Stories of young, attractive women desperately trying to escape their small-town roots by allowing themselves to be seduced by older, apparently more worldly men, are not new.

Richie's voice matched the fabric of his shirts - satin and velvet - and his moves rivalled his frenetic back-up musicians.

When Douglas Wright sets his stage with a big grey wall, it's a wall with an enigmatic, palpable life of its own.

You hear of performers playing their audiences, but Bobby McFerrin really did use his Auckland audience as a musical instrument last night.

Russell Baillie reviews the first night of Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly's Auckland Arts Festival season.

Langley's rootsy folk-cum-alt.country EP Lost Companions of 2007, recorded in Wellington, announced a mature lyricist and a singer with a delivery like the best Americana artists with a little Dylanesque drawl.

With the three members of REM now all into their fifties, it would be nice to report that they've fixed whatever stopped their Noughties albums being as vital as the ones which got them there.

Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro face off in this drug-fuelled thriller, and it's hard to work out who comes out on top in the story, or in the acting contest.

This remix album is a collaboration between Jamie Smith of hushed electronic rockers The xx and Gil Scott-Heron, the 1970s street poet and revolutionary rapper.

Rajendra Prasanna comes from generations of Indian master musicians. On Tuesday, thanks to him and his three colleagues, a rapt audience fell under the spell of a music in which time itself seemed almost to stand still.

As she grows older and hones in on the big issues of life, Joanna Trollope just gets better.

Charlotte Randall is an award-winning New Zealand author whose novels reflect someone utterly in love with the potential of language.

For a "grown-up" morning news show, tune into TV3's Firstline, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

The 42 Indian musicians of The Manganiyar Seduction work their wiles in the glare of red and light-bulbs, piled up in a grid inspired by Amsterdam's red-light district.