FEATURE: Spotlight: Loren Heat

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Loren Heat

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THIS is a sensational…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Irish

Middlesborough artist who has been tipped as one of BBC Introducing: North East ones to watch. Included alongside other great artists like Jenna Cole, Smith & Liddle, and Charlie Floyd, I think a lot of eyes should be on Loren Heat. They are an incredible talent who has not done too many interviews, though I feel that will change tis year. I love their music and 2009, and Belladonna were phenomenal cuts from last year. Be Ur Baby, featuring ZELA, is another phenomenal song. I am going to include a couple of features around Loren Heat. An awe-inspiring, exciting and hugely promising artist, this is what the BBC wrote in their recent spotlighting of someone we all need to follow: “Loren Heat has been building patiently with laser focus. The Teessider has got one of those personalities that lifts a room, but that lightness sits alongside a very strong sense of direction as an artist. You can hear pop influences like Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga in the delivery, but it is shaped by a personality that makes it unmistakably Loren. That balance shows in the work, and it is why things are moving with intention rather than luck”. An incredible L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artist who has had an amazing past few years, I think 2026 will be a massive year for Loren Heat. They are an artist you need to follow. Inspired by some huge and influential Pop greats, this compelling and enormously talented queer artist released their debut single, Curiosity, in 2023. Tits Upon Tyne chatted with Loren Heat at a time when they had a relatively small following:

“Tell us about the creative process!

I tend to create the base of a song first, I’ll get the chords and the chorus down on either a Ukulele, Guitar or occasionally Piano, before writing the rest and trying to build from there. I like to write from things I’ve experienced at some point or another, they’re often like little vents or rants, so I can feel the song and think like ‘Is this what I want to represent these emotions?’

What motivates your music and what inspired this debut release ‘Curiosity’?

I’m very motivated by wanting to have my voice heard, like i mentioned earlier, my songs can often be like vents or rants and so it’s that feeling of people hearing it and relating. There’s a lot of time I feel things and I’ll tell myself I’m not allowed to, like i’ll begin to invalidate them as being over dramatic or to emotional but sometimes you just have to feel it and say it, or well in my case write it, and the thought of people hearing it and relating with it, maybe to help them validate how they feel really warms my heart and makes me want to do it. As for the inspiration behind ‘Curiosity’, I sat and tried to remember all the times I’d been in situations with a person I had feelings for where I had no idea what was going on.
I’ve been out since i was about 13/14, and I struggle to interpret tone and body language so I would never know if someone had feelings for me or was just playfully flirting like some friends do and I’d always just take it as friends being friends because I would never want to assume and then accidentally overstep a boundary. It wouldn’t then be until later down the line that person would admit they liked me but didn’t think I liked them back. Like just be straight up cos I’d never guess and this song is just that whole “be honest with how you feel” don’t try and play around because we’re both going to get hurt.

Being an LGBTQIA+ artist, how do you feel this song represents you as an artist?

Ooo this is so tricky. I feel like this song only represents a small portion of me as an artist and a queer one at that. This song was just how I was feeling at a certain moment and pulling from certain situations I’d experienced throughout my life so far. There’s so much more that I write and sing about like being in love and heartbreak and the hardships of being LGBTQIA+ and I can’t wait for you to hear them. But I write about so much more, like loss and just being happy and enjoying life, or struggling with it, that I feel like this song is only a part of who I am”.

I am going to take this to last year and more up to date. However, after a good 2023 when Loren Heat was taken the earliest steps, they had a busy 2024. Although this article states Want It All (2024) is their first single, we know that Curiosity came out in 2023. In August 2024, the Scarlett Haze E.P. came out. It contained Curiosity, Want It All and three more amazing tracks from an artist that was building their name and gaining traction. I would love to see Loren Heat perform live, as I can imagine they are a staggering and exciting artist to watch on the stage:

“Why is your single ‘Want it All’ not your typical love song?

I’d say it’s because it’s not your typical happy and whimsical feel, it’s the more gritty side, when you have this wall up the idea of falling in love is terrifying, like a free fall almost. You don’t want to, but you can’t help it. I wanted to capture that essence, being scared of the vulnerability but always wanting more.

What has been the reception to your new work so far?

It’s been really good! I showed it to my friends and family because they’re incessant when it comes to new music of mine, they want to hear it straight away and they loved it, there’s different favourites but as for the new stuff the reception has been so heartwarming. I’m very grateful!

What are you like as a live artist?

I’m not totally sure what to say without blowing my own trumpet. I’d like to say if you come to a show you can expect strong vocals, good music and a gossip session. I love to natter between tracks. I personally think if I’m just playing tracks back to back I’m not allowing myself to get to know my audience and they’re not getting to know me and I don’t want that.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Definitely a lot of your typical “Gay Pop” artists in terms of sound, the likes of Lady Gaga, Slayyyter, Kesha, Dua Lipa etc. but I also take a lot from Billie Eilish, Renee Rapp, Lana Del Rey I think there’s so many talented artists to draw inspo from!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Irish

BabyStep Magazine provided their introduction to Loren Heat early last year. Again, committing the cardinal press sin of claiming an artist is ‘back’ when they do not release a single every few weeks, perhaps the fact 2009 was different Loren Heats previous work caught some by surprise. However, we do need to stop saying artists are ‘back’ when they do not release stuff constantly, as it is stigmatising and suggests they are dropping the ball or not putting out enough material:

“‘2009’ is such a nostalgic yet fresh track—what was it about that particular year in pop music that inspired you to write a love letter to it?

Gaga honestly. The Fame Monster came out that year and it was my first album (fitting really). Honestly I think that album shaped me as a whole, and a lot of my music is inspired by that album so when I was looking back at y2k pop, 2009 really stuck out, so many amazing songs came out that year!

You’ve said this song is about “intimacy crafted by love rather than lust”—how did you approach translating that deeper emotional connection into both the lyrics and the soundscape?

I wanted it to feel good rather than feel sexy, I wanted it to feel like a summer's day with someone you love, watching the way the little things translate into your life, the way the sun hits them, the way they move or laugh. I feel like when you’re truly in love with someone, even the innocent things can be so intimate.

There’s a clear influence from icons like Lady Gaga and Robyn in the track—how have those artists shaped your sound, and how do you make sure your voice still shines through?

I can struggle sometimes because I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I think so incredibly highly of them, so I’ll draw inspiration from them and then compare my work to theirs and ridicule it. I’m getting better and I think with the people around me they also keep me from running off with my comparisons. But honestly I think it's because I know how I like my voice to sound and I will always write about things that are personal or mean a lot to me and I think being able to truly feel what I’m singing allows me to make music that is still so unapologetically me.

You’ve had support from some huge tastemakers and have The Great Escape coming up—how does it feel stepping into this next chapter, and what can fans expect from your upcoming releases?

It’s honestly terrifying but in a good way! I’m so excited, I’m just prepared to give everything I have 24/7. For my upcoming releases, I’d say expect flirtatious unapologetic pop, something you can dance to and relate to in so many different ways, they’re very flirtatious but if you look deeper I think you can always find another meaning”.

I am going to end with Fame Magazine from last July. This truly wonderful artist who is always improving and building their sound, this year is going to be an exciting one. Fame Magazine spoke with Loren Heat following their double-whammy sets at “The Great Escape and BBC Introducing at The Glasshouse“. Their latest (at the time) single, Belladonna, is described as a “Pop Dagger Drenched in Lust and Voltage”. Loren Heat is rightly being tipped for great things:

“This track – released via Interval Records (EMI North/Generator) – bites as hard as it kisses—sultry, synth-laced, and soaked in obsession. It lingers like a bruise and tastes like danger.

Fueled by 2000s pop euphoria and a sharp queer edge, Loren Heat is leading a femme-pop uprising from the north—loud, lust-drunk, and unapologetically raw.

We caught up with Loren to talk about seduction as a superpower, chaotic stage energy, and why Belladonna might just be the sexiest little dagger in your playlist.

Belladonna oozes danger and desire — when did you first realize that seduction could be a superpower in your songwriting?

Ooo that’s such a good question, god. I’m gonna say when I realised it was the thing i was best at articulating, writing about passion and desire and yearning is something I can articulate best, and i’m not sure why, I think it’s cos it feels like my chest is in a vice as soon as i things such as lust.

You describe Belladonna as someone whose voice is poison — who or what inspired that toxic muse?

Ahahaha wouldn’t you like to know? Honestly, it was a mix of people I’ve interacted with that really had my heart beating fast, that idea of ‘your cockiness and confidence is the most enticing thing ever’, it’s not even necessarily toxic people, but they certainly never fail.

Pop music in 2024–25 is full of image — you’re building a persona that’s fearless and femme but with teeth. What’s the line between persona and person for you?

I really don’t have much separation between persona and person; who I am online and on stage is pretty much exactly who I am in person. There’s not much mystery there.

2009 felt like nostalgia on MDMA, and Belladonna is a full-on pop dagger — are you deliberately carving out a new wave of queer pop from the north?

Oh 1000%, the north needs more pop and it needs much more queer pop and unapologetic pop or ‘girly pop’ at that. It is shockingly sparse.

You’ve played The Great Escape and BBC Introducing at The Glasshouse — was there a moment on stage where you felt: “Yep, I’ve arrived”?

BOTH! For different reasons, id say the glasshouse because of the industry side of it all, i was like ‘ooo this is fun, this is it, like lets go fucking smash it’, but TGE was more on the performance side, the crowd, interactions, the feedback the energy, oh it was gorgeous.

You’ve talked about queerness and lust in your writing — how important is it for your music to reflect both softness and obsession?

For me, I get obsessed with the desire and the feeling of lusting, it’s like an overwhelming command on the body, yearning for the touch of someone you’re so into. But vulnerability is required to put yourself in a position of submitting to desire, and I think that’s when the softness should come in. It doesn’t have to be all cute and shit but…You know. I think it’s needed.

Looking ahead to the Belladonna drop and those stacked live dates: what’s the chaos you’re most excited to unleash next?

Get me on stage, honestly, I’m so much more confident on stage, and I’m starting to interact with the crowd so much more. I think I’m very much finding my feet and I just want to be doing it all the time”.

Looking at their official website, this part of their biography stood out: “global icons like Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Slayyyter, Dua Lipa and JADE, Loren is as unapologetic as their story – an exploration of queerness, identity and the raw chaos of navigating life in the North East”. I think that Heat can obtain the same sort of stature and popularity and artists they are inspired by. The press below shows there is a lot of love out there for their music:

“Translating her homemade queer-pop into a cutting-edge domination…seamlessly channels everything that pop music should be: a euphoric, danceable experience” – DIY

“Definitely one to watch” – Clash

“This is pop music at its most irresistible” – Atwood

“A rising star in the queer-pop scene” – On The Record

“That is a big, big, debut upload right there” – Shakk, BBC Introducing

“Crafting a sonic world that’s brave, defiant and unashamedly pop” – Earmilk

“Channelling the energy of Lady Gaga and Robyn, with glimmers of Kylie Minogue andScissor Sisters”– Record of the Day”.

Following the BBC Introducing: North East kudos and the possibility of lots of gig demand this year, it is going to be interesting seeing where Loren Heat heads. I wonder if they have any plans for a tour and festival dates later in the year. Last year was a huge one for Heat, though I think this year is going to be the best so far. If you do not know this Middlesborough Pop sensation, then connect on social media and listen to their music. Already so promising and having released some outstanding music, it is clear that…

A golden career awaits.

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Follow Loren Heat

FEATURE: Well, Just Take a Walk Down Lonely Street: Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel at Seventy

FEATURE:

 

 

Well, Just Take a Walk Down Lonely Street

Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel at Seventy

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PERHAPS one of…

the most groundbreaking and important songs in music history, I am spending some time shining a light on Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. Whilst the King of Rock & Roll has a complex legacy and someone I cannot comfortably celebrate without hesitation, I have to salute how influential his music is. What a cultural impact he made in his lifetime. Whilst he released better songs than Heartbreak Hotel, there are few that are more significant. In terms of the way it was this thrilling and revolutionary record. Heartbreak Hotel was released on 27th January, 1956, and it was his first single for RCA Victor, following his contract purchase from Sun Records. Elvis Presley’s first number one hit, it sold over a million copies. Even though it was not included on his eponymous album of 1956, it is worth noting that it turns seventy on 23rd March. I will spend some time with Heartbreak Hotel. Seventy years after its release, I wanted to focus on a single that stunned listeners and was a revelation. It was like nothing else released in the mid-'50s. I want to start off with this 2016 article, that tells the strange inspiration behind one of the greatest songs ever recorded:

“A suicide note was the unlikely inspiration behind the song that became Elvis Presley’s first No. 1 hit and million-selling single.

Steel guitarist and session musician Tommy Durden read a newspaper article about a man who had killed himself, leaving behind a piece of paper with the haunting words: “I walk a lonely street.”

Durden brought the article to his friend and cowriter Mae Boren Axton. A 41-year-old high school English teacher who moonlighted as a journalist and a songwriter, Axton had notched a few hits in the early ’50s with artists such as Perry Como and Ernest Tubb. In late 1955, she took a part-time position as a public relations secretary for Elvis’ manger, Colonel Tom Parker. When Mae first met Elvis, she felt he had everything he needed to become a star except a hit song. “You need a million-seller and I’m going to write it for you,” she promised.

As Axton and Durden discussed how they could turn the newspaper article into a song, Axton suggested that there be a “heartbreak hotel” at the end of the lonely street. With that flash of inspiration, the pair was off and running. Painting a picture of a place where “broken-hearted lovers cry away their gloom” and “the desk clerk’s dressed in black,” they managed to convey in very few words a mood that was both romantically charged and funereal.

Though the duo is responsible for penning the song, Elvis’s name would appear on the finished record as a third writer. It’s common knowledge that the Colonel often insisted that his boy get cowriting credit in exchange for cutting a song. But in later years, Axton insisted that the shared credit was her promise made good to help Elvis buy a house in Florida for his parents.

Axton took a demo of the song to Elvis while he was on the road. His reaction was immediate. “Hot dog, Mae, play it again,” he said. It reminded him a little of Roy Brown’s “Hard Luck Blues.” He quickly added the song to his live repertoire, changing one line of the lyric, from “they pray to die” to “they could die.”

On January 10, 1956, two days after his 21st birthday, Elvis recorded his first five sides for the RCA label at RCA Studio B in Nashville. Among them was “Heartbreak Hotel.” The producer was Steve Sholes, with Bob Ferris engineering. The band included guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black, drummer D.J. Fontana, plus Chet Atkins on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano and vocal group the Jordanaires. The echoey atmosphere punctuated by Fontana’s rim shots and Moore’s tinny guitar lent a despair to the track that perfectly matched Elvis’s heart-rending vocal.

The gloomy song was markedly different from anything Elvis had done previously at Sun Records. When his former label boss Sam Phillips heard an acetate from the Nashville session, he pronounced “Heartbreak Hotel” a “morbid mess.”

Back in the RCA Records boardroom in New York, there was a similar consensus. Producer Steve Sholes recalled, “They all told me it didn’t sound like anything, it didn’t sound like his other records, and I’d better not release it. I better go back and record it again.”

Elvis was unfazed, certain that the song was the right one to catapult him into the big time.

It was released on January 27, 1956. The next day, Elvis made his network television debut, performing live on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show. It was the first of six appearances over the next few months, and he sang “Heartbreak Hotel” on three of those. On April 3, he did the song on the Milton Berle Show. Two weeks later on April 21, thanks in large part to his exposure on the new medium of TV, Elvis had his first No. 1 pop single (it also topped the country chart and went Top 5 on the R&B chart)”.

 On 10th January, 1956, a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley walked into RCA's McGavock Street, Nashville and laid down the vocals of this incredible song. Although it is quite melancholic and moody, it is a masterpiece that you are utterly transfixed by. The power of Presley’s vocals. Seductive and powerful at the same time. I want to move this article, that writes however iconic Heartbreak Hotel is now, it was not an instant chart smash in 1956:

“While Heartbreak Hotel was having trouble making the Top 100 in the early months of 1956, it was not Billboard’s fault. The publication repeatedly touted Presley first record in the weeks after its release. On February 1, just a few days after the single was shipped, Billboard listed the record in its “Best Bets” section. “Elvis Presley, country singer, is a compelling stylist who tears his tunes to tatters a la Johnnie Ray,” the magazine noted. “‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is an ideal piece of material and he goes to town with the help of an excellent background. It could establish Presley in the pop picture.”

On February 11, Billboard again praised Presley's recording in its “Review Spotlight” column. “Presley’s first Victor disk might easily break in both markets. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is a strong blues item wrapped up in his usual powerful style and a great beat … Presley is riding high right now with network TV appearances, and this disk should benefit from all the special pluggings.”

A week later, Billboard again endorsed Heartbreak Hotel, this time on its “This Week’s Best Buys” list. “Another record that has demonstrated Presley’s major league stature,” the magazine stated. “Sales have snowballed rapidly in the past two weeks, with pop and r.&b. customers joining Presley’s hillbilly fans in demanding this disk.” In a March 3 article, Billboard reported that the Presley record was RCA’s number 2 seller, right behind Perry Como’s “Juke Box Baby.” On March 7, the magazine noted that Heartbreak Hotel had reached the 300,000 sales mark.

• Presley finally broke into Billboard’s pop chart

In those days, Billboard’s Top 100 was tabulated through a combination of record sales and disk jockey surveys. By early March 1956, DJs who had been reluctant to accept the odd sounding Presley record, could no longer hold out in the face of the record’s massive sales and Presley’s growing popularity. On March 3, 1956, Heartbreak Hotel made its first appearance in the Top 100 at #68. By the end of the month, it was in the top 10 at #9. It would take another month to fight its way to the top, but on May 5 it took over the #1 spot, displacing Les Baxter’s instrumental, “The Poor People of Paris.” (Ironically, the day his record went to #1, Elvis was laying an egg on stage at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.)

Heartbreak Hotel then settled in at #1 for nearly two months. It wasn’t until June 23 that Gogi Grant’s “The Wayward Wind” toppled Elvis’s recording from its lofty perch. Elvis's first hit single remained on the Top 100 for another three months, finally disappearing from the list on September 8, 1956. When all was said and done, Heartbreak Hotel had spent 27 weeks on the Top 100, 14 weeks in the top 10, 11 weeks in the top 5, and 7 weeks at #1. In Presley’s long and successful recording career, only All Shook Up would top the performance of his first RCA single on the Billboard chart.

In 1956 Billboard had many other charts besides the Top 100, and Heartbreak Hotel reached #1 on many of them. On May 26, 1956, the magazine announced that Presley’s disk had set a multiple chart-topping record. “This week, for the second time,” the music journal reported, “the RCA Victor artist hit the No. 1 spot on six charts with his version of ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ This makes E.P. the first ‘double-Triple Crown’ winner in the history of The Billboard’s record charts. He topped the retail, jockey and juke box lists in both the pop and country and western categories.”

An interesting coincidence regarding Heartbreak Hotel on the Top 100 occurred on August 25, 1956. On the chart that week, two versions of the song were listed side by side. Elvis’ version sat at #96 on its way off the chart two weeks later. One notch above it, at #95, was comedian Stan Freeberg’s novelty version. While humorous, Freeberg’s recording, during which he repeatedly asks for a “little more echo in my voice,” served as a tribute to Presley’s trendsetting hit.

• Heartbreak Hotel made Elvis an overnight success

It is probably overstating the case to suggest that Heartbreak Hotel made Elvis Presley a star. With wildly popular stage shows, network TV appearances, and the resources of RCA Victor solidly behind him, he probably was destined for stardom even if his first recording on his new label had flopped. Heartbreak Hotel’s phenomenal achievement merely accelerated his ascendancy to fame. It made him appear an overnight success, when, in fact, fame came only after two years of working tiring one-nighters across the South and honing his craft in a small recording studio in Memphis”.

I am going to include parts of this article prior to highlighting the Wikipedia page on Heartbreak Hotel where they mention the legacy of this song. It moved, among other musicians, John Lennon and George Harrison. A half of the greatest band in history (The Beatles), it is clear that Heartbreak Hotel caused quite a sensation for young and impressionable music fans in the 1950s. I still think it has the power to move seventy years later:

“While author Tony Plews in his amazing 700-page book 'Walk A Lonely Street: Elvis Presley, Country Music & The True Story of Heartbreak Hotel' comments..

'From the opening notes, sung acapella (Elvis had lifted the key from c to e), it was clear this was a song unlike any other on the charts, be it pop, country or blues; and although it was not rock ‘n’ roll music per se (you couldn’t dance to it), it carried all of the rebelliousness and inherent sexiness of that new genre. It sounded savage, primal, and it came straight from the gut. It was the most prepared he’d been with any recording since “That’s All Right”. He had worked out which syllables to stretch and which beats to accentuate. Taking his cues from “Only You”, he’d established how to mangle words and add nonsensical sounds to the lyrics, transforming “I’ll be so lonely, baby” into something like “I’ll be-kuh so lonely, bay-beh”, which added to the rhythm while making the narrative yet more mysterious. He had streamlined some of the chorus pronouns, removing the “we” from the final line, ensuring it was more radio-friendly. But the one lyric that still remained unfixed in his mind was “pray to die”, and he wondered whether it was just too deep: but on take one it was present and correct.

For such a stark, unornamented song, he’d gone to great lengths to assemble the arrangement, but this was indicative of its importance to him. Even on the early takes, he spat out the first verse with absolute and shocking conviction, the band punctuating each line with a perfectly timed double strike (slightly behind the beat in best Fats Domino style), and as he slid into the chorus, Elvis was almost naked vocally, backed purely by the double-echo and Bill’s descending bass. Aside from the “kuh” affectations, his diction was immaculate, especially on the title words'.

The second verse was equally powerful, and on the chorus D.J. (on brushes) and Scotty Moore crept in to fill out the sound. By the third chorus, Chet Atkins was strumming and Floyd Cramer had added pitter-patter keyboard figures to complete the picture. The fourth verse and chorus maintained the full band, but it was the unrehearsed pianist who came unstuck during the following instrumental passage. Scotty carried the first part of this section leaning heavily on the staccato notes Elvis had suggested (as per his conversation with Mae Axton), but Floyd couldn’t find his mojo, having literally just learned the song. For the fifth verse, Elvis had decided to repeat the second, but instructed the band to add a flourish, D.J. again using his cymbals, to accentuate the finale.

The studio was hushed as the last note tailed off. Mae smiled. Steve raised his eyebrows. Elvis asked for a playback. The sound caught him unawares: the heavy echo wasn’t necessarily what he’d heard in his head during the weeks of preparation, but he recognised that it brought something otherworldly to the recording.

Right from the beginning, the record grabbed listeners by the throat: Scotty Moore's guitar raged and rocked; Elvis' vocal swaggered, but also reached out with the longing of those lyrics. 'Heartbreak Hotel' was full of alienation, loneliness and despair.

And the kids absolutely loved it. In their millions.

If there had been a rock'n'roll hero previously, it was James Dean, who died in a car crash three months before Elvis recorded 'Heartbreak Hotel'. The actor only lived to see one of his three films released, but in the tragic aftermath of his death, the cult of James Dean had flourished.

Youngsters on both sides of the Atlantic found solace in James Dean's moody, misunderstood martyr in Rebel Without A Cause, but they knew that after ‘Giant' there would be no more Dean films. And looking around for another idol, they happened upon that record, that voice, that man... The newly identified teenagers of the 50s had, at last, found their role model”.

Let’s end this seventieth anniversary celebration of Heartbreak Hotel by considering its legacy. Not only considered one of the best songs ever released, it has influenced plenty of musicians. Who themselves have also inspired generations. This Wikipedia article includes a bit about the legacy of Heartbreak Hotel. It would not be overstating it to say this is one of the most important song ever. I hope other journalists write about Heartbreak Hotel on its seventieth anniversary:

“In a 1975 interview, John Lennon recalled his friend Don Beatty's introducing him to Presley's music. Lennon said that his family rarely had the radio on, unlike other members of the Beatles who grew up under its influence. Beatty showed Lennon a picture of Presley that appeared along with the charts on the New Musical Express, and Lennon later heard "Heartbreak Hotel" on Radio Luxembourg. Lennon has said:

When I first heard "Heartbreak Hotel", I could hardly make out what was being said. It was just the experience of hearing it and having my hair stand on end. We'd never heard American voices singing like that. They always sang like Sinatra or enunciate very well. Suddenly, there's this hillbilly hiccuping on tape echo and all this bluesy stuff going on. And we didn't know what Elvis was singing about ... It took us a long time to work what was going on. To us, it just sounded as a noise that was great.

George Harrison described "Heartbreak Hotel" as a "rock n roll epiphany" when in 1956, at age 13, he overheard it while riding his bike at a neighbor's house. Some have said that "Heartbreak Hotel" turned that well-mannered schoolboy into a guitar-crazed truant who would audition for John Lennon's Quarrymen the following year.

The Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards wrote in his 2010 autobiography Life that "Heartbreak Hotel" had a huge effect on him. Beyond Presley's singing itself, it was the total effect of his sound and his silence that so totally affected Richards:

Then, "Since my baby left me"—it was just the sound ... That was the first rock and roll I heard. It was a totally different way of delivering a song, a totally different sound, stripped down, no bullshit, no violins and ladies' choruses and schmaltz, totally different. It was bare right to the roots that you had a feeling were there but hadn't yet heard. I've got to take my hat off to Elvis. The silence is your canvas, that's your frame, that's what you work on; don't try and deafen it out. That's what "Heartbreak Hotel" did to me. It was the first time I'd heard something so stark.

Led Zeppelin's lead singer Robert Plant stated that the song "changed his life". He recalled hearing it for the first time when he was 8 years old:

It was so animal, so sexual, the first musical arousal I ever had. You could see a twitch in everybody my age. All we knew about the guy was that he was cool, handsome and looked wild.

Critic Robert Cantwell wrote in his unpublished memoir Twigs of Folly:

The opening strains of "Heartbreak Hotel", which catapulted Presley's regional popularity into national hysteria, opened a fissure in the massive mile-thick wall of post-war regimentation, standardization, bureaucratization, and commercialization in American society and let come rushing through the rift a cataract from the immense waters of sheer, human pain and frustration that have been building up for ten decades behind it.

The song was mentioned in the chorus of Patty Loveless's 1988 single "Blue Side of Town" from her album Honky Tonk Angel.

President Bill Clinton performed the song on tenor saxophone during his appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show on June 3, 1992. In 2004, it was ranked number 45 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time",  the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it in its unranked list 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and in 2005, Uncut magazine ranked the first performance of "Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956 by Presley as the second greatest and most important cultural event of the rock and roll era. Paul McCartney, who participated in Uncut's poll stated, "It's the way [Presley] sings it as if he is singing from the depths of hell. His phrasing, use of echo, it's all so beautiful. Musically, it's perfect”.

On 27th January, 1956, I wonder how those listening to Heartbreak Hotel reacted. When they heard it on the radio or bought it. Whilst there was some warm praise in the U.S., the press reaction in Britain was colder. The single was written off and seen as insufficient, poorly sung and not fit to be played. It is amazing that critics were so tin-eared in 1956. In years since, Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel is seen as a classic. Something that changed Rock & Roll. In 2025, perhaps it sounds a little dated or slow. However, you cannot deny how significant the record is and how it introduced many to Presley. In 1995, Heartbreak Hotel was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. A staggering song considering the slightly unusual and unorthodox inspiration. Heartbreak Hotel is a song that, I feel, still sounds…

UTTERLY remarkable.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Skye Newman

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

 

Skye Newman

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ABOUT seven months…

since I spotlighted Skye Newman, I am primed to come back to her. One reason is that she was just voted the winner of Radio 1’s Sound of 2026. She also put out her E.P., SE9 Part 1, in October. For anyone curious, SE9 primarily covers the areas of Eltham, Mottingham, and New Eltham, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London. Skye Newman was born in south-east London, so it is a representation of her home and hearth. I am going to go back to some interviews from later last year. However, before then, this article from yesterday (9th January), from the BBC is Skye Newman reacting to being named BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2026. We get to learn about her background, and a year where she collaborated and performed with some big artists. An exceptional young musician who has been championed by Elton John:

“Born in south-east London, Newman exploded onto the scene last year when her debut single, Hairdresser, went straight into the top 20. The follow-up, Family Matters, reached number five in June.

It was the first time a female artist had made the top 20 with their first two singles since Ella Henderson in 2014.

Family 'nightmare'

Play her music and you'll instantly hear why.

Newman's songs crackle with barely-contained emotion, as her ragged (and extraordinarily expressive) voice tears through lyrics of betrayal, loss and disorder.

"It's literally the story of my life," she says.

"It's my way of letting out any trauma and pain that I couldn't speak."

On Family Matters, external, she describes growing up in a council estate home where drug abuse and police attention were a constant presence.

At the time, she didn't know any different. It was only later that Newman realised she "comes from a broken background".

"There's a lot more of it than people realise," she says, reflecting on her experiences of violence, arguments and addiction.

"I think a lot of people have children not really understanding how big [a responsibility] it is.

"They don't have love elsewhere in their life, so they think they can get it from a child - but then you're just passing your pain and trauma on to them, and it doesn't fix anything.

"You might have someone who loves you unconditionally, but you won't be able to provide everything they should get, because you're not happy."

Despite Family Matters' scathing account of her upbringing, Newman says she's still close to her parents and five elder siblings.

"My whole family understands the same feelings, so it's like we're all kind of in it together," she previously told Apple Music, external.

"As much as we're all a nightmare, it works because we all understand."

Newman has been singing since she could talk. She gave her first performance at the age of six, singing Cyndi Lauper's notoriously tricky True Colors at a school show.

"I don't know how, but my little voice managed to do it at the time," she laughs.

Before the song had even finished, she knew she'd devote her life to music.

"It was just magical. It was [my] first time having an audience, and I felt so comfortable."

Amy Winehouse – a singer who never surrendered her vulnerability in the midst of chaos - was her first true love, but it was Newman's aunt who helped her find a path in music.

A jazz and blues singer, she'd invite her niece to concerts and recording sessions, immersing her in the world of professional musicianship.

"She was a singer-songwriter too, and she showed me how you can create magic," she says.

"I'd watch her write and build something out of nothing. It gave me a hunger to be that person, making that magic.

"I'd go home and try it out for myself, and I found I had a way with words... I've always been a chatterbox, so that probably helped!"

Sadly, her aunt died when Newman was 11. At the funeral, Newman sang the 1930s folk song (You're Gonna Miss Me) When I'm Gone, after discovering it through the film Pitch Perfect.

"I watched that film with her best friend just after she died, and [the song] just resonated with me," says Newman. "It reminded me so much of her."

Before long, the singer started uploading original songs and "really horrendous covers" – first on YouTube, then Music.ly, before it became TikTok.

She built a sizeable fanbase but, as issues at home piled up, her posts trailed off.

On reflection, Newman says she needed time to get her head straight. She didn't yet have the emotional stability to deal with the pressures of a music career, let alone fame.

All the same, writing was key to her survival.

"Crazily enough, I'm someone who struggles to talk about what I feel," she says.

"Singing is a whole different story. When I'm in the studio, I feel calm. It's my safe space."

Serenity is not a quality you'd associate with her music, though. Her stories are vivid, prickly, lived-in. An emotional whirlwind.

On her breakout single, Hairdresser, external, she sings with bitter annoyance about a one-sided friendship – depicting a girl who'll borrow her clothes and her cash, but cancels their plans at the last minute when a man comes calling.

Her latest, Lonely Girl, external, is an all-too-recognisable story of a man in his early 20s taking advantage of a younger, emotionally naïve woman.

"You're in your school uniform in his car/Don't wanna see what's in his search bar."

Newman says it's more than a cautionary tale. "Young people need advocates, but also knowledge," she explained in a press release.

"Educate these babies on how good grooming can make them feel at first. Because that's the point - to keep them there so these predators can control. It's abuse."

Even in an era of confessional pop, Newman stands out. She's not afraid to stare down injustice, or to confront her demons before they swallow her whole.

When she plays live, the singer is often moved to tears.

"Definitely, the peace is disturbed sometimes," she says. "There are days where I feel absolutely fine, then I get on stage and it just comes out. Music can really draw out feelings that you didn't know were there."

But it's not all tears and tribulations.

Playing London's famous Koko venue last September, Newman clambered up to the balcony and belted out her hit song FU&UF, surrounded by her best friends., external

"That was a moment I'll never forget. I may not be blessed in the sense of a perfect family, but I'm blessed in the sense of friends, that's for sure."

Admirably, she's kept her friends close. Her sister is part of her management team, her best friend runs her social media, and other friends are training to handle stills photography and nail art.

"I'm just trying to pull people in that I love, because this industry can be so scary," she says. "So any jobs I can get them in, I'm like, 'Guys who wants a job? Who can learn how to do it?'"

She's also getting invaluable advice from her peers, with Sheeran, Capaldi and Sir Elton taking her under their considerable wings.

"It's just insanity, when I think about it," she says of getting to open for two of the UK's biggest acts”.

I will end with a couple of reviews for SE9 Part 1. Putting her childhood postcode on the musical map, it has won acclaim for the depth and importance of its lyrics. The incredible honesty of the lyrics. I think that is what affects people most. Many artists are not vulnerable or real with their music. They can hide behind a persona or their lyrics are oblique or cliché. With Skye Neman, you get someone who is unflinching real, raw and honest. I want to move to an NME interview from November. This exciting rising artist putting out her debut E.P. There are artists that take a while to make an impression and work their way into public consciousness. Skye Newman seems fully formed and someone incredible from the off:

“Songwriting was your way to escape when you were growing up. What did you want to get away from?

“Just carnage, really. I don’t like to go too much into things because it’s not just my life, it’s my five siblings’ lives as well, and there are many emotions involved… I was aware of things that should never have been brought to light. Things that I hope no one ever has to see or go through – definitely not at the age I did. A lot of trauma, I’ll just say that.”

Do you think this vulnerable approach is why your songs have resonated so much?

“It’s a very strange feeling. I get met with such sadness, but so many good feelings too. It breaks my heart that people relate, but also kind of heals me at the same time because, at the end of the day, I’m just a little girl trying to get through life – and she’s still there. Knowing there are people that understand how I feel makes it easier, but it’s also unsettling that so many people have been through the same stuff.”

You now count Elton John, Lewis Capaldi and Ed Sheeran among your fans. How have you found the past year?

“It’s been crazy and surreal. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever get over. Even having conversations and getting advice from these people is mental. I honestly feel like I was born to do this job. I feel really cocky when I say that, but I don’t mean it like ‘I should be here’, more that I feel so at home and peaceful when I’m on stage. That’s always been my way of getting out of the real world, so to be able to do this full-time feels surreal, and that’s down to the people that listen to me. I can’t thank the people around me enough.”

Have you felt pressure following viral success?

“I haven’t felt pressure on myself. People can try to put it on you, but it’s only what you allow to affect you. I try not to allow other opinions to put pressure on me… I just love music and making it is my outlet, so I will keep doing what I love, and if people don’t like that and it doesn’t align anymore, then that’s fine. I don’t do it for the sake of that. I would still do it if it wasn’t my job.”

What’s the story of your first project, and why did you call it ‘SE9 Part 1’?

“I think these songs best represent how I’ve got to where I am. Because a lot of them were written two years ago, they are about my journey leading up to this point. They explain the events that made me me. It’s an insight into the first part of my life.”

