FEATURE: The Third Arrangement: My Fascination Around a Kate Bush Book Idea I Cannot Shake Off

FEATURE:

 

 

The Third Arrangement

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1993 whilst filming the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

My Fascination Around a Kate Bush Book Idea I Cannot Shake Off

_________

I used the words ‘The Third Arrangement’…

IN THIS ARTWORK: Snake Mary, from Steely Dan’s Rose Darling/ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay (via Expanding Dan)

at the top, because it is similar to a Steely Dan song. That was The Second Arrangement. It was meant to feature on their 1980 album, Gaucho, but it got wiped. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (mainly Fagen and producer Gary Katz, I think) tried to rebuild or re-record it but it was too much of an ask. The track actually appeared fairly recently and was saved from the ashes somehow. It is a great song, and it makes me think of the songs of the mighty Dan. I mention them because, as I have said before, I was hugely inspired by the book, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. You can buy it here. The concept was sort of down to Joan LeMay. She is an artist who collaborated with author and journalist Alex Pappademas. In the book “Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay give a roadmap to the Steely Dan extended universe through the lens of the characters at the heart of the band's songs. Alongside Pappademas' explorations, LeMay's paintings render touching portraits of Steely Dan's influences and inheritors, and speculative illustrations of the personalities who populate its world. Their book uncovers the vast constellation of lyrical references, artistic influences and social and political contexts surrounding the band and its music”. You can read this interview between NPR and Joan LeMay  from 2023 (the year the book was published). I posted on Instagram saying how much I love this book and want to do something similar with Kate Bush. Such a fresh and original way to approach an artist. Using their characters as guides and focal points, I cannot think of too many other examples of this.

That might be the first ‘issue’ attempting something the same with Kate Bush: it has already been done. I messaged Joan LeMay and she liked the idea of my approach but, as she came up with this incredible idea, I don’t think I could justify one for Kate Bush. Not exactly the same. I am getting future nostalgic. As I write this – 9th October, 2026 – we are in this moment when Kate Bush could announce a new album at any point. If it has been announced before I share this feature, I will have to hastily rewrite! Next year, we mark forty-five years of her fourth studio album, The Dreaming. In 2028, Wuthering Heights (her debut single) and The Kick Inside (her debut album) turn fifty. I have published a series on my blog, Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs. It is needed now, though I managed to feature dozens of characters from her albums, B-sides and beyond. The thought of bringing that idea into a glorious hardback is tantalising. Not to repeat myself too heavily. One of the best days I ever had in London was going to a little bar in Old Street – I forget what it was called -, where there was this launch/signing of the Steely Dan book. Joan LeMay lived in London at the time but has since moved back to her native U.S. She was there, a couple of piles of this book. I bought a good beer got a couple of signed copies, and sat outside the bar as Steely Dan songs were played. The experience of the nice weather, the beer, LeMay and The Dan coexisting in this brilliant cocktail as I opened the book and started to read. An experience I cannot replicate, it was memorable because the book is so beautifully written and illustrated. The artwork by LeMay is fabulous. All these Steely Dan characters who we only knew through the words of Fagen and Becker now brought to life. I shall get to Kate Bush soon. I think the world now needs a group like Steely Dan. Or a new Donald Fagen album (his most recent, Sunken Condos, was released in 2012). So many big topics that can be tackled through smart, witty but cutting lyrics.

Sexual abuse and the men who boast about it. Genocide and the ignorance around it. Sexism and inequality at music festivals. Attacks on trans people and the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. The abortion ban in the U.S. and how women’s bodies and rights are policed and restricted. Political corruption and fascism in the U.S. and here. Lighter songs that deal with, among other things, living in overpriced flats and sharing with others; an older person adrift of new music and terms; an awkward flirtation and fantasy at a dive coffee bar. I came up with possible track lists: The New Jane Doe, Hipsterlooza, American Grammar, Long Shot, Negative Space, Can’t Buy a Thrill (which is the title of Steely Dan’s 1972 debut album), Katy’s Switch, Eastside, For Those in the Back Rows, I’ll Get to New York City One Day Soon. Record it out of New York’s Electric Lady Studios and have a singer, a cast of brilliant musicians and this wonderfully produced album. Go for an all-time great album cover. The album will be called American Grammar, and it would be a genuinely compelling and striking cover. It is a dream, of course – I cannot read or write music (only lyrics) and have neither the money or connections to make it happen -, but we are in a time when the pen of Becker and Fagen is needed more than ever. Hip-Hop, Pop and other genres really not stepping up when it comes to tackling hefty topics. That’s why re-reading Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan was and is such a joy. If anything, there are more characters through Kate Bush’s work than Steely Dan’s. Not that Joan LeMay would illustrated a hypothetical Kate Bush book, but I love the thought of seeing Kate Bush’s characters similarly brought to (vivid) life. There are many advantages of a book. I have said how Kate Bush is arguably one of the most influential modern-day artists. In terms of her impact on some of the very best artists of today. Everyone from FKA twigs, Charli xcx, Chappell Roan, CMAT, Florence + The Machine and beyond.

We are coming up to Christmas. In terms of recommendations, Kate Bush fans new should definitely invest in a book or two about her. Maybe Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush (oft-quoted and sourced for my blog), or Tom Doyle’s Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. There is little exploration of Bush’s work now. I guess in 2028 there will be features and things published because of those anniversaries. When she announces a new album, there will be this explosion of new interest. However, I don’t think there any books announced or anything substantial. Which is a shame, as I feel Kate Bush’s influence and importance is potentially at its most widespread and white-hot right now. Aside from Spectrum Culture ranking her songs and exploring them in detail, there is scant deep diving. Aside from Spectrum Culture scandalously featuring so many songs from The Kick Inside in the low positions, it is a proper connection and investigation of Bush’s music. The more that these kind of features are shared, the more her entire discography is discovered. That is what books do for artists too: they bring in new discoverers and approach their music in a very interesting and detailed way. Aside from biographies and a few other books here and there, there has not been enough written about her. Nothing that spotlights and discusses all the brilliant and distinct characters. Who we use as a jump-off point to talk about different themes and aspects of Kate Bush and her life.

There are drawbacks for any book project. I have never written one and have no idea as to the realities of how long it will take. As it is, living in London, I am barely getting by with a full-time job. I would not realistically be able to write one around my job and have the focus and time to complete it quickly enough. I am a journalist and not necessarily the most arresting writer. A book might require something more dynamic and interesting. Alex Pappademas wrote with such intelligence, passion and originality when documenting Steely Dan’s cast of heroes, misfits and side players. Also, a new author would not get a deal or an advance. Most likely, I – or someone writing a book – would get a percentage of the profits. This is a book that might not garner enormous sales so, when all is said and done, walking away with a couple or few grand. Not that it is about the money, but few people have the luxury of taking a year off from a job and writing a book. And writing one around a job seems like an impossibility! When Kate Bush does release a new album (I am thinking next year), I know there will be some new characters to discuss. 2011’s 50 Words for Snow had a few. So it might be worth considering one after that album comes out. Perhaps next year will see some new Kate Bush books arrive. There is this gap in the market. I have talked about it before but, re-exploring Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan has sparked something. I think the money and time issues are a big factor. Though the chance to have this book out in the world about Kate Bush is always at the back of my mind. I have also muses about writing a 33 1/3 book if the opportunity arose. About The Kick Inside. Leah Kardos wrote one in 2024 on Hounds of Love, though feel there is room for a second. I feel, at present, time commitments and financial sacrifices and pitfalls prohibit me from realistically writing a book. And how easy is it to pitch to a publish and get the idea accepted? Writing a book is so fulfilling and would be a dream come true. It might have to wait until I am in a more financially stable position. Joan LeMay’s brilliant character-led idea for Steely Dan resonated with me and has not escaped my mind. Not that I would replicate Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan for my book, but take some of its elements (the character focus) and do something different. It might not be chronological and there would be unique aspects. Perhaps the idea will come to light…

ONE day.

FEATURE: The New Style: Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

The New Style

Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill at Forty

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IT is hard to believe…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith

that Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill turns forty on 15th November. The extraordinary debut album from MCA, Mike D and Ad-Rock. Whilst some consider 1989’s Paul’s Boutique to be the best Beastie Boys album, there is no doubting the importance of Licensed to Ill. It was this massive success. So many singles released and a load of critical love, it reached seven in the U.K. and one in the U.S. I am writing this (on 9th October) ahead of the release of a book that celebrates forty years of a classic. An insight into Hip-Hop classic. This article gives us more details:

“This November, it will be 40 years since the world was introduced to Beastie Boys, one of the most influential hip-hop groups ever formed, via their debut album, Licensed to Ill. To celebrate the anniversary of the groundbreaking LP, The Great Albums book series is releasing Beastie Boys: Licensed to Ill – 40 Years, an in-depth retrospective featuring fresh interviews, candid photos, and more.

Coming from author Ben Merlis (who also penned to recent Consequence Cover Story Mike D: Time for Living around the Beastie Boy member’s debut solo album, Thank You), the 176-page hardcover book is packaged in a slick slipcase. Featuring a forward by Prince Paul, the tome includes over 200 images, a track-by-track examination of Licensed to Ill, and new interviews with producers, collabroators, and cultural critics.

The official logline reads: “When Licensed to Ill hit the Billboard charts in 1986, it didn’t just make history — it rewrote it. The Beastie Boys’ mix of punk energy, streetwise humor, and Rick Rubin’s hard-hitting production propelled the album to become the first rap LP to top the Billboard 200 and one of the fastest-selling debuts in history. Beastie Boys: Licensed to Ill – 40 Years invites you into the creative chaos that produced classics like ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn,’ ‘Girls,’ and ‘Brass Monkey.'”

“When I was asked by the publisher to write this book, I had to say yes because there is no other story that wholly encompasses my two biggest passions: hardcore punk and hip-hop. Beastie Boys were a total anomaly and I wanted to explain step-by-step how a first generation NYHC band transitioned into being a full-fledged rap group, and then into arena-headlining pop stars with a number one album within a few short years,” Merlis said in a statement. “The whole relationship between the band, their producer/label founder Rick Rubin, and their manager/label co-owner Russell Simmons ran full speed into the side of a cliff, with the Beasties crawling out of the wreckage triumphant. It really is a tale of defying expectations and reinvention. Licensed to Ill still knocks, forty years later.”

Beastie Boys: Licensed to Ill – 40 Years arrives on October 13th, and you can pre-order it here.

Read Merlis’ interview with Mike D about Thank You here. For more on Beastie Boys’ classic discography, see where Paul’s Boutique landed on our list of the 100 Best Sophomore Albums of All Time”.

I want to get to some features and reviews of Licensed to Ill. Whilst it is one of the most influential Hip-Hop albums ever, we need to address a complicated legacy. Controversial aspects of the debut that the trio addressed for its follow-up, Paul’s Boutique. In terms of the sexist and homophobic content. There was (and still is) a lot of it in Hip-Hop in the 1980s. However, that is no excuse for a trio so much smarter than their peers. There is a slight sour taste to some of the songs. This article from 2016 discussed the legacy of Licensed to Ill thirty years later. Whilst homophobia and sexism is tied to Beastie Boys’ debut, “so is their maturity and repentance”:

“The album lives in the shadow of their later works, but was just as innovative

Whenever people talk about how important Licensed to Ill was, it seems to have less to do with the music itself. Instead, everyone focuses on the group’s personalities and their commercial appeal. And so far I’ve done the same thing. But because of the hype and popularity, this album doesn’t get its due when placed next to their later material.

To many fans and critics, Licensed to Ill was the debut that, despite being a commercial sensation, is really just a product of its time. It’s a fun — yet dated — mid-80s Def Jam record. Then out of nowhere, they split from Def Jam’s control and matured into true artists by dropping their frat boy schtick and hooking up with the Dust Brothers to create a wildly creative masterpiece in Paul’s Boutique. And as the story goes, the band would continue experimenting for the rest of their career, never to return to the generic and immature style of Licensed to Ill.

In many ways, it makes sense why the album has become thought of as just a product of its time. Rick Rubin’s beats often sound like any other album that he produced from that era, most notably LL Cool J’s Radio. And although “No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn” and “Fight For Your Right,” were groundbreaking in the sense that they brought hip-hop to a new fanbase, creatively speaking they were really nothing new — Run DMC had already been using metal riffs for a few years on songs like “Rock Box” and “King of Rock.” This only feeds the narrative that the group was artistically riding Run DMC’s coattails, popularizing the Hollis, Queens trio’s style for a white audience.

But if we look beyond the surface, Licensed to Ill was actually a really innovative album — only a few hip-hop artists like Doug E. Fresh and Mantronix were making such experimental hip-hop at the time. There’s the amazing “Hold it Now, Hit It,” one of the strangest hip-hop singles of the period; “Paul Revere,” a fake western origin story propelled by a backwards sampled loop; and “Rhymin’ and Stealin,’” which contains the legendary, yet super-random bridge that has the group screaming “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” over and over. This is by no means a normal hip-hop album.

Licensed to Ill doesn’t get looked at as a creative breakthrough because it’s unfairly judged against the rest of the band’s catalogue and not appreciated on its own terms. Of course, Paul’s Boutique was creatively groundbreaking, but that doesn’t mean that what preceded it is therefore generic. Both albums were extremely progressive in their own ways, but because hip-hop as a whole progressed by leaps and bounds between 1986 and 1989, Licensed to Ill looks basic in comparison. But they didn’t simply go from immature idiots to musical geniuses by the time Paul’s Boutique came out, like many would have you believe. Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D were always extremely creative and simply took the experimentation they learned on Licensed to Ill to another level as they moved on from Def Jam.

The album lives in the shadow of their later works, but was just as innovative

Whenever people talk about how important Licensed to Ill was, it seems to have less to do with the music itself. Instead, everyone focuses on the group’s personalities and their commercial appeal. And so far I’ve done the same thing. But because of the hype and popularity, this album doesn’t get its due when placed next to their later material.

To many fans and critics, Licensed to Ill was the debut that, despite being a commercial sensation, is really just a product of its time. It’s a fun — yet dated — mid-80s Def Jam record. Then out of nowhere, they split from Def Jam’s control and matured into true artists by dropping their frat boy schtick and hooking up with the Dust Brothers to create a wildly creative masterpiece in Paul’s Boutique. And as the story goes, the band would continue experimenting for the rest of their career, never to return to the generic and immature style of Licensed to Ill.

In many ways, it makes sense why the album has become thought of as just a product of its time. Rick Rubin’s beats often sound like any other album that he produced from that era, most notably LL Cool J’s Radio. And although “No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn” and “Fight For Your Right,” were groundbreaking in the sense that they brought hip-hop to a new fanbase, creatively speaking they were really nothing new — Run DMC had already been using metal riffs for a few years on songs like “Rock Box” and “King of Rock.” This only feeds the narrative that the group was artistically riding Run DMC’s coattails, popularizing the Hollis, Queens trio’s style for a white audience.

But if we look beyond the surface, Licensed to Ill was actually a really innovative album — only a few hip-hop artists like Doug E. Fresh and Mantronix were making such experimental hip-hop at the time. There’s the amazing “Hold it Now, Hit It,” one of the strangest hip-hop singles of the period; “Paul Revere,” a fake western origin story propelled by a backwards sampled loop; and “Rhymin’ and Stealin,’” which contains the legendary, yet super-random bridge that has the group screaming “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” over and over. This is by no means a normal hip-hop album.

Licensed to Ill doesn’t get looked at as a creative breakthrough because it’s unfairly judged against the rest of the band’s catalogue and not appreciated on its own terms. Of course, Paul’s Boutique was creatively groundbreaking, but that doesn’t mean that what preceded it is therefore generic. Both albums were extremely progressive in their own ways, but because hip-hop as a whole progressed by leaps and bounds between 1986 and 1989, Licensed to Ill looks basic in comparison. But they didn’t simply go from immature idiots to musical geniuses by the time Paul’s Boutique came out, like many would have you believe. Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D were always extremely creative and simply took the experimentation they learned on Licensed to Ill to another level as they moved on from Def Jam”.

It is this album that has so much to love. However, its more problematic elements mean it is perhaps not as lauded and regarded as later albums. Also, the group have this kind of love-hate relationship with it. A couple of features to cover before ending with a review. Albumism covered Beastie Boys’ debut in 2021. Marking thirty-five years of an album that has garnered a lot of discussion and debate. Where does it rank in terms of their best work? Maybe not their very best work, it is definitely stronger than a lot of their albums:

“They are musical royalty. Comprised of Adam “King Ad-Rock” Horowitz, Mike “Mike D” Diamond, and the late Adam “MCA” Yauch, they are one of the most iconic groups to ever record music. They earned vast commercial and critical success. Seven of their albums went platinum or better. They also boast one of the most distinctive and creative sounds of any group in the last 50 years.

The contrast of Ad-Rock and Mike D’s nasally tones contrasted well with the gruffness of MCA’s voice. Musically, they were always interesting, setting trends for how they approached and recorded rap music. In 2012, they became the second rap group ever to be enshrined into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And they are one of the few groups that managed to hold themselves together for close to three decades without ever breaking up or having one of the core members leave the group.

And, not to put too fine of a point on it, they are credited with introducing hip-hop music to a white audience, making it acceptable for young white kids and teens to listen to this form of music that was created within the Black and Latino communities of New York City in the late ’70s. And their influence began with their first album Licensed To Ill, released thirty years ago in November 1986.

In 1984, the Beastie Boys made the transition from punk band to rap threesome, and signed to Def Jam Records at the behest of their DJ, Rick Rubin, the NYU student who, along with Russell Simmons, co-founded the label. The trio started making moves right off the bat, securing a spot as the opening act on Madonna’s Like a Virgin tour. Soon thereafter, they hit the road with Run-DMC, Whodini, LL Cool J, and Timex Social Club on the Raising Hell tour, all before releasing their first Def Jam album.

Licensed To Ill remains an extremely enjoyable album, but it’s also an odd duck. Though it has enjoyed monumental success over the years (it eventually earned Diamond status from the RIAA for sales exceeding 10 million) and was immediately hailed as genius by magazines like Rolling Stone, at the time some viewed it as insincere. Yauch, Diamond, and Horowitz were ostensibly outsiders to the hip-hop scene, and some argued that Licensed To Ill was lampooning hip-hop music. For their part, the trio never denied their lineage, and argued that their respect for rap was deep and abiding. That outsiders like the Beastie Boys were able to create such an enduring album is part of what makes Licensed To Ill a classic.

A big part of the group’s appeal was the musical backdrop that they rapped over. To say the beats were “sampled” is inaccurate, since the album was recorded before the first samplers were widely commercially available. Rubin holds that the music was provided either by the DJ spinning the original records “live,” or through looping of the beats on tape in the studio. No matter what the means, the musical sources for much of Licensed To Ill came from records by hard rock and heavy metal groups like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath. And there were copious amounts of live electric guitar, even more so than the early Run-DMC records.  It resulted in a sound palette that was different than the vast majority of hip-hop records released up to that point, as many of their hip-hop contemporaries did not gravitate towards rapping over these so-called “white” records.

In the Beastie Boys book, Mike D wrote about how the song, produced by Ad-Rock, was formative in helping the group come into its own. “Instead of trying to act and sound like someone else,” he explains. “we were just being ourselves, writing from our own lives and experiences … We figured out how to piece together different elements from what we loved … and turn them into a song.”

“Hold It Now…” was also the source of one of the first sample clearance lawsuits, as Jimmy Castor sued the Beasties and Def Jam for using large elements of his “Return of Leroy” record without his permission. The group settled out of court, and agreed to give Castor some percentage of the profits from Licensed to Ill.

When most people speak of Licensed To Ill’s more juvenile nature, they’re usually referring to “Girls” and “Fight For Your Right To Party,” the final two tracks on side A (tracks 6 and 7 for those of you out there who only know this album from the streaming version). They are probably the two worst tracks on the album, but both decently enjoyable.

The Beasties may have a complicated relationship with Licensed To Ill, recognizing that they both like and hate it. They eventually made peace with the legacy of “Fight For Your Right To Party” on Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 (2011), referencing it extensively on “Make Some Noise,” one of the album’s singles. Other songs from Licensed like “Slow And Low,” “New Style,” and “Time To Get Ill” remained staples of their live performances. However, it’s never been clear whether the Beastie Boys ever made peace with Simmons and Rubin.

In the Beastie Boys’ long and decorated career, Licensed To Ill is an interesting first step. Yes, it’s absurd and silly in all the ways that you’d expect a largely ironic frat-rap album from the mid-1980s would be, but it still possesses a lasting charm that’s impossible to shake. It’s kind of beside the point whether or not the album was ever meant to be taken seriously, because much of it is firmly rooted in solid, old school hip-hop sensibilities, and the music stands on its own. “Fight For Your Right To Party” may have become a standard of Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, and bad cover bands, but it’s “Paul Revere” that rides forever”.

Even if you prefer other Beastie Boys albums, you cannot dispute the influence and importance of Licensed to Ill. Last year, uDiscoverMusic examined this remarkable debut. “The first hip-hop album ever to top the Billboard 200, ‘Licensed To Ill’ saw Beastie Boys lay the groundwork for the hip-hop world we now live in”. For anyone who has never heard Licensed to Ill, ahead of its fortieth anniversary, do go and play it:

“Ahead of its time

What might get overlooked in retrospect is how advanced Licensed To Ill sounds. Hip-hop was evolving fast, but nothing else by the end of ’86 had such complex structures, where songs would pause halfway through and go in entirely different directions, like “The New Style,” which was subsequently sampled on over 250 records. Beastie Boys proved themselves to be more than just another copycat rap act, but something else altogether, coming out with a unique and diverse musical palette.

The sample selection spread across the album’s 13 tracks (technically only 10 of which contain samples) are really an amalgam of four distinct cultures: hip-hop (The B-Boys, Joeski Love, Mantronix, Kurtis Blow, Doug E Fresh, Schoolly D, etc), old soul, disco and jazz records that hip-hop adopted as its own (Cerrone, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Barry White, Bob James, Kool & The Gang), hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC) and punk (The Clash).

Beastie Boys came up believing that stadium rock was the enemy; they started out as a skateboarding hardcore punk band and shared bills with groups the likes of Necros and Millions Of Dead Cops, before being bit by the rap bug and switching gears around 1983-84. That is until fellow punk turned hip-hopper Rick Rubin – who’d initially been raised on rock music out on a rock called Long Island, where being cool didn’t matter as much – introduced the three city slickers to that feathered-hair and denim-clad genre.

Even a doo-wop influence can be heard in the melody on “Girls,” which is reminiscent of the 1962 hit “Remember Then” by The Earls. Where Rubin’s work on LL Cool J’s debut full-length, Radio, was sparse and direct, Licensed To Ill took far longer to create – two years, in fact, in an effort to build an entirely self-contained universe. In this dimension, bragging about using angel dust or rapping about comedian Phyllis Diller over the theme songs for Mister Ed and Green Acres is not normal, but in Beasties’ dimension, it was par for the course.

On March 7, 1987, Licensed To Ill topped the Billboard 200, the first hip-hop album ever to do so. It then stayed there for seven straight weeks, Bruce Hornsby And The Range, Genesis, and Janet Jackson be damned. We were well on our way to living in a hip-hop world. By 2015, Yauch, Horovitz, and Mike D were certified diamond, with 10 million in sales – an accomplishment shared by no other hip-hop record released in the 80s.

History has been kind to the album in this respect. By simultaneously appealing to the mainstream music fans, the upper echelon of music critics, and all echelons between, the masses were – and continue to be – enthralled by Beastie Boys”.

I am going to end with a review from Pitchfork that was published in 2004. Although there are reviews that focus more on the songs and are perhaps more relevant and informative, I do like how they approached Licensed to Ill. I wonder if the group’s two surviving members – Ad-Rock and Mike D – will share some words about their 1986 debut album. It must have been this hugely exciting time for them:

"Look, I don't know why, but George Wagoner is going to kick my ass today. Don't laugh, bitch, I'm serious! I never should have told that slut that skins were assholes."

"Haha, you're dead, man."

"Shut up, bitch, I'm telling you I can't wait for the bus because they know where I catch it. You have to try to get Mr. Davis to drive around to the side like he sometimes does for Chris. I'm gonna go out the back, from the cafeteria. And I already talked to Nick, but he just said he didn't know if he could do anything. Which, that doesn't even make any sense because I thought they were supposedly best friends."

"Hey man, I think you're gonna get killed today. You know Tracy's sister?"

"Yeah, fool, that's the one who I told about skins. That's what I was talking about."

"Yeah, she's crafty and she's just Dom's type. Hahahaha!!!"

"She is a crafty bitch."

Poltergeists and Licensed to Ill: Some things only make sense to kids. Too many years removed from junior high, they tend only to reveal themselves in annoying bursts of violence, confusion and rhymes like Abe Vigoda. And it's not even because their appeal is particularly juvenile, but rather that they operate in a realm only comprehensible to the innocent; those untouched by the brutal reality of the real world, where everyday injustice skews our perception to the point that what might have been common sense to us as adolescents now seems mystifying. To little Carol Anne, Ad-Rock simply is another child.

New York brats-cum-activists Beastie Boys have gone to great pains to explain the error of their 80s ways. This is not to say they've been apologetic, but only too keen to emphasize the arcs of their characters over the years. Licensed to Ill, like Cooky Puss and the underrated Rock Hard EP before it, were indeed both impressively ahead of their time, and rudimentary to the extreme. How a city that already had ESG felt it needed the Beastie Boys in the mid-80s is a question that confounds the ages; yet, Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D could hardly have predicted the slacker generation better if they'd tried (which they didn't). Chalk it up to NYC eclecticism, perhaps. Chalk it up to Run-DMC and Madonna, who helped showcase them to the most economically and culturally powerful generation of kids since the boomers. Chalk it up to Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. And MTV. Most of all, remember that at their worst, these guys got thrown out of White Castle for being too loud.

Licensed to Ill is given a lot of credit for predating the whole rap-rock thing of the 90s. Bad news for the Beasties: History appears to contradict that assessment. First of all, their cornball Cali cousins the Red Hot Chili Peppers had already graced the earth with two LPs prior to Ill, not to mention beating them to the 70s funk revival by working with George Clinton. Secondly, contrary to most rock writers' beliefs, white guys + guitars do not necessarily = rock. Had they released Ill even four years later, it would have been a novelty record. It's dated remarkably badly, while Rick Rubin's skill with the mixer (and drum machine) is entirely questionable. The rhymes... well...

"I got franks and pork and beans/ Always bust the new routines."

"Spent some bank, I got a high powered jumbo/ Rolled up a wooly and I watched Colombo."

