DazeBlog

Music blogMusicTalking tactics: Rihanna and the pop stars who change accentAs pop’s biggest star reclaims her heritage on new album Anti, we ask why do musicians change accents – to add mystique or just shift units? One of the unexpected elements of Rihanna’s twisted, off-piste pop album Anti has been her reclamation of her Barbadian heritage, and the return of her native accent. Although Def Jam first launched her with the dancehall crossover hit Pon de Replay, much of the music she has made since has been sung in a standard American accent, helping her reach an audience more attuned to that voice as the sound of mainstream pop. [Read More]

Fiction in translationReviewA young woman spends an insomniac summer visiting her Korean grandparents, in the atmospheric second novel from an exceptional writer In February 2020, an understated debut of disquieting power slid into British bookshops: Winter in Sokcho, by a young Franco-Korean author. Sensitively translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, it won the US National Book award for translated literature. In Elisa Shua Dusapin’s second novel, The Pachinko Parlour, Claire, a Korean-Swiss graduate student just shy of 30, spends an insomniac summer treading water in Tokyo while visiting her grandparents, Korean immigrants who own a pachinko parlour. [Read More]

The ObserverSimulation gamesReview3DS, Nintendo, cert: 3Nintendo's most recent console mascot – the Mii – appeals to the narcissist in everyone, and Tomodachi Life is a socially driven life simulator populated entirely by Miis. Without direct control over events, players exert their divine influence through passively helping, advising and pampering their subjects, helping them to live out their bizarre lives in happiness. Miis can be created locally or exchanged with the global community via QR codes, and the more you import, the stranger the interactions are: expect everything from epic rap battles to marriage and babies, and gamers can share pictures of their shenanigans directly to Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. [Read More]

Friends reunited … Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton of Let's Eat Grandma. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianFriends reunited … Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton of Let's Eat Grandma. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianMusicInterviewLet’s Eat Grandma: ‘How can I view death purely in a negative way when someone I love is dead?’Interview by Laura Snapes. Portraits by Linda NylindChildhood friends who would finish each other’s sentences, Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth were growing apart. [Read More]

MediaObituaryHarold Brooks-BakerDirector of Burke's and Debrett's Peerages, and veteran royal commentatorHarold Brooks-Baker, genealogist, journalist and publisher, who has died aged 71, carved out a career peering into the nooks and crannies of the British aristocracy, but also provided lineage lines for families all over the world. American-born, he regarded the modern pursuit of equality in the country of his adoption as a form of national self flagellation. As managing director of Debrett's Peerage and then as publishing director of Burke's Peerage, he viewed royalty and the gentry as an endangered species. [Read More]

Italy This article is more than 6 years oldItalian village offers €2,000 gifts to boost dwindling populationThis article is more than 6 years oldBormida, population 394, also offering homes to rent for as little €50 a month in effort to persuade people to move there The mayor of a remote mountain village in Italy is offering to pay €2,000 (£1,700) to anyone who moves there, in an attempt to save it from becoming a ghost town. [Read More]

History booksObituaryJose Harris obituaryHistorian of the British welfare state and biographer of its architect William BeveridgeJose Harris, who has died aged 82, was the author of a magnificent biography of William Beveridge that established her as the pre-eminent historian of the British welfare state. In that book, published in 1977, just 14 years after its subject’s death, she blew apart cherished narratives about the architect of the welfare state. She showed that Beveridge’s vision of a universal insurance-based system was poles apart from the kind of welfare state that Britain actually had in the 1970s, which retained a strong means-tested element. [Read More]

Kitty Empire's artist of the weekMitskiReviewUnion Chapel, London The Japanese-American auteur explores deals with the devil and future hauntings in an intimate church show that foregrounds her pure vocals In blues mythology, the musician Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads and sold his soul to him in exchange for increased guitar proficiency. On the left-field pop auteur Mitski’s song The Deal – from her most recent album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We– the song’s narrator goes on a similar midnight ramble. [Read More]

Gambling This article is more than 10 months old‘Serious’ breaches: News Corp-backed gambling company Betr fined more than $75,000This article is more than 10 months oldJust days before its launch in October, Betr sent unsolicited and targeted messages to man listed on a self-exclusion register Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast News Corp-backed sports wagering company Betr was fined more than $75,000 for “serious” breaches of the responsible gambling code just days before its official launch in October last year. [Read More]

SortedAustralian food and drinkA brief history of Australian food through the books that got us into the kitchen, from Women’s Weekly birthday cakes to Rosheen Kaul’s Chinese-ish cooking Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email The best cookbook is the one you cook from and the one you hand on, complete with splatters and scribbles, to the next generation. Whether you own a handful or a hundred, your cookbooks define who you are as a cook. [Read More]