Music | The Walrus

Photograph of a dog wearing large headphones and smiling.

Music

Do You Have a Musical Guilty Pleasure? Claim It

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 - by Chilly Gonzales

Why Chilly Gonzales believes Enya has the voice of an angel

The singer, Riit, holds a microphone onstage and closes her eyes as she sings. She is wearing a dark blouse and a long, translucent green skirt. Behind her onstage is another musician.

April 2020 / Music

A New Sound for Inuit Music

March 12, 2020June 16, 2020 - by Carly Lewis

Riit’s new album fuses throat singing and electropop, pushing the borders of both genres

The artist Taylor Swift smiles and looks toward the top right of the frame. The image is covered in purple glitter, except for the area around Swift's face.

Arts & Culture / Music

Taylor Swift Is the Surprising Face of Millennial Anxiety

March 2, 2020July 23, 2020 - by Joelle Kidd

Like most of my generation, Swift knows the exhaustion of constantly selling yourself as a brand

The singer Grimes, wearing a red velvet dress and with her hair in puffy orange-and-black pigtails, sits on a concrete throne and stares at the screen.

Arts & Culture / Music

The Terrifying, Techno-Dystopian Visions of Grimes’s New Album

February 27, 2020March 3, 2020 - by Simon Lewsen

The singer’s new album explores a dark truth: the most dangerous social forces are also the ones that fascinate us

Six cassettes with unspooling tape coloured in pink, red and orange

Arts & Culture / Music

When Sexism Makes for a Catchy Song

November 11, 2019 - by Tariq Hussain

My songwriting students pen misogynistic lyrics. But the music industry tells them that’s okay

Music

In Times of Crisis, We Need Classical Music

March 19, 2019December 15, 2020 - by Kent Nagano

What will we lose if Bach and Beethoven disappear from our schools and concert halls?

December 2018 / Music

How to Make Opera Cool

January 11, 2019July 12, 2019 - by Simon Lewsen

As interest in traditional performance declines, upstart indie companies are fighting to keep the art form alive

Colin Dutcher playing piano with room with high-vaulted ceilings

Music

How Jeremy Dutcher Keeps His Ancestors’ Language Alive

June 21, 2018January 4, 2020 - by Sarah MacDonald

Fewer than 10,000 Wolastoq people live in First Nations communities. The twenty-seven-year-old sings their songs

March 2018 / Music

How to Make a Hit Song in 2018

March 5, 2018March 27, 2020 - by Tariq Hussain

Why artists are rethinking old formulas for chart-topping music

Courtesy of the Polaris Prize / John Paille

Music

Lido Pimienta Doesn’t Care Whether You Think She’s Canadian

October 16, 2017April 3, 2020 - by Kelli María Korducki

Neither English nor French, this year’s Polaris Prize winner is a truer reflection of our country’s culture