What is your main goal as an artist?

“To have a long career in this and know that I always have music there as my outlet and support would be priceless”.

Prior to getting to some takes on the extraordinary and utterly engrossing SE9 Part 1, I am going to include some of Rolling Stone UK’s interview with Skye Newman. If some are not fans of Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi and that side of Pop, I don’t think Newman sounds like that or has that same feel. Whilst it is great she is linked to these artists, I can see her collaborate more with incredible women at the Pop forefront very soon:

“In July, Newman performed alongside Ed Sheeran, before touring with Lewis Capaldi. Acknowledging that these experiences were incredible (“My voice has grown; my confidence has grown”), she says she needs to get back into the studio to see how it impacts her next round of songwriting. For now, we’re speaking following the release of her debut EP, SE9. With polished production by Luis Navidad, it features more candid songs about the place she calls home, with Newman’s voice unfurling like smoke, leaving her sharp lyrics floating in the air. 

Newman had a difficult childhood, though she only fully understood the extent once she got a bit older. “Whatever was going on was normal to me,” she says, “Drugs, violence, all that – that was normal. I think I’m very desensitised to a lot of these things.”

The moment that sparked the desire to process her feelings through writing was the death of her auntie when Newman was 11. A jazz and blues singer, her aunt brought young Newman along to the studio, letting her observe the songwriting process along with her live performances. “I just watched her have such passion and love for something,” Newman recalls. “I think because I was so close with her, and I got to watch music be created, that’s where my love of writing and the studio come from. Anyone that’s been in a studio will understand, but it’s very magical to me personally. There’s no better experience than watching a song be created.”

Music had always been a lifeline, but songwriting became a new tool. “Music’s my therapy: it’s easy to be in a studio, write it all down and kind of get it out that way,” she says. Though she had attended BRIT Kids – the prestigious BRIT School’s weekend programme for younger children – Newman did not have success with her auditions for BRIT School as an adolescent. It was a knock, but she smiles as she reflects on it: “It just made me want it more.”

She began uploading her songs online, first on YouTube and then Music.ly (which later merged with TikTok), gradually building her following. Coming from a working-class background in an arts industry that feels increasingly skewed towards people who come from wealth, Newman recognises the power of social media for levelling out the playing field: “You have a voice, you don’t need much to get your opinion out there, and there’s power in numbers for people who don’t have much. Coming from fuck all, I love what it’s done for me.” 

At the same time, she’s very aware of the impact social media has had on the music industry (and beyond). “Numbers are great, but it doesn’t mean much compared to being live with people,” she says. “I’m always the person that would rather sit in a room full of music and live instruments and feel it, whereas that’s got lost a lot more because of social media. It’s ruined the thing of real, raw music because everyone just wants that 20-second, 30-second buzz for TikTok. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong bitch – I’m someone else!” 

Skye Newman is a refreshing, striking new voice on the British music scene, unafraid to put out fully formed songs full of vulnerability and bite. For those who haven’t been paying attention, such a massive breakthrough year has led to accusations of Newman being an industry plant. She laughs at the idea, once more displaying that bright and engaging honesty that has so enraptured her listeners: “I’ll take it! People think someone who’s done this before is writing my songs? Happy days! Means I’m doing it right”.

New Wave Magazine looked inside the wonderful SE9 Part 1. Skye Newman very much writing real, personal and honest music. It is not so insular or personal that it cannot be understood by listeners. She is writing about themes that many can relate to. Whilst her music is fun and there is this energy to it, there is this potency and punch that stays in the mind. Tackling issues and subjects with bravery:

“Life always feels tumultuous and turbulent when you’re young. You think everything that has happened to you, has only happened to you, and because you’re so close to it, you’re right in the middle of the storm, it’s hard sometimes to gain clarity or distance over the events that happen in your life.

And that’s what Skye Newman wrestles with in her EP, SE9 Part 1, named after the postcode of her childhood home in South East London.

The opening track, ‘FU & UF’ was first teased and then performed at her sold-out shows at KOKO London earlier this year, which was also the first time she performed there. Videos on social media platform TikTok in the balcony amongst her fans as if she wasn’t the headliner, and had simply gone to enjoy her favourite artist with her friends.

The sound of a metronome throughout the stripped-out production keeps us locked in before the visceral and expressive voice of Skye sets us off on this six-track journey.

Like much of the project, she is heated, as she shares a tale of being a victim of unreplicated effort from her partner, and explores gender politics.

Speaking about the track, she said: “I put FU & UF first because it’s good to remind whoever’s listening to be strong and to stand your ground,” says Skye. “My main message is don’t change who you are for anyone. Be true to yourself. It took me a while to realise this, but I am now living for me. And that’s the most important kind of living!”

The accompanying visual, directed by Rohan Dill, documents Skye and her friends, all females, reclaiming traditionally male-dominated and masculine spaces such as football pitches and boxing rings to showcase the importance of representation and the power of feminine energy.

Skye believes that kindness kills. The second track of the EP, Hairdresser, soulfully explores the transactional nature of relationships through a dual lens. The frustrated girlfriend vents about her man to the hairdresser, who in turn questions the validity of the friendship.

Skye sings, “Baby girl, are you listening? (Yeah) / There you go, got me questioning / If I was low, would you call me then? /If you got a man, would we still be friends?”

Combining electronic elements such as synths with upbeat drums, ‘My Addiction’ has a more alternative psychedelic influence as she likens love and desire to addiction that she cannot seem to or wants to shake.

The South Londoner longs to return to better memories on ‘Out Out’ – gentle piano chords help to provide the only quiet moment in the project. It shows Skye demonstrating introspection without losing the edge in her voice. She laments for more care, consideration and appreciation in the face of an unhappy relationship.

On ‘Family Matters’, the opening line is “You’ve never worn these shoes/Don’t mean my new balance in blue/Raised on pure dysfunction, But sleep I’ll never lose”,  is delivered with a raw honesty as she shares her perspective on her family, and embraces how adversity has shaped her.

Closing out with Smoke Rings, Skye shows she has one of the most compelling voices as she goes back to basics with a minimalistic piano instrumentation, favouring an intimate soundscape, in which her smooth voice adopts a more languid style than what we have heard so far. She does keep the power.

It’s a fitting end, cinematic even. Yearning and longing, the fire that we encountered at the start has been turned down to a simmer. It’s warm enough to be comforting, but there is an undeniable sadness in Skye’s voice as she sings about regret and heartbreak. Sometimes you only know you're past the storm until the smoke clears.

This summer just gone, Skye Newman has performed at the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Liverpool, sang alongside Ed Sheeran with ain Ipswich and supported Lewis Capaldi’s UK tour. She has also had her own headline shows at Manchester’s O2 Ritz and London’s KOKO sold out”.

I will end with Broken 8 Music and their review of the unbelievable SE9 Part 1. This is an E.P. that came from one of our very best artists. I know I use those words to describe many artists. However, Skye Newman is very much the real deal. Someone who is going to have a hugely long and successful career:

“Skye Newman has had a truly nuts year. Two massive, Gold-certified singles that crashed the UK Top 20 – a first for a UK female solo artist in over a decade – should tell you all you need to know. Her performances have gone from the BBC Introducing stage to lighting up arena tours with Lewis Capaldi and Ed Sheeran. Now, with the release of her debut project, the six-track EP, 'SE9 Part 1', Newman is proving that her ascent is no fluke; she’s a generational talent rooted in the poetry and grit of South East London, after which the EP is named.

This project is a perfect snapshot of her journey so far, effortlessly blending the already iconic hits with three brand-new tracks. The established singles, 'Hairdresser', 'Family Matters', and 'Out Out', are already cornerstones of her sound: smoky, soul-infused vocals laid over surprisingly simple, yet potent, production. She manages to balance intimacy and raw honesty in a way few artists can, pulling from her influences like Amy Winehouse and Eminem to create something truly her own.

The breakthrough success of 'Family Matters' wasn’t down to chance. It’s a gut-punch of a track where she lays her life bare, singing lines like, "Raised on pure dysfunction / but sleep I’ll never lose." It’s an unflinching look at complex family life, summarised perfectly by her observation: "I can tell you about me, but you won’t understand."

The new tracks are just as compelling. The opener, 'FU & UF', is already plastered across social media thanks to pre-release snippets. It starts with a minimalist, piano-led beat that eventually swells into a pop masterpiece. It’s a classic Newman move: letting her incomparable voice carry the weight of her lyrics about a toxic lover. Then there's 'Smoke Rings', a stunning piano ballad about remembering lost passion. When she sings, "All of the smoke rings take me back there / When I did it with you," her voice and the piano move together like true partners, proving that synths and fancy instrumentation aren’t needed when you possess a voice this pure and expressive.

Newman’s strength lies in her fearless refusal to hold back, whether she's calling out a disappointing friend in 'Hairdresser' or navigating personal battles. This debut EP is a powerful statement. 'SE9 Part' 1 is more than just a collection of songs; it’s a mission statement from an artist who speaks from the heart and is already redefining what it means to be a UK chart-topper. This isn't just where she’s from; it’s a launchpad for where she’s headed”.

Next month, Skye Newman briefly visits the U.S. and has a couple of dates there. She has a run of U.K. dates in the spring. It is a shame that the London dates are sold out, as I would love to see her perform. It shows that there is huge demand and this love of her music. She plays Reading & Leeds in August. It is going to be another busy year. With the BBC Radio 1 Sound of 2026 honour under her belt and a stunning E.P. done, what comes next? I guess there will be debut album at some point, though I feel this year is going to be Newman taking to the road as much as possible and putting out some new singles. This extraordinary London songwriter was in my sights last year but, since I covered her, so much has happened. It was essential to come back…

TO this truly wonderful artist.

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Follow Skye Newman

FEATURE: Born This Way: Lady Gaga at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Born This Way

PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Swales for Rolling Stone

 

Lady Gaga at Forty

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I am writing this feature…

IN THIS PHOTO: Lady Gaga at the GRAMMY Awards on 2nd February, 2025/PHOTO CREDIT: Rankin for The Recording Academy

in January, but I am excited to look ahead to 28th March and the fortieth birthday of Lady Gaga. I am going to end this feature with a career-spanning playlist featuring some of Lady Gaga’s best songs and some deep cuts. I want to start out with a GRAMMY article from March 2023. Published “In celebration of Women's History Month, get a glimpse of Lady Gaga's influential career as a luminary of dance-pop and her outspoken advocacy for women's rights”:

“Born Stefani Germanotta, Lady Gaga is one of the best-selling female artists in history. Rightfully so, Gaga's years of training — from taking piano lessons at 4 years old to briefly studying at New York University's prestigious Collaborative Arts Project 21 musical theater program — prepared her to become one of the most technical pop singers of all time. With the addition of her innovative creativity to her musical skill set, Gaga forged the perfect formula to become one of the biggest stars of her generation.

Lady Gaga created music under the pen name — a reference to Queen's hit "Radio Ga Ga" — years before she finally caught the eyes of Interscope executive Vincent Herbert, who she now credits for discovering her. Eventually, Lady Gaga was introduced to award-winning songwriter and producer RedOne to make her breakthrough album, 2008's The Fame, under Interscope imprint label Cherrytree Records.

Speaking to The Independent in 2009, she recalled her struggles to get radio airplay after releasing The Fame. "They would say, 'This is too racy, too dance-oriented, too underground. It's not marketable,'" she said. "And I would say, 'My name is Lady Gaga. I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next.'"

And right she was: the year following The Fame's premiere, Lady Gaga received her first GRAMMY nomination for "Just Dance" at the 2009 GRAMMY Awards. Over a decade later, she's won 13 GRAMMYs and counts 36 GRAMMY nominations in total.

By 2016, Lady Gaga had four No. 1 albums under her belt, from Born This Way to Joanne. In 2018, she signed on to be the lead actress in Bradley Cooper's remake of A Star Is Born, also doubling as the songwriter and producer for the soundtrack. The release was an immediate success, debuting at the top of the Billboard 200 Albums chart and making Lady Gaga the first woman with five No. 1 albums in the 2010s. In 2019, Lady Gaga became the first person in history to win a GRAMMY, Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe in a single year.

As a part of GRAMMY.com's ongoing commemoration of Women's History Month, we're looking back at Lady Gaga's influential career as one of the music industry's pop legends in this episode of Run The World. Extending Lady Gaga's impressively successful career as an entertainer is her philanthropy and advocacy work as a proud, outspoken feminist.

During her 2018 ELLE Women in Hollywood event, Lady Gaga gave an inspiring speech to bring awareness to sexual assault. "For me, this is what it means to be a woman in Hollywood. It means I have a platform. I have a chance to make a change. I pray we listen, believe, and pay closer attention to those around us in need. Be a helping hand. Be a force for change," Lady Gaga concluded after courageously sharing her story as a survivor.

"I would like to dedicate this song to every woman in America. To every woman who now has to worry about her body if she gets pregnant. I pray that this country will speak up and we will not stop until its right!" - Lady Gaga talking about abortion rights at The #ChromaticaBallDC pic.twitter.com/YjwlC0rg7C

— Ryan | Lady Gaga 🏳️‍🌈 (@ryanleejohnson) August 9, 2022

She has also used her platform on stage to advocate for women. During her Chromatica Ball tour in 2022, she dedicated "The Edge of Glory" to women after the government overturned Roe v. Wade two months prior: "To every woman who now has to worry about her body if she gets pregnant, I pray this country will speak up, and we will not stop until it's right!"

Lady Gaga isn't just a musician or actress. She is a pioneer in change, a spokesperson for those whose voices might not get heard. She wants to see women, especially in entertainment, win while being able to claim their authentic femininity, as she told Glamour in 2017.

"I hope to see women thriving and happy, loving what they're doing, and being in control and powerful of what they create," she explained. "As much as we all love the fashion and the makeup and glamour, this isn't a beauty pageant. It's about the heart and the drive and the work”.

I am going to round off with extracts from a Rolling Stone interview. She released her latest, and acclaimed, album in March. MAYHEM is one of the best albums from last year. Rolling Stone published their interview in November. Lady Gaga spoke about “returning from the brink, finding love, and making one of her greatest albums”:

“As she recorded Mayhem, Gaga had dreams “of these different sides of myself.” There’s a line in the industrial confessional “Perfect Celebrity” about a “clone … asleep on the ceiling,” and the disquieting single “Disease” was narrated by Gaga’s dark side before she had a name for it: “You’re so tortured when you sleep/Plagued with all your memories.”

What Gaga doesn’t quite remember — and neither did I, until I went back to my transcripts — is that she was having similar visions as early as 2011. “I had this dream that I had something evil inside of me,” she told me that year, as we rode through Manhattan in a chauffeured car. “And there was this white wall, and in order to get the negativity and the evil out of me, I had to hit the wall, and an essence would fly out of my soul center. I was trying to get rid of it — an exorcism of some sort.”

The exorcism clearly didn’t stick back then. When it came time to make the video for “Disease,” Mayhem’s first single, the Mayhem character was born. “We started exploring with the choreography this idea of me battling myself,” she says. “That song is so deliberately about somebody that wants to harm you — and it being you.” Gaga has played with horror-movie imagery before, but the “Disease” video is a coded tour of her darkest thoughts, a remarkably uncompromising way to begin an all-important album cycle. She starts the video singing as her own corpse, mowed down by a car with Mayhem at the wheel, and it gets more nightmarish from there.

Oddly enough, the video, and all of the thematic cues the tour took from it, might not have existed without Gaga’s latest movie, last October’s instantly notorious megaflop Joker: Folie á Deux. “There was a ton of negativity around Joker,” she says. “And I think I was feeling artistically rebellious at the time.”

Gaga’s deeply felt turn, alongside Joaquin Phoenix, as a tragically delusional Harley Quinn won some of the film’s only praise. Reviews were otherwise vicious. Fans of 2019’s dour Joker were outright repelled by the new film’s daring-if-not-reckless tonal leap: The original was a faux-Scorsese urban-decay drama, and this was a … surreal semi-musical about mental illness. With a cartoon segment.

After all of Gaga’s experiences, did the wave of hatred for a movie really bother her? “I wasn’t, like, unfazed,” she says, smiling at the question. “It’s funny, I’m almost nervous to share my reaction. But the truth is, when it first started happening, I started laughing. Because it was just getting so unhinged.” Her amusement eventually faded. “When it takes a while for something to kind of dissipate, that can be a little bit more painful. Only because I put a lot of myself into it.”

The “Disease” video, then, was an answer to all of that hostility. “I put so much of that energy into that video,” she says. “I was in that place, you know, I was like, ‘I’ll show you who I am, and I’ll show you what this fight is like.’”

The resulting work of art cut a little too deep. “When we were done filming it, I went kind of into a dark place mentally,” Gaga says. “Maybe I scared myself a little bit.… For weeks I was really bothered. It was in my head a lot. I was actually trying to figure out what I was trying to say. There’s a side of me that’s scared of another side. And I think that there was a sense in me that I was not done healing.”

The Mayhem sessions were long, and often emotionally intense. “There were many times where she would sing a vocal for a song and it would bring me to tears, and then she would also be in tears,” says Watt, who credits Polansky with a crucial stabilizing role in the process. “Michael’s just so amazing because he’s so levelheaded. We could all be so eccentric and excited and jumping up and down and diving into the art. And then he would be like the great leveler. He’d be like, ‘Nah, I don’t like that song as much as I liked that other song.’ He had that all-knowing Buddha-type energy.”

From there, Gaga and her fiancé ended up working together on every aspect of the tour planning. “Imagine two best friends just moving through life, but we’re always being creative,” Gaga says.

The partnership goes both ways. There’s a skin-health research firm near Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Outer Biosciences, with 20 employees, that was secretly co-founded by one of the most famous women in the world. “It was her idea,” says Polansky. She’s officially on the board of directors, but they’ve kept her name out of it, until now. “The attention that Stefani’s involvement would bring — it wasn’t necessary. It’s not consumer-facing. It’s a research company.… My work is not public in the same way. When she talks about us being partners, it kind of looks like it all goes one direction, but she’s the most incredible support to me as well.”

They’re planning on getting married soon, either during the tour or just after. “We’re talking about it all the time,” Polansky tells me. “We have these breaks, and they’re tempting. It’s like, ‘OK, can we get married that weekend?’ We don’t want a really big wedding, but we want to enjoy it. In a lot of ways, we already feel married, so it’s not like it’s gonna change much.”

They’re clear that parenthood is next, and Polansky is inspired by Elton John and David Furnish, whose kids are Gaga’s godsons. “Their kids have turned out to be very happy. The most important thing is making it feel like this is just our family, this is what we do. Her being Lady Gaga and the art and all of it is not something that she has to compartmentalize away from her relationship with me or when she’s a mother.”

“Being a mom is the thing I want the most,” Gaga says. “And he’s gonna be a beautiful father. We’re really excited about that.”

I suddenly remember something she said to me over dinner when she was 23 years old, with a single album to her name. She’d be fully Lady Gaga forever, she vowed, “even when I have a baby one day.”

She looks me in the eyes. “I lied,” she says, and laughs so hard that the heels of her platform boots nearly leave the floor. She says it again, looking as unburdened as I’ve ever seen her. “I lied! I’ve grown up since I said that”.

This fabulous New York City-born icon turns forty on 28th March. I am not sure whether Lady Gaga has anything planned, whether there will be a load of new features and anything published around it. However, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to highlight her incredible and singular work. One of the most influential artists of her generation, she has had such a varied career. Hugely successful and acclaimed, we are going to be hearing incredible music from her for…

DEACDES more.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Jim Legxacy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Jono White for The New York Times

 

Jim Legxacy

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I have not included…

the amazing Jim Legxacy on my site before. It is omission, as he was declared the runner-up in Radio 1’s Sound of 2026 poll. Skye Newman – who I have covered before – was the winner. I am going to come to some interviews with Jim Legxacy. However, before that, the BBC spoke with one of our very best young artists. His mixtape, black british music, was released last year and was met with huge acclaim:

“Legxacy (the x is silent) was born James Olaloye in Lewisham. The child of Nigerian immigrants, he paints a bleak picture of the south London borough. He once rapped about growing up "afraid of the block", where he was surrounded by "deportations, prison sentencing [and] stabbings".

Money and opportunities were scarce but there was a "a good sense of brotherhood" in his friend group, and he has fond memories of riding bikes and playing basketball.

His mum "tried hard to shelter me" and filled the house with feel-good music – gospel songs, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson.

But as a child, "I was never interested in it," he has said. "Maybe because of how intense it made me feel."

It wasn't until he was 17 that he let his guard down.

Friends at school introduced him to rap, specifically Kanye West's head-spinning The Life of Pablo, and his world opened up.

"That's the first rap album I sat through top to bottom," he told Brick The Mag, external.

"For that to be my first one is insane because a lot [of albums] have structure and organisation… But the first one that I found was the most chaotic Kanye album ever.

"It had no cohesion, and no real sense of identity outside of the fact that it's chaotic, and I think that has shaped so much of what I do."

Sensitive side

Inspired, he started making his own beats, stitching together samples and genres to create a sonic collage reflecting his tumultuous London existence.

It's an approach that was inspired by his university course in graphic design.

"My teacher would always make me make something and then she'll be like, 'All right, cool, now that you've made this, cut this up then try and make it into something completely new'," Legxacy told the New York Times, external.

Even so, the initial results weren't great.

"I started off really bad," he admitted, "but I'd send a voice note of me rapping to my boys every week and they'd critique my technique, delivery, beat selection, etc.

"After a few months I was rapping like it was second nature."

He uploaded his first song, Plethora, to TiKTok in 2019 and was "gassed" when it received 1,000 plays in a day.

But as his music took off, he found it difficult to keep up. For a period, Legxacy was homeless – the byproduct of a legal situation his father found himself in – sleeping on friends' floors and (in one case) in their office.

He addressed the situation on his debut mixtape in 2022. "No silver spoons in my hood, just empty pockets," he mused.

Yet the majority of the songs were concerned with a broken relationship, hopelessly dissecting what went wrong.

Led by the subject matter, he started singing more, his dewy-eyed timbre adding emotional depth to the fragmented, impressionistic soundscapes.

"What music in London has been missing for a long time is vulnerability, because I think a lot of us are trying so hard to come across a certain way," he told Kids Take Over.

"Everyone falls into that cycle, especially when you grow up where you grow up. But I just always try to emphasise in the music that there is a sensitive side. I'm trying to integrate as much honesty into things."

Fans hope the musician will release his first full-length album in 2026

As his reputation grew, Legxacy was invited to collaborate with Dave and Central Cee, producing their chart-dominating hit Sprinter in summer 2023. But family tragedy delayed his own music.

"Sorry the mixtape is takin soo long," he wrote on X in November 2024. "My momma had a stroke so I've spent the past couple weeks lookin after her."

When he returned, it was with the standalone single Aggressive, external. Despite its title, the track's central message was about combating negativity.

"I feel like everyone's kind of going through difficult times right now... so I wanted to make something that doesn't ignore that," he told Radio 1.

"But I think trying to be optimistic with the things that we're making is important”.

Last July, The New York Times interviewed Jim Legxacy about his new album, black British music. Although he released CITADEL in 2021 and homeless n*gga music in 2023, black British music is his crowning achievement and finest work to date. Saluting an artist who makes music that sounds like memory, The New York Times spoke with a hungry and enormously talented artist whose new mixtape is a “homage to the last two decades of Black British music”:

“Being able to bring one of England’s biggest stars to a quiet street in southeast London would suggest that Legxacy — born James Olaloye — already has capacities far beyond the circumstances of his raising.

“I truly believe in myself and I truly believe that I am doing and I will do super-incredible things — I don’t even think we were purely at the precipice of whatever I’m going to end up doing,” Legxacy said. “But that being said, that’s only going to happen if I work hard. And I just think thinking things like that might inspire complacency.”

There is no evidence of that on “Black British Music (2025),” an elegant and affecting album that’s clearly the product of an active mind and a wistful spirit, blending raw emotional vigor and easeful song construction.

“How do I make a futuristic version for the present based on what has existed in the past?” Legxacy wondered. That productive tension manifests as a unifying patina on songs that hopscotch among myriad genres, from hip-hop to folk, engaging with several recent currents in Black British music while perfecting a sound not particularly beholden to any of them. Legxacy’s true palette is history and memory, and the way that personal experience can metastasize in unexpected creative ways.

Much of the album was forged in the fire of familial crisis: He said his mother had suffered a stroke, his older brother was being treated for psychosis, and his sister died from sickle cell anemia. Though he was derailed emotionally, he took solace in knowing he had a way to process.

“I was like, it’s calm, because I get to work on this,’” Legxacy said. “There’ll be a day I’ll get to show people that they can overcome anything.”

But “Black British Music (2025)” is the product of Legxacy finding community, one in which he is quickly becoming a lighthouse. He maintains an active Discord channel full of fans and, increasingly, musical collaborators.

“I’ll start something and I’ll screen share it and be like ‘What do you think, guys?’ Send it to like four different people and they’ll send something completely different back, all of them,” he said. From those, he’ll pick a direction, then piece together a new work from the disparate options. “They would push it in a way that I wouldn’t see and I would take what I like and cut and then do the same.”

Legxacy said he’s been comfortable with online friendship going back to his teenage days playing Xbox Live. “They’re all so respectful,” he said. “I’ll be like, yeah, guys, I’ll show you a song, please no one screen record. I won’t see no leaks. I won’t see nothing on YouTube.”

By evening, he was in an Uber heading to the Catford district, where he sneaked into Tasty African Food a few minutes before closing. En route, he learned that diligent fans had discovered that Dave would be featured on the album, which had previously been a secret. Legxacy was sanguine and sympathetic to their eagerness, because he’s eager, too.

“I’ll do anything to preserve my imagination,” he said. “Even though I say a lot I’m still holding back. There’s still so much more I want to say.” Most nights, he said, he stays up until sunrise, or later, his brain racing”.

I will finish with a couple of reviews and assessments of Jim Legxacy and what he created with black British music. The Culture Crypt crowned the mixtape their album of the year 2025. They went deep with the sound and artwork of this generation’s production wiz and how he “blends brainrot, Blackness and Britishness to create a landmark sound”. This is an artist who is going to have a massive year:

“Jim's sonic palette includes brief and broken synth lead melodies, which never seem to find resolution. His mixtape (widely mistaken for the scope of an album) embodies this ontological insecurity of an identity in stasis—never quite Black, never quite British—but instead grappling constantly between the two.

In Jeffrey Boakye's book Black, Listed, this contradiction is emphasised within a rigorous history of Black dejection in Britain. Tastefully, the project's artwork for Black British Music (2025) alludes to this very book with its red spray-painted typography atop black-and-white photography.

Interpolating J Hus on Afroswing-forward track "Sun" featuring Fimiguerrero injects euphoric bursts of nostalgia. This moment on the project runs counter to the idea that we should reject the Black British mantle and inspires joyful memories of our youth's cultural contributions to the country's heritage, joy and identity. As the host exclaims on the intro of the standout earworm, "Father": "We've been making arses shake since the Windrush".

While it felt like the UK had encountered a cultural void following the heyday of Afroswing, drill and UK hip-hop, recent successes of acts like Jim as well as YT, Len, Fakemink and more have proved that they are the descendents from the veterans who established the sounds of our childhoods.

The sceptical comments on Twitter that were aimed at the UK underground during their appearances at Wireless this year prove that there is still a long way to go before the British public accepts this succession. However, co-signs from Dave, Skepta and Headie One hint that this is the new vanguard.

Jim's approach to addressing this discussion is intriguing. It builds upon the style of his 2023 release, Homeless Nigga Pop Music, which read like a palimpsest commemorating a South London upbringing filled with both imaginative awe and anxiety. While Black British Music expands its focus to a much broader terrain, it offers a less direct portrayal of its subject. It allows its production to reflect his world, while he wanders on lyrical escapades about hedonism, grief and self-betterment.

Given the amount of attention he devotes to representing Black British culture through this LP's production, rollout and art, this may be confusing. However, the opener "Context" elucidates this choice. Jim explains that this album is about escapism, losing sight of oneself and rebuilding after the tribulations he encountered while making it. The Black British soundscape is a vector for Jim's personal expression: the fractures and attempts of self-determination from Black Britain mirroring his own personal conflicts.

This joyful communication also heavily mirrors brainrot humour—a style of internet comedy characterised by reducing joy or misery into a blur of whimsical reproductions and distorted representations of contemporary culture. This sense of humour is embedded in BBM's production through the use of cultural references to the effect of satire, irony and a distinct tongue-in-cheek quality. Black British Music in particular abstracts and disrupts our perception of Black Britain, addressing it insightfully, in jest but with creativity.

This distinct style of chaotic collages, random noises and distorted presentations can be traced back to the 1930s Dadaism movement. A reaction to the horrifying aftermath of the First World War, the Dadaism movement found artists creating works that had no explicit meaning or purpose—a nihilistic response to the failure of human ideology to make the world a better place. 

The prevalence of a Black British Music summer in 2025 then—the season in which this tape stimulated the imagination of Britain's creative youth and invigorated the sounds of their leisure—was a bittersweet period of reckoning. Through dance and play, this project made its listeners rethink their position in the world, confront their beliefs and repackage them.

It's reminiscent in some ways of Charli xcx's brat, whose discombobulating, raucous and playful production connoted limitless self-indulgence. The party goes on and on and on… with very little prescience for hangovers and come-downs. Dadaism, while much more sober, similarly rejects the solemn tone of philosophy and intellectualism because humanity has gotten to where it is—a permanent state of warfare, inequality and dejection—in spite of aeons of supposed enlightened thinking.

Jim comes across equally as disassociated with the tribulations of the human experience, but he exercises more restraint in his nihilism. And rightly so. The weight of the previously acknowledged racial themes demands cultural sensitivity: Black music that bears the mantle of its people as boldly as this one does requires a tactful awareness.

Additionally, the singer-songwriter's internal battles with grief, trauma and poverty push him to search for meaning as a way to escape those ills. And so, Black British Music represents a prudent engagement with style: it carefully uses Dadaist caricature and collage to deconstruct masculinity, race and identity while acknowledging the fact that these elements exist within the tectonic turbulence of postmodernity.

This is why Jim can retell (alleged) stories of sitting in the trap on "New David Bowie"—evoking the hypermasculine imagery attached to this setting—while making himself sound tender, vulnerable and hysterical on tracks like "Issues of Trust".

I am ending with CLASH and their take on black british music. I think that runner-up spot on Radio 1’s Sound of 2026 is the start of a new chapter. It will put Jim Legxacy’s music more into the mainstream. Even if he has been around for a few years now, he is starting to release his best music and make his biggest moves right now. I feel he will grow even stronger:

“A lot of shit happened… it weren’t just her death… my mum… had two strokes. My brother had psychosis.” Jim Legxacy candidly speaks on top of pulsing euphoria, crunchy-warm guitars and MIDI synths at the opening of ‘black british music (bbm)’.

“’Candy Reign’ got taken down,” he continues, referring to his 2022 single that was subject to a copyright strike. The former confessional is a testament to the pure soul that he will pour into the 15-track album. But the latter, a sign of just how all-in he is and has been for years.

There’s more candid emotion to come. It’s given time on songs like issues of trust, which finds Jim’s voice wilting on a trellis of acoustic guitar as he contemplates being truly vulnerable. There’s the modestly flowering ‘dexters phone call’, featuring Dexterinthenewsagent, where chugging guitar and a solemn hook – “Life’s not been easy” – are lifted by chittering vocal samples and school-music-room chords turn to distorted licks.

But Jim happily fits true emotion into the more buoyant tracks, too, like the angsty single ‘3x’. He offers another reference to his late sister – a vein of melancholy running through ‘bbm’ – as heavy-hitting feature Dave reassures Jim he’s done her proud. But this candid performance plays out over infectious dancehall-adjacent beats. Grief and good times swirl together, as they often do, like the first wistful swig of drink at a get-together at the start of a long phase of sadness.

The artist offers an explanation of his ability to bring these disparate moods together on skippy phone-speaker banger ‘father’: “I was on the block listening to Mitski.”

The image of her, and a demonstrably large range of music blasting through the headphones of a young Jim in Lewisham; ‘father’s accompanying video featuring UK-centric Frutiger Aero imagery; the proliferation of Blackberry phones and crunchy 280p resolution in his visuals; indeed, the album title’s reference to the phone’s messaging platform. All of these present Jim as someone who grew up and nurtured a love for music in the late 2000s.

The dying days of playlists cobbled together from BeeMP3 rips and Bluetooth. When you’d chase your YouTube-ripped dj_boonie_whenitwasme.mp3 with the squelchy bass of T2’s ‘Heartbroken’. Where saccharine emo sat in the same file as abrasive grime instrumentals. Where Limewire offered avid music fans access to any music they wanted.

‘’06 wayne rooney’ reaches back to its titular year for a serving of emo-indie with a yearning momentum – one can almost see the FIFA 06 team select screen. Quick-step collage ‘new david bowie’, with its LG Chocolate pitched-up vocals, dives suddenly into dubby ad libs as Jim delivers trappy bars between breaths, switching his focus away from the distractions of technology for a moment: “Put my phone on DND.”

In a week where the UK vs US discourse reached a fever pitch – a debate simultaneously invigorating and fatiguing – Jim Legxacy is busy on the bus flicking through his Blackberry, assembling a sonic patchwork of disparate influences over a nucleus of Black London musicality, and imbuing each thread with an undeniable protagonist energy.

9/10”.

I was waiting a bit to feature Jim Legxacy and see what interviews were published last year. It has been a bit of a long wait, though I think it is a perfect time to spotlight this incredible artist. Someone who we will be talking about for years. One of our most important voices. Such a superb songwriter and visionary, we have not seen an artist like him for a very long time. No wonder there is so much excitement around him. I think that Jim Legxacy is an artist that we…

NEED right now.

____________

Follow Jim Legxacy

FEATURE: Groovelines: The Beach Boys – Sloop John B

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

  

The Beach Boys – Sloop John B

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WE will celebrate…

sixty years of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds on 16th May. It is one of the most important albums of that decade. The quality of the music and the context of Pet Sounds. A hugely influential album, it found the band pushing the studio and bringing all this innovation into their music. A step on from what they had done before. Even if bands like The Beatles were similarly inventive in the studio, you feel the two bands were pushing one another in this friendly competition. However, The Beach Boys’ compositions, production style and techniques inspired waves of artists and can be heard in modern music. I will discuss the album more fully prior to its sixtieth anniversary. However, I want to focus on the album’s second single. Released on 21st March, 1966, it is one of The Beach Boys’ most enduring songs. A standout from this masterpiece album. Recorded between 12th July and 29th December, 1965, it was produced by Brian Wilson. Sloop John B is a Bahamian Folk song from Nassau. It is fascinating how The Beach Boys took the song and adapted it. Different to previous versions and incarnation, the single reached number two in the U.S. Like God Only Knows and Wouldn’t It Be Nice, another case of Brian Wilson’s production and arranging brilliance. Perhaps less orchestral and stirring than some of Pet Sounds’ most-adored tracks, I think that Sloop John B is fascinating. I wanted to write about this track as it was a big commercial success but there is some division. This feature from last year recalled the fiftieth anniversary rendition of Sloop John B by Al Jardine (The Beach Boys members brought the song to Brian Wilson) and the late Brian Wilson. There was some debate as to whether Sloop John B fits on Pet Sounds or stands out for the wrong reasons:

“The video, directed by the band’s publicist Derek Taylor, was filmed at Brian Wilson’s LA home. Brian’s brother and bandmate, Dennis Wilson, was the cameraman. Some critics argue that “Sloop John B” should not have been included on Pet Sounds. They suggest that as a pioneering folk-rock arrangement, the track sits uneasily among the Baroque pop arrangements of what Jim Fusilli describes as reflective love songs, stark confessions, or tentative statements of independence. Others insist the track fits perfectly with the “general feeling of disorientation” that threads through Pet Sounds”.

