Spotlight: Courtney Barnett

Rated four-and-a-half stars by Rolling Stone, Courtney Barnett’s debut album, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (March 24, 2015), mixes witty, often hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking observations with devastating self-assessment and some incredible guitar play. Barnett first came onto the indie rock scene in 2012 when she self-released the EP, I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris, which garnered praise throughout her native Australia. With one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in indie rock, in 2013 Pitchfork named her song “Avant Gardener” one of its Best New Tracks of the summer. Before launching her solo career, Barnett became a mainstay of the local Melbourne music scene, paying her dues and honing her chops in various garage and psych country outfits. Following the release of 2013’s The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas (which combined her first two EPs), Barnett embarked on 18 months of extensive touring that took her all over North America and Europe. The songs on her latest album reveal not only an assured songwriter and guitarist, but also a performer who, in just a few years, has already proven herself an idiosyncratic and boundary-smashing artist, and a passionate advocate for the arts who is changing the face of indie rock in her native Australia and around the world. The GRAMMY Museum welcomes Barnett to the Clive Davis Theater for an intimate performance and discussion surrounding her music and career, moderated by Bob Santelli, Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum.