‘See where my name can go': The push to find fresh musical talent in the suburbs
The Ashwood-based artist has only racked up a few thousand streams on Spotify. But that may be about to change.
ACP is one of four artists selected for this year's GRID series, a six-month development program aimed at boosting emerging talent from outer suburban and regional areas of Australia – areas historically under-resourced and overlooked by the music industry.
'It feels like a full-circle moment,' ACP says. 'I'll get to learn so much about the industry, and get to work with so many people – award-winners and teams with all these accolades on top of them … I want to see where my name can go.'
Following a successful 2024 program in Geelong, this year's GRID focuses on South-East Melbourne talent, including ACP and fellow emerging artists Martha, Kiid Koda and Jordz. The four musicians will each be paired with an industry professional who will teach them the business – which ACP says is rife with 'gatekeeping' – and support them as they produce singles, film their own documentary narrative and perform live.
The opportunity to be connected with someone embedded in the industry is invaluable for ACP, whose local area of Ashwood lacks the infrastructure – such as studio recording spaces – and open networks to help thrust young, talented people into the big leagues.
'The music industry can be a beautiful wreck sometimes,' he says. 'Getting yourself and your music out there, it's a beautiful cycle. But it can also be delayed by people who don't want to help others.'
Martha Kulang, who goes by Martha, experienced this first-hand when beginning her music career. The 25-year-old Narre Warren local – who traverses several genres such as Afro R&B, dancehall and rap – says a lack of networks and resources dampen an artist's confidence.
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Sydney Morning Herald
13 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
This year, dating apps died. What's next doesn't have to be scary
When Selani Adikari's 10-year-long relationship with her school sweetheart came to an end, it was more difficult than she had anticipated. But that's less about saying goodbye to her first love and more to do with unexpectedly having to navigate Australia's brutal dating scene for the first time at 27. 'It was a very different world,' says Adikari, who had already met her former partner when Tinder was launched in late 2012, revolutionising how a whole generation embarked on relationships. 'We were friends first before we started dating when we were so young … I never went through a dating phase of trying to meet people outside my circles.' What Adikari has discovered as a bachelorette is something shareholders of Match Group – owner of Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, which dropped from $US3.75 billion in revenue in 2015 to $US2.08 billion in 2024 – are fretting over. Singles, due to unsatisfactory algorithms, safety concerns, a 'gamified' swipe-based match process, general fatigue or otherwise, are feeling the need to break up with dating apps. But the exodus offline is not the be-all and end-all solution. Rather, it's exposed another obstacle the modern lovelorn have to climb in their quest to settle down. 'People are hesitant to walk up to someone new and strike up a conversation – you kind of just stick to who you know,' says Adikari. The Sydney-based project manager finds dating apps time-consuming and impersonal, but with her friends already spoken for and a general lack of spontaneous face-to-face socialisation, there haven't been many opportunities to organically expand her pool of prospects. 'It's so much easier to hide behind your phone now than go up to somebody in person and take a risk.' Loading The lost art of the approach Heterosexual courtship in Australia has taken many different forms, but what remained consistent across Regency-era promenades, Blue Light discos, radio classifieds and beyond was public performance. Until the age of the internet. 'It's a very modern thing to think of courtship as something that happens privately between people,' says Dr Esmé Louise James, the sex historian, author and content creator behind Kinky History. 'Courtship has always been something that family, friends, the public community will know about. If a man is courting a woman in any sense, whether it was 200 years ago… or more recently… if you're at RSLs, it's very likely that a community is involved in and knows about the courtship and its stages.' Social events, including regional and rural Australia's B&S balls (now with ute musters), are still held, and those with means are taking to hiring matchmakers and dating coaches. The opportunity to meet people in real life – perhaps aside from the pandemic – has not wavered, but what's become apparent is that with every swipe right on a potential partner came a swipe left on practicing the panache, and resilience in the face of rejection, that's pivotal to successfully seizing the moment. Little by little, the art of the approach has been eroded. Dating coach Damien Diecke, who founded School of Attraction in 2009 for 'men with integrity', says he's noticed an increased aversion to social risk since the advent of mobile phones. Loading 'We get to be socially isolated, but more connected than ever,' says Diecke. 