"I keep a pistol in my pocket so you better be cautious/ Fly around the world but it makes me nauseous."

"Get ready/ 'Cause this ain't funny/ My name's Mike D and I'm about to get money."

Okay, so it isn't the music or all the rhymes that translate beyond the scene of the crime. What, then? Probably just that the Beasties didn't give a fuck-- AND AMERICA DESPERATELY NEEDED TO BE SHOWN HOW NOT TO GIVE A FUCK. And it sort of still does. Licensed to Ill demonstrated that you could be "groundbreaking" and "important," and still have no goals beyond getting drunk before 6th period. Think about that. It meant that you could live life as one giant inside joke, speaking in tongues and making hilarious references to Chef Boyardee with no one outside your circle of jerks the wiser. Sorry ma, forgot to take out the trash, but that's okay because I drink Brass Monkey and I rock well. "What?" "Nothing."

In light of this information, it almost seems pointless to recap the highlights. Does anyone really care that "Rhymin' and Stealin"" witnessed Rubin's genius for exposing the sample-ability of Led Zeppelin? No, because, "My pistol is loaded, I shot Betty Crocker/ Deliver Colonel Sanders down to Davey Jones' locker" is awesome, and if you don't get it then what-the-fuck-ever. Does it matter that "Fight for Your Right" actually does kind of invent rap-rock? No, because everyone has their best porno mag, and these guys are just telling it like it is, and rap is the CNN of rock. Do you know what "I did it with my whiffleball bat" means? Has anyone ever even been to Brooklyn? Who in their right mind is sampling Creedence? Is "I should have probably guessed her gay" the best line ever, or is it when they brag about having more rhymes than Phyllis Diller?

Despite its seeming defiance of respectable society, there is no shortage of folks who would canonize Licensed to Ill-- hence this new edition, replete with commemorative DVD. For Miller's sake, it's the Beastie Boys' worst record. (Even though we all secretly know it's their best.) Yet, there's something impressive about tapping into the secret language of the immature and terminally slack. All these years later, with every listen, it becomes clearer to me that you can never really outrun your inner idiot”.

Because Licensed to Ill turns forty on 15th November, it is important to shine a light on it. The legacy of this seismic Hip-Hop debut. But also address the controversy and problems with it. How we view it forty years later. In spite of its immaturity, homophobic and sexist lyrics and this sense of some aspects being outdated and inexcusable, the innovation and brilliance throughout is undeniable. How Licensed to Ill helped shape modern Hip-Hop and inspired so many others. You cannot overlooked that. The immense and simply brilliant Licensed to Ill is…

A landmark creation.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Carole King – I Feel the Earth Move

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Carole King – I Feel the Earth Move

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SPOTLIGHTING a classic song…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jim McCrary/Redferns/Getty Images

I am spending some time with the amazing I Feel the Earth Move. Featured on Carole King’s Tapestry, it was released as a single. Part of a double A-side alongside It’s Too Late, it reached number one in the U.S. I am going to dig deeper into this wonderful song and its background. I do love how I Feel the Earth Move has this incredible Blues vocal. I think people associate Tapestry with Folk or it being romantic or soft. The album is so broad and cannot be easily defined. However, I Feel the Earth Move is one of King’s rawest and greatest vocal performances. I am surprised there is not more written about I Feel the Earth Move. It is surprising more has not been written about the song. One of the greatest opening tracks ever. Plenty of writing about Tapestry, though it would be nice see more focused on arguably its best track. I am getting to a couple of features that give us some important background. Many assume that King had only written a few songs prior to Tapestry. Although this was her second album – after 1970’s Writer -, she was already a respected and hugely prolific songwriter. Ultimate Classic Rock explore this mesmeric track from a genius songwriter:

“By the time Carole King wrote “I Feel the Earth Move,” a double A-side released with “It’s Too Late” in April 1971, she wasn’t yet 30 and had already penned some of the biggest hit songs of the ‘60s.

The budding star had 10 years of songwriting under her belt, alongside her former husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin. The lyrics for many of those songs, however, were largely written by Goffin. After the couple divorced in 1968, King hesitated to become a solo songwriter. "I didn't want people to interpret what I wrote, I think I have a block against that," the singer admitted in a 1970 interview, noting that "people can point to a phrase in lyrics." "I want to make LPs. I don't want to be a star."

King had spent the ‘60s, the dawn of the sexual-liberation movement, raising two kids; she was pregnant at 17, while her husband had affairs, including one with Earl-Jean McCree of the girl group the Cookies that resulted in a child. By the end of the decade, King packed up her daughters and moved from Manhattan to the Laurel Canyon suburb of Los Angeles.

Tapestry, King’s second solo album, arrived on Feb. 10, 1971, one day after the deadly San Fernando earthquake hit L.A. The album’s opener was, coincidentally, “I Feel the Earth Move.” That wasn’t what the song was about, though the serendipity of it captured the attention of listeners.

The rollicking song was by far the most sexual track on the album, reflecting where King was in her life and the expansion of women’s liberation in America. “I Feel the Earth Move” is sung to a lover who sets King’s heart a “trembling.” There are cries of “Oh, baby, I can’t stand it," while King “lose[s] control, down to my very soul.” The piano provides the crashes while King’s voice strains against its limits, rolling with the melody, evoking a sense of physical reaction.

“To suggest an earthquake, I concluded with a continuous cluster of notes on the piano cascading rapidly downward in pitch until the band, and I ended the run together on a final C bass note,” King later wrote in her autobiography, A Natural Woman.

That ending was removed by Lou Adler, with King’s approval, though she still frequently performed it in concert. At the time, Adler served as King’s producer and manager; he was the one who put King into A&M Studios - studio B to be exact - for the song and album’s recording. Next door in studio C was Joni Mitchell, who was recording another seminal album singer-songwriter album from 1971, Blue.

Mitchell’s studio had a red Steinway that King thought sounded special, so when Mitchell vacated and King’s band had three hours in the room, they recorded “I Feel the Earth Move” on that piano”.

There is another interesting feature that examines and highlights one of the greatest songs ever. American Songwriter. Although they say I Feel the Earth Move was an A-side and It’s Too Late was its B-side, I think it was a double A-side. In any case, the success of I Feel the Earth Move caused this ignition. It was a pivotal moment in Carole King’s career. Still widely played to this day, I think I first heard it when I was very young. There was something about it that grabbed me. Not understanding what the lyrics concerned, it was King’s vocal that stuck with me:

“King didn’t ever intend to become a solo hitmaker. She just wanted to concentrate on making albums. But teamed with producer Lou Adler, King hit upon a bit of a more commercial sound on Tapestry. The new songs she was writing matched her knack for pop hooks with a more personal outlook.

“I Feel The Earth Move” found her singing with candor about sexual attraction. To get the sound she wanted, King had to do a bit of studio-hopping. In the studio next to her, Joni Mitchell was making the album Blue. When Mitchell was away for a bit, King headed into the other room to make use of a particular Steinway that offered the tone she wanted for the song.

King’s label heard a hit in “I Feel The Earth Move”. It didn’t hurt the song’s commercial prospects that its B-side, “It’s Too Late”, also started getting major airplay. Those two songs comprised a single that turned into a no. 1 hit. And that started the ball rolling on the Tapestry phenomenon that helped instigate the peak of the singer-songwriter era.

Behind the Lyrics of “I Feel The Earth Move”

“I Feel The Earth Move” describes how deep desire can untether you from your moorings. “I feel the earth move under my feet / I feel the sky tumblin’ down,” King sings about seeing her lover. His “mellow” visage rocks her world: “Oh, darlin’, I can’t stand it / When you look at me that way.”

“I know that emotions / Are somethin’ that I just can’t tame,” she explains about the effect he has on her. Toward song’s end, King leaves behind the song structure and simply repeats the phrase “all over” several times, lost in imagining the intimate moments they’ll be spending together.

The music to “I Feel The Earth Move” adds to the effect, as the churning piano groove mirrors the intensity of the lyrics. Carole King proved with the song that she could interpret her material as well as any of the dozens of artists who’d scored hits with her originals in the past”.

I do want to source from Wikipedia, and what they say about I Feel the Earth Move. In fact, they collated reviews for the song. I have chosen a few. Perhaps contrasting the rest of Tapestry, I don’t think that I Feel the Earth Move is an anomaly or that different. Perhaps bolder than the other songs, it does perfectly slot alongside them too:

“Music journalist Harvey Kubernik wrote that "I Feel the Earth Move" was "probably the most sexually aggressive song on the Tapestry album" and a "brave" opening to an album whose mood is mostly "mellow confessionality”.

AllMusic critic Stewart Mason describes the song as "the ultimate in hippie-chick eroticism" and writes that it "sounds like the unleashing of an entire generation of soft-spoken college girls' collective libidos". Cash Box described the song as being a "forceful 'earthquake song'" and considered its pairing with "It's Too Late" as a single to be "double dynamite". Record World said that it is "quality contemporary pop".

Author James Perone praised the way the lyrics and music work together. As a prime example, he notes the syncopated rhythm to the melody on which King sings "tumbling down". This rhythm, putting the accent at the end of the word "tumbling" rather than at the beginning, produces a "musical equivalent of a tumble". Perone also notes that the fast tempo allows the listener to feel the singer's excitement over being near her lover, and that the lyrics also express sexual tension even though that tension is left implicit”.

I am finishing off with this article dissects and explores the lyrics and the composition. It is a fascinating take and approach to a song that has lost none of its brilliance. Even though Carole King is hugely influential, I don’t think that there has been anyone quite like her since:

“Carole had several things going for her in her attempt at a breakthrough. Her songwriting prowess had yielded several classic hits, and by choosing to work with Lou Adler, she had a producer with a solid track record as a hitmaker (The Mamas & the Papas, Jan & Dean, Barry McGuire, Johnny Rivers, to name a few). She had her pick of the best session musicians in town and musical buddies like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell who were willing to lend a hand.

The little girl with perfect pitch who started piano lessons at the age of four and “wanted so much to master the popular songs pouring out of the radio,” and who jumped from kindergarten to second grade due to her “exceptional facility with words and numbers” was on her own now, a single parent with two children, after having ended the marriage with Goffin a few years before. It was time for Carole King to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

And all she had to do was be herself.

All songs written by Carole King except where noted.

“I Feel the Earth Move”: Rule #1 in the unwritten book How to Make a Breakthrough Album is “you can’t hold nothin’ back.” In the parlance of the times, you gotta let it all hang out and have complete confidence in what you’re trying to accomplish. Of all the songs on Tapestry, “I Feel the Earth Move” conveys that confidence, in both the nature of the composition and its intense, metaphorical expression of a woman’s sexual needs. Songfacts dutifully noted that “the song has a risqué feel (at least by 1971 standards),” but missed the equally important aspect of sex expressed in the song: the emotional connection.

The composition is split between two distinct parts. The chorus is set to a truncated minor blues pattern in the key of C minor (Cm7/F). This is where Carole expresses sexual desire in the lyrics over a background featuring the innate sexiness of the blues:

I feel the Earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumblin’ down
I feel my heart start to tremblin’
Whenever you’re around

Those lines are much more expressive than “Hey, I’m getting horny” because they capture the overwhelming nature of the libido when confronted with a desirable stimulus.

The verse lines are set to the complementary major key (Eb major) with a strong melody and a marvelous, obviously-written-on-a-piano chord pattern of Ebmaj7-Eb6-Abmaj7-Fm7/Ab, closing with a transitional pattern of F/G, Cm7, F/C, Cm7, F/C. This is where Carole covers the emotional aspects of closeness, tenderness and unfettered desire:

Oh, oh, darling, when you’re near me
And you tenderly call my name
I know that my emotions
Are something I just got to have you tame
I just got to have you baby

I love that closing line for its unashamed assertiveness. You go, girl!

Placing “I Feel the Earth Move” in the pole position opening the album has to rank as the biggest no-brainer of all time. You can tell Carole is feeling it, and that’s exactly what she needed to do to excite listeners. She receives solid support from the band with Charles Larkey thumping that bass and “Kootch” Kortchmar throwing in some tasty licks. The call-and-response between Carole’s piano and Kortchmar’s guitar in the instrumental passage is as good as it gets”.

I will leave it there. The glorious and hugely powerful opening track from Carole King’s Tapestry, I Feel the Earth Move deserves more discussion today. If you have not heard the song in a while, then do go and listen to it. Listen to Tapestry too. Caroline King’s defining and most popular album, there is not a weak moment on it. Its opening track, I Feel the Earth Move, is a perfect opener from…

A perfect album.

FEATURE: Cosmia: Joanna Newsom’s Ys at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Cosmia

Joanna Newsom’s Ys at Twenty

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THIS is an album…

that is often ranked alongside the very best of the 2000s. On 14th November, it will be twenty years since Joanna Newsom’s Ys was released. Some critics have labelled it a musical masterpiece and compared it to some of the most iconic and influential albums ever. I did want to end with a couple of reviews for Ys. Produced by Newsom and Dyke Van Parks, I do wonder if there will be any announcements or anything special to coincide with its twentieth anniversary. I want to start with an interview from Pitchfork, where Joanna Newsom discussed Ys:

“Newsom returned this year with Ys, an album that will do nothing to allay these criticisms. In an indie culture that rewards well-turned mediocrity and can be suspicious of ambition, the record's long compositions, ornate orchestral arrangements, and antique lyrics are guaranteed to be dismissed as pretentious by many. And they are-- symbolically dense and anachronistically stylized, Newsom's songs expect a lot from the listener. But whether or not the music is pretentious is beside the point. The debate between Newsom admirers and detractors seems to revolve around one question-- does she mean it, or is she selling us snake-oil? I don't claim to have gotten to the bottom of Joanna Newsom in a 45-minute conversation, but she left me with the impression of being an uncommonly graceful and articulate person, not a collection of tics and fancies; a person who, regardless of what she's doing, always means it.

Pitchfork: The Milk-Eyed Mender was a relatively small album, with its minimal arrangements and concise pop structures. Ys, by contrast, is huge. The songs are really long, and only "Cosmia" approaches pop phrasing. Can you talk about how Ys came to be conceptualized and what attracted you to this expanded format?

Joanna Newsom: It wasn't so much as conceptualized as fumbled toward instinctively. I don't really even consider it a concept album, even if it does have some unifying aesthetic choices that make it really different from the first record. It's the product of a series of very small decisions, as opposed to sitting down like, "I want to do this record with long songs and huge orchestral presences." Basically I wanted to undertake the task of writing songs about a particular year of my life. Not the task of telling that story in a linear way, or in any way that would make the story explicitly knowable to a listener, but rather, to tell the story to myself. I was starting to see a lot of connections, and I wanted to make them more substantial to myself, or at least explore them. Writing these songs was a way to organize my brain and organize these events and how they had affected me. There were four very big things that happened in my life in this particular year, and so four of the songs are about these things. The fifth song, "Only Skin", was an effort to talk about the connections between the events.

Pitchfork: Is it fair to say that the songs are longer because you needed a lot of space to examine these events?

JN: Absolutely. As soon as I knew that this is what I wanted to do, I recognized that it would be extremely awkward and vulgar to try and fit them into shorter forms. I'm not a huge proponent of the long song in general; I think they are often justified, but in general I believe economy is a tenet that's worth upholding in songwriting. It's important to say what you need to say as accurately and truly as possible, but with as few words as possible as well. In the case of this record, I did think I was doing that, but it didn't seem possible to tell the story in any fewer words than the amount I ended up with, or in any other form than the one I ended up with.

Pitchfork: And this was due to the magnitude of the events you were engaging with?

JN: I think so. And the magnitude of the individual events, and the larger structure ordered themselves for this record-- the particular form and the song lengths, and the presence of an orchestra. It hadn't really occurred to me until I was about halfway through writing these songs that it would be necessary for an orchestra to be involved. I'm not sure why I thought that; I have theories, but it was just an intuitive decision. It seemed necessary. Two of the songs, "Sawdust and Diamonds" and "Cosmia", were written before I had come to this realization, and the other songs had bits and pieces written but hadn't been completed yet. So "Monkey and Bear", "Only Skin", and "Emily" were all written with me keeping in mind there would be an orchestra involved at some point. In the case of "Sawdust and Diamonds", I wasn't ever able to make orchestral arrangements work. Van Dyke [Parks] came up with several drafts and lots of ideas, but it never worked gracefully, so I ended up deciding it was fine because it wasn't written with an orchestra in mind, unlike those other three I mentioned.

Pitchfork: You tread a pretty thin line between pop and classical composition. How do you personally reconcile them? Are they even that far apart?

JN: I guess I shouldn't say that I've struggled to reconcile them, because for years I didn't understand that what I was doing was slightly different than what I thought I was doing. Since I was about 13 or 14 years old, what I wanted more than anything was to be a composer, and I spent all my time playing harp and writing music. If you ask any of my friends who knew me back then, they remember coming over and finding me playing harp in the family room every spare minute, and writing music. I was really obsessed with that as my life's goal. But even though that was what I spent all my time doing, I didn't truly understand what it means to go to school, study composition, and be a composer. I hadn't really plotted out that life in my mind. All I knew is that the name for writing music is composition, and one who writes music is a composer, so I had to go to school to be a composer.

I ended up going to Mills College to study it, because a lot of composers I really liked had gone there or taught there or had some sort of affiliation with that school. The second I got there, I realized that what I was doing was completely separate from the dialogue taking place in that school at that time, and I think that is when I started struggling to reconcile where my music fit in. Not that it needs to fit in, but what should I even call it? Should I call them songs now, or can I still call them compositions? My music generally retains an interest in melody and harmony and some sort of meter-- it might be a polymeter, but some sort of meter that repeats for more than one bar. But a lot of these ideas that I was interested in seemed to be considered passé, like they were unworthy of discussion and unworthy of listening. I wouldn't necessarily say that would be true of the professors at that school, but the climate was dictated by what the students were interested in, and most of them were writing incredibly dissonant music on their laptop computers and didn't play instruments [or] know how to write notation. It was a whole different thing than what I thought it would be, and it might have been smarter to go to a less experimental composition school, where I would have gotten neo-classical training in composition.

After a few years I left the music program and went to study creative writing instead, which in a way I'm really grateful for, because I think that sense of alienation drove me to feel like I could go even further in the direction I'd been embarrassed of previously-- an obsession with melody rather than a rejection of it; an analysis of every interval that separates every note that follows in succession.

Pitchfork: How did Drag City react when you told them what you wanted to do with Ys?

JN: I think they felt pretty good. I didn't tell them much about it until it was time to actually start organizing the recording sessions. They're incredibly supportive of anything and everything. When I mentioned that I wanted to try and work with Van Dyke, [Drag City owner] Dan Koretzky said, "Well, I think that's going to be difficult, but we'll definitely talk to him." I think they understood to a greater extent than I did that it was a big deal to ask Van Dyke to do this. I didn't really know about most of the work he did; I was in love with his record Song Cycle and that's it. So I was intimidated because of the quality of his work and how much I respected him, but [not because] he was this hugely appreciated and obsessed-over person. He kindly chose to not unburden me of my ignorance of what a big deal it was to ask him, and agreed to meet with me in Los Angeles. I played my harp for him and his wife in a hotel room there-- the five songs that would end up being the songs off this record-- and he agreed that he would do it and make it financially possible to work with him.

I think under his normal fee it would have been impossible to make a record with him on Drag City. Of course, Drag City has a very accurate reputation for being economical, and not spending a lot of money on advertising or putting a big push behind their bands with marketing campaigns, but they'll spend money on things if they believe in it.

Pitchfork: Let's talk about Ys and its themes a bit more. There's an old Breton folktale where Ys is a sunken city very similar to Atlantis. The sea figures prominently on the album but there's nothing too overt about a sunken city. Did you draw the title from another source, or is it used more loosely, to allude to the mythological spaces the album inhabits?

JN: [The title] was the last thing that I chose, after all the songs and the cover art were finished. So none of the songs directly allude to that myth. But the main themes that emerge out of that myth are really close to the themes on the record-- mortality, decadence, an excess of water, isolation, rebirth. The myth is also significant to me because of the way that I encountered it, which relates to one of the huge events the record is about.

I also liked the power of the word itself. I liked how violent and cryptic it felt; it's such a daunting word to encounter. I like how it contrasted this finely rendered, carefully composed front cover-- the painting is information-dense, formal, and stylized; it looks the way something looks when a painter spends a year on it, which is what Benjamin [Vierling] did. So it has all this detail and carefulness to it, which was really important to me and relates very closely to the record. But I also felt like it needed some sort of ballast, or balance, next to it, to reflect the other elements of the record; its innate violence. I wanted a word that was like throwing a brick at the visual on the front cover; I liked that whenever someone looked at that cover they also had to encounter this short, weird word.

Pitchfork: The cover seems like a good symbolic digest of the album's themes. There's a moth, which can symbolize transformation; a sickle, which can stand for depletion and renewal; an open window standing for entrapment and release, framing a bird, which, according to folklore, symbolizes bad luck or death when it lands in a window. So the album seems very taken up with binary, metaphysical transformations. Can you talk about the literary or musical traditions from which you derived this very classical interpretation of art, which seems to privilege the beauty of natural cycles over man-made beauty, and which seeks to root human experience in these cycles?

JN: I don't necessarily see the elements that I invoke on the cover and in the songs as being in binary opposition. I know certain binary tensions emerge between these elements, but a lot of times they're more like archetypal elements; these free-standing, huge forces. Mortality, standing alone, as a thing; as opposed to, "Over here's life; over here's death. Here's bad luck, but here's blessing and redemption. Here's water; here's fire." Certainly those things come up again and again in the songs, but it's not intentional, and probably has more to do with the fact that those things emerge in real life, without any effort on our part whatsoever, than they are derived from any classical tradition. I think classicism in general might reflect more closely the natural order of human life, while postmodernism is somehow removed from the natural order, more cerebral and sterile, removed from real life on some level. So what seems like classicism in some of these songs might be just what I view as an accurate reflection of real life on this planet.

Pitchfork: You don't perceive postmodernism as mirroring the disruption wrought by technology on these natural cycles-- effectively, a reflection of modern life, however unnatural it may be?

JN: I wouldn't necessarily argue against that; of course I rely on a lot of postmodern forms myself within the narrative of these songs. I can't call them linear narratives, and I can't call them chronological in a traditional, classical sense; I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I borrow more from William Faulkner than William Shakespeare. I just find it funny that at this point, we see a collection of highly charged, highly potent symbols as referring back to a classical aesthetic, because to me they seem deeply connected to the pedestrian actuality of real life.

Pitchfork: The song "Emily" is very taken up with astronomy and astrology, both literally and figuratively-- a mud cloud is "mica-spangled"; a far butte lit by a flare and ship sailing toward the morning both invoke lodestars; Emily's a "beam of sun," and so on. It seems like Emily has a very scientific grasp of the cosmos-- "she taught me the names of the stars overhead"-- while the narrator has a more mythological sensibility: she knew "only the Pleiades." How important is this tension between science and magic to the album, and how does it relate to its cycles of escape and return?

JN: Like every other song on this record, "Emily" is deeply biographical. The Emily in the song is my sister, who's an astrophysicist; the narrator is myself, who is not an astrophysicist. Emily is the wanderer; she lives in Argentina and sometimes New Zealand. I'm not a wanderer, which is funny because I'm on tour half the time. I'm a home, hearth and family kind of person. It's difficult for me to make too many intelligent comments about what you brought up because the song really is a very personal reaction to real life”.

The first of two reviews I am interested in highlighted is from Drowned in Sound. Awarding it a perfect ten, I do think that everyone needs to hear Ys. It is an experience that you will never forget. Such a mesmerising and transformative album. I can not really do true justice to how good it is. As Joanna Newsom’s albums are not available on Spotify, I cannot include it here. However, I would urge people to buy a copy:

“It’s only very occasionally that I’ve come across an album that sounds so out of step with it's time that it's startling, even shocking, like a smouldering asteroid that crashes through the ceiling of your house.

Often it’s something so odd, so next level that it seems like it can only have come from the future. But _Ys_, the second full-length album by prodigious folk musician Joanna Newsom, sounds like it has come from some dimly remembered past. Like old wives’ tales, these autobiographical myths are built from grains of truth and wisdom, a vivid, living, textured account of a memory glimpsed or forgotten, like a dream upon waking or a fable from a faraway place written a long time ago.

Joanna’s voice itself is very different from her first EPs, and has notably changed since debut album The Milk Eyed Mender. It’s deeper, with more resonance; less grating and wild, and incredibly affecting. The bold intelligence of the album opener 'Emily' is dizzying. Adrenalizing. Powerful enough to set your nerves on fire and make you forget where you are, who you are, for a while. It’s almost scary how seductive and pungent this intriguing mythology is - from sitting skimming stones at the riverside, to the raging sea, or the vastness of a comet soaring through the heavens, this song is magnificent in its lyrical scope. For anyone who ever stared into a bruised evening sky and felt at once terrified, amazed, exhilarated, moved... just alive... Joanna Newsom with Ys has written the wonder of being into labyrinthine tangles of words and set it to music.

The stories continue throughout the five extended pieces that form Ys, weaving a gentle web around you, cocooning you in sweet chiming harp and wriggling flutes, groaning cello, layers of warmth and harmony, never settling but eddying and constantly evolving, deepening, unravelling around your ears. The string arrangements are sometimes genuinely surprising, even jaw-dropping. They swoop, stab and swoon around the harp and the wandering storytelling, guided, intelligent and precise; sometimes wistful, sometimes playful, lifting you vertically or falling away unexpectedly beneath your feet. The sensitivity of the composer with respect to how the strings fit around the music is apparent: a huge amount of care has been put into arrangement of the songs. Rather than being an embellishment thrown on to lend borrowed grandiosity to the proceedings, the instrumentation flits marvellously, clinging, hovering and breaking free from the thrust of the song, changing tack and tone as if blown by a sentient breeze.

_Ys_ is a truly special album that takes you gently by the hand and leads you through a distinctive magical landscape. Drift into it and you'll find your imagination dancing through wistful showers of falling leaves and kicking knee-deep through tangles of poppies, counting stars and wandering vast landscapes, lamenting a broken heart through abstract and taciturn poetry, or sinking back through the centuries to land gently back on your feet some time later.

It’s a vivid and beautiful painting that you can walk into; a magic window into another world that I'd be happy to get lost in, and never come back”.

I am going to finish with Slant and their five-star review of Ys. Twenty years after its release, I don’t think anything quite like it has been released. In terms of its legacy, it is seen as a landmark achievement in modern Indie Folk and Baroque Pop, permanently expanding the structural and narrative ambitions of the genre:

“Newsom recorded “base” vocal and harp tracks with Steve Albini, and then spent six months developing backing orchestral arrangements with Parks. The effect is outstanding and operatic and, thanks to the astute mixing work of Jim O’Rourke, the orchestral parts never feel tacked on or unnecessary. The dozens of strings and winds float in and out of the mix, truly accentuating Newsom’s compositions, without overwhelming her signature voice.

