Culture & Literature – Page 4 of 35

Everything You Need to Know About the 64th GRAMMY Awards

29Jan

By Eva Townsend BiltonNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Everything You Need to Know About the 64th GRAMMY Awards

It’s awards season again! Those whose Spotify Wrapped lists were graced with the likes of Billie Eilish, Doja Cat, Lil Nas X, and Olivia Rodrigo may already know a bit about the nominees for the 64th GRAMMY Awards. But if that’s not you, never fear: here is everything you need to know (more or less) about this year’s Grammys. The Grammys is the most prestigious music award ceremony in the world, recognising brilliance every year across almost all genres of music (seriously – there are eighty-six categories). The four main categories are record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, and best new artist. These groups are typically dominated by pop music, and this year is no different, with Taylor Swift nabbing a second consecutive album of the year nomination (she won last yea...

The Man Who Reinvented the Musical: A Note on Stephen Sondheim

5Dec

By Eva Townsend BiltonNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature, Theatre & Performance

The Man Who Reinvented the Musical: A Note on Stephen Sondheim

Perhaps the most renowned musical theatre composer and lyricist of the 20th century passed away on the 26th November, aged ninety-one. Stephen Sondheim began his career writing the lyrics to West Side Story (1975) – recently adapted by Spielberg into a dazzling Hollywood movie starring Rachel Zelger and Ansel Elgort – and went on to write the music and lyrics for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) and Into the Woods (1987) as well as Broadway classics such as Company (1970), Follies (1971), and Merrily We Roll Along (1981). The musical theatre mogul received significant acclaim for his work, winning eight Tonys, eight Grammys, an Oscar, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom to name but a few awards. Not one, but two theatres were named after him – one on Broadway, one in ...

Wild Flowers: Frank Carter and Supporting the Artists that Do Matter

14Nov

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

Wild Flowers: Frank Carter and Supporting the Artists that Do Matter

Frank Carter has become one of the main spearheads in the rock genre. He is sharp, ballsy and unstoppable. His new album Sticky, alongside his supporting band The Rattlesnakes, is a punchy, liberating, gut-blender of everything that is honest and impactful. This is the soundtrack to a group of underdog misfits who are unapologetically themselves. The album utilises their iconic British sound to piece together a drunken night out with your mates – it has the same warm welcome as a pub carpet. After headlining Download Pilot Festival and smashing a killer secret set at Reading, he is out for blood with a fourteen-date tour across the UK this November and a further European tour in February. If you can't get tickets, you're missing out. As well as the brilliant music and bante...

How to Capture Stunning Cityscapes at Night

14Nov

By Sam BennettNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music, Visual Arts

How to Capture Stunning Cityscapes at Night

There's something mesmerizing about cities at night. When the sun is replaced with a stream of fluorescent lights and neon signs, it’s completely different to anything you’ll see during the day. Capturing this on camera may seem hard, but shooting nightscapes can be very simple, and something that every budding photographer should try. Most smartphone cameras now have a long exposure mode, so you don’t even need a professional-level camera to get those Instagrammable photos after sunset. Equipment Most tutorials will tell you to buy both an expensive tripod and high-quality ND filters, but neither of these items are necessary. A tripod – which can be bought second hand for as little as £10 – is advisable for keeping the camera still, but you could always stabilize the camera by rest...

A Christmas Carol review: Does Christmas Actually Come from Books?

14Nov

By Charlotte RadcliffeNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

A Christmas Carol review: Does Christmas Actually Come from Books?

Every year, we belt it out to Mariah Carey and count down the days until we can justifiably put the tree up (November 1st, of course). But do we ever stop to consider when or how Christmas became Christmas? Of course, the holiday was originally a celebration of the birth of Christ, but Christmas as we know and love it has far more recent origins. You’ve most likely heard of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – maybe you studied the book at school, maybe you’ve watched The Muppet Christmas Carol so many times that you know the script by heart – but did you know that its publication in 1843 established a whole new literary genre: the Christmas book? Dickens’ fame and the advance in mass printing during the Industrial Revolution made the book a fast hit. Its cultural impact is still being...

