CLUAS Opinion

Buskers: Scourge or Saviours of our cities?

I hate buskers. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Can't stand them. Won't put up with them. Acoustic-guitar shouter on Grafton Street blocking me going into Bewleys? Get out of my way! Doddery old accordion fella on the Paris metro? Go off and do something productive like starting a riot! Half-naked cowboy guy in New York? Pull up your pants, you eejit! Read the full article...

Have Arctic Monkeys gone and peaked too early?

The majority of the music fed to the masses, sucks. It’s watered down sufficiently to appeal to as many people as possible, in order to offend as few as possible, in order to shift as many units as possible, which is why most entries into the charts are offensive. Dance is ‘cheesy’ (or worse still, ‘commercial’, duh). Pop is dominated by boy bands, novelty songs, runners up in reality TV shows and 2-dimensional ‘stars’... Read the full article...

What Pop Music Can Teach Us About The Spirit Of Christmas...

I was driving home the other night to the missus, listening to Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Spotlight on Christmas’, and it struck me that this simple song, originally recorded for a MOJO Magazine Christmas themed CD, had more to say about the core truths of Jesus Christ and Christmas than anything I’ve heard from the Roman Catholic Church in quite some time. Read the full article...

Top Ten Acts on the Irish Indie Music Scene of 2005

Alas, another year has rolled by. It was a long period, when many a Euro had been tossed towards the outstretched claws of music promoters and record store employees. But, this is the time of the year that one should thank them for stocking the music one wants, and for putting on the shows that one desires to attend. It's also time highlight some of the unsigned acts that have rapidly matured over the past twelve months. Of the many who contested for one’s attention, there were the following ten that - for me at least - managed to stand out... Read the full article...

Homosexuality in pop music and the taboos that still surround it...

Mark Feehily from Westlife recently revealed - via tabloid, naturally - that  he was gay. Being neither gay nor a Westlife fan, I had no feelings of solidarity, shock or anything about it. Initially I gave it as little interest as I do to Brian McFadden's nauseating attempts to cling to celebrity status by moaning about it as publicly as possible. Read the full article...

Ring tones and the music industry

It has run the full gamut of description: from the ultimate marketing coup to the end of music as we know it, a ring tone has crossed over to top the singles chart. This has prompted a collective scratching of heads, much comment on the thirty million spent promoting it and general sympathy for Coldplay, who lost out in the race for the top spot. But before we all run out to buy Coldplay's next single to right this abhorrence, should we really be surprised that the music industry is more comfortable doing business without an artist?  Read the full article...

The Top Ten Bloke Songs

Here they are. The ten songs every unreconstructed male should have close to hand, preferably on a mix CD stashed in your sock drawer, to be played only prior to emergencies (baby showers, distant relatives’ funerals and dinner with her friends). Read the full article...

The importance of the audience in a music scene...

Some say that rock music, at least rock music with the balls to look you in the eye and force a sigh, is dead and gone. They claim that it died on a couch with Sid Vicious, in a lonely hotel room with Janis, growing cold in a bath with Jim Morrison or twitching on a puke-stained bed with Bonzo Bonham. Read the full article...

Michael Jackson: demon or demonised? Or both?

So the sorry case of Michael Jackson surfaces again in our news. At the time of writing he stands accused of an appalling crime, one that our society rightly regards as indefensible and sickening. Jackson is, of course, innocent until proven guilty. However, short of inventing a cure for cancer, AIDS and the common cold in one pill, nothing that he could do will ever redeem his reputation now, even if he is found innocent. Read the full article...

The Scene in Whelan's

Once upon a time, Whelan’s of Wexford Street Dublin was considered to be the coolest place to be. At its peak of popularity it was the heartbeat of the Irish music scene. Mainstream and independent artists from various genres have packed the venue over the years and played some memorable shows. In the case of many music fanatics who regularly attend gigs in Ireland, Whelan’s was once hailed as their musical Mecca. Lately though, the buzz around the place is slowly eroding away. Why is this? What is going wrong? Read the full article...

The Irish Heavy Metal scene

As a nation of minstrels and planxties our respect and nostalgic soft-spot for a one-man séisiún has kept generations of mellow artistes alive. Singer/songwriter syndrome has imbedded itself in the Irish music scene, with Damien Rice and Mundy becoming our musical spokesmen. However it seems the day of the man with a guitar singing of love and happiness is coming to an end, threatened to be uprooted by a darker movement which has wrapped its claws around the Irish underground. Make way for metal! Read the full article...

The Roland Massacre

The usual process for writing one of these Op-Ed pieces is that anyone writing one of these sends a basic idea to Jules our Op-Ed-Editor so to speak. If Jules gives the idea the nod, we then spend about two weeks hammering it out into something vaguely coherent. This Op-Ed was originally supposed to be a well researched and thought out piece on how copyright and recording technology have changed modern music. Well nuts to that. Read the full article...

Musicians and their role in Politics

I write from California. I spent my 20s in Los Angeles during the Reagan Era, and it was hell. That administration was supporting death and torture squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua, The environment was under attack. Far Right nuts were being nominated to the Federal & Supreme Courts. The national debt was being doubled and tripled (sounds like deja-vu all over again, huh?). I remember feeling that it was the first time in our history that the following generation would not have it better than their parents. Read the full article...

Irish Music - a truly influential force?

Roddy Doyle said recently in an interview in The Guardian that Ireland doesn’t produce great musicians. Considering that he is currently promoting a novel centred on Louis Armstrong and American jazz, it’s possible that he may have been quoted out of a very broad context. Nonetheless, he has a valid point.  Read the full article...