The Last Mixed Tape

James Hetfield says Metallica are here to entertain, not influence people with politics. But can you separate the music from the world that gave it meaning? From Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All to “One” and “Don’t Tread on Me”, we explore Metallica’s complicated relationship with power, war and political expression. As the band bring their music to the Las Vegas Sphere, we ask whether a...

On Dopamine Chamber , Fontaines D.C. construct a seductive, apocalyptic world of electronic textures, cinematic grandeur and unsettling beauty. It’s a bold evolution for a band whose journey from the restless streets of Dogrel to the theatrical universe of Romance has continually challenged expectations. In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, we explore the haunting beauty of “Where Is Gone?”, th...

Shane MacGowan changed Irish music by changing what Irishness was allowed to sound like. From the traditional songs of his childhood in Tipperary to the collision of Irish folk and punk that created The Pogues, Shane MacGowan spent his life challenging the boundaries of Irish culture. He was accused of corrupting Irish music. Instead, he helped redefine it. The Pogues gave voice and dignity to an...

For almost three decades, Garvaghy Road in Portadown has been at the centre of one of Northern Ireland’s most enduring disputes over parades, identity, history and territory. In 2026, the Drumcree standoff has returned to the headlines. As the Orange Order seeks to march along the Garvaghy Road for the first time in almost 30 years, local residents have gathered in protest. And amid the confrontat...

Following the controversy that saw Macklemore removed from the remaining US dates of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour , Stephen White looks beyond the headlines to ask what the story reveals about power, money and freedom in the modern music industry. Promoters, venues, billionaire owners and corporate interests can control the spaces where music happens, raising a bigger question about what happens when an...

Macklemore walked onto the stage at MetLife Stadium and said two words: Free Palestine. What followed became much bigger than a moment between songs. Macklemore was removed from the remaining US dates of Ed Sheeran’s tour. The promoter said venues had objected to his continued involvement. Sheeran said the decision was not his, and that he had tried to find a way through the dispute. Then the othe...

With Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger arriving in cinemas, Stephen looks at Liam and Noel Gallagher, the sixteen-year feud that kept them apart, and what their reunion might tell us about masculinity, friendship, pride and forgiveness. Oasis embodied a particular kind of masculinity in the 1990s. Swagger, aggression, emotional armour and the refusal to back down. But beneath all of that, their musi...

Stella Lefty is having a moment. But what happens when the people making music don’t all start from the same place? Stella Lefty’s rise to fame with Boston has become a lightning rod for arguments about nepotism, authenticity and the modern music industry. Her billionaire father has made her an obvious target for the “nepo baby” label, while controversy surrounding Boston and its similarity to Noa...

Dolly Parton didn’t just become a country music legend she changed what a woman could be in music. From Locust Ridge to Nashville, Jolene to I Will Always Love You , CMAT to Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter, this is the story of how Dolly built a legacy that reaches far beyond country music. She didn’t make the next woman into Dolly, she made it easier for her to be herself.

Fontaines D.C. have spent five albums trying to find somewhere else to go. From Dublin, to Ireland, to romance, fantasy and now something much harder to define, escape has been one of the central tensions running through their music. With “Marianne”, their first new music since 2024's Romance, Fontaines D.C. offer our first glimpse into their forthcoming fifth album, Dopamine Chamber. In this...

Six years after Punisher gave the isolation of 2020 an apocalyptic soundtrack, Phoebe Bridgers returns with Lost Weekend an album about what it feels like to live through a world that increasingly feels impossible to change. The Trump era. Late-stage capitalism. Internet alienation. Institutional indifference. Grief. Love. Fame. Lost Weekend brings these enormous forces down to the scale of an ind...

Was David Bowie a fascist? In 1976, David Bowie became the Thin White Duke: an elegant, unsettling persona born during a period of cocaine addiction, paranoia and psychological collapse. Bowie praised Hitler, spoke approvingly of fascism and was photographed appearing to give a Nazi salute. But was the Duke an expression of genuine political belief or a dangerous piece of performance art that bega...