6 Cosy Books to Curl Up with this Winter

14Nov

By Eva Townsend BiltonNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

6 Cosy Books to Curl Up with this Winter

Sure, the Christmas break normally brings with it a whole host of terrifying deadlines, but as the weather gets colder and the nights draw in, might we all be tempted escape the uni work and curl up with a steaming mug of tea (or, more realistically, a quadruple-espresso) and a damn good book? Here are six to get you started: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Set against the stark backdrop of 19th century Iceland, Burial Rites is definitely a novel fit for winter. The book tells the story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last person to be sentenced to death in Iceland. Tried and condemned for murder, Agnes is held in the house of a local family to await her execution, but as the months drag on and Agnes grows closer to the family, the truth about what really happened starts to be re...

Girls Don’t Cry Either: Mitski and the Female Experience

14Nov

By Cecilia MunozNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

Girls Don’t Cry Either: Mitski and the Female Experience

There’s a shared feeling amongst women of having something in your chest ready to burst, a rage or emotion so strong and yet so strictly controlled. Often expressing anger, sadness, frustration and even happiness is frowned upon. Artists like indie-rock singer/songwriter Mitski Miyawaki put poetry to this feeling, this quiet desperation, so no wonder she has gained quite the following among women. Playlists on Spotify and YouTube entitled ‘In this life, it’s just you and Japanese-American singer Mitski against the world’ exist for a reason. As a woman, listening to Mitski is a self-reflective emotional experience that will devastate and console you at the same time. She approaches and explores all aspects of what it means to be a woman in the 21st century with a unique musical sound. ‘...

American War Review: Did Omar El Akkad Predict the Covid 19 Pandemic?

14Nov

By Elena-Teodora ChiujdeaNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

American War Review: Did Omar El Akkad Predict the Covid 19 Pandemic?

“This isn’t a story about war. It’s about ruin.” (American War, chapter 1) Omar Akkad’s 2017 American War is classified as a war science fiction novel. But is it science fiction? The international bestseller and winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize is made up of fragments from real life events. From the first American Civil War, the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, to the more recent Afghanistan conflict in which Akkad was a journalist himself, readers are bombarded with the suffering of others. The metafiction – set between 2075 and 2095 – follows the story of 6-year-old Sarat Chestnut after her father is killed in a homicide bombing. Taken to camp Patience with her siblings and mother, Sarat’s childhood is lived in a state of limbo: not dead, not alive, purely surviving t...

Are cinemas going extinct? A Post-Covid Review

16Oct

By Jessica WoodNo Comments

Film & TV, Theatre & Performance

Are cinemas going extinct? A Post-Covid Review

Stale popcorn and half-working escalators, overpriced, too-watery coke and the blue raspberry (what even is that?) slushy that comes with a funny shaped, reusable plastic cup that will sit on your windowsill for months, never to be used again -- there’s nothing quite like the cinema. The first public performance of a film was in 1896, but with the pandemic forcing us to stay at home and the growing popularity of binge-watching culture, the cinema don’t have the same grasp on society as it once did. Growing up, I just about lived in the theatre, taking every chance I could to watch the latest movies; it was my safe space and I enjoyed the shared experience of watching with other people. The final battle scene, where every person in the theatre gasped in shock during Twilight Breaking Da...

Back to Live, Back to Reality: Bloodstock Review

16Oct

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Features, Music

Back to Live, Back to Reality: Bloodstock Review

It took a long time to get to Bloodstock festival. There was a four hour train from Egham, but that was nothing compared to the two years I had been waiting for live music to return. The journey was long and arduous; there was so much at stake for the performance industry who had suffered greatly at the callous hands of the pandemic. Yet there was no greater joy than standing in a field in the Midlands for the UK's largest metal festival. Festivals were the glorious beginning of bringing live music back. The government introduced pilot events to test the spread of the virus, with festivals such as Latitude, Download Pilot (A downsized version of the Donnington giant) and Tramlines. Fortunately, there were only 28 positive cases of COVID-19 amongst the 58,000 people who attended these t...