FEATURE Kate Bush: The Whole Story: Spotlighting a Very Special Fan Interaction

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Spotlighting a Very Special Fan Interaction

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LOOKING at a post that appeared…

on social media relating to a time Kate Bush went the extra mile with a fan makes me want to revisit her connection with those who love her music. I wrote about this recently, but I wanted to focus on this one particular interaction. I think there were times early in her career, in 1978, when fans would ask for a photo and she would send one that might be considered risqué. Not a deliberate thing, it was just the promotional photos that were being taken. It does not really happen today, as social media makes it impossible. Major artists especially have huge followings and they cannot realistically respond to all comments and requests. I can only imagine how busy the DMs are for artists on Instagram. Many have teams that handle that and people who can filter out things. It must also be a minefield, as they get so many nasty comments too. I do not envy the life of an artist now. Kate Bush herself is not on social media, and she would not get anything else done if all she did was respond to comments and messages. However, she was a woman in demand back in 1978. After the release of Wuthering Heights in January 1978 and the international success that accrued, there was of course a lot of fascination and appreciation. People who had never heard of her listening to this song and being struck. I feel she would have received a lot of letters on w weekly basis. Not able to respond to every one, she did send quite a few replies to fans. Appearing at the odd fan club meeting and convention. Someone who wanted to show her appreciate to those who support her. However, there is something about a response to a fan who loved Wuthering Heights but did not know what the lyrics were.

Of course, this is pre-Internet and a time when the only way you could learn about lyrics and what they were was having a good ear! It must have been quite frustrating getting this sort of information. Perhaps thinking it was a long shot, what strikes me about this Twitter post is how other people responded saying Kate Bush replied to them. I am not sure whether we could go back to the days when people write to artists and there is a fan club. How practical would it be?! However, a fan wrote a lovely letter that presumingly went along the lines of saying they were a fan of loved Wuthering Heights and please could I have the lyrics? Delightful and a bonus for a teenage fan, though in retrospect she might have gone with something else! I any case, this must have touched her, as someone was genuinely invested in the words and wanted to know what they were. A lot of the press in 1978 ridiculed Kate Bush or felt her weird and a short-term artists. Fans were different. They were the ones who were truly dedicated and understood her. Bush would have got a load of letters like this, and she took the time out to reply to the fan. The fan was named David. It is a crying shame that David auctioned off his letter. No huge or true fan would let go of anything this precious! Auctioned it in 2014, when Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn residency began, it does seem opportunistic and foolhardy. However, maybe he had no sentimental tie or love of that letter all those years later. Far Out Magazine wrote in 2020 how David spoke about his experience and writing to Kate Bush:

“Speaking to Huffington Post when putting the letter up for auction in 2014, David wrote: “In 1978 I was 14 years old when Kate Bush released ‘Wuthering Heights’. At the time, the song was the most extraordinary thing I had ever heard and I was utterly mesmerised by her performance when she appeared on Top of the Pops”

“I was in love with the song so I wrote to EMI Records for the lyrics,” he continued. “Much to my amazement a few weeks later I received a reply from the lady herself. She had not only hand written all the lyrics for me, but also included a letter and a signed photograph of herself – an image that, at the time, was this teenage boy’s dream and made me the envy of all my friends!”.

 If someone else does have it, then they must appreciate the magnitude and significance. What Bush says in her reply. How she was “thrilled” to get that letter and how it is no trouble to provide the lyrics – and, sweetly, she writes how it certainly won’t cost him anything (David cutely asking if he would need to pay!). David, in his letter, wrote that he read Wuthering Heights. Kate Bush didn’t when she was first inspired to write the song, so maybe he was affected by someone writing a song about a book particular to him. I would have loved to have seen David’s original letter, as you have to piece together what he wrote. Bush wished him luck in everything he does and said ‘God Bless’ and included three kisses. A very special and warm letter. This young artist, who was already under the wheels of endless media attention and interviews, making sure that this loyal young fan got to see the words to this unique chart-topping single. It raises the question as to whether you can write to artists now. I would love to write to Kate Bush, though it is almost impossible to send it to her management and get it read by her. I can appreciate how many people would do that, and it would not be something she’d like. However, for projects and requests about professional engagement, it does seem like this big hurdle you need to jump over to get to her! In a weird way, it was easier to connect with something in 1978 – before computers and the Internet – than it does in this technological age; where anyone can write a comment about an artist in mere seconds. The photo of the lyrics that Bush wrote is a little blurry, but you can make it out. Beautifully written, she divides it by verses and chorus. What is must notable about Kate Bush’s response letter is where she was sending it from. Not at Wickham Farm (her family home) or 44 Wickham Lane (where she moved to), this letter has the letterhead of the Hotel Interconnectional in Paris. And Kate Bush including a photo taken by Gerd Mankowitz where you can see her nipples! A bonus for a teenage fan, though you wonder if it was the wisest choice and whether Bush should have sent a different shot!

 I wonder if this is the InterContinental Paris Le Grand, which faces the Place de l'Opéra? Maybe she was on a break in Paris and the letter was forwarded. For The Tour of Life in 1979, Bush did perform at the Theatre Des Champs Elysees Paris on 6th May. I wonder if she was booked at the Hotel Intercontinental for that date and was reading through some fan mail. This would date the communication to about sixteen months since Wuthering Heights came out. It is plausible. The single reached number fourteen in France, though the album it is from, The Kick Inside, went to number three. She had this clear and big fanbase in France. Perhaps Kate Bush remembers writing that letter, though she must have had quite a few letters she responded to. People coming out and sharing memories of Kate Bush writing back to them. Lucky David in this case, though many others around the world did get a letter or signed photo from Kate Bush. She does sign things now, but I am curious when was the last time she wrote a letter to someone. A dizzying time for Kate Bush, a lot of 1978 and 1979 was exhausting for her. She could easily have sent a signed photo and slip to say she was busy but thanks for the letter. Instead, she sat down in her Paris hotel room and wrote out the lyrics to Wuthering Heights. Wherever that response was going – not sure if David was U.K.-based or not -, David would have been beaming when he opened that letter! No doubt framing it or keeping it somewhere special, it would be sad if he gave it away or auctioned it. One of my dreams, aside from interviewing Kate Bush, is to get a letter from her. I know she has sent emails to some fans but the days of her writing fans probably ended decades ago. Recalling that time in 1979 (?) when she answered David’s letter showed how amazing she is! That personal connection and relatability. Treasuring her fans and being so friendly, few artists took the time to reply to their fan mail like that. A big reason why Kate Bush is…

SO special.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Amma

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Su Müstecaplıoğlu

Amma

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ONE of the most talented…

PHOTO CREDIT: Loïc Rodrigues

families in music, Lauren Keen is known as Amma. Her sister is RAYE, real name Rachel Keen. Abby-Lynn is known as Absolutely. I have featured her before. I am shining a spotlight on Amma, as she released the E.P., Blame Game, last year. A tremendous artist that I am very excited about, there are some interviews to drop in. The first of a couple of interviews that I want to come to is from Numéro Netherlands from last year. For Amma, music was never the plan early on. She started quietly writing songs and eventually doors opened. She is one of the most promising young artists coming through:

“You've said becoming an artist wasn't the plan. What changed during that quiet songwriting moment that pulled you toward music?

Music has always been a part of my life. Even when I tried to escape from it, it pulled me back. At this point, I had been a writer for about three years. I was on a writing trip in LA and it was a tough trip for me as I was very in my head and feeling quite sad. I then went for a meeting with one of my publishers and the A&R label. We were going to have the meeting about artists in the label and what I could do for their projects. About 20 minutes into the meeting, we ending up talking about me as an artist. I kept deflecting the topic, which I personally think I’m really good at doing, and after a while, I allowed the conversation to open up. As I was in the car driving back home, I felt the best I had on the whole trip. I started asking myself why I thought that was and slowly started laughing out loud because I was starting to accept the fact that it had planted a seed of fire in my stomach for something I may have been pushing away.

My next thought was “Ok, if I am going to do this, what am I doing it for?” Which became the title of a song I wrote about me becoming an artist. This song allowed me to release a lot of thoughts and emotions that had been going through my head and was unable to decipher. This led me to drop my pride and lean into the idea of really putting my art out there”.

You come from such a musical family. How did growing up alongside RAYE and Absolutely shape your approach to creativity and self-expression?

Growing up in a family like mine is really a blessing. We have had so many fun music moments, but like any family, there are times we don’t get along and we argue and bicker. I am so grateful I was given my sisters. It’s been hard understanding and finding my identity in such a bold family. I constantly compare myself to them when creating and I feel that if I don’t compare myself, someone else in the room will. I guess it’s a self defense mechanism.

I’ve been to writing sessions for other artists and been told “Can you do it like Abby?” or “Put some RAYE into it.” A lot of the time I would just say OK with a cute smile on my face and ignore it, but there were and still are times when it gets to me. However, once I started creating songs for me, things really started to shift. I started to understand what I liked and what I didn’t. I stopped thinking what would my sisters do. It then felt easier to go and share music with my sisters, without being afraid of getting honest feedback. We usually share music with each other when we are in the car. Driving home to our parents for Christmas or going to our uncles and aunties houses. We will authentically and naturally take turns sharing our new music as we sometimes don’t get to hear what each other’s been up to for months at a time.

How has your songwriting evolved since you first started, and what's surprised you most about your own growth?

Wow, my song writing has changed dramatically. There used to be times I’d create a whole song, listen to it back as soon as I’ve finished and then delete the whole thing. I had a really high standard for myself and of the music I made. If my expectations weren’t met, it was really hard for me to want to get back in the studio and start again. This was a very repetitive cycle for me, until I eventually made a song that I didn’t hate. It was the first song I didn’t delete and wasn’t as embarrassed by. Fast forward to today, where I now really understand my writing process. I can feel when I need to create and can also feel when I’m forcing it too. What’s surprised me most about my growth from the first song to now is most likely my ability to really create something I am proud of. That was one of the hardest tasks for me to do when writing, and now I have created a fair amount of songs I love. Even now, I wrestle with saying that out loud.

You've said your music isn't to center yourself, but to connect with others. What's been the most meaningful reaction you've received to your work so far?

I think there are a lot of songs in my projects that have brought out different reactions in people, one of them being a reaction from my older sister RAYE. I am definitely more of a quality time and acts of service person when showing love. However, my sister is physical touch and words of affirmation, which I give her none of unless she is really sad. Not dramatically sad, but really sad. I wrote a song called ‘if not you, who?’ for her.

We were speaking the day before I wrote this song and I was worried about going in and not feeling inspired. There can be times where my sister doesn’t understand me at all and starts talking about experiences she’s had, which has nothing to do with what I’m saying, but on this day, she said all the right things and it really helped reassure me and my ability to create. I made this song and then showed it to her that night on Facetime, and like the emotional person she is, she started to cry and told me all the things she loved about the song, but more importantly, how it made her feel. To me, that’s the most important thing about my music right now. What it can do for someone else”.

