New year, a fresh energy, and new music
Kojaque is just one example of those making international waves.
These crossroads are interesting. On one hand, touring is more lucrative than ever and ticket sales went crazy in 2023. But if you look deeper you will find it’s only the really big names that are benefitting here. Huge tours by Beyonce and Taylor Swift broke records last year while the much anticipated 2024 visit of Coldplay to Ireland sold out in no time. There will be a good knock on for Dublin and many people working in the Irish music industry but for many other bands, musicians, promoters, venues and engineers, things are much tougher. We can’t just depend on big names such as Coldplay, U2, Beyonce and Taylor Swift — the music industry is largely played out on a much smaller scale.
That said, Ireland is still helping break acts and our smaller venues and promoters are also contributing to what is a fairly decent time for many artists here. There are artists from all kinds of musical styles and genres breaking through and lots of them have developed locally through small gigs and tours and festival slots. More Irish artists than ever before seem to be catching attention abroad. The DJ and club scene has many such breakthrough acts, and there’s loads of producers making waves, not only in Ireland, but abroad too.
There’s a certain kind of typical male Irish band that seems to dominate daytime radio play here but if you look deeper you can find that artists as diverse as Kojaque, Lankum, The Mary Wallopers, Jazzy and Offica are thriving with or without this mainstream radio play. The music I mainly write about, hip-hop, soul and dance, is in a good place right now and only this week we had Kneecap filling the Cork City Hall here. More and more Irish artists seem equipped for success not only here but elsewhere, and it’s interesting that many of those with more potential for going big abroad exist outside the aforementioned middle of the road typical Irish band sound.
Trad in particular has become very fashionable not only in Ireland but elsewhere and it’s amazing to see the likes of Lankum succeeding internationally.
Ultimately, Irish artists will succeed by offering their own unique twist on music and even those operating in music genres that have developed elsewhere will gain more traction from not simply aping other styles. Thankfully many are taking their own path. It’s not unusual for youngsters to want to sound American or British for a short time, but most of the time youngsters find their feet and their own voice. That’s when it becomes exciting. I’m around long enough to remember when not only Irish rappers but British ones were being slagged for rapping in their OWN accents. Thankfully this type of cultural imperialism has largely disappeared from the discourse these days.
I’m forever bemoaning our venue situation here but at least we have loads of bars offering a fairly vibrant selection of shows day in day out. Our festival output is fairly decent too and offers small intimate gatherings as much as big commercial ones.
Our long awaited licensing reform is inching over the line and while Government figures now accept that things must change, long time campaigners such as Give Us the Night have grown understandably frustrated at the time it’s taking to implement actual change.
We have a capable new Night Major now working in Cork and other cities so let’s hope our much talked about night time economy becomes a bigger reality in 2024.
I’m optimistic for the new year and I’m also happy that traditional arts venues in Cork have opened up to more diverse late night events in the last 12 months too. The City Hall, The Glucksman, the Crawford, St Peters and many other such incredible venues have a lot to offer in this regard and it’s a welcome initiative to see them being used more for late night events.
Finally, I hope that the powers that be continue to see that investment in youth culture is the key to lots of social progress. We live in uncertain times but our young people need to be offered more opportunities to express themselves positively!