Of course, there’s not a symphony in the world that could overwhelm Newsom’s voice. Her vocals have been compared favorably and otherwise to Björk, Kate Bush, and Lisa Simpson, but these comparisons are inadequate, as is the rather blasé assessment that Newsom’s voice will “grow on you.” She’s the most innovative vocalist since Tom Waits, and like Waits she is capable of soothing dissonance.

Lyrically, Newsom’s talents are just as startling: She wraps her alto around tongue twisters like “Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?” and “The thought troubled the monkey, for he was afraid of spelunking down in those caves” with more grace than you could possibly expect. Newsom’s rhymes bear the wit and curiousness of her anachro-pop peers but with the profundity they lack. “Monkey And Bear” is a haunting fable as heartbreaking as it is magical. The epic “Only Skin” traces a love affair through a number of allusions and allegories before culminating in a duet with Smog’s Bill Calahan, where Newsom’s speaker pledges her body and soul to her beloved: “Take my bones, I don’t need none.”

Ys might seem like it will be a difficult, even unpleasant, listen: a mere five songs over the course of nearly an hour (“Only Skin” stretches to 17 minutes), an unconventional vocalist most would deem grating, lyrics with a demanding diction, and nary a chorus or verse to be found. But Ys is incredibly likeable, and more convivial than the twee Milk Eyed Mender. The album is a precious, in every sense of the word, masterpiece”.

Because the stunning Ys turns twenty on 14th November, I did want to spotlight it here. Bring in some reviews and an interview with Joanna Newsom. Without doubt one of the best albums of the 2000s, I do wonder how many people are discovering it new. Anyone who is unfamiliar with Ys needs to listen to it. An album that will stay in your head for weeks after. A true masterpiece from…

A musical goddess.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Primavera Sound 2027: The First Wave

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Primavera Sound 2027: The First Wave

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ONE of the world’s biggest…

IN THIS PHOTO: Doechii/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

and most important music festivals has announced its first wave of artists for 2027. Primavera Sound is held in Barcelona and draws in some huge artists. In terms of headliners, women feature much more heavily than at a lot of major festivals. I am ending this feature with a mixtape of songs from many of the artists already confirmed. First, NME provided details of next year’s Primavera Sound:

“Primavera Sound has announced the first wave of artists leading the bill for its 2027 edition including Doechii, Phoebe Bridgers and Fontaines D.C.

The festival will return to the Parc del Fòrum from June 3 to 5 next year, and is celebrating 25 years.

Last week, organisers confirmed the dates of the ticket sales for the upcoming edition, and also told fans to keep their eyes peeled for the first line-up announcement coming today (Monday October 5).

Now, a huge list of names have been confirmed for the 2027 instalment, and leading the way is Doechii who will be performing at the festival for the first time, as well as Phoebe Bridgers – who is celebrating the recent release of new solo album ‘Lost Weekend’ – as well as Fontaines D.C. who are gearing up to drop ‘Dopamine Chamber’ later this month.

Others performing at the festival next summer include Massive Attack and Chemical Brothers while FKA Twigs will also be bringing an “all new show” to the festival site.

Joining them on the bill are Turnstile, Robyn, Bad Gyal, Lola Young, Pavement, ADÉLA, Prospa, Caroline Polachek and Hayley Williams. Skrillex and Australian artist Ninajirachi will be holding a b2b set to close the festival.

More names on the bill include King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Bleachers, Underworld, EsDeeKid, ANOHNI, Weyes Blood, English Teacher, Julien Baker, Rebe, Dove Ellis, Metronomy, Arca, underscores, DIIV, Westside Cowboy, Lip Critic and Angine de Poitrine.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy is lined-up too for a rare festival appearance, as is 81-year-old cult vocalist Vashti Bunyan who has played barely a dozen times live over the past 10 years.

From now until October 7, a registration form for the Fan Sale will be available on the Primavera Sound website. On October 8, all registered users will receive an email with instructions on how to access the Fan Sale from 11am CEST.

General ticket sales will open on October 9. Visit here for more information”.

If you want to get a sense of the incredible quality of the artists booked for Primavera Sound, then I hope the mixtape below provides some illumination and substance. There will be more names confirmed shortly. Though the first wave looks pretty amazing! A celebration of one of the most essential and very best music festivals…

IN the world.

FEATURE: My Artist of the Year 2026: Lana Lubany

FEATURE:

 

 

My Artist of the Year 2026

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Morales for Viper

Lana Lubany

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I have loved spotlighting…

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Bottomley

every artist featured on my blog this year. They are all tremendous. However, I was thinking of the one whose music, social media messaging and videos has impacted me hardest. It may be premature to declare a winner this far until the end of 2026, though I have been a big fan of Lana Lubany for a long time. The music she has put out this year has really got under my skin. Her videos and live performances. I did want to bring in some interviews from this year with her. She is a Palestine-born artist who resides in London. I have not interviewed her but, as we live in the same city, I will try and do it at some point. I spotlighted Lana Lubany in 2022 and revisited her work last year. Singles this year like BAD IDEA and CURRENCY are among her best work. I still need to see her perform live. Lots of people will hold their breath for an album from her soon. This is a very special artist indeed. I have been folioing her over four years, and she goes from strength to strength. In terms of her voice, style, her lyrics and everything, there is nobody like her. This year has been a massive one for her. I think how challenging it must be for a Palestinian artist and seeing the genocide in her country. I think what makes her important is that she mixes English with Arabic (specifically her native Palestinian dialect). On 3rd November, Lubany turns thirty, so this was a sort of early happy birthday too! I do want to bring in some interviews with her. Go and follow her on Instagram, and see everything that she is getting up to. Her shoot for Mille World earlier in the year must rank as a highlight. “We wanted to do something more playful,” Palestinian photographer Sama Haddad tells MILLE of her latest shoot with Palestinian stylist Yara Aboud featuring Lana Lubany. What they ended up creating instead was one of the most visually striking Arab editorials to emerge this year”.

This Palestinian-America modern-day icon is someone who I admire so much. I want to come to this interview from January. We get a look into the self-made universe of Lana Lubany. One of the most inspiring artists I have heard in years, I do feel like she is going to be a global sensation very soon. She is not far from that now:

“In this exclusive conversation, we discuss her latest single “BAD IDEA,” which has just been released online. We talk about her journey of self-discovery, something I found myself relating to deeply, along with her love for horror films, the challenges she faces with writing, and the long, often difficult process of finding the courage to fully embrace who she truly is.

In many ways, this doesn’t feel like a traditional interview. It feels more like a conversation—or perhaps even a kind of therapy session—for two people who proudly embrace being a little weird.

How has your journey of discovering your identity been so far?

There were not many Arab pop stars, and I’ve always wanted to do the singing thing, and I never had the representation. So, I thought I have to change myself in order to be who I thought I needed to be in order to do music for a living. And so, I was kind of lost for a long time, trying to find my sound, trying to find myself, trying to figure out what my story was, and I feel like I’ve reached a low point. I was living in London back then, and it was during Covid that I got to a really low point that one day I was like, just fuck it. I’m going to try and write a song with Arabic in it. Because my mom always said, Lana, you should write in Arabic. It makes you unique. It makes you who you are. And I always said, nah, Mom, you don’t understand. You don’t know. And then I did try, and I wrote a song before I wrote my breakout song, The Snake, and it felt cool. I was like, oh, this is something I’ve never heard before, and this is something that I feel like it’s cool and represents me.

And then I wrote The Snake, and that one, it wasn’t immediate, like I was not feeling great. And then I wrote it, then I knew there was something about it that was different and that felt good. And every time I showed it to people, my mom included, it felt like they reacted differently, and it felt more me and it felt scarier, which is how you know that, like this is hitting a point, like a sensitive point within me. So, I put out the song. I kind of got over my fears, and that song specifically helped me with my identity crisis, if you want to call it that, and it kind of made me understand that me being myself is the coolest shit ever, and I need to just be me and accept myself for who I am. And then I started working on a project called the Holy Land and released that. And that was the whole journey of me rediscovering myself by really being accepting of my identity. And to this day, I’m on a journey of self-discovery. I feel like that. It never stops.

Your single Bad Idea is about letting go. What is something Lana has let go of over the past year?

I think in life, you’re always forced to let go. I think bad idea specifically is kind of like letting go of your control and kind of being like, fuck it. I’m just going to do whatever feels good for me at the moment. I’ve let go of so many things. This past year, life has kind of come to me with a bunch of changes, and like, I’ve had to let go of bad habits like people pleasing and not standing up for myself, letting other people control me, some friendships that I’ve had to let go of. I think change is inevitable. There’s beauty in it. It’s really difficult. But I think when you kind of let go, life becomes a bit less anal, a little less kind of rigid. It starts working with you rather than against you. So, you just have to accept it and let go sometimes.

Have you ever considered acting?

I would love to act at some point, I think it would be really fun. Because. I love acting in my music videos, but it has to be the right role and the right type of movie. And I think horror would be really cool.

Has your music been a way for you to face your feelings, or a way to escape them?

Facing them for sure. Writing helps me make sense of my emotions, and it’s the way I process how I feel, and it helps me confront my feelings, especially when it’s uncomfortable. I think otherwise, if I didn’t do it through writing, I would be avoiding my emotions. But instead, I sit with my emotions, and I turn them into something tangible, and it makes them feel less overwhelming, and it just makes more sense. So, it’s not about escaping.

You have a song titled “I Wish I Was Normal.” Do you feel that you’re not “normal,” and what does that idea mean to you?

I wrote that song as a Palestinian who was living away from home in London, and at the time, I felt like the issues that I was dealing with and the things that I was worried about were not normal, were out of the ordinary, but I never felt ordinary. The thing is I never felt like I fully belonged anywhere, and I always felt like I was different from the environment I was around, always in between, and at the time, that was amplified because I was just worried about the politics and everything and people around me were normal. I don’t think I’m normal, and sometimes I wish I was, because it sounds like an easier life, but I think it’s, it’s more fun, kind of being all over the place, yeah?

Are there any emerging Palestinian actors or music artists that you think the world should keep an eye on?

Lina Mahul, I think is amazing. She’s an amazing artist. I love 47 Soul, a band who is also Palestinian. There’s so much like up-and-coming talent. I feel like, you know, if you come across someone, just keep an eye out, because I feel like we’re on the rise now. You know, it’s our time”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sama Haddad for Mille World

I do want to come to GQ Middle East, as there was a period when Lana Lubany was receiving backlash for not being as vocal as fellow Palestinian artists about genocide and what Israel are inflicting on Gaza. However, her advocacy has been proven. She is working on an album it seems. If she is not as vocal about the genocide as other artists, instead she shows her love for Palestine. Its people, history and culture:

“The artist still has family living in Palestine, which she says complicated her ability to use her platform to say or share anything publicly. It was an unprecedented moment for her and many Palestinian artists to navigate, putting musicians and creatives in an isolating position both personally and professionally. Due to this, Lubany was perceived to be quieter than other artists in her support for her homeland, Palestine.

It wasn’t until January 2024 that Lubany dropped her song “Make It Better” as her way of capturing all of the emotions pent up over the previous months.

But the song, she says, “flew under radar” and by the time she felt ready to step back into the public spotlight, some of her peers had already eclipsed her in terms of success in the movement she helped usher in.

“‘Make It Better’ was kind of my way of expressing my emotions without getting too much into it,” she says. “I was hoping that people would read between the lines, and most people didn't. I think people were looking for loud words, more obvious ones to validate what they were feeling. Which is fair, I completely understand. But I felt really trapped and like I had no freedom.”

What followed that year was a journey of renewed self-discovery for Lubany, forging ahead with experimentation in songs like the baddie anthem “Stanna” and the ode to her home “Nazareth”.

These singles culminated in her second EP “Yafa” later in 2024, which by her own admission came together very quickly.

Lubany speaks honestly about the process for creating and releasing “Yafa”, saying that she would “make different choices” if the EP were to come out now, like removing a couple of the songs.Yet what has stuck with her most from that release is the “external judgement” and feedback she received from fans and the Arab music industry writ large.

“I'm nostalgic for the “Snake” era because back then there was no judgment and it felt very positive online and people were lifting me up and telling me that I made them proud to be Arab."

“To me, songs like ‘Yafa’ or ‘Nazareth’ and so many of my other songs, they talk about my experience,” Lubany explains. “These songs are not as loud and obvious, but they show us as humans. They show more than just headlines. I think it's important to get different perspectives of a human, of a culture. I think there is definitely a certain perspective in the community that is shown, but there are so many more perspectives that should get a spotlight, in my opinion. So many things to get educated on as well. There's just so much good stuff in our culture that needs to be celebrated. So many stories that need to be told and preserved.”

Though the artist is now generally understanding and accepting of what happened, Lubany’s experience forced her to take a step back and reconnect with her identity and her humanity in a thoughtful way.

That introspection – and a change in management – seems to have paid dividends. With her two singles “Bad Idea” and “The Currency”” to start 2026, Lubany sounds more like herself, as though that weight of negativity has been completely lifted. She is quick to clarify, though, that she’s stepping back into this public spotlight with caution as she continues to heal from this traumatic experience.

Lubany holds no grudges, though, welcoming both new fans and the ones who might’ve doubted her. “It's good to have people listening to your art,” she says. “But I think now my mindset is very much that if I do the right thing, the right people will come.”

And if there are still any unfounded doubts about Lubany’s love and advocacy for Palestine, look no further than her participation in “Lullaby”, the ensemble charity single featuring other artists like Nai Barghouti, Bastille, and Mabel.

“It was so cathartic to be a part of that,” she shares. “It was a no-brainer when I got the email asking to participate. This was something I felt like my soul wanted to do and I felt like I needed. So many people came together in unity and it felt very hopeful for humanity in general. It felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel.”

For now, Lubany continues to build herself back up. The artist remains busy in the studio, gearing up for her upcoming album. She’s prioritising her own world and creating on her own terms, including her love for Pilates.

“I feel like going to the gym is such an important thing for me to do. It's just good for you,’ she tells me. “Building these good, consistent habits help your bad days hit a little less hard and help you get out of slumps a little bit more easily. Now that I know how to take care of myself, I am stronger”.

I will end with the entirety of VIPER and their interview from July. As we look to the end of the year, these are exciting times for Lana Lubany. An album in the works. Plans for 2027. In the past couple of years, she has achieved so much. I think we will be talking about this incredible artists for many years more. I was blown away when I discovered her in 2022. Since then, she has evolved into one of the most important voices of her generation. No exaggeration:

“LANA LUBANY INTERVIEW: Breaking borders and bending genres, the London-based vanguard discusses bilingual flows, dark cinematic production, and the vital importance of creative autonomy.

The power of music lies in its ability to construct worlds where physical borders cease to exist. For Lana Lubany, this isn’t just an artistic philosophy—it is a lived reality. Since her breakthrough track ‘THE SNAKE’ seamlessly fused English and Arabic, the London-based artist has pioneered a haunting, avant-garde soundscape where ancient heritage and hyper-modern, bass-heavy production sit in perfect harmony.

Refusing to smooth out her edges for mainstream palatability, Lubany’s music serves as a sanctuary for the diaspora and a masterclass in world-building. Following a string of high-profile live dates—from Wembley Arena to touring with The Last Dinner Party—and a crucial partnership with AWAL, she is proving that absolute creative autonomy is the ultimate currency.

We spoke with the vocalist and songwriter to dissect bilingual rhythms, late-night intensity, and the necessity of protecting your true voice.

LANA LUBANY INTERVIEW: Your breakthrough track ‘THE SNAKE’ was a pivotal moment where you first merged English and Arabic (Arabizi). From a Rap and lyrical perspective, how did shifting into a bilingual delivery change the rhythm, flow, and cadence of your bars?

Adding another language to my writing unlocked a new perspective plus a new instrument. I feel like different parts of your personality come out in different languages. My Arabic wasn’t as strong as my English, so I couldn’t rely on a wide vocabulary or complicated descriptions. I had to keep things simple and find creative ways to connect ideas and build metaphors that communicated what I was trying to say.

Sometimes a phrase hits harder in Arabic because it carries an emotion or attitude that doesn’t really translate, and vice versa in English. They work so well symbiotically. Once I stopped treating language as a boundary and started treating it as part of the production itself, everything changed. It opened up new rhythms, new melodies, new flows and new ways of telling a story.

Your production heavily blends traditional sounds with avant-garde dark R&B, trap textures, and heavy bass. How do you approach the studio to ensure the ancient and the hyper-modern sit together without losing that raw, underground edge?

Everything starts with emotion. If the emotion is honest, the sounds can come from completely different worlds and still feel cohesive. I grew up between cultures, so hearing an Arabic melodic influence over dark bass-heavy production feels natural to me because that’s how my life feels. I think the underground edge comes from trusting my instincts rather than trying to make those influences more palatable or commercial. It all comes from my soul, from the elements that make me me.

Tracks like ‘THE CURRENCY’ and STANNA’ carry a very distinct, late-night intensity. What drew you toward these darker, more cinematic sonic landscapes for this era of your music?

I’ve always been drawn to turning wounds into something beautiful. A lot of that music came from a period of tension, both personally and in the world. The night became a sanctuary for me – it’s when the noise disappears and I can hear myself clearly. That’s where a lot of those songs were born. They feel cinematic because they came from those quiet hours where you’re forced to sit with your thoughts, your fears, your desires, and hopefully find some healing in them”.

Lana Lubany is my Artist of the Year. There are a lot of other artists who have had incredible years, but there is something about Lubany and where she is in her career. The music she has put out this year. Following her on Instagram and what she has been doing. The interviews. She is so compelling to read about. Next year could be even bigger than this one. I have so much love for…

EVERYTHING she does.

FEATURE: With Thanks… Marking Fifteen Years of Music Musings and Such

FEATURE:

 

 

With Thanks…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kindel Media/Pexels

Marking Fifteen Years of Music Musings and Such

_________

ON 15th November…

IN THIS PHOTO: Jae Stephens/PHOTO CREDIT: Cass Meyers

it will fifteen years since I started my blog, Music Musings and Such. You can see the first post here. I was not sure back then where it would lead and how much stuff I would post. I am not sure how many things I have published in fifteen years, though it is somewhere between five and six-thousand. That would be my guess. Even if a lot of the artists I have written about or interviewed have ceased or done other things, there are many more that are still going strong. I would like to say I have become more ambitious as I have gone on. So may artists around the world who I have featured on my blog. From Iraina Mancini (one of my absolute favourites) to Jae Stephens and Natalie Gray, through to The Anchoress and Eaves Wilder. To be honest, I have lost count of what I have done. I think I have shared a post every day for well over a decade. Not missed a day since then. That is pretty much unheard of for any journalist in any field. For me, there is this constant need to put content out. Maybe the sense that, unless I am sharing things, then I am not going to get much traction. I put the quality in there, but I also want to publish as much as I can. In terms of the long-term, I am not certain when I will wind up the site. I would like to think it will still be going when I am in my seventies (I am forty-three now), but I kind of feel that something else will take over me soon enough. Something else music-related. What I do love is how writing gives me an outlet to release and vent. Getting any anxieties out through positive writing. I also do love spotlighting artists and bringing them to wider attention. I write about big album anniversaries. I do a fair bit on Kate Bush, and I also publish interviews.

IN THIS PHOTO: Iraina Mancini/PHOTO CREDIT: Johnny Green

I have not gone into videos and down that route quite yet. I am an introvert and self-conscious, and I am not sure what I would do in videos. Maybe interviews. I tend to stick to features, and I have not done a review in a while. I may review an album if one comes along that strikes me. Iraina Mancini’s second album will come at some point, so I will write about that. I love her 2023 debut, Undo the Blue. There is no single proudest moment when it comes to the artists I have written about and what affect that had. Interviews such as the one with Kelly Jade this May, and Carly Wilford last November got a lot of interaction. They both shared their interviews on Instagram, so that was really rewarding. However, I think way back Ellene Masri and her track, RAIN. I reviewed it in 2014. That was taken from her album, Music. She is still recording and singing, and I know – or I hope – that my review meant something. We contacted one another and have been in contact now and then. But hearing that incredible album and a song like RAIN. That was something that stuck with me as a real standout. A highlight in the fifteen years. I think the times when artists write and say how much my feature or review meant to them. It does not happen as often as I’d like, though you can’t really force people to do anything. I think the writing itself is reward enough. Things have changed since 2011. When I started out, there were a fair few music blogs around. Like me. Small ones run by one person. Now, there are independent sites, though most of them have teams. The number of blogs that are from a single person or smaller is vanishingly thin. So many have stopped because they cannot afford to or cannot grab a big enough audience. I feel music journalism is still undervalued and under threat. This erroneous assumption that social media means everyone can be a critic. Music criticism is much more than just posting comments online. The knowledge, depth, nuance and skill is something that you are not going to get from random people on social media. Artists still value reviews.

I think independent music journalism will shrink once more. We need to support it more than ever. I do not go to many gigs or travel much for the blog because I cannot afford to. I know there is Substack and people can make money but, unless you are a major artist, you are not going to earn enough that it makes a difference. And I like to keep my site free and free from cookies and adverts. I can write features and publish interviews for not much at all. I would like to know how close I am to ten-thousand posts, as that would be something to celebrate. I suspect it is quite a few years away! As I look back to 15th November, 2011, I can see how far I have come. My posts look better. So many of the photos I used for features are not there anymore, so it is just text and it looks a bit naff. Now, I think things look better. I always try to improve and do new things, so I am not yet amt my best. It is a shame that there is no real money in music journalism. My ambition was to make a career of it. Some people do, though the landscape has changed so much. Very few are actually able to make a career of it. Most of us either do it for free or have to raise money through advertising or Substack/Ko-fi. I am glad to have almost made it to fifteen years. I am looking ahead to the twentieth birthday in 2031. I hope I can continue to put out at least one thing every day to that point, though it may be a tall ask! I am sure my life will change a lot to then. Moving somewhere different and the blog may also change. New things and broadening it a bit. I would like to do more interviews and some regular reviews, though it is just finding the time to fit it all in. I would like to thank everyone who has supported Music Musings and Such since 2011. Whether that is commenting on stuff, or sharing and liking features, it does all add up. Even if there are periods where I feel stuff is being ignored and artists are not providing feedback, in a few days, I will share something that does get a good reaction. I will be sure to share another anniversary feature…

IN five years’ time!

FEATURE: Groovelines: Nadine Shah – Twenty Things

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

PHOTO CREDIT: Phil Sharp for Loud and Quiet

Nadine Shah – Twenty Things

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THIS track is from an album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

that should have won awards. 2024’s Filthy Underneath is the latest album from Nadine Shah. I was shocked it did not win awards! Such an acclaimed album, I thought sure it would be shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. An artist who has not received as many honours as she deserves. I think Filthy Underneath is Shah’s best albums. If Topless Mother, its lead single, is my favourite song from the album, I think the one that hits hardest and you feel should have been nominated for awards is Twenty Things. In fact, I am going to start out with a feature from The Line of Best Fit from earlier in the year. Nadine Shah selecting her very best tracks. Twenty Things was among them:

“This is a very honest song; it must have been hard to write.

I’m very upset I didn't get an Ivor for that one! I know it sounds crude, but it’s my proudest work to date. It’s a collage of portraits of people that I met and loved when I was in rehab.

I don't know if there’s any truth in that you write better when you're sober because you have more clarity, I also don't want to encourage people to think that you must be inebriated or under the influence of something in order to be creative. I don't think there's a rule to be honest with you. Who knows?

I just so happened to be sober and to be writing about the people who were around me at that time. I never wrote as much as I did when I was in there. You had to keep a diary, it was a page a day, and you had to hand it in at the end of each day. I think a lot of that was safeguarding, so they could tell how people's mental health state was that day.

The nurses would read it on an evening to see if they had to look out for somebody, but getting into the routine of doing that, that practice is something that I still do. I also kept a separate little diary when I was in there, I'm sure they wouldn't have cared at all, and I was writing about the people around me. I started to write my sad little poems again. I really loved everybody in there, and there was only so much I could pack into that one song, but there's a few lines that I'm really happy exist in song form.

When I sing live, sometimes I’ll float off somewhere else, thinking about very mundane things, about what I'm going to eat when I get home, but I'm always very present in that song whilst singing it. It was meant to be a celebration, it might be quite macabre, and I don't know how other people would take it, but to me, it's a celebration of those people.

Even when things are incredibly hard, seeing the joy in things is really important, my Mum always told me that. Otherwise, you turn into Morrissey.

100%, especially in rehab. A lot of us had made attempts on our own life, had lost family, people were estranged from their sons and daughters and in really desperate situations, painfully sad situations, but I've never laughed as much in my life or met a funnier bunch of people than I did in that place.

The whole time I was in there I did have this deep desire of ‘we should sneak in some booze and see what happens, because this would be a riot, if you're like this sober, we'll have one heck of a party.’ There’s a gallows humour to the song, and I found a lot of that in there, the ability to be able to talk about the darkest things in your life, and then the next minute you’re belly laughing about something else.

It was a great opportunity that not many people are afforded to have. I ended up being there for three months. I was meant to go four weeks, I was going to escape at week two. But I could see it was doing a really good job, that I was on some kind of recovery, and then I wanted to stay for three months, and I did, and then I didn't want to leave.

What happened then?

They made me leave, you can very quickly become institutionalised in those places, and it was very expensive. I didn't have any grants or government help, I had money from friends and family, and that's why I'm saying it was a very privileged thing to be able to do.

To have that time to really shut off everything else, not having to worry about what you eat that day, doing your shopping, everything's decided for you, and when do you ever get an opportunity like that in life? To properly work on yourself for a concentrated amount of time like that, it's a real luxury, and I'm very grateful for it.

I think that's why that song's always going to be really important to me, because even if it’s quite a down lyric, to me it's reminiscent of that time, which was pretty radical”.