'But we can take risks [online] we don't dare to take [in real life].' Diecke says he's seen a dramatic surge in men struggling with their dating lives reaching out to him, and a corresponding rise in the number of men who fear retribution, such as being called out on social media and its consequences, should they approach women. He blames Andrew Tate's Manosphere and its misandrist counterpart, The Femosphere, both of which prioritise clickbait content for engagement over fact. 'What's real to us is what we see. And if all you see is women degrading guys who do anything, even if it's relatively harmless, then you will feel like that's real,' says Diecke. 'But when you start having the real-life experiences, it overrides it.' Diecke generally does not see the social media narrative that publicly shames men's looks, wealth and status, or promises retribution for their approach, play out in real life. In his experience, it's the opposite: women want men to approach them more than they are. And if they're delivering a rejection, it's polite. 'My guys aren't being rude either – they're being gracious, they're being friendly and they're being non-threatening,' says Diecke. He teaches his clients to approach only if it's contextually appropriate, go in alone, stay out of their personal space and walk away at the first sign of discomfort. Loading 'But I never see it. I never see women go 'how disgusting, how could you ever talk to me?' ... No, it's 'sorry, I've got a boyfriend,' or 'hey, we're having a girls night'... they're not upset.' Relationship and intimacy coach Susie Kim has also noticed an increase in people who are concerned about being seen as a predator, but, she says, 'the funny thing is, the guys who are actually worried about that are … actually not the creeps, and … the guys who are still out there being creepy, they're not worried about it.' Kim says the rise of social media and dating apps, as with anything, is a double-edged sword. It may help the 'queer kid from Shepparton' find community, but it's also created younger generations who are more image-conscious than their predecessors. Mix in the depersonalisation of constant swiping, she says, and you have the perfect base to bury the inclination for vulnerability under – and to build a propensity to dismiss a book for its cover on top. Dr Lisa Portolan, whose PhD at Western Sydney University examined dating apps and intimacy in the digital landscape, agrees. 'The fact that people feel like they have to sift through so many people, and it becomes a second job for them, certainly does put up a lot of boundaries for people in terms of actually meeting someone for intimacy,' says Portolan. 'A lot of people within my research would indicate that they had become more judgmental on dating apps, and this would extend to a real-world environment because they felt like they were swiping so quickly and making split-second decisions.' Separately, Connect Social founder Lisa, who wants to be known only by her first name, launched the NSW Central Coast singles event service five years after the end of her marriage. Lisa does not post photos from the events she hosts on social media to avoid creating 'an expectation of who and what will be there'. Loading 'I think a lot of times with internet dating, it's a case of… you build these expectations of what you think someone will be in-person based off a couple of photos and some messages or texts,' Lisa says. 'Then when you actually meet them, there's a disappointment because it's not what you thought it would be. Whereas in-person events, you're avoiding all of that because you're meeting them straight away.' That's if you can psych yourself up to get through the door. Does anyone know how to flirt any more? You'd think singles events would be the perfect environment to apply the art of the approach and finesse flirting, but with so many obstacles to forming a meaningful connection outside of them – social risk aversion, image-consciousness, judgmental singles and a lack of vulnerability – they can become quite high-stakes events, and that's daunting. 'You feel the pressure of, 'oh my gosh, I should meet somebody because everybody's single,'' says Adikari, who, after three years of dating apps, created Pitch Perfect Match, a dating service in Sydney in which friends create a presentation and pitch their single friends to a room of fellow singles, who are also with their friends. 'When you're around people that you're comfortable with, you feel more relaxed to be yourself rather than get all in your head and nervous,' says Adikari. 