In a year where AI, touring became more difficult for musicians, and Spotify squeezed the emerging artists, We give out awards for things like:

• Best live gig

Plus, our favourite TV shows, podcasts, film, needledrops and books.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

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Featuring albums from Lankum, Boygenius, Noname, Andre 3000, Olivia Rodrigo, Rachael Lavelle, Lana, Kara Jackson, Mitski and more.

Next episode: The Nialler9 Podcast Awards 2023.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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We are talking tracks we loved from Lankum, Lana, Big Thief, Troye Sivan, CMAT, The Hives, Sofia Kourtesis, Mustafa, Olivia Rodrigo, Rachel Lavelle, Overmono, boygenius and more. All killer no filler.

Next episode: Albums of 2023.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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Episode 234 is the latest in the occasional series of the podcast - Andrea's favourite weird little guy.

Nialler and Andrea Cleary take a big overview of the main discography of one of our favourite songwriters.

Sufjan Stevens is a Detroit Michigan artist, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has a deep catalogue of studio albums drawing on orchestral conceptual releases about US States, electronic hymnals, secular-friendly Christian music, Christmas albums, ambitious cosmic electronic long players and devastating folk and singer-songwriter music informed by grief, love and life.

Andrea leads us through his main thoroughfare, stopping at Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001) to Michigan (2003), Seven Swans (2004), Illinois (2005), The Avalanche (2006), The Age of Adz (2010), Carrie & Lowell (2015), The Ascension (2020), Convocations (20201) and stopping at his most recent rejuvenating album Javelin, released in the wake of the rare peek into Sufjan's private life - his coming out after speaking about the passing of his partner, and the autoimmune disease he has been rehabilitating from recently.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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Nialler and Andrea Cleary are joined by pop culture writer and DJ Louise Bruton to discuss the chilling details that Britney Spears reveals about her career and private life.

That includes her treatment by the media, fame-hungry exes Justin Timblerake and Kevin Federline, the conservatorship, and the ultra-overbearing toxic role that her parents held over her for 13 years where they controlled what she ate, where she was allowed to live, how she performed and all manner of abuse-like behaviour including putting her in a mental health institute for taking energy supplements or refusing to do a dance move.

Britney was denied her own lawyer for 13 years but finally broke free of the conservatorship to regain control of her own life finally.

It’s a miracle that Britney is even alive after the harrowing experiences of what she’s lived through, and what her family put her through.

Louise and Pop Emergencies are presenting their annual Britmas at Wigwam in Dublin on Friday December 15th, in support of ActionAid's Gaza Crisis Appeal.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this episode.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes & join our Discord community

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Episode 232 has an exoskeleton theme of accidental spooky picks as we feature new albums from Kojaque, OXN, CMAT, Sufjan, Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist and new songs from The Last Dinner Party, I Dreamed I Dream, John Francis Flynn, Rachael Lavelle and Tandem Felix.

And a couple of oldie picks to round things out from William Onyeabor and Echo & The Bunnymen, along with the What's Consuming You corner with TV, books and films we are vibing with.

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This week's episode is a chat around the sale of Bandcamp from Epic Games to Songtradr.

With streaming paying pennies or less than for many artists, the independently-driven music platform Bandcamp is the last bastion of online revenue making for many bands - allowing musicians to sell their music digitally, and on vinyl or CD direct to their fans.

Artists on Bandcamp collectively earned $193 million in the last year alone, and Bandcamp has paid out $1.19 billion since its founding in 2007.

But recent business deals have meant Bandcamp was acquired by Songtradr, after a short 18 months owned by Epic Games. With the acquisition came news today that approximately half (60) of the Bandcamp staff of 118 employees, including the Bandcamp Daily team, had been laid off, with the entire negotiating team at the workers' union - Bandcamp United, let go.

We discuss what it means for independent musicians, what the alternatives are and also the other dodgy news this week, that NTS radio have been partially bought by Universal and Spotify is planning on reducing its royalty payouts to a minimum threshold so that many artists literally won't get a penny for their song streams.

