Latest news with #PrettyFly
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Give the Hottest 100 to Kyle and Jackie O': Ben Lee's radical plan to save Triple J and Aussie music
Ben Lee is no stranger to the transformative power of Triple J's Hottest 100, having twice finished in the top two of the annual countdown. First, in 1998, his track Cigarettes Will Kill You came second to The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), while Catch My Disease finished behind Bernard Fanning's Wish You Well in the 2005 poll. But on the eve of Triple J's voting deadline for the Hottest 100 of Australian songs, with audiences encouraged to vote for their favourite ever homegrown tracks, the musician believes the public broadcaster could be doing more to support local talent. Posting to Instagram earlier this week, Lee outlined his vision for a new and improved Hottest 100. 'I reckon the Hottest 100 every year should only be eligible to vote for Australian songs,' Lee said. 'There's enough platforms around the world for international music.' Lee's idea comes after last year's Hottest 100, won by American artist Chappell Roan with Good Luck, Babe. The 2024 poll is the third-lowest-ever showing for local talent, behind the first two in 1993 and 1994 (and equal to 1996). 'It's easy to get complacent and be like, 'Triple J does so much more for Australian music than other commercial stations.' And that's true, but it shouldn't really be judged by the same standards as a commercial enterprise,' Lee said. 'It's like going, 'Medicare does so much for Australian healthcare.' Well, yeah, that's the point.'
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Give the Hottest 100 to Kyle and Jackie O': Ben Lee's radical plan to save Triple J and Aussie music
Ben Lee is no stranger to the transformative power of Triple J's Hottest 100, having twice finished in the top two of the annual countdown. First, in 1998, his track Cigarettes Will Kill You came second to The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), while Catch My Disease finished behind Bernard Fanning's Wish You Well in the 2005 poll. But on the eve of Triple J's voting deadline for the Hottest 100 of Australian songs, with audiences encouraged to vote for their favourite ever homegrown tracks, the musician believes the public broadcaster could be doing more to support local talent. Posting to Instagram earlier this week, Lee outlined his vision for a new and improved Hottest 100. 'I reckon the Hottest 100 every year should only be eligible to vote for Australian songs,' Lee said. 'There's enough platforms around the world for international music.' Lee's idea comes after last year's Hottest 100, won by American artist Chappell Roan with Good Luck, Babe. The 2024 poll is the third-lowest-ever showing for local talent, behind the first two in 1993 and 1994 (and equal to 1996). 'It's easy to get complacent and be like, 'Triple J does so much more for Australian music than other commercial stations.' And that's true, but it shouldn't really be judged by the same standards as a commercial enterprise,' Lee said. 'It's like going, 'Medicare does so much for Australian healthcare.' Well, yeah, that's the point.'
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Give the Hottest 100 to Kyle and Jackie O': Ben Lee slams Triple J
Ben Lee is no stranger to the transformative power of Triple J's Hottest 100, having twice finished in the top two of the annual countdown. First, in 1998, his track Cigarettes Will Kill You came second to The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), while Catch My Disease finished behind Bernard Fanning's Wish You Well in the 2005 poll. But on the eve of Triple J's voting deadline for the Hottest 100 of Australian songs, with audiences encouraged to vote for their favourite ever homegrown tracks, the musician believes the public broadcaster could be doing more to support local talent. Posting to Instagram earlier this week, Lee outlined his vision for a new and improved Hottest 100. 'I reckon the Hottest 100 every year should only be eligible to vote for Australian songs,' Lee said. 'There's enough platforms around the world for international music.' Lee's idea comes after last year's Hottest 100, won by American artist Chappell Roan with Good Luck, Babe. The 2024 poll is the third-lowest-ever showing for local talent, behind the first two in 1993 and 1994 (and equal to 1996). 'It's easy to get complacent and be like, 'Triple J does so much more for Australian music than other commercial stations.' And that's true, but it shouldn't really be judged by the same standards as a commercial enterprise,' Lee said. 'It's like going, 'Medicare does so much for Australian healthcare.' Well, yeah, that's the point.'
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Give the Hottest 100 to Kyle and Jackie O': Ben Lee slams Triple J
Ben Lee is no stranger to the transformative power of Triple J's Hottest 100, having twice finished in the top two of the annual countdown. First, in 1998, his track Cigarettes Will Kill You came second to The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), while Catch My Disease finished behind Bernard Fanning's Wish You Well in the 2005 poll. But on the eve of Triple J's voting deadline for the Hottest 100 of Australian songs, with audiences encouraged to vote for their favourite ever homegrown tracks, the musician believes the public broadcaster could be doing more to support local talent. Posting to Instagram earlier this week, Lee outlined his vision for a new and improved Hottest 100. 'I reckon the Hottest 100 every year should only be eligible to vote for Australian songs,' Lee said. 'There's enough platforms around the world for international music.' Lee's idea comes after last year's Hottest 100, won by American artist Chappell Roan with Good Luck, Babe. The 2024 poll is the third-lowest-ever showing for local talent, behind the first two in 1993 and 1994 (and equal to 1996). 'It's easy to get complacent and be like, 'Triple J does so much more for Australian music than other commercial stations.' And that's true, but it shouldn't really be judged by the same standards as a commercial enterprise,' Lee said. 'It's like going, 'Medicare does so much for Australian healthcare.' Well, yeah, that's the point.'