Actually, a couple more interviews before I wrap things up. I want to get to Occhimag and their 2025 feature about Amma. A brief reflection and chat, this is someone who I think will grow to the same level as RAYE. In terms of releasing these stunning albums and commanding huge stages. It is only a matter of time before Amma is getting serious attention and focus:

“For London-based singer-songwriter Amma (Lauren Keen), music was always in the air—but never in her plans. Growing up surrounded by melody and rhythm, she initially resisted the path that seemed predestined. “It felt like the last thing I wanted to pursue,” Amma reflects. Yet, as life often proves, the things we push away sometimes hold the greatest pull. It was during a quiet, introspective moment—writing a song solely for herself—that Amma’s journey as an artist truly began. That song, born from solitude and sincerity, soon found its way into the wider world, catching the attention of industry insiders and propelling her into label meetings she never expected.

Amma’s artistry is rooted not in emulation, but in emotion. She isn’t driven by the industry’s biggest names; instead, she finds inspiration in artists who are unafraid to feel deeply and honestly. “No matter what I’ve felt, another human has felt it too,” Amma shares. “Although our stories differ, the emotions we experience are something we all share universally.” This empathetic approach shapes her songwriting, which continues to evolve through collaborative sessions, late-night bedroom musings, and harmonies with her sisters—fellow artists RAYE and Absolutely. While singing has always come naturally, finding her unique voice as an artist has required patience, bravery, and several leaps of faith”.

I will end with an interview from FLAUNT, where Amma, RAYE and Absolutely were together. Three sisters talking about their careers and lives. It was great to see them all photographed together and in conversation giving their own reflections. I want to focus on words from Amma:

“Amma, I was listening to your tape, Middle Child. On the opening track “What Am I Doing It For?” you’re very candid about finding your place, identity, self-confidence, self-belief, trust. How did you get to that place?

Amma: It was definitely a lot of ups and downs for me. I’m quite prideful, so I kind of, like—
RAYE: No, you’re not!

Amma: I am a little when it comes to music.

RAYE: You have a high standard for yourself.

Amma: Okay, yeah, my standard is quite high, so it was difficult writing music and not feeling like I was reaching the standard, especially when I would hear things that [RAYE] or Abby [Absolutely] had created, and being like, “Wow, this is really amazing,” and then hearing things I would create and be like, “Okay, we have so much work to do.”

One day I was just having a bad experience when I was in LA—because I was writing for other artists—and I went to a meeting meant to be for other artists in that label. Twenty minutes into the meeting, it was about me and my own artist project, and I was like, “That’s not happening!”

I left that meeting after allowing it to become a fake reality for a bit, and I thought, “Okay, well, maybe I should just dive into this and see where it can bring me.” I went home to my Airbnb that day, and got my setup on my bed, and it kind of just came out. I remember just recording the a cappella, “mmmm, aahhh” things and the lyrics just kind of came out, which I kind of find is the easiest way to write on my own.

By harmonizing and then figuring things out through that, on your own?

Amma: I really find it so easy writing through acoustic guitar. I’ll build up the production after, because that’s the way I get emotion, is through the chords feeling vulnerable too, you know?

Amma, I remember hearing you say recently that being a musician wasn’t your initial vocation. What would your vocation have been if not music?

Amma: If I could do anything other than music, I would 110% be a therapist. I mean, this kind of songwriting in itself, understanding people’s stories and being able to put it in a song so that there can even be healing from that. I feel like I do [my music] when I feel super upset, I’m like, “Oh, I think I’m meant to write, because I haven’t written in so long, and I’m just so emotional. I must write something.”

What do each of you think the role of an artist is in 2025?

RAYE: It’s a form of hope. When I think back to even, like, COVID times, everyone was really feeling it. That actually was a moment where I felt like, “Oh my gosh.” You really realize when the world’s going through this, how all of this stuff is so important.

Amma: A lot of people feel alone in a lot of emotions that they feel. But actually, there are only 27 distinct emotions, meaning everyone has felt something. Like, you’ve been sad? [I’ve] felt exactly the same. Our stories may be different, but we can feel the same emotion. So for me, I feel like putting my story across so that people can understand that the feeling that they’re feeling isn’t an isolating one, but can be shared.

Absolutely: I think about my music, from people that it’s a place where they can really be immersed, and be transported into a different world.

RAYE: That’s beautiful.

Amma: That’s nice”.

If you do not know about Amma, then make sure that you follow her. The E.P., Blame Game, is extraordinary! This is someone who is going to have a long future in the industry and release so much great music. She does come from this very much family. Currently on tour with RAYE supporting her on the THIS TOUR MAY CONTAIN NEW MUSIC, it is a busy ands exciting time for Amma. However, rather than compare her to RAYE and Absolutely, Amma is her own artist, though there is that sibling connection and shared talent. It is clear that Amma is someone that you…

NEED to follow.

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Follow Amma

 Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/amma/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6rYqTmpl2LNEovR30mauo2?si=QVKXRbNRTteVhEWnmLSJhw

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf7tb4eSgiTMOsa4yA4hbYw

FEATURE: So Hard (To Fall in Love): Can An Artist As Successful As Olivia Dean Be Seen as Underrated?

FEATURE:

 

 

So Hard (To Fall in Love)

Can An Artist As Successful As Olivia Dean Be Seen as Underrated?

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I was going to sort of leave it…

and not really comment on it, but there was this interview with journalist Alexis Petridis, where he spoke about Olivia Dean. He writes regularly for The Guardian and is one of the most prolific journalists in this country. It was interesting what he was saying. How Olivia Dean is this honest and extraordinary artist. Making Pop music that is not boring but is very engaging and popular. In spite of the fact that she has won major awards, including GRAMMYs and BRITs is it possible that we are sleeping on her music?! That she is flying under the radar. I realise I have written about her a fair bit recently, though it is important to discuss this incredible songwriter. How she has this ‘girl-next-door’ persona and is making this incredible music but it is sort of being overshadowed. Her latest album, The Art of Loving, is a chart success, in spirt of the fact that it was released last September. With as clutch of awards and more coming possibly, her rise has been somewhat talked about less than more of the visually-driven Pop artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. That is what Alexis Petridis argued. Of course, one might say that it is impossible to be that much of a beloved artist and win awards and be seen as underrated or under-discussed. Sure, The Art of Loving got great reviews and a tonne of praise, and Olivia Dean has an adoring fanbase. Yet, there is not the same kind of discussion, exposure and hype that many of her Pop peers receive. Perhaps that is not the worst thing when we consider the downsides of that. Being in the public gaze and having that sort of focus on you. Yet, a songwriter this extraordinary and talented should be heralded more. Her music dissected and played more. I had not seen anyone really make a point like this before regarding Olivia Dean.

She is quite a private person, though I don’t feel like she is someone who would reject a lot of celebration and the same sort of spotlight that many of the bigger U.S. artists receive. I have seen articles from around 2023 when her debut album, Messy, came out. That was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and you sort of have to feel like The Art of Loving is going to be nominated. I am not sure about the eligibility rules. However, what Petridis said about Olivia Dean and her music not getting the attention it warrants. Her being overshadowed. It opens up an interesting question and debate. Look at articles written after her award success at the GRAMMYs and BRITs and many people say she has transitioned from being underrated and rising to a megastar. Chart success too. This is all commercial recognition. Do we value artists based on awards and chart positions only? Granted, one cannot say that Olivia Dean is under-awarded or going without industry recognition. However, this is a different thing. It might be a cultural thing. How major U.S. artists get amplified and there is a different way of treating artists. One can argue that Olivia Dean is a better and more complete and successful artist than someone like Sabrina Carpenter. I celebrated Carpenter recently and really love her music. However, Dean has been putting out music for quite a few years now and I don’t feel she has yet gained the sort of love and commentary that is earned. In terms of highlighting the brilliance of the music and talking about her deeply not only as one of the finest songwriters of her generation. Olivia Dean is also one of the most compelling and inspiring artists. The fact that she does not have the same sort of lifestyle and celebrated as some of her peers. This relatable and humble artist who is all about the work and does not get involved with the fame side of music.

You could say that this might be a reason why she is being slept on slightly. Looking at the reaction comments to that Alexis Petridis interview for The Guardian’s Today in Focus interview argues Olivia Dean has not been slept on and she is getting loads of attention. Others criticising that label of ‘girl-next-door’, which might be slightly sexist, belittling or old-fashioned. A term that should be dropped. She is simply honest, nice, big-hearted and warm. ‘Girl-next-door’ suggests something slightly insulting or reductive. I would disagree that Olivia Dean is completely underrated and has gone under the radar. What I would say is to make the distinction between someone who has won awards and chart success and artists who are discussed by journalists, their music written about and the artist being written about. It is that clash of the commercial side and the critical. Also, it is fair to say that Dean has not always been spoken about in the most respectful and positive tones. It is clear that she is a very special artist and someone who does not follow the mainstream Pop herd. True to herself and not compromising, The Telegraph wrote about Olivia Dean earlier in the year and highlighted what separates her from other artists:

“Unlike the current crop of reigning female pop superstars – Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo – Dean doesn’t alienate older listeners with risqué outfits or graphic songs about sex. She sings about love, yes, but in PG terms: it’s soft, gentle, and romantic (her breakthrough single Man I Need centred on the pithy chorus “Tell me you got something to give, I want it / I kinda like it when you call me wonderful”). There are no bad boys here, unless you’re choosing to believe the internet rumours from a few years ago that she was dating Harry Styles.

A music industry source, who worked on the campaign for Dean’s 2023 debut album Messy, adds that her success is the result of years of hard work. “Olivia has put the time in. She’s been doing non-stop gigs and festivals for years now and it’s finally paid off,” they tell me. “You couldn’t meet a nicer person either, she’s in it purely for the music.”

It was striking, too, how positively old-fashioned a pop star Dean seems compared to her fellow nominees for this year’s Best New Artist accolade: you had TikTok favourites Addison Rae and Sombr, the slickly manufactured “global girl group” Katseye and Christian crooner Alex Warren, whose dreadful 2025 chart-topper Ordinary almost made me swear off pop music for good.

Dean’s music and image, in comparison, owes more to the glory days of Motown than today’s pop charts. She makes uplifting, sugar-coated songs that still possess depth and soul, and her music offers a welcome respite to the trauma-dumping occurring in much of popular culture. Our world is growing ever more divided, toxic and brutal, and sometimes people want music that makes them feel good rather than reminding them of every one of life’s imminent tragedies”.

