Stuff Digital Edition

What’s new to listen to

A roundup of what we’re tuning into in the world of podcasts and music.

– George Fenwick

30

The fallout of her big breakup dominates much of the first half of Adele’s latest record, but there’s an enduring innerstrength that underlies it all, and the selfless love of motherhood seeps out too. The album is peppered with spoken asides, Adele communicating directly with her fans and colouring in details. ‘‘Alright then, I’m ready,’’ she rumbles, before launching into smash hit Easy On Me. She continues to thrash out negative emotions on Cry Your Heart Out and I Drink Wine, the latter builds a piano riff into a gigantic ballad of breathtaking beauty: ‘‘I hope I learn to get over myself, stop trying to be someone else.’’ We can all relate to that. It will surely be a set-closing singa-long for many years to come, it’s an instant classic. The same could be said for the whole album, it is unsurprisingly excellent. – Alex Behan

When Diana Met...

Hosted by US journalist and businesswoman Aminatou Sow, this CNN podcast is structured around key meetings Diana had with various public figures, politicians, dignitaries and celebrities, to offer an insight into how she was perceived and misunderstood during her time as the Princess of Wales. The episodes touch on how power, gender and manipulation were often at play in these meetings, and the first two are prime examples. The first looks at how she was expected to appear for photos outside hospital right after giving birth to William and Harry, and the second invites author Candice Carty-Williams and royal biographer Andrew Morton to dissect her lunch with Camilla, which was depicted dramatically in season four of The Crown. – George Fenwick

Things Take Time, Take Time

Courtney Barnett is the gifted lyricist who turns dry observations and twangy Aussie humour into poetry. She is such a distinctive voice, and her vocal patter – the way she jumbles extra words into the stanza and keeps rhyming long after the iambic pentameter has run out – is now so iconic, I worry people perhaps think of her as a one-trick pony. On this new, and not overly manufactured new record, the tone stays typically laconic, but it provides enough pep to make it an enjoyable way to while away an afternoon. – Alex Behan

Hooked

Tony Hathaway was once a top designer at Boeing with a loving family, but, by the time he was arrested outside a Seattle bank in 2014, he was one of the most prolific bank robbers in US history, having robbed 30 banks in a year within a 48-kilometre radius of his suburban home. Over three years of conversations with journalist Josh Dean, who presents this podcast, Hathaway revealed the Oxycontin addiction he was hiding behind his seemingly peaceful life, and how it drove him to the brink. Hooked is a gripping listen that looks unflinchingly at the downfall of one man, but it also does so with empathy, putting a human face to an addiction crisis that will leave you furious and tearful for the lives it tears apart.

SOUND AND VISION

en-nz

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/282054805305013

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