“This is not a rebel song.” For more than forty years, Bono has introduced Sunday Bloody Sunday with those six words. But why? In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, Stephen White explores the history, controversy and enduring legacy of one of the most important songs in Irish music. Beginning with the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, we trace the writing of the song during the recording...

Brat became one of the defining cultural moments of the decade. Rather than trying to recreate that success, Music, Fashion, Film asks a far more difficult question: what happens after the breakthrough? In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape , Stephen White explores Charli XCX’s latest album through the lens of artistic identity, modern fame and the growing expectation that musicians must become f...

Music doesn’t just soundtrack history. Sometimes it captures emotions before we have the language to describe them. In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape , Stephen White explores how Dublin’s Gilla Band became one of Ireland’s most important cultural voices, not simply through noise rock, but through their uncompromising portrayal of anxiety, recovery and modern life. From Dara Kiely’s struggles...

Julian Casablancas sparked controversy after comparing American Zionists to Black people living under slavery on SubwayTakes . It was a comparison I believe was historically clumsy, rhetorically reckless and ultimately damaging to the point he was trying to make. But five weeks later, at the Oxford Union, Casablancas returned to the subject with a clearer argument centred on settlements, expansion...

Phoebe Bridgers is back with Lost Boys , her first solo music in six years — a song haunted by nostalgia, isolation, masculinity and the machines we carry in our pockets. At its centre is a dark inversion of one of the most famous slogans in protest music. Where Woody Guthrie wrote “This Machine Kills Fascists,” Bridgers sings: “This machine is killing me.” In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape ,...

Following renewed controversy around Roisin Murphy over comments about transgender people, criticism from artists including The Blessed Madonna and CMAT, and a growing divide between Murphy and the LGBTQ+ community that helped shape her career, this episode explores a larger question. What happens when an artist becomes estranged from the community that gave their work meaning? From queer club cul...

Olivia Rodrigo’s latest album features Robert Smith of The Cure, but this collaboration tells a much bigger story than a pop star working with one of her heroes. In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, we explore why The Cure continue to resonate with younger listeners, how TikTok and streaming have transformed music discovery, and whether modern audiences are inheriting music differently than pre...

Following the recent unrest in Belfast, I found myself returning to one of the most powerful songs in Irish music: Christy Moore’s Viva la Quinta Brigada . What begins as a song about Irish volunteers who travelled to Spain to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War reveals a much deeper story about Ireland itself. In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape, I explore the Connolly Column, the Blues...

When reports emerged that an AI-powered version of Ozzy Osbourne could continue interacting with fans after his death, many people focused on the technology. I found myself thinking about something else. For most of human history, art survived the artist. Using Ozzy Osbourne as a starting point, this episode explores digital resurrection, AI, memory, grief, nostalgia, Mark Fisher’s “slow cancellat...

When CMAT won Best Album at the Ivor Novello Awards, she used her acceptance speech to challenge fellow artists to stop “sitting on the fence” as fascism and far-right politics continue to rise across Britain and Ireland. It was a speech that immediately made headlines. But this episode isn’t really about one speech. It’s about the role artists play during moments of political and social tension....

For much of the twentieth century, the Catholic Church shaped almost every aspect of Irish life education, sexuality, family, politics, shame and silence. But long before Ireland changed politically, Irish artists began documenting the emotional cost of that world through music. From Christy Moore’s response to the death of Ann Lovett… to Sinéad O’Connor tearing up a photograph of the Pope on live...

“I think the dance floor is dead… so now we’re making rock music.” One sentence from Charli XCX sparked immediate online discourse. Was this the end of Brat ? A reinvention? A provocation? Or something much bigger about modern music culture itself? In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape , Stephen White explores Charli XCX’s Rock Music as a case study in artistic reinvention during the streaming er...

Kate Bush described Running Up That Hill as a song about a man and a woman trying to understand each other. But what makes the song endure goes far beyond romance. In this episode of The Last Mixed Tape , Stephen White explores how Kate Bush used shifting narrative perspectives across Running Up That Hill , Cloudbusting , and This Woman’s Work to examine empathy, identity, transformation, and the...