I think just some of the labels attributed to her and how she is perceived. Rather than explore why Olivia Dean is such an amazing artist and what makes her songwriting so distinct, there are these comparisons to other artists. It is a bad habit of mine too: instantly comparing female artists with one another. This idea of pitting them against each other, rather than respecting them on their own terms and recognising that artists who are more provocative or expressive in a sexual way are to be as commended and saluted as much as an artist like Olivia Dean. Not see the former as bad and immoral or wrong and the latter as innocent, old-fashioned or pure. My initial question of whether Olivia Dean is underrated or not might need rephrasing. Compared to a certain type of artist, is she regarded as highly? Whilst she has an army of fans, there is not quite that same sort of mania. I do think that there needs to be more column inches dedicated to her phenomenal lyrics and what she puts into her music. Also, how she conducts herself as an artist and remains so grounded and stable. Rather than wonder why she has not got massive headline festival slots and is being cast in films or what you’d expect from an artist of her calibre, perhaps not comparing her with other women! It is something I have been guilty of, and it does help the conversation. I respect all of these amazing women, but wondering why she is not a British Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter is not constructive and is problematic. Instead, we must commend this artist who has released one of the best albums of the past decade with The Art of Loving. All it has achieved. How memorable her videos are and the aesthetic there. In interviews, how wonderfully and warmly Olivia Dean comes across. That she could decamp to L.A. or New York and record for months but prefers to be at home and do it in her own setting. That is refreshing and commendable. That the measure of success is not doing what you would expect a major artist to do. In that respect, we do not rate Olivia Dean as highly. Instead of comparing her to other women and creating a divide, the astonishing Olivia Dean needs to be celebrated…

IN her own right.

INTERVIEW: After Eden

INTERVIEW:

ALL PHOTOS: Jason Joyce

After Eden

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ONE of my very favourite artists…

is the superb After Eden. I think I first connected with her music when She’s a Church was released in 2019. 2020’s Outlaw was another remarkable single. In 2024, she put out Hello, and appeared alongside Echoes and Sam Supplier. Now, the incredible Forgive Me is out. With Echoes and Mark Eteson alongside her, this might be one of her best releases. An artist I hope produces more material and we see perform live, as she is a tremendous talent. Go and follow her on Instagram. I have been asking After Eden about Forgive Me and working alongside Eteson and Echoes. I also asked about her upbringing and whether music was a bit part. She also reveals whether more new music will come out this year. I wondered how motherhood has affected and influenced her career and outlook. Forgive Me is a tremendous track that everyone should hear! It has been a huge pleasure chatting with…

THE tremendous After Eden.

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I have known about your music for many years now, and I am so excited that you have a new single out! Do you recall what drew you into music, and how your early material compares to what you are producing now?

I think I’ve always being pulled towards music in some capacity, but I only really believed it was something I was good at in my early twenties. I went travelling and found myself in L.A. writing songs with the godfather of drum samples, Steven Slate. It was so fun writing lyrics for the first time and finding my love of words. Then back in England, I started working with Andy Love, who is an incredible song writer and he really understood my voice and showed me what I could do with it. He gave me the courage to believe in myself.

My sound has changed over the years, but the bones of it remain the same. It’s still my story being told.

Can you remember when music came into your life? Was it something that spoke to you from an early age?

It lived in the walls, I think. In small things. My dad has a beautiful winding music box, and I always loved the hymns at school.

And then on a Sunday, the radio was up loud. Queen, Enya, Dire Straits shaking the house a little. I was always listening for what sat beneath it all. I think the truth of a lyric has a way of staying with you.

How did you come to work with the label, Anjunabeats? Were you always aware of them and how did that relationship start?

Home Is Here was my first step into that world. And I came to it without much sense of its scale, so only afterwards did I realise what I’d stepped into. It’s felt a bit like finding a hidden current in the sea and just letting it carry you. They’ve been so supportive and are such a great label.

“Some collaborations really need work to build, but this one kind of found itself”

Forgive Me is your new single. What is the story behind that song, and how did it come to life?

Forgive Me is a fable of hope. We are all sinners and all make mistakes; hurt people we love or feel like we have failed somehow. It’s ultimately about the grace we withhold, and the grace we need. Forgive easily and we can all win.

You are collaborating with Echoes and Mark Eteson. What was it like working with them in the studio and how did this hook-up happen? Have you all known each other for a while?

There’s a natural rhythm I have with Echoes that’s easy and unforced, and trust me it’s not always that way in writing sessions, so it’s a really special experience getting in the studio together; they are such talented guys and so fun. Mark came into that space through Dougal (one half of Echoes) and it’s like he’d always been part of it.

Some collaborations really need work to build, but this one kind of found itself.

Forgive Me has the sound of a summer anthem. A true banger! Is this a song that you hope get festival crowds, club-goers and everyone else united and uplifted?

If it finds people and resonates then that’s enough. There’s something sacred in that kind of shared joy in a festival setting, but it can be equally as special at home. I love that I can be connected to someone the other side of the world just by listening to the same song.

“Hold fast to what feels honest to you”

Will there be more new music in 2026? What were your plans for the rest of this year?

Yes. I am working on so many things, so many exciting projects to come.

Summer is coming up. Might we see After Eden perform live and bring Forgive Me to the stage?

I would love to! Performing and connecting to the audience is the best part!

You are a mother and incredible artist too. How do these facets and aspects of your life influence and feed into your music and career?

I love being a mummy! It’s my favourite chapter in life so far and changes the lens entirely. You begin to see the world with a different kind of tenderness and protective force, and those things find their way into the writing, whether you invite it in or not, it always takes hold.

I have been following your work for a while and know how hard you have worked. What would you say to any new artists who are taking their first steps?

Hold fast to what feels honest to you. They’ll be lots of opinions of what you should do and what music you should create, but do what makes you happy. Let yourself love it, even when it’s uncertain.

And keep one eye on the fine print; it’s always worth a lawyer!

Finally, you can choose a song from any artist you like and I will play it here. What shall we go with?

Well I have to say, Forgive Me. My newest release with Mark Eteson and Echoes on Anjuna Beats. I want to get it to as many ears as possible and take every opportunity to share it”.

FEATURE:A Twenty-First Century Beatlemania: How British Women in Pop Are Dominating in the U.S.

FEATURE:

 

 

A Twenty-First Century Beatlemania

IN THIS PHOTO: PinkPantheress photographed for Vogue in March 2026/PHOTO CREDIT: Tyler Mitchell

How British Women in Pop Are Dominating in the U.S.

__________

I am going to sort of tie…

IN THIS PHOTO: Sienna Spiro

two different stories together, because I do think that they link. One involves superstar Robyn, who told Capital Buzz that the long Pop album is “boring”: “Why not make two albums then? I think 40 minutes is [enough]”. I do sort of get some of that. It can be pretty hard listening to an album that suffers from too much self-indulgence or is overstuffed. Whilst there are some great Pop albums that are short and to the point, an artist I am about to mention is a master of that form, I do like that modern Pop artists are not constrained and can take time with albums. I don’t think that albums should be short. Artists should be allowed to tell their story and express themselves freely. It is great when we do get these short albums, though this has to mixed with Pop albums that are longer and expansive. Music is always evolving, so the days where singles have to be a certain lengths and albums running to ten tracks is gone. Robyn’s latest album, SEXISTENTIAL, is nine tracks and none last over four minutes. However, RAYE’s THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. Runs at seventeen tracks and is like a double album. It has a few weaker moments, though it is this ambitious and grand Pop album that is soul-baring, stunning and this sense of freedom, defiance and a major talent hitting her peak. If artists are too constrained then I do feel that the Pop market would be weaker, though I do agree that some longer albums can be boring. Whilst we can argue as to whether the Pop album is becoming longer and it is a case of artists losing focus – maybe rallying against streaming and people clicking on tracks and not having that attention span -, there is no denying that women are leading. Not just in the world of Pop.

It has been a long time since an artist or scene swept America and created this incredible excitement. The New York Times published a recent article that argued that the new British Invasion is led by women. We may associate bands like The Beatles conquering America and whipping up this frenzy. Whilst we could never replicate that at all – as time have changed and no artist will ever match The Beatles’ talent, originality and capturing a moment and breaking ground -, it is interesting how British artists are gaining more real estate and attention in America. It has been a long time since British artists have seemed to capture imagination and excitement quite like this. Maybe those are not the right words. However, not since the 1990s and Britpop has there been this dominance. Even then, I am not sure how fully British bands were taken to heart. However, right now, there is something shaping up which The New York Times highlighted:

“But the most impactful 21st century British pop stars thus far have almost always been outliers, rising to the top without being part of a larger movement. With her second album, “Back to Black,” Amy Winehouse broke through to the American charts and won five Grammys in 2008, becoming one of the most successful British artists in the United States practically overnight. Adele is a commercial behemoth, and her albums “21,” “25” and “30” — along with their indelible singles, including “Hello” and “Someone Like You” — represent some of the best-selling and most-decorated records in American history. Likewise, Ed Sheeran has sold over 100 million records in the United States and is consistently listed as one of the highest-grossing touring artists here.

These artists all broke through, in part, off the back of their distinct Britishness: All three were rough around the edges and celebrated for it, capitalizing on an unfussy, unpretentious aesthetic typical of the United Kingdom in contrast to their glossy American counterparts. They were also, generally, the British curios in a sea of Americans, as opposed to representatives of any broader cultural wave”.

I do think a lot of the focus in the 2010s and first half of this decade was focused on American artists. The nation maybe embracing their own talent. The dominance of Taylor Swift. Artists like Billie Eilish defining Pop adulation there, though it is hard to overlook how Swift pretty much took over. Things are changing now. Not that she is going anywhere, though the U.S. is now showing a lot of love for some incredible British queens:

“Aside from Dua Lipa, the late 2010s and early 2020s saw few British pop breakouts. But a new cohort of stars — led by four multiracial women — seems intent on changing that. In the past few years, TikTok has elevated a handful of English musicians to newfound renown in the States; this new class of stars emphasizes and plays off its Britishness, with broad accents and Vivienne Westwood corsets. (Though they largely avoid traditional markers of Anglomania, or representations of the Union Jack, like their mostly white forebears.) And, for the most part, they work in a mode familiarized by Winehouse and Adele: that of the brassy British soul diva, sharing unfiltered feelings in a classicist package.

Leading the charge is Raye, the 28-year-old Londoner who broke through in 2022 with her angsty TikTok hit “Escapism.” Signing with Polydor, an imprint of Universal Music Group, at 18, Raye spent a decade in the major-label trenches, releasing a series of EPs, providing guest vocals for EDM producers like Jax Jones and Joel Corry, and serving as a hired-gun songwriter for Beyoncé and Charli XCX, among others. In 2021, she spoke out, saying that the label had been withholding her debut album; shortly after, they parted ways. “Escapism,” a weepy hybrid rap-soul song, was one of her first independent releases, and peaked at No. 1 on the U.K. charts”.