How painful it must have been to write Twenty Things. But it is such a meaningful song. And Nadine Shah came through it and is still with us. It is a song that is very personal to her, though it will also resonate with so many other people. Even if you have not been in rehabilitation or institutionalised or suffered a breakdown or addiction crisis, there are lines from the song that can apply to other struggles and demons. I think lines such as “The shame is awesome but its fleeting/Gets seen to with a beating” are so raw and vivid. Though you can apply them to different situations and people. I know Nadine Shah would have received messages from people who heard Twenty Things and it would have helped them. I have seen her perform live (at the 02 Forum Kentish Town last summer) and, when she is on stage, Shah is completely immersed in the music. She is such a powerful stage presence. Performing a song like Twenty Things to a huge audience. Keeping composed and strong but also ensuring the performance is convincing or natural. If Twenty Things recalls a painful and tough time, there must be catharsis in seeing it come out as a song. Going through rehab and leaving sturdier than she was before, I wonder what her relationship is with the track a few years or so since it was released as a single. When interviewed by The Guardian, Shah talked about rehab and what that experience was like:

“She is writing a memoir about her time in rehab because there are so few accounts of it by women. “I was ashamed about being there,” she says. “There was shame in being a woman who was an addict, whereas male musicians might have been revered for it. One of the reasons we can’t get many women into recovery is because of the stigma.” I mention Amy Winehouse; Shah was briefly friends with her. “She was ridiculed so awfully,” says Shah, but “she was an unwell person”.

Shah describes her experience of rehab as “beautiful”. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in my life as I did in that place,” she says. They had a sports day: “I won every race. People there were so ill they could hardly walk, never mind run.”

It was also liberating to be off social media. “You’re not searching your own name,” she says. “We played parlour games. I did a lot of Zumba. I also learned how to pick locks. There are a lot of criminals in there.”

But many of the people she befriended in rehab are now dead. She pays tribute to them on the single, Twenty Things: “I didn’t realise I was gonna fall in love with everybody,” she says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Phil Sharp

Twenty Things was released as a single on 23rd November, 2023. I want to end with an interview from Loud and Quiet, where Nadine Shah spoke about Filthy Underneath. I have highlighted the question regarding Twenty Things. It is such an outrage that it was not the recipient of loads of awards. It is one of the most potent and unforgettable songs I have heard in years. I do believe that she has a book coming out called Critically Acclaimed, Sort of Famous, though the release date seems to be 2030, so there is a bit of a wait. Busy with acting and, let’s hope, writing new music, Shah is one of our greatest human beings:

“JW: On ‘Twenty Things’, it’s clear that you were able to bond with the other residents, to reflect upon their stories alongside your own. As a lyricist, how do you strike this balance of writing about other people without overstepping?

NS: It’s definitely called Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous for a reason. These are very vulnerable people who I came to love and care about deeply, which is something I didn’t realise when I went into that place. I was scared of the people I was going to meet. I hadn’t met, you know, heroin addicts before, or criminals – some people in there chose rehab over prison. But all I did was fall in love with everybody, and unfortunately, nobody warned me of how many of them I was going to lose. My three best friends from there are now dead, and I wasn’t prepared for that.

But then it was also a real privilege to walk and sleep and eat amongst those people. I’ve never laughed so much in my life as I did in that place. I can’t speak for everyone, but a lot of us had been through similar things, really harrowing circumstances, and all of a sudden you’re in a space where you’re safe, being looked after, cooked for. It makes room for a lot of joy, in a weird way, and room to be childlike together. So I wanted to write about some of the experiences of those people, without giving away too much. I think if anybody knows anything about my past career, I’m not going to stop talking about stuff that I’m passionate about, and advocating for people in addiction will be something that I do speak about, trying to ensure that we have the properly funded avenues available to people from all walks of life”.

I wanted to shine a light on Twenty Things for this Groovelines by bringing in words from Nadine Shah herself. Arguably her most personal or toughest song to write, it was not all such a painful expired being in rehab. I remember when she posted a tweet when it seemed like she would take her own life, and there was such shock and panic from people. As a big fan of hers, it was a really hard thing to absorb! Luckily, this incredible songwriter is in the world and doing such wonderful things. An army of fans and people with her that show such love and support, things a lot better for Nadine Shah. Living away from London and the South and in a happy relationship, she is currently appearing in King Lear at Manchester’s Royal Exchange. Shah is playing Goneril. It started on Friday (2nd October), so I have not read any reviews yet, though Shah is a terrific actor. So I will keep my eyes open. Twenty Things is a song that deserved awards, but I think the way it helped or connected with people is significant. Written by the remarkable and goddess-like Nadine Shah, this is someone who we are…

VERY lucky to have in the world.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Shygirl

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Madavo

Shygirl

_________

ONE reason for…

PHOTO CREDIT: Hendrik Schneider

including Shygirl in this Modern-Day Queens is that her album, SWALLOW!, is released on 6th November. It is surely one of the most anticipated of the year. There are a couple of interviews from last year I want to cover off before coming to one from this year. ELLE spoke with Shygirl about her E.P., Club Shy Room 2 and why she wanted to follow up the original first and not go on to a new project. Shygirl also talks about her clubbing experiences and collaborating with some incredible artists on her new E.P. So compelling to read and hear what Shygirl has to say:

“Born in London as Blane Muise, Shygirl first entered the scene at parties in college, then frequented club nights in London before becoming a DJ and releasing her own music in 2016. Her debut album Nymph was shortlisted for the 2023 Mercury Prize and received widespread acclaim. She has released upwards of four EPs, and then remixes of those EPs, and has remixed or been featured on songs for Charli xcx, Arca, Björk, FKA Twigs, Lady Gaga, and Blackpink. In short, Shygirl is a music-making machine.

While she had already developed a following on the dance floor, she reached new heights last year as she collaborated with Charli xcx on Brat and joined her and Troye Sivan on their SWEAT Tour. To close out her run on the tour, Shygirl hosted a Club Shy night at the Knockdown Center in Brooklyn for over 3,000 fans. Club Shy began as an afters for Primavera Sound in Los Angeles in 2022 where Shygirl would play demos and experimental music into the wee hours of the morning. These rave-induced evenings inspired her February 2024 EP Club Shy. The follow-up EP, Club Shy Room 2, drops tomorrow with even more tracks from those electric nights. She will host Club Shy sets around the globe in support of the new release, all the while working on her second studio album.

“If you come to Club Shy night, you’ve heard Club Shy Room 2 twice over. You just didn’t realize it, because I’ve been playing those demos. I do it all the time. There’s beauty in a demo. It’s unfinished, there’s potential, and I love that sound of potential. Then, when you get a finished version, it’s timestamped by that moment. That’s why some songs feel timeless and some songs feel like they’re of a time,” she says.

I’ve been fascinated by the concept the club as a space where you can just let go. How do you feel sex and club music are intertwined? How can clubs be spaces for exploration?

All my best friends are from the club. I kind of found myself there. It’s boundary-less, or it was when I first started clubbing. That’s something that I really push for still to have in my life. It’s funny when you have so much discourse around “safe spaces,” but actually I like that sometimes the club is dangerous. It’s somewhere that you have to fight for your space, secure it, and hold onto it. I feel like that strengthens you and your identity. Obviously, I don’t want my club nights to be dangerous, but they could have a bit of edge. You don’t know what you’re going to do. You’re out at night, you don’t come back until two days later sometimes. I feel like you should be able to have that energy in the music. All the songs that I make are soundtracks to the movie that’s my life. I want to feel like I’m that bitch in the video whenever. They make me into that character, and I take that back into my everyday life.

You have some great collaborators on Club Shy Room 2, like Saweetie and PinkPantheress. How do you choose which artists to work with?

It’s funny, because when I’m making music, I feel so wrapped up in what I have to say and the energy I need to give, that it’s not always obvious to me who else could fit on the songs. I really take the offerings of circumstance and what’s put in front of me to know where else to go. None of the collaborations I’ve ever done have been through a label. If anything, the labels have always suggested people, and I’m like, “That’s not going to work.” I love hearing people in different ways. I don’t want to hear them in a way that they’ve done before. That’s not exciting for me. I want to hear what you’re like in my world, where I completely mesh genre.

It’s nice that this project actually turned out to be very female-driven, and that was just by happenstance. I really try to work with people who I genuinely have a friendship with, because there’s nothing worse than having a song between you, and you don’t like each other anymore. It’s like getting a tattoo together”.

I was interested to look back to last year and work to now. Just seeing what Shygirl has been up to. With a new album coming soon, there is a lot of excitement and anticipation. Speaking about another E.P., ALIAS is Me, i-D spent some time with this phenomenal London artist. They write that, “To mark ALIAS’ birthday—a thumping project on which she inhabited multiple characters and pulled us out of our cursed 2020 lockdown malaise—she recently released the follow-up project ALIAS is ME, featuring collaborators like JT, Nick Leon, and George Riley. She brought the EP to life with the ALIAS 5th Anniversary Skin Box—yes, an edition of the EP wrapped in silicone fake skin, mirroring the original’s stretched out sci-fi artwork—as well as a link-up with the sex positive party people HOWL to make a lube too”:

“For this release, you encased the record in silicone skin.

I thought about how to approach it differently. I wanted to be intuitive with my audience, not just give them a product, but an experience that feels intentional and personal. The skin box is made from silicone, and honestly, it really does resemble that Doctor Who skin character—because deep down, I’m a nerd and I love that reference. There’s something metaphysical about it too: the album cover is me looking directly at the beholder, and in Paris I essentially brought my entire discography to life. As people entered the space, the speakers reacted—almost like the music was greeting them. There’s something meaningful about touch and about objects that carry my identity, becoming extensions of myself. It’s metaphysical in a way.
The whole thing aligns with my sex-positive identity and personal evolution, both musically and emotionally. The silicone choice made sense—it supported the concept and the production process. And honestly, without the lube, the box is literally hard to open.

Your audience is consuming your music, which is essentially you. What’s it like navigating different public perceptions of you?

How I look rarely bothers me—but how others perceive my appearance does. It’s not about looking good, but looking happy. Sometimes you look great but feel awful, and that disconnect shows.
In general, my fans are amazing, but occasionally someone will say, “It’s so great to see someone like you be confident,” and I’m left wondering what they mean by “someone like me.” People ask how I became confident, as if it’s surprising. I’ve been fortunate to grow up with encouragement—from family and friends who truly see me and love me. It’s strange entering a space where people assume you need something extra to belong, as if it’s not obvious that I want to be here.

Growing up, were you musical? 

My parents encouraged us to do activities outside the house, but I never studied music. I did tap and ballet, but quit early on after sensing systemic racism in that environment. We didn’t even have a creative department at school, but I still gravitated toward other performers, doing photography and capturing other musicians.

Outside of your music, what do you get up to? 

Creative work is strange because your career is often you, which makes work-life balance tricky. Right now, I’m trying to spend more time with loved ones. I get so busy that sometimes my family only sees me on Instagram or FaceTime. 

I’m also terrible at nesting, so that’s something I’d like to work on – anything to do with the house is a struggle. Between touring and being in and out of London, my place ends up looking like a squat”.

I am ending with Sleek and their interview with Shygirl. This is an artist who has gone through these different phases and evolutions. Ahead of the release of SWALLOW!, Shygirl talks about the seeds of the album and what it represents. Or what genre it is. Shygirl has never been one to be defined by genre, so it is interesting reading how love itself is the genre more than anything else. Shygirl began working on SWALLOW! “at the end of 2023, after turning 30 and falling in love, taking her time to explore a sound that draws as naturally from strings and classic instrumentation as it does from the electronic experimentation that has shaped her music from the beginning”:

“LUCIE RITTAU Where did this album begin for you?

SHYGIRL The starting point was wanting to articulate how happy I was, or am. I had recently fallen in love and turned 30, and I guess I’d taken a little bit of a break after my last album. I started working on the music at the end of 2023. A lot of it was congratulating myself on the decisions I’d made before and how I got here. It’s nice to have that perspective when you’re in a really good place. You can congratulate yourself for all the ways it took you to get there and not be regretful of anything.

LR You worked on it for more than two years. What did not rushing give you?

S It almost felt like having a secret. I could have fun with Club Shy because I knew I had this other thing I was working on. Instead of it feeling overwhelming, it gave me space to relax in a weird way because I didn’t have to prove anything. Club Shy wasn’t an artistic opus for me. It was a space to really have fun and get to know this new environment I’d found myself in, on the same level as my audience a bit more. With this record, I wanted to make a statement on my artistic endeavours.
At the time, I was playing arenas on the SWEAT Tour and seeing how big the spaces I could potentially fill were. I started thinking: what music should I make that could be deserving of that space? I think you can hear all those experiences feeding into the music.

LR Is there one song on the album that feels most like you?

S I really do feel like these are all pieces of me. I’ve played it to family and friends, and they always say they can really hear the person they know, and have known since before the music, in this album. I haven’t redacted my words here. I think I often did that in club songs because you naturally do it to make the hook. Here, I’ve been more explicit in the way I speak. In any conversation with me, people get to know how I talk, and I think on this album I’m speaking in the same way.

LR Love keeps coming up when you talk about this record. When did it become something bigger than your own relationship?

S It started off as an explosion of emotion for me. Falling in love justified the fact that I’ve been pursuing desire at the forefront at all times. But it also felt like something I could be an activist about. The idea of upholding love and appreciating feeling above all things feels like a worthy cause for me. In fact, I had struggled with what activism is for me. I feel like my existence is activism. My conversations, my art are activism, and it’s an activism that I’m comfortable with.
Same as this record, it’s about making a decision about what you stand for, what you live for. I live for the experience. I live to love, to cry. As soon as you fall in love, you’re very aware that you can be hurt. It’s never too far away, that vulnerability and the idea of pain.
Songs like Mantra are about saying those words to myself in times I perhaps don’t feel the strength of them. Making this record is about reminding myself of that time because who knows, maybe I won’t feel that way in a year or ten or whatever. But I did. And it’s good to say that you did. And that you chose to feel that way”.

On 6th November, SWALLOW! is released. I can see it earning some huge reviews and getting a load of love. Shygirl is one of our absolute best artists. Having played in New York earlier in the month, there are a few other dates that take her through October and November. You can check them out here. If you can get to see her at any point then do so, as Shygirl is…

A phenomenal queen.

__________

Follow Shygirl

PHOTO CREDIT: Oliver Bell and Lucy Lay

Official:

https://shygirl.tv/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/0800shygirl

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@0800shygirl

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMx2-6At2Rx0kapbSjKxwJA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3M3wTTCDwicRubwMyHyEDy?si=DgPB31PYTDmyEZmwyUjdCg

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Josefin Öhrn

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

Josefin Öhrn

_________

I will end with…

a review of the magnificent Cherry. Josefin Öhrn is a terrific artist who I have been following for a while now. I am going to start out with a couple of interviews with her. Songwriting Magazine who write how “Cherry, marks a slight departure from the hypnotic psych-rock of her former band, Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, with whom she released three albums and earned a Swedish Grammy nomination”. This is an artist that you really need to follow:

“First of all, where did the decision come from to do a solo album, and how did that change the way you went about writing the songs?

“During the pandemic, my tour was cancelled and everything was so shut down. I actually studied photography for two years, but I couldn’t stop writing songs. All of a sudden, I realised, ‘Okay, I have a whole album. I have enough songs.’ I reached out to Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm from The Soundtrack of Our Lives. He had co-produced one of my earlier songs, and I also really liked his studio and his sound. I was like, ‘Oh, maybe we should do something?’ So yeah, that’s how it all happened. I flew over to Sweden a couple of times to his studio and recorded there with him.”

In the studio, is there a push and pull between letting the musicians be free but also getting them to play the songs how you want them to sound?

“The people I worked with are really talented and also had great ideas; it fit perfectly. For example, Andy Bell [Ride, Oasis] put guitar on some tracks, and I just loved what he did. Also, Björn Yttling, from Peter Bjorn and John, who also works with Lykke Li, added some synths. I’ve always loved his sound, so I was really happy when he added that layer. That was really fun, actually, getting these ideas from other people.”

Is there a time of day or a place that you find is best for that to happen?

“I think maybe evenings or mornings. During the day, if you’re out and about, you get all these impressions, but sometimes when you just wake up, or in the evening, your surroundings are a bit calmer. I usually write with pen and paper, and then on my laptop. But for melodies, I use voice recordings. It’s so like: overfill my phone with all these melodies.”

Which of the two tends to come first?

“Often, melody comes first. But I sometimes also have a lyric idea – a theme or something that I want to write about, and then I start. But then, with the lyrics, when you have the melody, you have to see which phrases work rhythmically.  Or, if you already have lyrics, you try and match with them. If you’ve got the rhythm, you’re trying to write the lyrics that fit that rhythm.”

Let’s talk about a couple of the songs. We really liked The Real Thing with its rippling synth. How did that one come about?

“Thank you. I’m so glad you like it. That was the last song that was added to the album. Me and Kalle had this idea: we had done all the other songs, and then we thought we should have something more dancey. We wanted something 70s, a bit like Donna Summer, something you could dance to, a party song. Then, the lyric was just a comment on this dating-app era.”

That suggests that you’re aware of an album being one entity that ebbs and flows rather than just a collection of individual songs…

“I wanted this album to be like a film, like a journey. I do also like albums where the songs are maybe more similar in tempo, or it doesn’t matter that much to me. It’s about having an interesting atmosphere, or an interesting experience when you listen to an album. We wanted the album to keep the attention”.

The next interview I want to cover is from God Is in the TV Zine. This is a big moment for Josefin Öhrn. I have never seen her perform live, but I can imagine that she is wonderful on the stage. Cherry coming to life there would be a magnificent experience. I was aware of Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, so I was excited to hear a solo album from Öhrn. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next from this amazing artist:

“London-based Swedish singer/songwriter Josefin Öhrn bewitched and transfixed as frontwoman of the intoxicating psych-rockers Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation. Here in 2026 Josefin steps out of the purple smoke of psychedelia to present her solo album Cherry, out later this month. Produced by Kalle Jerneholm Gustavsson (Soundtrack Of Our Lives), the record is a showcase of songwriting as storytelling in a classy, and close form. The songs beautifully pull us in to reflect on themes of love, sadness and absolute joyfulness through the contemporary female lens.

Josefin talks to us about writing the record, the pleasures of collaborating with Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Andy Bell (Ride/Oasis), covering Elvis, and the positives of asking.

How did you approach making Cherry? Was there a plan from the start, an intention to make something so different from previously? Clearer messaging, metaphor-free?

My last album with the Liberation was in 2019, just before October, and then the pandemic happened. It was so shut down, the music industry. I was so used to touring a lot, and so I was almost “oh, what do I do now?”. I studied photography for two years, but I couldn’t stop writing songs! I didn’t really have an intention in mind to make an album. I just had inspiration and melody and I wrote about my own experiences and themes of female perspective. Maybe that’s just natural to me because it’s like the life I live.

It’s a beautiful record and romantic in both the relationships and the broader sense.

It just happened naturally, I could definitely see that there are these themes of longing and love relationships, and I guess I you can hear the vocals more than on my previous albums. I wanted it to be more forward. I do love like guitar layers of the psych rock but I wanted to be a little bit more intimate on this album. That was definitely something I wanted. So it’s more like a film in your in your head, maybe for the listener.

‘Lose Yourself‘ is a collaboration with Anton Newcombe which manages to be both bold and tender. A duet with Anton unexpectedly delivering in baritone.

I really love Anton’s music, and I admire him as a songwriter. I met him once before we did this. It was long time ago. We played a festival in Sweden. My producer and me, we just asked him if he wanted to do something and he said he’d love to. I’m so happy with how the vocals turn out.

I was like, do what he wants, and this what he sent me – I think there’s so much soul. To hear our voices together made the song so much more.

So. Cherry. Your debut solo album. How does it feel as you approach its release?

I’m really glad that it’s going to be out there and people have access to it. It’s been so lovely during these years since I released my last album with the Liberation that some fans have been reaching out and like, “we want more music, we want more music”, so I feel so glad that I can give that to them now!”.

I want to end with a review of Cherry from Back Seat Mafia. They provided a detailed and positive review of one of the standout albums of this year. I will end here, but I would urge people to follow Josefin Öhrn on social media. A truly incredible artist who you cannot afford to overlook. I will keep an eye out for future tour dates:

“Josefin Öhrn has made an album about falling headlong into desire again, and she isn’t the least bit coy about it. ‘Cherry’, her solo debut, was written during a period of reinvention and recorded while she lived at Svenska Grammofonstudion in Gothenburg, a residential studio far from her London routine, where she was breathing music every waking and sleeping hour. You can hear that immersion in every track. It’s a sensual, unguarded record, made by someone who knows exactly what she’s feeling and has decided to say so.

Öhrn arrives with serious form. Between 2011 and 2019 she fronted Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation, whose hypnotic psych-rock took them from Rocket Recordings to Glastonbury, Roskilde and Berghain, earning a Swedish Grammy nomination along the way. Those who loved the band’s motorik trance will hear echoes of it here. This time, though, the avant-garde edges are sanded back in favour of clear hooks, laid-back atmospheres and her voice placed firmly at the front of the mix. The obvious reference points are Kurt Vile, Lana Del Rey and Natalie Bergman, and she keeps some very good company too. Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Andy Bell of Ride and Oasis, and Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream all appear, with production from Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm of The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

The album is about fresh starts, desire, love and grief, written during what the press notes call “a giddy second adolescence.” It sits alongside recent records from Robyn and Lykke Li in which women’s experiences are laid out candidly and without apology. Öhrn herself describes it as a document of endings and awakenings, which is as good a summary as any.

Opener ‘Electrified’ sets the tone, a dreamy rush with Gillespie on backing vocals, capturing the dopamine glow of new love. The instruments ripple like a skipping stone thrown across a pond with a buzzsaw spine. Öhrn describes the sensation as:

that super heightened state of mind, that dopamine bliss.

‘Dreaming of You’, lifted by playful synths from Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, is pure sunshine as it skips and dances with a joyful restlessness and a wandering bass line. Öhrn describes it as all about desire, about that longing for connection, with that someone.

First single ‘Cherry Tree’ is slow, hazy melancholy pop, and the clearest bridge between The Liberation and the solo Öhrn: a breathy meditation on love that will never be returned. ‘Lose Yourself’, with Newcombe, drifts into Mazzy Star territory with its brittle crystalline guitars and hypnotic roll.

‘The Real Thing’ is pulsing psychedelic disco and a sharp comment on the dating-app era of love bombing and projection with a Donna Summer pulse and a Jesus and Mary Chain barbed-wire spine.

‘What If’ has a Jane Birkin/sixties insouciance, slinky, sensuous and antheimc.

‘I Want You’ continues with this feel, going unashamedly pop, with breathy vocals, swirling bongos and nostalgic Moog. It’s almost day-glo pop with a skipping pace that evokes dappled sunshine and euphoria.

The two covers work as the album’s emotional anchors. Her take on ‘Always On My Mind’ is suitably sultry. Her version of ‘Jag Ger Dig Min Morgon’, Fred Åkerström’s 1970s Swedish cult song, is a tender nod to home with its trilling instrumentation and gentle exposition.

That idea of home comes back on closer ‘Shoreline’, a reflection on growing up in Sweden, with family in France and Belgium and a decade in London, and on not quite knowing where you belong. Crystalline guitars etch a thread throughout the track as Öhrn’s vocals are dreamy and reflective, delicate and heartbreakingly beautiful.

What makes Cherry compelling is that its giddiness is earned. This is not youthful naivety but the rush of someone with life experience, and a long-held sense of responsibility, choosing freedom anyway. Creativity does not have a use-by date, and neither, it seems, does falling in love.

‘Cherry’ is an epic work of art, delicately crafted and expressive, melodic and anthemic. There are echoes of JAMC, Mazzy Star and Jane Birkin – a delicious sonic kaleidoscope that shimmers”.

The amazing Josefin Öhrn has released one of the best albums of this year with Cherry. Even though there are collaborations on the album, it is Öhrn and her incredible voice that stands out. So many highlights to choose from, go and listen to this wonderful work from an artist that everyone needs to check out. I was keen to spotlight someone whose work I really love. Josefin Öhrn is truly…

A modern music great.

_________

Follow Josefin Öhrn

PHOTO CREDIT: Colette Slater Barrass

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/josefin_ohrn

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Josefin-%C3%96hrn-100066837670752/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josefin.hrn

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiMtqk525H6BQpydAnlvXqw

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1cQjLxvflSkNrBBE9fOYE6?si=nR2XG-0RTOeb1lq-3VGmsA

FEATURE: A True Icon: Why Shaun Keaveny Being Back on BBC Radio 6 Music Marks Him as One of Our Greatest Broadcasters

FEATURE:

 

 

A True Icon

Why Shaun Keaveny Being Back on BBC Radio 6 Music Marks Him as One of Our Greatest Broadcasters

_________

I guess there is no use…

IN THIS PHOTO: Shaun Keaveny was interviewed by Lauren Laverne on her BBC Radio 6 Music show (the interview starts at 1:37:44) on 2nd October to promote his new series, Indie Icons Only, as part of the station’s Radio 6 Indie Forever extension/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC/Lauren Laverne via Instagram

in getting or being angry about stuff that happened a while in the past. That is easy to say, but I like so many BBC Radio 6 Music listeners, was stunned and saddened when Shaun Keaveny departed the station. Not entirely his decision, when he signed off his final show in September 2021, I guess he did not exactly know what would come next. This was during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it was extra scary! I have written about this in other features about him, but it was amazing how he built out this whole new career path in broadcasting. Having been at BBC Radio 6 Music for fourteen years, he would have thought he would continue until he felt it right to move on. Five years on from bidding farewell to his BBC Radio 6 Music family, he has built this incredible new empire. Starting and helming the brilliant Community Garden Radio, this was sort of a breakthrough and groundbreaking thing. It was founded with producer Ben Tulloh (who I hope works with him again on a more regular basis, as they have a close chemistry and great connection and love for one another). I am going to circle back to BBC Radio 6 Music, as this is the reason for me writing about Keaveny again. I do want to source once more from this interview with The Guardian from 2022. This switch from national radio to D.I.Y. radio. Although it might seem frightening or like it would lead to struggle and negatives, it was hugely liberating. You know that others would have seen what Community Garden Radio was and could achieve and have been inspired by it. Even though Shaun Keaveny broadcasts on the BBC, he still keeps that balance with the massive and smaller (or grassroots). These different communities of listeners. Few broadcasters in the world have and could do that:

“Shaun Keaveny is broadcasting to a couple of thousand people from a forgotten back room in a shabby Soho office that’s all glass and no insulation. The ambience is more knackered 1970s comp than radio studio.

“If I was me 18 months ago looking at what I’m doing now, I’d be thinking, ‘Ah, that’s a shame, isn’t it? He used to have this massive platform and now look at what he’s doing,’” says Keaveny who, until September last year, was used to six-figure audiences and the BBC Radio 6 Music studios where things, you know, worked.

