Lists
The 20 Most Interesting New Artists of 2020
With most indie venues closed due to the pandemic and many record stores altering their business methods, it was a challenging year for music discovery. Luckily, we live in the Internet age, where a glowing album review, trending social media post or intriguing Bandcamp tag can instantly connect fans to their next favorite band. As the music world remained stuck in quarantine limbo, upcoming songwriters had more time than usual to record, hype, network and livestream — and it’s safe to say we all needed the distraction. To cap off the year’s depressing madness with a glimmer of optimism, we gathered this list of our 20 Most Interesting New Artists of 2020 — from indie-pop to Afrobeat. Where there are fresh sounds, there’s hope. Anjimile The trendy comparison for Anjimile is Sufjan Stevens,...
The 10 Best Leonard Cohen Songs
To paraphrase a saying attributed to Buddha, when the student is ready, the Leonard Cohen song will appear. Philosopher king and ladies’ man, poet and ordained Buddhist monk, aesthete and pilgrim — in his nearly 50-year musical career, Cohen embodied contradictions and sang his story-songs in a trademark sandpapery voice in the pursuit of beauty and truth. When asked about his baritone, he was the first to say, “I never thought I could sing.” But sing he did. He sang his heart out. From his first 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen to his elegiac 14th studio and final album You Want it Darker in 2016, he sang about relationships, reflected on life, death, love, impermanence, and Biblical themes. Cohen’s life trajectory is well known to fans. He began his career as a poet and novelist in Mont...
6 Cybersecurity Threats to Watch Out for in 2021
Sourced from IDG Connect In 2020, there were many rapid changes on a global scale as organizations across the world attempted to adapt to a new normal caused by the pandemic. Amid this shift, there were significant developments seen across the cyberthreat landscape. As we near the end of 2020, here’s a closer look at six cybersecurity threats – from HP – to keep in minds going into 2021 and beyond: 1. Weakened organizational security will lead to more unintentional insider threats Home devices will be under increased pressure and we must expect home infrastructure will be targeted. The scale at which we operate from home increases the incentive for attackers to go after consumer IoT devices and pivot to business devices on the same networks. 2. Human-operated ransomware attacks will remain...
SPIN’s 2020 Holiday Gift Guide
COVID-19 brought the concert industry to a screeching halt in 2020. But all that disposable income music fans generally spend on concert tickets and tour merch has been redirected to the retail front: supporting artists and labels by shopping online during quarantine. And this holiday season brings an overwhelming amount of worthy box sets, books, vinyl and cultural ephemera. After many hours rummaging, scrolling, clicking and sampling, we’ve rounded up this holiday gift guide — consider it the sonic equivalent to a PS5 or Great Green Egg grill for the rabid music fan in your life. The Secret DJ – Book Two (Velocity Press) One-time pop star and acclaimed Mixmag columnist the Secret DJ continues to chronicle the last 30-plus years of dance music’s evolution as a superst...
The 30 Best Albums of 2020
After a deluge of canceled or delayed tours, drive-in experiments, Bandcamp Fridays and bedroom livestreams, we’re finally here. Yay? It’s hard to celebrate much of anything in 2020. But one encouraging sign from the music industry has been the number of artists innovating on the fly — figuring out ways to sustain their careers through the madness. And as fans, at least we’ve had new albums to help us process our continuing semi-apocalypse. Having (mercifully) reached the end of this awful year, we have even more perspective on the functionality of a great record. The 30 we’ve assembled here have prompted us to dance, helped us grieve, made us laugh, or even just allowed us to escape into a transportive riff or soundscape. We assume they did the same for the artists themselves. Let us reme...
8 Online Safety Tips for the Holiday Season
The holiday season is a bonanza for criminals who see multiple opportunities to catch unwary shoppers, particularly online. We’ve long been attracted to the convenience of online shopping, and the pandemic’s lockdowns have galvanised our enthusiasm. Global digital commerce has grown by 71%, according to Salesforce’s Global Shopping Index, and in South Africa, the Consumer Pulse survey found that 30% of people shopped online in June. Cybercriminals know this. So to prepare for the holidays, here are eight tips and tricks to look out for: 1. If it’s too good to be true: This is rule number one to avoid online scams. Criminals will try to lure you with something free, such as fake vouchers or discount offers, special offers on limited quantities of a sought-after product, or inducing you to p...