'Hopefully [Pitch Perfect Match is] not as intense as going alone or being intimidated by the fact that everybody's single.' So is the solution truly going back to the good old days and having face-to-face conversations with mutual friends? Maybe. But of course, it's not that simple. Is going back to pre-technology days the way forward? The problem with that dialogue, says James, is that it 'so quickly slips into this more insidious, conservative dialogue that is idolising traditional times.' While it is true that feminism has blurred the line between each gender's widely accepted role in courtship (which Diecke says contributes to his clients' hesitancy to approach women), James says the 'traditional times that we think about never actually existed in the way we thought they did'. Loading The idea of women and men conforming to gender roles in a specific time period, James says, is a 'made-up fantasy'. And although women not being allowed out courting without a chaperone – a la Bridgerton – was designed to keep them safe, James says there was also 'a very dark side of that when it comes to policing genders and performance of what it means to be a woman itself.' Regency-era courting in general, James says, was 'not the romantic ideal that you thought it was'. 'You may have spoken to the man of your dreams, but yes, you then had to go behind a corner of the ballroom and pee into a chamber pot,' James laughs. 'It wasn't all that great. And he probably smelt foul.' It's not all doom and gloom Modern hygiene practices are not the only reason why this new era of dating could be 'very exciting', according to James, who says we have the benefit of going back to face-to-face connection but 'with the understanding of safety and consent and education that we've also developed over the last two decades [since online dating].' One group that is thriving dating-wise is the LGBTQIA+ community, which James, who is queer, attributes to the fact it has already 'done the groundwork in building community' out of necessity. Now a point of empowerment, those third spaces – get-togethers, celebrations, dances 'just for the sake of being in a room and seeing one another' – started because they were excluded from traditional courtship, and is now being emulated by heteronormative Australians (see: Sydney Swans' Match Day Mingle or the run club resurgence). What comes next is adapting to the evolving dating culture, an important part of which, says clinical sexologist Daz Alexandera Tendler of the Australian Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine, is communicating clearly and being 'up front with what you want'. Loading 'Everyone has very different concepts of what dating actually means,' says Tendler, noting the importance of being compassionate when expressing your desires and asking your partner how they define dating and what they're looking for. Although it seems like everything has changed, in a way, nothing has changed at all. Tendler, after all, advises leading with 'intentionality, boundaries, [and] respect' when seeking a partner. Diecke, meanwhile, calls for empathy, and Kim highlights the importance of embracing emotional intimacy. Those traits are as timeless as the need for the art of the approach itself. 'You're just starting up a conversation,' says Kim. 'I think that's the thing about approaching and flirting in real life. You're just being curious and getting to know this person and seeing if you enjoy speaking to them. There's nothing really else that needs to happen ... And if it goes nowhere, you just had a nice conversation and that's it.'
The Age
13 hours ago
- The Age
This year, dating apps died. What's next doesn't have to be scary
When Selani Adikari's 10-year-long relationship with her school sweetheart came to an end, it was more difficult than she had anticipated. But that's less about saying goodbye to her first love and more to do with unexpectedly having to navigate Australia's brutal dating scene for the first time at 27. 'It was a very different world,' says Adikari, who had already met her former partner when Tinder was launched in late 2012, revolutionising how a whole generation embarked on relationships. 'We were friends first before we started dating when we were so young … I never went through a dating phase of trying to meet people outside my circles.' What Adikari has discovered as a bachelorette is something shareholders of Match Group – owner of Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, which dropped from $US3.75 billion in revenue in 2015 to $US2.08 billion in 2024 – are fretting over. Singles, due to unsatisfactory algorithms, safety concerns, a 'gamified' swipe-based match process, general fatigue or otherwise, are feeling the need to break up with dating apps. But the exodus offline is not the be-all and end-all solution. Rather, it's exposed another obstacle the modern lovelorn have to climb in their quest to settle down. 'People are hesitant to walk up to someone new and strike up a conversation – you kind of just stick to who you know,' says Adikari. The Sydney-based project manager finds dating apps time-consuming and impersonal, but with her friends already spoken for and a general lack of spontaneous face-to-face socialisation, there haven't been many opportunities to organically expand her pool of prospects. 