Following this week’s poll of the albums of 2011, the State team has also been voting for their favourite tracks of the year.
Some of these artists will have featured already in the long players list, but many others prove that the power of the song and single is still very much alive…
20. Ry…

Christmas cheer is spreading through the State Office and we’d like to share a little with you.
Here we have this year’s Christmas compilation. It’s a collection old and new, contemporary and revamped classics, to sway to over the festive period – there’s also last year’s doozy streaming too.
So if you’re done with Shakey,…

It’s the penultimate day of our top fifty countdown and there’s an appearance for the highest rated Irish album, a surprisingly dramatic fall for the record that topped our mid-year poll and one of the music industry’s old stagers making a superb return to form.
Join us tomorrow for the top ten.

Albums of 2011: …

Day two of the end of year countdown, as voted for by the great and the good of the State team. This next five bring you two hip-hop giants rubbing shoulders with a UK folk band, a couple of Irish names from opposite ends of the spectrum and a range of North American alternative sounds.…

After yesterday’s preliminary list, it’s down to the serious business of our top 50 albums of the year – as voted for by our writers and photographers. As you’ll see over the countdown, it’s as eclectic a list as ever and one that draws on albums from across the musical spectrum. Join us tomorrow for…

Over the past few weeks our team of writers, photographers and editors have been voting for their favourite album releases of the year – once more providing us with an intriguing glimpse into what makes State tick.
The full top 50 list starts tomorrow, but in the meantime here are the 25 that didn’t quite…

The Community Of Independents team have beavering away in their Dublin studio for the past month, producing weekly programmes covering all aspects of the independent Irish music scene. Episode 4 features live music from Biggles Flys Again, the new video from Catscars plus a chat with Phil Udell about the forthcoming State Midnight Mass. Catch…

Cashier No.9, Verse Chorus Verse, Sacred Animals, Le Galaxie and Ben Carrigan are amongst the acts set to play this year’s First Fortnight festival — Ireland’s first mental health arts festival.
They are amongst a number of acts lined up for the Dublin event, which runs from January 4th-14th in various venues around the Temple…

A regular feature in which our writers and photographers share their favourite tracks on a certain theme. This week, they pick songs of a carnal nature……
Grace Jones – ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’ (chosen by Conor McCaffrey)
I had Wu Tang Clan’s ‘Dog Shit’ pencilled in for this one – Ol Dirty Bastard’s leg-humping

Tonight Florence + The Machine will take to the stage of Hackney Empire for a once-off show to launch her second album Ceremonials…. The show sold out in one minute but join us tonight from 9.15pm to watch a live stream of the gig at the Florence + The Machine official website.
Live stream

We’ve missed our monthly Friday nights at the Mercantile so it was a great pleasure to return to action on Friday night and in the name of a good cause to boot. Our guests were the Young Hearts Run Free, the collective who work tirelessly on raising funds for the Dublin Simon Community. They brought…

This Wednesday evening will see Debbie Rose, Vice President of Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc.take part in a special question and answer session at IMRO’s headquarters in Dublin, hosted by State editor Phil Udell. Shapiro Bernstein is one of America’s oldest independent publishing companies, with a catalogue that contains some of the world most enduring…

A regular feature in which our writers and photographers share their favourite tracks on a certain theme. This week, they pick the songs that you might have missed……
Pavement – ‘Strings of Nashville’ (chosen by Daniel Harrison)
The B-side to 1994’s ‘Gold Soundz’ single, this is one of the hidden gems in Pavement’s back catalogue.

She’s currently on tour with James Vincent McMorrow in the UK but Canadian singer-songwriter Lindi Ortega will release her debut album Little Red Boots later this month and play Upstairs in Whelans in Dublin this Friday October 14th. Here she tells us all about herself.
Who are you and where are you from?…
I am