There is not a lot written about Sloop John B. Unlike God Only Knows or Good Vibration, I guess this single is seen as a minor cut. However, the Financial Times did tell the story and background of Sloop John B in a feature from 2023. I think that it is one of the group’s best songs. Displaying the vocal supremacy and innovation of The Beach Boys:

“In 1935 the folk song collector Alan Lomax flew from Florida to Nassau in the Bahamas. There, assisted by folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, he set about recording music from the islands, hoping to capture the authentic spirit of Africa that he believed could be found in the songs, “chanteys” and dances of the islanders, particularly the sponge fishers of Cat Island. In John Szwed’s biography of Lomax, The Man Who Recorded the World, he is quoted in a US newspaper at the time as saying: “Negro songs there are probably as nearly like those in Africa as any you can find in the western hemisphere.”

After a few weeks, according to Szwed, Lomax and Barnicle were told to leave as they were suspected of being labour agitators. But they took with them dozens of songs recorded on their portable disc-cutting device. Among them was “I Bid You Goodnight”, later covered by The Grateful Dead, and “Histe Up the John B Sail”. The latter is sung by the Cleveland Simmons Group in an a cappella arrangement with overlapping harmonies, and it is instantly recognisable as the song that became a folk standard, sung by millions of American schoolchildren, and released by The Beach Boys in 1966 as “Sloop John B”.

It tells of a dissolute, ungovernable vessel where bad behaviour and drunkenness are so widespread that our narrator just wants to go home. But where did it originate? This is another of those folk mysteries.

The first mention in official records is of a song called “Hoist the John B Sails”; the sheet music for this, a “two step for piano”, was published in the US in 1903 by EW Prouty, a Massachusetts-based orchestra leader and violinist. Prouty’s band provided music for hotels owned by US oil and railway magnate Henry Flagler, including two in Nassau, which gives us a link to the Bahamas. It’s probable that Prouty arranged an existing melody.

In a 1916 edition of Harper’s Monthly Magazine, the English author and poet Richard Le Gallienne transcribed the song; he also incorporated it in his 1917 novel, Pieces of Eight, in which he writes, “We sang one of the quaint Nassau ditties.” And in his hugely popular 1927 collection of folk songs, The American Songbag, the poet Carl Sandburg included three verses and the chorus”.

The Henry Flagler connection has given rise to suspicions in folk-music circles that the “John B” song is not “authentic”, that it was created for the tourism industry. But it tells a true story. It seems there was a vessel in the 19th century named after one Captain John Bethel, who built it and sailed it until it was wrecked (some versions of the song are named “The Wreck of the John B”), though it’s not known if his boat was the scene of the revelry described”.

There are a couple of other articles to bring in before wrapping up. This interesting blog post argues how Sloop John B might be the ultimate summer song from a group almost defined at one point by their beach and summer-themed songs. You do listen to Sloop John B and are transported. At this time of year, when we all look forward to warmer weather, there is escapism listening to a Pet Sounds classic:

“The song “Sloop John B” is the ultimate Summer classic by The Beach Boys.  It was guitarist/vocalist Al Jardine’s idea resulting from the love of The Kingston Trio.  Back in the days when I thought myself hipper than I was, I considered the Trio to be comparable to the Pat Boone of folk music. I couldn’t have been less hip to what they were about.  Here’s a quick bit of history.  The first popular Folk Music period of the 1940s was rooted in the old folk tradition that included songs originally from the ‘people.’  This being the case the most authentic folk songs were the ones passed along by the oral tradition without an author. It was all about the story.

When the Folk Music Movement came to an abrupt end due to McCarthyism, the most popular group of the era, The Weavers, was banned from the concert circuit.  So, Pete Seeger, in his wisdom and desire to be heard, found he could play at public schools of all kinds including elementary, high school and colleges.   From 1953 until 1958, the folk songs championed by The Weavers were not heard except in live performances in schools around America.  Enter the Folk Music Revival of the 1950s and 60s. The Kingston Trio with Carolyn Hester, Harry Belafonte, and the second Jimmie Rodgers attracted millions of listeners as they sang songs banned from the airwaves in 1953.  The fans of the Kingston Trio included Beach Boy, Al Jardine, Steve Goodman, Marty Balin, Paul Katner of Jefferson Airplane, Timothy B Schmit of The Eagles, Jimmy Buffet, Lindsey Buckingham, Richie Furay and Stephen Stills of The Buffalo Springfield.

When Al Jardine brought “Sloop John B” to Beach Boys leader, Brian Wilson, it had been recorded by The Weavers and The Kingston Trio.  While Wilson was not a fan of folk music, Jardine helped Wilson bring the song to life with The Beach Boys’ unique arrangement including lyrical changes. Brian and Al turned the song into a Top Five hit song in the U.S. and the U.K.  It is now a classic rock song that frequently brings standing ovations and singalongs when performed by The Beach Boys over their six-decade career”.

Just prior to round up, this review is one of few I could find. Although there was critical praise in 1966, there has not been enough retrospection. It is a shame, as Sloop John B is included in Pet Sounds and is one of the standout tracks. On 21st March, it will be sixty years since The Beach Boys released the second single from their most acclaimed album. The third single, Wouldn't It Be Nice/God Only Knows was released after Pet Sounds came out:

“I picked a Beach Boys tape called ‘Summer Dreams’. It contained all the big pop hits, certainly all the cheesy ones like Help Me Rhonda, Surfin Safari, Little Deuce Coupe, Fun Fun Fun, California Girls. I loved the acapella-ness of Barbara Ann. I could tell Good Vibrations was a bit different and weird. Toward the end of the tape were songs that were a little harder to get into for such young ears because they didn’t have the immediacy and happiness of the pop hits. Songs I love now like Heroes & Villains. I used to fast-forward those, or know where they’d line up with the song on the reverse side (because fast-forwarding used up more battery on my Walkman). So, when it got to a certain point I could turn it over and listen to Surfin’ USA again on Side A.

The song that has stood the test of time for me though – is Sloop John B. Is there are better pop song on earth? Such restraint and subtlety is displayed in the first section of the song with Brian’s vocals, up until about 1.01 when the counter harmonies and Mike Love’s lead vocals come in; from there it’s an exercise in harmony building. My favourite section kicks in at 1.49 where the instrumentation falls away, giving the aural spotlight to these delicious cascading harmonies the Beach Boys made their inimitable trademark – ‘home, let me go home; hoist up the John B sails’. Sweet like (wild) honey.

Then there’s this beautiful (unexpected) double speed tempo change at 2.20, concluding with a countless-harmony-layered coda. Such a rich mere 3 minute canvas, so expertly curated, as only the Beach Boys could”.

I am going to round off in a bit. Sloop John B was backed with You’re So Good to Me. Its U.S. release date was 21st March 1966. It came out on 15th April, 1966 in the U.K. A lot of debate still exists around the purity of the song. Given its roots and how it was this Caribbean Folk track, should it have remained pure? Brian Wilson took the song and turned it into this lush Pop masterpiece with flutes, gorgeous harmonies and ambition. No other artist of that time would have seen the potential in this rather modest (but great) song and turn it into what it became. That is why I think Sloop John B warrants more attention and writing. As we lost Brian Wilson last June, it is so important that work like Pet Sounds and Sloop John B is given this new praise and inspection. I think that songs from Pet Sounds should get new videos. Other Beach Boys songs did fairly recently. Including God Only Knows and I Get Around. It would be interesting seeing what someone does with Sloop John B, as it is a song that still sounds mind-blowing…

SIXTY years later.

FEATURE: Damage, Inc.: Metallica’s Master of Puppets at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Damage, Inc.

 

Metallica’s Master of Puppets at Forty

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THIS is not the only…

IN THIS PHOTO: Metallica at a hotel in Tokyo, Japan in November 1986/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

album from Metallica that is celebrating a big anniversary this year. The band are celebrating forty-five years together. The original line-up got together in 1981, so I wonder if Metallica will mark that. Also, Metallica, a.k.a. The Black Album – which is their response to The Beatles’ eponymous album, a.k.a. The White Album -, turns thirty-five on 12th August. The third album from the Los Angeles band (in 1986, they were comprised of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton), Mater of Puppets, turns forty on 3rd March. I am going to get to some features and a review of this monumental album. The final album to feature the late bassist Cliff Burton, many fans argue Master of Puppets is Metallica’s finest album. It is hard to disagree! This album helped bring Thrash Metal to the mainstream and challenge genres like Heavy Metal and Rock. A classic that is often included in the list of the best albums ever, I want to go deeper with Master of Puppets. In 2021, Beneath the Surface revisited Master of Puppets on its thirty-fifth anniversary. There are some sections of t6he feature that I want to bring in here:

“In the run-up to 1986, Metallica were already beginning to create waves across the metal scene for their help in forming the Thrash genre and solidifying American Metal music throughout the industry. Yet, following the release of their second album, Ride The Lightning, the band remained a pillar of the Underground music scene rather than the commercial success and household name to which they are now known.

That is why when it came to writing their next album, Metallica saw the opportunity to prove themselves more than ever before and created an album that established Thrash as a genre worthy of both commercial success and critical acclaim.

Aiming to provide a more refined and mature approach than in their previous releases, the writing for Master of Puppets also reinvented the structure of the band and juxtaposed the reputation they had already created for themselves.

Initially nicknamed ‘Alcoholica’ by fans and critics (due to their excessive drinking and rambunctious lifestyles), Metallica’s newfound desire to break out of the Underground scene saw the members sober up and incorporate more technical dexterity into their music than many thought they were capable of.

Almost entirely written by both Hetfield and Ulrich in mid-1985, the band, for the first time, chose to conduct the recording process outside of the US. This came as a result of their new, heightened standards and dissatisfaction towards the quality and capability of American studios.

Trying to capture an increasingly refined sound and a greater sense of detail, Metallica rethought their approach to their instruments and took numerous steps to make their playing abilities the highest possible. To achieve this, Ulrich underwent drum lessons, Kirk Hammett commissioned guitar-legend, Joe Satriani, as a mentor and Hetfield attempted to commission Rush’s Geddy Lee as the producer before the members flew to Denmark to record the album.

Now, paying more attention to their technical abilities and songwriting capability, the band set their eyes upon ambitious and politically-aware lyrics- aiming to capture critical reception and establish themselves as more than an amateur, underground band.

Using Hetfield’s new controlled and melodic vocals (as opposed to the harsh, uncontrolled shouts of the first two releases), Metallica strived to represent the alienation and powerlessness of the everyday man, victimised by those who wield power– raising some of the most important issues at the time into question.

Exploring themes including the exploitation of the common man, the abuse of power by authority figures and the subconscious manipulation of televangelism, the motifs behind Master of Puppets were intentionally crafted to generate controversy and place Metallica into discussion within mainstream society.

Tracks ‘Battery’, ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Disposable Heroes’, ‘Leper Messiah’ and ‘Damage Inc.’ all followed this premise- shedding light on the lack of personal liberty the band saw across 1980s society.

Here, the band also saw their opportunity to highlight other taboo subjects that were restricted in mainstream media. Although predominantly about the vulnerability of mankind, the lyrics also tackled issues of drug addiction, the hypocrisy of religion and the trauma of PTSD faced by those sent to war.

A world away from the initial lacklustre meanings behind their earlier tracks such as ‘Whiplash’ and ‘Motorbreath’, when Master of Puppets made its debut, critics were caught off-guard by the newfound maturity and political commentary the four-piece had produced”.

Prior to getting to some reviews, Billboard spoke with some Metal musicians and asked them how Master of Puppets, this landmark release from 1986, influenced them. Published in 2017 to coincide with the reissue of the album, I have brought in observations and remarks from a couple of musicians. For those who do not know Master of Puppets, this is an album that you have to hear. Not only helping shape Metal music after 1986, it also impacted and shaped other genres;

“For Metallica, the album was their first major vault into the mainstream lexicon, seemingly almost purely by word of mouth and all those black “Metal Up Your Ass!” t-shirts peppering public school hallways. Puppets was more than a progression of the heavy sound that captured the metal community when Kill ‘Em All came out. It was a full-blown evolution in how they approached the speed/thrash formula, especially when you hear the Julian Bream-kissed flourishes of guitarist Kirk Hammett at the beginning of opening cut “Battery” as well as Burton’s subtle shout-out to Bach’s “Come, Sweet Death” at the top of “Damage, Inc.” No other metal band in the ’80s was truer to the roots of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath than Metallica, heard across the riffage of “The Thing That Should Not Be” and “Disposable Heroes,” while the complex progressions of the beloved title track hint at a love for groups like King Crimson and Rush.

As a lyricist, frontman James Hetfield made a giant leap toward his present status as one of the great American songwriters, especially when you take into consideration a song like “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” where he channels Randle McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to capture the emotions of a man psychiatrically held against his will. For the band, it was a bittersweet triumph punctuated by the tragic and unexpected death of their beloved friend and bandmate, bassist Cliff Burton, whose brilliance as a musician was cemented with Master’s instrumental crescendo “Orion.” It was eight minutes of infinite promise and a culmination of Burton’s roots in not only Lemmy Kilmister and Phil Lynott but Paul McCartney and Stanley Clarke as well, especially in his favoring of the high strings. No disrespect to Jason Newsted nor Robert Trujillo, but there was a certain harmony between Burton and drummer Lars Ulrich as a rhythm section, and on Puppets it hit its crescendo. One could only imagine what Metallica might’ve evolved into had Cliff lived to see his 56th birthday this coming Feb. 10.

The band recently revisited the album as part of its ongoing reissue series with the most generous entry yet, expanding Puppets exponentially with rare interviews, rough mixes and demos, including Lars’ and James’ riff tapes as well as Jason Newsted’s auditions, and a veritable metric ton of live audio and video. The live stuff is plentiful, and features recordings of shows from The Meadowlands and Hampton Coliseum as well as footage from concerts at the Joe Louis Arena, the Roskilde Festival and more. To experience the delight of what this super deluxe edition has to offer, check out the video of Hetfield unboxing it here. And don’t forget about the two never-before-released cover songs: Diamond Head’s “The Prince” (later re-recorded as the b-side to “One”) and the punk group Fang’s “The Money Will Roll Right In.” This 2017 remaster of Puppets is such a powerful restoration of the original Flemming Rasmussen production, you can’t help but play it loud. The crispness and clarity of this edition is arguably on par with the Giles Martin remaster of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released earlier this year.

As for the proper LP, its influence remains as vital as ever in the metal community. To punctuate that sentiment, Billboard asked a wide swath of names in the field to speak to us about their personal histories surrounding Master of Puppets to commemorate having this heavy metal masterpiece thrust back into our lives in the best way possible.

“The first time I heard Metallica I was backstage at the historic Monsters of Rock Festival at the L.A. Coliseum back in July 1988, when they opened for Van Halen and all the fans stormed the stage. At that moment, I immediately knew they were going to be huge. The 20-disc box set of Master Of Puppets is an incredible snapshot of the band’s career during the mid-‘80s and is still one of the favorites in my collection.” – Stuart Smith, Heaven & Earth

“Master Of Puppets was a pivotal album for me in many ways. My first experience with Metallica had been with Ride The Lightning and what had started as a sort of musical oddity for me, developed into a massive appreciation for the band. For the first time I was able to see that the ‘heaviest music’ available to me at that time could still be a vehicle for legitimate musicality. When Master was released, it was a paradigm shift for me and the people around me as the stage had been set for them to really continue their momentum and they delivered in every way. Even the tonalities they chose, intentional or otherwise, were of such a foreign and antagonistic quality that it stood alone in a sea of fantasy inspired and image-centric heavy metal. I think for myself, as well as many others in my age group, Metallica was the single defining heavy band that not only went on to legitimize the genre as a sellable art form, but also that you could inject a musicality and intention into a heavy structure that carried a profound weight. Master Of Puppets is one of those rare, iconic albums that stands alone.” – Devin Townsend”.

I will end by taking from Pitchfork’s 2017 review of the album. They were writing about the reissue of Master of Puppets, complete with demos and live takes. Before that 10/10 review, another perfect score. This one is from Classic Rock around a 2022 vinyl overhaul and reissue:

“Thirty-one years later, it’s still hard to overestimate the impact Metallica’s Master Of Puppets had on the world. Their most profound and emphatic musical statement, it would come to define them, and with the death of bass player Cliff Burton on that album’s tour, it book-ended an era for the quartet when they went from being celebrated as the most important metal band on the planet to being another infamous rock act forever marred by a gruesome fatality. To their credit, as a unit they recovered, renewed and moved on, and in last year’s Hardwired… To Self Destruct showed that even three decades later, they’re still capable of fury and angst.

For those of us still marvelling at their unparalleled and sophisticated leap from the Kill ’Em All debut to their Ride The Lightning album, Master was a whole other level of erudition. Strange to think now that there was outrage in some quarters when they introduced acoustic guitars to the audience at Hammersmith Odeon (think Bob Dylan’s ‘Judas’ debacle when he went electric, but in reverse) on the Lightning tour. Though if their audience and critics were still clinging to the past, Metallica were marching purposefully forward to the beat of their own drum (toms and double bass drums, mostly), setting the spark to the flame of a genuine musical revolution.

All that history costs. If you want this Remastered Deluxe Boxset – that’s how they’re selling it – then be prepared to dig deep. That said, this collection brings new meaning to the term ‘exacting’.

Flemming Rasmussen’s strangely thin production has been boosted and remastered so the title track now sounds and feels like someone’s driven a dumpster truck through your French windows, but aural tweaking is only the beginning. So while you revel in the original album, you can unbox three vinyl records, 10 CDs, two DVDs, one cassette, a hardcover book (Metallica are master gurners, as these exclusive photos bear out), a folder of handwritten lyrics, six badges and a Damage, Inc. lithograph.

And as alluring as all the attendant bells and whistles are, it’s the attention to detail that will have you shouting, “Take my money!” at your computer screen.

There’s something quite heartening, if tempered with a sense of unease, at hearing Cliff Burton’s lazy stoner drawl again all these years later. He and the rest of the band (Kirk Hammett sounds about fifteen – you half expect his voice to start breaking) are captured here across two of the discs in interviews with radio stations and defunct magazines like Metal Forces and Sounds. Ulrich’s voice crackling down the line to London from his home in San Francisco, trying to indicate the magnitude of the album they’d just made, is a joy to behold. It’s a real artefact, a low-rent relic and just one of the many gems to be unearthed here”.

The final thoughts are from Pitchfork from 2017. The sheer influence and impact of this album forty years later. The melodic depth and complexities, fused with those incredible riffs, challenging, deep and important lyrics and Metallica offering this incredible power, musicianship, storytelling and sophistication, I wonder how critics will reproach Master of Puppets closer to its anniversary on 3rd March:

“Puppets deals with the very nature of control, presenting the hangover of its allure. Metal is fight music for underdogs and while that is empowering and worthwhile, Puppets shows the consequences of control in the wrong hands. The title track was Hetfield warning himself about addiction, something he would become intimate with, and he wouldn’t listen until their 2004 tell-all documentary Some Kind of Monster made a tragic comedy out of Metallica’s near collapse while recording St. Anger. Through its raging rhythm and heart-wrenching valleys, where bassist Cliff Burton brought a distorted symphony of the mind, Hetfield’s pleas for sanity sure don’t sound like someone coming to grips with how fucked up he is.

This isn’t unusual for cautionary drug songs, yet “Puppets” doesn’t sound like a morality play—“Master! Master!” is servitude delivered as arena unity, where you grow stronger, not indentured, by yelling it louder and louder. “Disposable Heroes” and “Leper Messiah” explore the illusion of control through more conventional topics—“Heroes” takes on war and “Messiah” skewers televangelists as any decent ’80s metal band would—and still manage to be more powerful than most bands at their best. Metallica embraced more complex structures without diluting themselves, a rare instance where a band gets more accessible by getting more complicated.

Puppets’ fusion of beauty and savagery is best defined in its last two songs, “Orion,” an instrumental, and “Damage Inc.” Both tracks were co-written by Burton, effectively sealing his legacy that still looms over Metallica three decades later. His presence is strongest on “Orion,” making thrash move like ballet, a swelling motion that’s not just about crashing into things. The bridge takes the control motif and creates worlds with it, creating tenderness and majesty, showing what a man’s hand masquerading as divine can summon. “Orion” is celestial through meaning, not explicit text, Hawkwind’s high-mindedness combined with Lemmy’s more direct glance.

“Damage Inc.” closes how “Battery” opened the album: reckless carnage as a cleansing, necessary fire. While it’s more of a contrast than fusion, they still coexist with a purpose to elevate metal. It’s even more apocalyptic than “Fight Fire With Fire”—there’s no mention of nuclear war, just a focus on getting mowed down for someone else’s survival. “Fuck it all, fucking no regrets” proved to be such an impactful line, Hetfield reused it again in 2003, on St. Anger’s title track with a teenager’s enthusiastic clumsiness.

Nevertheless, Hetfield is, bar none, metal’s standout rhythm guitarist, handling blazing speed with a precision and heft. Metallica are so ubiquitous that this perhaps has gone under-recognized; hummable as his riffs are, and the legions of hummers massive, Hetfield’s role as frontman obscures his contributions as a guitarist. The rough mixes included in this deluxe reissue are mostly devoid of solos and vocals, and they become pantheons to Hetfield’s rhythm stature. It’s jarring to hear gaps where Hammett’s solos or Burton’s fills should be, and yet through him (and our collective memories) the songs still flow as they should. Hetfield-Hammett-Burton-Ulrich is one of the few metal lineups where every member was equally integral, where if you removed one, the band would be radically altered. Hetfield was the bond between everyone else, a ground to Burton’s ambitions and Hammett’s squalling lead work, a reason that Ulrich didn’t need to be flashy because he certainly couldn’t be.

Puppets brought Metallica to their artistic climax, but its touring cycle proved a severe challenge to such loftiness. The live recordings here are closer to the tapes that Metallica made their reputation off of than the polished productions on the 1993 box set Live Shit: Binge & Purge, the cash-out from touring all corners of the globe. As demanding of perfection they were making Puppets, live they were still more concerned with tearing through, out-of-place leads be damned. Except for a 1987 VHS Cliff ‘Em All!, there weren’t a lot of official live recordings from this era, odd given how Metallica made their name as a live band. The live tracks here are rough, unpolished, but you can basically smell the beer and sweat from the band and the crowd throughout”.

A truly stunning album that has lost none of its importance forty years later. Given the themes Master of Puppets tackles around the nature of control, corruption, warfare and senseless violence, it seems like it has a whole new influence today. In terms of learning from Metallica’s songs. How far has the world moved on since 1986? I think some critics will frame the album around modern politics and violence across the globe. In musical terms, Master of Puppets is complex and sophisticated yet it has this urgency and power. More storytelling than traditional Metal songs, you can see why it was influential and helped to change and reshape music. On 3rd March, we celebrate forty years of…

AN undeniable classic.

FEATURE: Once the Deal Is Done… Why This Year Needs to Be One for a Wider Appreciation of Kate Bush’s Catalogue

FEATURE:

 

 

Once the Deal Is Done…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

 

Why This Year Needs to Be One for a Wider Appreciation of Kate Bush’s Catalogue

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I will never…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985

begrudge any Kate Bush song getting a load of attention and love. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did cause tremors when it was originally released in 1985. It was a number three song in the U.K. and the lead single from her fifth studio album, Hounds of Love. The public loved it then and its amazing video – which is essentially a beautiful dance between Kate Bush and Michael (now Misha) Hervieu, rather than the conventional Pop video of the time –, which no doubt helped the album do well in the charts. Beyond that, there was not much beyond that. Apart from appearing on T.V. as a live performance and the odd bit here and there, there was not much else. It was the 1980s, so there was no social media and ways to get the song out to new people fast. It did not make it way into a film soundtrack until 1988, when it appeared on The Chocolate War. However, it did not get a huge lease of life and dominate the charts again. 2022 was a year when it did get that dominance and made it to the top of the charts. Stranger Things used the song in 2022 but it has also just appeared in the final season, meaning it has re-emerged in other charts. Kate Bush News have been charting its progress and successes. Including a high placing on the Billboard Global 200. Moby did a mash-up of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). The success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and its effectiveness helped persuade the Prince estate to allow his music to be used. It has had this incredible life and has been streamed more than a billion-and-a-half times. Though I can’t imagine the song being used elsewhere soon, its work has been done and its impact cannot be denied.

As a result, there is also even more artrtenton on Hounds of Love. I am very pleased for Kate Bush and those who are discovering this song. Or knew it before and have got something special from it. However, I do think that there needs to be a line in the sand at some point. What can happen is that there is so much talk on one song that is does threaten to overshadow everything else. I recently wrote features about the artists who have been inspired by Kate Bush. Those releasing the music of today as Kate Bush fans. Where you can hear her influence in these albums. Maybe not directly connected, but Florence + The Machine’s Florence Welch was interviewed for Criterion’s Closest Picks and one of the films she picks off the shelf is The Red Shoes. Though talking about the film rather than the Kate Bush album of the same name, there is no denying that Kate Bush’s association with that film influenced Welch. How her album, Dance Fever (2022), can be compared in some ways to Kate Bush’s 1993 album. And her short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. There are some artists where one song stands out above the rest. Maybe because it has been used in a film or is just so strong that it is taken to heart more than the rest of their catalogue. In the case of Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has been streamed more times than the rest of her other most popular songs. I wonder whether it is more streams than all of her songs put together. Maybe not, but there is this huge gulf. I am trying to think of another artist of Kate Bush’s stature where one song has surpassed all others by such a margin. However, this is not taking anything away from all the good things that have come about following the Stranger Things use and endorsement of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God).

What is a little heartbreaking is that there are these great albums and songs that are not being discussed. The current conversation is so focused on her modern success, what incentive is there to explore beyond the Hounds of Love classic? I have said how there are no big album anniversaries this year. That helps shine a light on an album. I have also said how Generation Alpha are discovering Kate Bush and appreciate more than Hounds of Love. However, take a look at the articles written about Bush and precious few go beyond news and success like that with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I try as hard as I can to extoll the virtues of all of her albums. Go as deep as I can. There is the odd podcast episodes, but there is still much Kate Bush gold out there that might be going unheard. I do think the heat around Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) will die very soon, but the impact it has made will remain forever. Moving forward, I would urge further exploration, as Kate Bush is more influential now than she has ever been. I do feel sad to think albums like Lionheart (1978), Never for Ever (1980) or 50 Words for Snow (2011) is not being talked about as much as they deserve. I think Kate Bush’s full genius and influence can only be appreciated when you consider all of her albums. I do get this worry that many might associate her with one track and album. That filmmakers will see what Stranger Things did and try and get that same sort of impact for their show or film. More than anything, in a fallow year – one where we might not see a new album or celebrate any huge anniversary -, it is a perfect opportunity for some proper appreciation. Rather than create viral moments or use a song in a film and try and get some explosion from that (even though I wondered if that could happen with Wuthering Heights, I sort of walk that back a bit), there is so much to dissect and explore. We cannot talk about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and its genius and legacy without talking about what comes before and arrived after. There is the odd article like this that focuses on another album or period of Kate Bush’s career.

I am really pleased by everything around Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I cannot be annoyed at a song for having this kind of success. It has got their name out to new fans and meant that she continues to engage and realise how important her music is. However, when we consider Kate Bush a couple of decades from now, it needs to be about the full spread of her work. Or at least a greater range. Again, most legendary artists do get associated with a few albums and different points of their career. Maybe this will be the case with Kate Bush. However, I still maintain that we do really need to spend time now with the rest of her work. Given how people have taken this one song to heart, by exposing them to songs of Kate Bush they might never have heard, I do feel this will lead to continued and greater conversation about her broader career. I am excited by all these new Kate Bush fans. I guess it is hard to motivate podcasts, think pieces and articles about certain songs and albums. Before the Dawn in 2014 and The Tour of Life in 1979. All these wonderful moments that we do not really see spotlighted. Last year was one when so much of the greatest music made was by artists who love Kate Bush’s work. Look ahead to the rest of the year, the woman who created this incredible body of work will be thinking herself what comes next. Maybe an album in 2026 will not happen and we will wait until 2027.  Will artists cover some of her lesser-known songs? Rather than see this as a negative, perhaps this is a unique cultural phenomenon. When was the last time an artist had this older song gain this fresh success?! Rather than me worry about homogenisation or someone as varied and long-serving as Kate Bush being only associated with one song, it is worth asking other Kate Bush fans. What is the best way to keep the conversation going and move it wider? We can listen to her music and share it on social media, but what is the best way to ensure, say, Top of the City from The Red Shoes or Fullhouse from Lionheart gets some love? Obviously, nothing will have this same sort of run as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), but there is this rich and wonderful collection of songs and albums.

I think this year will be an interesting one. I am enjoying writing about Kate Bush and discussing characters in her songs and highlighting various times in her career. It is tempting to race to do as much as possible and pitch all these ideas. I have done that myself. Kate Bush herself is unlikely to launch anything new or take it upon herself to discuss her career or a documentary for example. I am a bit frustrated I am not talented or skilled enough to write a book. I feel anything in terms of books and magazine articles will be about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That is great. However, we need to keep momentum going, though through the prism of her full body of work. Who knows, maybe Bush will shock us and announce something sooner than expected. However, this year is going to be quieter than 2022-2025, as a lot of it has been dominated by this genius song and also Bush bringing out Little Shrew (Snowflake). I guess that helped get a gem from 50 Words from Snow, Snowflake, out there. However, looking at the streaming figures for the album, it did not create this knock-on effect where people investigated beyond that one song – or not as much as you’d like. The passionate and loyal Kate Bush fans on social media are discuss her and sharing photos, videos and songs. That does a lot. However, where is that big push going to come from? Will there be a new Kate Bush-related book? It seems unlikely anytime soon. I am nothing but pumped that Kate Bush is being talked about so much at the moment. That she is in the charts and the conversation continues. My greater curiosity is what occurs when Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) starts to lose some of the electricity and current focus. Thinking about the next steps and moves after…

THE deal is done.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Destiny's Child – Survivor

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

Destiny's Child – Survivor

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NOT only am I…

writing about albums celebrating big anniversaries this year. I am also including important singles. One of which is Destiny’s Child’s Survivor. Taken from the album of the same name, the single was released on 6th March, 2001. The album came out on 25th April, 2001 and it is the third studio album from the group. Their final album of completely original material was Destiny Fulfilled of 2004. Of course, the members of the group and the line-up of Destiny’s Child shifted. From a four-piecer to a trio, Survivor is a significant single, as it was the first that featured Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. What many fans consider to be the best and classic line-up, you can hear the instant bond, unity and brilliance of the three artists. Also, after Destiny Fulfilled was released in 2004, the three members did have their own solo careers. Whilst Kelly Rowland had a string of solo albumns, the most recent being 2013’s Talk a Good Game – and turns forty-five the day this feature is being shared (11th February) -, maybe her best work was as part of Destiny’s Child. Michelle Williams released her most recent album, Journey to Freedom, in 2014. Of course, Beyoncé is the most consistent. Her most recent was 2024’s COWBOY CARTER. Whilst she is one of the most influential and extraordinary solo artists in the world, there is something about her being part of Destiny’s Child, and those three women coming together, that is extra special. You wonder whether we will get another album. Consider the state of U.S. politics and how women’s rights are pretty much not considered by President Trump, a trio like Destiny’s Child seem to be more important and needed. Also, they could shout out to incredible women in music and society. Collaborate with some of them on an album. The trio have performed together in the years since their final album together.

However, there is something about Destiny’s Child you do not get with any other group. Rather than it being a commercial move or tied to an anniversary, there is this love and friendship. Considering how Williams and Rowland are these philomel artists but have not put out their own albums in over a decade, it would be amazing to hear them on record with Beyoncé. Girl group and legends from the 1990s and 2000s are reuniting and touring again. New girl groups are coming through and, whilst you might think of Destiny’s Child as a band and not a girl group, there is no doubt they have influenced so many women on the scene now. Seeing these original three queens on stage or in the studio would be a dream. A destiny re-fulfilled! It would be too late to mount anything to mark twenty-five years of the Survivor album. However, something in some form this year, I know, would get a lot of excitement from fans around the world. Even though 1999’s The Writing’s on the Wall might be my favourite Destiny’s Child album, I feel Survivor is the most accomplished and confident album from Destiny’s Child. Given the personnel shift (members LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett split from Knowles and Kelly Rowland. They replaced by Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin. Franklin was also dismissed from the group). Survivor, to me, always felt like this feminist anthem. This call of strength and defiance that was for all women around the world, instead, it has different origins and inspirations. The fact the media were criticising and almost joking that the line-up of Destiny’s Child kept changing and mocking that. Knowles was inspired to turn that negativity into something positive and anthemic. I shall come to that. I know there will celebration around the twenty-fifth anniversary of Survivor in April. However, as its titular single has that anniversary on 6th March, I wanted to look ahead. It is amazing how incredible that Survivor album is. Songs like Emotions and Dangerously in Love. The first four songs are Independent Women Part I, Survivor, Bootylicious and Nasty, the trio meant business!

I want to start with this article that tells the story behind the epic Survivor. How it came to be and what its legacy is. It is not only seen as one of Destiny’s Child’s best songs. It is placed up there with the best singles of that decade. In a really tough and strange year (2001), Destiny’s Child and Survivor did give a lot of people strength:

“You all know Beyoncé-beautiful, with large eyes and a stunning smile. She has previously been described by Vogue as “wholesome and sexy at the same time.”

You also know Kelly Rowland, and if you don’t, ask Silas Nyanchwani.

Beyoncé’s mother Tina was not impressed with the name “Girl’s Tyme” and like any mom would do, she sought God’s guidance on a suitable name for the girl band. It wasn’t strange when Tina pulled the word “destiny” out of the bible for her daughter’s girl group. Her husband Mathew-Beyoncé ‘s father, added the word “child.”

And that is how Girl’s Tyme became Destiny’s Child, comprising members Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LaTavia Roberson, and LeToya Luckett.

In the years that followed, Destiny’s Child became known for line-up change more than for hit songs. In 1997, their lead single “No No No” from their self-titled debut album in 1997 became a success, but the group was still struggling…

In 2000, a popular reality TV show called “Survivor" was born in America. The show is a competition reality series in which a group of contestants are stranded on a deserted island and compete in challenges to win a grand prize. The contestants must work together and strategize to outwit and outlast each other, all while surviving the elements and living on limited resources.

Pundits and skeptics started comparing Destiny's Child to the show “Survivor” because of the group’s internal competition and struggles. It was a question of “who will be the last to survive.”

After 3 members left the group, according to the LA Times, some people even joked that Luckett, Roberson, and Franklin had been “voted off the island,” just like an episode of Survivor.

Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland were not happy with the comparisons and negative chatter. Michelle Williams had then joined the group.

Who was going to survive?

Instead of feeding the sceptics, Destiny’s Child wrote the song "Survivor" in response to rumors of the group's break-up and industry pressure to produce a hit single. The lyrics of the song highlight the group's strength and determination in the face of adversity. The song's message of resilience and perseverance resonated with audiences, just as the TV show "Survivor" did.

Nelson Mandela said that criticism prevents a person from becoming a demi-god; for Destiny’s Child, criticism fueled their songwriting; they also drew inspiration from the hit competition series to create the group’s most popular track to date.

The song Survivor went on to win the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 2002 Grammy Awards.

Today, Survivor is still Destiny’s Child’s second highest-debuting single and currently holds a spot on Billboard’s list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time”.

It’s incredible to think that Survivor got mixed critical reaction when it was released as a single. Such an emphatic and instantly memorable song, luckily critical opinion shas shifted. Maybe criticism around Destiny’s Child and line-up changes. However, take the song solely on its merits as a piece of music and it is one of the strongest songs of the 2000s. In 2016, fifteen years after the release of the Survivor album, some keys places in its creation reflected on its making and success. Near the start of the feature from Entertainment Weekly, we learn a little about the title song:

“DAN WORKMAN (Engineer): When they started Survivor, they were really in a different point in their careers. At the end of every session, I’d get a call from [Beyoncé’s father and the group’s manager] Mathew [Knowles] or someone at the label who wanted to know how it went. The expectations were very high. It wasn’t nearly as relaxed as it was before. There was a sense that the stakes were raised. When we were doing The Writing’s on the Wall it became really obvious to me that the heavy lifting was going to be done by Beyoncé and that Kelly Rowland was the closer. The other girls [who left the group] were not as talented and were not as involved in the creative process. When Michelle came, it was never directly spoken about other than like Destiny’s Child is a trio. No in-depth discussion.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: Beyoncé was tired of people talking about the Destiny’s Child members changing asking, who was going to be the last one to survive? As the new member, I was being protective over the girls because I was just starting to know them. There are member changes in groups all the time. Things happen. I believe in the journey Destiny’s Child had to take to fulfill the group’s mission: to continue to empower everybody.

TONY MASERATI (Mixer): This was the beginning of pushing the limits of how hard a pop song could get. Their instructions were to make sure it would be at the forefront of the sonic footprint of what R&B and hip-hop should be. For somebody at 19 or 20 years old to hear [such] subtleties is not typical. Generally most young artists are like, “Can I be louder or can I be softer?”

J.R. ROTEM (Co-writer, “Fancy”): Beyoncé knows a lot of soul. Their sensibilities were inspired by tastes that are more sophisticated and by jazz”.

I love the singles from Destiny’s Child. Everyone has their own top five and favourites. When it comes to the best of the best, Survivor comes near the top in a lot of critical lists. In 2024, As The Writing’s on the Wall turns twenty-five, The Guardian ranked the singles. They placed Survivor ninth: “Survivor threw so much shade the way of two former Destiny’s Child members that it occasioned a lawsuit. Beyoncé, Rowland and – in an awesome middle eight – Williams sing up a ferocious storm, but its greatness isn’t really in its lyrics, rather the melody and backing to which it harnesses them: forceful and epic enough that their vitriol sounds like empowerment”. In 2014, Huffpost ranked Survivor in eighth: “Beyonce reportedly concocted the "Survivor" theme after hearing a DJ compare the band's controversy to the incipient reality series. The result is a song (and album) that drills home the perseverance motif with fist-pounding severity. It's a karaoke jam best experienced while belting the lyrics in someone's face, but is "Survivor" truly a great song? A catchy one, a canonical one -- but one without the sleekness of "Independent Women" or the restraint of "Say My Name." It's also kind of long. Still, "Survivor" is obviously a classic, and I'll join anyone who dares holler the lyrics at me in a disco-stained karaoke bar”. There are few reviews of the iconic Survivor. However, Drowned in Sound provided their take on Survivor when it arrived in 2001:

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…..What? I said mmmmmmmmmmmm…that is the only word which sums this track up. What? Well, urm, I’m 19 years old, same age as Beyoncé and co, and I have a fetish for sexy female vocals. I’ll admit it. What? It’s not a criminal offence y’know! I’m only mmm-ing about this ickle ditty. Cus you know my mummy taught me better than that!

I really thought I’d had enough of strings in pop songs, until this one, ‘Survivor’. The evil lil’ violins perfectly set the background for this choon, fighting against post-drum’n’bass (I’m making up genre’s again, sorry!) machine blippity bloppity tsh tsh plopping. Then there are the vocals…mmmmm! The centre of what everything else spins around. These are harmonies to tell the world about. So I am. Three layers of gospel vocals jump up’n’down and shake themselves all around, just as adoringly sweet as a freshly iced chocolate cake, still warm from the oven. Or the video, if you will...mmmmm...

Hang on! There’s some words amongst this prize winning perfect picture style. Oh baby. Putting themselves into the head of the genderless working man (and I use that term looser than an American pollution manifesto), re-interpreting the feeling of finishing another day, ready to carry on to fight another. However, this song does challenge the notion of the chauvinist values that still remain in the world around us(like many other DC songs). And what better way to get the message to those that are wrong, than through one of the sexiest video’s ever! What? What do I mean “wrong”? Think how equal the world is. How men treat women in comparison to how women treat men. Just think about it. The new women’s liberation movement will be televised. You will be watching and maybe listening too-ooh….mmmmm…I’m a survivor!”.

On 6th March, Survivor’s title song turns twenty-five. It’s brilliant lead single is played a lot today. It is one of those songs that will continue to have meaning and this potency that will go through the generations. And I do feel the world wants Destiny’s Child to get together. I know there have been discussions and plans before. However, given the state of the world, tied to the way female artists are dominating and so many are fans of Destiny’s Child, it would be great to have them here again. As Kelly Rowland is forty-five today, I wanted to publish the feature now, rather than wait until close to Survivor’s anniversary. It is a song that I really love. So do millions of others. One I think will be played and talked about…

DEACDES from now.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: Hole – Live Through This

FEATURE:

 

 

Beneath the Sleeve

 

Hole – Live Through This

__________

THE second studio album…

IN THIS PHOTO: Hole shot by Jeffrey Thurnher for SPIN in May 1994.

from the incredible Hole, Live Through This was released on 12th April, 1994. Perhaps more melodic, structured and less harsh than their 1991 debut, Pretty on the Inside, lead Courtney Love wanted to shock people who though the Californian band had no softer edge. Certified platinum in the U.S. in 1995, Live Through This was a massive critical and commercial success. I think Live Through This is Hole’s best album. Songs like Violet, Miss World and Doll Parts. Such a consistently brilliant album. With the majority of songs written by Courtney Love and Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson, Live Through This is considered a modern classic. It has featured high in lists of the best albums of all time. I am going to start out with an interview originally published by SPIN in April 1994 with Courtney Love. I am not bringing the entire thing in, though there are parts that I was interested in highlighting:

“Let’s get this out of the way. When Love talks about husband Kurt Cobain, which she does with some frequency, it’s with affection and slight amusement. Mostly he shows up in benign little anecdotes. Like how she keeps finding him dolled up in women’s sweaters from the ’50s. Or how, at her urging, he recently agreed to buy them a Lexus. But, after one relatively brief spin around town, and the catcalls of virtually all of their old friends, Cobain insisted they take it back. So they did. Now, they’re back to his scuzzy old Valiant. If you only knew Cobain by Love’s descriptions, you’d think he was an adorable, antic-prone young lug, more Ozzie Nelson than Ozzy Osbourne. And maybe that’s exactly who he is. Point is, her love for him, and for their daughter Frances Bean, is obvious.

I’d been forewarned by Geffen’s publicist, by friends of hers, even by the rest of Hole, that Courtney Love doesn’t trust journalists. Not since Vanity Fair‘s Lynn Hirschberg, whose infamous 1992 profile portrayed Love as little more than Cobain’s heroin-addicted, gold-digging girlfriend. The article contained a particularly scandalous quote, attributed to a “business associate.” “Courtney was pregnant and she was shooting up,” it said. What followed was an approximately yearlong trashing of the couple, chronicled rather exhaustively in Michael Azerrad’s Nirvana bio, Come As You Are.

“Yeah, Lynn,” Love sighs when the subject is broached. “I did a little private investigating on her, you know, and she has no friends. None. None!” For the next, oh, 40 minutes or so, Love’s conversation keeps veering back to Hirschberg, usually with disclaimers. As much as she may wish Hirschberg dead, Love admits she continues to read Vanity Fair. “Shit,” she says at the end of one particularly lengthy diatribe. “Why can’t I just fucking shut up about the bitch? Okay, that’s it. Zip.” She raises one hand and makes a slash across her lips. (When asked to comment, Hirschberg laughed and said, “I thought Courtney was my friend.”)

So what about the actual charges? “Innocent,” Love says, smiling mysteriously. “Isn’t that obvious?” Okay, how about claims that you punched out four people last year, including K-records-Beats Happening’s Calvin Johnson, British writer Victoria Clarke, and a young female Nirvana fan who called her “Courtney Whore” in a Seattle 7-Eleven? “There’s a lot more to those stories, but I don’t intend to go into it.” Several journalists told me they’d received threatening phone messages after criticizing her in print. “So?” When I mention Cobain’s interest in guns, she cuts me off with a glower. Bringing up last year’s legal battle to keep custody of Frances Bean (a result of the Vanity Fair drug inferences) only magnifies the glower. On a lighter note, Lydia Lunch recently accused Love of ripping off her persona. “That’s too bad, because I admire her a lot.” Well, how about the fact that a lot of people just think you’re a mean, horrible person?

“Look,” Love says. “Years ago in a certain town, my reputation had gotten so bad that every time I went to a party, I was expected to burn the place down and knock out every window. So I would go into social situations and try my best to be really graceful and quiet and aloof. But sometimes when people are bearing down on you so hard, and want you to behave in a certain way, you just do it because you know you can.

“I’m so busy these days pleading with everyone that I’m lucid, that I’m educated, that I’m middle-class,” she continues. “It’s stupid. If you ask me, why aren’t people on the cases of the real assholes of this world, like Axl Rose and Steve Albini, both of whom should be exterminated. Really, they should leave on a shuttle to the sun. They shouldn’t be on the earth. Because they’re not good for anything.”

I’d been told by a mutual friend that Love tends to feel comfortable around gay men “as long as they don’t like disco.” Hoping to warm the atmosphere a little, I drop the names of a few famous actors I bedded when younger, and sure enough she giddily spills some beans herself. She practically begs me to “out” a notoriously homophobic music producer. Sorry. We move on. She has a few less-than-flattering adjectives for Evan Dando’s physique. “I’m the one that got him to stop taking off his shirt all the time,” she says. Then there’s the sad tale of her arch-enemy Axl Rose’s rapidly receding hairline, and his crazed search for a cure. “That’s what happens when you mix Prozac and heroin.” Finally, she regales me with a long, hilarious story about how Eddie Van Halen showed up backstage at a recent Nirvana show and practically begged to join them onstage fo the encore, completely oblivious to the fact that bands like Nirvana exist partly to destroy dinosaurs like himself.

Love’s proud of the band’s early work, especially its first LP, Pretty on the Inside, co-produced by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, a hero of Love’s, and Gumball’s Don Fleming. Still, she says, “That record was me posing in a lot of ways. It was the truth, but it was also me catching up with all my hip peers who’d gone all indie on me, and who made fun of me for liking R.E.M. And the Smiths. I’d done the whole punk thing, sleeping on floors in piss and beer, and waking up with the guy with the fucking mohawk and the skateboards and the speed and the whole goddamned thing. But I hated it. I’d outgrown it by the time I was 17.” She pauses, grabs a glass of fizzy water, and takes a huge gulp. “But fuck people if they didn’t guess it the first time around,” she continues, eyes blurring with anger. “If they didn’t get the lucidity. If it’s one thing I am, it’s lucid. I know that’s not a very heavy word like intellectual or whatever, but still, to take away my lucidity, that pisses me off.”

Live Through This is both a scruffier and more commercial record than Pretty on the Inside. The angsty rants of yore remain, but they’re decorated with a lot more poetry. Milk (as in mother’s) is a recurring motif, as is dismemberment. Female victimization remains the overall theme, this time depersonalized into odd, accusatory mini-narratives in which a variety of female characters receive the protection of Love’s tense, manic-depressive singing. Hers is a natural songwriting talent, full of excellent instincts, and yet wildly unsophisticated. All of which makes Love, in some ways, a more intriguing figure than, say, Polly Harvey, Tanya Donelly, or Liz Phair, each of whom, idiosyncrasies aside, is a traditional talent with an inordinate knack for the pop tune. It’s not inconceivable that Love might have ended up some kind of peroxided Joni Mitchell if it weren’t for the musical gifts of the diligent, like-minded Erlandson, and her unstoppable need to fuck with rock music’s male-heavy history.

“Like I was talking to Sophie…” It’s a few minutes later, and Love’s relaxing again. “Sophie’s done a bunch of Björk videos. And Björk is seen as the Icelandic elf child-woman. But Björk wants to be seen as more erotic. And I’m like, ‘Why?’ Elf child-woman is a good job. And my job as rock’s bad girl is good, too. I should just stop trying to correct people’s impressions.”

I understand, I say, but it’s strange that you’re written off as one-dimensional and didactic when your lyrics, if anything, tend to err on the side of the abstract.

“That’s because I’m not intelligent enough to write direct narratives,” she says sarcastically. “I’ve always worked really hard on my lyrics, even when my playing was for shit. So it’s weird that when I try to work in different styles, to juxtapose ideas in a careful way that isn’t pompous and Byronic, it’s just taken as vulgar. The whole cliché of women being cathartic really pisses me off. You know, ‘Oh, this is therapy for me. I’d die if I didn’t write this.’ Eddie Vedder says shit like that. Fuck you.”

Misogyny’s been a big shock to Love. After all, her parents were ’60s quasi-liberals bent on showing their daughter life’s brightest profile. The first record she owned was Free To Be You and Me. There was a copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves sitting on the family toilet for years. She grew up thinking books and records like these were the culture’s official textbooks. And she remains an avid reader of feminist theorists like Susan Faludi, Judith Butler, Camille Paglia, and Naomi Wolf, though her face crinkles up at the mention of the latter’s newest book. “Ugh. Wimp,” she crows.

I mention a riot grrrl show she’d helped organize in London last year. Rumor had it the show was a critical and financial disaster, despite the participation of name acts like Huggy Bear, Bratmobile, and Hole. Since that fiasco, the riot grrrl phenomenon has been treated a lot less reverently in the British music papers. “Yeah, it didn’t work,” she says, echoing the opinion of other Hole members, male and female. “But then the whole riot grrrl thing is so… well, for one thing, the Women’s Studies program at Evergreen State College, Olympia, where a lot of these bands come from, is notorious for being one of the worst programs in the country. It’s man-hating, and it doesn’t produce very intelligent people in that field. So you’ve got these girls starting bands, saying, ‘Well, they printed our picture in the Melody Maker, why aren’t we getting any royalties?”.

There is a lot written about Live Through This. 1994 is perhaps the greatest ever year for music, though I don’t think Hole’s second studio album gets as much praise and respect as the biggest from that year. I want to get some background and insight into this classic. I am going to end with Pitchfork and their 10/10 review of Live Through This. You can buy this masterpiece on vinyl. I will interrupt the features with one about the woman who appears on the cover of Live Through This, as it is one of the most recognisable and eye-catching shots of the 1990s. A cover that stands with the best of them. However, there is a fascinating story behind it and the aftermath for the cover star. I want to move to this feature from last year. They write how “Courtney Love bare her soul on an alt.rock classic that still surprises”:

“Incredibly melodic but with a punk streak, Live Through This proved that Hole and its antagonistic frontwoman, Courtney Love, could deliver more than just tabloid fodder. It remains a living document of a scene, a cultural moment, and a story of survival at all costs.

Hole’s first record, 1991’s Pretty On The Inside, had earned them considerable street cred. It’s a sludgy assault on the senses with a no-wave, atonal sound that reflected the influence of the album’s producer, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. In the three years since its release, however, the band’s profile had been raised significantly. Love and Cobain got married, had a child, and became the poster couple for grunge; the controversial Vanity Fair profile hit (in which Love was photographed baring her pregnant belly, and the magazine asked “if the pair were the grunge John and Yoko? Or the next Sid and Nancy?”); and there was a bidding war for Hole’s next record. The group ended up signing to Nirvana’s label, Geffen, and changed their line-up to start recording their major-label debut.

Love was unabashedly ambitious and not preoccupied with such trivial 90s concerns as “selling out.” With Live Through This, she set out to make a commercial record that also proved Hole was a legitimate band to be reckoned with. After Hole’s original drummer, Caroline Rue, left, Love and co-founder Eric Erlandson recruited Patty Schemel at Cobain’s suggestion, along with and their ace in the hole, bassist Kristen Pfaff, who brought a new energy and polish to the band.

Produced by Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie (who’d produced Radiohead’s Pablo Honey), Live Through This captured the band’s raw primal energy while still being an impeccably structured album with codas, choruses, and plenty of hooks, coalescing around Love’s emotional ferocity. The influences were clearly there (Pixies, Joy Division) but the band progressed beyond 80s post-punk retread to create 38 minutes of anthemic punk perfection.

From its blistering opening number, “Violet,” it was clear that Love wasn’t pulling any punches. While some easily recall their favorite chorus off an album, Live Through This is remembered for its screaming chants and ferocious drumming by Patty Schemel, inviting you to pour oil on the fire that is Courtney Love. You don’t sing along, you scream along.

Initially written in 1991, “Violet” became a live trademark during the group’s touring years before it became the album opener. Like Love herself, it’s full of contradictions, calling out the sexually exploitative nature of relationships while simultaneously inviting it upon herself: “Well they get what they want, and they never want it again/Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to.” “Violet” sets the tone for the whole album, facilitating between intimate, quiet verses to the raging chorus, just as Love easily switches from victim to aggressor to create a dramatic tension that never breaks.

On “Miss World” – and, subsequently, every other track – Love addresses the listener directly, not necessarily as the perpetrator of all these problems but as complicit participants in society’s patriarchal ills. The song starts out softly melodic until the chorus erupts, repeating itself until it becomes a kind of invocation. Even the cover of Live Through This speaks to the album’s themes (desire, degradation, celebrity, and survival), featuring a disheveled Miss World beauty queen who could be a stand-in for Love herself, realizing that a crown does not always bring glory.

Every part of Love’s presentation was an extension of her music, from her intentionally make-up-smeared face to her ragged babydoll dresses. Both the lyrics and imagery for “Doll Parts,” and its accompanying video, show Love both acknowledging how society views women as objects while equally striving to be one. Both “Violet” and “Doll Parts” were early demos that showed Love’s maturation as a songwriter and helped to break the album, along with Erlandson’s tight arrangements.

The album gets its title from a lyric in “Asking For It,” which also references the often-used retort in cases of sexual assault. While never explicitly stated, the song is said to be inspired by an incident where Love was assaulted by a crowd after stage-diving during their 1991 tour with Mudhoney. It’s songs like these that make Love’s lyrics seem more autobiographical than perhaps initially intended. The same could be said for “I Think That I Would Die,” which references her child being taken away. Which makes it all the more interesting that some of the most pointed criticism of the album comes from Hole’s fiery cover of Young Marble Giants’ “Credit In The Straight World,” which calls out their critics and indie rock snobs. It begins with a kind of Gregorian chant before launching into a dual-bass and guitar assault courtesy of Erlandson and Pfaff.

While often compared to the adjacent riot grrrl movement, Love makes it clear that she’s not part of the Washington scene led by Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, and Bratmobile, singing, “Well I went to school in Olympia/Everyone’s the same/And so are you, in Olympia,” on the closing track, “Rock Star.” Love’s female peers also become the central target on “She Walks On Me,” a song that further drives Hole apart from any kind of established scene. Despite its rebellious mocking tone, “Rock Star” also includes one of the more hopeful moments on Live Through This: just as the song seems to fade out, you hear Love insist: “No, we’re not done”.

I am coming to SPIN again for this feature published in 2024 around the thirtieth anniversary of the magnus opus that is Live Through This. In it, Hole’s drummer Patty Schemel reflects “how the album continues to resonate, holding a special place in the hearts of queer and trans fans”. There might be some who have never heard Hole or Live Through This. I don’t think it is a case of having to be around in 1994. Live Through This is such an influential album, and you can hear it affecting artists today:

“The album is more than queer-coded—it has queer lineages; its feeling, sounds, and themes were driven by queer punk drummer Patty Schemel’s beats and ability to amplify Courtney Love’s words and emotion like no other drummer could do.

“When you’re a kid and don’t feel like you belong and there’s someone saying they’re weird and have so much going on and they’re angry too, we spoke to everybody with that feeling,” Schemel told me, reflecting on how queer people have found a sense of empowerment in Hole’s music and lyrics. At readings of her memoir, Hit So Hard, fans often tell her the band’s music saved them.

When Schemel went into the studio, she had no idea that the album would become so successful. She wanted to prove herself as a drummer, and Hole wanted to prove themselves as a band, not just Kurt Cobain’s wife’s band.

In August 1995, Schemel came out as a lesbian in Rolling Stone magazine while the band were promoting Live Through This, a move ahead of its time. She felt inspired by the active queer punk scene, specifically Phranc, Roddy Bottum of Faith No More, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, and zinester and bassist of Team Dresch, Donna Dresch.

“Once I came out, I was like, ‘I’m never gonna hide it again. I’m never gonna feel bad about being who I am.’ Kurt would say it was okay to be gay, just like he said in the Incesticide liner notes, and people listened to that. I didn’t want to hide and not share my true self, because up until I was 18 I felt horrible about being gay. Punk rock saved me. I found other people who were freaky like me. Playing drums, it was okay for me to consider coming out.”

Schemel’s drums are integral to the power of Live Through This. The songs were collectively written at rehearsals, where the band would work through ideas at length, finding what clicked. Love always had big stacks of lyrics, and guitarist Eric Erlandson would always record their rehearsals since Love had trouble remembering her parts. “Her guitar playing got kind of good,” Schemel remembered, “but she didn’t want to focus on that.”

Since Love always wanted to be wherever Cobain was, Schemel would often travel with the couple. Album rehearsals started at Jabberjaw in L.A. but happened mostly at the Hole rehearsal space in Seattle, and in a few out-of-town writing sessions: one in San Francisco at the Melvins’ rehearsal space and another in Rio De Janeiro, when Love and Schemel used Nirvana’s Rock in Rio rehearsal room to write “She Walks Over Me” along with fellow queer punk musician, Nirvana roadie, and ex-Exploited guitarist Big John Duncan who, according to Schemel, played bass and suggested ideas.

“When I joined the band, the songs started to become a little more shaped, with more layers and form,” Schemel remembered, remarking on how she and Pfaff became a foundation together. “She made me feel so supported. All of her ideas were really cool! For those quiet middle sections where Courtney wanted to do these pretty little REM [style] picking things, like the twinkly things on ‘I Think That I Would Die.’ Courtney always had to have the last word. [Laughs.] But I felt that we kind of became a new band.”

Live Through This was the first and last album the group with this specific lineup got to record together, due to the untimely passing of Pfaff in June 1994—just two months after the album was released.

Hole recorded Live Through This at Triclops Sound in Marietta, Georgia, recommended to them by the Smashing Pumpkins, who had just wrapped up sessions for Siamese Dream. Hole was welcomed to the studio by a fax from Amy Ray, inviting the band to hang out. “Courtney was like, ‘Patty, I think this fax must be for you! It’s the Indigo Girls!’ And I was like, ‘Of course it is.’” According to Schemel, Love was constantly checking the fax machine for messages from Cobain. Unfortunately, due to a busy recording schedule, they never got to meet up with the Indigo Girls, but they did fly to New York to see Nirvana on Saturday Night Live”.

In 2019, the photographer who shot the cover of Hole’s Live Through This, Ellen von Unwerth, shared her memories and reflections with Another Mag. Courtney Love was inspired by an infamous scene in the 1976 film, Carrie. There is so much power in that image of the woman, model Leilani Bishop, and her expression. It still resonates to this day in terms of how engaging it is. It is a cover you keep coming back to, transfixed by that image:

“Courtney Love recently posted a screenshot to her Instagram account from Rolling Stone’s website which – on that same day – released its 50 Greatest Grunge Albums. Hole’s Live Through This came in at number four and almost 68,000 fans and followers liked that image, showering her with a barrage of hearts and congratulations in the comments. Lead vocalist Love, as well as guitarist Eric Erlandson, bassist Kristen Pfaff and drummer Patty Schemel crafted a 90s era-defining masterpiece that has been canonised on virtually every top music list of that decade. The raw, unapologetic honesty of the lyrics, brought to life by Love’s sweet yet deeply sinister vocals, makes the album unforgettable. The same could be said about the spine-tingling album cover image, shot by fashion world favourite, Ellen von Unwerth.

Model Leilani Bishop – the only person on the album cover – embodied an intentionally manic, prom-queen-gone-wrong look. The smudged eye make-up, vintage-inspired feathery locks topped with a dainty tiara, and her awkward embrace of a floral bouquet meant to evoke a certain classic horror film. Speaking to AnOther, Von Unwerth recalls the days before the photo shoot in Los Angeles. “Courtney Love called me,” she says. “We were on the phone for one hour. I didn’t say much but listened, and Courtney had the idea of re-enacting the scene of the [1976] movie Carrie, which I loved, too.” Von Unwerth also reveals that she and Love managed to click from the beginning, adding, “I just met her the night before the shoot wearing her famous schoolgirl dress. We had some drinks and connected instantly.”

Unfortunately, Von Unwerth had not listened to Live Through This prior to the photo shoot. But in her eyes, that didn’t matter. “The album was still in the making, but I was a big fan of Kurt Cobain and was sure that his girls would produce something equally cool. Besides, I go with the flow. I heard the music afterwards and loved it.”

Hole’s second studio album, Live Through This was an anomaly at the time. Love and Erlandson wrote the songs and broached topics like feminism, violence against women, beauty, postpartum depression, motherhood, feelings of self-doubt and relationship woes. Love once openly admitted that she was competing with her husband, Kurt Cobain, during the making of the album. Though many critics alleged that Cobain had a hand in writing the album (he didn’t), his undeniable presence looms like a dark cloud over the album. He sang uncredited back-up vocals with Pfaff on Asking for It and Softer, Softest.

With tragic timing, DGC Records slated the release date for Live Through This on April 12, 1994, seven days after Cobain committed suicide. Three months later, Love and the band suffered another blow when bassist Pfaff died of an overdose.

Von Unwerth unknowingly captured the turbulence surrounding Live Through This in one frame. Bishop’s effusive, open-mouth expression on the cover album speaks volumes as loud as Love’s voice. Von Unwerth says, “I just had done several shoots with [Bishop] and really loved her cool rock and roll attitude.” But how did she evoke such reaction from Bishop? Von Unwerth admits, “This is what I do. It’s like being a movie director.” She also remembered being self-assured when she saw the selects after they had wrapped the shoot. “We all felt that we nailed it,” she says.

And that she did. While Von Unwerth’s diverse portfolio features art from other bands’ album covers like Bananarama, Belinda Carlisle, Janet Jackson, Dido, Britney Spears and Rihanna, somehow Live Through This stands out as a chillingly authentic, visual interpretation of Hole’s music. Von Unwerth naturally connected the band to its fans through a harmonious mix of rock and roll attitude and highly stylised photographical prowess. 25 years on, Von Unwerth declares, “I am very proud that I was part of this album, this band, and this time in music and cherish every moment of it.” And if those “best of” lists are any testament to Von Unwerth’s work, Billboard – back in 2015 – placed Live Through This at number 12 in their 50 Greatest Cover Albums of All Time”.

In 2018, Pitchfork revisited Hole’s Live Through This. Awarding it a perfect score, it is an album of depth, righteous anger and some of the most important music ofg the '90s. Nearly thirty-two years after its release and Hole’s second studio album still sounds like nothing else. This distinct work, you can hear its influence adopted and adapted by so many artists:

“Try to imagine a famous woman who screams for a living today. Not alternative, punk-magazine famous, but American monoculture famous, platinum-selling-album famous, so famous her drug mishaps make headlines in Mexican newspapers, so famous rumors and conspiracies about her celebrity marriage hound her for decades. This woman doesn’t let out sing-screams or tinny emo yelps, but raw, diaphragmatic bellows—or, as David Fricke put it in his Rolling Stone review of Hole’s 1994 album, Live Through This, a “corrosive, lunatic wail.”

He was wrong on the second point: There’s no lunacy on Hole’s records. But there is anger, female anger, which, to a man’s ear, historically scans as madness. Lead singer Courtney Love often told reporters that she named her band after a line in Euripides’ Medea. “There’s a hole that pierces right through me,” it supposedly goes, though you won’t find it in any common translation of the ancient play. It’s apocryphal, or misremembered, or Love made it up to complicate the name’s obvious double entendre—either way, it makes a great myth. A band foregrounding female rage takes its name from the angriest woman in the Western canon, a woman so angry at her husband’s betrayal she kills their children just so he will feel her pain in his bones.

Like all female revenge fantasies written by men, Medea carries a grain of neurosis about how women might retaliate for their subjugation. It is easier, still, for men to express these anxieties by way of violent fantasy than it is for women to communicate their anger at all. In a 1996 New York magazine cover story on women alternative singers entitled “Feminism Rocks,” Kim France, the founding editor of Lucky who also worked as New York’s deputy editor, paraphrased feminist journalist and author Susan Faludi: “While our culture admires the angry young man, who is perceived as heroic and sexy, it can’t find anything but scorn for the angry young woman, who is seen as emasculating and bitter.” This was true for Love, who watched grunge break through to the mainstream only to find that the freedom and rebellion it promised was reserved for her male counterparts. In grunge, men could be scruffy and rude and defy gender norms—they could be rawer than the men modeled in synth-pop music videos or hair metal concerts a few years prior. Women, for all the space afforded them in the subculture’s spotlight moment, might as well have been Lilith.

Hole’s second album, Live Through This, famously came out four days after Love’s husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead at their home in Seattle. The sudden tragedy threatened to swallow the music, to say nothing of the genre and social movement in which it was encased. Here was a dead rock god, and here was the woman who survived him. Even the album’s title alluded to Love’s endurance through a ground-shaking trauma, though of course she had written the title about surviving her fame, surviving her fraught association with the most beloved man in rock, surviving her pregnancy with their child, surviving the tabloid rumors that would—and still do—swarm her as a result.

“I sometimes feel that no one’s taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there’s a certain female point of view that’s never been given space,” Love told Sidelines in 1991, the same year Hole released their first album, Pretty on the Inside. While there were plenty of rock songs written by men about hounding and abusing women, there were few about being hounded and abused. The rock canon, like all the others, fiercely guarded its male subjectivity, and Love wanted to break through its ranks.

Love wrote about sexual violence with a snarl, too, but a heavier, more knowing one. “Was she asking for it?/Was she asking nice?” she poses on the seething “Asking for It.” “If she was asking for it/Did she ask you twice?” The song, she’s said, was inspired by a stage dive that took a wrong turn. She leapt into the audience to crowd-surf during a show, and found the crowd ready to devour her. “Suddenly, it was like my dress was being torn off me, my underwear was being torn off me, people were putting their fingers inside of me and grabbing my breasts really hard, screaming things in my ears like ‘pussy-whore-cunt,’” she said. Whatever covenant binds fan and artist, whatever gives the latter power over the former, didn’t apply to Hole—not in totality, at least; not to the extent that it would keep a singer who was also a woman from being molested by her audience in public.

Live Through This refers to autobiographical traumas, but it is not a confessional record. “The whole cliché of women being cathartic really pisses me off,” Love said in a 1994 Spin cover story. “You know, ‘Oh, this is therapy for me. I’d die if I didn’t write this.’ Eddie Vedder says shit like that. Fuck you.” Her lyrics don’t hit like spleen-venting. They’re analytical, no matter how viscerally she howls them, and their insight transcends their origins. Throughout the record, Love speaks to the atomization of the female form that takes place in the eye of the misogynist. To the ogler, a woman is never whole. She’s shards: lips, hair, tits, ass, whatever can be grabbed without consequence, whatever can be bought and sold. Love would know, having stripped for a living before the band broke big, having made a career of, among other things, being looked at. She sings of “pieces of Jennifer’s body.” On “Doll Parts,” against halting guitar chords, she sings about how she’s “doll eyes, doll mouth, doll legs.” Her multiplicity is underscored by backing harmonies from Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff and guest vocalist Dana Kletter, who chime in with the indelible line: “I want to be the girl with the most cake.”

As much as it concerns trauma and misogyny, Live Through This, like all great rock records, quakes with desire. Love deciphers what it means to be an object of desire, but she also plays a woman who wants ravenously. Her wanting, at the time, was a terror; she inspired so much vitriol in part because she refused to be passive, refused to accommodate a man’s hunger without indulging her own. She would not be a vessel or a muse. Her husband did not cast her in the drama of his life. She wanted him and chased him down, and then she wanted their child, and she believed that her desire mattered, that it had substance. “I went through all the shit and pain and inconvenience of being pregnant for nine whole fucking months because I wanted some of his beautiful genes in there, in that child,” Love told Melody Maker, in a profile that called her “a one-woman spite factory” in its tagline, in February of 1994. “I wanted his babies. I saw something I wanted, and I got it. What’s wrong with that?”.

I wanted to dig deep for this Beneath the Sleeve. Hole’s Live Through This is one of the greatest albums ever, and it is one I remember from the 1990s. A fan of Nirvana, I discovered Hole through them. Considering the trauma Courtey Love faced in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death, she showed so much strength, dignity and bravery. Also, to be able to promote an album like Live Through This and deal with questions around Cobain. In an America that has a misogynistic, transphobic, hateful President who puts women’s rights bottom of his agenda and has split a country, you feel Live Through This is more important needed than ever! This 1994-released album is…

A staggering work.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Smerz

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Alva Le Febvre

  

Smerz

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I have spotlighted…

a few duos already this year. I think most people are highlighting bands or solo artists, but duos are less common and less commonly discussed. Smerz are a Norwegian duo of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt. Smerz hail from Oslo and make music that can be described as Experimental Pop/Electronic. I will finish ff with a review of the duo’s 2025 album, Big city life. I am starting with Vogue and their interview. Chatting with Smerz and their off-kilter Pop music for the ages, there are some sections of the interview I was keen to highlight:

“There’s certainly a mysterious, open-ended quality to Smerz’s music, although given the remarkable precision of their songwriting and production, “vague” isn’t necessarily the word I would use. On Big City Life, the duo flit deftly between genres—dream pop, glitchy electro, power ballads, shoegaze, even shades of trip-hop on album closer “Easy”—whipping up all these textures into a sonic soufflé that is uniquely their own. And where their previous records have erred towards the cryptic (at least lyrically), on Big City Life, they’re making room for big, overwhelming feelings: take the brazenly sensual yearning captured on the twinkling “Big Dreams,” or the woozy rush of being head-over-heels in love so beautifully captured on lead single “You Got Time and I Got Money,” the melody of which you could just as easily imagine being sung in a smoky 1920s Paris jazz club as at an underground club night in 2020s Berlin.