Sydney Morning Herald
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘ZZ Top came on looking like ZZ top, which is a culturally beautiful thing to witness'
MUSIC The Offspring | Supercharged Tour ★★★ with Simple Plan, Rod Laver Arena, May 7 Jeez, we're getting old. I could have sworn it was just the other week my cousin made us all laugh by thrusting to The Offspring's Pretty Fly (for a White Guy), or since my little sister was signing her name with the Simple Plan singer's surname. But blink and I'm in my mid-30s, wearing sensible shoes and not squashed against the barrier but sitting down to see both bands live. Millennials like me are awash with nostalgia – touring companies know it, and double bills like this seem targeted squarely at us. Looking around you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the early 2000s: flannels, band tees and wallet chains abound. Simple Plan's innocent pop-punk is frozen in time: life is hard, Dad is mean, don't tell me what to do, I'm sorry I can't be perfect! It's bemusing hearing all this from the now 45-year-old singer Pierre Bouvier, but it's also charming in its earnestness. The Canadians are an excellent live act, even if some of the older punks are grimacing through it – Bouvier could qualify for the Olympics with his high jump, and drummer Chuck Comeau dives into the audience for a crowd-surf near the end of the almost hour-long set. An inflatable blimp circles the arena, capturing footage of the crowd as games play out on screen: are you brave enough for the Kiss Cam, Booty Cam or Headbang Cam? It's another nostalgic trick: we may as well be at the Big Day Out. The Offspring is an immediate blast of energy, but Dexter Holland's voice has seen better days – he's straining in an acoustic introduction to Want You Bad and clamours to be heard above the band through the rest of the set. Fair enough – he's been at this for over 40 years – but Holland fares much better in the songs where he speak-sings (Original Prankster, Pretty Fly). An extended section where the Californian band jams instrumental covers – Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King – culminates in The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop. It seems odd for a band with 11 albums under its belt – surely enough material to fill a set. They pull out all the stops – confetti guns, pyrotechnics, tube men and inflatable skeletons – and when they're on, they're on. But there's so much whiplash in this show – the jarring transition from the phone-lights-out, piano-led Gone Away to the bratty 1998 single Why Don't You Get a Job? is a prime example. Nostalgic, for sure – but maybe some things are better simply remembered. Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen JAZZ Tripudiis Sonis Variis ★★★★★ The JazzLab, May 7 It's not often you hear a jazz trio perform an entire program of music written 400 years ago. But while the Baroque era might seem worlds away from jazz – geographically, temporally and culturally – Tripudiis Sonis Variis draw connections between the two genres that allow this early music to pulse with a contemporary heartbeat. As Italian-born, Melbourne-based singer Ilaria Crociani explained to the audience on Wednesday night, Baroque composers expected performers to interpret and improvise on their works, so she and her colleagues (Mirko Guerrini and Stephen Magnusson) 'don't feel guilty' about reimagining this music through a jazz prism. Not that the trio aims to turn 17th-century arias and cantatas into finger-snapping, swing-laden grooves. Rather, their thoughtful arrangements are designed to underline the timeless beauty of the melodies and lyrics, and the universal human emotions they convey. Most of the lyrics in Wednesday's program were in Italian, but Crociani prefaced each song with vivid stories that offered a window into the realm of various composers, characters and emotional states. Her vocal delivery, too, was effortlessly expressive, conveying the anguish of unrequited love or the yearning for divine intervention without a hint of bombast. Loading Guerrini and Magnusson were equally focused on subtlety and understatement, picking out ravishing melodies or elegant contrapuntal lines that wove around Crociani's voice like silver threads. Magnusson's guitar could stride with lute-like clarity or dissolve into wafts of resonance; Guerrini might set up an electronic hum on his laptop, then overlay it with lyrical piano chords or a melancholy extemporisation on soprano sax. I'm not sure Monteverdi could have imagined his music being played on an Indian harmonium, Armenian duduk and electric guitar, but somehow it all worked perfectly. It felt as though the musicians – and the audience – were tapping into something both ancient and eternal, demonstrating that the ability of this music to invoke both contemplation and elevation is as powerful now as it was four centuries ago.