'It's so much easier to hide behind your phone now than go up to somebody in person and take a risk.' Loading The lost art of the approach Heterosexual courtship in Australia has taken many different forms, but what remained consistent across Regency-era promenades, Blue Light discos, radio classifieds and beyond was public performance. Until the age of the internet. 'It's a very modern thing to think of courtship as something that happens privately between people,' says Dr Esmé Louise James, the sex historian, author and content creator behind Kinky History. 'Courtship has always been something that family, friends, the public community will know about. If a man is courting a woman in any sense, whether it was 200 years ago… or more recently… if you're at RSLs, it's very likely that a community is involved in and knows about the courtship and its stages.' Social events, including regional and rural Australia's B&S balls (now with ute musters), are still held, and those with means are taking to hiring matchmakers and dating coaches. The opportunity to meet people in real life – perhaps aside from the pandemic – has not wavered, but what's become apparent is that with every swipe right on a potential partner came a swipe left on practicing the panache, and resilience in the face of rejection, that's pivotal to successfully seizing the moment. Little by little, the art of the approach has been eroded. Dating coach Damien Diecke, who founded School of Attraction in 2009 for 'men with integrity', says he's noticed an increased aversion to social risk since the advent of mobile phones. Loading 'We get to be socially isolated, but more connected than ever,' says Diecke. 'But we can take risks [online] we don't dare to take [in real life].' Diecke says he's seen a dramatic surge in men struggling with their dating lives reaching out to him, and a corresponding rise in the number of men who fear retribution, such as being called out on social media and its consequences, should they approach women. He blames Andrew Tate's Manosphere and its misandrist counterpart, The Femosphere, both of which prioritise clickbait content for engagement over fact. 'What's real to us is what we see. And if all you see is women degrading guys who do anything, even if it's relatively harmless, then you will feel like that's real,' says Diecke. 'But when you start having the real-life experiences, it overrides it.' Diecke generally does not see the social media narrative that publicly shames men's looks, wealth and status, or promises retribution for their approach, play out in real life. In his experience, it's the opposite: women want men to approach them more than they are. And if they're delivering a rejection, it's polite. 'My guys aren't being rude either – they're being gracious, they're being friendly and they're being non-threatening,' says Diecke. He teaches his clients to approach only if it's contextually appropriate, go in alone, stay out of their personal space and walk away at the first sign of discomfort. Loading 'But I never see it. I never see women go 'how disgusting, how could you ever talk to me?' ... No, it's 'sorry, I've got a boyfriend,' or 'hey, we're having a girls night'... they're not upset.' Relationship and intimacy coach Susie Kim has also noticed an increase in people who are concerned about being seen as a predator, but, she says, 'the funny thing is, the guys who are actually worried about that are … actually not the creeps, and … the guys who are still out there being creepy, they're not worried about it.' Kim says the rise of social media and dating apps, as with anything, is a double-edged sword. It may help the 'queer kid from Shepparton' find community, but it's also created younger generations who are more image-conscious than their predecessors. Mix in the depersonalisation of constant swiping, she says, and you have the perfect base to bury the inclination for vulnerability under – and to build a propensity to dismiss a book for its cover on top. Dr Lisa Portolan, whose PhD at Western Sydney University examined dating apps and intimacy in the digital landscape, agrees. 'The fact that people feel like they have to sift through so many people, and it becomes a second job for them, certainly does put up a lot of boundaries for people in terms of actually meeting someone for intimacy,' says Portolan. 'A lot of people within my research would indicate that they had become more judgmental on dating apps, and this would extend to a real-world environment because they felt like they were swiping so quickly and making split-second decisions.' Separately, Connect Social founder Lisa, who wants to be known only by her first name, launched the NSW Central Coast singles event service five years after the end of her marriage. Lisa does not post photos from the events she hosts on social media to avoid creating 'an expectation of who and what will be there'. Loading 'I think a lot of times with internet dating, it's a case of… you build these expectations of what you think someone will be in-person based off a couple of photos and some messages or texts,' Lisa says. 