“We had a period of listening to cabaret music, and more traditional songwriting, quite a lot, which I guess stitches together the last album and this one somehow,” says Motzfeldt. And the emotional maturity, for lack of a better term, that courses through the album—despite the fizzy, bratty fun of “Feisty,” there’s an air of hard-earned, melancholic wisdom that colors tracks like “Street Style” and album highlight “A Thousand Lies”—can also be explained by the pair having grown up a little. “We started making music in a sort of club music environment, and at some point, that disappeared, and we didn’t find ourselves inside those clubs that often,” says Stoltenberg, discussing the album’s more straightforward lyrics.

Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt’s friendship was first sparked while at high school in Oslo; then, in the early 2010s, they moved to Copenhagen together for university, Stoltenberg to study math and statistics, Motzfeldt to study music composition at the city’s prestigious Rhythmic Music Conservatory. The close-knit community of experimental musicians that orbited the latter—other recent graduates include Erika de Casier, ML Buch, and Astrid Sonne, all artists with a similar interest in the porous outer regions of pop—encouraged them to form Smerz, the name being an abbreviated form of the German word Herzschmerz, meaning heartache.

Given its clever production and Stoltenberg’s consciously dispassionate vocals, Big City Life could easily come across as forbiddingly cool. But there’s a sincerity and a wide-eyed romance to so many of the songs—as well as, on tracks like “Feisty,” a playfulness and winking humor—that lends the project a whole lot of heart instead. Both Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt note that much of the album came from dark nights of the soul they experienced over the past few years. “I guess we have both moved in and out of some different relationships, and we've also moved cities, from Copenhagen to Oslo, and a bit back again,” says Stoltenberg. “The beginning of the writing of this album was the beginning of a lot of shifts in our personal lives”.

I realise several of my Spotlight features concern artists that are not brand new. Smerz have been releasing music since 2017, they are a duo that I think everyone needs to know about. I must admit I have not included an artist who has been making music for that long, but I have seen others spotlight Smerz for success this year. Though not a new or rising duo, they are one that are going to help shape and define Pop music this year. Before getting to a review of their most recent album, there are two more interviews I am including. PAPER spoke with Smerz back in the summer. A duo living their own big city life, I have been following them, I think since 2022, and maybe their fanbase is not quite as large as it should be. However, with every album and year that passes, they recruit new fans around the world:

“Big city life is a continued conversation between the Smerz duo, who have already created a thematically and musically varied set of works since 2017 via a debut EP, a full-length album, and a number of collaborations and compositional projects. On this new album, they've pared down the scale of their artistic wanderings, choosing to create a poignant portrait of life in their (relatively small) home city of Oslo.

Highlights include “Roll the dice,” which finds the duo delivering a self-affirmation before a night out on the town. “You’re a girl in the city and you shouldn’t think twice/ You take two steps forward, keep your eyes on the prize,” they hum over a beat that features an almost slapstick piano line, atonal and coy. Or look at the smashing fun of “Feisty,” which is the album at its most uptempo. A clanging 707 hi hat melds with a set of strings that could be ripped from aVanessa Cartlon cut. Meanwhile the duo hum about the small, innocuous details of a night of drinking and flirting (“He likes to seem mysterious but really he's just dumb/ It's crowded at the toilet, I check my makeup and my bum”).

Smerz’s renewed focus on local tedium was spurred by a major move. They started their career in Copenhagen, a central part of its alt pop scene, which includes fellow artists Erika de Casier, ML Buch, Astrid Sonne and Fine Glindvad (Motzfeldt went to school with many of them at the important Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen).

“We developed our whole musical life in Copenhagen. Everyone we know and everywhere we go has some connection to music,” says Stoltenberg. Collectively, their crew of Copenhagen colleagues became a global musical force, receiving an upsurge of interest in 2023 when Smerz, de Casier and Glindvad all contributed to K-pop stars NewJeans’ EP Get Up (Smerz produced EP closer “ASAP”).

It was time, though, for a change. They moved back to their hometown during COVID. Both were coming out of relationships and thus re-entering single life just as the world was fluctuating between various levels of lockdowns and reopenings. There, in Oslo, they could linger in the specificities of home: its culture, its rhythm, its “grey and green” landscape. And there, they could document their everyday experience in Oslo through surprising, instinctual works of pop reportage.

It’s hard not to connect their deep hometown connection to Stoltenberg’s own exceptional tie to the country. Her father, Jens Stoltenberg, was Prime Minister of the small EU nation twice between 2000 and 2013. Stoltenberg doesn’t speak publicly about her family’s political ties, but her ability to largely avoid the topic speaks to Norway’s vastly different social system: where wealth disparity is minimized by a social safety net and the general social code revolves around janteloven, “disdainful attitude to extraordinary achievements … [or] the Nordic trait of placing the value of equality above all else.”

On Big city life, Smerz streamlined everything, comparing its musical creation to a “band jamming.” They assembled a “library” of a few core sounds: a drum machine, software pianos, synthy strings which sound like they’re plucked out of a ‘90s TV documentary’s score. “These songs were made quite fast, with a focus on the songwriting, and less focus on the sounds and the textures,” Stoltenberg shares. “By working a bit more quickly and not focusing as much on the production, you can capture some spontaneous mood or feeling of whatever state you're in”.

Actually I think I will end now with a review. Not a new duo or breaking through, I think it is a perfect time to feature Smerz, as they had a brilliant year las year. Big city life was hugely acclaimed. This is what The Line of Best Fit about one of the strongest offerings from 2025. I do think that Big city life took their music to a new audience. Never resting on their laurels or repeating what went before, I think we will see Smerz releasing music for a very long time to come:

“Catharina Soltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, known as the Norwegian art pop duo Smerz, have bottled the events of a night out with its ecstasy and fleetingness and gloom through 2021’s experimental odyssey Believer or last year’s fictional pop star Allina, but on Big city life, they head straight to the party.

Their ability to make music about the club and not necessarily in it is strange and unwavering. “Roll the dice”, with its stilted delivery and jabby piano, shouldn’t be a peppy number, but its lyrics point in that direction: “You’re a girl in the streets / And you shouldn’t think twice… / Let the city lights surround you / Make it shimmer, make it bright." It has all the feel of a first night out in a new place, feeling the buzz of concrete and metal pulse. On the record’s mesmerizing opening track, too, they marvel at “The freedom of a big city,” one that can stifle as well as open yourself up to new possibilities. Everything is available, which makes everything daunting.

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than on the album’s beguiling and wonderful centerpiece, “Feisty”. It’s an oddly simple, deadpanned-approach to the club where every line is delivered in accordance with the physics of the night, no dressing or metaphor. Rather, simple descriptions abound: “Makeup on my mind, these shoes so far down / Little red skirt and a blouse my mother found,” like an anthropologist taking notes for those who couldn’t make it. Their writing is complex in its simplicity – further on, they groan at an art school gang who shows up, “and they’re always plenty.” Why “plenty”? There are hundreds of adjectives that would better give focus to the group, but instead, they note the size of the crowd, like a foggy, dense, outline of what’s happening. Whether this is a language kerfuffle or a genuine literary moment, it’s a mind-snagging line that barely says anything. Maybe they’re taking a cue from the gang themselves: “They don’t say much, use their art to show compassion.”

Smerz isn’t always at the club though, and Big city life benefits from periods of downtime. On the refreshingly sincere trip-hop “You got time and I got money”, they slowdance around simple affectations: “I like these clean t-shirts on you / I like the restaurants you choose.” On the swanky spoken-word “Imagine this”, they recount a first date, the boy’s desire at the girl’s surprising cleverness. But they go their separate ways even though the connection was strong: “And as the city turns quiet / You both have to admit / That this isn’t now / But this could’ve been it.”

Similar to Charli xcx, Smerz’ downtempo songs might be more revealing than their anthems. They cry and second-guess before the party on “But I do”, and a zap of realization comes on “A thousand lies”, where they bleakly sing, “I’m realizing lately that I won’t feel like this again.” The anxiety creeps in on “Easy”, the closing track, where their Tirzah-esque voices cut across the haze, daydreaming about closeness that might be harder to achieve. “I’ll be the one you know,” they assure, “We’ll talk about the things you don’t talk about with your friends,” matching a drunk promise that you know you won’t keep. Or maybe the person on the other side just isn’t into you, and there’s nothing you can do. The trip ends with the record’s most brilliant line, succinctly summarizing the whirlwind of a night out before the comedown of realization: “Have I said too much?”.

Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt create amazing music together. With Smerz, they have this incredible power and sound. The duo head to New Zealand and Australia soon before going to Ireland and Europe for some tour dates. There might not be much time to release new singles for a while. However, I am sure that we will hear something from them a bit later in the year. If this is the first time that you have heard of Smerz, then make sure that they are firmly…

IN your life.

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Follow Smerz

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Scene Seven: The truth, no matter what it is, isn’t that frightening: Drive My Car (2021)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

 

Scene Seven: The truth, no matter what it is, isn’t that frightening: Drive My Car (2021)

__________

THE second time…

IN THIS PHOTO: Eiko Ishibashi/PHOTO CREDIT: Bas Bogaerts

I am spotlighting a film score rather than a soundtrack, this is also the most recent inclusion, year-wise. Eiko Ishibashi’s amazing score for Drive My Car. I will come to some reviews of the score and an interview with its composer. I am starting out The Guardian and their review of a marvellous 2021 film. An adaptation of a Haruki Murakami work (Drive My Car is a celebrated short story by Haruki Murakami, featured in his 2014 collection Men Without Women, which explores themes of grief, connection, and loneliness through a widowed actor who hires a young female chauffeur), this film might have fallen under the radar, as the pandemic meant that people could not get to the cinema as much as they would have liked:

“Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s mysterious and beautiful new film is inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name – and that title, like Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, is designed to tease us with the shiny wistfulness of a Beatles lyric. Hamaguchi’s previous pictures Asako I and II and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy were about the enigma of identity, the theatrical role play involved in all social interaction and the erotic rapture of intimacy. Drive My Car is about all this and more; where once Hamaguchi’s film-making language had seemed to me at the level of jeu d’esprit, now it ascends to something with passion and even a kind of grandeur. It is a film about the link between confession, creativity and sexuality and the unending mystery of other people’s lives and secrets.

Yûsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a successful actor and theatre director who specialises in experimental multilingual productions with surtitles – he is currently working on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and is preparing to play the lead in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. He has a complex relationship with his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), a successful writer and TV dramatist who has a habit of murmuring aloud ideas for erotic short stories, trance-like, while she is astride Yûsuke having sex, including a potent vignette about a teenage girl who breaks into the house of the boy with whom she is obsessed.

The couple learn that Yûsuke is in danger of losing the sight in one eye – he later learns with a shock that this has changed the short story that she was working on – but this perhaps makes it easier for him to accept that he will need a driver for his trusty Saab 900 when he later directs a new revival of his Vanya production at an arts festival in Hiroshima, a city that is photographed with crisp unsentimentality. Things are complicated by a devastating event in Oto’s life, and Yûsuke being confronted with proof that she had been having an affair with a handsome and disreputable young actor and celebrity called Kôji (Masaki Okada). For complex reasons, he casts this same bumptious Kôji in the lead role for Vanya for his revival, assuring the actor calmly that makeup will cover the age difference, and responds readily but with cool reserve when Kôji keeps saying he wants to talk to him over a drink after rehearsals. This strange duel between the two men is happening alongside Yûsuke’s growing relationship with his driver Misaki (Tôko Miura) whose professional reticence evolves into something else when he starts confessing his anguish to her – prompted by the fact that he likes to play a certain cassette in the car: the voice of his wife running his lines for Vanya.

As Yûsuke, Nishijima has a certain severity, inscrutability and the almost martial self-discipline of someone who is accustomed to leadership and to giving orders to actors while seeming open to their suggestions. (Oddly, when he is in makeup for Vanya, he reminded me of Yasujirō Ozu’s veteran player Chishû Ryû.) Miura’s performance has a reserve of its own, as his confessor and fellow smoker. Chekhov’s play, with all its desperation and regret for missed life chances, has become a touchstone for Yûsuke, and almost a separate character in the movie. What if … Kôji was playing Vanya, not him? What if Kôji was his wife’s partner, not him? What if he had been able to master his feelings, swallow his pride and actively confront his wife with what he knew about her secret erotic life and how much he had been hurt by it? Would this blaze of attempted honesty have saved their relationship? Or destroyed it?

And all the time, Misaki is growing in importance, and in the film’s extraordinary final section, her story is told; a story that need not thematically dovetail with everything that has gone before, other than to show us once again, that other people’s lives are complicated and withheld, and that we are being arrogant if we think that we know everything there is to know about the people that we meet.

Drive My Car is an expansion of a short story, and perhaps it’s true to say that Hamaguchi’s storytelling aesthetic here, as in his other films, is a mosaic or choreography of short stories, an archipelago of lives. Yûsuke, Oto, Kôji and Misaki are living their own stories, and the drama superimposes and overlaps them like a Venn diagram. And there is something very moving when we close in on one particular tale, one life. It is an engrossing and exalting experience”.

Eiko Ishibashi is a composer that is quite new to me. Her score for Drive My Car is extraordinary. I was completely immersed and engrossed when I heard the album. I wanted to discover more about a score for one of the best films of 2021. In celebrating modern-day great composers, women are often overlooked. It is important that composers like Eiko Ishibashi are celebrated and spotlighted more. In 2022, when the soundtrack/score was reworked for the EFG London Jazz festival at Kings Place, London (The Guardian provided their take), Variety spoke with Eiko Ishibashi about crafting and creating Drive My Car’s emotional and stunning score:

“Enter Eiko Ishibashi, an experimental Japanese multi-instrumentalist whose 2018 “The Dream My Bones Dream” was a turning point in an already decade-long career of scores for theater and short films.

Ishibashi’s 2018 album of haunting soundscapes and its electro-acoustic mix of noise, oddball pop, improvisational jazz and minimalist, modern classical music made her a cinematic force equal to Hamaguchi. The more textural and sweeping aspects of Ishibashi’s bittersweet melodies were an elegant match for Hamaguchi’s vision.

After being known for crafting blunt, short films since 2001, Japanese director Hamaguchi’s romantic “Asako I & II” of 2018 signaled an aesthetic shift, a turn toward sweeping narratives with shadowy, but tactile, atmospheres. Such expanse was necessary for 2021’s “Drive My Car,” a tale of a theater director reckoning with the finality of death while working on a stage production of “Uncle Vanya” during long car rides.

To that end, Ishibashi’s contemplative song-score for “Drive My Car,” re-released in February on major streaming services with bonus tracks, is as distant and off-putting as it is intimate and readily engaging.

“Typically, I don’t use a lot of music in my films, but hearing the music Ishibashi made was the first time I thought ‘this could work for the film,’” says director Hamaguchi, who was introduced to her music by “Drive My Car” producer Teruhisa Yamamoto as filming was set to commence. “Hearing her work, I was struck by how wonderful her talent and technique was. It reminded me of a band I enjoyed in my 20s, Tortoise. It had a similar feel that really matched with my taste, so I was very happy to work with Eiko.”

The director says he and Ishibashi share similar backgrounds, generationally, as well as a shared career trajectory. “I think that comes from listening to the same things around the same time. We also share similar tastes in film. She watches a lot of movies and loves John Cassavetes, Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and all these filmmakers who I really enjoy. Our film language was very similar.”

Hamaguchi and Ishibashi both agree that making the music of “Drive My Car” in spurts — before and after the pandemic shutdown, as well as during the shoot itself — was a huge help in making her compositions for his cinematic vision their own living, breathing entity.

“Working on it step-by-step with director Hamaguchi while he was filming was very gratifying for me,” says Ishibashi.

The director continues: “We shot the first 40 minutes of ‘Drive My Car’ in its first chunk, around mid-2020, but had to stop because of COVID. We had Ishibashi work on that chunk first — she would send us motifs of different moments, and we would add those pieces into the edit as we went. That process of combining the edit and the music worked really well. Based on those motifs she came up with, I would give notes and she would record a final version after more back-and-forth. It wasn’t this abstract way of communicating an idea of what I wanted … it was visual to begin with. That went very smoothly and I will use that way of working with a composer in the future”.

I will end with a Pitchfork review for a mesmeric score. One of the best of the past decade. Before that, The Guardian spoke with a composer whose amazing score helped Drive My Car to Oscar success (it won the award for Best International Feature Film). Not a one off, “the Japanese musician has reunited with its director for a collaboration unlike any other”.  Her latest work was an E.P. released last year that was a collaboration with Jim O’Rourke. Pareiodlia is a stunning work. This is an astonishing composer who summons something dark, eerie and strangely beautiful. Such evocative and image-provoking, Drive My Car is perhaps more graceful, romantic and tender. Though it does have these turns and unexpected sonic moments:

“Whether it’s Hitchcock and Herrmann, Spielberg and Williams or latterly Villeneuve and Zimmer, film directors often get into a glorious feedback loop with a preferred composer – and the latest is a burgeoning collaboration between Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Eiko Ishibashi. Her jazz-pop theme for Drive My Car in 2021 was an instant classic – wistful, generous of spirit, even a little Gallic with its touch of accordion – and her score helped to carry the Japanese film to glory at Cannes and beyond, including a best picture nomination and best international feature film award at the Oscars in 2022.

“There was a big awards rush, festivals, and I think Hamaguchi was ultimately quite fatigued from the whole experience,” Ishibashi says, elegantly wrapped up in her cold-looking recording studio in the Yatsugatake mountains west of Tokyo, speaking via interpeter over a video call. “So I think he wanted to do something that was more experimental next. And myself, I’m interested in experimenting with what kinds of work I can do along with images.”

The result is a pair of astonishing new films in which the bond between director and composer is even more tightly fused: the drama Evil Does Not Exist and a short film, Gift, which is silent and designed to be paired with live performance by Ishibashi. Hamaguchi has described the two films, which use different takes, shots and narrative details from the same shoot, as a “small multiverse”.

Gift was the initial idea, after Ishibashi asked Hamaguchi for concert visuals and sent him demo pieces for inspiration. Hamaguchi went big, travelling to film near where Ishibashi lives, and even developing a script that wouldn’t be heard but would guide the actors in the silent film. “Hearing them on set saying these lines, he realised they had wonderful voices; the acting was wonderful,” Ishibashi explains.

So Hamaguchi expanded the film on the fly to make Evil Does Not Exist, a parable about the schism between urban and rural, between capitalism and its muffled opposite, as a glamping company arrogantly rocks up with plans to site a development in a peaceful village. The camera lovingly and languorously settles on feathers, leaves and brooks, and Ishibashi’s music is often beautiful to match. But violence and discord throb in the film’s bones, from the faraway gunshots of deer hunters to the way Hamaguchi will suddenly cut an Ishibashi piece down in its prime, leaving sudden silence.

“I felt an anger that I hadn’t felt in his past films,” she says. “Anger that felt directed towards the way humans work, the unfairness of this whole world.” Watching the raw footage, she says she drew on that feeling to create the film’s central musical theme: long, gorgeous overlapping chords for strings that take left turns into darkness.

In the past decade, three superb albums – Imitation of Life, Car and Freezer, and The Dreams My Bones Dream – were released by US label Drag City, and made her better known to American and European audiences. The latter is a reflection on Manchuria, an area of China named by its colonising Japanese forces – her late father was once based with the military there. Once again, it’s beautiful music laced with disquiet.

“My father carried a lot of scars from the war, but he never talked about his experiences,” Ishibashi says. “That led me to want to learn the history between Manchuria and Japan; the genocides that happened there. I realised there’s very little writing around this, and that led me to think about how perhaps victims can’t necessarily talk about it.

“There is a sense of Japan tending to close off from things that have happened – perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it’s an island country. It tends to also hide away certain facts and history, and carry on as if nothing had happened. In textbooks we don’t learn about Japan and its history as an oppressor, a coloniser, especially after the first world war. There’s a sense that it’s OK to not be learning about these things”.

I want to wrap things up with a review for the Drive My Car score. Reviewing it in 2022, Pitchfork lauded an album that “possesses a cool remove, mirroring the film’s glacial profundity with organic nuance and contemplative improvisation”. In terms of the versions and date order, initial formats like C.D. and cassette appearing in late 2021 in Japan, followed by wider digital/streaming release and vinyl in early 2022. That is why I have listed the release date as 2021, as that is when it first came out:

“Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a staggering exploration of grief, betrayal, and acceptance. The loose adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short-story follows Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director, as he mourns the deaths of his young daughter and his screenwriter wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima). Two years after Oto’s death, Yusuke relocates to Hiroshima where he will direct a production of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” Upon arrival, he is assigned a quiet female driver named Misaki (Toko Miura). Throughout many long drives in Yusuke’s vintage Red Saab, the two gradually open up about their individual sorrow.

Now nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best International Film, Drive My Car is a profound masterpiece made all the more entrancing by its score, written by Eiko Ishibashi. The Japanese multi-instrumentalist and composer is best known for her experimental solo work, which ranges from jazz fusion to the imaginative dream pop heard on a recent tribute to a Law & Order character. Like the film’s protagonist, Ishibashi’s score possesses a cool remove and, alongside an ensemble that includes her frequent collaborator Jim O’Rourke, Ishibashi creates a soundtrack that is as moving as the film itself.

Bottom of Form

In the film, Yusuke’s theatrical method requires his cast to internalize the play’s text by running through the script without emotion before they are allowed to begin acting. (Yusuke rehearses his own lines by driving in his car and listening to cassettes of Oto reciting the other characters’ dialogue.) This emphasis on close listening and organic nuance is reflected in Ishibashi’s score, which is structured around variations of two themes, “Drive My Car” and “We’ll Live Through the Long, Long Days, and Through the Long Nights.” The eponymous core theme is set in motion by an opening burst of percussion and tumbling keys imbued with a certain thoughtfulness. This soon evolves into an upbeat and idyllic melody featuring yearning strings and the synthetic squawk of a melodion. However, this whimsical track is not the first piece of music heard by the audience. That would be “We’ll Live Through the Long, Long Days… (Oto),” a ghostly ambient track that abandons the score’s melodicism in favor of stillness, the falling of rain, and the muffled whooshing of passing cars.

In the same way that Yusuke suggests that a good driver allows their passenger to relax, Ishibashi’s score, even removed from the context of the film, allows the listener to sit back and enjoy the ride. Some of Ishibashi’s contributions suggest the transportive effect of driving in a concrete way. “Drive My Car (Cassette)” opens with a tape being inserted in a deck and the sounds of ambient traffic before it drifts into a pensive piano reverie. Meanwhile, Yusuke’s theme, “Drive My Car (Kafuku),” opens with the squeak of a seat being lowered before spiraling into rumination. “Drive My Car (Misaki)” also begins with an automobile sound as the titular character opens the Saab’s creaky front door and turns on the Saab’s ignition. This interpretation of the theme incorporates tumbling piano notes, brushed drums, and the steady thump of an electric bass; that such a reserved character is bestowed a warm theme underlines the idea that her wall of ice will someday melt, given the correct conditions.

Drive My Car’s second theme, “We’ll Live Through the Long, Long Days, and Through the Long Nights,” is more contemplative than its companion. There is an initial melancholy inflicted by strings so sorrowful that each note wavers like a dying breath. The “... (Saab 900)” version of the theme is the closest the score gets to a car crash: Percussionist Tatsuhisa Yamamoto’s fast and furious playing is layered atop the original theme’s piano melody with interjections of droning electric guitar and crashing cymbals. The arrangement is dusted, again, by vehicular ambience: the beep of a locked car, the slam of a door, and the click of a seatbelt. If the score’s other tracks capture a character or existential statement, “... (Saab 900)” is the titular car’s inner monologue as it drifts, and at one point, narrowly avoids getting side-swiped. “…(And When Our Last Hour Comes We’ll Go Quietly),” whose title is pulled from a soliloquy that arrives at the end of “Uncle Vanya,” features guitar work from O’Rourke that changes lanes from downcast meditation to hypnotic climax smoothly, as if there’s not a single bump in the road. And in its last moments, after a few final piano notes, Ishibashi’s glorious Drive My Car score goes quiet”.

You can find the Drive My Car soundtrack/score on Bandcamp. Even though it was released over four years ago now, I listen to it now and it moves me. If you can see the film it scores, I would recommend it. It is a beautiful award-winning and acclaimed film. The score adds these layers and emotions to the scenes. One of the most powerful pairings of music and visuals in recent cinema. That is why I wanted to highlight this masterpiece…

FROM Eiko Ishibashi.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Gracie Convert

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Gracie Convert

__________

THIS is a D.J. and artist…

who I am a big admirer of. Gracie Convert has a terrific show on Soho Radio and I have also featured (several times) her radio mate, Iraina Mancini, who also has her own excellent show. It is station that encourages musical exploration and going beyond the mainstream. On her Soho Radio show page, her show is described as “an ethereal blend of soulful sounds from around the globe, with genres ranging from R&B and Hip-Hop to Afrobeats, Amapiano, Reggaeton, Salsa, Bachata, Baile Funk and more”. I have held off on spotlighting Convert until now as a lot of the interviews were older. I shall lead with an older one, as it is good to go back and see what she was saying earlier in her career. However, last year was one where the French-born artist and D.J. released some terrific singles. Included is one of my favourite of the year in the form of Ma. I adore the composition and Gracie Convert’s vocals on it. So hypnotic and breathy, it is this enticing, seductive and colourful track that brings in some of the styles and genres from her radio show, yet this is a distinct and patented blend. I think I first discovered Convert’s music in 2021 when she put out In my way. I can only imagine how off it was releasing music in a year when the pandemic was sweeping the globe. I love Convert’s passion for music. You can hear it on her radio show. That translates into her own music. I wonder if she has plans for gigs, an E.P. or album this year. I would love to see her perform and I also know there are fans out there who would welcome a 2026 E.P. Her songs from last year were incredible, so anyone who has not connected with Gracie Convert yet needs to.

Before coming to some more recent interviews, I want to go back to 2021. Gracie Convert might not want me to call her an ‘emerging’ or ‘rising’ talent, as she has been releasing music for a long time now. However, she is someone not known to everyone, so it is vital that as many people as possible check her out. In 2021, LOCK spoke with an incredible artist releasing music in a year that was perhaps not ideal. In terms of touring and connecting with fans. I am really excited to hear what comes next. Convert’s music is so diverse but always stunning:

“Good morning/good afternoon, when did you first get into music?

Hiii! Aha this is going to sound cringy I’m really sorry, but I did unfortunately sing before I could speak (show out to Disney for their sing along tapes lol) under the sea and colours of the wind were my faves! I guess it was always something that appealed, I always wanted to sing and dance around, it would’ve been difficult for me to not get into it I think.

You’re French and British, do you think your French heritage affects your songwriting in any way when it comes to experiencing different cultures?

No doubt about it!! I love french R&B and Hip-Hop, I still bang out songs I used to listen to when I was 12 years old. I really looked up to artists such as Zaho and Amel Bent, they’re really sick. My Mum and I never stayed put for very long so I grew up darting around between France, England and South Africa, I’d say it was in Cape Town I really got into R&B for the first time, everything followed from there really. God knows how many hours I spent dancing to MTV Bass and VH1 in front of the telly lol.

Your latest track ‘Something Special’ is all about someone sucking the life out of you – do you have any advice for anyone going through the same thing?

Bad energy, stay far away!! If it’s affecting your mental health, leave yes, it’s always easier said than done, but if you feel like you’re losing your identity get the hell out of that relationship, be it romantic or not. Remember what you wanted before you met that person, the things that made you happy,  remember your childhood goals, don’t let anyone deter you from whatever was important to you before you got sucked in by someone who is destructive to your being.

Many publications such as Notion and Guap are calling you an emerging talent, is there any pressure when being called that?

On most days, those are the words that encourage me to keep putting the work in.

Sometimes when I read these things I feel like people just write them because they feel they have to or feel sorry for me lol, which doesn’t really make sense given I’m an independent artist with no money behind me. Isn’t it called Imposter syndrome?  I’m an unknown artist just starting out, so when publications like Guap (I’ve loved them literally since they started), Notion and Colors (sorry had to mention this one because it was a big one for me!!) recognise my music, I’m like, surely not lol.

Other times, I low key feel like I’ve put so many hours in. I deserve it. It’s always changing, my mood’s all over the place anyway, but to be honest I think most creatives go through the same thing.

You show your love of R&B, Hip Hop and Rap when presenting your radio show on Soho Radio – which I love.  What’s one artist in those three genres that everyone should be listening to?

Oh thanks!! It’s so fun to be a part of and it. I’m going to go with Deante Hitchcock, this rapper who is signed to J Cole’s label. I’m a big fan of J cole’s lyricism and Deante’s give me a similar feeling when I listen to him. Nayara Iz, I think she’s one of the most exciting artists to come out the UK right now, obsessed with Damso too, he’s a french artists and his songs bang, would recommend listening to the songs ‘Macarena’ and ‘Godbless’”.

Before getting to an interview from last year, there is an article I want to drop in. Where the Music Meets highlighted Gracie Convert’s new single, In my way, in June. Someone who can go between style and genres but always has this distinct and original core, I do love how there were articles around this single and others from last year. A phenomenal artist getting some much-deserved kudos and praise. I feel like Convert should be played more on big national radio stations, as she has this amazing talent the world needs to hear:

“There’s something about a voice that sounds like it’s telling you a secret—that leans in rather than belts out. Gracie Convert does exactly that in “In My Way“, the kind of track you play on a night bus while staring at lights and pretending everything’s fine.

Soft chords, barely-there drums, and those sigh-like vocals—”In My Way” channels early 2000s R&B in the best way. Think Amerie meets early Aaliyah with a French-English twist that makes it unmistakably Gracie. There’s a tenderness here that doesn’t beg for attention; it just sits with you, quiet and necessary. It feels like overhearing a voice note you were never supposed to catch—equal parts beautiful and a little too close for comfort.

The production is warm and minimal, thanks to Jack Seagal, with Gracie adding her own fingerprints throughout. That bilingual storytelling she’s become known for is alive and well, giving us both the softness of French vulnerability and the direct hit of English introspection. She sings about that kind of love that chips away at your sense of self—the love you keep justifying until the mirror doesn’t quite recognise you anymore. It’s melancholy, sure, but never pitiful.
And somehow, through the ache, it still slaps. There’s a subtle catchiness to it—one of those tracks that loops in your head not because of a hook, but because of how it felt. It’s that kind of song. The kind you end up humming under your breath without realising”

Prior to finishing with an interview from last year, there is an article that showed love for babe pourquoi t’es comme ça? That bilingual single is another favourite of mine from 2025. This brilliantly consistently and always-surprising artist whose musical palette is broad and compelling. WPGM took us inside this slinky, sensuous and beautiful song whose lyrics are really interesting:

“Co-produced with longtime collaborator Jack Segal, the track is built to feel close-up: hand-instrumental textures, a supple groove, and a vocal that alternates between measured confession and clipped refrain. The press materials frame the song as a reflection on how past love and mistakes calcify into defenses; that framing fits the music’s small-scale intensity and the choice to keep the arrangement economical rather than ornate.

Lyrically, Convert toggles fluently between French and English to map out distance and self-protection. The opening line, “Babe pourquoi t’es comme ça? / Au lieu d’avouer / Tu laisses tout tomber”, places the song in a conversational register, as if the narrator is working through the limits of a dialogue that never quite happens.

The English interjections (“That’s all I’ve got to say inside my head”) and the recurring admission, “I don’t trust nobody / And I don’t know who’s here to stay”, underline the tension between what is felt and what is said aloud. Even the decision to prefer “le silence aux doutes” reads like a coping mechanism: if doubts can’t be resolved, the song suggests, quiet becomes a form of control.

Musically, that guardedness is mirrored by restraint. Rather than chase a dramatic chorus, Convert hinges the hook on a wordless “Hey, ey, Hey, ooh” figure—more breath than proclamation—which helps the bilingual verses carry the narrative weight.

It’s a small but effective choice: the hook trades breadth for intimacy, letting the verses do the emotional heavy lifting, while the cadence and pocket nod to contemporary R&B without crowding the bossa nova sway. The result feels measured rather than minimal, a stripe of jazz-minded economy that leaves space for subtext.

Context matters here. The rollout positions “babe pourquoi t’es comme ça?” alongside Convert’s earlier singles “MA” and “In My Way,” and notes prior support from BBC Radio 1, COLORS Berlin, Worldwide FM, Rinse FM, Notion Magazine, and Spotify editorial lists including Jazz UK and Le Miel.

Those reference points hint at an audience that is already comfortable with genre-fluid songwriting and bilingual phrasing; the new single doesn’t try to broaden that lane with louder gestures so much as tighten it with clearer lines and a more explicit thematic throughline. In that sense, the track reads like a consolidating move—less a pivot than a careful deepening of tools that are already part of her kit.

If there is a modest risk, it’s that the song’s self-contained scale could feel underpowered to listeners expecting a big cathartic payoff. But that seems deliberate. Convert’s choice to foreground ambivalence—the sense of things “falling down,” the cyclical pull of old patterns, the reluctance to over-explain—aligns with the song’s subject and with a production aesthetic that prizes clarity over spectacle.

Taken together, “babe pourquoi t’es comme ça?” reads as a focused vignette within a larger arc: an artist refining a bilingual, cross-genre language for private conversations that rarely resolve cleanly, and trusting that restraint can carry just as much weight as release”.

Let’s finish off with an interview from Secret Eclectic. I need to interview Gracie Convert some day, as I would love to know more about her childhood and the music she grew up on. More about her Soho Radio show and her plans for the future. It would be amazing to see some in-depth interviews with incredible photoshoots where Gracie Convert looks back on her career and we get these questions that take us from her earliest years to now:

“Describe your sound in 3 words

I’d say honest, vulnerable, cross-genre

Tell us a few things about babe pourquoi t’es comme ça? What is the story behind it?

It started as me reflecting on past love and mistakes, and how those experiences can shape us. It can be heard as a love song, but also as a conversation with myself; the guarded version of me now speaking to the more open, vulnerable version of me from the past. The mix of English and French came naturally because that’s how I often think, I’m trying to integrate that side of me more in my music

The track blends nicely detuned synth pads with a bossa-infused beat. How did this unique combination come to be?

I think being a DJ has made me listen to such a huge variety of music that I naturally start blending sounds that maybe wouldn’t usually come together. With this track, the detuned synth pads came out sample I found, and then when I laid them over a bossa-infused rhythm it just felt right. It’s a mix of my influences, the warmth and groove of bossa with the dreamy, imperfect textures I love from electronic music and indie R&B

What advice would you give to your younger self?

To not overthink it, at the end of the day the world keeps turning”.

Gracie Convert is playing Soul Mama on 5th March. If you are able to go and check her out at the Stratford venue then do, as it is a great space and she will be terrific. I think she has had a wonderful past year. Some excellent new music and press. As I say with artists I spotlight, what does this year hold? More radio shows from Convert. I can imagine a series of singles and maybe an E.P. I do hope that there are some summer shows. Her music would sound perfect in the sun with an adoring crowd cheering her on! Go and follow this fabulous artist. I have loved her work for years. She has a lot of fans already but, given the quality of her music, it warrants…

A whole lot more.