“It’s taken me ages to get my head round, but when you drill down into what we’re doing here it’s phenomenal,” he says. And what he’s doing is of interest because it may possibly be the future of radio in the same way that YouTube was once the future (now the present) of video: a live, independent radio show broadcast via Patreon, the digital platform that lets supporters subscribe to projects and give creators a steady income. In this case, £4 a month to access Shaun Keaveny’s Creative Cul de Sac, a weekly Friday radio show, a podcast and daily written and recorded missives.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dean Chalkley/The Observer

It adds up to quite a lot of Keaveny (“To be honest, I’m knackered, I took on a lot when I left 6 Music because I thought half of it was going to fail. But things started working straight away.”)

But before we get to the future, we have to deal with the past, and the reason why the 49-year-old has been forced into DIY radio rather than remaining a beloved 6 Music presence. In June last year, after a 14-year run, first on breakfast and then afternoons, he announced he was leaving. “Things change, places change, people change and it’s time for a change,” he said at the time”.

The reason it took off so swiftly was because of something it’s easy to forget about in discussions of platforms and digital disruption: the listeners. And they have rallied to him in their thousands. Nothing compared to the number he enjoyed at the BBC, but these are the ultras: loyal, engaged and paying.

During breaks in the show, he scans through their emails, chuckling delightedly: “They get it. They just bloody get it,” like he’s amazed that anyone connects with what he does. But they do and many of them have been with him since the beginning when he arrived at the nascent 6 Music from nights on that great radio incubator, London’s Xfm. He came via stints at Reading 210 FM (where he started out writing ad copy in 1997, moving from hometown Leigh in Greater Manchester after a friend-of-a-friend put him up for the job) and Wolverhampton’s Beacon FM, taking on Phill Jupitus’s seat on the breakfast show in 2006.

He landed at the right time. Digital radio was taking off (6 Music is digital-only) and offering something new in a landscape where shows seemed stuck in wearily familiar formats: a studio crammed full of braying sidekicks yucking it up with a superstar presenter; the gratingly chummy host, playing it as if they’d just got in from a night on the lash with famous mates; or the DJ slinging the sanitised, endlessly repeating playlist.

Keaveny, though, didn’t do fake banter or pointless pop. He was just himself: sometimes weary, a touch melancholic, often childish, but always smart and intimate and – most importantly – self- deprecating, which the listeners bought into eagerly. So much so that, over the years, their emails have taken on the tone of a Hollywood Roast: “Keep up the work,” or “Very whelming this morning,” are favourite sign-offs”

I am so glad that Shaun Keaveny came through a period in life that, although liberating, must also have been quite sad. Leaving a station he was a part of for so long. Suddenly not being there. I am sort of pining for the comfort of radio at the moment during a bad period. In terms of my job and being very unhappy there, I am filled with a lot of anxiety and dread. Though there is something in radio that provides, at best comfort and guidance, and at worst, a distraction. Since starting Community Garden Radio, Keaveny has presented on major radio stations like Greatest Hits Radio, Absolute Radio, and BBC Radio London. In addition, Keaveny has deputised for Dermot O’Leary, Liza Tarbuck, Rob Beckett, and The Folk Show. He has also regularly co-hosted Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4. One of the hardest-working broadcasters there is, he is also one of the very best. Few could work across such a broad selection of stations and do something different but the same! His distinct blend of wit, delf-deprecation and clear passion for all kinds of music. And yet, he can effortlessly fit into the style and dynamic of stations that are not the same. Also, Keaveny has presented coverage of the Isle of Wight and Latitude festivals for Sky, and also the Mercury Music Prize for BBC2. Represented by PBJ Management, this is one of our very best, loved and trusted radio voices. When it comes to music and radio, there is nothing he cannot do! Covering shows dedicated to Blues and Folk, he now fronts The Rock Show. He took over from the late great Johnnie Walker (someone who Shaun Keaveny considers to be his broadcasting idol). The legendary Bob Harris had to step down presenting Sounds of the 70s earlier this year due to health issues. Whilst we wish him well and hope he is back on the airwaves in a permanent position very soon, Shaun Keaveny now helms the show. Two emotions or thoughts come to mind: how to follow in the footsteps of two titans of radio; also, how to present these shows and do so in a way that does not ape Walker and Harris. Instantly authoritative and a real natural, instead of mimicking them, Keaveny is very much himself. He sounds so natural and right for the shows as he knows Rock and '70s music. A huge fan of Rock (Led Zeppelin are one of his favourite bands) and growing up in the 1970s, he was the obvious choice. Even so, whilst it was amazing to get these shows, he acknowledged the incredible legacy of these decades-enduring and hugely respected radio gods:

“The shows will remain key parts of BBC Radio 2 programming, with Shaun Keaveny due to officially take over as host of Sounds of the 70s each Sunday (3-5pm), in addition to hosting the Radio 2 Rock Show (Fridays 11pm-midnight) after deputising in the Sounds of the 70s slot and various other shows on Radio 2 during the past year.

Shaun says: “As long as I can remember, I’ve loved the music of the 70s. My mum reckons Rocket Man was all over the radio when I was born in 72… guess who was playing that on the original Sounds of the 70s at that time…??”

“It was the thrill of my life to meet Bob, the man who has done more to maintain the spirit of Rock, Roll and Radio than almost anyone. I consider it not just an honour but a mission, to continue Bob’s work of showing the world the greatness of the music of that special decade. Somewhere, every week, some kid hears Won’t Get Fooled Again for the first time! You did that for me Bob, and millions like me. We’d like to say Thank You For the Music, you’ll always be our Rock n Roll Doctor”.

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I recently published a feature about Zoe Ball. She is one of the absolute best broadcasters ever, and is a queen of the airwaves. Someone who I have been listening to for so many years. Formerly with the BBC, she now joins her erstwhile BBC mates Simon Mayo and Ken Bruce at Greatest Hits Radio. Having gone through some losses and struggles through the years, it must have been so tough having to shoulder that and present on national radio. Now, she is at this new home, and she sounds happier than ever! Even though life, as with all of us, is not 100% stress-free, she is at Greatest Hits Radio, and I think she will be there for many years. I can see Shaun coming over there in years to come though, as he is so in-demand and he has all these incredible shows to present, it might not be anytime soon! I look at these incredible broadcasters who have suffered setbacks and losses and this sort of thing, and I hold out hope for myself. Though my situation and life is different to theirs, I can find solace and strength in what they do. The warmth and love they spread. Getting to the point of this feature (story it took a while!). Before I get there, I sort of wonder what other stuff will come up for Shaun Keaveny. The Beatles’ Rubber Soul Special Editions came out yesterday (2nd October). Shaun Keaveny is a massive fan of The Beatles. I think he will interview Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr soon. His mate and former BBC Radio 6 Music colleague Matt Everitt has been involved in an event/interview around it (he did post about it on Instagram but I can’t remember where it was held and who he spoke to (sleep deprivation has shot my memory!).

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They are really close friends, so I hope that Everitt and Keaveny do a show together again (Matt Everitt used to present the music news when Keaveny was at BBC Radio 6 Music). Thinking about Shaun Keaveny, Matt Everitt and Zoe Ball. These amazing broadcasters are all in their fifties, and yet they seem to be at the top of their game and enjoying the best time in their careers. As a journalist in my forties – and my blog turns fifteen next month -, I always associate success with your twenties and thirties. If you have not ‘made it’ or fulfilled ambitions by then, that is it. Journalism, radio and music are industries where you can actually find greater success and purpose past that point (it is a generalisation, but there is some truth in it). In addition to his BBC Radio 2 work and Community Garden Radio, Shaun Keaveny is also back on BBC Radio 6 Music. I hate when people say an artist has ‘returned’ or is ‘back’, when they have not released music for a few months. Unless they stepped away from music or retired and now have come back, they have not ‘returned’. However, in terms of BBC Radio 6 Music, this very much is a return. Here, we learn of a brilliant and must-listen new series where Shaun Keaveny gets to speak to some Indie icons:

“This October, BBC Radio 6 Music Indie Forever, 6 Music’s extension for BBC Sounds, will bring listeners Indie Icons Only - a new programme, broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays (10am-12pm), presented by Shaun Keaveny. The first eight, two-hour episodes, beginning Saturday 3 October, will feature Shaun in conversation with the iconic musician, singer and songwriter Johnny Marr, who since his time as co-founder of The Smiths has collaborated with numerous artists and released five solo albums, most recently The Age of Everything.

Shaun will hear Johnny’s reflections on his past four decades in music, his songwriting and his work with musicians including Hans Zimmer, Noel Gallagher, The Pretenders, and more.

Highlights from each episode will be available on 6 Music’s YouTube channel every Saturday at 10am.

Shaun Keaveny says: "They say you should never go back, but, to be honest, I think that is mostly advice about fireworks. It was a total no-brainer agreeing to do this show for Indie Forever and 6 Music. Getting the chance to unpick a favourite musician’s influences, craft and career over the course of multiple episodes, IN A PUB, was a proposition I could not turn down. Cheers, and here’s to more!"

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Johnny Marr says: “It’s always interesting and fun to talk music and culture with Shaun Keaveny. Great to have him back on 6 Music.”

Samantha Moy, Head of BBC Radio 6 Music says: “To have Shaun return to the 6 Music family, and to be in such esteemed company with Johnny Marr, will be such a treat for music fans and for all of us at 6 Music too. I know the programmes will be funny, joyful and insightful - a true celebration of an icon who has made such an important contribution to the story of British music.”

Created by 6 Music and dedicated to the biggest and best indie pop, rock and classics that have soundtracked listeners’ lives and musical memories, 6 Music Indie Forever launched on BBC Sounds in July. The 24-hour stream plays indie music from the 1980s to the 2010s and beyond, with UK artists making up 70% of the playlist. Programmes include: The Morning Session with Steve Lamacq and Felix White; City Soundtracks, presented by Emily Pilbeam and produced in collaboration with Music Venue Trust and BBC Introducing; Indie Forever Disco with Beth Ditto; Indie Focus, presented by Lauren Laverne; Indie Cloudbusters presented by Nick Grimshaw and Nathan Shepherd; Indie Chill, presented by Huw Stephens; and Artist Collections, which unearth performances, interviews and more from the BBC’s unrivalled archive and which have celebrated Florence + The Machine, Oasis, The Smiths, The Strokes, Wolf Alice, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and more”.

As I am a bit bloated and foggy-headed with all sorts of psychological crap right now, I am genuinely so chuffed for this man! He is one of the most loved and hard-working broadcasters ever. Apart from being absolutely brilliant and able to do any show that he is offered, he also provides this warmth, humour, compassion and absolute passion that few other broadcasters ever have. I would put him up there with the very best of all time! He has decades more ahead, so it is going to be thrilling to see what else he does!

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Yesterday, Shaun Keaveny appeared on Lauren Laverne’s show on BBC Radio 6 Music. They have been friends for years, and they presented shows side by side at one point. I remember being at the last broadcast of Keaveny’s breakfast show that was held at Maida Vale Studios (which, sadly, is no longer housing artists and being used as a live music location). Lauren Laverne was there, as was Matt Everitt, and other BBC Radio 6 Music names. They have a closeness and natural bond that, again, I hope transitions into a show together. I believe they did used to host a show together. BBC Radio 6 Music turns twenty-five next March, so I sort of hope they pair Laverne and Keaveny for a special show. Matt Everitt in there too (though this may be a manifestation that does not materialise!). The two of them chatting yesterday was a genuinely joyous moment in, let’s be fair, a period of time when there is little to celebrate and feel happy about. Even if Shaun Keaveny’s stint back at BBC Radio 6 Music has an end date, I do hope that, one day, he gets to present more regularly there. The affection and love that greeted his interview with Lauren Laverne and his Indie Icons Only show demonstrates how missed he is! It is clear that, alongside BBC Radio 2, Shaun Keaveny should be part of the BBC Radio 6 Music family again sometime soon. It is mind-boggling how he does everything he does and rarely shows any signs of fatigue and stress! Every show has this sort of warmth and lightness that I don’t think I could pull off! The first Indie Icons Only episode went out this morning, so I wanted to publish this ahead of the second episode. The second part of Keaveny’s chat with his mate, Johnny Marr. The nation loves the bones of Shaun Keaveny – and quite rightly! The Leigh-born multi-hyphenated talent is one of our greatest broadcasters and human beings. Five years from potentially a moment where he must have genuinely been weighing up options and wondering just what to do next, he has built the Community Garden Radio kingdom. Appeared across multiple radio stations; deputised on BBC Radio 2 shows, and now he presents two of his own. Presenting work and podcasts, plus this new series for BBC Radio 6 Music and their Indie Forever extension. I genuinely hope he is involved with any twenty-fifth birthday celebrations next year for the station, as it is what it is, in part, because of what he brought! Right now, he will be thinking of what is he doing, and not what comes next. In addition to hoping he has a long-ish holiday soon to recharge and get some rest, go and follow him on Instagram, and listen to everything he does and has done. I have probably not done him total justice here, though I wanted to write about him because of this new endeavour with BBC Radio 6 Music. A sort of homecoming in a way, also check out that interview with Lauren Laverne, as you can hear how happy he is to be back at the station. All of his listening fans and followers send him…

LOTS of love!

FEATURE: Spotlight: EMJAY

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

EMJAY

_________

HERE is a fantastic…

Guadalajara-born artist who I have recently discovered. Her new album, Pop Pesado, is her third. EMJAY is someone who you need to know. There are a couple of interviews from this year that I want to get to. Ones to Watch spent time with EMJAY around the release of her E.P., Confesiones de las que me voy a arrepentir. I am not sure whether EMJAY has plans to play in the U.K. at some point. It would be great to see her here:

“EMJAY is an artist who’s always searching—for meaning, for truth, for herself. She’s a songwriter and singer rooted in what she calls “anti-perfect pop”—music that values honesty over polish.

Even within the major music industry, she’s always fought to release what truly connects with people. Her work constantly explores the role of women in music, while pushing boundaries and reinventing itself as a form of quiet revolution.

She represents a new wave of pop—one that feels raw, emotional, and real—and is emerging as a voice for Mexico on a global stage. Her sound is fresh but deeply authentic; she writes from lived experience, which is why her songs feel so personal.

OnesToWatch: Who is EMJAY?

I’ve always been searching for my place in the world, and I found it through music—in the most honest and vulnerable ways of expressing how I feel. I think I’m here to help people who are going through similar things as me—the good and the bad.

Sometimes we just want to feel seen, heard, or understood. That’s why I make music—whether it’s to escape what we’re going through or to hold onto a feeling so we never forget it.

My label always tells me I’ll be the biggest pop star, but I just want to be myself. I want to express my pain, my love, my frustration of never feeling like enough. If my lyrics can connect with people, that’s more than enough for me.

For those weak in Spanish, explain Confesiones de las que me voy a arrepentir.

Confesiones de las que me voy a arrepentir literally means “confessions I thought I was going to regret sharing.”

At first, I felt like I had said too much—like a “lyrical hangover,” where you regret what you revealed… except this time it’s recorded forever.

But now, I don’t regret it at all. I always say that not releasing honest art feels like a sin—and that goes completely against who I am.

The EP touches on everything: fame, people I hate, a girl I fell in love with who became one of my best friends, parasocial relationships… literally every emotion I’ve been going through.

It’s my most honest project so far.

Besides this EP, what should we be on the lookout for?

I’m getting ready to go on tour with a brand-new show—and it’s going to be very rock. Rock, rock, and more rock.

I was a little scared about how to follow my last tour (me estoy volviendo loca), because it was so intense and chaotic—but this new show feels just as energetic in a different way. Performing live with my band is pushing me into new challenges, and I love that. I feel more like myself than ever on stage.

I’m also working on my third album. I don’t want to leave people in the middle of a sound without giving them a full project. It’s been a crazy, busy time, but I love the challenge.

I feel like I’m living “the life of a showgirl.”

But I won’t say more about the album… you’ll have to wait”.

Rather than bring things right up to date now, I do want to come to an interview from last year that is of interest. Earlier in the year, EMJAY released her second album, me estoy volviendo loca. Such a prolific and always-fascinating songwriter, it is interesting learning about her process. I wonder which artists she grew up listening to and who she wants to collaborate with now. If you are new to EMJAY, then do go and listen to her music:

“WALK US THROUGH YOUR SONGWRITING PROCESS. DO YOU WRITE DURING THE DAY OR AT NIGHT

I’m a daytime studio person. I love leaving early. But for writing, there’s never a specific time. My phone is where I really keep my notes. I open them at 4 a.m., at 2 a.m., in traffic, in a meeting. Any idea that comes to me, I always write it down in my phone. I believe ideas don’t have a schedule.”

FOR PEOPLE DISCOVERING YOUR WORK FOR THE FIRST TIME, WHICH SONG SHOULD THEY START WITH?

From the new album, “Drama Doll.” It really introduces the universe behind Me Estoy Volviendo Loca, and it’s one of my personal favorites.

YOUR ALBUM ME ESTOY VOLVIENDO LOCA FEELS VERY PERSONAL. WHAT WAS THAT TWO-YEAR PROCESS LIKE?

Me Estoy Volviendo Loca was an album I made over two years, based on the experiences I was living. It is a super, super fun album. I think people were able to relate a lot to it, and I love that. It’s a very personal album and I feel it connected me so much with my fanbase. My heart was broken during the process by friends and by my exes, but I got out what I needed to get out from those experiences. I didn’t care that they broke my heart or anything. Everything I lived was excellent because it helped me create one of the most personal albums I have so far.

SEVERAL OUTLETS HAVE CALLED YOU THE NEW VOICE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE URBAN MUSIC. HOW DOES THAT FEEL?

I started music because I loved it, because I realized it was the way I could express myself best. So seeing that title it’s incredible. I’m super happy. And also, continuing this path as a woman in the industry is what’s important. Leaving a mark and opening doors to other females in music is what excites me. That’s what I really want to accomplish. So if it’s happening, amazing!”

TELL US MORE ABOUT BEING A WOMAN IN THE URBAN SPACE.

I think there’s still a difference in how men and women are treated—not just in urban music, but in the industry in general. But I feel that over the years, women have shown with actions how incredible they are. We’ve opened the doors ourselves. Our own doors. It’s a fight women have had for a long time in the industry, but little by little it has evolved. And if you look at the top 5 artists in the world, many are women now. So we’re clearly doing something right”.

As I was wondering who EMJAY would like to collaborate, she did reveal some names when speaking with Wonderland. last month. Also, whilst she does reveal some inspirations, I wonder if there is any music from decades ago that she would have heard when young. You can sense and feel that she is going to keep releasing brilliant album after brilliant album. Do make sure you follow her on social media:

“Emjay is the stage name of María José de la Torre Villaseñor, who hails from Guadalajara. While growing up, she cites Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey, Rosalía, and Doja Cat as inspirations. The rock inspiration of Pop Pesado also comes from the bands Emjay likes, such as Mexico’s Zoé, and Wonderland cover stars, Gorillaz. She debuted as a fierce trap singer and rapper with 2023’s LAS MORRAS TAMBIÉN HACEN TR444P. Emjay later introduced hyperpop into the Latin music ecosystem with last year’s frenetic and groundbreaking Me Estoy Volviendo Loca. Off the success of that album, she joined forces with Latin pop icon Belinda on “Boss Rmx” and later opened for Doja Cat’s concert in Mexico City.

Emjay is showing a darker and more vulnerable side to herself with Pop Pesado. She gives her musical approach a rock makeover with the haunting “Lobo” and the enchanting “Moreno Fantasy.” She also leans into alternative territory with Ximena Sariñana in “Atemporal” and Alanis Yuki in “Dónde Tú.” In an exclusive interview with Wonderland, she opened up about her new LP, dream collaborations, and making music for the girls and gays.

Where does that girly and fierce energy in your music come from?

It comes from me just wanting to be myself. I just want to feel like myself. I think every person has their sweet side, but also their fierce side and heavy sides. We all have these two words within us, the dark side and the sweet side. That’s what I want to embrace. I don’t want to hide anything. I don’t want to hold in anything that I’m feeling.

What does your connection with your LGBTQ+ fans mean to you?

My songs are for girls and gays! If straight people want to get into my music, they’re more than welcome. They all know I’m part of the LGBTQ+ community too. All my friends and my whole team belong to that community. Gay people and the LGBTQ+ community are so important in my life. They’re a hard audience to please. They ask for a lot, but I love to meet their expectations. When a gay person tells you, “Girl, you’re doing well,” you know you’re really doing well.

What does the title of your new album Pop Pesado mean to you?

I started with trap music, and then I was like super electronic, but pop and rock have always been part of me. I’ve never felt like I’m this perfect pop star. I’m a messy girl. I’m a super type B girl. I like to party, but I also perform and dance and sing and do the biggest shows I can do. That’s where “Pop Pesado” came from. I know I do pop, but I’m not the pop star that you want me to be. This is just my type of pop.

Who would you love to collaborate with in the future?

If you tell me right now to think big, I would love to collaborate with Adéla. She’s one of my favourite artists right now. I also love Charli xcx. Here in Mexico, I would love to collaborate with Kenia Os and Danna. I would say Belinda, but I already have a song with her. I would love to make another song with Six Sex. I would love to collaborate with Akriila as well”.

I will leave things here. I am definitely going to keep an eye out for EMJAY and follow her career, as she is this exciting, fascinating and original voice in modern music. Despite being fresh to her work, I think people can come in now, listen to Pop Pesado, and then work their way back. Such a spectacular artist who has this adoring fanbase, I will also keep my eyes open for U.K. tour dates. I do hope that EMJAY comes and plays here…

SOME time soon.

__________

Follow EMJAY

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/emjayy444

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@emjayy444

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5TtCVmeuicGu9EIwiFQcyn?si=ZCLdemXEQcCpEIq6KV86Sg

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz5VPO-ZDAWYSwtNbWZ7e6A

FEATURE: Here Comes the Sun: The Iconic Abbey Road Studios at Ninety-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Here Comes the Sun

The Iconic Abbey Road Studios at Ninety-Five

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I guess, technically, that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse recording at Abbey Road Studios

EMI Studios turns ninety on 12th November. Though they were renamed in 1970. Some say 1976. In any case, the inspiration came from The Beatles’ album of the same name. The final one they recorded as a band. On 12th November, 1931, these iconic spaces were opened. At the opening, Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Land of Hope and Glory. It is only five years until Abbey Road Studios celebrates its centenary. I do hope, as I have said in previous features, that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are with us still so they can mark it. I would advise people watch the Mary McCartney-directed 2022 documentary, If These Walls Could Sing. It does give us a sense of how hallowed the studios are. How many artists have passed through the doors. Still, it is seen as a treat and honour to record there. Even if the hundredth anniversary is five years from now, the ninety-fifth anniversary is pretty special. A chance to celebrate a space where everyone from Kate Bush to Oasis have recorded in. Published in 2022, I would advise people to purchase David Hepworth’s book on Abbey Road. As we look toits ninety-fifth anniversary, we should look back at the story of this world-famous and adored studio. Who better to tell the story than Abbey Road Studios themselves:

!The World's First Recording Studio

The story of Abbey Road Studios is the story of recorded music. In 1929, when recordings were still being captured acoustically with a large wooden horn and a wax disc, The Gramophone Company saw an opportunity and began the search for a location to support the new industry of electrical recording. They found a nine-bedroom house with a large garden for sale in St. John’s Wood, NW London, and bought it for the total of £16,500 before spending two years building the world’s first recording studios.

By the time of our opening ceremony on 12 November 1931, which saw Sir Edward Elgar and the London Symphony Orchestra give a rousing performance of Land of Hope and Glory, the Gramophone Company had merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to become the famous Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI).

A Home for Artists and Maestros

EMI’s new recording hub featured three main studios, all of which remain as magical and profound today as the when they first opened. Our largest space, Studio One, began hosting legends of the classical and orchestral world including Sir Thomas Beecham, Pablo Casals, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Sergei Prokofiev, Maria Callas, Igor Stravinsky, Yehudi Menuhin and later Geoff Love, André Previn, Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim. As well as icons of big band and jazz like the indomitable Fats Waller and Glenn Miller.

Over the last 40 years, Studio One has become one of the world’s go-to places for film scoring, with projects including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars and Harry Potter films,1917, Avengers: Endgame, Wonka, Wakanda Forever, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Oscar-winners like The Last Emperor, The Shape of Water, Gravity, Black Panther and Barbie. With the addition of a Dolby Atmos Premier accredited Mix Stage in 2017, Abbey Road became the only place in Europe to offer both scoring and film sound post-production.

Studio One’s connection to the screen doesn’t end there. Ever since the very first video game score recorded at Abbey Road (Richard Jacques’ Headhunter in January 2001), the grand acoustics of our largest studio have been called upon to match the grand narratives and visual landscapes in today’s games. Projects include Halo, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Genshin Impact, the Academy Award-nominated and Ivor Novello-winning Marvel’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy and Academy Award-winning Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Game sessions are massive undertakings, it can be like recording multiple film scores in one. Often five, six, seven hours of music is needed to create a unique soundtrack for each potential game pathway. As composers and engineers push sonic boundaries with ambisonics and new surround technology, the world of video game sound continues to evolve.
Studio Three, the smallest of our original three studios, welcomed Abbey Road’s first published song into the world (recorded nearly two months before Elgar’s opening ceremony); a cover of Hoagy Carmichael’s Rockin’ Chair by American bass-baritone, Paul Robeson.

Studio Three has long been a home for ground-breaking music: The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon, Deep Purple’s In Rock, Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin’s East Meets West, Donovan’s Sunshine Superman, Fela Kuti’s Afrodisiac, Radiohead’s The Bends, Florence + The Machine’s Ceremonials, Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett’s Body and Soul, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, Frank Ocean’s Blond and Brockhampton’s Iridescence. Creatively unleashed and then artfully captured within its walls.

To date, it is our only studio to have had some major interiors changes. Its control room has moved from one side to the other and back again, while the most recent (and dare we say it, best) renovation came in 2022. It even housed a mirrored drum room in the late 1980s where the large iso booth now stands. It wasn’t until 1980 that Abbey Road built its next studio, the Penthouse, and in 2017 adding the Gatehouse and the Front Room as more accessible, flexible and intimate spaces built to accommodate new ways of working.

The legendary Studio Two became the birthplace of British rock ‘n’ roll in the late '50s with the emergence of groups like Cliff Richard and The Shadows and Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. However not before EMI engineer Alan Blumlein led the very first stereo recording there in 1932 and popular dance bands like The Joe Loss Orchestra made it their home through the 1940s. As bombs rained down on London during World War II, Abbey Road’s doors remained open, hosting sessions including American bandleader Glenn Miller’s final recordings in 1944. In the ‘60s, bells and whistles and raucous laugher echoed in Studio Two as comedy records by the likes of Peter Sellers and Morecambe and Wise were captured. Then, it became the recording home of the Merseybeat scene with artists like Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Swinging Blue Jeans and Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas.

