Whilst I was in Memphis I became a reporter for The Daily Helmsman newspaper for one semester. The University print newspaper had daily editions in both digital and print formats distributed across the city.
The Daily Helmsman
The Daily Helmsman
Music Blog
My blog began as a means to gain experience writing, to educate others about the music industry, and to raise awareness of issues the music industry/workers face. The site helped to harbour my newly emerging love of writing, whilst gaining an audience, and building a portfolio of previous work.
Although posts are now less frequent, since its birth the site has amassed over 1000 views across over 20 countries around the globe. You can read the pieces either on this site below, or through the original dedicate site.
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Reminiscing to March 2013, when a 15-year-old boy sits on his bed at 3 a.m. watching a live stream from Miami, where three electronic dance music superstars take the stage in front of thousands of fans for the final time in history. “We came, we raved, we loved” resonating with millions across the globe, the final phrase pulsing...
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2019 has been a great year for music, we’ve seen a stream of bops coming out, but many may not have necessarily hit the mainstream. As we slowly creep towards 2020, I wanted to take a look at the songs which have been criminally underrated, offensively mistreated, and horrifically overlooked. These are the songs...
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I’m writing this piece sat at my kitchen table one day after London pride with a slightly hazy head, meaning I’ve completed pride the way it’s meant to be done. The glitter, the sparkle, the flags, colour, and of course, the gays. But where does music fit into all this, and what homage has music paid over the decades to the LGBT+...
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Be it photography, fine art, graphic design or music, the creative industries are HUGE, having an estimated value of over £200bn in the UK in 2017 (Government statistic). All these factors contribute greatly to the UK economy, and more importantly, our lives...
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BTS, Blackpink, Rosalía and Christine and the Queens are all names you may have heard of, and are all foreign language singers reaching the charts in the UK. These recent years have seen a huge rise in artists from different countries landing on UK shores, and...
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Music has the potential to have huge impacts on our moods and emotions, and we have the ability to control this. The way we use music is often a lot more then just a time filler, or atmosphere builder, we often consciously appropriate music’s powers to help us with our moods, to make us feel better, and sometimes worse...
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If you’ve been living under a rock and missed out, the Brit awards took place last week at the O2 arena. The culmination of international talent happens every year under the tent in February and is arguably the biggest event in the British music calendar. The Brit institution is known for its championing of new artists...
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Walking up the high street in Canterbury you are inundated with buskers all over the place, young, old, talented and shit, they’re all there. This is generally the same in cities all over the world, even if you’re crossing from the Piccadilly to Victoria lines, you’re bound to come across someone playing Celine Dion on the panpipes...
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Following on from the best and worst of 2018, I’ll be taking a look forward, and seeing what you’re going to be listening to throughout 2019. The dynamic of music is constantly shifting, but theres no denying the talent of these amazing people. Familiarise yourself with the names, they’ll be around a lot...
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2018 has been in general a fairly ok…ish year. The national politics may have left a lot to be desired for, but the music of the past year has not disappointed. Some have faired a lot better then others, and the past months havent been the kindest to every musician. So who has conquered 2018, and who has come off a little worse...
The recent changes of the record industry, and the shifting dynamic towards live music has created a rejuvenation of the good ol’ days. Just like how Michael Bublé somehow makes a re-appearance around November EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Now, the old-school artists are pulling a Bublé, but on a larger time scale...
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This weekend I had the pleasure of attending BBC Introducing’s live weekend at the Tobacco Dock. The days I attended featured talks with Adele’s manager, Deadmau5, Example, Nile Rodgers and loads more. The experience taught some invaluable lessons and I’m here to pass on this worldly wisdom. The Thursday was focussed...
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Politics is in the news 24/7, and more recently politics has become ever more intertwined within the music realms for a variety of reasons. Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Beyonce, Lily Allen and more have all been brought into the spotlight after crossing from their music careers into politics. Some for good, and some for bad...
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The first charts were considered to have officially been created in 1969 when the British market research Bureau was formed to compile chart information in connection with the BBC and the Record Retailer. In 1952 Percy Dickins from NME phoned 20...
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The tragic death of Aretha Franklin in the past weeks has lead to a multitude of her albums achieving further chart success. In the penultimate week of August, three of Franklin’s albums reached the British top 40. Furthering this, in the US, her 1985 album “30 Greatest Hits” gained a 49% increase in sales three weeks...
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Inspired by the re-incarnation of the record breaking song “Three lions”, I thought it was an apt time to look into the rise and fall of chart music. Number one chart songs contain the ability to catapult artists to stardom, and then their ability to catapult artists into the chasm of the forgotten. On the hot topic...
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In remnants of Ramsgate’s festival of sound last weekend, I thought this would be a good time to investigate sound installations, and my experience of last weekend. The sound aspect of music is often not a very sought after topic, with many being inexperienced and miseducated on the area...
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There are only 12 notes in the traditional musical alphabet. Most pieces of music are composed containing a combination of these notes, allowing the question, are all songs are just a recycling of the order of the differing notes? With this in mind, at which point is a new composition simply a remix or reshuffle of an unrelated...
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One of the most wonderful and unique aspects of any form of music is the inherent subjectivity within every note, breath and instrument you hear. There are vast expanses of genres, and no end to differing sounds and artists out there making music...
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Within my university campus there has always been a cataclysmic difference between the electronic music students (myself), and the commercial music students (popular performance). This microcosmic representation of the overall music industry...