'Then when you actually meet them, there's a disappointment because it's not what you thought it would be. Whereas in-person events, you're avoiding all of that because you're meeting them straight away.' That's if you can psych yourself up to get through the door. Does anyone know how to flirt any more? You'd think singles events would be the perfect environment to apply the art of the approach and finesse flirting, but with so many obstacles to forming a meaningful connection outside of them – social risk aversion, image-consciousness, judgmental singles and a lack of vulnerability – they can become quite high-stakes events, and that's daunting. 'You feel the pressure of, 'oh my gosh, I should meet somebody because everybody's single,'' says Adikari, who, after three years of dating apps, created Pitch Perfect Match, a dating service in Sydney in which friends create a presentation and pitch their single friends to a room of fellow singles, who are also with their friends. 'When you're around people that you're comfortable with, you feel more relaxed to be yourself rather than get all in your head and nervous,' says Adikari. 'Hopefully [Pitch Perfect Match is] not as intense as going alone or being intimidated by the fact that everybody's single.' So is the solution truly going back to the good old days and having face-to-face conversations with mutual friends? Maybe. But of course, it's not that simple. Is going back to pre-technology days the way forward? The problem with that dialogue, says James, is that it 'so quickly slips into this more insidious, conservative dialogue that is idolising traditional times.' While it is true that feminism has blurred the line between each gender's widely accepted role in courtship (which Diecke says contributes to his clients' hesitancy to approach women), James says the 'traditional times that we think about never actually existed in the way we thought they did'. Loading The idea of women and men conforming to gender roles in a specific time period, James says, is a 'made-up fantasy'. And although women not being allowed out courting without a chaperone – a la Bridgerton – was designed to keep them safe, James says there was also 'a very dark side of that when it comes to policing genders and performance of what it means to be a woman itself.' Regency-era courting in general, James says, was 'not the romantic ideal that you thought it was'. 'You may have spoken to the man of your dreams, but yes, you then had to go behind a corner of the ballroom and pee into a chamber pot,' James laughs. 'It wasn't all that great. And he probably smelt foul.' It's not all doom and gloom Modern hygiene practices are not the only reason why this new era of dating could be 'very exciting', according to James, who says we have the benefit of going back to face-to-face connection but 'with the understanding of safety and consent and education that we've also developed over the last two decades [since online dating].' One group that is thriving dating-wise is the LGBTQIA+ community, which James, who is queer, attributes to the fact it has already 'done the groundwork in building community' out of necessity. Now a point of empowerment, those third spaces – get-togethers, celebrations, dances 'just for the sake of being in a room and seeing one another' – started because they were excluded from traditional courtship, and is now being emulated by heteronormative Australians (see: Sydney Swans' Match Day Mingle or the run club resurgence). What comes next is adapting to the evolving dating culture, an important part of which, says clinical sexologist Daz Alexandera Tendler of the Australian Institute of Sexology and Sexual Medicine, is communicating clearly and being 'up front with what you want'. Loading 'Everyone has very different concepts of what dating actually means,' says Tendler, noting the importance of being compassionate when expressing your desires and asking your partner how they define dating and what they're looking for. Although it seems like everything has changed, in a way, nothing has changed at all. Tendler, after all, advises leading with 'intentionality, boundaries, [and] respect' when seeking a partner. Diecke, meanwhile, calls for empathy, and Kim highlights the importance of embracing emotional intimacy. Those traits are as timeless as the need for the art of the approach itself. 'You're just starting up a conversation,' says Kim. 'I think that's the thing about approaching and flirting in real life. You're just being curious and getting to know this person and seeing if you enjoy speaking to them. There's nothing really else that needs to happen ... And if it goes nowhere, you just had a nice conversation and that's it.'
