Kirin J Callinan

Few Australian musicians court trouble as deliberately as Kirin J Callinan, the Sydney singer, songwriter, guitarist and comedian. Critics have called him the enfant terrible of the country's underground rock scene, and his flamboyant persona and confrontational live shows make him hard to ignore. Spin argued that in his music the lines between no talent, irony and genuine bad taste blur until they cannot be told apart, which explains why he divides listeners.

Callinan's career stretches back to 2005, when he formed Mercy Arms with Thom Moore, Ash Moss and Julian Sudek; the band split on stage at the Perth Big Day Out in 2009. His self-released debut, Am I a Woman, Yet?, came in 2008, and Embracism followed in 2013 via Terrible Records and XL Recordings. Bravado reached No. 5 on the ARIA Hitseekers Albums Chart in 2017, the same year as "Big Enough", where Jimmy Barnes's screaming cameo became an internet meme. Return to Center arrived in 2019, and Smiling with No Teeth, which he co-wrote with Genesis Owusu, won Album of the Year at the 2021 ARIA Awards. His fifth studio album, If I Could Sing, was announced in October 2023.