Podcasts: music

Colin Beaven is Spotlight's British columnist. We can always count on him to give insight into life in the UK and to make us laugh at the same time. Listen to an excerpt of his column, titled "When opera comes to the country".

Who exactly is Maya Arulpragasam? She was born in London but lived in Sri Lanka until the age of eight. Her music is catchy, but if you listen closely, what M.I.A. sings about can be disturbing.

Each month, Romie Singh brings us the voices of people making the news in the Replay section of Spotlight Audio. This week on the podcast, the topic is the Amazon rainforest — and British rock musician Sting!

Australian Tom Barnes, an audio engineer, first sings part of a song he wrote, called “Sweet Nothings”, and then tells us about his music. “Sweet nothings”, by the way, are compliments you whisper to a lover.

What do you think of as typically Scottish? Did I hear you say bagpipes
— a musical instrument made of a number of pipes and a bag? Dagmar Taylor from Aberdeen reads “Mythical music” taken from the World View section of Spotlight magazine.