____________

Follow Gracie Convert

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Twinnie

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Joey Schrader

 

Twinnie

__________

IT is sort of a shame…

that Twinnie does not live in the U.K. anymore, as I would love to meet her and do an interview one day. However, the Internet exists, so an interview via email down the line might be a possibility. A proud artist now of the beautiful Nashville, Twinnie was born in York. An incredible actor and songwriter, her full/real name is Twinnie-Lee Moore. I really love her music and I see her Instagram posts and she is always so real, honest, engaging and funny. Hollywood Gypsy came out in 2021 and I think I wrote about it at the time. Something We Used to Say came out in 2024. What bonds the covers is Twinnie looking pretty glamorous and stylish. In a long dress and putting her hand to her chin, maybe that is the distinct or trademark look. However, last year’s Giddy Up E.P. sees her still looking quite cool and glamorous, but she is astride a horse and it is a different aesthetic. There was a time when Country music was quite off the radar and niche. Now, more and more huge artists are releasing Country albums. Included are Beyoncé, CMAT, and Ringo Starr. If these artists don’t seem on paper to be ‘genuine’ Country artists or fit our idea of a Country act, especially in the case of Beyoncé, she is an authentic and genuine Country artist. It is much in her blood as R&B, Pop or anything else. That is also the case of Twnnie. Many might think a northern-born actor and artist from a traveller background might be a latecomer to Country, though she sounds as passionate and pure as any U.S.-born artist. Twinnie became the first British Gypsy to debut at the Grand Ole Opry. You can see her putting roots down in the U.S. and maybe starting a family there. That might seem intrusive or assumptive, but you feel that’s she’s fallen in love with the land, music and language. However, there are tour dates ahead. Twinnie has some U.K. dates coming in March. I might try and see her at The Lexington in London, as that is going to be a great gig.

Because she has been very busy the past few years and put an incredible E.P. out last year, I want to get to some interviews. I spotlighted Twinnie back in 2022. I am sort of happy with what I wrote, though there have been changes to her sound and career, so there is a lot to bring in. I think Twinnie has developed and evolved as an artist. Her 2024 album and 2025 E.P. are the strongest works she has put out. However, I feel like she is still not at her absolute peak yet. You can sense her getting stronger and building upwards with every release. It is an exciting future ahead. Although she has acted previously, maybe music is taking a priority now. However, I can also imagine Twinnie appearing in film and T.V. Someone who you picture in certain roles, many big artists do balance music with acting. Maybe something she will consider this year. I hope I have got my facts straight! Though there is a brief U.K. tour, I feel Twinnie will spend more time here this year. Maybe some festivals will come up? There are a couple of 2024 interviews I want to come to before a couple from last year. As she put out Something We Used to Say in 2024, there was a new wave of interest around her music. I will start out with Listen to This and their 2024 interview with Twinnie. If you have not come across this incredible artist then you really do need to check her out. Her videos are always hugely watchable and she has an amazing voice. As an actor who has worked on stage, she brings this extra gravitas and physicality to her videos and live performances. A big reason why she is so loved and respected as an artist:

“Nashville-based British country crossover artist Twinnie is bringing the curtain down on her self-proclaimed “sad girl era” with her newest EP ‘Blue Hour (Before The Dawn)’ on 28th June 2024. She spoke to us about her latest single ‘Girl In Your Songs’ her hometown and more:

When did you begin songwriting and recording music?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I began writing poetry as a child and that progressed to songwriting as I grew older. It’s therapy for me and something that I truly love to do.

What is your earliest musical memory?

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by music. I’ve been on stage since I was 4 I think my earliest memory is me singing in the school choir as a butterfly. Looking back now it was very on trend because a lot of my friends call me the social butterfly.

Your new single ‘Girl In Your Songs’ is out now. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

I dated a Rockstar a many years ago. His song about our relationship got to number 1, so this song is in response to that and I’m hoping to match that success haha.

Where did you record the single and who produced it?

It was produced by the brilliant Barnabas Shaw, and Chris Rafetto. I love them both and they’re both incredibly talented. I recorded vocals IN Nashville and London.

Was it a difficult song to write?

Not difficult really, I love the story arc and it comes from a real experience. I had fun writing this one.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

I love my Gibson j45, my mini taylor and I love my upright piano at home that I write on a lot. I love my trusty sm7b mic made by sure that comes everywhere with me in case I need to play a vocal down while travelling.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

I’m originally from York. I’d probably say, rural, quaint, safe, home, real, down to earth, historic and THE BEST PLACE TO LIVE IN THE UK LOL

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

This is something I’ve actually been been working on recently although the screen play is something that I wrote in the pandemic and wrote the music with some amazingly talented writers and actors like Alan Menken, Anna Rose, Lucie Silvas, Mary Steenburgen, Dave Stewart and Andy Garcia. Honestly I love musicals old MGM films or gangsters films once upon time in America starring Robert De Niro is one of my all time favourite scores by Ennio Morricone is perfection. Id love to do something like that.

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

I love Dolly, Shania, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Tupac, Ella Fitzgerald, Beatles like so many and my musical taste is everything lol.

You should definitely check out my friends from Nashville Bonner Black, Abigail Virginia, Lucie Silvas, Brothers Osbourne, Fancy Hagood, Maggie Rogers all amazing artists.

Do you have any further music releases planned for 2024?

Yes, I have a few singles and a new EP releasing in June. I can’t wait to share it all with my fans. I’m so excited about this next chapter.

What makes Twinnie happy and what makes you unhappy?

Sleep and carbs lol, hiking, reading, hanging out with friends, spending time with the people I love and my dog! My dog sunny is my best pal”.

After releasing the phenomenal E.P., Blue Hour (Before the Dawn), in 2024, EUPHORIA. spoke with Twinnie. Each of her E.P.s and albums is its own thing. They have a different sound and narrative. I do think that she has grown in stature and confidence over the past few years. How long until she is collaborating with huge artists and playing the biggest stages of her career? That possibility cannot be too far away one suspects:

“You have released your new EP, Blue Hour (Before The Dawn), which you’ve said is going to close your “sad girl era.” Why is this a chapter you want to close?

As an artist, I love creating worlds, a lot of my work has been concept-based. This era of Blue Hour was born out of a real-life experience of a ten-year relationship ending and it’s been nearly two years. I wrote a lot of songs and healed a lot from it with this music. I’m in a much happier place now and with summer just starting it feels like the perfect time to close out the sad girl era and bring in some happy, empowering anthems.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Alexander

Does that mean you’ve been in the zone of writing happier songs? How has that been going? Many artists find it easier to write more emotionally driven songs.

I always pull from real-life experiences, but I love upbeat music and dancing and all of that so it’s very natural for me to write positive songs. But these sad songs were needed. It was very much therapy for me.

You just released your latest single, “Girl in Your Songs.” What inspired the song?

This is about a real relationship I had years ago with a famous rock star. He wrote a track about me first and he got to number one, so I did what any songwriter would do and wrote him one back.

With country music being such a huge genre in the US, have you found that the US has been more accepting of your music than the UK?

Country music fans are the best all around the world. It is the fastest-growing genre across Europe right now and I feel really lucky to be a part of the songwriter community in Nashville. We’ve seen so many pop stars come into the genre. It’s a really exciting time and it’s a genre that’s so diverse so I feel like everyone has been supportive. I guess playing the Opry was a huge milestone for me and a nod from the community and fans I’m doing something right.

You made your Grand Ole Opry debut last year. How was that experience?

That was the best experience ever. It was a moment I’ll cherish forever. It was everything I ever dreamed of and so much more”.

A couple of interviews from last year before I wrap things up. I love Nashville Voyager’s interview with Twinnie. As I say, I might try and catch her play in London in March, as I hear only great things about her live sets. She is a tremendous artist that seems to have fitted naturally into the Nashville set. The next few years are going to be immense for her! Personally, professionally and beyond. You can see her doing things that she will remember for the rest of her life:

“Hi Twinnie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started performing when I was about four years old, growing up in the Romani Gypsy Traveling community in England. Music and storytelling were always a huge part of my life – it’s just in my bones. I went on to perform in West End musicals like Chicago and Rock of Ages, and had the chance to work alongside legends like Glenn Close, Christian Slater, and Alan Menken, which was such a surreal and inspiring experience.

Before launching my own music career, I spent time as a backing singer and dancer for artists like Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, which really helped shape my stage presence and performance style. But deep down, I always knew I wanted to tell my own stories – ones that reflect my truth, my roots, and the things I’ve been through.

In 2020, I released my debut album and have been lucky enough to travel the world sharing my music ever since. My sound blends country storytelling with a British twist and a bit of pop energy, and I’ve always tried to use my platform to uplift other women and be a voice for mental health awareness. I co-founded a movement called I Know A Woman to create space for those conversations.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not a smooth road, but I think the bumps along the way have shaped me into the artist and woman I am today.

Coming from a marginalized background, people had their assumptions about who I was before I even opened my mouth. I sometimes felt like I had to work twice as hard just to feel like I belonged. Then, transitioning into country music as a British artist came with its own set of challenges. Let’s just say, Americans sometimes have a hard time understanding me when I talk. I’m not sure why…I don’t have an accent or anything. Ha!

But, I’ve always believed that music transcends borders and I just kept showing up, writing my truth, and staying authentic to my story.

Mental health has also been a huge part of my journey. There’ve been times where the pressure of the industry – the expectations, the comparisons, the burnout – all took a toll. That’s actually what led me to co-create I Know A Woman during the Covid-19 pandemic. I wanted to create a safe space where women, especially in music, could feel seen and supported.

So no, it hasn’t been smooth. But every “no,” every door that shut, every moment of doubt – it’s all fueled my fire. And I’m proud of how far I’ve come, especially because I’ve done it on my own terms.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?

I think we’re already starting to see a real shift in the music industry, especially when it comes to genre lines blurring and artists being able to carve their own paths without needing to fit into a specific mold. Over the next 5 to 10 years, I believe that’s only going to grow. The gatekeepers don’t hold the same kind of power they once did – fans do. I love that. It means authenticity wins.

Country music, in particular, is evolving. We’re seeing more diversity, more global influence, and more women standing at the forefront, which is long overdue. I think the industry is finally being forced to reckon with its blind spots…and that includes opening the door for voices that have historically been left out. I hope to be part of that change.

From a creative standpoint, I think storytelling will always be the heartbeat of country, but the way we deliver it is changing. Social media, short-form content, AI, even virtual concerts – they’re all shifting the way people discover and experience music. It’s both exciting and a bit mental trying to keep up, but I genuinely believe the artists who stay rooted in who they are while being open to new ways of connecting will thrive”.

The final interview I will bring in is from Star Shine Magazine from November. Coming towards the end of a successful year, this one is going to be another happy and fulfilling one for Twinnie. What you also get from the interviews is incredible photoshoots. So much of Twinnie’s personality and shine comes through! Someone who the camera loves, she has this star quality that explains why her fanbase is rising and she has such a passionate core of fans who are behind her every step of the way:

“What inspired “Don’t Need A Cowboy”?

“Don’t Need A Cowboy” came from a place of self-discovery and empowerment. I wanted to flip the traditional country trope on its head. I like to joke that I’m a hopeless romantic, but the song’s really about knowing your worth and realizing you don’t need to be “saved” by anyone to feel whole.

What was the experience of making the music video like?

It was so fun! I wanted this one to feel glamorous yet grounded, with a nod to classic Western aesthetics and a dash of disco-pop sparkle. I love storytelling through visuals, so filming it felt like an extension of the song itself. I also direct my own music videos!

How would you say growing up in the Romani Travelling community influenced your music?

It influenced my music massively. My upbringing taught me to value freedom, resilience, and self-expression, all of which show up in my music. The Romani culture is deeply musical and emotional. We tell stories through song, and I think that’s why I’ve always been drawn to country music.

Do you tend to write from personal experience, or do you also pull from stories you observe around you?

Mostly personal experience, but I’m a big observer of people. I’m fascinated by human behavior, relationships, and emotions, so sometimes I’ll mix my own stories with things I’ve seen or conversations I’ve had.

When you’re not writing, recording, or performing, how do you spend your downtime?

I love being outdoors…long walks, hikes, anything that gets me into nature. I’m also an avid reader and really value my alone time. Sometimes all I need is a good Netflix binge and a cup of tea to feel recharged!

Anything else we should look out for?

Yes! I’ve got new music coming soon that I’ve worked really hard on. (Here’s a little hint for the vibe: a bit of Cher, a touch of ABBA, and a whole lot of Shania!) I’m also heading out on my “Dirt Road Disco” tour in 2026, and tickets are already nearly sold out! I’m so excited to see everyone.

What message do you have for your fans and future fans out there?

Always stay true to yourself and never dim your light for anyone. Life is about connection, not perfection. I’m so grateful for everyone who listens to my music and finds a piece of themselves in it”.

There is so much love out there for her. I do want to finish with a review for her latest single, I Don’t Need a Cowboy, as it brings things up to date. I think fun, openness, humour and realness are defining qualities with Twinnie. There is no ego or disguise. Even if she adopts various looks for shoots or videos, she is very much herself. Someone who you can connect with and feel a bond with.

“Twinnie – Lee Moore, aka Twinnie, is a boundary-breaking singer/songwriter originally from York, England, but now resides in Nashville, Tennessee. Twinnie has just performed at Glastonbury and has earned critical acclaim from BBC Radio, People, Forbes, Billboard & NPR. Twinnie was raised in the Romani Travelling Community and brings a fierce sense of authenticity & inclusivity to every lyric and song. Her 2020 debut album Hollywood Gipsy was named BBC Radio 2’s Album Of The Week. Since relocating to Nashville, Twinnie has made her Grand Ole Opry debut, appeared on US Radio, and shared the stage with the likes of Sheryl Crow, Lainey Wilson & Chase Rice. In 2024 she made history as the first British artist to sing the US national anthem at GEODIS Park in Nashville. Twinnie is a gifted singer/songwriter with credits for stars such as Kylie Minogue, Bryan Adams, The Shires & Lyndscape. Twinnie is a passionate philanthropist & mental health advocate and founder of the I Know A Woman foundation. Twinnie released her album Something We Used To Say in November last year and released her debut US EP Welcome To The Club. From the album came singles Back To Jack, Giddy Up, and today she unleashes her thigh-slapping ditty Don’t Need A Cowboy, which I will be bringing you today.

Don’t Need A Cowboy – A sweet, cool lap steel intro brings a punchy rhythm beat that lets the track come at us with the usual mellow beats that we have come to know and love Twinnie for. The soulful vocals are really letting us feel the swagger oozing from this charismatic British Country Music Association nominee, which lets us see why she has been nominated. The soothing, melodic, lyrical piece is a real good-feeling track that just lets us see the fun side of this multi-talented musician as she continues her domination to the top of the country music world. We get a Sabrina Carpenter/Dolly Parton groove running through this track, and it just puts a smile on your face. Twinnie is gearing up for her Dirt Road Disco Tour in 2026, so be sure to grab your tickets because it will surely be a laugh-a-minute show”.

Go and follow Twinnie on social media and listen to her music. She is an artist I have been a fan of for years now and I have watched her progress and shine. The U.K. dates coming up will be hotly received. I have never been to Nashville myself, though I can imagine it is a wonderful community when it comes to music. Even if she is a proud daughter of York, her new base in Tennessee is…

LUCKY to have her.

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FEATURE: Spotlight: Girl Tones

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Girl Tones

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THE terrific Girl Tones…

have a string of U.S. dates ahead. The South Central Kentucky sister duo of Kenzie and Laila Crowe are amazing. Both classically trained musicians, Kenzie transitioned from cello to guitar and Laila from piano to drums. I know they have played in London and spend time here. Their video for Leave the City shows them in London visiting tourist attractions. Quite a grainy video, the song is pummelling, punchy and angular. Grungy and grumbly, it also has this spring and lightness in places. It is an incredible single from a duo who released a fair few last year. Among them was Cherry Picker, and Blame. In order to get to know the better, I am going to bring in some interviews. Like I do with a lot of Spotlight features, I will go back to a slightly older interview before coming to those that are more recent. In December 2024, Girl Tones spoke with Culture Flux about ensuring that they keep their edge and make sure the music is both raw and honest. I think that this combination comes through on everything they do:

“The sisters grew up classically trained- Kenzie played cello and Laila was a pianist before transitioning to drums. “The emotion’s more attached to just the beauty of the piece itself and not really the personal attachment. It’s just an appreciation of the art,” Laila says about her connection to classical music. “For our stuff, it’s definitely way more personal, because we’ve put so much time and effort into this, it’s like, intrinsic in my life at this point.”

The two singles so far, “Fade Away” and “Again,” utilize fuzzy guitars, pounding drums, and emotive vocals to rip into infectious melodies and punk attitude. For the new album they’re working on, it felt natural to instill a variety of tracks, considering their listening palette is now so diverse. The goal is to not be tied down to just one genre, but still be cohesive. Kenzie has a tad bit of paranoia surrounding that subject.

“We’re so paranoid that all of our songs are going to sound the same to everyone (laughs).” She has this inner worry that all of the songs sound the same or their doing the same thing over and over, but that the fact that she’s thinking about it means she’s conscious of making an album with ebbs and flows. “I’m very excited for everyone to hear all of the songs,” Kenzie says. “I’m just so curious about how people are going to like it or relate to it.”

Given the lyrical vulnerability of Girl Tones, there is a lot to relate to. “Usually it comes from deep within me,” Kenzie admits. “The lyrics are very vulnerable. Sometimes it comes out of you when you don’t know where it comes from.” From the anger of being let down in the raging “Again” to immature and uncommunicative partners in “Fade Away,” there’s a fury of emotions being spilled out of the two tracks that can feel like an honest release of pent-up feelings.

“It definitely is cathartic… all of the BS we might’ve had to go through to get here, it doesn’t matter, we’re here,” Laila says. Clarifying why they connect so much with the rawness of their sound and lyrics, Kenzie feels that it has always been a part of them. “That’s just who we are. We like to be honest and raw. I mean, isn’t that life? Life isn’t produced. We’re just existing”.

I want to include parts of this interview with Northern Exposure Magazine from early last year. Some important U.K. press, it is interesting how the highlight the visuals and aesthetic qualities of Girl Tones. Their press photos and very colourful and interesting. Even if their most recent video is quite grainy and lo-fi, there is this interesting colour palette one might not associate with their sound:

“And making the most of it they are, Girl Tones are making a name for themselves on their visuals alone, using bold primary colours that electrify their sound – seen specifically in the ‘Fade Away‘ music video. Kenzie said that they felt like they wanted an “aesthetic for the project that people would immediately grasp or connect to.”

“Sometimes you have to put yourself in a box to be able to create something different, so we decided to go with the primary colors. I really don’t know where that idea came from, but I’m really glad we stuck with that because I think it’s a really cool thing.”

The new track, ‘I Know You Know‘, is a more subdued and airy in comparison to the bands previous work, but they are keen to stick with their aesthetic.

“It is going to be interesting to kind of play with the song and see how [visuals] kind of changes, I think that’ll be really fun to see the difference.”

On the note of the new tunes’ newer tone, the girls said that they wanted to set people’s expectations to the unexpected, to show that they “dabble in a lot of different sounds.”

The sisters are both classically trained musicians, saying: “We really didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into a specific genre, because that’s just not who we are as musicians”.

“We have always kind of done, you know, classical jazz, all those kind of different stuff and I just think it’s amazing that we’re able to kind of like that in the album to kind of show, hey, we like doing all different types of things.”

The track, out today (14th February) has a Mazzy Star/Radiohead vibe (Girl Tones covering ‘High & Dry’ in the past) and when asked about any new inspiration Laila said that Bjork has been a current favourite of hers.

“I’ve been watching a lot of her music videos and I think her visuals are really cool and creative. It’s hard to branch out and explore new things and to connect with it, so it’s really satisfying when you find artists, new, old or new to you that clicks and you’re like, okay, I get this this is interesting”

“I feel like we’re both constantly kind of searching for that; just go and try on different hats of genres.”

‘I Know You Know’ is an interesting track lyrically, a relationship laced with betrayal and lies with lyrics like “your delusions stuck like glue”. Kenzie wrote the song a couple of years back about a friendship that sadly ended, a twist on the conventional romantic breakup song.

“I have noticed people are relating it romantically to things. When I wrote it, it was more about a platonic friendship, a falling out of that friendship. In addition to that the person was a self proclaimed pathological liar and Ii was so like I don’t know this person… I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“I love this song because there’s a longing; you love this person and you’ve had such an amazing relationship with this person – but you don’t know that person.”

Kenzie explained that the song sounds like a sad song, but when you properly listen it’s almost a bit eerie, tasteful revenge: “How can you tell someone to let go of this wonderful relationship that you thought you had?”

“I 100% agree that a friend breakup is just as painful as a romantical breakup, or it can be.”

The new tune is produced by Cage’s Brad Shultz, who the band say is “always very insightful and a great outside perspective.” Saying that he definitely brought out and helped achieve the girl’s vision”.

There aren’t that many long or in-depth interviews with Girl Tones, so I am taking a lot from the selection available, rather than fewer that are more detailed. However, I think we can get a sense of them and what they ere doing last year. MUSE. spoke with Kenzie and Laila Crowe about going from being at university to embarking on world tours. It happened so quickly. Testament to the quality and popularity of their music. I think that we will see Girl Tones booked for some U.K. festivals in the summer (I hope so, anyway!):

“M: “Where was your favorite place to play or to visit [across Europe while touring]? Did you get to do much wandering around?”

GT: “We got to do some. It was kind of hard, because there's a lot of show days that were also travel days, but we did get to spend some time in Glasgow, which was really cool. That was one of my favorite places. I think the best crowd was in Cologne, Germany. The crowd was like, super engaged and really rowdy. And like they they were loving it, and it that energy was really good to feed off of and it was so much fun. That was, I think, the best crowd. And then I think Paris was really fun to play too, because it's just so… it was just crazy to be in Paris.”

M: “So how did this come about? I saw that you worked with the Cage The Elephant producer on some of your music as well. How did this all come into fruition?”

GT: “So basically, we started playing music in the same town as where Cage The Elephant is from. And Brad Schultz had heard through a friend about us playing at like these shows or whatever. And I was on campus one day just, you know, walking into school or whatever, and I looked and I saw Cage The Elephant followed us. And I was like, what is happening here? It was just crazy.”

“And then he messaged us, and was like, we should record something. And that's kind of where it started. Unfortunately, that was like right before Covid. So it delayed everything for about two years. But it kind of worked out for the best. You know what? And, yeah, that is crazy. That's like a story that no one else could possibly have. Wow. It's like, sometimes it's like, bro, our life's a movie!”

M: “I bet. That must have been terrifying, though, too. What was it like knowing that you'd be kind of suddenly blasted out in front of this massive audience?”

GT: “It was scary at first, but I feel like we rose to the challenge, because we’ve played music our whole lives. We had not experienced playing in front of like 3000 people, but we've always been performing in front of audiences, and I think that helps you prepare for the next step up. And of course, we were scared shitless that first show we played with them in Atlanta – it was at a 6000 people amphitheater”.

I am going to end with an interview from later last year. I will finish off with an interview from Baylor Lariat. They spoke with Girl Tones after their incredible and truly unforgettable set at Austin City Limits Music Festival. I love this interview because they shout out a Beck album that is my favourite of mine. They also say that a debut album is on its way. That is going to be the most anticipated of this year:

“Q: There’s such a raw, like expressive quality to your sound and tone. Where do these emotional threads come from?

Kenzie: “I would just say life in general … I mean, I was an angsty teenager, so these are kind of older songs. And then we have a song that’s not out yet, that is just about grief. It’s kind of heavy, but I mean, that’s kind of what we write about. I think it’s in a fun way, where you’re able to still enjoy the music without being like, ‘Wow, this is kind of sad.’ So yeah, in life in general, of course, there’s up there’s highs and lows.”

Q: Which bands or records would you say have shaped who you have become today?

Kenzie: “The White Stripes for sure.”

Laila: “I would say also, we love Beck, like specific albums. ‘Guero’ was a good rock one, and ‘Odelay,’ that’s the other one.

Q: What has been y’all’s biggest “rockstar” moment so far?

Laila: “The most surreal was definitely playing Red Rocks. We were like, ‘What have we gotten ourselves into?’ before we went on that stage.”

Kenzie: “That’s a pretty big moment, I would say that. And then after Lollapalooza, when we were walking around town and people came up to us.”

Q: How would you say you guys describe success for yourselves right now, not so much in a career sense, but like as artists?

Laila: “I would say that seeing people in the crowd, seeing it always feels like that’s a success, because this person has listened to the song and likes it enough to listen to it enough to know the words, and it most likely means something to them. And that’s just always so crazy, because I know how much music that I love means to me, and the thought of someone else having that feeling for our music is just like, that’s pretty cool, larger than life”.

I will finish here. There is a lot of hype around the brilliant Girl Tones. They have toured widely and their singles are all incredible. They are this fully-formed duo that I feel are only going to get better and better. Having spend a bit of time in the U.K., I hope they come back at some point this year. What else do they have planned? I guess a debut album is going to take up a lot of time, plus they ae busy on the road. Girl Tones are an act that you have to ensure you do not…

MISS out on them.

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Follow Girl Tones

FEATURE: Spotlight: chokecherry

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

chokecherry

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LAST November…

chokecherry put out their incredible debut album, Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls. I only heard it this month, but I am not a confirmed admirer of this duo. The San Francisco act is comprised primarily of Izzie Clark and E. Scarlett Levinson, who handle all songwriting and core instrumentation. Though Abri Crocitto is drummer with them, the newest interview are with Clark and Levinson, and they are on the publicity photos, so I am referring to chokecherry as a duo rather than a trio. I am going to come to some interviews with chokecherry, as they are a really interesting act. I want to get to some 2025 interviews. Building up to the release of Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls, there was definite interest around them. I do hope that there will be more interviews this year, as chokecherry are a phenomenal duo. Out of Rage spend time with chokecherry (oddly stylising their name both in all capitals and all lower-case). I am fascinated about how Izzie Clark and E. Scarlett Levinson and the early days of chokecherry. It will be curious seeing how they blossom and move through this year. I hope they do have some U.K. dates in mind for the future. A definitely appetite for them over here:

“We spoke to both vocalists, Izzie Clark and E. Scarlett Levinson and wasted no time diving into the band's origins. The two met through the incredibly bustling Bay Area music scene, though they really connected after matching on the dating app Hinge, which took them from acquaintances to strong friends as they met and began jamming together to create the band. Originally they were named Amber Machine, but after it was pointed out to the pair that the name sounded like an IPA, they landed on the more fitting CHOKECHERRY. Seemingly born out of the pair's desire to explore new avenues of music, blending their two previous styles of bands, CHOKECHERRY seems to genuinely be a band that's a perfect cocktail of music lovers coming together to make something special, something a few have called, very aptly, bubble-grunge.

This talk on their origins led to how the idea of two front-people came around, with them wanting to bounce off each other, disregarding a notion of making a specific song and letting it write itself. On using Izzie’s belting and screams to couple with Scarlett’s softer vocals; Scarlett reflects "We never really went in thinking, let’s make this kind of music - or let's be a Cocteau Twins like band – CHOKECHERRY just kind of happened the way it happened by getting in a room."

There's quite a range of genre and style within CHOKECHERRY. They explained that because of this, they had a very intentional release order and schedule for the fans; showing their softer and more emotive side with the first few singles then diving into their heavier work to show off a little what fans experience at their live shows, which we are sure have some fun mosh pit action to get thrown into.

They explained they wanted to do this to not only show their range but to give a taster of the genre diversity in their album, to showcase the high and lows of it, which we have to say is a brilliant way to do it. Off the back of that, the pair listed some influences for us - if you like any of the following bands, we implore you to get involved with CHOKECHERRY as they perfectly encapsulate their vibes in their work. The two listed off a wide range for us: MANNEQUIN PUSSY, PAVEMENT, MITSKI, WITCH ELM, JULIE, TURNSTILE, AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, and COCTEAU TWINS - and even some classical influence from WAGNER which you can tell is blended well into their composition.

Scarlett and Izzie also explained their strong visual influence that the music created for them, stating that they were very hands on with everything that surrounded the music, from Izzie drawing the merch designs and co-directing some of the music videos, to Scarlett designing the videos and styling the outfits for all the visuals. They elaborated "The visuals definitely influence the music and vice-versa because we want to make music that's based on how we feel and that compels that in both mediums”.

I am going to end with an interview from KXLU. It is a radio transcript cut down for clarity, but it is an interview I was keen to highlight. Speaking about the San Francisco scene and music community and their remarkable debut, Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls. An album where chokecherry “spotlighted the spectrum of human vulnerability, from tenderness to rage, rendered as powerful femme rock which pulled from their roots in S.F.’s music scene – from dreamy shoegaze to hollering punk rebellion”:

“What communities and locations in S.F. and the Bay ultimately had a major influence on your inspirations and where you shaped your current sound?

SL: “We love the Bay Area music scene. I mean, it absolutely shaped us and everything that we do, and we have a real, like, love affair with it. I’m born and raised there. Izzie lived there for six years, and went to school there as well. We met there. The band started there. Izzie, do you want to talk about it?”

IC: “I feel like San Francisco is a really unique place to make music. There’s not really a music industry, so everyone’s very informed by their peers, and I think we’re all kind of bouncing off each other, getting inspired by each other. There’s also a great deal of diversity, I feel in the genres in the Bay Area – we have an amazing hip-hop scene, an incredible shoegaze scene. We have punk, also just rock-and-roll, which is kind of like what I used to play in my old band. And there’s also obviously a huge psych scene, and so many psych influences.

“And I think having all of those, that whole world of music is in such a small surface area. I think artists are very much influenced by each other, and they pick up so many nuances that are very much Bay Area – for example, like the hyphy music scene and all of that. There’s so many characteristics of the Bay Area music scene that you could hear in the music, which is really incredible.”

SL: “I mean, Izzie was completely right in that, for the Bay Area music scene, it’s very interesting when a scene exists outside of industry, because people are doing it for the love of and for the sake of – not for, like, commercial viability or whatever, and so it’s really authentic. And we have a really good house show scene.”

What inspired the maximalist style of the album art of this era?

SL: “I like stuff and things. [laughs] There’s a ton of things that I have. Always been kind of a kitschy, over-the-top person in terms of fashion style, visual [stuff]. I mean, Izzie co-directed the last two music videos too and has a very strong visual background. And I think that both of us have a tendency to – we really like the drama. I think that I really love the idea of Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls and the point of the album title. Like we’ve been over it so many times, but in the styling of chokecherry.

“Over the few years since [the band] began, I feel like we have gone, you know, a little bit Gothic, sometimes campy. I had a tendency to wear, like, bows for a long time. Both of us really like lipstick. And it’s not that any of those things are essential to who we are, but they are things that we’ve done, and we really like these brighter color palettes. And I think that, you know, with ripe fruit, and the colors and vibrancy that you would see in that – then the idea of something rotting, falling, youth wasted –  there are all sorts of visual identities and signifiers there, but there is something kind of gaudy and wasteful and opulent and over-the-top about it.

“We worked with an incredible photographer named Whitney [Otte]. She shot the album cover, and she just absolutely understood the vision, and it’s complete with scans of actual fruit. All of the things on the cover are real. So it’s real dead, preserved butterflies and bugs that she owns, and real, real fruit. Real flower petals, all, you know, all of that scanned and then Photoshopped it and laid over.

A large theme of your album is wrestling with the unattainability of imagined futures. What would the alternate versions of yourselves be up to now, if you weren’t pursuing your music project?

IC: “I feel like I would probably be doing a lot of visual art, because I used to do a lot of painting before I got into music and also maybe acting. I don’t know. I feel like we – Scarlett and I – would definitely both be doing some sort of art, but I don’t know, what would we be doing?”

SL: “That is a really amazing question. That’s one of my favorite questions we’ve ever been asked. So I think we would both be doing artistic things – we both have always done it, no matter what, throughout our whole lives. I think that the thing is we’ve both always been drawn to it in one form or another. From the time we were very young, I danced and you drew. You know, we did all sorts of things. So I think art would still be a really prevalent part of our lives. But, I don’t know. I think that maybe, I think I probably would have, like, succumbed to the pressure of going to grad school or tried to run a marathon.”

IC: “I could totally see either you’re on Broadway or the head of Amnesty International.”

SL: “I was supposed to work for the NRC doing anti-human trafficking stuff. I was at school, then COVID hit, so I didn’t end up doing that, but I think I would have probably ended up going to law school and dropping out. Quite frankly, I don’t think I would have made it, but I don’t really know. I think that no matter what, we would both still be making art, which is a cool, cool takeaway, but Broadway would be so funny. I would love that.

Yeah, I morbidly was gonna be like, ‘dead’, and I’m like, ‘no, it also isn’t true.’ You know what I mean? I think that one of the things with the imagined futures question too, is the things that are possible given the state of the world right now, and the things that you think about for yourself can be different. Or what you might have, or could have, or would have done differently if you had other options”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Carissa Leong

I will end with a glowing review of Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls from 3 Songs & Out. I know the dup are probably better known in their native U.S., though I can feel their influence starting to spread. As I said before, I hope that they come and play here at some point. I really love their debut album. It is one that I would recommend everyone listen to. I am really excited to see what this year holds in store for chokecherry. Such a magnificent band/duo (depending on how you wish to categorise them):

“Californian duo, Izzie Clark and E Scarlett Levinson, better known as chokecherry, released their debut album on the 14th of November via Fearless Records, 3 Songs found out about it being out and I gave it a listen, I’m really glad I did.

There is no better feeling in music than discovering a great act for the first time and to do it by listening to their debut album makes it even better when you know nothing about them. I miss the days when you would buy an album on spec, take it home, put it on and discover something excellent, although sometimes it didn’t quite work out that way.

I got a similar feeling, without the physical aspect of opening the album, from listening to chokecherry. I love harmonies, always have, and this act have them in spades with some more to spare on top of that. What they also have is a mix of indie, alt-rock, shoe gaze, punk and rock and a smattering of pop to create a wonderful base for their signing.

I don’t know if there is any intention that they tour the UK but if there is I’d like to see how this translates to a live show.

There is drama, there is melody, there are introspective moments and there are moments when you can almost feel the mosh pit forming. There are touches of the Cocteau Twins, Echobelly, Curve, in some bits early Simple Minds and so many other excellent bands but it’s very much chokecherry’s own sound. They are clearly very accomplished musicians and writers but the real joy in this album is in being drawn into it, discovering each new song, deciding it’s the best one on the album then discovering you were wrong only to go back, listen to it again and realise they are all excellent.

The theme that comes through very strongly throughout this album is an exploration of what it means to be truly human, but also a lament, to an extent, for how difficult the world has become and how many people seem to be forgetting their basic humanity. This is an album worth of celebrating true humanity, how we should treat each other, how we should want to be treated and an almost plaintive plea for people to get back to that way of living. It’s a political album with a small p focussing on the need for us to be kinder to each other, to care about each other and to start making that change back to where we were and should be. It deals with these themes in a very personal way, start with your direct relationships and take it from there. Not a bad idea given how messed up the world has become and how intolerant people seem to be of each other these days.

As I said earlier every song feels like it’s the best on the album but my own personal favourite, from repeated listens, is 'You Love It When'. Something about it just clicked for me. I loved the rocky element, the chorus, the longing, if you only listen to one song as a taster I’d recommend this one, it should hook you in to your new favourite band although I think it’s pushed hard by 'Porcelain Warrior' and 'February', so why not listen to all three and then make your mind up.

