playlist comprising nearly 300 songs, being representative samples of every single artist on the line-up. And so far my impressions are:
- I like Lucy Dacus but she's a bit at the "strummy strummy la-la" end of the spectrum, which is to say, she borders at time on folk. Just say no to folk music, guys
- I have been massively sleeping on Wolf Alice and I cannot WAIT to see them live and then dig deeper into their discography
- every time a song comes up that I really like, it's by Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers
- they sound a little like Wet Leg, who are also on the line-up, but hit harder for me (also it is PEAK BRITAIN to have a faintly racist-sounding nickname for people who come from the Isle of Wight)
- apparently men are also making music
- which has forced me to raise the question: are Geese actually good, or are music journalists just excited to have a mostly-male rock band to write about?
- Mt Joy and Cavetown are great, though, you fellas can stay
- every single song by The Dare is repellent to me, which is funny because he contributed to Brat, which I really like -- but he is no Charli xcx, and I will spend his set in the bar
- I really need a better quality bluetooth speaker for when I'm listening to music at home
- there is a special place in heaven for artists who create playlists of their festival setlists so new listeners can get familiar with their stuff without going back and forth and looking at setlist.fm
I'm also into Cooee, an Indigenous artist with exactly two songs out so far. (I'm not super ahead of the curve, I just get a lot of Australian music content on my TikTok algorithm, except when it's taken over by Taylor Swift Discourse, as it is right now.) Her first song sounded like something I would sing to my cat, but her second track, "Daisies", is a slow burn which has taken over my heart.
Finally, I listened to the new Taylor Swift album, and I think the post-Folklore "I will give every Swift release a listen" era is over. I've never been a huge fan, but this is her first album since Speak Now where I didn't want to add a single song to my playlists. The new album raises interesting questions like "are billionaires even capable of creating art" and "are those racist dog whistles intentional, or sneaking through as a symptom of creative burnout and too many yes-men", but at this point I will wait for the academic breakdown in twenty years' time.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-17 12:42 am (UTC)I quite like Lucy Dacus, she can be quite folk-ish but she can also do a much more rock-like sound. I'd definitely check her out at a festival. Wolf Alice is also great. Geese I think are solidly mid but not bad imo.
This is a peak string of concert tickets!
no subject
Date: 2025-10-24 10:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 10:53 pm (UTC)Now we settle in for seven years of dying of embarassment every time Catherine Connolly opens her mouth.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 11:10 pm (UTC)I feel for the folks in the Aras, it's going to be a long few years trying to keep her on script.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-25 11:33 pm (UTC)