The ‘60s were buzzing with creativity and vibrance, as a stream of hits flowed from our studio doors. Songs by Shirley Bassey, Cliff Richard, Ella Fitzgerald, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Helen Shapiro, Eartha Kitt, The Hollies, Manfred Mann, Peter and Gordon, The Pretty Things, Billy Preston, Jeff Beck and of course, The Beatles.

We can’t underplay the importance of The Beatles and their impact on our house. They recorded 190 of their 210 songs here between 1962-1970, working with Parlophone Records producer George Martin. Before naming their last album after the street they’d spent the better part of a decade at, The Beatles changed our culture forever. The strict three-hour session times turned into all-nighters, the technical engineers’ formal white coats disappeared, and both the engineers and artists pushed experimentation and creativity to the limits.

In the ‘70s came the next wave of rock ‘n’ roll and plenty of mullets; Wings, Plastic Ono Band, Badfinger, Roy Harper, Elton John, Al Stewart, Pilot, John Miles and The Alan Parsons Project. In the ‘80s, glorious experimentation by the likes of Kate Bush, The Fall, Duran Duran and Pet Shop Boys. In the ‘90s, world-moving anthems from Massive Attack, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Oasis, Blur, Muse, Spiritualized, Manic Street Preachers, Travis and Buzzcocks.

93 Years of Sonic Innovation

As the birthplace of stereo, innovation has always been at the heart of Abbey Road. Alan Blumlein, a master inventor way ahead of his time, patented ‘binaural’ (literally meaning ‘relating to two ears’) on 14 December 1931 and oversaw the very first stereo recording here in 1934, though it took until the 1950s for stereo recording to be fully adopted

Blumlein also developed early microphones like the EMI HB-1, a moving coil unit used on recordings at the studios through the 1930s. Check out photos of Paul Robeson or George Formby singing at Abbey Road, and you’ll see the HB-1. Other rare EMI microphones like the RM-1B, as well as a huge range of Neumanns, AKGs and RCAs, make up what is one of the most expansive microphone collections in the world. For over 50 years up until his retirement tin 2024, our microphone conservator Lester Smith lovingly maintained all our microphones. Thanks to Lester, every mic is available for daily use.

Back to 1955, with the rise of stereo, EMI engineer Len Page creates the Record Engineering Development Department (REDD) in response to what artists and producers want and need. They developed some of the first mixing desks as well as custom speakers, outboard gear and anything else either requested by the studio team or dreamed up by the technical geniuses at the EMI research facility (The Old Vinyl Factory) in Hayes, Middlesex.

Engineers at Abbey Road have always pushed technological boundaries, building some of the first echo chambers in the ‘50s, lacquering the hammers of pianos to get new, distinct sounds, or in the case of former technical engineer Ken Townsend, inventing techniques like Artificial Double Tracking (ADT). That pioneering spirit forged by the REDD department continues today through Abbey Road REDD – making sure that artists and engineers have access to the best ways to make music, whether that’s through timeless tech from the past, the latest ideas of today, or something not quite invented yet. Abbey Road REDD includes Europe’s first music-focused technology incubator, on a mission to find and progress the best in music-making innovation.

Facing the future

The magic within our spaces, instruments and gear is meant to be shared. That’s why our Audio Products team has worked for years to find ways to bring Abbey Road to you. They meticulously re-engineer, sample and emulate the sound of spaces like Studio One, the control room in Studio Three, the long-standing echo chamber in Studio Two, gear like the TG12345 desk or RS56 Curve Bender, and instruments like the legendary Mrs. Mills and Challen pianos.

Our mastering team continues to push the limits of what’s possible in this vital part of the creative process. Upstairs from the studios, discs are still cut every single day as the latest and greatest artists master their tracks in one of six specialist mastering suites. Across stereo, stem and surround, we combine an unrivalled selection of classic analogue and modern digital gear with the golden ears of our engineers, to bring out the best in each track.

Recent mastering projects include Yussef Dayes, Travis Scott, Olafur Arnalds, Dua Lipa, Fontaines D.C., Aurora, Frank Turner, Orla Gartland, Brian Eno, Self Esteem, Glass Animals, Black Midi, Louis Tomlinson, Ruthven and Royel Otis. While the old and the new collide with recent remasters and archive restorations for ABBA, Sade, Paul McCartney, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles, Queen, The Who, New Order, Cat Stevens, Elton John, Cymande, Dorothy Ashby, Sam Smith, The Rolling Stones, The Police and Morrissey.

A New Generation of Music Makers

The next part of our story is all about you. Our learning programmes and events combine almost a century of knowledge with the latest techniques and expertise. We do it through accredited courses at Abbey Road Institute, at festivals like Amplify and Equalise and with filmed series like Lock-In, Live Cuts and After Hours.

Through our events, we’re collaborating with artists, brands and festivals to show how Abbey Road can add its magic, bring people together and curate an unparalleled experience.

Abbey Road Studios is not only a pilgrimage for music fans, but a rite of passage for the music makers of today. A place with a unique and iconic history that can bring out the greatest potential in your music. There’s a whole world of possibilities inside, just waiting to be brought to life. Come on in, and be part of the next chapter of the Abbey Road story”

A global icon, Abbey Road Studios has continued to lure legendary and new artists alike. Though it might be an expensive space to record in, there is something you get here that no other studio provides. Maybe it is its history or something in the air. It has this magic and lure. You always worry that a place like this may be removed or built over, but it is a Grade II listed historic building. I hope that it remains where it is for decades more. I am not sure whether Abbey Road Studios have anything special planned for their ninety-fifth anniversary/birthday or will wait five years. Each year, they hold their own photography awards. There is a lot going on beside recording there. I have never been inside Abbey Road Studios, though I hope to one day for an event or something special. On 12th November, it will be ninety-five years since the first purpose-built recording studio in the world opened.  If we associate it mainly with The Beatles, we cannot ignore the countless other artists who have recorded there. So many classic albums were laid down there. When it comes to legacy, reputation, history and popularity, Abbey Road Studios…

HAS no equals.

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: The Beach Boys

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beach Boys in August 1962 in Los Angeles, California. (L-R) Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Dennis Wilson (under Mike Love), Brian Wilson, David Marks/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The Beach Boys

_________

AS they formed in 1961…

I wanted to mark sixty-five years of The Beach Boys. I am ending this feature with a twenty-song mix. The very best from the group. There is quite an extensive biography from AllMusic that I want to bring in first. It gives us real insight into the rise of The Beach Boys. Why they are such a successful and influential group. Brian Wilson, one of the greatest songwriters who has ever lived. We sadly lost him last year:

“Beginning their career as the most popular surf band in the nation, the Beach Boys are acknowledged as America's preeminent pop group, the only act able to challenge (for a brief time) the overarching success of the Beatles with both mainstream listeners and the critical community. From their 1961 debut with the regional hit "Surfin'," the three Wilson brothers -- Brian, Dennis, and Carl -- plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine constructed the most intricate, gorgeous harmonies ever heard from a pop band. With Brian's studio proficiency growing by leaps and bounds during the mid-'60s, the Beach Boys also proved one of the best-produced groups of the decade, exemplified by their 1966 peak with the Pet Sounds LP and the number one single "Good Vibrations." Though Brian's escalating drug use and obsessive desire to trump the Beatles eventually led to a nervous breakdown after he heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group soldiered on long into the '70s and '80s, with Brian an inconsistent participant. The band's post-1966 material is often maligned, but the truth is the Beach Boys continued to make great music well into the '70s. Displayed best on 1970's Sunflower, each member revealed individual talents never fully developed during the mid-'60s -- Carl became a solid, distinctive producer and Brian's replacement as nominal bandleader, Mike continued to provide a visual focus as the frontman for live shows, and Dennis developed his own notable songwriting talents. Though legal wranglings and oldies tours during the '90s often obscured what made the Beach Boys great, the band's unerring ability to surf the waves of commercial success and artistic development during the '60s made them America's first, best rock band and kept people coming to their concerts and buying reissues decades after their initial appearance.

The origins of the group lie in Hawthorne, California, a southern suburb of Los Angeles situated close to the Pacific coast. The three sons of a part-time song plugger and occasionally abusive father, Brian, Dennis, and Carl grew up a just few miles from the ocean -- though only Dennis had any interest in surfing itself. The three often harmonized together as youths, spurred on by Brian's fascination with '50s vocal acts like the Four Freshmen and the Hi-Lo's. Their cousin Mike Love often joined in on the impromptu sessions, and the group gained a fifth with the addition of Brian's high-school football teammate Al Jardine. His parents helped rent instruments (with Brian on bass, Carl on guitar, and Dennis on drums) and studio time to record "Surfin'," a novelty number written by Brian and Mike. The single, initially released in 1961 on Candix and billed to "the Pendletones" (a musical paraphrase of the popular Pendleton shirt), prompted a little national chart action and gained the renamed Beach Boys a contract with Capitol. The group's negotiator with the label, the Wilsons' father, Murray, also took over as manager for the band. Before the release of any material for Capitol, however, Jardine left the band to attend college in the Midwest. A friend of the Wilsons, David Marks, replaced him.

Finally, in mid-1962 the Beach Boys released their major-label debut, Surfin' Safari. The title track, a more accomplished novelty single than its predecessor, hit the Top 20 and helped launch the surf rock craze just beginning to blossom around Southern California (thanks to artists like Dick Dale, Jan & Dean, the Chantays, and dozens more). A similarly themed follow-up, Surfin' U.S.A., hit the Top Ten in early 1963 before Jardine returned from school and resumed his place in the group. By that time, the Beach Boys had recorded their first two albums, a pair of 12-track collections that added a few novelty songs to the hits they were packaged around. Though Capitol policy required the group to work with a studio producer, Brian quickly took over the sessions and began expanding the group's range beyond simple surf rock.

By the end of 1963, the Beach Boys had recorded three full LPs, hit the Top Ten as many times, and toured incessantly. Also, Brian began to grow as a producer, best documented on the third Beach Boys LP, Surfer Girl. Though surf songs still dominated the album, "Catch a Wave," the title track, and especially "In My Room" presented a giant leap in songwriting, production, and group harmony -- especially astonishing considering the band had been recording for barely two years. Brian's intense scrutiny of Phil Spector's famous Wall of Sound productions was paying quick dividends and revealed his intuitive, unerring depths of musical knowledge.

The following year, "I Get Around" became the first number one hit for the Beach Boys. Riding a crest of popularity, the late-1964 LP Beach Boys Concert spent four weeks at the top of the album charts, just one of five Beach Boys LPs simultaneously on the charts. The group also undertook promotional tours of Europe, but the pressures and time constraints proved too much for Brian. At the end of the year, he decided to quit the touring band and concentrate on studio productions. (Glen Campbell toured with the group briefly, then friend and colleague Bruce Johnston became Brian's permanent replacement.)

With the Beach Boys as his musical messengers to the world, Brian began working full-time in the studio, writing songs and enlisting the cream of Los Angeles session players to record instrumental backing tracks before Carl, Dennis, Mike, and Al returned to add vocals. The single "Help Me, Rhonda" became the Beach Boys' second chart-topper in early 1965. On the group's seventh studio LP, The Beach Boys Today!, Brian's production skills hit another level entirely. In the rock era's first flirtation with an extended album-length statement, side two of the record presented a series of downtempo ballads, arranged into a suite that stretched the group's lyrical concerns beyond youthful infatuation and into more adult notions of love.

 

Two more LPs followed in 1965, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) and Beach Boys' Party. The first featured "California Girls," one of the best fusions of Brian's production mastery, infectious melodies, and gorgeous close harmonies (it's still his personal favorite song). However, dragging down those few moments of brilliance were novelty tracks like "Amusement Parks USA," "Salt Lake City," and "I'm Bugged at My Old Man" that appeared to be a step back from Today. When Capitol asked for a Beach Boys record to sell at Christmas, the live-in-the-studio vocal jam session Beach Boys' Party resulted, and sold incredibly well after the single "Barbara Ann" became a surprise hit. In a larger sense though, both of these LPs were stopgaps as Brian prepared for production on what he hoped would be the Beach Boys' most effective musical statement yet.

In late 1965, the Beatles released Rubber Soul. Amazed at the high song quality and overall cohesiveness of the album, Brian began writing songs -- with help from lyricist Tony Asher -- and producing sessions for a song suite charting a young man's growth to emotional maturity. Though Capitol was resistant to an album with few obvious hits, the group spent more time working on the vocals and harmonies than any other previous project. The result, released in May 1966 as Pet Sounds, more than justified the effort. It's still one of the best-produced and most influential rock LPs ever released, the culmination of years of Brian's perfectionist productions and songwriting. Critics praised Pet Sounds, but the new direction failed to impress American audiences. Though it reached the Top Ten, Pet Sounds missed a gold certificate (the first to do so since the group's debut LP). Conversely, worldwide reaction was not just positive but jubilant. In England, the album hit number two and earned the Beach Boys honors for best group in year-end polls by NME -- above even the Beatles, hardly slouches themselves with the releases of "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" and Revolver.

The Beach Boys' next single, "Good Vibrations," had originally been written for the Pet Sounds sessions, though Brian removed it from the song list to give himself more time for production. He resumed working on it after the completion of Pet Sounds, eventually devoting up to six months (and three different studios) to the single. Released in October 1966, "Good Vibrations" capped off the year as the group's third number one single and still stands as one of the best singles of all time. Throughout late 1966 and early 1967, Brian worked feverishly on the next Beach Boys LP -- a project named Dumb Angel, but later titled SMiLE, that promised to be as great an artistic leap beyond Pet Sounds as that album had been from Today. He drafted Van Dyke Parks, an eccentric lyricist and session man, as his songwriting partner, and recorded reams of tape containing increasingly fragmented tracks that grew ever more speculative as the months wore on. Already wary of Brian's increasingly artistic leanings and drug experimentation, the other Beach Boys grew hostile when called in to the studio to add vocals for Parks lyrics like, "A blind class aristocracy/Back through the opera glass you see/The pit and the pendulum drawn/Columnaded ruins domino/Canvas the town and brush the backdrop" (from "Surf's Up"). A rift soon formed between the band and Brian; they felt his intake of marijuana and LSD had clouded his judgment, while he felt they were holding him back from the coming psychedelic era.

As recording for SMiLE dragged on into spring 1967, Brian began working fewer hours. For the first time in the Beach Boys' career, he appeared unsure of his direction. If SMiLE ever appeared salvageable, those hopes were dashed in May, when Brian officially canceled the project -- just a few weeks before the release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In August, the group finally released a new single, "Heroes and Villains." Very similar to the fragmentary style of "Good Vibrations," though a distinctly inferior follow-up, it missed the Top Ten. That fall, the group convened at Brian's Bel Air mansion-turned-studio and recorded new versions of several SMiLE songs plus a few new recordings and re-emerged with Smiley Smile. Carl summed up the LP as "a bunt instead of a grand slam," and its near-complete lack of cohesiveness all but destroyed the group's reputation for forward-thinking pop.

As the Beatles were ushering in the psychedelic age, the Beach Boys stalled with the all-important teen crowd, who quickly began to see the group as conservative, establishment throwbacks. The perfect chance to stem the tide, a headlining spot at the pioneering Monterey Pop Festival in summer 1967, was squandered. Though the Beach Boys regrouped quickly -- the back-to-basics Wild Honey LP appeared before the end of 1967 -- their hopes of becoming the world's preeminent pop group with both hippies and critics had fizzled in a matter of months.

All this incredible promise wasted made fans, critics, and radio programmers undeniably bitter toward future product. Predictably, both Wild Honey and 1968's Friends suffered with all three audiences. They survive as interesting records nevertheless; deliberately under-produced, with song fragments and recording-session detritus often left in the mix; the skeletal blue-eyed soul of Wild Honey and the laid-back orchestral pop of Friends made them favorites only after fans realized the Beach Boys were a radically different group in 1968 than in 1966. Sparked by the Top 20 hit "Do It Again" -- a song that saw the first shades of the group as an oldies act -- 1969's 20/20 did marginally better. Still, Capitol dropped the band soon after. One year later, the Beach Boys signed to Reprise.

The first LP for Brother/Reprise was 1970's Sunflower, a surprisingly strong album featuring a return to the gorgeous harmonies of the mid-'60s and many songs written by different members of the band. Surf's Up, titled after a reworked song originally intended for SMiLE, followed in 1971. Though frequently lovable, the wide range of material on Surf's Up displayed not a band but a conglomeration of individual interests. During sessions for the album, Dennis put his hand through a plate glass window and was unable to play drums. Early in 1972, the band hired drummer Ricky Fataar and guitarist Blondie Chaplin, two members of a South African rock band named the Flame (Carl had produced their self-titled debut for Brother Records the previous year).

Carl and the Passions: So Tough, the first album released with Fataar and Chaplin in the band, descended into lame early-'70s AOR. For the first time, a Beach Boys album retained nothing of their classic sound. Brian's mental stability wavered from year to year, and he spent much time in his mansion with no wish to even contact the outside world. He occasionally contributed to the songwriting and session load, but was by no means a member of the band anymore (he rarely even appeared on album covers or promotional shots). Though it's unclear why Reprise felt ready to take such a big risk, the label authorized a large recording budget for the next Beach Boys album. After shipping most of the group's family and entourage (plus an entire studio) over to Amsterdam, the Beach Boys re-emerged in 1973 with Holland. The LP scraped the bottom rungs of the Top 40, and the single "Sail on, Sailor" (with vocals by Chaplin) did receive some FM radio airplay. Still, Holland's muddy sound did nothing for the aging band, and it earned scathing reviews.

Perhaps a bit gun-shy, the Beach Boys essentially retired from recording during the mid-'70s. Instead, the band concentrated on grooming their live act, which quickly grew to become an incredible experience. It was a good move, considering the Beach Boys could lay claim to more hits than any other '60s rock act on the road. The Beach Boys in Concert, their third live album in total, appeared in 1973.

Then, in mid-1974, Capitol Records went to the vaults and issued a repackaged hits collection, Endless Summer. Both band and label watched, dumbfounded, as the double LP hit number one, spent almost three years on the charts, and went gold. Endless Summer capitalized on a growing fascination with oldies rock that had made Sha Na Na, American Graffiti, and Happy Days big hits. Rolling Stone, never the most friendly magazine to the group, named the Beach Boys its Band of the Year at the end of the year. Another collection, Spirit of America, hit the Top Ten in 1974, and the Beach Boys were hustled into the studio to begin new recordings.

Trumpeted by the barely true marketing campaign "Brian's Back!," 1976's 15 Big Ones balanced a couple of '50s oldies with some justifiably exciting Brian Wilson oddities like "Had to Phone Ya." It also hit the Top Ten and went gold, despite many critical misgivings. Brian took a much more involved position for the following year's The Beach Boys Love You (it was almost titled Brian Loves You and released as a solo album). In marked contrast to the fatalistic early-'70s pop of "Til I Die" and others, Brian sounded positively jubilant on gruff proto-synth pop numbers like "Let Us Go on This Way" and "Mona." However idiosyncratic compared to what oldies fans expected of the Beach Boys, Love You was the group's best album in years. (A suite of beautiful, tender ballads on side two was quite reminiscent of 1965's Today.)

After 1979's M.I.U. Album, the group signed a large contract with CBS that stipulated Brian's involvement on each album. However, his brief return to the spotlight ended with two dismal efforts, L.A. (Light Album) and Keepin' the Summer Alive. The Beach Boys began splintering by the end of the decade, with financial mismanagement by Mike Love's brothers Stan and Steve fostering tension between him and the Wilsons. By 1980, both Dennis and Carl had left the Beach Boys for solo careers. (Dennis had already released his first album, Pacific Ocean Blue, in 1977, and Carl released his eponymous debut in 1981.) Brian was removed from the group in 1982 after his weight ballooned to over 300 pounds, though the tragic drowning death of Dennis in 1983 helped bring the group back together. In 1985, the Beach Boys released a self-titled album that returned them to the Top 40 with "Getcha Back." It would be the last proper Beach Boys album of the '80s, however.

Brian had been steadily improving in both mind and body during the mid-'80s, though the rest of the group grew suspicious of his mentor, Dr. Eugene Landy. Landy was a dodgy psychiatrist who reportedly worked wonders with the easily impressionable Brian but also practically took over his life. He collaborated with Brian on the autobiography Wouldn't It Be Nice and wrote lyrics for Brian's first solo album, 1988's Brian Wilson. Critics and fans enjoyed Wilson's return to the studio, but the charts were unforgiving, especially with attention focused on the Beach Boys once more. The single "Kokomo," from the soundtrack to Cocktail, hit number one in the U.S. late that year, prompting a haphazard collection named Still Cruisin'. The group also sued Brian, more to force Landy out of the picture than anything, and Mike Love later sued Brian for songwriting royalties (Brian had frequently admitted Love's involvement on most of them).

Despite the many quarrels, the Beach Boys kept touring during the early '90s, and Mike and Brian actually began writing songs together in 1995. Instead of a new album, though, the Beach Boys returned with Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1, a collection of remade hits with country stars singing lead and the group adding backing vocals. Also, a Brian Wilson documentary titled I Just Wasn't Made for These Times aired on the Disney Channel, with an accompanying soundtrack featuring spare renditions of Beach Boys classics by Brian himself. Just as the band appeared to be pulling together for a proper studio album, though, Carl died of cancer in 1998.

Ten years after his first solo album, Brian became aware of his immense influence on the alternative rock community; he worked with biggest fans Sean O'Hagan (of the High Llamas) and Andy Paley on a series of recordings. Again, good intentions failed to carry through as the recordings were ditched in favor of another overly produced, mainstream-slanted work, Imagination. By early 1999, no less than three Beach Boys-connected units were touring the country -- a Brian Wilson solo tour, the "official" Beach Boys led by Mike Love, and the "Beach Boys Family" led by Al Jardine.

In 2000, Capitol instituted a long-promised reissue campaign, focusing on the group's long out of print '70s LPs, and updated remastering of the '60s LPs followed soon after. Brian Wilson continued his solo career into the 2000s with a string of popular albums, including a live run-though of Pet Sounds (Pet Sounds Live) and, in 2004, a concert tour as well as a re-recording around SMiLE. The surviving members next united in 2006 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds. Two years later, however, Jardine was forced to settle a lawsuit brought by Love and Carl Wilson's estate over the use of the Beach Boys' name in his touring band (which was renamed the Endless Summer Band).

Regardless of legal actions and strained relations, all of the band's surviving members were on hand in June 2011 for a special announcement: forthcoming were new live dates, reissues (including the first-ever release of The Smile Sessions; it appeared at the end of 2011), new recordings, and a spate of planned releases for 2012 that would feature all of the surviving members of the band who contributed the most to their '60s prime: Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and even David Marks. The new recordings included a version of their 1968 hit "Do It Again" and, by June 2012, a full album, including 12 original songs produced by Wilson and given the title of its first single, That's Why God Made the Radio; the album generated generally positive reviews and debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. Just before their 50th anniversary tour ended, in late September, Love announced that additional tour dates for the rest of 2012 would not include Brian Wilson, Jardine, or Marks. The brief reunion was commemorated on the May 2013 live album The Beach Boys Live: The 50th Anniversary Tour. Later that year, Universal released The Big Beat 1963, a collection of all the band's unreleased recordings for Capitol from 1963. This was the first of many compilations designed to extend Universal's copyright on the recordings; over the next few years, Keep an Eye on Summer: The Beach Boys Sessions 1964, Beach Boys Party! Uncovered and Unplugged, and 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow appeared. Additionally, a 50th anniversary reissue of Pet Sounds and a compilation of their earliest recordings called Becoming the Beach Boys: The Complete Hite & Dorinda Morgan Sessions arrived in 2016, as did the digital-only Graduation Day 1966: Live at the University of Michigan. The following year brought 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow, a double-disc collection of outtakes and rarities that also featured the first stereo mix of Wild Honey; it charted at 145 on Billboard's album charts. At the end of 1967, a companion collection called 1967: Sunshine Tomorrow 2: The Studio Sessions appeared alongside 1967: Live Sunshine. In December of 2018, a few months after the release of The Beach Boys with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Capitol released three archival digital-only collections: 1968 Wake the World: The Friends Sessions, 1968, I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions, and On Tour: 1968. The excavation of the archival vaults continued in 2021 with the release of Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969 - 1971. This extensive collection included remastered versions of both Sunflower and Surf's Up, as well as dozens of previously unreleased outtakes, bonus tracks, alternate mixes, and vocal-only versions of the songs. In the same vein, 2022's Sail on Sailor 1972 collected both the group's albums from the year -- Carl and the Passions - "So Tough" and Holland -- along with a raft of rarities that include a full Carnegie Hall live show.

While all this vault emptying was going on, the Mike Love-led group continued to tour, embarking on a "Sixty Years of the Sound of Summer" jaunt, playing the Grand Old Opry and setting sail on a Good Vibrations-themed cruise. In early 2023, the Grammys saluted the band's many years of excellence with a televised tribute. Titled A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys and featuring performances by artists as diverse as John Legend and Fall Out Boy, the living members of the group -- Wilson, Jardine, Marks, Johnston, and Love -- were on hand to watch. That same group of Boys reunited during the filming of the 2024 Disney + documentary The Beach Boys and were filmed at the same spot where the cover photo for their Surfin' Safari album was taken decades earlier. The Love- and Johnston-helmed version of the band went on tour during the next two years, hitting stages and festivals across North America. The group lost one of their founding members when Brian Wilson died in June 2025, but even that didn't slow down the touring as the group continued to play shows throughout the rest of the year and into the next. The beginning of 2026 also saw the release of a box set titled We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years. It featured recordings made in the late '70s at their custom built studio, including a remastered version of the Love You album as well as offical releases of songs from the shelved Adult/Child sessions and a handful of Brian Wilson's piano/voice demos”.

I did want to pay tribute to The Beach Boys. With a songbook stronger than pretty much any other group there has been, it was hard picking twenty songs. I feel these are the finest from the group. For those who are already fans and some who may not be overly familiar with their work, I hope the mix provides some guidance and illumination. A huge influence on artists through the years, the brilliance of The Beach Boys will endure…

FOR generations more.

FEATURE: Britain’s Quiet One on the Dial: Exploring Kate Bush’s 1984 Interview with Pulse!

FEATURE:

 

 

Britain’s Quiet One on the Dial

PHOTO CREDIT: Denis Oregan

Exploring Kate Bush’s 1984 Interview with Pulse!

