Culture
Music
Carols, actually: Live reindeer, floods and a four-year-old sacked
Carols darling Marina Prior has been performing in the Christmas Eve event for more than three decades. Backstage, it hasn’t always been a smooth sleigh ride.
- by Kerrie O'Brien
Latest
Marcia Hines’ epiphany after family tragedy
On a gruelling flight home to bury her brother, the pop queen wanted to scream. Then she had an insight.
- by Michael Lallo
Move, Mariah. Budge, Buble. Here are 2023’s best new Christmas anthems
Some smooth new selections to fill the uncomfortable silence at Christmas lunch.
- by Robert Moran
Kids used to throw stones at me: Grammy winner Angelique Kidjo
The world-renowned singer grew up under Benin’s repressive communist dictatorship, but when the government demanded she write and perform propaganda, she slipped out of the country and reinvented herself.
- by Jane Cornwell
Elvis Costello: A man of many words who ‘exhausted’ Bob Dylan
Pinning down the legendary New Wave artist to a single genre is an impossible task.
- by Michael Dwyer
Exclusive
Arts
Take a chance on me: ABBA courts Melbourne to host $80m virtual concert
The 3D virtual concert ABBA Voyage is in talks to make Melbourne its first home outside London after Sydney said no.
- by Stephen Brook
The best songs of 2023, a critic’s choice
From Miley to Maple Glider, these are some of our favourite songs from this year.
- by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
‘If they still think I’m sexy at 83, then god bless them’: Tom Jones
Tom Jones on fame, longevity and the sheer joy of performing (but don’t mention the knickers).
- by Nick Galvin
Lured by the music, I entered a place where mystery dwells
I had loved Jerusalem Bay the album for 25 years. Then one day I discovered where the name came from.
- by Charlotte Wood
Bringing sexy back: Santa Baby is the most unappreciated Christmas song
Santa Baby is the Christmas version of Like A Prayer or WAP.
- by Tom W. Clarke
Jimmy Barnes recovering from open-heart surgery in intensive care
The Cold Chisel frontman had major surgery on Wednesday to replace a damaged heart valve.
- by Helen Pitt and Lachlan Abbott