The Age
17 hours ago
- The Age
Aussie musicians flee Spotify as ARIA shores up awards partnership
'Being an independent artist ... you're free to speak your mind,' he said. 'Spotify used to be a necessary evil. Now it's just evil ... We can't be complicit in death technologies.' Melbourne singer-songwriter Leah Senior had cited the same grounds for withdrawing her music weeks earlier. 'Something just snapped,' she told The Music Network. 'Artists are made to feel like we need [Spotify] … I'm saying we don't.' Through his venture capital firm Prima Materia, Ek led a $1.08 billion round of funding in Helsing, a defence technology company developing AI systems for battlefield surveillance and drone operations. He also serves as chairman of the company, which supplies the militaries of Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, the UK and more. Asked to address musicians' concerns, a Spotify AUNZ spokesperson said they were unable to comment. Outrage over Spotify's expropriation of musicians' work to these ends rises as the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) tightens its embrace of the controversial streaming service. In June, Spotify was named as the presenting partner of the ARIA Awards for the next three years. The arrangement will 'translate into real export opportunities,' ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd announced, while Spotify AUNZ managing director Mikaela Lancaster hailed 'an exciting new chapter for Australian music'. Neither indicated any financial relief to artists who continue to decry minuscule royalty payments, even as streaming profits boom for Spotify and the major labels. Among those who see the platform as both exploitative and ethically compromised, the sponsorship deal has been widely received as inappropriate. 'Why would ARIA support a platform that's ultimately eating its constituents?' asked Paper Jane singer-songwriter Buck Edwards on social media. Writer Nick Milligan suggested the deal was like vegan activist 'Morrissey partnering with Lone Star Steakhouse'. 'There goes the last of the ARIAs' credibility, at a time when more independent-minded musicians are pulling their work from Spotify,' posted Canberra singer Simone Swenson. 'The ARIAs lost relevance years ago,' wrote Melbourne jazz composer Aaron Searle. 'This is just further evidence of how out of touch they are.' Loading The major labels' affiliations with Spotify are no secret. They were given equity in the company in 2008 as part of music rights negotiations. But the ARIAs pairing is 'tone deaf', says Sydney manager/promoter Jordan Verzar, 'at odds with the beliefs and value systems of the majority of artists who make up the charts that ARIA compiles'. Russell Kilbey from veteran Sydney indie band The Crystal Set was pointed about saddling ARIA with Spotify's 'demonic and unconscionable' baggage. 'ARIA may have a big problem selling this marriage to the war-weary public.' An ARIA spokesperson told this masthead they 'respect anyone's decision to raise concerns, but this partnership will deliver an unprecedented global platform for Australian music … [by] leveraging Spotify's global scale and expertise in music discovery.' The context of streaming profits being channelled away from creators' pockets is especially pertinent to independent artists. Aside from tiny royalty percentages, smaller acts lose again under a pro rata system where listener subscriptions are distributed according to who gets most streams globally, not which tracks were actually streamed. But leaving Spotify, with its vast global reach and majority market share, is not an easy option for many. For Warren Fahey, whose Rouseabout Records has issued more than 200 Australian albums this century, 'it would be financial suicide'. Loading 'Now that CDs have stopped, Spotify is the label's primary source of income,' he says, although he stresses that income 'relates to the number of active releases in our catalogue. An indie with half a dozen releases, or a DIY artist, cannot access this advantage.' Matthew Tow of indie band Drop City sees the current impasse as temporary, and the market leader's decline as inevitable. 'Change will come when musicians feel they can get their music to a wider audience without the need for Spotify. There are many other platforms around.' Meanwhile, the optics are stark: independent artists removing their music in protest, while our national music awards unites unapologetically with a platform whose chief executive is personally invested in the military-industrial complex. Memories tend to be short in the music business and protests short-lived. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell famously removed their catalogues in objection to Spotify's platforming of COVID misinformation in 2022. Today both artists have dozens of albums backed up and streaming. This time, objections strike deeper to questions not just of content moderation but of the platform's ethical foundations. Whether more artists will speak out against Spotify or withdraw from the ARIA Awards in protest remains to be seen. But the disconnect is widening, and whispers of dissent are rising to a chorus.