_________

THERE are not too many…

interviews where Kate Bush discussed her musical tastes. Or specific songs at least. I did want to bring in a great 1984 interview with Pulse!. 1984 was a very interesting year. Kate Bush released Hounds of Love in 1985. By this time, there was a lot more American interest. I guess there was after 1982 and The Dreaming. It was a slow seduction. Bush never really touched America before that. They did not get her music and she did not tour the country or do too much promotion there. She was not bothered by this. However, the country did start to pick up on her brilliance by 1984. The release schedule in the U.S. was weird. The Kick inside, her 1978 debut, was released in America in March 1978 by Harvest Records (and later reissued by EMI America). 1984 saw Lionheart (1978) and Never for Ever (1980) released in America. Lots of debates as to why Bush was not that well received in the U.S. when her debut came out. I feel that it was too unusual for America. They could not really get their heads around someone as brilliant and unique as Bush. Perhaps more used to conventional music. In the sense that their tastes were a bit basic in 1978. Or they felt Bush was too British. Something odd that meant she did not get a lot of traction there. However, I feel the U.S. release and promotion was needed. Most artists expected to try and crack America. Six years after The Kick Inside came out, Kate Bush was starting to penetrate the America market:

“Kate Bush first touched America's music sensibilities in 1977 with the release of her first record, a mysterious, melodic collection called The Kick Inside [the album wasn't released until 1978] and an appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing strange mime to some of her more viscerally meaningful lyrics. While many viewers scoffed at the undefinable movement on the screen, some ran out in curiosity to buy the product behind the performance.

The Kick Inside feature Bush as writer, singer, and keyboardist, and dissects such esoteric subjects as telepathy, sensuality, incest, and the classic film Wuthering Heights. In 1977, a year laden with disco, Kate's vinyl presence stood out as new and original. But the Bush sound - unusual to be sure - has taken time to catch on in this country. While British critics call Kate "too commercial," because of her frequent appearances on family talk shows and other promotional venues, her label, EMI, has felt until recently that her records were "too British for American tastes." So, with only one of her four records available here domestically, Bush fans had to search the import bins for her product. Her second album, Lionheart, was suddenly released without explanation by EMI on January 13 and it entered Billboard's LP and tape charts at #202, Kate's first appearance on those charts.

"I don't know why they released it," said Caroline Prutzman of EMI in New York. "I think EMI believes in Kate and would like to see her break over here. They have all that material, and she does have a following, so it seems like a good idea." So good, in fact, that by the time this Pulse! hits the stores, EMI should have a domestic release of Kate's third album, Never For Ever, in the stores.

"It's hard to say exactly what they're trying to do." Prutzman commented, "but Kate's video (Kate Bush In Concert) has been playing all over the country, and it's been received very well." That video is also commercially available.

"Only two of my records have actually been released in America," Kate notes from her studio in Great Britain. "I was really pleased that there were so many people trying to get hold of the albums on import."

This sentiment is from a 25-year old lady who began writing songs at age 11. She says, "I didn't think I was going to do it for a profession. It was fun, something I really enjoyed. I spent most of my time create scenarios for songs. At 16 I had gotten to the point where my songs were presentable. That was after five years of writing ballads and slow songs like 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes.'"

Kate started recording her songs at that young age with the help of close friend David Gilmour [actually they weren't and aren't "close friends"], lead singer of Pink Floyd. Gilmour was so impressed with his pal's burgeoning talent that when she was 16 he introduced Kate and her vast collection of music to EMI.

"I signed a recording contract at 16. The hardest thing," Kate admits modestly, "was choosing the songs." Having stockpiled much more than an album's worth of songs, she was able to choose from the cream of the crop.

I do wonder what Kate Bush’s career would have been like if there had been this instant American interest and commercial success. I guess she would have performed there or done more promotion. Now, the country very much knows who she is and her music. A hard sell in the 1970s and 1980s, people getting her albums on import did show that the music buyers were interested. The press perhaps a bit less enamoured. Her songs spoke to something that was not being provided by other artists.

"Wuthering Heights," the first single, was a huge it in several European countries. "The story in 'Wuthering Heights' had been bugging me for about a month," Kate recalls, pondering on the lives on Emily Bronte's doomed lovers. "At the time I was recording the album, I began to down my thoughts on Cathy and Heathcliff and their incredible relationship. I really enjoyed the energy between those two."

And so did single buyers in England, pushing Kate Bush to superstar status her first time out. She toured the continent and Japan - where The Kick Inside still reigns as a national favorite - and returned six months later to record Lionheart, a quickly-produced recording that Kate now things [sic: thinks] harshly about: "I had only a week after we got back from Japan to prepare for the album. I was lucky to get it together so quickly. But the songs seem to me, now, to be somewhat overproduced. I didn't put enough time into them." She gave more time, and thought, to her 1980 release, Never For Ever, her first self-produced effort which, surprisingly enough, sported her first released single ("Babooshka") in the states and a big selling cult single in several American cities (the import "Army Dreamers").

The U.S. record buyer, however, ignored Kate until '82 when the rocker LP The Dreaming came out stateside in large quantities and suddenly the anonymity of a singer from Kent, England was reversed. That albums' hard sound proved to be her American kick-off, and due to the newfound saleability of Kate Bush, EMI quickly followed The Dreaming with a 1983 EP featuring some of her best material from the pervious four releases (called Kate Bush). Available only in the United States and Canada, this limited edition, with Kate dramatically poised in brass armor, was EMI's intended mode of bringing U.S. attention to Britain's singer elite.

Strength was her one motive when commencing work on The Dreaming, she says, explaining how for the first time she relied "on the power of the music" rather than sultry tunes and serene lyrics prominent in her previous albums. And the power in Kate Bush's music was an evolutionary process that is traced in the Kate Bush EP, fusing the new Bush force with those beautifics utilized in the earlier records.

"I was trying, in The Dreaming, to get myself up to the point I knew I was capable of," kate says of the search for power. "the Dreaming was my emotional image and I am thankful that I had good people to help with the dynamics."

It must have been quite strange for Kate Bush promoting her music around the world. Different releases for different countries. Having to do interviews for all these international sources and not really knowing whether it was making an impact and how they would receive her. I look back now and do wonder why America were so confused. Or why Kate Bush was not an instant success. The fact very few of her first four albums were released there did not help. The U.K. definitely took Kate Bush to heart. Though the U.S. somewhat slept on this icon. In 1984, when more of her music was available and there was this turning point.

The last studio effort took almost two years to complete as she needed to work with specific technical directors who, unfortunately, weren't always available for her. Today she works with only one. "I was looking for a certain imagination in an engineer and I ended up going with quite a few and working in many different studios," she notes. "That's not what I would've wanted to do."

The visual imageries that come across in The Dreaming are due, she points out, "to the painstaking time we took to get every effect perfect." >From The Kick Inside to the last album, movement has been an evident element in her work. Kate mentions how, "Back when I recorded Kick I had just discovered the enjoyment of dance and I was so knocked out by that, that writing was a breeze for me." Dance, and the fine art of movement, Kate says, are responsible for the free flow of many of her songs.

In The Dreaming, she lends a topical theme to many cuts. "Sat In Your Lap," a punk influenced homage to pop Brit culture circa 1982, shows off Kate's feelings on knowledge and education: "Knowledge is something sat in your lap/something that you never have," because, in the singer's eyes, "the more you realize, the more you need to learn." But other parts of the record present a more maudlin view of things: The crazed "Get Out Of My House" was inspired by the horrors in Steven Kings The Shining and utilized several overlapping tracks that simulate madness. Kate sings about a house that takes over, a house possessed by devilish innards.

"When I'm writing a particular song," she says excitedly, "I can feel a character so strongly that perhaps I'm feeling the same." Well aware that her songs provide listeners with some extreme characterizations, she finds it "terribly important ... to make the person I am writing about come alive. Unless I can somehow live the experience I don't feel that I've achieved what I want to as a writer."

The plan might have been to tour the U.S. at some point. She only ever toured once (1979’s The Tour of Life), and that other possibility of her going between U.S. cities and playing there. It would have been a huge undertaking and one that could have been a big financial loss. Not that Kate Bush was an underground success in America and someone that was only well received by college students and a certain audience. It did take an awful long time for her brilliance to be fully embraced there.

Kate is busy these days putting the pre-studio finishing touches on her fifth record. "I've been writing material for my new album - the songs are almost complete now," she said. "I hope to start recording in a couple of months when I've finished writing and tightening up the lyrics." As for the direction the record's music will take, she hasn't decided yet. She will venture to the U.S. later this year to promote it but not to tour. "It's a shame, but for now I don't see the possibility of a tour," she says with a sigh. "We can't afford to do it the way I'd want to." The way she wants to do it is right. For now she will wait and see the reaction to her newest product, and in the meantime hope that her American success continues to grow. About America, Kate is glad that video has made it to the forefront of entertainment. Having produced a clip for each single to date, on of her problems in not catching on here, she is well aware, has been the lack of video venues. These days most musically inclined cable channels carry Kate's work, both past and present. (According to ABC's 20/20, Kate was one of the ground-breakers in video production - years before MTV.)

On the twentieth anniversary of the Beatles' invasion, Kate said she only became "very interested in the Beatles about four years ago. I'd always liked their singles but only really started listening to their albums a little while ago. I think they are a great influence on any writer," she noted, "the quality of their work is something, I feel, every composer aspires to."

Specific songs have left their mark on Kate Bush: "So many records have left great impressions on me. It is always hard to just call them all to mind so quickly but to mention a few - "No. 9 Dream" by John Lennon: "I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles: "He's My Man" by Billie Holiday: "Best of Both Worlds" by Robert Palmer: "Really Good Time" by Roxy Music: "Tropical Hot Dog Night" by Captain Beefheart: "Montana" by Frank Zappa: music by Eberhard Weber, and "the Wall" by Pink Floyd (and pal David Gilmour)."

The first record this lady of music ever purchased was "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha" by Napoleon XIV. She was very young. Pondering the subject of when she got into music, said that, "I've always been into music. I was a child then and I think all children embrace music."

These days Kate finds she's too busy to get involved in pop culture. "Since I've been in the business I've had a lot less time to keep up with what's happening," she said regretfully. "I don't feel I have to 'keep up' as such, but I always love to hear good music and see new interesting bands."

But most of what she listens to these days is classical. "Very little contemporary - mostly old favorite records and Radio 4." Britain's quiet one on the dial”.

I do like how we get a segment on Bush’s music influence. I did not know that she was relatively late to The Beatles. I guess, when she said she only got into their albums around 1980, that would sort of align with John Lennon’s murder. That might have had an impact on Bush and compelled her to listen deeper. I might dig into those songs she mentions more for a future feature. A John Lennon solo song and one he wrote for The Beatles (I Am the Walrus). Her nod to Billie Holiday and Robert Palmer. Quite an eclectic taste. Maybe Bush was always more interested in older music. Not too many contemporary artists. How she listened to BBC Radio 4 and there was this sense of leaning on albums and songs that she loved when she was young. Even if she said she kept her ears open for new artists, even now, I feel Bush’s record collection is comprised more of stuff from the past. After 1984, things would change for Bush. Hounds of Love coming out the following year and becoming this massive success around the world. I wanted to highlight this 1984 Pulse! interview, as they were relatively new. Pulse! was a tabloid magazine published by Tower Records that started in 1983. They ceased publication in 2002. It was a great chat with an artist who was starting to get more spotlight and discussion in America. Still such a shame that the country did not ‘get’ Kate Bush…

FOR such a long time.

FEATURE: Hope and Loving… Predicting the Mercury Prize Winner

FEATURE:

 

 

Hope and Loving…

IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Dean

Predicting the Mercury Prize Winner

_________

ON 22nd October…

IN THIS PHOTO: Nia Archives/PHOTO CREDIT: Stuart Nimmo

the winner of this year’s Mercury Prize will be announced. Taking place at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle, it is going to be a wonderful event. There has been criticism that this year’s dozen shortlisted albums is largely comprised of mainstream artists. Rather than spotlight debut albums and rising artists, this year is very much about established artists. Many asking whether this year’s Mercury Prize has lost its way and is betraying its roots. It has always mixed bigger and smaller artists in its shortlist, though you have to ask whether many of the artists shortlisted need the award and what it says if they win. The twelve albums are Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp, Dove Ellis – Blizzard, Florence + The Machine – Everybody Scream, JADE – THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY!, Knats – A Great Day in Newcastle, Kojey Radical – Don't Look Down, Nia Archives – Emotional Junglist, Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving, Paul McCartney – The Boys of Dungeon Lane, RAYE – THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE., Suede – Antidepressants and War Child Records – HELP(2). It is broad in terms of genres though, aside from Dove Ellis, Knats and possibly Nia Archives, the rest of the dozen artists are firmly established. There are albums that I know definitely will not win. Of course, you can never predict who will win, though I am pretty sure Paul McCartney will not. It is great he is nominated, though his latest album is fantastic, yet there are stronger in the list. He is also extremely wealthy and famous, so I think there would be some outrage if he won! Though it is great that a Beatle is shortlisted! I also don’t think War Child Records will win. Perhaps Knats, Dave and Suede are outsiders. Even though Dave released a masterpiece in The Boy Who Played the Harp, I have a feeling he will not win a second time (he won in 2019 for his debut, PSYCHODRAMA).

Florence + the Machine are a lot of people’s favourite, though I feel they will be overlooked. Everybody Scream is an incredible album. Again, artists more worthy and albums that are stronger. It would be great to see Dove Ellis win. Not least because Blizzard is his debut album and he is an Irish artist. Keeping the Mercury Prize out of London and giving it to a debut album would be a popular choice. I just feel there are three albums that are going to be fighting it out. Two that I feel will go head to head for the prize. There were reaction pieces to the shortlist. Still Listening asking, if an award that should be championing independent artists is dominated by major-label albums, can we still hold the Mercury Prize in high esteem? It is an interesting question:

“Between them, Universal, Sony and Warner are involved in 10 of the 12 shortlisted releases. BMG accounts for the remaining major-backed nominee.

That's a remarkable level of concentration. Of course, being signed to a major label doesn't make an album bad. Plenty of fantastic records are released through Universal, Sony and Warner every year. Nor is there any rule saying Mercury nominees should be independent. The prize has never been exclusively for indie labels. It exists to reward the best British and Irish album, regardless of genre or commercial performance.

But it does raise an uncomfortable question. If Britain's most prestigious music prize is almost entirely populated by artists backed by billion-pound corporations, who's championing genuinely independent artists? Where are the self-funded breakthroughs? Where are the tiny labels taking creative risks? Where are the albums that don't arrive with global marketing campaigns and international distribution networks already behind them?

Perhaps that's exactly the problem. If the Mercury Prize simply mirrors the industry's existing power structures, then it inevitably becomes less useful as a platform for artists operating outside them. Independent labels have increasingly become acquisition targets. Distribution deals have blurred the line between indie and major, while the biggest companies now control many of the pathways that once allowed genuinely independent artists to break through.

The Mercury Prize has never promised to reward independent artists. But when almost every shortlisted record is backed by one of the biggest music companies on Earth, it's fair to ask whether something has been lost. It should still be the place where people discover their next favourite artist, not simply another celebration of the companies that already dominate the industry”.

Even though I would love Dove Ellis, Nia Archives or Knats to win this year, I feel there are three artists that are going to be favourites. All three are women from or based in London. I do feel it is important that a female artists wins, as they have been dominating music for years, so it would reflect that quality and contribution. All three women are signed to major labels or are mainstream artists. JADE is going to be in the running. I do feel that the main focus will be on Olivia Dean and RAYE. Dean’s The Art of Loving is a hugely commercial success and won critical praise. It has scooped awards and is definitely one of the best albums of the past year. Given her momentum and success, I feel The Art of Loving might just nip RAYE with THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. Again, another huge album that received huge applause and was a fan favourite. Even if each artist is established and has a massive following, you cannot deny the impact their albums made. I will come to a review of each. Ending by considering, if my two favourites are these massive artists, what course the Mercury Prize needs to take next year. And whether it indeed will. RAYE’s THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. is a statement of independence and strength from RAYE. This is what NME wrote in their five-star review:

“Grandeur is at the core of ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, RAYE’s second album, and it’s awe-inspiring. To deliver this glory, the artist born Rachel Keen can be found making her way through a smorgasbord of sounds across the ambitious record’s 73-minute runtime, from melodramatic ballads to exhilarating funk tunes and, of course, the jazz-pop she’s become so known for. It’s admittedly a lot to take in, but the brilliance that comes from RAYE’s unrestrained, all-in approach is worth the journey.

‘This Music May Contain Hope’, a concept album focused on overcoming insecurities and heartbreak, is framed like an extravagant theatre performance. Here, RAYE is both the subject and the omnipresent narrator. “Allow me to set the scene. Our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder,” she says on opener ‘Girl Under The Grey Cloud’ set to orchestral strings. There are more bits of spoken word strewn throughout, ones that smartly give the album a bit more structure and grounding – almost like listening to the cast recording of a Broadway musical.

With that foundation, the South London singer gives herself the room to be indulgent with the album’s wide-reaching sonics, which pays off far more often than not. At times she leans into the show tune-ness of the concept – such as on the outro of the otherwise slinky R&B of ‘The WhatsApp Shakespeare’ – and at others she plays it straight, like the slow burning power ballad of ‘I Know You’re Hurting’. She even returns to her club sound of yore on the spectacular house banger ‘Life Boat’.

Throughout it all, two things are very evident: RAYE’s agile voice has never sounded so good, and her pen has never been so strong. Just take cheeky album standout ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’, a swing-jazz tune that recalls Ella Fitzgerald where she sings “I’m okay to be lonely / If I’m lonely and skinny / I have such silly self-loathing thoughts, it seems”, or the heartbreaking details of ‘Nightingale Lane’: “It was right there, early June / Next to Old Park Avenue / Standing in the rain, I watched him walk away”.

For all the self-doubt and heartache that RAYE takes us through, in the end, she does come out the other side and delivers on the title: this album does indeed contain hope. She summons her girlfriends on ‘Click Clack Symphony’ (aided by Hans Zimmer), learns how to move on with the help of Al Green on silky ’70s soul mid-tempo ‘Goodbye Henry’, and calls on the heavens (and her sisters Amma and Absolutely) in order to be “free of all the pain and every fear” on the foot-stomping ‘Joy’. After the “rainy night” and “thunder” of the spoken word opener, RAYE discovers that “the sun exists behind the clouds”, as she says on ‘Happier Times Ahead’.

‘This Music May Contain Hope’ is RAYE firing on all cylinders – and then some. It’s showstopping musical maximalism at its grandest, while still being grounded in relatable experiences and unbridled emotions. Again, it’s admittedly a lot to take in – but that’s also why it’s so glorious, every theatrical flourish and stylistic detour a declaration from RAYE that she is finally making music for herself”.

I am going to come to a review of the world-conquering The Art of Loving. The Guardian said of The Art of Loving that “this exceptionally well-made record is full of diaristic detail and sweetly understated vocals”. Since it was released last September, it has gone double platinum in the U.K. It is a colossus of an album. One that might be too big and popular to not win the Mercury Prize:

“If you have been paying any attention to the UK singles chart recently, it can hardly have escaped your notice that for the last couple of months it has been utterly dominated by the soundtrack for the Netflix smash KPop Demon Hunters. At the time of writing, Golden, by the cartoon’s chief protagonists Huntr/x, is enjoying its seventh week at No 1: a couple of weeks back, songs from the film would have occupied seven places in the Top 10 had chart rules not limited artists to three appearances in the Top 40.

“The most striking challenge to its supremacy has been mounted by London singer-songwriter Olivia Dean. Her single Man I Need has been dug in at No 2 for the last month and has been joined in the Top 10 by its predecessor, Nice to Each Other, and her collaboration with Sam Fender, Rein Me In. Further down the Top 20, her old single Dive is enjoying an unexpected new lease of life. Were it not for a made-up K-pop band, one suspects we’d be talking about Dean’s ongoing success as the pop phenomenon of the moment, and not just in the UK: Man I Need is the fifth most played song in the world on Spotify at the time of writing.

Dean’s 2023 debut album, Messy, attracted respectful but mixed reviews and did respectable, rather than remarkable, business. It spawned a hit single in Dive, but seemed very much standard-issue stuff – tasteful neo-soul replete with vintage horn arrangements, ballads accompanied by lo-fi, slightly out-of-tune piano, tracks that opened with the sound of crackly old vinyl. Its author did the type of things that tasteful British neo-soul artists do: appearing on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny belting out You Can’t Hurry Love, covering The Christmas Song as part of a seasonal Amazon campaign, turning up on the soundtrack for the new Bridget Jones film alongside Jamie Cullum and George Ezra. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of that, but nor did any of it suggest that Dean was the kind of artist built to contest the dominance of a $100m (£74m) smash-hit animation, the soundtrack of which has topped the charts in 16 countries.

So how has it happened? High-profile support slots on Sam Fender and Sabrina Carpenter’s stadium shows early in the summer probably helped broaden her audience, but the real answer seems to lie on The Art of Loving. While you wouldn’t describe it as a complete reinvention, it certainly constitutes a noticeable rethink. It expunges most of the cliches of Dean’s debut album – or rather quarantines them on a track called Close Up – and instead looks for inspiration to music that emanated from recording studios in 70s LA. The Art of Loving dabbles in both Rumours-adjacent soft rock – you’re never far from a sun-dappled electric piano line or a breezy acoustic guitar; Baby Steps offers up slick, yacht rock-y funk – and, on So Easy (To Fall in Love), Carpenters-style MOR pop that would once have been considered entirely beyond the pale.

It’s a sound that’s familiar without feeling hackneyed or self-consciously retro: Something Inbetween is powered by a muffled rhythm that sounds like someone playing a techstep drum’n’bass track with a duvet over the speakers; lurking in the depths of Nice to Each Other there’s a wash of shoegaze-y guitar noise and gusts of ambient synth drone. Airy and inviting, it suits Dean’s sweetly understated vocals – mercifully lacking affectation, either of the post-Winehouse “jazzy” variety or the weird, consonant-mangling “indie voice” that’s supposed to connote intimacy in 21st-century pop – and adds a cinematic gloss to her lyrics. Dean is big on diaristic detail as she navigates ex-related angst and tentative new relationships: “I don’t know where the switches are, or where you keep your cutlery.”

Perhaps more importantly, Dean and her co-authors – including Tobias Jesso Jr, and Matt Hales, who once plied his trade as singer-songwriter Aqualung – have significantly upped their game. Every chorus has been polished until it catches the light (Baby Steps offers a particularly gleaming example), while one suspects that an enormous amount of effort has been expended on making the melodies of Nice to Each Other and I’ve Seen It sound as effortlessly charming as they do.

So the album breezes past. It’s exceptionally well made but feels entirely natural; it’s mainstream commercial pop, but laudably devoid of obvious cliches. If Dean’s debut seemed like an artist trying to find their place in the landscape by ticking relevant boxes, The Art of Loving seems like someone finding their own voice. The sight of Olivia Dean battling a cartoon K-pop band in the charts’ upper echelons is proof that pop in 2025 is a business you can’t really predict, but still, The Art of Loving’s success seems a foregone conclusion”.

Although I think it is likely that the Mercury Prize will come back to London, it will not stay there too long. One of the worst traits is that, for so long, it was London artists winning. Last year, Sam Fender won for People Watching. He is from the North East. The year before, English Teacher won for This Could Be Texas. The band are from Leeds. There has been a huge London dominance the past decade or so. It would be great if it were to stay out of the capital, as it is now being stayed in the North East, whereas before it was hosted in London. You can never predict which way the Mercury judges will go on the night, but I feel Olivia Dean will win. RAYE is her biggest challenger. When the winner is announced, I do feel that questions needs to be asked. People will ask why heavyweight artist need to be nominated for an award that should be for artists who will not be included in the BRIT Awards, GRAMMYs and major ceremonies. It is for the outsiders and independent artists. I want to end with Drowned in Sound and their reaction to this year’s shortlist:

“The Mercury Prize is undoubtedly a stamp of greatness that sees the winner’s sales and streams skyrocket; the prestige matters. Could it not be more useful therefore to spotlight an album that’s recognisable at least to some degree, perhaps with some critical acclaim, a cult following, or word-of-mouth buzz, but that hasn’t had much of a mainstream boost but could still cross over? Many of these artists or albums don’t ‘need’ that extra nod that the Mercury Prize provides, unlike artists who genuinely flourished further as the result of their nomination or win like Young Fathers, Ezra Collective or English Teacher in recent years.

This is what I mean by a lack of ‘outsider art’. Keep to the mainstream (mostly) and lists start looking homogenous. Reaching further out, especially to artists on the rise or on independent labels, ensures a freshness and unpredictability can be maintained. There are a few albums I had in mind that could have been great Mercury nominees, which had both done well in their own right but deserved a larger audience and could be appreciated by a wider range of people.

This year, if it were up to me, I’d have slotted the Loathe album A Stranger To You into the nominations. It's an album album, experiential and cerebral, and though it has a metal pulse I envision it as a record that could become that one metal album for people who don’t think metal is for them. In fact, its introduction and interludes borrow from hip-hop and spoken word, thanks to the rhymes of their collaborator bucki sugar. Meanwhile, it eschews metal’s dark tones for technicolour, emotional but with many shades of positivity and hope encased within it. It’s beautifully unique, an album that could reasonably be quantified as art.

When I refer to ‘outsider art’, metal is one of the music forms I am thinking of. My thoughts on the Mercury Prize’s indifference to metal could form an entire newsletter in itself, but its continued lack of inclusion is certainly reflective of how music that’s in the margins, or coming away from the margins, is ignored. A metal album has never won, after all. Though its chair of judges Simon Frith once dismissed it as a ‘niche’ rather than a genre in its own right, that point fails to wash in an era where metal has affirmed it is standing up ready to be counted. And if jazz can be a part of the Mercury Prize as it so often is - not shirking it of course - why can't metal be?

To quote Keith Kahn-Harris in my current read, The Beautiful Death of Ozzy Osbourne: "Metal is beginning to take its place in the diverse firmament of established human cultures with longstanding traditions. To ignore it, to treat it as ephemeral, increasingly means to be blind to the existence of part of the cultural foundation of modern life."

The Mercury Prize doesn’t need to become a celebration of the obscure and make itself stuffy and elitist. What it can do is cast its net wider. It can let people discover something they might not otherwise have heard. It can make the field open for anyone, from any career point or any genre, and make itself more exciting than ever”.