Apple Unveils Top 10 Best Apps of 2020
Apple has revealed its ‘Best of 2020’ app chart which ranks its most important apps of the year. According to the tech giant, these apps have proved to be essential for making life easier, healthier, and more connected in 2020. “This year, more than ever before, some of our most creative and connected moments happened in apps. This was thanks to the amazing work of developers who introduced fresh, helpful app experiences throughout the year,” says Apple Fellow, Phil Schiller. “Around the world, we saw remarkable efforts from so many developers, and these Best of 2020 winners are outstanding examples of that innovation. From helping us stay fit and mindful, to keeping our children’s education on track, to helping fight hunger, their impact was meaningful to so many of us.” Here are Apple’s ...
35 Great Songs You Probably Didn’t Hear in the Last 35 Years
SPIN has always highlighted the under-heralded, but an uncountable number of amazing songs have fallen through the cracks since the publication’s 1985 launch. It’s hard to scratch the surface in a list of this size, but consider this chronological mixtape a fun attempt. Many of these selections are personal — cherished, semi-obscure tracks that deserve a bigger audience. But in order to cast a wide net, we solicited suggestions from friends, fellow music journalists and musicians (including Sparks and Modest Mouse), who helped make this round-up deeper and more eclectic than it would have been otherwise. From lo-fi pop to hi-fi prog, here are 35 gems you probably missed over the last 35 years. – Ryan Reed Mazarati – “Strawberry Lover” (1986) This Minneapolis funk band is still ...
The 35 Greatest Concerts of the Last 35 Years
We know, we know — the best concert of all-time is your friend’s obscure indie-punk band playing a sweaty neighborhood basement back in ‘94. We admit that one slipped through the cracks. Maybe it’s a fool’s errand, but this list is our attempt to narrow down three and a half decades of worthy live music events — legendary festivals, headlining tours from major artists, one-off stage collaborations, multimedia spectacles — into an eclectic and satisfying blend. – Ryan Reed 35. Heilung at Castlefest (8/5/2017) CREDIT: Gonzales Photo/PYMCA/Avalon/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Music-related viral clips tend to be silly and easily digestible, like the dude riding a skateboard to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” while sipping on Ocean Spray. So it’s heartening that Heilung’s debut l...
5 Things Organisations should Consider before Migrating to the Cloud
Sourced from PC Mag Cloud computing has been adopted by 77% of South African businesses, with the most popular application being the backing up of data. The benefits for those that do embrace cloud include reduced IT costs, faster speed-to-market, better service levels, and cloud as an enabler of the digital business. Additionally, the imperative to embrace cloud computing has never been higher. The recently released 4th annual Salesforce State of the Connected Customer report shows that South African consumers expect the majority of their interactions with business this year to be online. Further, 84% of South African customers say that COVID-19 has elevated their expectation of businesses digital capabilities. In other words, businesses need to be digital, and to be digital – they n...
Ballon d’Or winners if Messi and Ronaldo didn’t exist
Ballon d’Or winners if Messi and Ronaldo didn’t exist – originally posted on Sportslens.com The Ballon d’Or is one of the most prestigious individual awards in the world. Many of the greats have scooped the prize following some of the best years of their career. The last decade has seen two of the game’s titans fight it out for this award. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have dominated the scene, winning the Ballon d’Or an incredible 11 times out of the last 12, and are again amongst the forerunners to win the 2021 Ballon d’Or edition. Realistically, very few players have really stood a chance up against these two. But what if they weren’t around? Who would be our players of the year then? Let’s have a look. 2008 – Fernando Tor...
U.S. warns Pacific islands about Chinese bid for undersea cable project
The United States has warned Pacific island nations about security threats posed by a Chinese company’s cut-price bid to build an undersea internet cable, two sources told Reuters, part of an international development project in the region. Huawei Marine, which was recently divested from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and is now majority-owned by another Chinese firm, submitted bids along with French-headquartered Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), part of Finland’s Nokia, and Japan’s NEC, for the $72.6 million project backed by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), the sources with direct knowledge of the project details said. The project is designed to improve communications to the island nations of Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Kiribati. Washington sent a diploma...