Music Feature – Will Garnett

Album Reviews: Wrap Up of 2020, June – December

December 16, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Album Reviews, JournalismTagged A Celebration of Endings, A Hero's Death, Acoustic, Aesop Rock, Album, Album of the Month, Album Review, Albums of the Year, August, Backpack Rap, Biffy Clyro, Bring Me the Horizon, Bristol, Bronson, Country, COVID-19, Creeper, Death Of An Optimist, December, Deftones, Discover, Doves, Drum & Bass, Electronic, Emo, Emo Rap, Emotional Hardcore, Everything Everything, Existential Reckoning, Fairhazel, Fever 333, Folk, folklore, Fontaines D.C., grandson, hip-hop, I Sold My Sould For Fairhazel, IDLES, Indie, Indie-Rock, Irish Folk, Irish Rock, Juice WRLD, July, June, Kid Cudi, Lamb of God, Lament, Man on the Moon III, Marilyn Manson, Mental Health, Metal, Mike Skinner, Miley Cyrus, Moral Panic, Mosh Pit, Movements, Music, Music Feature, Music Journalism, Music Review, New Music, No Good Left To Give, None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive, Nothing But Thieves, November, Nu Metal, October, Ohms, Pandemic, Phoebe Bridgers, Phoxjaw, Plastic Hearts, Pop, Pop-Punk, Pop-Rock, Post Human: Survival Horror, Punisher, Punk Rock, Puscifer, PVRIS, Rap, Re-Animator, Review, Rock, Royal Swan, RTJ4, Run the Jewels, September, Sex Death & the Infinite Void, Spirit World Field Guide, Taylor Swift, The Chosen, The Streets, The Universal Want, Touche Amore, Twin Heavy, UK Garage, Ultra Mono, Use Me, WE ARE CHAOS, weird!, Willie J Healy, Wrap Up of 2020, Wrong Generation, YUNGBLUD3 Comments

I’ve been trying to think of something profound to say about 2020 as an introduction to this post, a wrap up of the rest of my month-by-month album reviews of the year, something I started during the first lockdown, and in synergy to how this pandemic has gone; those posts started with much fluster, meandered, and has now come back with renewed enthusiasm, and a new string (strain) to its bow. The new strings in this post are simply a more rushed approach to getting these album reviews done, or simply sharing what albums I enjoyed listening to each month, much like the UK governments approach to getting the Pfizer vaccine approved, or quickly hashing out a last minute trade deal with the EU.

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Album Reviews: My Top 5 Albums Released in May

November 9, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Album Reviews, JournalismTagged Album, Album of the Month, Album Review, Alternative, America, Art, Blackpool, Boston Manor, Britpop, Cloud Rap, COVID-19, Discover, Emo, Emo Rap, Feature, Freddie Gibbs, Glam, GLUE, Goth, Hayley Williams, hip-hop, Indie-Rock, London, May, Music, Music Feature, Music Journalism, Music Review, Musicians, Netflix, Paramore, Perfume Genius, Petals for Armor, Pop-Punk, Punk, Rap, Review, Rock, Sad Boys, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, Soul, SoundCloud, Starz, Sweden, Synth-Pop, The Alchemist, USA, Yung Lean1 Comment

By the time May came around, each month had started to blur into one, and a feeling of doom and gloom lay rife in the air, as everything that we had looked forward to slowly withered away and was being cancelled, or rescheduled for what would be either the first or second time of many more. Completing a Netflix series had become the norm and no longer an accomplishment, and having walked the 5 mile radius surrounding my London flat a good ten times over, it all started to feel like a Deja Vu. New lockdown hobbies and interests started to fade, and the constant battle to stay motivated was a fortnightly crisis. Even new music wasn’t quite hitting the mark, and some of the albums in this post were listened to retrospectively.

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Feature: Top 10 Music-Related Things to Watch During Lockdown, pt. 2

October 23, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Features, JournalismTagged (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, A Thousand Suns, Alicia Keys, Alternative, Behemoth, Big Night Out, Britpop, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Discover, Disney+, Dutch Hardcore, DVD, Experimental Rock, Extreme Metal, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Grime, GRM Daily, Hamilton, hip-hop, IDLES, KEXP, Linkin Park, Live At Home, Live In The K! Pit, Live Music, Lockdown, Los Cogelones, Maida Vale, Metal, Mexico, Music, Music Documentary, Music Feature, Music Journalism, Musical, Musicians, New Music, Noisey, NPR, NPR Tiny Desk Concert, Nu-Metal, Oasis, Poland, Polish Metal, Punk, Punk Rock, Quarantine Watches, R&B, Return To Rockfield, Rock, Theatre, Together We Rise, Ultra Mono1 Comment