Since the release of “Escapism,” Raye’s career has been on a steady climb: She supported Taylor Swift on her blockbuster Eras tour in 2024, and performed at the Oscars in 2025, covering Adele’s Bond theme “Skyfall”; later that year, she released “Where Is My Husband!,” a glitzy funk track that went viral on social media and subsequently peaked in the Top 20 of the Hot 100”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa

It is clear that RAYE especially is this incredible export that is going to headline major festivals and will no doubt get a lot of future tour dates in the U.S. RAYE is currently touring in the U.S., and is going to be there next month too. She has two huge U.K. dates on 19th and 20th May at The O2. THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. Has blown up around the world and America are throwing their weight and support behind RAYE. She is at the front of this new British invasion that includes artists like Charli xcx, Dua Lipa and PinkPantheress:

“Where Is My Husband!” was the first single from Raye’s second album, “This Music May Contain Hope.,” released last week. It is, for the most part, an album of uber-traditionalist soul and vocal jazz that dabbles, occasionally, in the run-on cadences of contemporary rap and clumsy TikTok slang. It also plays up the fact that Raye is not American: On the opening track, she sings that “some people say I remind them of Amy,” and multiple songs name check South London, where Raye grew up. She has clearly identified her Britishness as a selling point: Posters for her current tour dub her “The oh-so fabulous gal from South London.”

Raye’s music feels like it’s in conversation with that of the singer Olivia Dean, who shunned the music factories in Los Angeles for her second album, 2025’s “The Art of Loving,” instead asking her collaborators to decamp to a house in London that was refitted into a studio. But where Raye’s music is tightly stitched and intentionally showy, Dean’s is loose and conversational. She starts with the same soul diva archetype and removes much of the fuss, in line with younger tastes, while remaining staunchly throwback. “Man I Need,” a single from the album, has spent much of the year hovering in the Top 5 of the Hot 100; although that song draws from Motown and classic soul — and finds Dean adjusting her accent accordingly — other songs on the album, like “So Easy (to Fall in Love)” showcase the distinct contours of her London-native accent.

At this year’s Grammys, Dean beat another Londoner for the Grammys’ best new artist prize: Lola Young, the foul-mouthed belter whose 2024 track “Messy” has been an inescapable hit for nearly two years straight. On her 2025 album, “I’m Only Fucking Myself,” Young makes a meal out of her London-ness, incorporating sounds that have a strong place in the city’s musical heritage — Afrobeat, pub-rock, motorik post-punk. Young, who is tattooed and mulleted, presents herself as a product of her generation, but still expresses clear fealty to her forebears; she is even managed by  Nick Shymansky, who oversaw the early years of Winehouse’s career.

Just think about the established and rising British talent we have. Incredible women like Lola Young, Olivia Deana and Sienna Spiro. Olivia Dean is possibly the biggest British Pop artists right now. Winning awards at the BRITs, GRAMMYs and being nominated at the Ivor Novello Awards, this year has undoubtedly belonged to her. In the same way Charli xcx dominated in 2024 with BRAT, Olivia Dean is defining 2026. It is not only the consistency and success of these Pop queens that is startling. ‘Pop’ is too narrow a definition. In terms of genres, we are looking at R&B, Jazz and a broad spectrum of sounds. Sienna Spiro has the potential to be one of the biggest artists in the world and a legendary name that we will talk about decades from now. I have seen her compared favourable to the late Amy Winehouse, whose final studio album, Back to Black, turns twenty in October. However, Spiro is very much her own artists and will no doubt influence a wave of female artists coming through years from now:

“In her decidedly TikTok-informed presentation, Young is similar to Sienna Spiro, a husky-voiced 20-year-old torch singer. Spiro’s string-drenched soul ballads owe a clear debt to Adele, but her presentation is glamorous and decidedly “vintage” in a very 2020s way, with finessed makeup and minimalist styling.

Then there’s PinkPantheress, the young producer and vocalist who went viral during the pandemic for her intuitive, bedroom-pop flips of classic British dance tracks. PinkPantheress is the outlier of this latest British Invasion: Unlike that of her compatriots, her songs feel musically progressive — and in conversation with other alt-pop artists of the moment like Salute and Fcukers. When it looks to the past, it specifically draws from big-beat 2000s British producers like Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada, rather than just a murky assemblage of vague signifiers.

British identity was always baked into PinkPantheress’s music, but her second mixtape “Fancy That,” released last year, embraced full-on English kitsch: In the imagery associated with the project, the musician is pictured wearing crown jewels and surrounded by scrapbook-y pictures of red telephone boxes and landmarks like Big Ben. One song, “Stateside,” is about an American man who’s never met a British girl; already a popular song on TikTok in the months following its release, the track’s remix featuring the Swedish singer Zara Larsson has surged in recent weeks thanks to the Olympian Alysa Liu, who adapted a dance featured in the video for one of her winning figure-skating routines in Milan”.

It is fascinating and hugely pleasing seeing these phenomenal women capturing the America market. It was always seen as this goa and high point: artists conquering America. Like that was the only way to get success and endure. I don’t think that is the case anymore. Plenty of enduring and successful artists have not had major success in the U.S. However, after so many years when British music was struggling to ignite and remain in the minds of U.S. audiences and create shockwaves, there is this new British Invasion movement led by women. I am not sure whether it directly applies to now. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, and The Who among those characterising the artists who swept America largely during the 1960s and early-1970s. However, like that British Invasion, the styles ad fashion of the modern Pop queens is influential. Olivia Dean different to Lola Young, who has her own style compared to RAYE and Sienna Spiro. These women do not replicate, follow crowds or mimic. Same with interviews, their tour experience and social media relationship with fans. They are distinct and unique artists who I feel are more interesting and stronger than so many U.S. Pop artists (though I love the likes of Addison Rae, Madison Beer and their peers). It is not only award recognition and British artists winning at the GRAMMYs and touring the country. Their albums are selling well there. I do love how THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. features Hans Zimmer, Al Green, the London Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Tom Richards), Flames Collective Choir, and her sisters Amma and Absolutely. PinkPantheress’s 2025 mixtape, Fancy That, reaching number two on the US Top Dance Albums (Billboard). Both albums vastly different. Two distinct women. Of course, Charli xcx and Dua Lipa have been successful in the U.S. for a while. Lipa’s 2024 album, Radical Optimism, reached number two on the US Billboard 200.

Going back to the top of this feature and Robyn’s comments around long Pop albums being boring. I don’t feel this is the case. RAYE has proven that. Allowing more room and time to allow her music to expand, make a statement and not be confined, I feel she would be a lesser artist is she was restricted. However, there are amazing British Pop queens who can deliver these shorter albums. It is a sad by-product of the TikTok generation that there is this desire for music to be shorter and bitesize. If artists like The Beatles, leading the first British Invasion from 1964, were geniuses when it came to timeless Pop music that was short and concentrated, that is – and does not need to be – the case anymore. Pop is evolving and always expanding, so there is more choice, diversity and depth. Artists like PinkPantheress is you want shorter songs and this concise and exceptional music. Acts like RAYE whose new album is longer. Icons such as Charli xcx taking Pop in new directions but not being conscious about writing these three-minute jams. It is great that The New York Times spotlighted and discussed this new British Invasion that is led by women. Pop making an impact in the country in a way arguably that is has not done for almost sixty years. When it comes to the success and variety on offer and how the public are reacting. Such exceptional music from these British queens. There is a new generation and wave making moves that will join them and add new layers and weight to this American dominance.

Pink Pantheress was recently featured by Vogue alongside the young musicians and actors to watch right now: “It feels like I’ve been catapulted into a new space,” says PinkPantheress. The 24-year-old British artist dropped her second mixtape, Fancy That, late last year, a freewheeling bricolage of dance-pop, UK garage, and electronica, lacquered with her sharp humour. For her efforts, she picked up producer of the year at the Brit Awards—the first woman ever to do so—joining a lineage that includes Brian Eno and George Martin of The Beatles. Now touring North America and onwards to Coachella, Pink—who was once quasi-anonymous—wears her British Y2K-ified tartans with pride. “I’m feeling experimental,” she says. “I like diving into a bunch of different genres and pulling from different things. I can feel [myself] returning back to my roots, with whatever may come next”. It is so thrilling that she, Olivia Dean, Lola Young, RAYE and other British queens of Pop are standing loud and proud. Maybe a new summer of love for 2026. A wave of affection and respect for women in Pop releasing some of the best and most inspiring music produced in years. These innovative, empowering, distinct, multifaceted and strong women in Pop flying the flag…

FOR British music.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Appleton

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

Appleton

__________

I can honestly…

not include them in my Spotlight feature, as Appleton have been together for a while. Sisters Natalie and Nicole Appleton are half of All Saints. I am not sure whether the group are still active or have plans for future albums and touring. I do wonder if there will be another album from the amazing quartet. The duo of Appleton has been putting out music for a long time. They put out their latest single, Falling Into You, this January. However, Appleton released their debut album, Everything’s Eventual, in 2003. Twenty years after that debut and it was reissued onto vinyl for the first time. Now it seems like there are plans ahead. I know there will be plans for more music, which is why I wanted to highlight these incredible artists. Rather than put in all thew social links, go and check their music out here. I will not mention All Saints too much. However, my first exposure to Nicole and Natalie Appelton was through All Saints. I bought their eponymous album in 1997. Alongside Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt, there was this incredible blend and connection. The Appleton sisters key to the brilliance and success of All Saints. I was really glad when they announced they were working as a duo. I am going to include stuff from their debut album, in addition to their latest song. There are a couple of interviews to cover off before rounding things off. The first interview to cover if from Rolling Stone UK. Nicole and Natalie Appleton discussed a supposed rivalry they had with other girl bands whilst in All Saints, especially the Spice Girls. They also revealed their future plans and what it is like being together and recording music after some time away:

“I remember one day Gene said to me, ‘Mum, why don’t you just go back into the studio with Auntie Nat?’” Natalie’s children chimed in too and soon after, the sisters found themselves back in the studio with songwriter Gareth Young, who worked on the duo’s original debut. “[Our kids] are our harshest critics and if they didn’t think it was a good idea, they would have said, ‘nah!’” Natalie laughs. “They’re massive fans and I think they thought we should’ve maybe thought more of ourselves and they just gave us that little nudge to give it a go.”

The duo’s return comes at a time when the 90s couldn’t be more in vogue following high-profile reunions from the likes of Oasis, Radiohead and Pulp. Nicole, Natalie, Gene and the rest of the Appleton family were all at the Oasis gigs last summer and say they had the time of their lives. “It’s been a long time coming for them to come back and we went with our mum, kids, sisters and it was just brilliant,” Nicole smiles, saying it made her “proud” to be “a part of the 90s.” Natalie agrees. “We got to see [Oasis] first time round of course and now our children got to see it, and it was so great. It was a brilliant show and just seeing the joy of the fans too – that was a show in itself…but like the 90s, I cherish all of it, personally – Appleton, All Saints – I’m just so proud that we did all of it. Every moment, the ups and downs, it’s part of our life and I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

“I think the press put that on us,” Natalie says of the so-called ‘rivalry’ between the bands. “It never really came from us. We just had to kind of deal with it. If you look at us now, it’s like there couldn’t be any more love if you tried. But back then, what you didn’t see is that we were all hanging out with each other – we were going out together all the time,” she smiles. “But it wasn’t interesting to know that we were friends, so [the media] wouldn’t write about us having fun together. We’ve known Emma Bunton since she was 11,” she explains of having met Baby Spice at the Sylvia Young theatre school in the early 90s. “We’ve got history with them and still do.

