Callan Keenan-Smith
Callan Keenan-Smith writes reviews and interviews for Muzic.NZ, focusing on live performances and recorded releases across the contemporary music scene.
His coverage centres on artists and venues within New Zealand, and he highlights both emerging acts and established names.
Reviewers & Interviewers at Muzic.NZ
At Muzic.NZ he is listed among the reviewers and interviewers, contributing regular critical pieces on gigs and albums.
His bylines span live show coverage and studio releases, which positions him as a flexible writer who can move between the immediacy of performance and the longer arc of recorded work.
Gig reviews at Powerstation and Ding Dong Lounge
Callan’s gig reviews document performances by The Veils at Powerstation and Adult Friends at Ding Dong Lounge, with headlines that foreground the venue, date and city.
By naming the rooms and the exact show dates in his titles, he roots his writing in specific moments of the local live circuit rather than treating gigs as generic events.
Social posts from Muzic.NZ spotlight his work and thank crews at venues such as 818, reinforcing that his coverage often comes from intimate performance spaces within the New Zealand music community.
Album reviews: Raw Silk and Yesterday, When Everything Was Temporary
Alongside gig coverage, he writes album reviews including Raw Silk, a record he frames in relation to New Zealand hip-hop by referencing “Kiwi legend Scribe” performing at a major Christchurch event.
He also covers Yesterday, When Everything Was Temporary by Luke-W, extending his focus from stage to studio and showing interest in contemporary artists releasing new work.
This combination of live and recorded reviews means his portfolio tracks both how music is performed and how it is produced, giving readers multiple entry points into the scene he follows.
Exciting future for music in New Zealand
In his gig review of Adult Friends at Ding Dong Lounge, he writes about an “exciting future for music in New Zealand and worldwide,” signalling a forward-looking perspective that connects local performances to the wider landscape.
Across his pieces, he uses specific shows and albums as anchors for broader reflections on where New Zealand music is heading, moving between small venue gigs and artists with established reputations such as Scribe and The Veils.
That through-line—linking individual nights and releases to the trajectory of New Zealand music—distinguishes his coverage from more routine gig or album write-ups that stay at the level of set lists and track descriptions.
4 more music journalists.
Abby Webster
Abby Webster zeroes in on the storytelling side of contemporary pop, writing for Billboard about how songs build worlds around K-pop groups, fictional pop stars and ambitious soundtracks. She covers K-pop projects through close, song-by-song features, like her track-by-track piece with SEVENTEEN’s Vernon and The 8 on their EP ‘V8,’ and fan-centered lists such as “7 Best Moments from BTS’ Long-Awaited Return.” She treats soundtracks and fictional acts with the same rigor, mapping the inspirations behind “The Vampire Lestat” soundtrack and profiling in-universe groups like HUNTR/X and Saja Boys as if they were chart acts. Through Chart Beat stories on projects like “KPop Demon Hunters,” she connects these releases to industry strategy, global fandom, and the business systems that turn pop narratives into durable IP.
Alex Suskind
Alex Suskind is a freelance writer and editor who covers music with concise news stories and curated release lists. He focuses on new songs, album roundups, and archival access, from Carly Rae Jepsen’s “On Wires” to Neil Young opening his full catalog to residents of Greenland. His reporting stays close to the release cycle and foregrounds the core hook of each story. He has written for Pitchfork and has freelance work in Vulture, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic. He also covers broader arts and culture, but his music beat is built around what is newly out now or newly available.
Ali Shutler
Ali Shutler links chart pop, alternative music and fan culture with the ways songs move through festivals, streaming platforms and games. He is a freelance culture journalist specialising in music, writing news and features for NME and other music and culture titles. He covers breakout chart acts, legacy artists whose catalogues are resurfacing, and how audiences rediscover songs via TikTok, streaming or in‑game soundtracks. His reporting on streaming-era pop and live festival moments tracks virality, catalog access and fan behaviour as part of the story of a track. He also examines music, gaming and visual art crossovers, treating game soundtracks and artist-led campaigns as part of a wider cultural map. Alongside this, he profiles emerging chart artists for outlets including The Telegraph, Vice, The Independent, Dork and Upset, focusing on early-career trajectories and fan culture.
Annette Sharp
Annette Sharp is a veteran gossip and entertainment columnist known for direct, opinion-led coverage of celebrity power struggles and reputational crises across television and the music industry. She now writes high-profile columns for the masthead, after a decade on a well-read gossip column and a move to News Corp in 2008. Her real beat is the friction between public image and behind-the-scenes behaviour on flagship TV programs, including breakfast shows, reality formats and other long-running franchises. She focuses on who drives conflicts, who is exposed and who benefits, using ratings history, production decisions and industry mechanics as context. Sharp covers on-air personalities, executives, advisers and musicians, treating television and music as workplaces with competing egos, contracts and alliances, and blending reporting, media commentary and critique in a narrative column format.