Without music, there is no Manchester as we know it because the buzzing atmosphere in our great city was built by roaring guitars, scratching vinyls, shimmering strobe lights and booming microphones.
It’s no secret that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has flipped life as we once knew it on its head, and the satisfying, rhythmic hum that once used to echo through the city air on a daily basis has been ground to a halt over the past couple of months.
Not only has it been sorely missed by Mancunians, but it’s also come at an unfortunate cost.
Live music in Manchester and across the UK is on life support and the industry needs our help. Without it, 30-50% of the live music workforce will become unemployed, 90% of grassroots venues will close, and the industry will lose at least £900 million.
A coalition of live music artists, venues, concerts, festivals, production companies and industry figures successfully launched the campaign last month to highlight the importance of the sector to the UK’s economy and it’s recieved widespread support on social media.
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Today we join together once again with our friends & colleagues in the music industry to call for action to help protect the live music industry. Please show your support and share the message #LetTheMusicPlaypic.twitter.com/wMx6eEG951
We're proud to continue supporting the #LetTheMusicPlay campaign, highlighting the importance of the live music sector to the UK Government. We need to protect our venues, our workforce, and the infrastructure and companies that make up this business. pic.twitter.com/K8pZSfzqwQ
Today we once again join together with our friends and colleagues in the music industry to call for action to help protect the live music industry. Please show your support and share the message #LetTheMusicPlaypic.twitter.com/CE1GwEWDne
Let The Music Play is hoping to achieve the following three aims:
A clear conditional timeline for reopening venues without social distancing.
An immediate comprehensive business and employment support package and access to finance.
Full VAT exemption on ticket sales.
And they’re working – but the fight is still a long way from over yet.
After witnessing the traction that this campaign has been gaining over the past couple of weeks, and with the intent to keep the conversation continuing, it prompted us to begin reflecting. Here at The Manc, we always want to know where you stand and in this case, we want to experience the wonders of our city’s live music culture through your eyes.
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A chance to fondly reminisce.
So, we took to our social platforms this week – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – to ask you, our loyal audience of Mancunians – ‘What’s your favourite Manchester gig memory?.
Live music is a staple in Manchester and the entire industry needs our help getting through this crisis. Show your support and share your favourite moments with us 🙌 #LetTheMusicPlaypic.twitter.com/lddpG83bDS
We received hundreds of replies to our question across all social platforms, so we unfortunately haven’t been able to include every single one in this article. Instead, we chose to feature a few that seemed to resonate the best with our audience and received the most interactions overall.
Are you keen to have your say? Do you have a different view? Got a musical memory you’d like to share?
Well, there’s still time to chip in, so make sure you head on over to The Manc on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to take part, leave your thoughts and discuss with other Mancunians in the same position as you.
Don’t forget to follow The Manc Audio – @TheMancAudio on Instagram – for all the latest musical news in Manchester.
Find out more and keep supporting the #LetTheMusicPlay campaign here.
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Sankeys shares sneak peek at new venue as legendary Manchester nightclub gears up for return
Daisy Jackson
Sankeys has given Mancs a glimpse inside its new venue as the legendary nightclub gears up for its return.
The club was one of Manchester’s top nightlife spots for years, before shutting down seemingly for good almost a decade ago.
Set within Beehive Mill in Ancoats, Sankeys was a true icon of Manchester’s global nightlife scene.
And while the old Sankeys Soap nightlife space is now full of co-working spaces, the spirit of Sankeys is about to be reborn.
The exact location of the new club is still being kept under wraps ahead of its reopening at the end of January, but new renderings have been released to give us a glimpse of how it will look.
Sankeys is promising ‘A reimagined space. New energy. Same legendary nights’.
The new Sankeys Manchester will be a 500-capacity venue, designed to ‘capture the raw underground energy that made Sankeys one of the most iconic club brands in the world’.
It will feature an LED matrix grid installation that will immerse clubbers in ‘light, sound and atmosphere’.
Sankeys Manchester officially opens on 30 January – you can see a glimpse of how it will look below and grab tickets HERE.
The most annoying songs of 2025 according to ‘science’ have been revealed
Emily Sergeant
A list of the most annoying songs of 2025 according to ‘science’ has been published.
Music fans have already been sifting through their Spotify Wrapped, which came out earlier this month, with searches for it surging an astonishing 5,000% in recent weeks, proving that 2025 has been a memorable year for music.
We’ve had record-breaking releases, viral TikTok hits, and artists pushing creative boundaries across genres.
Despite the hits though, some tracks have sparked debates over how irritating they are – from repetitiveness to ‘harmonic dullness’.
Interested to discover the most annoying song releases of 2025, the experts at SeatPick analysed the most popular songs of 2025 according to official top charts, then measured their repetition, shrillness, harmonic dullness, and filler lyrics to calculate the percentage chance that listeners would find the song to be so-called ‘annoying’.
The most annoying songs of 2025 have been revealed according to ‘science’ / Credit: Jonas Leupe | Ketut Subiyanto (via Unsplash and Pexels)
Unfortunately for one artist – one very popular artist, it has to be said – they have claimed both the top and second spot, and that artist is pop royalty Sabrina Carpenter.
SeatPick’s findings revealed that Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Sugar Talking’ and ‘Tears’, which were both featured on her latest album Man’s Best Friend, are the most annoying songs released in 2025, as the data metrics indicated that nearly half of listeners (46%) are likely to find these songs irritating due to they’re repetitiveness.
Lady Gaga’s ‘The Dead Dance’ ranks as the third most annoying track of the year, scoring high on the ‘annoyingness index,’ with repetition, brightness, and lyrical filler contributing to an overall 45.8% likelihood that listeners would find it irritating.
Rounding off the top four most irritating songs of 2025 is ‘Who’ by BTS member, Jimin, with there being a 45.5% chance that listeners would find his song irritating due to its repetitive hooks and bright, high pitched tones.
When it comes to the list of most irritating TikTok trending songs of 2025, that title went to ‘Dame Un Grrr’ by Fantomel and Kate Linn, with a 45.7% likelihood of being found irritating by listeners, closely followed by ‘She Twerkin’ by Ca$h Out in second, with a 44.1% likelihood of being found annoying by listeners.
One song we’re sure many of you won’t be surprised to find on the most irritating list is ‘Hold My Hand’ by Jess Glynne, which, of course, initially gained popularity through its use in a Jet2Holiday advertisement, and then later became widely featured in more than 3.4 million TikTok videos.
So, what do you make of these results then? Do you agree? What do you think the most annoying song that came out in 2025 is?
The Manc -
7th August 2020 