The sisters went away to Cornwall to record and found solace away from the mania of being in one of the most popular girl bands of all time – and rediscovered their love of music in the process. “We had so much fun,” Natalie says. “My son was a baby, and he was with us while we were creating in the studio. We just had a laugh, and it was so natural.” Nicole loved how there were “no rules” and it being a “really nice, lovely atmosphere,” – a far cry from the 4am finishes when in the studio with All Saints.

Recently, they’ve been “re-listening and re-connecting” to the songs they created in 2003. “It was an emotional one listening to all the songs back because we remember the journey at the time and we were so proud of them,” Natalie says. For Nicole, it “brought back loads of memories” and when they finally headed into the studio to record their new single, “it was just like we carried on where we left off. It was like going back in time,” Nicole adds. “It was like no time had passed at all.”

While no official album has been announced yet, they confirm they’re currently “in the studio” making new music. They say this happened after seeing the response to the new single from fans and critics alike (it was named BBC2’s Song of the Week recently too) after initially having “no plan” and “no expectations” beyond releasing a new single. Natalie explains: “We just had such an incredible reaction to the single and after that we were like, ‘we’re going to have to do more.’ I mean, there’s a few we’ve been working on,” she smiles.

Now, they say they’re finally able to enjoy the success they have more than first time round. “It’s a little bit easier. You enjoy it more; you can take more in,” Nicole says. “You get to have a bit more of a relationship with your fans. We have social media now too, you can have a bit more one on one with fans which is a very different world than it was back [in the 90s]”.

Actually, there are two more interviews that I want to cover off. I want to come to Grazia. Appleton discussed the chaotic rollercoaster of the 1990s. With new music coming out, naturally, there are talks of live dates. There is a big date coming in May. You wonder whether they will announce a second studio album very soon. It will be exciting to see what the rest of the year holds for Appleton:

“Naturally, new music means the Appletons have plans to get back on stage too. They are set to perform at the iconic Mighty Hoopla in south London on 30 May (which Lily Allen will also play). ‘We were like if we can do anything this year, we’d love to do Mighty Hoopla because we did their first ever London show back in the day [in 2016] and it was such a buzz,’ beams Natalie. ‘I just can’t wait to get up on stage and have the time of my life and have some fun with it.’ Before then, they'll take on the BBC Live Lounge with a 25-piece orchestra. ‘That’s a very different show,’ jokes Nicole. ‘I like to pinch myself thinking, “oh my god”, that’s such a privilege.’ As for further plans, the sisters remain tight-lipped. ‘We will definitely announce things when we’re doing them. There’s a lot of stuff planned.’

With one studio album under their hats as a duo (so far), Natalie and Nicole are arguably best known for their time in All Saints. Their set, then, will be a crowd-pleasing fusion of the two. ‘It will be a bit of everything,’ explains Natalie. ‘I think from the reaction we’re getting it’s, “please do Appleton stuff”, so I’m excited about that because we haven’t done that in ages. We’ll do lots of bits and mix it up and make it fun for everyone. It’s nice to give the fans what they want.’ Could this mean a full All Saints reunion (last seen on stage together in 2018) is on the cards? ‘I think because it’s an Appleton journey, were going to keep it like that,’ answers Nicole.

The sisters are well aware that the industry they're re-entering is a different beast. ‘I think the industry as a whole is much more difficult,’ admits Nicole. ‘Financially, you know, I think people are having a really hard time just touring and making ends meet because it’s so expensive.’ Then there’s the shift in the way people find and consume music, the fixation on streaming figures and the threat of AI artists to contend with. ‘This is a whole new world,’ she laughs. ‘It’s the blind leading the blind.’

Nicole, for her part, would like to see a revival of ‘90s music culture, at least in the way it brought people together. ‘[Young people] being on their phones too much, I don’t like in any way. Even my son who’s 24 I don’t like him being on his phone. See the world and enjoy it; everything in moderation.'

She credits the ‘90s club scene for bringing fans, and bands, together. ‘The 90s was just amazing, it was a great time for all music genres. It made it sort of a community, whereas now you don’t see that. You don’t see bands hanging out. You see people performing together on stage, but this was like a proper hang out and having fun.’

Even so, the sisters remain optimistic. The biggest change they have both noticed is that artists these days have their own voice. ‘Everyone’s voice can get around the world just by putting something out on your phone,' notes Natalie. 'It just makes the world a smaller place.’ In fact, it's how they realised there was still so much support for their music. ‘That’s the thing with social media, we didn’t realise,’ she continues, ‘but it’s been so humbling and it’s what ignited us to do what we’re doing now’”.

I am going to end with The Guardian and an interview from last month. It does seem like we are going to get more announcement and news from Appleton regarding music and live dates. I think they are an incredible duo and are releasing music away from All Saints. There is less pressure and they are making music on their own terms. Even though the group are still close, you feel Appleton is going to take priority. This interview from The Guardian is interesting, as Appleton discussed “growing up in west London, finding fame in the 90s and relaunching their music as a duo”. They talked about the time in the band and growing up. There is a photo, from 1982, of the two of them on their bikes on a London street. They recreated it for the interview:

“Nicole

If I had to revisit one moment from my life, it would be this – riding my bike around London with my sister during what felt like an endless summer holiday. Not only because it was great fun, but because I could never ride my bike as much as I did when I was six. I’d be exhausted and would get bum ache from being on the seat for too long.

Mel [Blatt] and I were instantly best friends when we met at the age of 11 at Sylvia Young. After we graduated, we went our separate ways until I bumped into her at a cafe where I worked when I was 19. She told me she was in a band with Shaznay and asked if I wanted to join. I said yes, because I loved to sing. Once Mel and I reconnected, it was like no time had passed. Just like Sylvia Young, Nat quickly joined us, too, and that was it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pål Hansen

Nat was and is my home away from home and a total comfort during the craziness of All Saints. Working with my sister put no pressure on our relationship at all – we were always together as kids, and we didn’t know anything different. When we started to have families we would spend every holiday together, too. Just after Gene [Gallagher, son of Liam] was born, we had one Christmas with Nat and Liam [Howlett of the Prodigy, Nat’s husband] where the turkey took for ever to cook, and everyone was so pissed we ended up getting KFC.

Natalie

This is my happy place. I was nine, wearing a top from the market and posing with my bike outside our estate in west London. Nic and I loved those bikes – we treated them as if they were cars – getting our hands covered in grease and pretending we were mechanics. This little area of concrete is where all the other estates joined up, and it was the space where we would go roller-skating or wash people’s cars. We charged 10p a vehicle. A lucrative way to make money in the 80s.

My dad is from Bow, and my mum is from Birmingham. They emigrated to Canada but Dad wanted to be back in England, so we moved to London when I was around five. The American accents come from the two years we lived in New York when I was 11. We wanted to fit in, so it just stuck.

We had the greatest childhood in London. It was a real community full of loads of kids and street parties. Whatever was going on, Nic was always with me – my bookend, my best friend, my cute little sister with big brown eyes. Our temperaments were the same – playful and easygoing – although I’ve always been a bit more serious. Nic and I didn’t squabble, but I sometimes did with my older sisters.

Nic and I still talk on the phone every day and while I’ll always say “Love you” – I should really tell her that I love her properly more often. Because the older I get, the more I admire who she has become. She is a great mum, a great auntie and, whatever we are going through, she’s always got my back. I couldn’t live without her.

I am going to leave things there. After releasing Falling Into You in January, there will be excitement around the possibility of a second single this year. And maybe an album or something bigger. Not dropping a step since their 2003 debut and that twentieth anniversary reissue and new wave of excitement, it is also amazing that there was this twenty-year period between their debut album and new singles. Completely harmonious and sensational together. A lot of people are really happy and thrilled that they are releasing music and look set to do it more regularly going forward. It will be really great to see…

WHAT they do next.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Iraina Mancini – Take a Bow

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Iraina Mancini – Take a Bow

__________

IN a recent interview…

IN THIS PHOTO: Iraina Mancini in the studio recording for her second studio album (which follows her 2023 debut, Undo the Blue)/PHOTO CREDIT: Lee Vincent Grubb

Iraina Mancini said that her second studio album – as yet unnamed and without a set release date – feels like the darker, older sister of Undo the Blue. There have been a lot of changes, personal and otherwise, and that it is a more confident, grounded record. Mancini now has a deeper belief as a woman in the music industry. I am excited to see how she follows up 2023’s Undo the Blue. I have raved about that album on several occasions. Speaking with Shindig Magazine about her new album and collaborations, it is a fresh chapter for London-based Iraina Mancini. Last year, she released Running for your life. That is the first taste of the new album. You can check out her Instagram page, as she is one of the busiest people in the industry. Not only recording a new album and making sure it is absolutely as good as it can be, she is also hugely in demand as D.J. Mainly in London spaces (but further afield and internationally too), I can only imagine how full her calendar is this year! I am not sure when the second album will be released and whether it will coincide with the summer festivals. However, alongside recording and D.J. work, she is a broadcaster for Soho Radio and has her own show. Her show is fantastic! Playing music that is so different to mainstream stations and what they feature, I am always fascinated by what she picks and discusses. She recently posted a photo of her father on the set of The Man Who Fell to Earth with David Bowie. That film turned fifty. Warren Peace is this legendary musician who was a close friend of Bowie’s. Iraina Mancini’s Instagram feed is one of the most joyous and inspiring. So many incredible gigs and wonderful moments, this is someone who is among the best D.J.s in London. I am looking ahead to what comes next and how she is in the studio and keeping busy.

Rather than trying to guess album titles or release dates, I just wanted to check in and say, to anyone who does not follow Iraina Mancini, that you need to show her some support and love. Maybe suggestion a second album will be darker and more personally revealing than Undo the Blue. Even though that album had some amazing moments of bliss and delight – listen to Undo the Blue and Sugar High -, there were some more intense or revealing moments. However, what you get from the debut is this incredible eclectic and complete thing. Pete Paphides, of Needle Mythology (the label the album was released on), said that every track could have been a single. That is how it sounded to me. So good, each song was very different but not a weak moment on them. The overall listening experience is one of complete awe! It was my favourite album of 2023. However, you feel like those personal changes and challenges. Iraina Mancini finding new depth and qualities in her voice. Even if this second album is a step forward maybe in terms of personal insight and reflecting where Mancini is now and how her life has changed, I still feel that Undo the Blue is one of the most impressive and enduring debut albums in the past decade. How various songs pop to mind, and I listen to the album in full as much as I can. Go and grab it on vinyl, stick the needle down and immerse yourself in the phenomenal songwriting. Mancini has one of the strongest and most varied voice. How she can summon a range of emotions and nuances. Compositions that are at once tough and snarled and then to something akin to Minnie Ripperton. Cinematic, lush and gritty, there is this gamut of colours and strands to Undo the Blue. In future features where I discuss Iraina Mancini, I will focus on the new album. There will be an explosion of love and excitement when that announcement is made. Gigs that follow will give fans a chance to see these new songs delivered fresh. Given how the recording process must have been quite expensive and challenging at times, there will be a relief and pride getting the album out!