On 22nd October, we will discover which album walks away with the Mercury Prize. Despite there being the odd smaller artist who is worthy of the award, the sheer number of major artists means it is likely that one will win. Though never count out the likes of Dove Ellis or Knats. I do feel it will either by RAYE or Olivia Dean; the latter would be my prediction. The Art of Loving is a juggernaut album that keeps on gathering praise and success, so I feel the judges will acknowledge that when they make their division. Whoever wins the Mercury Prize, 2027 needs to be a year when there is a pivot back. Not completely comprised of debut albums and smaller acts, there needs to be more balance, as this year’s shortlist has rightly earned criticism. That said, the thought of Paul McCartney sitting alongside Kojey Radical as everyone holds their breath is…

KIND of cool.

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Halsey

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

Halsey

_________

THE remarkable…

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Pardini for Rolling Stone UK

Halsey is one of our true greats. All of her albums are incredible. I think that her latest, 2024’s The Great Impersonator, is her finest. She is a campaigner, activist and a multi award-winning who has inspired so many people around the world. In addition, Halsey has appeared in films. I think she is a tremendous actor, and I hope that she gets more roles. Lead roles. She is a magnetic presence. Halsey has also been involved in suicide prevention awareness, sexual assault victim advocacy, and racial justice protests. A tremendous and inspiring figure, her back catalogue is distinctly hers. One of the most distinct and accomplished voices in music. I want to get to AllMusic and their biography of Halsey:

“New York-bred singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Halsey has swiftly ascended from the underground to become a global, hitmaking star with her dramatic blend of pop, electronic, and alternative rock. Making their major-label debut in 2014 on Astralwerks with the double-platinum Badlands, she soon became a fixture at the top of the charts after scoring an unexpected smash hit with electronic duo the Chainsmokers, "Closer." Sophomore effort Hopeless Fountain Kingdom secured their first U.S. album chart-topper, while late-2010s singles "Bad at Love," "Him & I," and "Eastside" racked up platinum certifications and kept her firmly planted on the radio. 2020's Manic included "Without Me," Halsey's first number one single as a solo artist. In 2021, she took an artistic leap on the concept album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It became the singer's fourth consecutive album to hit the Top Five of the Billboard 200 and she remained on the charts with non-album tracks like "So Good" and "Die 4 Me." In 2024, she released her fifth album, The Great Impersonator.

Born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane in Edison, New Jersey, the artist grew up playing violin, viola, cello, and guitar while also taking inspiration from the likes of Alanis Morissette, Justin Bieber, and Brand New. That cross-genre spirit helped inform her later work, a dark and emotive pop blend that found an audience in both the mainstream and alternative spheres. Taking her stage moniker from a Brooklyn L train subway stop, she debuted with the single "Ghost," which resulted in a deal with Capitol-owned electronic/dance label Astralwerks in early 2014. Their debut EP, Room 93, arrived that October. In 2015, Halsey released her debut full-length, Badlands, which featured production from Lido, the Futuristics, Son Lux, and others. In addition to "Ghost," the album included the hit "New Americana," "Colors," and "Castle," a version of which also appeared on the soundtrack to The Huntsman: Winter's War. Earning early comparisons to Chvrches and Lorde, Badlands debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart and sold well, ultimately achieving double-platinum certification status.

Continued success came in 2016, when her featured appearance on the Chainsmokers' "Closer" helped push the single to the top of the charts around the world, eventually receiving dozens of platinum certifications in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and beyond.

In 2017, Halsey returned with the single "Not Afraid Anymore," which was featured on the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack. Three months later, she released "Now or Never," the first single from her sophomore album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. Featuring collaborations with Sia, Greg Kurstin, and Benny Blanco, the LP landed in June 2017, topping the Billboard 200 and producing another Top Five hit single, "Bad at Love." A remix of the LP's dark pop single "Alone," featuring Big Sean and Stefflon Don, arrived in March 2018. Later that year, she was featured on Blanco's solo single "Eastside" alongside singer Khalid. The track became a Hot 100 hit and added to her late-year boost: Halsey was featured in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (voicing Wonder Woman) as well as the Lady Gaga vehicle A Star Is Born. By the end of the year, she notched her first number one single as a lead artist, "Without Me," featuring an interpolation of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River."

Halsey started 2019 with a series of high-profile collaborative singles including "11 Minutes" with Travis Barker and Yungblud, and "Boy with Luv" with K-pop superstars BTS. Promotion for her third full-length, Manic, started in earnest that spring. Singles "Nightmare" and "Graveyard" marked a darker, more introspective direction for the set, while third single "Without Me" had already become her first number one-charting single as a main artist. Manic finally saw release in January 2020; it reached number two on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum in the U.S. An EP, Collabs, arrived in July and saw Halsey teaming up with artists like Juice Wrld ("Life's a Mess") and Marshmello ("Be Kind"). Badlands (Live from Webster Hall), a concert album celebrating the five-year anniversary of her debut, was released one month later.

After a particularly fruitful year, Halsey returned in 2021 with her fourth studio effort, the Grammy-nominated If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power. A conceptual album focusing on pregnancy and childbirth, it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. Produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the August arrival was paired with an accompanying film of the same name. In addition to Reznor's and Ross' familiar sonic touches, If I Can't Have Love... also featured the talents of Lindsey Buckingham, Dave Grohl, Dave Sitek, and many more. Halsey's first outing of 2022 was the sultry, low-key single "So Good," followed by "Stay with Me," a collaboration with Calvin Harris also featuring Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. Another non-album track, "Die 4 Me," arrived in early 2023, reaching 27 on Billboard's Pop 100 chart.

Halsey's next album era kicked off in 2024 with "The End," the first single from The Great Impersonator. Her fifth studio LP, the set explored different facets of her life and personality through the lens of major influences and inspirations such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, Amy Lee, Bowie, Cher, Aaliyah, and more. In 2025, Halsey released the non-album single "Safeword" as well as the Amy Lee collaboration "Hand That Feeds," recorded for the action thriller Ballerina”.

I am ending with a twenty-song mix from Halsey. I wonder if there will be another album coming along in the next couple or few years. Busy with touring and other commitments, Halsey is going to be in the industry for many years more. A unique talent who I have been following since her 2015 debut, Badlands, I wanted to celebrate her here. A twenty-song mix from an artist…

LIKE no other.

FEATURE: Spice Up Your Life: Thoughts on a Proposed Spice Girls Comedy-Drama

FEATURE:

 

 

Spice Up Your Life

PHOTO CREDIT: Universal Music Group

Thoughts on a Proposed Spice Girls Comedy-Drama

_________

THERE have been a lot of…

rumours around Spice Girls. Their debut album, Spice, turned thirty this month. Whispers that there might be a stage reunion or something special. In terms of getting them on stage, you would hope that they could find a way to do that. Spiceworld turns thirty next year. I did wonder if they are keeping their powder dry and are going to headline Glastonbury. That would be an amazing thing to see and great timing. However, it is probably quite unlikely. I feel there is an appetite among original fans of the group and new followers to see them perform. Can Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell-Horner unite and deliver something extraordinary? They are all in different stages of their career. To be fair, Melanie Chisholm is the only prolific member of the group. Melanie Brown and Geri Halliwell-Horner have not released albums since 2005. Victoria Beckham in 2001. Emma Bunton did put an album out in 2019, My Happy Place, though that followed a long gap after 2006’s Life in Mono. Sweat is Melanie Chisholm’s sixth studio album. She is the most active of the Spice Girls, so it might take a lot of rehearsals until all five clicked and were back to their best. Even if a Glastonbury headline slot would be amazing, you feel the members might never negotiate a stage performance. Also, where will it lead? They probably don’t want to record new material, so it would be this nostalgia thing. Though Oasis are doing it, yet you wonder when it will stop or what the end goal is. Will they tour every year or is there another album coming? For Spice Girls, things are a bit different. I feel like relationships within the group are a bit more strained or complicated than Oasis now. A comedy-drama, rather than a biopic, might not be the most obvious next step when it comes to their music and legacy. However, as NME write, we may see one come to the screen. Albeit it one with a little bit of a twist of the normal:

“Big Boys creator Jack Rooke has revealed that he is developing a “fun comedy drama” about the Spice Girls, with a script already having been written.

The BAFTA-winning writer discussed the potential project while appearing on BBC Sounds podcast Sidetracked With Annie And Nick this week.

Asked about the prospect of telling the Spice Girls’ story, Rooke confirmed that he had been working on something that he sees as going beyond the traditional music biopic format.

He described it as a “fun comedy drama”, adding that a script had been written by himself and a “lovely little group of gals and gays”.

Rooke stressed that the project has not yet been confirmed for production, but said discussions are ongoing and that he hopes the Spice Girls themselves will approve of what they have developed.

Rooke said the group represented the first time he remembered seeing working-class women openly pursuing huge ambitions within British pop culture, while acknowledging that critics have long pointed to the enormous commercial machine that surrounded the band”.

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Spice Girls’ cinematic history is brief and not too spectacular. I am imagining casting and what that will look like. People mocking the actors who were cast to play the Beatles in four films that are coming out in 2028. Photos of them filming drawing criticism because of the lack of conviction. Wigs being used and everything being a little odd! Though we cannot say how Sam Mendes’s films will look and what form they will take. I do wonder about a Spice Girls comedy-drama and what form it takes. It sounds like it could be interesting, though nothing has been confirmed so far. It is very much in the early stages. Though it does spotlight Spice Girls again. Right now, we are thirty years on from their debut, Spice. Looking to next year and the thirtieth anniversary of Spiceworld. A big moment when we remember how they took over the world, there are always these rumours that they are going to do something. The group shooting it down. You do feel like something needs to happen. 1996 was obviously a massive year for them. I feel, by next year, there is going to be even more call for Spice Girls to get back onto the stage. I am not sure how they feel about that prospect and if it would be a one-off concert or a tour. No doubt there will be a Spiceworld reissue in 2027 to mark thirty years. The comedy-drama, if it happens, will keep their name and music at the forefront. People might say that Spice Girls were of their time and are not relevant now. Not only are there are a lot of new artists inspired by them. They have this amazing legacy. The Conversation explored it for a feature published earlier this year:

“The band’s debut album, Spice, is the best-selling album by a girl group in history. Their global reach helped solidify the late 1990s and early 2000s as a peak era of British pop culture exports. Throughout their career the band had nine UK number one singles as a group, and eight solo number ones. No other girl group comes close to that total.

But the band’s significance cannot be measured by sales alone. The Spice Girls helped normalise the idea that female acts could dominate the global market on their own terms, without conforming to male-defined industry expectations. For example, they sacked a male manager in the maelstrom of their success and managed themselves while enjoying several more number one singles, platinum album sales and sold-out tours.

The Spice Girls also exerted an unusual degree of control over their music; notably cowriting all of their songs and challenging the industry norms that often sidelined female artists in decision-making processes. In doing so, they anticipated later debates about authorship, authenticity and agency in pop – decades ahead of modern conversations about music ownership and power such as Taylor Swift’s journey to owning her own master recordings.

The legacy of the Spice Girls is not without tension, however. “Girl power” has been both celebrated in that it made feminism accessible to young people and critiqued as a commodified slogan that reduced complex political ideas to marketable soundbites. At their last reunion tour in 2019 Geri repackaged “girl power” into “people power”.

Beyond the music, the Spice Girls have become an omnipresent element of British pop culture in recent years with Royal Mail stamps, Royal Mint official British currency and a collaboration with the English female rugby team. This shows that the Spice Girls’ iconic imagery is well and truly canonified in the British pop culture vernacular much like The Rolling Stones, Oasis and The Beatles.

Three decades on, the Spice Girls continue to be revisited in ways that alternate between celebration, nostalgia and critique, reflecting ongoing debates about gender, commerce and pop culture in the 1990s”.

Whilst the legacy may be a little complex or there might be too many divisions and issues for them to perform together again, we cannot deny how important Spice Girls are. A comedy-drama, even if it is not a biopic, is a risky thing. So many fail or strike the wrong balance. The tone not being right. Are there going to be actors playing the Spice Girls, or is it a production that uses their music? Though Jack Rooke’s proposed idea does sound like it could be a success. Thirty years after their debut album was released, and Spice Girls have lost none of their potency. They redefined the girl group and took control of their image and career. Something that no doubt empowered so many women that followed. Their messaging of female friendship, autonomy, far from being a gimmick, was something that they believed in. The importance of sending those messages to their young fans. Their impact and importance resonates…

THREE decades later.

FEATURE: More Than Just Friends: Why the London Show Marking Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black at Twenty Will Open the Album to a New Audience

FEATURE:

 

 

More Than Just Friends

Why the London Show Marking Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black at Twenty Will Open the Album to a New Audience

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IT is emotional…

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse in 2006/PHOTO CREDIT: Harry Benson

marking twenty years of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. That is her final studio album. She died in 2011. The album is getting a reissue that will be out on 23rd October. The album turns twenty on 27th October. It is one of the greatest albums of all time, so it will be interesting having this reissue. The unreleased demos and outtakes will give us a bigger picture of this classic album. Although we can never get anything new from Amy Winehouse, there are these demos and recordings that fans have not heard. What is interesting is a one-off show that will celebrate Back to Black. Rolling Stone UK provide more details:

“A special one-off London show to mark 20 years of Amy Winehouse‘s Black To Black has been announced, featuring appearances from the likes of Mark Ronson and Jorja Smith.

The Back To Black 20 concert will take place at the Roundhouse in Winehouse’s native Camden on October 21, just days before the 20th anniversary of her seminal second album.

Winehouse’s band will perform Back To Back in full, with the evening led by album producers Ronson and Salaam Remi and the singer’s longtime musical director Dale Davis, among other figures.

The songs will be performed by an array of handpicked guest vocalists including Sasha Keeble, Baby Rose, Corinne Bailey Rae, FLO, Skye Newman, Jorja Smith, Lianna La Havas, Nia Smith, Jessie Reyez and Yebba.

“I’m honoured to be asked to come celebrate Amy alongside Salaam and some amazing artists worthy of singing her songs,” said Ronson. “Doing justice to the legacy of ‘Back To Black’ is the order of the night.”

Remi added: “Funny how time flies! I can’t believe it’s been 20 years already. I’m excited to see what these ladies bring to their versions of these songs we know and love.”

Fans hoping to gain access to the artist pre-sale for the Roundhouse concert can pre-order any 20th anniversary edition of Back To Black from Winehouse’s official store by 12pm on Monday (September 28) to receive an exclusive pre-sale code. Tickets then go on general sale at 10am on October 1 here.

The Back To Black 20 show will also be recorded for broadcast. BBC Two will in October as the main show of a night celebrating Winehouse, while BBC Radio 2 will broadcast the show on October 26 from 7pm to 9pm as part of Jo Whiley’s programme.

The Roundhouse also holds special significance as it was the site of Winehouse’s final public appearance on July 20, 2011, when she performed with her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield as part of the iTunes Festival. Winehouse passed away at her Camden home three days later.

It is going to be a massive show. These artists who are performing are more than contemporaries. They are huge fans of Amy Winehouse and have, in their own ways, been influenced by her. Those in attendance will obviously be fans of Amy Winehouse, but I think there will be people who have not heard Back to Black. The fact that it is also being broadcast will wider the album to a new audience, though I think it is the people on the bill sharing the news and updates that will push Back to Black beyond the BBC Radio 2 audience. We can hear artists today who have been inspired by Back to Black, though we will see that heighten to. On its twentieth anniversary, there is going to be people discovering this album fresh. What I think will happen is that rising artists will pick up the album or hear the show and that will motivate them. You can draw a line between artists such as RAYE and Jorja Smith and Amy Winehouse. We are going to see many more artists cite Winehouse and Back to Black as an influence following its twentieth anniversary. A lot of times, when you get album anniversaries marked with a special show, you have seemingly random artists put in there. I am reminded of Graceland and a concert shown on the BBC. It seemed a little odd in terms of the selected artists and didn’t really add too much to the album. With Back to Black, this is a mix of Amy Winehouse’s collaborators/friends and artists who very much owe her a debt. The fact that this material means so much to them and this show is so important. You can feel the gravitas of it. I feel that is why it will create this ripple where so many people listen to the album and explore Amy Winehouse’s work.

GRAMMY published a feature in 2024 that explored the legacy of Back to Black. It definitely changed Pop music forever. Twenty years after its release and you can feel its impact running through music. Whether it is an artist who has elements of Amy Winehouse’s voice and delivery. The subjects written about. The production sound. It will continue to impact and shape music for years more:

“She Heralded The Arrival Of The Alt Pop Star

When Amy Winehouse hit the stage, people remarked on her big voice. She had classic, old-time torch singer pipes, like Sarah Vaughn or Etta Jones, capable of belting out odes to lost love, unrequited dreams, and crushing breakups. And while those types of singers had been around before Winehouse, they didn’t always get the chance — or grace required — to make their kind of music, with labels and producers often seeking work that was more poppy, hook-packed, or modern.

The success of Back To Black changed that, with artists like Duffy, Adele, and even Lady Gaga drawing more eyes in the wake of Winehouse’s overwhelming success. Both Duffy and Adele released their debut projects in 2007, the year after Back To Black, bringing their big, British sound to the masses. Amy Winehouse's look and sound showed other aspiring singers that they could be different and transgressive without losing appeal.

Before she signed to Interscope in 2007, "nobody knew who I was and I had no fans, no record label," Gaga told Rolling Stone in 2011. "Everybody, when they met me, said I wasn’t pretty enough or that my voice was too low or strange. They had nowhere to put me. And then I saw [Amy Winehouse] in Rolling Stone and I saw her live. I just remember thinking ‘well, they found somewhere to put Amy…’"

If an artist like Winehouse — who was making records and rocking styles that seemed far outside the norm — could break through, then who’s to say someone else as bold or brassy wouldn’t do just as well?

Amy Showcased The Artist As An Individual

When the GRAMMY Museum hosted its "Beyond Black - The Style of Amy Winehouse" exhibit in 2020, Museum Curator and Director of Exhibitions Nicholas Vega called the singer's sartorial influence "undeniable." Whether it was her beehive, her bold eyeliner, or her fitted dresses, artists and fans had adopted elements of Winehouse’s Back To Black style into their own fashion repertoire. And though it’s the look we associate most with Winehouse, it was actually one she had truly developed while making the record, amping up her Frank-era low-slung jeans, tank tops, and polo shirts with darker eyeliner and much bigger hair, as well as flirty dresses, vibrant bras, and heels.

"Her stylist and friends were influential in helping her develop her look, but ultimately Amy took bits and pieces of trends and styles that she admired to create her own look," Vega told GRAMMY.com in 2020. While rock ‘n’ rollers have always leaned into genre-bending styles, Winehouse’s grit is notable in the pop world, where artists typically have a bit more of a sheen. These days, artists like Miley Cyrus, Billie Eillish, and Demi Lovato are willing to let their fans see a bit more of the grit — thanks, no doubt, to the doors Winehouse opened.

Winehouse also opened the door to the beauty salon and the tattoo studio, pushing boundaries with not just her 14 different vintage-inspired tattoos — which have become almost de rigeur these days in entertainment — but also with her signature beehive-like bouffant, which hadn’t really been seen on a popular artist since the ‘60s.It’s a frequent look for contemporary pop divas, popping up on artists like Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, and Dua Lipa”.

That Roundhouse show on 21st October is going to be a big event. It is going to be a chance to pay tribute to Amy Winehouse, but also bring this incredible album to life in a unique way. It will not stop there. We are going to see young fans and artists alike speak about Back to Black and what it means to them. Major artists like Jorja Smith and Sasha Keeble posting about the event and writing words about Back to Black. Shining a new light on this masterpiece twenty years later. Even though we lost Amy Winehouse over fifteen years ago, with Back to Black and the legacy it has, it is like she is…

STILL very much with us.

FEATURE: How Useful Are Kate Bush Song Rankings? Inside Spectrum Culture’s Mammoth Undertaking

FEATURE:

 

 

How Useful Are Kate Bush Song Rankings?

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Lichfield

Inside Spectrum Culture’s Mammoth Undertaking

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YOU have to take your hat off…

PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris

to Spectrum Culture, as they are ranking Kate Bush’s 146 songs. Everything that she has recorded as part of her discography, there are always going to be some obvious songs placed quite low. Ones that are B-sides or seen as a bit more filler. I am writing this on 27th September, and they shared their first part recently. I am prepared that The Kick Inside might have a couple of songs positioned low. Though, in the first six songs, three are from The Kick Inside. Rankings are subjective, but The Kick Inside is one of Bush’s most loved albums. In recent years, it has gained more praise and focus. I concede not all the songs are magnificent, but it was a bit bracing seeing a few ranked right near the bottom! I was especially shocked that L’Amour Looks Something Like You and Them Heavy People are so low. Room for the Life was also very low. I suspect that a couple of Hounds of Love classics will be in the medal positions. It is always challenging, with an artist like Kate Bush, deciding which of her songs are ‘the worse’. In my mind, there are songs that deserve to be in those low slots that are not. Again, it is the opinions of people who are not me, so there is no definitive listing. I do love that her songs are getting this treatment, though I wonder whether song rankings can draw people to her work. Whether they will fuel debate. I hope so. Let’s take a look at what was said about two songs I feel should be in her top fifty – and not languishing right near the bottom of the barrel:

“143. “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” [The Kick Inside, 1978]

Entering with a piano tinkle not unlike that of the better-known “Wuthering Heights,” “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” sports a smooth but undistinguished melody line that’s at its most appealing on the title phrase. Composed in 1977, one of the later-written tracks for Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, “L’Amour”’s vocals and instrumentation are comparatively restrained. The song drew little notice amongst contemporary critics of the album; a notable exception was Peter Reilly of Stereo Review, who found the “human” sexuality of the track appealing. But the melody and traveling chord progression evidently had its appeal to fans and fellow musicians; the song was subsequently covered in a jazzy, loungey take by The Aluminum Group for a 2018 tribute album, I Wanna Be Kate, as well as in a slowed-down piano take by Yuri Kono, and by guitarist Shelley Doty.

“L’Amour” finds Bush experimenting with more complex lyrics, with mixed success. “I’m hanging on the Old Goose moon” is a reference to an Indigenous North American term for the full moon that corresponds with the seasonal return of migrating geese. Language like “My eyes were shining on the wine and your aura” and “Sailing down a black reverie/ My heart is thrown to the pebbles and the boatmen” offers vivid, if occasionally opaque, imagery. But the track is also an awkward ode to sexuality, boasting some cringeworthy lines (“I’m dying for you just to touch me/ And feel all the energy rushing right up-a-me”), culminating in “All the time, I find I’m living in that evening/ With that feeling of sticky love inside.” Perhaps consider a shower, Kate? – Valerie Polichar.

141. “Them Heavy People” [The Kick Inside, 1978]

Bush or her handlers felt strongly enough about “Them Heavy People” to release it as a single. However, not strongly enough to put that single out anywhere but Japan.

One of the tracks on The Kick Inside written when she was a teenager, Bush built the song around its chorus. The phrase “rolling the ball” popped into her head one day and she crafted the song soon after on the piano.

Though Bush would later write more successfully about obscure historical figures like Wilhelm Reich, her inclusion of G.I. Gurdjieff feels more like an adolescent quoting Kant than true understanding. The notion here is that Bush is suspended in some sort of dream-like state or not fully conscious, an idea promoted by Gurdjieff, an Armenian/Greek mystic who believed that most ordinary people operate automatically, spiritually unawake. The reference to “heavy people” in Bush’s song isn’t a weight-ist jab, but rather a tribute to the teachers who inspired her to wake up, both mentally and physically.

Meanwhile, the Japanese single featured a Seiko logo. Bush would also appear in commercials for Seiko during the time. Spirituality as a cash-grab.

Even Bush didn’t like the album version much, finding it mechanical and lacking humanity. Superior live versions are available online, including one from the only time she appeared on Saturday Night Live. Oh, and check out this parody version called, “England My Leotard.”

Bush would later say the song feels like a “hymn” whenever she sings it, but the lifeless version found on The Kick Inside is one of her weakest studio songs, one that feels surprisingly lightweight even with so much, um, heavy preternatural awareness. – David Harris”.

I guess Culture Spectrum’s feature will wrap up by the end of the year, as they have a way to go. Whilst rankings lists like this will probably not shift people’s opinions as to which are the best and worse songs – they definitely won’t for me -, I do hope that they lead to discussion. Highlighting lesser songs that are mentioned. I take umbrage at some The Kick Inside classics being so low, but it is their right to place them there!

I am going to follow the lists carefully. My hope is that there are some lesser-discussed tracks that feature highly. I think most lists, when it comes to Kate Bush’s best songs, have the same ones in the top ten. You might feel that is because they are her best songs, but if everyone chooses the same ones, then what is being added?! What I like about Culture Spectrum is the detail they are giving to each song. I am hopefully that a few songs from The Kick Inside will place high. I was shocked to see Violin ranked 142! It is much stronger than that. These lists are subjective, though I am curious what most offer us. If there is not a lot written and similar songs keep cropping up, are we learning anything about Kate Bush and these tracks?! It seems unlikely. Even if their radar is not quite aligned with mine, Culture Spectrum are adding more to the debate than a few dry lines: “To a greater extent than many artists, questions like “Is this good?” and “Does this work?” aren’t necessarily the most interesting ways to consider Bush, and therefore each instalment of the ranking promises to be illuminating”. I might do some other features reacting to their lists. For now, as they have decided on the six-worst (or least essential) Kate Bush songs, I needed to have a say. “Of course, it’s Kate Bush, so it’s a meta metal song full of literary and historical references, corkscrewing chord changes, bizarre yawps and banshee wails. It’s metal by way of King Crimson, Genesis and Roxy Music”. That is what was said about Violin. I feel it warrants a much kinder place in their feature. However, it can leads to discussion among fans. Why Kate Bush’s best tracks are so lauded and important. Why some songs miss the mark. So much to discuss. So many ranking lists are brief and are a little pointless. Even though I do source it a bit, The Guardian’s 2018 singles ranking is too brief and lacks real insight into each tracks. MOJO did a little better but, again, a bit too brief. In terms of their top fives, quite similar. This may be something Culture Spectrum do, but they will give more depth to the choices and why they are there. I do hope there are a few surprises higher up. Will Get Out of My House (from 1982’s The Dreaming) make the top ten? Is Wuthering Heights going to be ahead of Hounds of Love or Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)? We shall find out. It is good that there is this exhaustive song rankings with essays for each. I hope that other rankings lists follow suit. Not naming every Kate Bush track but, if they do a top twenty, spending a bit more time with each song. Only then do I think we will truly have useful and constructive rankings. If they are a few words for each song, then it is not particularly helpful to anyone. Although I am not thrilled The Kick Inside featured fairly heavily in their list of the six ‘worst’ Kate Bush songs, as they say, they…

HAVE to start somewhere!