If they are touring over here I, for one, am in and will be up the front to see if they can translate this album and energy onto the stage. Chokecherry, remember the name, I think you’re going to be hearing a lot more about this album and band”.

The sensational chokecherry need to be on your playlist. There is this amazing connection between Izzie Clark and E Scarlett Levinson. Ripe Fruit Rots and Falls is a stunning album and a sign of things to come. Primed for very big things, go and follow chokecherry on social media. When it comes to this stunning duo, the future looks…

VERY bright indeed.

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FEATURE: Spotlight: Grace Davies

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Grace Davies

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LAST year…

was a big one for Grace Davies. She released her debut album, The Wrong Side of 25, and a string of amazing singles, including MDE, and Super Love Me. This is an amazing British artist from Blackburn, Lancashire. It is a part of the world I have perhaps not highlighted on my site before. There is still this massive focus on London, so anyone who hails from beyond the capital is especially interesting to me. Even if Grace Davies has been in music for a little while, her debut album did put her under the spotlight. Now, as we are in a new year, this incredible artist is primed to have a massive year. There are a few great interviews I want to come to, published around the release of The Wrong Side of 25. It is a spellbinding album from a remarkable songwriter. Ones to Watch sat down and spent some time with the supremely talented Grace Davies:

“For Grace, a supremely talented singer from Blackurn, UK struggling through the whirlpool of writing sessions, gigs and meetings in London, turning 25 almost made her quit. This album, titled after that before and after moment, is a recklessly vulnerable work of beauty, a testament to just how much work and perseverance is necessarily to survive in this industry. Its toils, when filtered through emotional and melodic expression, merit wondrous attention. We sat down with this fiery and fun singer for a deep dive on the album, good curry in London, and which is the wrong side of 25:

OnesToWatch: I believe being an artist is one of the most difficult jobs on earth. So, why are you an artist?

Grace Davies: It's a really good question, and I think there must be some sort of weird psychological thing going on to put yourself under that much stress and pressure every single day. 
There must be something wrong with me. But it's the only thing that I know how to do with all of my being, if that makes sense. It's the only thing that I've never trained for that feels correct in my life and that I learned to do without even learning to do it. 
And I just love music, I've been surrounded by performance since I was three. As someone who isn't a big talker, the thought of therapy and diaries is weird. But, being a songwriter is my vessel for that sort of stuff. So, without sounding cringey, I think being an artist is very much in my DNA.

If your musical abilities were taken away from you, what could you imagine yourself doing right now?

Interior design. 


Very specific.

I love George Clark and his architectural programs. And, you know, I can appreciate a good sofa and a good wallpaper, you know? That's my other love. Either that or I would get super, super nerdy and work in Formula One in some sort of capacity.

Well, let’s get to the album, because it is kind of impressive. So, Grace, the hard-hitting question is, which side of 25 is the wrong side?

We'll leave it to imagination about which side I’m on… I came up with the title on my 26th birthday and it was something that I said to my mum when she was like, “Oh, you're closer to 30 than you are 20,” and I was like, yeah, “Wrong side of 25.” I think it just stemmed from me having this sinking feeling that I'm not quite where I need to be in my mid 20s. There's a lot of things that happen when you're 25. You hit this level of “adulting,” where everyone seems to be getting their shit together, particularly from where I'm from. 
A lot of my friends were either buying houses with their partners or getting engaged or getting pregnant. And meanwhile I can barely afford to pay my rent in London because I'm paying for an album. So it's that panic, where your collagen decreases, you're in the “overs” category on the X factor and you're suddenly with Wagner. The industry also says that when you’re past 25, you’re too old to be a pop star. That’s what the album’s about, really. It’s my fear of time moving forward. There’s a song on there called “The Youngest I’ll Ever Be.” You know, you watch movies about people going back in time and changing things, like one of my favorite films, About Time, where he gets in a wardrobe, goes back in time, and reverses things he’s done. Everyone questions whether they could’ve done things differently, or better, but you can’t. I hate that. So the album is about time, and existential crises about being on the wrong side of 25, as some would say, aka me.

Well, if you’re on the wrong side, I’m way past it. I remember when I was younger, we were having this weird conversation about ageism and life endurance and purpose. There was an old movie called Logan's Run, where society valued youth so much that you ascended into your death at age 30. Sometimes it feels like that, in these industries.

It does feel like that. But now, it's been three years since I came up with this album, and I do feel a bit better now. So, there is hope.

There is hope. The concept of “aging out of being a pop star” is interesting, 1) because it’s so often gendered and misogynistic toward growing women, and 2) because it presents a looming failure in front of budding artists who are just starting to reach musical maturity. Were you wrestling with any inner turmoil about powering through these roadblocks and choosing this as a career? How did you keep up the strength to persevere?

I think I hit such a rock bottom with it that I felt there was no way to go other than to just do a 180. At the end of my last EP, in 2022, I was done, I'd already had the conversations with my manager of like, I'm going to quit. This is it for me. I've tried doing the independent artist route, and just financially and mentally, it takes such a huge toll. Particularly when you're trying to put things out to the same standards of major labels, it's really, really challenging. So I felt quite drained by all of that. I was really done. Then, I got put in a writing session that I really, really didn't want to be in. I didn't know the person that I was working with, and I was just over it a little bit. And we ended up writing “A Wonderful, Boring Normal Life” that day, which is on the album. I wrote it with Paul, who I'd never met before and he co-produced the whole album with me. I feel like that day – I don't know what happened in that session, but it very much made me realise or remember what I loved about this job. So I said, “Okay, things can’t get worse than they have been, so we either quit or do a complete 180.” It really is such a gamble, so we decided to go all in”.

Actually, before continuing with interviews from last year, I want to take us back to 2022. That strange year where the pandemic was in full flight, it was a tough time for artists trying to break through. However, it is interesting to look back on that time now. I do want to drop an interview in from NOCTIS and, as they say, this unveiling of a Pop star. Someone who I think will get even bigger and popular as we head through this year:

“Two years after becoming an independent, Davies has since locked down a Top 40 single and sold out the prestigious St. Pancras Old Church for her first ever headline show. Without the backing of a label, she’s had the support of fans by her side through every inch of her journey.

‘It Wasn’t Perfect, But We Tried’ sets Davies up for her “big pop star moment”; big audacious choruses, sublime visuals and a bold sense of authenticity. Infused euphoria can be felt through each of its five tracks, of which some date back almost five years. Carefully polished, each song has taken on a new lease of life, now being the perfect moment for their debut.

Her story is more than just inspiring, it’s real. It hasn’t always been highs for Davies upon entering the industry, so now seeing her riding on waves of soaring success feels the utmost deserved. Speaking to Noctis Magazine about her journey so far, please welcome your new favourite pop star…

Hello Grace! You’ve had a whirlwind of a year, how have you been?

It’s been a wild, wild year! A very busy one and also a very tiring one, but also just very fulfilling to have this new EP out there and having something to show for a year of being stuck in producer mode, which was new to me but also very fun.

What has been the biggest change for you in this last year?

I was living at my parents house and I’ve now moved back to London. I lived in the city for four years and moved back during the pandemic, so that I could fund the “artist thing” independently. Because realistically, I couldn’t pay for that and rent at the same time.

It was a big thing for me being able to move back to London. But being here with all the people that I’m meant to be with every day, music wise, is really fun again”. 

Your new project, ‘It Wasn’t Perfect, But We Tried’, is beautiful! This is your third EP in three years – how did making this EP differ from the rest?

I wanted to level it up in every kind of aspect of life, especially with the artwork and music videos. It’s such a small thing, but the visual aspect of a body of work really matters a lot. I’ve never really walked away from either of my EPs being like, “I love that artwork, I’m really happy with that CD and the pages and all the photos that are in it” and with this one I wanted that, I wanted to feel like a pop star.

I remember the photoshoot on that day, it was when I was wearing the “Wolves” artwork outfit, I said to my manager, “I feel like a pop star,” and throughout my whole nine years in the industry I’ve never felt like that before. Not that that should matter, but I just wanted to level up in that sense. I feel like I’ve stepped it up a little bit each time I’ve done an EP, or hope I have anyway. I just wanted it to be one big euphoric “I’m here” moment.

You helped produce each track on the EP – how was getting to grips with this?

I think because I have such a strong vision and I can hear things in my brain, it’s just about sitting there and flicking through sounds and going, “that’s what I can hear!” It’s difficult to get to grips with the new system, but then at the same time I think when you can hear something it just sort of happens. Toby Scott who I produced “Wolves”, “Breathe” and “Supervillain” with, we spent weeks just sitting in his studio in Brighton next to each other at the computer screen and that was such a brilliant process for me.

It was the same sort of thing that I did on the first EP, I went to Sweden and sat with the producer for a couple of weeks. But this time, I just felt way more involved. There’s a song called “Windows & Walls” on the EP which I must have re-recorded the vocal and piano like two or three times because I just couldn’t get it right.

I think producing something yourself is amazing because you get your name above the door, but there’s also this thing where you can’t step back and say it’s finished very easily when you’ve written it, sung it and produced it. You’re way too close to it all and that’s something I really struggled with this year, just knowing when things were right. I was relying on people around me to be like, “Yes, it’s fine! Step away from the computer!”

You started self-producing throughout lockdown, is it something you’re going to continue with?

Yeah, definitely. No one cares about my music as much as I do. I think I always put a massive amount of pressure on myself to make sure that it’s really good and really right. And you can’t always rely on other people to get it as good as you necessarily would. So yeah, I’ve just got to keep chipping away with it and learn more production stuff. Fun!”.

In July, CLASH spoke with Grace Davies as she released The Wrong Side of 25. It was a moment that she had been waiting for for so long. I do think that it is one of the best debut albums of last year. Davies is a stunning artist who is going to be in music for a very long time to come. I might be a bit late to get tickets, but she plays London’s Jazz Cafe on 5th February, so go and catch her if you can:

“Davies was motivated to start writing when she was 15, and keen to enter competitions for young local musicians in Blackburn and its surrounding areas that required artists to perform original material. In order to do this, aided by YouTube tutorials, she sat on her bedroom floor every night and taught herself piano. “For me, it was always more of a necessity than something I wanted to do. It wasn’t until further down the line that I realised I actually love songwriting. Now I see it as something I need for my own sanity. I see it as therapy, It’s like writing a diary entry.” She says.

“When I look through old school reports and speak to my mum about what she used to hear at parents’ evenings, all the teachers would be like ‘Grace is exceptional at creative writing’ and I always just kind of ignored that. And now that I’m a full time songwriter it’s like, well that makes sense doesn’t it?”

She goes on to break down the overarching theme of the record. “‘The Wrong Side Of 25’ is something I said to my mum on my 26th birthday. I’ve always had this weird panic about time. You know when you watch those films where they go back in time and change things. I always get really freaked out by that because I would love to do that, but I cannot, because that isn’t real!”

She expands, “It’s like how X factor has an ‘Over 25s’ category. Like, am I now suddenly grouped in with Wagner? Because realistically, that is a perfect example of how the music industry puts a shelf life on your artistry, by essentially implying that if you’re over 25, you’re too old to be a pop star. It’s mortifying to me that I’m now supposedly in that category, especially as someone who is considered an ‘up and coming artist.’”

Now 28, Davies admits that she no longer feels as existential as she did when she began working on the project. “I do think that the album that I’ve created now is head and shoulders above what I could have created seven years ago. It’s not even comparable to the songs I was writing back then.” She explains, “So in some weird and twisted way, me landing on making an album now is perfect, because I couldn’t imagine making better music for my first album. I love it so much.”

Breaking down the eighteen month process that led to the record’s inception, Davies tells CLASH “I wanted to bring in orchestras, I wanted to bring in live musicians and do things that I had never done before. Music has become this thing that people can make so easily on their laptops, and you can replicate sounds so easily, but you can’t replicate the magic of being in a room with musicians.” She continues, “Again, I thought, I’m gonna do this for me. If this is the first and last thing I ever do, it’s going to be exceptional.”

“I’ve been performing with jazz and swing bands since I was a teenager, so being in front of a 15-piece orchestra and having them play my music back to me was a priority. I saved all the pennies in the world to do that. We recorded live drums, live brass, and found a producer that completely got me and my sound, and didn’t have an ego that excluded me from the production,” she says.

For independent artists, touring and performing live is becoming an increasingly challenging landscape, especially in an ecosystem where grassroots venues are closing their doors for good at an alarming rate. On November 6th, Davies and her band will play their biggest headline show to date at The Jazz Cafe in Camden – a venue that in 2020 had to run a crowdfunding campaign to save it from permanent closure.

Speaking on this issue, Davies tells CLASH “These spaces are crucial. If we only support artists that can fill out Wembley, or only go to shows at the O2, a much bigger percentage of the music industry dies, compared to the fractional minority that can fill those arenas and stadiums. It’s so important that artists use those indie venues, but also that those venues and the public support us. It’s a symbiotic relationship”.

I am finishing with a wonderful and interesting interview with HUNGER. Although Grace Davies is a slightly new name to me, listening to The Wrong Side of 2025 and her work before, you can tell how good she is and how much she wants this. That music is her passion and she is going to make wonderful albums for years. A tremendous artist that we should be very proud of:

“What was the experience of co-producing the album like?

I loved it. I’ve never had more fun in my career than when I made this album, because I got to create music that didn’t necessarily fit radio moulds or would be a TikTok sound. It was just about making something really fun and experimenting. Paul (Whalley) has a wicked studio. He’s not the kind of producer who just works off a laptop — his space is filled with instruments of all shapes and kinds. That was a completely new experience for me. What’s great is that he understands I can produce, even though I have more of a producer’s head than an engineer’s hands. He’ll say, You just tell me what to do. Even if I’m not physically doing it myself, the idea came from my brain — so in that sense, I’m still producing it. He’ll say, I’m just your engineer for the day, which is refreshing, because a lot of producers have pretty big egos when it comes to that sort of thing.

Do you ever feel pressure to make ‘TikTokable’ music?

There is pressure. I think all artists feel it — it’s just a matter of whether you acknowledge it or not. In the past, especially when choosing singles, I’d always think, Oh, has this one got a lyric in it that could be a trend? And I just didn’t want to do that with this album. If something blows up on that app, then honestly, brilliant, because we know what a powerful tool it is, and, unfortunately, it is the only way a song can do well for an independent artist these days. You can have all of the Spotify billboards and the radio plays in the world, but it doesn’t move the needle anymore. So, [TikTok] is incredibly important, but I’ll never create something that feels inauthentic to me. It’s just not who I am. I have to be able to sleep at night, twenty years from now, knowing that I made an album that made me happy.

You have a beautiful song on your album, ‘Butterfly’. Can you tell us a bit about that?

It’s an emotional one. It’s one we’ve been performing live for about a year now at little acoustic shows and stuff, and it’s always the one that gets people. It’s been a real underdog in terms of the album because it’s so stripped back, so it’s been really nice to see the reaction to that. It’s a song that means a lot to me, and one that I debated writing for a long time because it didn’t feel like my story to tell. It’s about my grandparents, and I didn’t want to write something really sad about the fact that they had Alzheimer’s and dementia. I wanted to write something that felt like it honoured their memory and was a love song for them — one they would have sung to each other at the start of their relationship, and also at the end. It feels like a nice nod to that experience without being too traumatic.

If you could go back to 2022 when you nearly gave up music, what would you tell yourself?

I honestly would say the best is yet to come, even though we’re doing things on a smaller scale in terms of the number of listeners, or the fan bases that you once had on a show like X Factor compared to now. It’s been eight years, but the enjoyment I got out of making this record has been like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve never felt prouder of myself and my music.

Who are your biggest inspirations?

There are very obvious nods to the artists that I grew up on in this album such as ELO, ABBA, Robbie Williams, Roxy Music and Earth, Wind and Fire. There are numerous references to the ’70s and ’80s. I’m very lucky to have had parents who had excellent music taste, particularly my dad, so I just wanted to make an album that felt like those artists who made me who I am. They made me so in love with music, and they made me want to pursue music, and if I really think what my younger self would want to do, it would be to make music like that. And that’s what I’ve done”.

Following perhaps the biggest year of her career so far, this year will see her capitalising on the release of her debut album. I guess there will be new singles and some big tour dates. Maybe a few festivals. I have seen various sites tip Grace Davies for success this year. It is an important time for the Blackburn artist. Her fanbase is growing and there is a lot of attention coming her way. Music that instantly moves you and lodges in your brain, this is a unique and spectacular artist…

TO behold.

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FEATURE: If She Knew What She Wants: The Bangles’ Different Light at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

If She Knew What She Wants

 

The Bangles’ Different Light at Forty

__________

THERE may be some…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Bangles in 1986

debate as to which albums from The Bangles is very the best. I personally love their 1986 album, Different Light. As it was released on 13th January, I am marking forty years. However, when it comes to my favourite song of theirs, it will always be Eternal Flame. That was included on their 1988 album, Everything. I think the consensus is that their 1984 debut, All Over the Place, is their crowning glory. That Different Light is more commercial. However, think about the legacy of the songs on the album and how they are played to this day. The Prince-written Manic Monday. Walk Like an Egyptian. Walking Down Your Street. The amazing four-piece of Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson, Michael Steele and Debbi Peterson released a phenomenal second studio album. I am a particular fan of Susanna Hoffs and follow her on social media. I just love her voice and feel some of the best moments across The Bangles’ career are defined by her – including Eternal Flame. However, let’s talk about Different Light. If their debut had a more 1960s-indebted sound, this was more Top 40. Some would say radio-friendly and commercial, though it was the U.S. group changing directions and evolving. If some in 1986 were not keen on this musical switch, in retrospect, Different Light is seen as a slick and refreshing album. One that still sounds great today. In terms of modern-day groups like The Bangles, I guess you could maybe point to HAIM. Paramore? I don’t think there is anyone exactly like them. That is a shame, as the connection in the group and their incredible back catalogue should inspire a contemporary tribute. Maybe nobody can touch The Bangles!

Bringing in new songwriters and collaborators, Different Light reached number two in the U.S. and three in the U.K. It was that move from L.A. street sounds and something rawer to a more polished sound that was a notable shift. I think that Different Light fitted more into the landscape of 1986. Think about the albums and artists from that time. Madonna and Peter Gabriel released incredible albums. I want to move to American Songwriter. They note how Different Light too The Bangles to the stratosphere. It was an immense album that make them a worldwide success:

“Pioneers” might not be the most accurate term. But it’s fair to say that the pop music landscape didn’t include a lot of groups like The Bangles in the early 80s. Only their fellow Californians, The Go-Go’s, were enjoying much success at the time as an all-girl band.

The Bangles, at least originally, featured more of a raw, rocking sound. Their 1984 debut album All Over The Place contained nine originals out of 11 songs on the record, including five songs that were written solely by bassist Vicki Peterson. Peterson shared vocals pretty evenly with Susannah Hoffs. Sound-wise, they hearkened back to 60s garage rock and power pop on the album.

A confluence of events helped change their sound and commercial prospects. First, Prince took a shine to them, and he offered them a song called “Manic Monday” that was pretty much ready to heat and serve. That song featured a softer, more pop-friendly tone than the first record.

In addition to that, the band’s writers just didn’t have as many original songs in the hopper that seemed single-worthy. Producer David Kahne saw the opportunity to take advantage of the anticipated burst of popularity. He commissioned some other songs that seemed perfect for mid-80s pop radio. Kahne also took the playing out of the band’s hands on these tracks, heavily relying on session instrumentalists to fill out the sound.

The Bangles struck gold on MTV with a series of increasingly popular videos. In the years after the record’s completion, some of the band members would express ambivalence about the direction Different Light took away from their rocking roots. But they couldn’t deny the triple-platinum success that assured them career-long prominence.

Revisiting ‘Different Light’

It’s understandable that The Bangles might not have loved the cover songs being chosen as the key singles. But they deserve credit for putting their stamp on them in undeniable fashion. Susannah Hoffs, who became the unofficial voice of the group because of her prominence on the big hits, deserves a lot of credit for that. (The media’s focus on her would cause problems for the band down the line.)

Hoffs injects sultriness into the narrator’s harried tale in “Manic Monday”. She captures the pathos in Jules Shear’s lovely character sketch “If She Knew What She Wants”. And she runs wild with the final verse of the novelty “Walk Like An Egyptian”.

But Hoffs’ leads wouldn’t have proven quite so effective without the gorgeous harmony vocals provided by the other members of the band (Vicki Peterson, her drummer sister Debbi Peterson, and bassist Michael Steele). The album tracks might not pop like the singles, but they’ve got heart and style. Steele’s solo lead on the downcast “Following” stands out from that pack.

When they returned in 1988 with Everything, they had ditched Kahne. But some lingering resentment about the division of labor eventually led to a hiatus. Their hearts might have belonged to a different musical era. But Different Light proved that The Bangles were right on time”.

I shall get to some reviews soon. In 2013, The Bangles’ Vicki Peterson was interviewed by Rediscover the 80s. She was asked, among other things, about Different Light and The Bangles in 1986. Filing videos for iconic songs that were played on MTV. How the band ascended to new heights and were known everywhere. I think, forty years later, Different Light still stands up:

“Q: Please tell us a little about when, how and why The Bangles came to be. Your voices blend so perfectly, was that the case right from the start? How did the band's name get chosen and evolve? Please tell us a little about the other members and what each of you brought to the group.

Vicki: In late 1980, Debbi and I found ourselves all that remained of our post-high school band, and fortuitously met Susanna Hoffs through an ad in a newspaper. Yes, the first time we met to just see if we clicked, it was slightly magical. Our voices did have a natural blend and we shared that anachronistic passion for music of the '60s. We got the name "The Bangs" from an article on hairstyles in an old issue of Esquire magazine... we soon had to change it because of a New Jersey band (an all-boy band, no less) and thus added the extra consonants.

Our first bass player was Annette Zilinskas, who was 19 at the time, lovely and talented, but loved Rockabillly music more than the pop we were writing. We soon found Michael Steele who was purported to be the best female bass player in town, but was actually one of the best, period. Susanna had never been in a real band before, but she was creative and energetic, a good writing partner with an angel's voice.

Q: "Manic Monday" was the band's first big pop hit and it was actually written by Prince. How did The Bangles end up recording that song? How was it offered? How did the song evolve as you made it your own?

Vicki: Prince apparently saw our "The Hero Takes A Fall" video and became interested in the band, appearing mysteriously at shows and playing an encore or two with us. When we were in the studio, we got a message that Prince had a tape for us. There were two songs on the cassette - one of which was "Manic Monday". I think it was Apollonia, one of his "proteges", doing the vocals on his version. He told us we could just use the tracks and replace the vocals, but of course we tracked it ourselves from scratch.

"Manic Monday" was the first single released from their Different Light album in January of 1986 and climbed the charts eventually peaking at #2 in April. It became an international hit and also reached the top 5 in eight other countries. The song was written by Prince under his pseudonym Christopher and, coincidentally, was blocked from reaching #1 by another Prince song, "Kiss". This song often runs through my head on many Monday mornings. Here is the video for "Manic Monday" by The Bangles...

Q: Did you ever get any feedback from Prince to find out what he thought of your recording?

Vicki: Prince came to a rehearsal before the song came out and gave us the thumbs up (even though there was no keyboard player that day and I was playing the harpsichord figure on the guitar...and not well, I might add).

Q: Then you had a worldwide hit with "Walk Like an Egyptian". What can you share with us regarding how this song was conceived and created? How was it decided that you'd sing the first verse of the song

Vicki: This song was written by Liam Sternberg and its provenance is still a mystery to me. All I know is that David Kahne, our producer at the time, showed up at rehearsal with a tape of a demo of the song, sung with a droll charm by Marti Jones. I realized that we were never gonna write a song like that and there was nothing remotely like it on our album so far (or anywhere else, for that matter) and I agreed to try it in the studio. We had a sing-off for the verses, with Kahne as head judge. Don't know that I'd ever do it that way again.

"Walk Like an Egyptian" was released as a single in September of 1986 and quickly reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December and held the top spot for four weeks. This was the first song by an all-female group playing their own instruments to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was a worldwide smash hit which also reached the top of the chart in at least six other countries. Vicki sings the opening verse and then the girls take turns singing the others. The song received heavy radio airplay and I always for some reason remember in the video the close-up on Susanna Hoffs' eyes when she looks from side to side. Here is that video for "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles...

Q: Again, did you have any feeling that this song might become the hugely successful pop hit that it did? What were your feelings about "Walk Like an Egyptian" when you first recorded it? What are your feelings about the song now 27 years later?

Vicki: I really didn't think the label would release it, but I did have a feeling that if they did, it wouldn't be ignored. There was a period in the '90s, when I was living in New Orleans and playing with the Continental Drifters, when I could not imagine myself ever singing the song again. Now, though, when we go out and finish the night with it, it's a blast. People just love it and have so much fun.

Q: How about the other hits from that album like "If She Knew What She Wants" or "Walking Down Your Street"? Any comments or details about those?

Vicki: "If She Knew What She Wants" is a smart, thoughtful song by the smart and thoughtful Jules Shear. I liked the idea of the vocals being performed in a call-and-response structure, and enjoyed the process of slightly changing Jules' original arrangement - which I always have to remember whenever I have the privilege of singing the song with Jules.

Different Light was released in January of 1986. It eventually went 3x platinum and reached #2 on the Billboard album chart. Including to the two covered earlier, it included four hit singles including "If She Knew What She Wants" which reached #29 in July of 1986 and "Walking Down Your Street" which reached #11 in April of 1987. The Bangles were as hot as any band in pop music at that time.

Q: Were you prepared for attention and all of the other things that come with the pop stardom? What are some of your best memories and coolest things you were able to do at the height of popularity for The Bangles?

Vicki: It was a bit of a surprise that many of the things we were asked to do following the album's success had absolutely nothing to do with music. My favorite moments were when we were thrown in with other musicians (during a TV show or awards celebration) and I could feel like a peer to some of my musical heroes.

Q: Your videos received lots of exposure on MTV back then. Did you enjoy making the music videos back then? What do you remember about working with Gary Weis, who directed a couple of your videos, and how those videos were made?

Vicki: I just ADORE Gary Weis. The Rutles was a big favorite of mine and I was so excited to be working with its director. I enjoyed working on his videos in particular, although the video for "Egyptian" was sort of smashed into a tour schedule and was a bit chaotic. We worked with a choreographer in Florida and then shot the performance bit in New York City. The way I remember it, Gary just went out into the streets and grabbed people and had them "walk like Egyptians" all while we were getting into costume for the performance/dance bits”.

A couple of reviews I want to get to before wrapping up. On 13th January, we will mark forty years of Different Light. In 2003, SLANT provided their impressions on one of the biggest albums of 1986. After Different Light, The Bangles would release Everything in 1988. If you have not heard this album before then do go and spend some time with it. I think it is fantastic and it actually does not sound dated. Many albums from that time do:

“Though it was considered a slicker, more commercial move for the Bangles at the time of its release, Different Light (the band’s sophomore effort) sounds surprisingly fresh in hindsight. From their Beatles-inspired moniker to their warm, Mamas & the Papas-esque harmonies, the band seemed determined to pay homage to the past. But their ‘60s-style pop melodies and classic rock references (check the Doors-ish, carnival-like keyboards and quirky guitars of “Standing in the Hallway” and “Return Post”) were deftly matched with the then-current new wave and rock rhythms of the early ’80s. “Following” is a dark acoustic ballad reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s brand of ’70s folk, while the title track rollicks along with genuine pop-punk fervor. Guitarist Vicki Peterson’s voice might pale in comparison to Susanna Hoffs’s distinctive vocal, but her songwriting skills are clearly the strongest here: “I wanna paint your portrait/Hang your colors on my wall/Discussing form and content with my friends and drinks.” And while its biggest hits were written by other artists—the Prince-penned “Manic Monday,” the novelty tune “Walk Like an Egyptian” (a slice of ’80s-pop kitsch that sounds out of place here), and “If She Knew What She Wants”—album tracks like “Angels Don’t Fall in Love” and “Let It Go,” which were written by the Bangles themselves, are the glue that holds Different Light together”.

Let’s finish off with this review of as truly fantastic album. I do think there has been retrospection and more positivity towards an album that divided some in 1986. Given the longevity of it and how many of the songs are played today, there is no denying it is important and popular. A massive chart success for The Bangles, I do wonder if its members will think about it on its anniversary. It was a magic year for them:

“The Bangles were special because they had all the members on lead and backing vocals. Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson also played guitars. Micki Steele played bass and guitars on some tracks while Debbi Peterson played the drums. They were all seasoned and had paid their dues. Hoffs was 27 years, Vicki Peterson was 28, Steele was 31 and was also known as the founder of The Runaways, before leaving them prior to their first album and Debbie Peterson was the youngest at 25.

Manic Monday

The song is written by “Christopher” and Hoffs. “Christopher” was a pseudonym for Prince. At 157.5 million streams on Spotify, it’s one of their biggest. Only “Eternal Flame” and “Walk Like An Egyptian” are bigger.

In a Different Light

My favourite track. It’s rocking from the start and the vocals remind me of “California Dreamin” from The Mamas And The Papas

Walking Down Your Street

This was a skip for me.

Walk Like an Egyptian

192 million streams on Spotify. It’s so overplayed these days, but goddamn it was infectious when it came out. The vocal melody was so unique. Press play and start walking like an Egyptian.

Standing in the Hallway

It’s pop rock, with a bit of rhythm and blues.

Return Post

A rare running time of 4.22 however the track was not their best.

If She Knew What She Wants

A Jules Shear cover from 1985 which has this 60’s feel.

The album standard slips towards the backend with tracks like “Let It Go”, “September Gurls”, “Angels Don’t Fall in Love” and “Not Like You” being seen as throwaways.

However the introspective acoustic cut, “Following”, written and sung by Steele, is excellent”.

A tremendous album that was a left-turn from their 1984 debut, Different Light brought them into households around the world. Released on 13th January, 1986, I discovered this album years later. Eternal Flame was the first song of theirs that hit me. However, I really love Different Light. Its title is appropriate. Getting to see the Los Angeles band in a new light. One that was perhaps a bit brighter. It does have that sound of California, whereas All Over the Place could be more about England, or even New York. Forty years down the line and Different Light still shines. A brilliant album whose hits and great deeper cuts make it an essential listen. Do go and check out this…

SIMPLY wonderful album.

FEATURE: Family Business: Fugees’ The Score at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

Family Business

 

Fugees’ The Score at Thirty

__________

ONE of the most important…

IN THIS PHOTO: Pras, Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean of Fugees/PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

and extraordinary albums of the 1990s turns thirty soon. The masterpiece second studio album from Fugees, the trio consisted of Ms. Lauryn Hill, Pras (Michel) and Wyclef Jean. I shall finish with a review for The Score. It is one of the biggest creative leaps ever. 1994’s Blunted on Reality is an okay album, but it only has moments of brilliance. The Score was a huge step forward. I think because it featured more of Ms. Lauryn Hill. Her voice seemed to be more prevalent. She would release one solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in 1998. Released on 13th February, 1996, The Score reached number one in the U.S. Production was handled by the Fugees, Jerry Duplessis, and Warren Riker. In terms of he tracks on the album, it features Ready or Not, Zealots, Killing Me Softly with His Song, and Fu-Gee-La. It also has incredible deeper cuts such as How Many Mics and Family Business. Fugees have performed together since The Score was released, though there has been nothing in terms of huge gigs or anything significant. I feel there are splits and tensions within the group. At the end of last year, Pras (Pras Michel) was sentence to fourteen years in prison for using money to peddle political influence in the U.S. It means that the trio will not reform or play any gigs together. It sort of gives The Score a more complex legacy than it would otherwise have had. Not that members of Fugees have been free from controversy through their careers. However, with the sentencing of Pras Michel, it does mean that any hopes of a fully-fledged tour or reform is now impossible. Certified seven-times platinum in the U.S. and one of the most popular and influential albums in Hip-Hop history, I do hope there is retrospective about The Score around its thirtieth anniversary. Controversy and splits within the group do not take away from the brilliance and importance of The Score.

In 2021, SPIN shared an article that they first published in April 1996. An interesting interview with Fugees, it must have been exciting seeing the trio release this amazing new album after what could only be described as a somewhat middling debut. The Score was the album they had been promising. Their second studio album would prove to be their last:

“In hip-hop’s cosmology, “hardcore” rap means a cantankerous MC kicking rhymes like bodies over harsh, skeletal beats. “Alternative,” on the other hand—singing, melodies, instrumentation, any sort of peace-and-love attitude—translates as “no skills.” So hip-hop trio the Fugees—Wyclef “Clef” Jean, Lauryn “L” Hill, and Prakazrel “Pras” Michel—aren’t at all pleased to be in this section.

“We are a hip-hop group, point blank,” says 20-year-old Hill, a doe-eyed gamine of startling beauty and as brawny and nimble a rapper as she is a rapturous soul singer. “‘Alternative’ is like saying ‘she’s attractive for a dark-skinned girl,’ a backhanded compliment. Just because we can play instruments, we can’t be real hip-hop? The reason I make the kind of music I make is to bring musicality back to the ghetto. It’s about being creative, and sometimes adding a motherfucker if it means getting my point across.”

The Fugees titled their sophomore effort The Score because it settles that issue the best way possible, with moody spaghetti-Western riffs, noodling jazz horns, R&B memories, Jamaican rude-boyisms, a radical reinvention of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and the Refugee Camp’s own live instrumentation. The Score leads off with “Red Intro,” a street-corner poetry rant from Ras Baraka, son of poet Amiri Baraka. A flowing edit takes us to the Fugees, smoked out and ripping lyrics back and forth to sound an old-school battle cry. “I used to be underrated / Now I take iron / Makes my shit constipated / I’m more concentrated,” raps Hill.

“That gangsta shit is B.S.,” says Jean, the group’s live wire guitar hero and at 26 the oldest. “The real thugs and gangsters got the rappers saying that shit. The gangster to me is the guy who owns Sony [the Fugees’ label], the guy who owns SPIN, the guy who owns MTV. Hardcore is like being in the house with the eight of us, mom on welfare. That’s what I call hardcore. I don’t mean to sound preachy ’cause we’re a bug-out group.” “Hardcore for hard times,” says Hill more succinctly.

The trio met eight years ago at Columbia High School in South Orange, New Jersey, when Hill entered her freshman year. Haitian-American Michel, a junior and the son of a church deacon, asked her to sing on his rap tracks. They were joined by his older cousin Jean, a self-taught musical prodigy, himself the son of a fire-and-brimstone preacher who hated Jean’s “devil’s music” and once refused to sign a label contract his then-underage son was offered. In a gesture of proud defiance, they named themselves the Fugees for the Haitian refugees who were then washing up on U.S. shores.

Except for Salaam Remi’s straight-up hip-hop remix of “Nappy Heads,” the Fugees’ 1993 Blunted on Reality debut pleased music critics and confused radio programmers and hip-hop purists. No wonder: Jean cites as influences an eclectic mix ranging from Eek-a-Mouse and Peter Tosh to B.B. King, Thelonious Monk, and even the Pet Shop Boys and Yes. The classic-R&B-loving Hill, who worked as a teen cabaret singer and theater actress, today studies history at Columbia University. “In class, I’m always like ‘hey, does anyone else notice that this is the same shit that made it so conquest and subjugation was the basis upon which America and the West was built?’ You know what I’m saying? It’s always Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke.”