I hope Iraina Mancini will forgive me for, perhaps for the last time in a while, revisiting Undo the Blue. I have written about it and maybe even focused on the title track for a piece. I declared how Undo the Blue was my favourite song from the album but, as I listened to the album more and more, its final track, Take a Bow, stuck in my head the strongest (I was at this gig in 2023 when she performed it live). Made a bigger impact on my heart. For a number of reasons. I think, objectively, Undo the Blue is an unrated masterpiece of an album. One that was slept on to a degree by the press. In terms of streaming numbers, the title track will hit a million this year perhaps - or maybe early in 2027. Three tracks from the ten are in six digits in terms of streams. The sublime and epic finale has been streamed just over ten-thousand times. Given how immense and stunning the song is, it seems scandalous! I am not sure whether Take a Bow relates to a previous relationship or what inspired the track. There were a few interviews released around Undo the Blue, though I am not sure whether Mancini was asked about Take a Bow. It is one of these unmined gems that I feel should be talked about. I will look at some of the lyrics. One reason I love the song so much is that it is a perfect closer. Given the comparatively sunny, energised or dreamy songs that came before, there is this darkness or sense of mood that you could not put anywhere else on the album. How there is almost a conceptual thread to Undo the Blue and, appropriately, Take a Bow is the curtain call. The night has drawn in and maybe a relationship has run its course. However, as I observed in a review of Undo the Blue, perhaps there is this sense of hope or compassion there. Iraina Mancini’s voice is stunning on this song. Such power, panache and control. Providing backing vocals and overlapping, I do love how there are layers and these beautiful combined vocals. The first verse has lines that paint a somewhat defeated or tense picture: “I couldn't think, but found the words to say/I’m shouting out but I can’t concentrate/I should of known, but left too much too late/Cos we both know, these days are growing cold”. I sense that perhaps two lovers who were once close maybe have a slight division: “We used to be wild dreamers/So take a bow/Tell me it’s overdue/I think by now we both need something new/Let’s not make this harder…”. That sense of needing something new. Are they new partners or a new spark?

When listening to tracks on Undo the Blue, there is this wonder when you listen to Iraina Mancini sing. She can inhabit these different scenes, situations and personas in a song. Take a Bow has these different stages. It is almost this short film, in itself. One of the most cinematic tracks on the album, I never tire of hearing it! My favourite package is when she sings “So just stay bright/We'll be all alright/A freefall dive/A breath of life”. The opening stages see Mancini delivering the words almost sensually. The chorus sees her filled with passion and power. City lights and dancing shoes ready. Time running out. There are all these images that compel the listener to step inside the song and what is unfolding. The more I pass through the song, I come up with different possibilities and interpretations. The song has such a sense of emotional unfolding, story and movement. The pre-chorus is stunning. Iraina Mancini’s voice so stirring and grand in the chorus! That sense that they will both be alright. To slow down. Is there that hope and sense that they can rebuild? It such a deep and intriguing song that definitely deserves so many more streams that it has earned. I guess, unless a station plays or it gets mentioned, then it is quite hard to get people to it. Also, Mancini probably not really allowed to play her own songs on Soho Radio – or if she would even want to! Before the anticipated second album from one of our finest artists, I wanted to talk about why Take a Bow, the wonderful closing track of Undo the Blue, is one I absolutely adore. Such a rich, evocative and spine-tingling cut, it is the final scene of a simply amazing record. If Iraina Mancini feels that a new album coming is more representative of her now or does feel more complete or better, in the meantime, people really do need to listen again to Undo the Blue. Every track is an absolute pearl! If Undo the Blue, Do It (You Stole the Rhythm) and Deep End are the most popular tracks (according to Spotify), then I would say give some love and attention to the gorgeous and arresting Take a Bow. All fans of Iraina Mancini are so thrilled she is recording a second album! Perhaps not easy to put it out as soon as she would have liked, you do feel like every ounce of her heart and soul is going into it. When it is announced and we know what themes and sounds it explores, that will give a sense of how this wonderful D.J., broadcaster and artist has progressed and where she is now. Before we welcome in this second album and a new chapter for Iraina Mancini, I wanted to provide a (perhaps) last salute and affectionate nod to Undo the Blue and an utterly brilliant final track. I am not sure how its performer views it and whether it still holds personal relevance and importance. However, I feel it is an amazing and hugely accomplished and fascinating piece of music that…

EVERYONE needs to hear.

FEATURE: A Balanced (and Extraordinary) Bill: Reacting to the Reading & Leeds Line-Ups

FEATURE:

 

 

A Balanced (and Extraordinary) Bill

IN THIS PHOTO: RAYE is one of the headline acts for this year’s Reading & Leeds festivals

Reacting to the Reading & Leeds Line-Ups

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THE smaller festivals…

around the world are quite good when it comes to a balanced bill. I am not sure why a lot of the major ones struggle when it comes to gender and fair representation. Female artists are dominating music and there are ample choices. However, every year sees our biggest festivals struggling to balance things. Glastonbury last year created evenness through the bill, though the headliners on the Pyramid Stage were once again male-heavy. I do hope that, when it is on in 2027, that more women headline. There are plenty of options! I have been hard on Reading & Leeds before because they have been very male-heavy when it comes to their line-up. Look at their headliners from throughout the years, and it is enormously male-dominated. Getting this reputation as not recognising women and sticking rigidly with Rock and Alternative acts, they have been in hot water because of unwise comments when it comes to gender imbalance. However, the headliners this year are both fantastic and there is a balance: Charli XCX, Dave, RAYE, Chase & Status, Florence and The Machine, and Fontaines D.C. RAYE has just released one of the best albums of the year with This Music May Contain Hope. Charli xcx should have headlined Glastonbury last year, so this is an overdue chance for her to mount her music on a major stage. Songs from her “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack coming to life. Florence + The Machine released Everybody Scream last year. One of the best of 2025. I think they are the most exciting acts headlining. Dave is sensational and will be great, though I do wonder about the age thing. I mentioned this when highlighting how Glastonbury book male artists over forty as headliners but not women (though Florence + The Machine’s Florence Welch turns forty on 28th August - pretty much half-way through the festivals’ run) . Maybe wanting to keep the headliners younger, there are iconic and legendary artists who you would love to see headline. Even so, it is a big step forward for Reading & Leeds.

This article reacted to the recent wave of new names added to the Reading & Leeds billed. There are even more names to come. Pleasingly addressing previous gender inequality whilst keeping things pure but also eclectic in terms of genres, it does bode well for the future. I am genuinely concerned about some major festivals when it comes to headliners and that reliance of male artists. Let’s hope that Reading & Leeds keep up this evolution and next year sees some incredible queens headline. There are brilliant artists like Slayyyter delivering spectacular albums that warrant a headline outing. The fact the headlining women are British too. There will be a lot of support for Charli xcx, RAYE and Florence + The Machine:

“Reading & Leeds has dropped a hefty second wave of names for its 2026 edition, adding more than 60 artists to an already stacked line-up topped by Charli xcx, Chase & Status, Dave, Florence + The Machine, Fontaines D.C. and RAYE.

Leading the new additions are Gunna and Loyle Carner – both set for Reading only – alongside Declan McKenna, Maisie Peters and James Marriott. Elsewhere, indie and alt-pop are well represented with Men I Trust and Viagra Boys (both Reading only), Arthur Hill, The Lathums (Leeds only), Holly Humberstone, Julia Wolf and Clara La San joining the bill, while Paris Paloma, Kingfishr, Slayyyter and The K’s (Leeds only) round out a broad sweep of rising and established names.

The festival has also confirmed the debut of a new arena for 2026 – The Warehouse – a purpose-built space dedicated to dance music. Promising a full club experience, the stage will pair high-spec sound with immersive lighting, signalling a clear push into late-night territory. Among those set to take it over are Max Dean b2b Luke Dean (Reading only), Hybrid Minds and a pair of Skepta link-ups – with Prospa in Reading and East End Dubs in Leeds. The line-up leans heavily into underground and crossover club sounds, with sets from Rossi., Mall Grab, Omar+, Hedex, Silva Bumpa and Notion, alongside appearances from Bou (Reading only), Luuk Van Dijk (Reading only) and a Joss Dean b2b Nafe Smallz set at Reading. Leeds exclusives include Alisha, Locky, [IVY] and Jack Marlow, while Hamdi, Riordan, IN PARALLEL and Meeshy are among those playing both sites.

Beyond the headline-grabbing additions, the latest drop digs deep into emerging talent across genres. YT, Niko B and Bassvictim join the weekend’s line-up, alongside bar italia, SPEED and Frost Children (Reading only). Clementine Douglas, Jane Remover (Reading only) and dexter in the newsagent add further depth, with Cardinals, Westside Cowboy and Say Now also confirmed. New names continue across both sites, including The Lilacs (Leeds only), Overpass, Radio Free Alice (Reading only) and Gurriers (Leeds only), while Seb Lowe, Chloe Qisha and Fliss are among the Reading exclusives.

The bill stretches into a new generation of acts too, with Cruz Beckham and The Breakers, Violet Grohl and The Guest List appearing alongside a raft of buzzy newcomers including Mulaa Joans, Amma, Day We Ran and People I’ve Met. Elsewhere, artists such as Ruby Roberts, Raynor, Pozzy and she’s green underline the festival’s continued focus on discovery.

Set to take place across the August Bank Holiday weekend, Reading & Leeds 2026 is shaping up to be one of the festival’s most expansive editions yet – balancing chart-topping headliners with club culture incursions and a deep bench of next-wave talent”.

It is not only that Reading & Leeds have addressed the male-skewed headline acts and in the process broadened the sound and feel. That will appeal to a wider sector of festival-goers. The entire line-up is a lot more ambitious and eclectic. I think there are purists who turned their nose up at how the festivals are moving away a bit from guitar-based music. Or that older image where a lot of the artists were Alternative, Indie or Rock. Even if Glastonbury is still the biggest British festival, I sort of feel Reading & Leeds have taken bigger steps and done something that Glastonbury did not do last year. That relates to ensuring that their biggest slots represent the amazing women who are contributing so much to music. There is always that issue that a festival may lapse and go back to the older ways. However, you do feel that Reading & Leeds have this new commitment and ethos – and it is great to see! I love the artists that they have announced so far. From Violet Grohl to Men I Trust, Maisie Peters and Loyle Carner. Those incredible and diverse headlines. Chase & Status alongside RAYE. I think that RAYE’s headline slot may be one of the best and most extraordinary the festival have seen. I see Slayyyter is on the bill, yet I feel next year could be one where she headlines. We have artists playing festivals for the first time. Absolutely and Cruz Beckham will play. There is very much something for everyone! With Glastonbury on a fallow year, there is that void and demand that I feel Reading & Leeds have covered! I feel it is one of their best lines-up ever. Some future stars and modern greats standing alongside one another. Their bills are quite diverse and always interesting, yet that male-dominated headline trait and bias was worrying and rightly received criticism. Now that this has been addressed – and let’s hope it is now the norm! -, it really is…

SUCH a relief!