Back in May when I wrote the first part to this I wouldn’t have believed that I would be writing a second part several months later. Time is a weird thing, and amiss of any live music, festivals and any significant trips away, apart from visiting the Motherland for a few weeks, the months have rolled into one and gone by in a blur. I’ve learnt to accept the situation and know that I cannot control what will happen, counting my blessings each day that the people close to me are safe, and that I’ve not lost anyone during this time. Having worked in music and live events since University, their absence has been hard to come to terms with, and with the Goverment response to this, asking people like myself to retrain, has been somewhat anger-inducing, to say the least. Finally we are now seeing some socially distanced shows happening, and being able to mark them into the diary. It’s great to see a venue that I’ve worked at for the past few years, The O2 Arena, having their first show back on the 5th of December.

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Album Reviews: My Top 5 Albums Released in April

October 8, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Album Reviews, JournalismTagged Acid Jazz, Album, Album Review, Alternative, America, April, Bad Decisions, Blink 182, Discover, Electronica, Emo, Emotional Hardcore, England, Enter Shikari, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Fever 333, Fiona Apple, Geography, Hardcore, Heartwork, hip-hop, Human League, Jason Aalon Butler, Journalism, letlive., Lo-Fi Hip-Hop, London, Mark Hoppus, Metacritic, Metal, Music, Music Feature, Music Journalism, Music Review, neo-New Wave, neon-R&B, New Music, Nightrider, Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, Panic! At the Disco, Piano, Pop-Punk, Post-Punk, Punk Rock, Review, Rick Rubin, Rock, Rou Reynolds, Songwriter, The New Abnormal, The Strokes, The Used, Tom Misch, USA, Venice Beach, What Kinda Music, Yussef Dayes4 Comments

Here we go again! As I continue to look back through my albums of the year, month by month. This time I’ll take a look at April, which saw the return of The Strokes after seven years, the wonderful collaboration between Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes, amongst fantastic new albums from Enter Shikari, Fiona Apple and The Used. April once again saw an abundance of new music, and as always it was hard to pin down what my top five albums were. This list could have easily included Thundercats ‘It Is What It is’, and new releases from R.A The Rugged Man and Dance Gavin Dance, but alas I can only pick five, and these are the beautiful albums that I have chosen.

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Origins of European Hip-Hop: Deutscher Hip-Hop

October 1, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Features, JournalismTagged Advanced Chemistry, American, Beat Street, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Bombastic Records, British, Cartel, Da Crime Posse, Deutscher Hip-Hop, Die Fantastischen Vier, Erci E, European Hip-Hop, Feature, France, French, FRG, G.L.S United, GDR, German Hip-Hop, Germany, hip-hop, Italy, Journalism, Karaken, Krauts with Attitude, Music, Music Feature, Music Journalism, Origins, Origins of European Hip-Hop, Pioneers, Pioneers of German Hip-Hop, Rap, Rappers Duetsch, Second World War, Soviet Union, Turkey, Turkish Hip-Hop, Wild Style3 Comments

Next up in my series ‘Origins of European Hip-Hop’, I’ll take a look at a fragmented and divided hip-hop scene in Germany. Whilst in both France and Italy artists had ideological differences, and both scenes had significant political impacts, no scene in Europe had the kind of political backdrop and contrast of musicians than that in Germany. From Nationalist movements to Turkish rebellion, this post will piece together the development of hip-hop in a country still feeling the effects of the Second World War.

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Origins of European Hip-Hop: Rap Italiano

August 21, 2020April 22, 2021Posted in Features, JournalismTagged 1991, 99 Posse, Almamegretta, Articolo 31, Blog, Centri Sociali, Devastatin Posse, Discover, European Hip-Hop, Fabri Fibra, Fight da Faida, Forte Prenestino, Frankie Hi-NRG, hip-hop, Isola Posse All Stars, Italian Hip-Hop, Italian Rap, Italy, Journalism, Jovanotti, Leoncavallo, Lorenzo, Macchia Nera, Marche, Milan, Music, Music Feature, Naples, Napoli, Nuovi Briganti, Officina 99, Pioneers of Italian Rap, Pisa, Rap, Rap Italiano, Roma, Rome, Social Centres, Stop Al Panico!, Sud Sound System, Wordpress3 Comments

As I continue to take a look back at the dissertation I wrote a few years ago on the developement and impact of hip-hop in Europe, I now move onto my second country, Italy. In the last post I looked into Francophone Rap, a budding hip-hop scene in France, which produced artists such as MC Solaar and IAM, and the film ‘La Haine’. Not too far away though in the Southern regions of Europe, an entirely different hip-hop scene was beginning to emerge, one that would have a big political impact.

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