All that, plus Niall shares his months-long local detective story, and Andrea talks about presenting PHD at a dance music conference in Huddersfield last week.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon

• Thinking of ditching Spotify? Musician Joel Harkin explores alternative music platforms so you don’t have to

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The Fandom of Taylor Swift is something that I find so fascinating, particularly the massive surge in popularity in the last 3 or 4 years.

Where Taylor couldn’t sell out Croke Park in 2018 on her Reputations tour, her current Eras tour as we’ve discussed before on the podcast, crashed Ticketmaster and has seen such a huge unprecedented demand that that’s worth exploring why?

With the three Dublin gigs at the Aviva next summer and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour film doing big numbers at the box office, it felt like the right time to dip in.

With Andrea’s absence this week, I thought I’d delve into the lore and fandom of the Swifties through the lens of a community which gather around Taylor once a month.

Swiftogedden is a club night that plays only Taylor songs all night, and was started by Dave Fawbert, a DJ and former journalist who put on his first Swiftogedden in London in 2019, and since then it has grown to a national UK and in the last two years an nationwide Irish event too.

Anna Jacob is a resident DJ at the Irish Swiftogedden club nights, and a pal of mine, and I’ve been fascinated with the success of the single artist only night – as Swifties gather en masse to sold out venues in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Galway and Limerick along with a rake of UK cities to sing their hearts out to Swift classics, new songs, new versions and deep cuts.

Our chat covers fandom becoming a religious like community of like-minded people, why Taylor Swift is the new Mozart, a celebration of the “eras” of girlhood and womanhood, what happens at Swiftogedden nights and why does it work so well and we also read out some passages from this wonderful Taffy Brodesser-Akner New York Times piece on Swiftiedom.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, where we share Anna’s Swiftie Skeptics playlist.

• Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece on Swiftiedom [New York Times]

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English electronic musician Kieran Hebden has been a constant artist in my life’s history of listening to music.

Recently, the artist has exploded in popularity in his DJ partnership with Skrillex and Fred Again.., but as we’ll discuss, headlining Coachella this year, was just a natural culmination of two decades plus of music making and collaborations.

On this week’s episode it is all about the music of Four Tet.

We discuss his origins in the Elliott School with fellow now-famous musicians Burial and Hot Chip, the formation of his first band Fridge, who signed their first record deal when Hebden was just 15.

We take you through an output that moves from jazz, folk, electronica stylings of his early work, the seminal album Rounds from 2003, his subsequent collaborations with Burial, Steve Reid, remixes work for the likes of Madvillain and Caribou, and how his live show worked.

// On Wednesday November 8th, we are putting on a Listening Party at the Big Romance playing Four Tet's Rounds (2003) in full, as part of the Listen Closely monthly series.

And onto his independent releases throughout the last 15 years as his music moves from the ambient instrumental electronic music to the more club-focused 4/4 tracks that came about as he began to DJ at Plastic People and DJ at festivals around the world.

We discuss his court case with Domino, and how his flirtations with remixing pop artists telegraph his bromance with Fred Again.. and Skrillex. Plus, we spotlight some of our favourite Four Tet / KH / Kieran Hebden Percussions tracks.

The Accompanying Four Tet playlist for the episode

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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It's the Nialler9 Podcast's monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs we loved in the last four weeks.

On Episode 228 we are album focused with new LP chat about records from Mitski, Cleo Sol, The Alchemist, MIKE and Wiki; Olivia Rodrigo, Soda Blonde, Natalia Beylis and an EP from Soccer Mommy.

There are songs from Annika Kilkenny, Holly Humberstone and two Golden oldies from Anne Clark and Fountains Of Wayne.

Plus what's consuming you - Fringe Festival shows, Peter McGann, TV, books and films we are vibing with.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

Listen to the episode below or subscribe in your favourite podcast app:

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.