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Femcels

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

IN THIS PHOTO: Gabriella Turton (left) and Rowan Miles (right) of The Femcels/PHOTO CREDIT: Bruno Mosso

The Femcels

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HERE is a sensational…

and instantly memorable duo who are creating quite a lot of buzz and conversation. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton. In January, the London duo were questioned by Richard Turley for Interview. With the headline declaring/describing their music as “Holy Noise, Horny Despair and the Art of Dreaming Yourself Alive”, it is really interesting discovering how life started for The Femcels. Rather than this being a long plan and them carefully planning, there was a degree of things falling together fairly quickly. It is always hard to say how much longevity artists have when they are starting out. However, on the strength of I Have to Get Hotter, it does seem that they are going to be around for a very long time:

“The Femcels didn’t form so much as coalesce: one broken pink toy guitar, a lobby miracle, four songs recorded drunk in a single night, and suddenly London had another problem. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton (Gabi) talk like they make music—fast, feral, funny, allergic to sincerity—ricocheting between hymns, horny despair, indie nihilism, and the sacred fantasy of Pitchfork hating them. They didn’t meet online, dated the same men, stole pick-and-mix, coded homework in dark cinemas, acquired yuppie older boyfriends, posted ads for go-go dancers, and woke up to discover they were already a band. Their debut album I Have to Get Hotter, produced by Ike Clateman (Bassvictim), is out VERY SOON and easily the most exciting, deranged thing I’ve heard in ages — its tracklist reading less like songs than a series of threats: “Even Though Ur Blonde,” “She Seems Kind of Stupid (Draft),” “Please Don’t Stab Yourself Like Elliott Smith.” They skewer pop feminism, sneer at boy-run music culture, loot Catholic hymns for melodies, and flinch (briefly) at the terror of singing in front of another human. If people are going to misunderstand you anyway, the logic goes, you might as well make it unforgettable. Less an origin story than a shared hallucination, documented in real time.

The Femcels didn’t form so much as coalesce: one broken pink toy guitar, a lobby miracle, four songs recorded drunk in a single night, and suddenly London had another problem. Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton (Gabi) talk like they make music—fast, feral, funny, allergic to sincerity—ricocheting between hymns, horny despair, indie nihilism, and the sacred fantasy of Pitchfork hating them. They didn’t meet online, dated the same men, stole pick-and-mix, coded homework in dark cinemas, acquired yuppie older boyfriends, posted ads for go-go dancers, and woke up to discover they were already a band. Their debut album I Have to Get Hotter, produced by Ike Clateman (Bassvictim), is out VERY SOON and easily the most exciting, deranged thing I’ve heard in ages — its tracklist reading less like songs than a series of threats: “Even Though Ur Blonde,” “She Seems Kind of Stupid (Draft),” “Please Don’t Stab Yourself Like Elliott Smith.” They skewer pop feminism, sneer at boy-run music culture, loot Catholic hymns for melodies, and flinch (briefly) at the terror of singing in front of another human. If people are going to misunderstand you anyway, the logic goes, you might as well make it unforgettable. Less an origin story than a shared hallucination, documented in real time.

RICHARD TURLEY: When did this start?

ROWAN MILES: On the 24th of February 2024, we went into the studio with no music. Just a name: The Femcels.

GABI TURTON: A month before, I was styling Maria from Bassvictim and I brought this pink toy guitar and she broke it. That night we asked Ike if he’d produce for us. The next day in our lobby, the same pink guitar appeared but fixed—it’s a sign from God.

ROWAN: We were scared, so we got really drunk. We recorded four songs in one night and they’re all on the album. Ike understood exactly what we were and made perfect beats for us in what felt like 45 seconds. We were so scared to sing in front of someone. We’d just been handed this whole thing of being musicians in one evening.

TURLEY: So, how did you meet?

ROWAN: Online. Then I saw her across the room. She had her mouth open for a really long time. Then later on you invited me to an awkward girly sleep over.

GABRIELLA: Me and my friend used to do this thing where we would invite girls we thought were cool on Instagram.

ROWAN: We realized we’d dated all the same boys.

GABRIELLA: Then she tried to set me up with her ex-boyfriend and he said he’d bring his friends to the date. I got really freaked out so I brought Rowan along.

TURLEY: Tell me about the lyrics.

ROWAN: They are just all from real life experiences. I was heartbroken and you were a Femcel. They are basically all about this relationship where I was flown out to New York by some rockstar. I was a wannabe groupie and was harnessing the musical powers of these guys through this type of science magic I invented.

TURLEY: You sat on the album for two years. Why release it now?

ROWAN: We had a manager and then we decided we were going to do this record deal and then we really decided that wasn’t what we wanted to do.

GABRIELLA: We reclaimed our indie-ness. We decided to self-publish. That’s what makes sense for us.

TURLEY: How seriously are you taking this?

GABRIELLA: It would be awesome to do music, just music, but London is really expensive. I think we both really enjoy playing shows. I’m just excited to play a show and people actually know more than two songs.

ROWAN: That’s most exciting for people to sing along. There’s two girls that want to audition to be our go-go dancers one of them has black hair and one is blonde so its kinda perfect.

PHOTO CREDIT: Max Mistry

Before ending up with a review of I Have to Get Hotter, I want to shift to an NME and their recent interview. However you want to label their music – “electro-twee-punk” is how NME define it -, it is evident there is that very strong bond between Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton. I am keen to see them live. NME stepped into The Femcels’ “idiosyncratic world as they prepare for their first headline show and reflect on their recent debut album, ‘I Have To Get Hotter”:

“So far, their instincts seem to have served them well. They started making music in 2024 after Miles, on a whim while working as a stylist, asked Bassvictim’s Ike Clateman to produce for them. On their first night working with Clateman (February 24 – they want it mythologised), they wrote four songs. They released two of these songs, ‘He Needs Me’ and ‘Not Ur Friend’, as singles, which quickly gained traction. Since then, they have performed with the likes of EsDeeKid and Fakemink, been photographed by Hedi Slimane, and opened for Frost Children. Miles has also made an album with Worldpeace DMT that’s well worth checking out. Finally, the duo released their first album, ‘I Have To Get Hotter’, in January 2026.

The album is a joyously chaotic, crude, and often hilarious look into the girls’ mirror-world. It’s a release of pure id that Miles says surprised even them: “It’s shocking when you’re writing a song and the stuff that comes out is stuff you wouldn’t say to anyone. But, it’s like: ‘I’ve written it now, and it works with the melody.’ You end up writing a song about sending a boob pic to a 45-year-old, and that’s the only way to explain your feelings.”

Turton nods: “We’re not crude in real life. I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about sex to each other. But in our music it’s all about that.”

It’s this play between shocking honesty and total absurdity, sincerity and irony, that many find so exciting about The Femcels’ music. They manage to give us hymn-like melodies, guttural screams and twee moments, with knowingly cartoonish production and a miraculously punk sensibility. Far from sarcastic vapidity, these songs belie raw emotion while remaining fun and lighthearted.

“Most of the parts I wrote on this album came from this diary I was writing because I was heartbroken,” says Miles. “I was destroyed and trying to write everything down. I was howling in the house, and it must have been really annoying for everyone else.”

“It’s nice to make things into a joke instead of feeling sad,” adds Turton. “Not to sound like a wet tissue, but the music did heal me a bit. I actually was kind of a femcel when I started making the album, and now I’m kind of not.”

“It’s nice to make things into a joke instead of feeling sad. The music did heal me a bit” – Gabriella Turton

The term ‘femcel’ typically refers to female members of the ‘involuntary celibate’ community. It’s often used ironically, but some who identify with it can be quite protective about the label. The girls say they’ve received hundreds of comments accusing them of being ‘cosplayers’, ‘LARPers’ or ‘fakecels’.

“The project isn’t supposed to be taken too seriously; you should just enjoy it,” says Turton. “But also, I think a lot of the people giving us hate in the comments might relate to [the album], and maybe they should listen to it… Like with the body dysmorphia stuff. In popular media, it’s meant to be that you’re just effortlessly skinny; no one ever really talks about it. Lily Allen talks about it, and I remember thinking that was really cool. I think it’s important to show that people do think about it, and are stressed about it, and you’re not just in your own head”.

I Have to Get Hotter is one of the most distinct, best and important debut albums of this year. An act we are going to gearing from years from now. CLASH sat down with an amazing album and provided their views. For anyone who has not heard their music really needs to get involved and check it out:

“A London duo whose stated ambition in life is to make music Pitchfork will hate, The Femcels aren’t people you should take too seriously. Or is that a pre-conception? Debut album ‘I Have To Get Hotter’ thrives on confusion, a kind of meta-post-ironic feast of sincere insincerity, a project packed with eye-searing colour and fuelled in equal doses by eye-liner and one-liners. It’s funny, occasionally cruel, and ridiculously filthy – truly, what else do you want from pop stars?

The song titles alone are worth the price of entry. ‘No One Will F*ck Me When I Wear Two Different Shoes’ gasps the breath out of your lungs and ‘Please Don’t Stab Yourself (Like Elliot Smith)’ is staggeringly close to the bone. Yet, somehow, they skirt around bad taste and come through unscathed – it’s a record packed with ideas, and held together by some wicked melodies.

At times, 00s indie pop shines through – the Juno soundtrack reworked with a pair of dodgy Casio keyboards and a cracked version of Fruity Loops. Working within their limitations, The Femcels are content to break any rule going – if they run out of words, they simply shriek and scream.

Forever self-referential and self-deprecating, songs like ‘Indiest Girl At School’ and ‘Monster In You’ are endlessly fascinating, while the beeps and sonic burps which fuel the spiteful ‘Not ur friend’ are worthy of those early PC Music uploads on SoundCloud, or even the unjustly overlooked Kero Kero Bonito.

Scrappy, brash, and devoutly punk, it’s done and dusted in 33 minutes. Utilising brevity to pack a punch, one song is a smidge over 90 seconds – it’s as though their TikTok-addled imaginations will self-destruct is the concept of a middle eight is mentioned.

Brutally funny and remarkably imaginative, ‘I Have To Get Hotter’ is brattish, attention-seeking, and at times ridiculous. The Femcels are out there on their own – this album is a riot”.

I guess still seen as a new or rising duo, The Femcels seem like they will dominate festivals very soon. As they produce more work, their fanbase will grow and there will be this increased demand. I Have to Get Hotter is a phenomenal album. Go and follow them now. All the hype and love around them is…

MORE than justified.