As the album flopped, Hill’s featured appearance in Sister Act II inspired suggestions that she take up the mic solo. “I don’t find it a compliment when people say that,” Hill says heatedly. “These brothers are like members of my family. Families sing together and they blend. There’s something that we do together that makes perfect chemistry. It’s been perfect since I was 14 years old.” Jean raps his response in The Score‘s “Zealots”: “The magazine says the girl shoulda went solo / The guys should stop rapping vanish like Menudo / Took it to the heart / But every actor plays his part. / As long as someone was listenin’ / I knew it was a start.”

This time around, the Fugees produced the album themselves, creating the same impromptu spirit in their New Jersey Booga Basement Studio that they have in their dynamic live act, a revamp of an old-time soul revue that’s one of the best shows in hip-hop. Steering clear of “A” audiences, they’ve been playing to the hip-hop heads in the hoods, the “hardcore audiences, blunt smokers, weed smokers, gun toters, like kids on our block who we grew up with,” says Jean. “I can hold my guitar or sing, but it’s with a rebel voice.”

Their efforts seem to be paying off. In late December 1995, the Fugees won “The Battle of the Beats” on Hot 97 (a New York City hip-hop radio station) five nights in a row with The Score‘s “How Many Mics,” defeating the Wu-Tang Clan and “whatever is so-called hip-hop today,” says bass-voiced Michel, a tall, lanky 23-year-old not easily impressed. “Hip-hop is a culture—dance, lingo, style, music—and that’s what the Fugees is. Anyone can rap”.

In 2021, Consequence wrote a feature celebrating twenty-five years of Fugees’ The Score. For anyone who wants to understand the rawness of '90s Hip-Hop, they recommend that people listen to this album. One, they say, that remains an oracle twenty-five years after its release. A further five years later, and whilst its legacy might have changed or been affected by circumstances within the group and around its members, the power of the music remains undiminished. Maybe as powerful now as it was in 1996:

“Part of its lasting impact stems from the trio of Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Pras Michel having released their classic sophomore effort in a year where the fabric of Black music was palpably changing. In 1996, the world would witness 2Pac’s last release (All Eyez on Me), the beginning of Jay-Z’s musical reign (Reasonable Doubt), and debut albums from game-changers Lil’ Kim (Hard Core) and Foxy Brown (Ill Na Na). Influential groups like Outkast and A Tribe Called Quest also released notable projects that year (ATLiens and Beats, Rhymes and Life, respectively), but the presence of women emcees in rap groups was practically nonexistent. Blunted on Reality, the Fugees’ vastly underrated debut record, had first introduced hip-hop audiences to Ms. Lauryn Hill and her New Jersey outfit back in 1994, but it would take the group’s groundbreaking follow-up a couple years later for them to gain widespread notice.

That punched ticket was 1996’s The Score, which rightfully cemented Fugees’ place in hip-hop history and boasts the hardware to prove it. The album was certified six times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, The Score won for Best Rap Album. The sonic eclecticism that set the group apart from their contemporaries stemmed from their Haitian roots. “Everybody seeks refuge,” Jean told Vibe magazine in 1996. “We find refuge in music.” The way the album infused Caribbean melodies and sounds with soul, reggae, pop, and R&B — in addition to their use of timeless samples and potent lyricism — made it an instant classic.

“Red Intro”, featuring an appearance from Ras Baraka (son of poet Amiri Baraka), acts as a gritty and dramatic harbinger for The Score’s esoteric and gripping themes regarding capitalism, identity, and the normalization of hyperviolent masculinity. The spoken-word dimensionality of “How Many Mics” reveals that Hill, who rips through the introductory verse with equal parts passion and skill, plays second fiddle to absolutely no one: “Laced with malice/ Hands get calloused/ From gripping microphones from here to Dallas/ Go ask Alice if you don’t believe me/ I get in her visions like Stevie /See me ascend from the chalice like the weed be.”

She continues to ride her own wave on the explosive “Ready or Not”, which boldly samples Enya’s “Boadicea”. Hill proves her mellifluous prowess as a vocalist and rapper and venomously declares: “So while you imitating Al Capone/ I’ll be Nina Simone/ And defecating on your microphone.” Jean’s precocious wordplay coupled with Michel’s knavish similes (“I refugee from Guantanamo Bay/ Dance around the border like I’m Cassius Clay”) showcases the chemistry that makes the Fugees such a formidable trio on The Score. Jean was the provocative mouthpiece that teetered between revolution and redemption; Michel was the stern, yet playful, poet who would often get enthralled with his own musings; and Hill was the unpredictable virtuoso that bonded them together so remarkably well.

“Zealots” playfully and boldly pays homage to the ’60s doo-wop era. “The Beast” treads into political territory with razor-sharp precision by bashing Republican figures like Newt Gingrich by name, calling out the disturbing regularity of police brutality and America’s racist prison problem. Jean’s poignant observation of how wealth won’t save him from discrimination since he’s still a Black man is piercing: “My inner conscience says throw your handkerchief and surrender/ But to who? The “Star-Spangled Banner”?/ Oh, say can’t you see cops more crooked than we/ By the dawn early night, robbin’ niggas for keys/ Easy, low-key crooked military/ Pay taxes up my ass/ But they still harass me.”

Hill effortlessly floats on its follow-up, “Fu-Gee-La”, as she interpolates Teena Marie’s 1988 hit “Ooh La La La (If Loving You Is Wrong)” for the chorus while adding a bit of her own pomposity: “Ooh, la-la-la/ It’s the way that we rock when we’re doing our thing/ Ooh, la-la-la/ It’s the natural la that the Refugees bring.” As the lead single from The Score, “Fu-Gee-La” epitomizes how the three artists aptly complement each other: Hill’s vocal lucidity is a perfect contrast to the ebb and flow of Jean and Michel’s forward-thinking verses.

However, the album’s signature moment remains when Hill takes center stage on the Fugees’ rendition of the 1973 Roberta Flack classic “Killing Me Softly”. It feels bare and extremely intimate even as the bass drops 90 seconds into the song. Jean’s adlibs (“One time! Two times”) add a little gusto on a record that is already perfect. In the UK, this famed cover was the biggest-selling single of 1996. It was massive in the States as well and hit No. 2 on the Hot 100. It also won Best R&B performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 39th Grammy Awards ceremony. “Killing Me Softly” celebrated Hill’s powerhouse range, which remains entirely immersive whenever it is showcased.

From beginning to end, The Score is a cogent representation of the arduous, yet resplendent, nature of hip-hop. All of its complexities — which encompass poverty, sexism, institutional racism, and inter and intraracial violence — are harrowing to hear but necessary to know and understand. Fugees acted as truth oracles whose inventiveness went on to inspire generations of rappers to come. The Score has stood the test of time and is a necessary listen for those looking to understand the rawness of ’90s hip-hop. Reflecting on its impact 25 years later confirms something that the group knew when they started making music together: The Fugees were always ahead of their time”.

I am going to end with a Pitchfork review of The Score. However, in 2016, they marked twenty years of a Hip-Hop classic. They also spoke with those who collaborated on and affected the album, including the last great Roberta Flack (who recorded the original version of Killing Me Softly/Killing Me Softly with His Song). It is a fascinating read:

“From the group to the label to the producers to the guest stars, no one had predicted the impact The Score would have on the music world. Once the album landed on the Grammys stage in '97, where it took home two awards, it seemed like the Fugees had it all together. Internally, though, it was another story. The tumultuous romantic relationship between a very young Hill and Clef, who was married and six years her senior, reached its peak during the recording of The Score. L-Boogie would loosely document the affair in her 1998 opus, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, while Wyclef would be more blatant in his 2012 memoir. Specifics remains hazy and have evolved into urban folklore—everyone who touched the project has one story or another. Pras recounted one harrowing tale of Wyclef breaking up with Lauryn moments before she entered the booth to record "Ready or Not," Hill crying her eyes out as she sang the hook. Then there are the stories surrounding The Score's tour, where Hill and Jean briefly reconnected before Lauryn got together with Rohan Marley. And to this day, fans speculate that Hill’s suicidal thoughts on "Manifest" were because of Clef, but who really knows? What we do know is that the love child of this toxic romance became one of the best-selling hip-hop albums ever. Strip the love, the hurt, the bickering—strip it all, and you still have a masterpiece that made history.

Salaam Remi

Producer on "Fu-Gee-La" (The Score’s lead single), "Nappy Heads" remix (from Blunted on Reality), "Vocab," and "Ready or Not" remixes (from Bootleg Versions EP)

"Going into ’95, I was working on music for Spike Lee’s Clockers. I had [the Fugees] come down [where I was working], and we did a song that was supposed to be on The Score but never got on there, called ‘Project Heads.’ During the session for ‘Project Heads,’ which I was also trying to get into Clockers, there was a beat I had made for Fat Joe that Lauryn heard. She was like, ‘Look, where’s that Fat Joe beat?’ During that session, I played the beat on her request and Wyclef jumped up and pretty much spit his verse, ‘We used to be number ten, now we’re permanent one…’ What I did was—on my dime and my time—I recorded ‘Fu-Gee-La’ in my studio. That song was done, and then they went and got the budget for that second album. Then, they started working on beats. First David Sonenberg [Fugees’ manager] wanted me to produce the whole album along with them, but I wasn’t really with it at the time. So I was like, ‘Come to me if you need some advice and I will chime in here and there.’

"Basically, the vibe of The Score was based around ‘Fu-Gee-La.’ If you take away ‘Fu-Gee-La’ it’s there, but ‘Fu-Gee-La’ is The Score, so that’s why it ended up being the first single. With that, Wyclef had his verse, and Lauryn went through singing a lot of different things, from ‘Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer’ [which she would later sing on Common’s 'Retrospect For Life'] to Chaka Khan records to all types of stuff. When she finally hit that ‘ooh la la la,’ that was the hook. During that process, Lauryn probably recorded her 16 bars every day for seven days straight. She came back in every day to redo it, because she’s that level of a perfectionist.

"At one point Lauryn hit me and said she was doing a singing record on the album and wanted me to produce it. But at that time they didn’t really have the budget. So Pras calls me one day like, ‘Yo, let me ask you something. If we wanna do "Killing Me Softly," how would you approach that song?’ I was like, ‘Hmmm, I would kind of do it like "Bonita Applebum."’ He said, ‘Oh, that was the same thing I was thinking. I’ll call you right back.’ And there you go: They literally made ‘Bonita Applebum’ into ‘Killing Me Softly.’

"The combination: Wyclef was very eclectic, Lauryn knew every soul song under the sun—she’s like a jukebox—and then Pras. If you look at that album, it says the executive producer is Pras, co-executive producers are Wyclef and Lauryn. It’s because Pras has the pop ear. From my perspective, a lot of their process during The Score was, ‘What would Salaam tell us to do?’ It’s because we had gotten to that point where I mentored them into now taking their talent and molding it into a record that people liked..."

Roberta Flack

Fugees covered "Killing Me Softly With His Song," the most famous version of which—a No. 1 in 1973—was Flack’s.

"Honestly, I had not [heard of the Fugees prior to 'Killing Me Softly']. The Score came on us like a mighty wind, and I was totally blown away by the power of the group—their musicality, their political message, and their creativity. They wanted to change the lyrics [to 'Killing Me Softly'] to make the song about anti-drugs and anti-poverty. They were all about politics. Given their name and all, the (Re)Fugees, it made sense. It was more Norman [Gimbel] and Charlie [Fox] [the songwriters behind 'Killing Me Softly With His Song'] that wanted their song to not be changed. I feel that the meaning of the song changes depending upon the singer, depending upon the listener. They gave the song a new meaning and exposed it to a new generation. They invented a new version of the song, using some musical ideas from my version. I was surprised they picked that song to be included with the others on that album, as it didn’t have the political emphasis, but then again it depends on the frame of reference from which you listen, right?"

In 2021, The Ringer shared a compelling piece that argued how, on The Score, Fugees disguised resistance as art. This huge political statement as any Hip-Hop album of the decade, songs like Fu-Gee-La, are especially important when it comes to representing and putting into focus those displaced. Refuges and those oppressed. The Score gave voice to hose people. In some ways, The Score has a new relevance in the modern-day. In terms of asylum seekers and refugees who are being villainised and risking their lives to find safety. Those murdered by genocidal regimes. There is nothing in modern music like The Score:

“The Score matters because there are places where the blatant political statement, extremely effective as it is, cannot go. When I was 12, I was at a fairly conservative school where a Black friend was ordered to remove his Malcolm X T-shirt by a member of the staff. As my friend retreated to his bedroom to change, the staff member offered her verdict on the civil rights activist. “Horrible man,” she scoffed. However, if she had seen a T-shirt bearing the faces of the Fugees, she might not even have looked twice, even though their underlying message was just as radical as so many of Malcolm X’s speeches. The Fugees disguised resistance as art, the same way that enslaved Africans once hid martial arts from their colonial masters by pretending that they were a dance.

They needed this disguise all the more, particularly because—as historian and professor Tricia Rose has observed—this was an era when major radio stations and media outlets were aggressively promoting hip-hop that celebrated materialism, which generally made it harder for music with the content of The Score to cut through. So much of that period featured feuds that were aggressively stoked by outsiders, especially by media outlets seeking controversy: It is poignant to remember that, even at the height of the supposed Cold War between the East Coast and the West Coast, rappers from both of those areas hung out with each other—Pras, a friend of Tupac’s, was in touch with him shortly before the rapper was murdered. That the Fugees managed to fight their way through that toxic fog, and to show the world that their style of hip-hop was commercially viable—it sold 22 million copies worldwide—is an understated part of their legacy.

At the core of the Fugees’ resistance was their assertion that, contrary to most current and historical narratives, it was cool to be a refugee. The name of their group, chosen to honor the Haitian heritage of Pras and Wyclef, suggested that a refugee was an outlaw, a warrior-spirit; the name of the album, The Score, implied that the act of fleeing one’s country for another was as daring as carrying out a heist at a heavily guarded casino. (If anything, it is much more so.) This reframing of escape as a courageous act rather than a cowardly one spoke to those times, and it speaks to ours now.

When the Fugees released The Score, the West had just witnessed—and, if we are being honest, refused to prevent—two of the most horrifying human rights abuses in recent memory, both of which had led to the mass exodus of people from their homelands. In just a few weeks in 1994, hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered by their fellow citizens—in many cases, their neighbors—in Rwanda. In 1995, over the course of just 12 days, the same thing happened to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. In the global consciousness, the stock of the refugee was therefore particularly low—people in conflict zones were meant to be killed and not heard. The Score arrived in that world, defiant and unashamed, daring and endlessly epic.

If we fast-forward to the present day, we see that the position of the refugee is similar, perhaps worse. When war came to Syria in 2011, the thousands of people who escaped were largely seen as part of a crisis, their suffering portrayed as a burden for the countries they ran to rather than a tragedy. When those people, along with others fleeing horror of similar intensity in Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, started drowning in huge numbers as they attempted treacherous trips to Europe, the response of much of the European media and politicians was merely to mock them. In the most infamous case, a British tabloid referred to refugees as “cockroaches”—a description which drew a horrified rebuke from the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, who compared it to language used by the Nazis.

The Score recast these people, the most disposable of all humans, as mythical figures. “I, refugee from Guantanamo Bay / Dance around the border, like I’m Cassius Clay,” raps Pras on “Ready or Not.” And this album did not portray images of gentle souls, either. These were not the type of refugees who would arrive in a new country and live quietly and fearfully in their buildings, hoping that no one paid them too much attention. In other words, the Fugees were not “good immigrants.” Their work was a blend of heavenly melody and lethal wit. As Hill put it, they were “sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphilis.” Even their heritage was radical, with Wyclef hailing from Haiti—a nation long maligned for its poverty, but which in the early 19th century was the home of the world’s first successful revolt against enslavers”.

I am going to end with a 2021 review from Pitchfork. They awarded The Score 9.3 (and unusually high score for them!). Such a seismic and enduring album, they dissected and passionately discussed “a socially conscious blockbuster grounded by the realities of the immigrant experience”. I heard the album for thew first time at the end of the '90s. It had an impact on me. In years since, its significance has grown. It is one of my favourite albums of the mid-1990s. A masterpiece:

“Upon its release, few would believe that The Score would represent nearly a quarter of Lauryn Hill’s creative output. She had long been identified as the group’s breakout talent, fending off suggestions—and offers—to leave her group behind long before it eventually dissolved. She seemed to have been anointed for stardom from a young age; Before graduating high school she had already acted in an Off-Broadway play (Club XII, the hip-hop Twelfth Night), daytime soap (As the World Turns), and two feature films (Sister Act 2, King of the Hill), as well as releasing the Fugees debut. In the face of the undeniable talent on display on The Score, she grew tired of feeling that people (and press) assumed that her male collaborators were largely responsible for her—and the group’s—success, tired of being seen as Wyclef’s girl.

And while she would evolve into something bigger than hip-hop on her 1998 solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, her work on The Score remains unparalleled in the genre; no MC has ever sung with such soul, power, and grace, nor has any singer ever spit as hard as she does here. If that statement sounds histrionic, just try to come up with a list of her peers that sing and rap even remotely as well as she did. Cee-Lo? Pharrell? Drake? It’s laughable. There’s a reason why everyone freaked out when Azealia Banks dropped “212”; the skillsets just do not often intersect, despite the AutoTune crooners that have since flooded the pop charts. And even the OGs place her at or near the top of their best-ever MC lists. Yet even after all the praise and recognition, she still felt somewhat unseen, somehow unappreciated. This would manifest itself in Miseducation, both in its powerful expressions of vulnerability and in her tyrannical exclusion of her collaborators from that album’s writing and production credits.

The Fugees recording career barely lasted three years. Flooded with offers and opportunities in the wake of their multi-platinum opus, the group began to fracture. Wyclef began recording The Carnival, supported—both emotionally and creatively—by Pras and Lauryn, who both make guest appearances. But when Lauryn started writing songs for her own solo debut, Wyclef gave her the cold shoulder, a stinging rebuke in the wake of the many solo opportunities Lauryn had spurned in solidarity with her group. The dynamic was made all the more awkward by their clandestine romance, despite his marriage to another woman, and later, Lauryn’s with Bob Marley’s son Rohan. And when the birth of Lauryn’s first child became embroiled in a paternity scandal, the fracture became a fissure, ending hopes of a prompt reconciliation.

The Score was the product of chance alchemy, made by three artists whose independent visions coalesced just long enough to create something remarkable. In the process, they laid out a template for hip-hop’s cleared-sample era, where the curation of old records was more important than how you chopped it up and disguised it. Rappers and producers quickly realized that if you had to pay for it, you might as well make the sample recognizable to those that remember the orginal, and court that new audience in the process. “Killing Me Softly” exists across several decades: It borrows from the Roberta Flack version, which itself a re-arranged cover of the Lori Lieberman original; the Fugees version adds the boom-bap drum beat from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Bonita Applebum,” which itself samples “Memory Band” from Minnie Riperton’s Rotary Connection.

The Fugees managed to diversify the voice of the ghetto, one often depicted in a single dimension. They reclaimed pride for Haitians worldwide, a heritage maligned for its postcolonial poverty and strife but still remembered as the setting for the new world’s first successful revolt of enslaved people against their oppressors. Their sound was multifaceted because they were, too, their music diverse, just like the Black experience”.

Ahead of its thirtieth anniversary on 13th February, there will be new pieces and articles written around Fugees’ The Score. Not blunted by reality of the fact a third of the group is imprisoned, the significance of the music, the landmark album that it was the legacy it has is extraordinary. That is the main takeaway and thing to remember: the sheer brilliance of the music and the dynamic within the trio. I think Ms. Lauryn Hill’s growing role as a vocalist is what makes The Score stronger and more immediate than Blunted on Reality. The confidence in the group and the consistency is higher. After thirty years, few other Hip-Hop albums have such weight and importance. Its relevance is still so huge. Even though Fugees would not last much longer beyond 1996, The Score is an album that shows them…

AT the peak of their powers.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Naomi Jane

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Naomi Jane

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THIS is an artist…

who not only makes incredible distinct, wonderful, uplifting, urgent, powerful and beautiful music. I think she is also so important and inspiring. In terms of how she uses her platform. I already have so much respect, admiration and love for Naomi Jane. I only discovered her recently, but her music, work and incredible words have already made their way into my heart and mind. In terms of what you need to know about Naomi Jane, this is taken from her official website:

“Naomi Jane is a rising singer-songwriter celebrated for blending soulful storytelling with powerful pop and indie influences. Hailing from a bicoastal upbringing between New York and California, she began honing her craft early – training as a classically trained mezzo-soprano and learning multiple instruments galoremag.com. Critics have drawn parallels between Naomi’s poetic lyricism and the emotional depth of icons like Joni Mitchell and Alanis Morissette​ mundanemag.com, a testament to the maturity and authenticity she brings to her music despite her young age. With a background in theater and film alongside music, Naomi’s artistry is truly multidimensional, rooted in both performance and songwriting.

Early Life and Artistic Foundation

Growing up bicoastal, splitting time between New York City and California, gave Naomi a diverse cultural foundation. She immersed herself in music from childhood, developing a three-octave mezzo-soprano range through classical vocal training​ galoremag.com. At the same time, she became a multi-instrumentalist, picking up guitar, piano, violin, saxophone and ukulele, which later allowed her to craft richly arranged songs as a solo artist. Before her pre-teens, Naomi was already showcasing her talents on stage – performing at prestigious New York venues like Feinstein’s/54 Below, The Players, and Green Room 42 . These early performances  laid a strong performance foundation for her music career.

Naomi’s love for storytelling led her naturally into acting as well. She landed prominent roles in theater productions, including portraying Young Teddy Trager in the award-winning musical Aussie Song, and even a gender-bent turn as Jack Kelly in Newsies. Other regional theater credits included leads in Legally Blonde, The Sound of Music, and Frozen​ broadwayword.com. Her screen debut came via a children’s music program on PBS Kids, followed by a part in the award-winning series Assisted Living. Notably, she also starred in a cult-favorite indie zombie film A Night with the Sheintops, adding film acting to her repertoire ​IMBd. This breadth of experience in performance – across singing, playing instruments, and acting – contributed to Naomi Jane’s distinct stage presence and narrative flair as she transitioned into recording original music.

Breakthrough: Songwriting and the Letterman Trilogy

In her mid-teens, Naomi turned her focus to original music, channeling her life experiences into songwriting. A major early milestone was her song “Little Miss,” an empowering pop anthem about self-worth, which went on to win First Place (Teen Category) in the 2023 International Songwriting Competition, outshining over 14,000 entries from 120 countries ​independent.com. This prestigious award put Naomi on the map as a songwriter of considerable promise, with judges praising the maturity and catchiness of her work.

Around this time, Naomi crafted what she calls the “Letterman Trilogy,” a trio of interlinked singles that narrate a journey of young love, heartbreak, and growth. The trilogy – comprising the songs “Pretty Boys,” “Little Miss,” and “Grown Ups” – uses the symbol of a letterman’s jacket as a through-line to represent stages of a teenage relationship. In “Pretty Boys,” Naomi candidly critiques the disillusionment of high school romance; “Little Miss” follows with a reclamation of confidence and identity after heartbreak; and finally “Grown Ups” concludes the arc by reflecting on coming-of-age lessons as adolescence turns into adulthood​. Wonderland Magazine praised Naomi’s ability to navigate “the emotional highs and lows of youth” in these songs with striking authenticity​. When the concluding ballad “Grown Ups” was released in late 2024, Billboard Argentina lauded it as a “masterful reflection” on the transition from adolescence to maturity​.

2025 Breakthrough and Recognition

If late 2024 set the stage for Naomi Jane, 2025 truly became her breakout year. The new year saw sweet talk continue to attract media buzz and industry accolades. Numerous publications highlighted Naomi as an “Artist to Watch” in 2025, impressed by her early achievements and artistic vision. Galore magazine’s annual spotlight on rising stars featured Naomi, emphasizing how her bicoastal upbringing and classical training contribute to music “rich with emotional depth and poetic lyricism”​ galoremag.com. Mundane magazine likewise listed Naomi among “2025’s Most Promising Emerging Artists,” noting that following the success of sweet talk, she was poised for an even bigger year with new videos and singles on the way ​mundanemag.com​ . “Naomi Jane is an artist you don’t want to miss in 2025,” Mundane wrote pointedly​, a sentiment that was echoed across the music press.

Crucially, Naomi’s rapid rise has come with broad critical approval. Wonderland Magazine applauded her authenticity in writing about youth, while Earmilk highlighted the nuanced way she tackles the struggles of relationships (particularly in her song “Pretty Boys”)​. Even international outlets have taken notice: in Argentina, Billboard spotlighted Naomi’s storytelling and described her focus on love and coming-of-age themes as resonating with both young listeners and a universal audience​ billboard.ar. Such praise from global music media, combined with the tangible streaming numbers and competition wins, have solidified Naomi Jane’s reputation as a multidimensional young talent with a voice beyond her years.

What’s Next for Naomi Jane

Six upcoming singles - summer hit worthy, euphoric “In the Moment,” dance‑ready “I Cry,” and four more - lead into Naomi’s first LP Dissonance (April 2026, co‑written and produced by multi‑award‑winner Adam Zelkind). “It’s alt‑indie‑folk‑pop at its core, laced with flashes of country and my theatrical DNA,” she says, promising to keep bending genre lines.

Beyond music, Naomi produces Broadway benefits against gun violence and advocates for equal‑access arts programs for youth. “I create worlds where listeners feel seen, safe, and empowered,” she explains.

As she balances new releases and performances, Naomi remains grounded in the storytelling that defines her artistry. EARMILK aptly summed up her current trajectory: “Naomi Jane is quickly making a name for herself with fans drawn to her confessional lyricism [and] hook-heavy choruses with rich storytelling. The creator is multi-talented and…has a background in theater, film, and television. With more music coming, we can’t wait to hear what is next from Naomi Jane.”​ earmilk.com  This excitement is shared by her fan community and media alike – Naomi’s journey is just beginning, and all signs point to a bright future for this young artist as she continues to evolve”.

What I also love about Naomi Jane is her official website. It is so comprehensive. It has so much information, all her social media links and press. I do hope that the incredible artist and actor plays in the U.K. at some point. On a section of her website called Why, there are these statements and reasons why she is in her. This is one that specifically caught my eye: “Activism isn’t an add‑on; it’s part of my creative obligation. I believe that art should serve, so I use my platform to advocate for universal access to arts and music education for youth and to press for meaningful gun‑violence prevention. Community service and good stewardship are how I pay rent on the privilege of having a stage. The wider my reach grows, the more room there is to invite others into that work - yet the heartbeat will always be the song itself”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Calli Cohen

I think that so few artists are politically and socially driven. In terms of protesting against and raising awareness of violence in the world, gender inequality and the cessation of women’s body autonomy in the U.S. to genocide in Palestine, it would be nice to see more artists speak out. I am looking forward to her album being released. I would urge everyone to go and listen to it when it comes out and follow her on social media. I am going to come to some 2025 press. However, before that, I want to take things back to 2024 and the Letterman Trilogy. Wonderland Magazine covered this wonderful work by Naomi Jane:

“Some of the greatest stories are written in the shape of a trilogy, and Naomi Jane’s collection of songs is one of them. Being only fifteen years old, Naomi Jane has written the “Letterman Trilogy,” a powerful narrative that explores love, heartbreak, empowerment, and the journey of growing up. Three interconnected singles are the chapters in the story, “Pretty Boys,” “Little Miss,” and “Grown Ups.” Together, they depict the challenges and victories of adolescence.

Naomi is a young prodigy about to become a shining star in the music industry. She received classical training in piano and as a mezzo-soprano, but she was self-taught in the art of pouring her heart into the notes in the shape of lyrics. This is what has become her signature sound and the reason why she is known as the “piano poet.” Her music is carefully crafted, while her storytelling is vulnerable and intimate. As a result, the LA-based artist has fascinated audiences of all kinds, gathering thousands of fans on her social networks, hundreds of thousands of streams, and even a prize at the 2023 International Songwriting Competition for “Little Miss.”

During the past months, Naomi has released a series of songs known as the “Letterman Trilogy”. Each song explores a distinct stage of emotional growth, offering a glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of adolescence. Individually, they are all beautiful masterpieces, but together they unfold an emotional story of learning and evolution.

“Pretty Boys” was the first release of the series. It delves into the unmet expectations in young love, and the pain in seeing naive beliefs fall apart. “Little Miss” focuses on the importance of reclaiming one’s identity, regardless of expectations and the insecurities of teenage years. Finally, “Grown Ups” is a reflection on what love and growing up truly mean, a mix of emotion and fear, and how fragile it can be.

Every song in the trilogy captures Naomi’s style and talent to tell a good story. The vulnerability and honesty she allows herself to express in her lyrics, being so young, is remarkable. Even though it might seem her themes are sad at first, a constant in the verses of her trilogy is the way she reclaims the protagonist of her own narrative. Self-empowerment, self-worth, and a resilient mindset are some of the lessons she has learned at a young age, which she now shares in the shape of songs.

The “Letterman Trilogy” is also a visual chronicle. Through three music videos, we see Naomi’s live emotions that range from love, loss, and self-discovery. A vintage letterman’s jacket is the unifying symbol that connects all the pieces as a metaphor for growth.

With the “Letterman Trilogy” complete, Naomi Jane continues to make her mark on the music industry. After listening to the collection, it is natural to want more from her, and she is working now to please her fans with the release of her next story, an EP with interconnected videos. We are eager to see her growing as a star and changing the music world”.

Last year was a big one for Naomi Jane. In terms of what she achieved. Her debut E.P., sweet talk, was released. An E.P. that is catchy, deep, varied and distinctly her own work, few artists have written about the messiness and realities of love more succinctly and memorably than Naomi Jane. This is the type of artist that we need in music. I hope that other sites and journalists are tipping her for success this year, as she is going to go so far in the industry. SPIN assessed the remarkable sweet talk last January:

“The EP begins with an irresistibly infectious song titled “Heartbeat Melody,” a captivating and lively piece, pulsating with the exhilarating energy of new love. Here, Naomi’s voice really comes into its own and takes center stage as she captures with tremendous eloquence the exciting uncertainty that accompanies the early stages of a budding relationship. The song’s bouncy beat, with its catchy chorus, nicely establishes its status as an instant catchy song.

But “sweet talk” isn’t only about that euphoric, thrilling beginning of love that most people hold so dear. It also delves deep into the complex, multidimensional intricacies of relationships, which “Like Like Love,” one of the EP’s tracks, emphasizes. This song focuses on the fragile, sensitive struggle between light, carefree love and the deeper, more solemn devotion that can emerge later on. It captures the poignant moments when feelings begin to evolve, deepen, and take on unsuspected importance.

“TACOBELL” easily steals the show as the EP’s lead track, a cleverly observed commentary on the vast gulf between the exalted ideals of romance and the stark reality that most people face. It’s the neatness of Naomi’s lyrics. Her infectious melody is brimming with memorability and sets her above the rest. In terms of storytelling, this song highlights Naomi’s dazzling gifts for taking the most mundane details of everyday life and turning them into a compelling, golden song.

As the EP progresses and unwinds, the mood becomes thick with melancholy and solemnity. “Socks” is a heartbreaking ballad that perfectly describes the aftermath of a breakup, with perfect echoes of pain and deep longing that always resonate later when the loving relationship finally ends. She sings so raw, surprisingly vulnerable, and poignant.

“Press Send” is a standout track that wraps up the EP on a triumphant note, celebrating self-worth and independence. With Jane’s emotive powerhouse vocals and empowering lyrics, it becomes a cathartic anthem for anyone who has endured the pain of love.

“Sweet talk” highlights Naomi Jane’s incredible talent as both a gifted songwriter and a captivating performer. Her remarkable ability to craft music that speaks volumes—relatable, emotionally resonant, and thought-provoking—has connected with listeners of all ages and backgrounds. With infectious melodies, honest lyrics, and a compelling narrative, her work leaves a lasting impact”.

Busy with gigs and new music, Naomi Jane released a brilliant single, IDWK (I Don’t Wanna Know). Her output last year was remarkable, and there is a lot of exactment around an album. What it might contain and the tracks that will be included. I think this year is going to be best so far from the American artist. I know there are those in the U.K. that love her music, so it would be good to see her over here at some point. This article is about IDWK (I Don’t Wanna Know). Its video will be arriving shortly. If 2025 was the end of one chapter of her career, this year marks the next one. Perhaps the most important so far:

“Naomi Jane isn’t framing “IDWK (I Don’t Wanna Know)” as a casual brush-off or a quiet fade-out. In her own campaign language, the track is the “call before the shift” — a consciously chosen hinge between the world she’s already built and the one she’s stepping into next.

Released as a song on December 19, 2025, with an official video set for January 23, 2026, “IDWK” arrives as a moment of inventory: Naomi looking back at the Letterman Trilogy, sweet talk, and the broader “dawn” era, then naming the next question out loud. The line that anchors the release — “When you leave the party, where do you go?” — becomes less a situationship refrain and more a thesis about growth, endings, and what it costs to choose yourself.

Part of what makes “IDWK” feel positioned as a pivot is the sheer intentionality behind Naomi’s rollout. Since 2023, she’s maintained an aggressive, disciplined rhythm — roughly a new song and visual every six weeks — and the press release argues that “IDWK” is the first true crossroads of that long-game planning.

It’s presented as the twilight bridge between “dawn” (a tightly interlinked visual-and-song universe) and dissonance (a working-title debut LP era promised to lean into alt-indie / folk-pop with a country fringe, new instrumentation, and a shifted perspective).

Naomi describes the track as one of her most vulnerable, closing out a heartbreak storyline with a firmer sense of self-worth: she doesn’t want the confusion again, and she’s no longer romanticising weak excuses — a sentiment encapsulated in her favourite lyric, “I’ll drink up your spillin alibi.”

The campaign also treats visuals as a core part of the storytelling, not an add-on. The “IDWK” video is described as revisiting key “rooms” from past releases — including “Little Miss,” “TACOBELL,” “In the Moment,” “Lightning,” and “Mr. Incognito” — while planting Easter eggs intended to reward repeat viewing and fuel fan theories about what’s coming next.

That approach fits an artist who has built a catalogue where every release is meant to connect, and where new listeners aren’t simply catching a song — they’re stepping into a narrative system already in motion.

While the press release leans hard into momentum — citing major view counts, streams, followers, playlist stats, and songwriting accolades — the more interesting angle is what that momentum is being used for: a clear artistic reroute, not just a bigger version of the same.

The next chapter is framed as more organic, more textured, and more instrument-forward, with Naomi also positioning her platform around youth arts access and gun-violence prevention as part of her creative responsibility. If “IDWK” is truly the threshold song it claims to be, its success won’t only be measured in numbers — it’ll be measured in whether listeners choose to take her hand and walk into the unfamiliar with her”.

There is no doubt Naomi Jane is going to be in music for many years. She will play huge stages, tour around the world, and release a series of incredible album that will be talked about years from now. An important activist who knows the important of using her voice for good and to speak about issues that need to be discussed, it is no wonder Naomi Jane is so respected. Everyone needs to show their love and support for…

A modern-day queen.

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Follow Naomi Jane