___________

Follow The Femcels

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thef_mcels/

Bandcamp:

https://thefemcels.bandcamp.com/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheFemcels

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6IEfd4F10D3zvJ9N6DNmvK?si=xz2UmBSQSEiSeXQ1KICt0Q

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Sabrina Carpenter

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

PHOTO CREDIT: Steven Meisel

Sabrina Carpenter

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THIS time out…

for The Great American Songbook, I am featuring twenty songs from one of the biggest artists on the planet, Sabrina Carpenter. Her most recent album, Man’s Best Friend, was released last year. I feel that the Pennsylvania-born artist and actor is one of the true greats. Someone who is most definitely a global superstar. I really love all of her albums, though Man’s Best Friend might be her best. I will come to that playlist. I am starting out with AllMusic, who provide some background and biography:

“Grammy-winning singer and actor Sabrina Carpenter is known for her sweetly ebullient, often lyrically candid brand of dance-oriented pop. Although no stranger to fans, Carpenter landed a global summer hit with 2024's "Espresso," reaching number three on the Hot 100. Building upon her early years as the star of the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World, she embarked on a successful music career, releasing albums including 2016's Top 30-charting EVOLution. In the meantime, she continued to act, appearing in movies such as 2019's Tall Girl and the next year's Clouds. After signing with Island Records, she issued her fifth LP, 2022's emails i can't send, which reached 23 on the Billboard 200 and was followed by the 2023 holiday EP Fruitcake. In 2024, Carpenter delivered her sixth studio album, Short n' Sweet, led by the disco- and funk-infused hit "Espresso" and the number one Hot 100 single "Please Please Please." Heralded by the cheerful chart-topper "Manchild," she delivered Man's Best Friend LP in 2025.

Born Sabrina Annlyne Carpenter in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, on May 11, 1999, she became interested in performing at a young age. By age ten, she was going to auditions with her parents and won her first part playing a guest role on the hit NBC drama Law & Order: SVU. Two years later, she was cast as the best friend of Rowan Blanchard on the Disney Channel's coming-of-age sitcom Girl Meets World, the sequel to the immensely popular '90s sitcom Boy Meets World. Carpenter inked a deal with Hollywood Records and issued the single "Can't Blame a Girl for Trying" in March 2014, which was followed by her debut EP of the same name a month later. In 2015, she delivered her full-length debut, Eyes Wide Open. It peaked at number 43 on the Billboard 200. She returned the following year with her sophomore album, EVOLution, and embarked on a sold-out headlining tour. Next up was a starring role in the Disney Channel's version of Adventures in Babysitting, a few months before EVOLution peaked at number 28 on the Billboard 200.

In 2017, Carpenter teamed up with social media star Jasmine Thompson for a soulful cover of Harry Styles' "Sign of the Times." That same year, she worked with the Vamps and Mike Perry on the track "Hands," released the solo single "Why," headlined her own The De-Tour concert tour, and was featured on Lost Kings' "First Love." The latter landed in the Top 30 of Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. "Alien," Carpenter's first release of 2018, was a collaboration with British producer and DJ Jonas Blue that climbed to number 12 on the same chart. It was followed by an appearance in the film The Hate U Give, based on the Angie Thomas young adult novel. That November, Carpenter issued her third solo long-player, Singular: Act I. A companion piece, Act II, arrived in 2019, as did "On My Way," a collaboration with Alan Walker and Farruko that cracked the Top Ten of the dance/electronic chart. Before the end of 2019, Carpenter also appeared in the Netflix original film Tall Girl.

In 2020, the singer issued the Valentine's Day single "Honeymoon Fades" just before making her Broadway debut as Cady Heron in the musical Mean Girls. Her run only lasted a couple days, though, as theaters closed their doors on March 12 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. (The production officially closed during the lockdown.) Later in the year, however, Carpenter could be seen in the Netflix musical film Work It and in the Disney+ musical film Clouds, which she starred in alongside Fin Argus.

Meanwhile, she headed to the studio with Captain Cuts' Ryan McMahon, returning with the single "Skin" in January 2021. It marked her debut for Island Records. Another track, "Skinny Dipping," arrived that September as the first single off her fifth studio album, emails i can't send. Released in July 2022, the record peaked at number 23 on the Billboard 200 and spawned several more popular singles, including the John Ryan-produced "Fast Times" and the Jason Evigan-produced "Vicious." A cover of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" arrived in October 2023. A month later, Carpenter delivered the holiday-themed EP Fruitcake, which featured originals including the single "A Nonsense Christmas," as well as a pop-infused rendition of the Irving Berlin classic "White Christmas."

Released in April 2024, her single "Espresso" became a global smash, topping several charts around the world and making the Top Five in the U.S. She followed it a couple months later with "Please Please Please." Both singles paved the way for her sixth studio album, 2024's Short n' Sweet, which found her working with producers Jack Antonoff and Julian Bunetta. Along with topping the Billboard 200, the album also picked up Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. At the 2025 ceremony, she took home her first Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Solo Performance.

Carpenter reunited with Antonoff for her next album, and the lead single, June 2025's bright, tinny synth pop tune "Manchild," was another international hit; it went to number one in the U.K., Ireland, and in the States. The complete Man's Best Friend followed on Island in August”.

I am a big fan of Sabrina Carpenter and am excited by what is next. There is this tease of a video for House Tour that will feature the incredible Margaret Qualley and Madelyn Cline. Three queens together in a video that looks like it will be cool and bad-ass! I wonder if she will take up some acting roles in addition to releasing new music. Later this month, Carpenter plays the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2026, though I am not sure what comes after that. This playlist assembles essential Sabrina Carpenter cuts. Proving that she is…

A Pop great.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Slayyyter

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Slayyyter

__________

I was pretty sure that…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan Holland for FADER

I had spotlighted Slayyyter recently, but I can find no record of it. So I am sort of doing this to make amends. I shall end with a review of her new album, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. I am starting out with some recent interviews. Slayyyter is the alias of Catherine Grace Garner. This is not the first album from the Missouri-born artist. Her debut, Troubled Paradise, was released in 2021. A lot of new artists have been proclaimed the future of Pop or the sounds of today. I do think that Slayyyter is not only one of the most important and astonishing artists we have today. I feel that she will inspire so many other artists coming through. WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is an example of her peerless talent. I want to come to interviews now. There are a lot of new interviews with Slayyyter. I am starting out with Cosmopolitan and their chat. Declaring that this artist has released a new album that is” gory, glittery, and introspective just in time for festival season”, Slayyyter has a busy diary ahead. She is playing Reading and Leeds in the summer. I feel that she could have headlined the festival. Maybe she will do soon enough. She plays London’s Roundhouse in November, but that is already sold out:

“Congrats on Worst Girl in America. How are you feeling about it now that everything’s out?

I get really nutty on release day. I kind of like it. I feel very anxious and fearful, but there’s really nothing to be afraid of. People already like the singles, but it’s hard to describe. It’s just a weird feeling of doom.

Even the title is quite polarizing. How did you decide this was the name of the record? Was it something you had in mind before hitting the studio, or did it come to you as you started working on the music?

I was inspired by my skater friends in St. Louis. There’s this terminology or nickname if someone’s drunk too much, like “He’s the worst dude.” “Worst girl” feels like it could be a term of endearment, but it could also be something I feel insecure about, like people thinking I’m not a good artist or person, feeling annoying, or like I don’t really fit in with any of my peers. As soon as that title popped into my head, it clicked.

Well, you’ve been an “artist to watch” since those days, and they say it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. Does this era feel like you stepping into your next form? How do you feel you’ve grown up within pop?

The reason we keep seeing artists with long-winded careers recently having big breakout moments is that it takes time to develop yourself. Back in the 90s, you would be swallowed into the system at a very young age, but you would be developed for years before your first song ever hit the market. Now, you have something hit on the internet, and then you’re thrown into the deep end and told to swim.

This project is not something I could have made at any other point in my life because it required years of experience and exploring different sides of me. I finally hit the mark on who I am as an artist, where I haven’t really been able to do that in the past. This album is a sweet spot of what my true sound is and what my visual output looks like, and it’s an evolution of what I'm capable of creatively. That can only come from years of trying and failing.

This era has such a gritty glam-meets-Americana aesthetic. What was on your moodboard, and how are you bringing that visual world to the stage at festivals this summer?

I’m going to be performing with a band for the first time, which I’ve never done. The music really called for that, and I didn’t want it to be me and a DJ performing to a track. I was really inspired by the Soul Wax tour documentary and how no two shows were ever the same—they would switch it up every single night. Worst Girl in America lends itself to a live setting so well, and I’m excited for festivals to give it a different energy. My biggest goal for the tour is to make it feel like people are stepping into a music video with the set design and the band”.

Even though I am spotlighting Slayyyter, I am not referring to her as emerging or up and coming. She has been in the industry for a long time and put out quite a bit of work. Established and with huge gigs booked, this is someone perhaps who is becoming a modern idol. EUPHORIA. spoke with Slayyyter to discuss the sensational WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA:

“Since 2018, Slayyyter has maintained an impressively steady output, releasing a string of singles, three studio albums, a mixtape, and a remix EP. Alongside headlining her own tours, she has also supported Tove Lo and Kesha, ensuring her profile continues to rise. What began as a small online cult following has steadily expanded, with Slayyyter’s fanbase growing louder and more visible as her influence widens.

“Everything’s been a slow build over the past couple of years,” she says. “Instead of chasing a viral moment, I’ve focused on building my fan base organically. You can’t really predict those big moments anyway. It’s been gradual — everyone is kind of coming together over time. I feel a bit like a cult favorite, which feels real. I never tried to occupy that position, but over the years, it’s slowly become this little inside club.”

During the creative process, Slayyyter knew things felt different this time around. “This was the first album where I really felt my age while making it. I’m almost 30. I don’t want to still be called ‘up and coming’ at 33,” she reveals. Her previous frustrations even almost caused her to quit altogether. “I started asking myself if I wanted to do this forever. Should I move back to Missouri? Do something else? I love music and visuals more than anything — it’s my heart and soul. But you reach a point where you ask what you’re fighting for. So I decided to make the sickest record I could, give it everything, and if nothing happens, at least I made something I’m proud of,” Slayyyter continues.

However, she recognizes that this album wouldn’t exist without that constraint. “I couldn’t have made this album at 21,” Slayyyter declares. “It came from being older and feeling that pressure. For the first time, I didn’t care about writing a hit. I didn’t care about radio or TikTok song lengths. If I wanted to make a six-minute song, I did. A very cool project came out of that freedom.”

I saw online there had been speculation about the album title. Can you reveal why you chose WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA?

This was always the main title. I had another one floating around that I’m saving for the next project, but this just made the most sense. It’s how I feel a lot of the time. It’s tongue-in-cheek — it can be sarcastic or real. It started as a term of endearment from my skater friends. If I was hungover or threw up at a party, they’d joke and say “worst girl.” But a lot of the songs are about my angst and anger — where I sit in music, in social settings, feeling like a loser sometimes. There are moments where I feel like the worst person in the world. I don’t really have artist peers I’m close with. I don’t feel like people have taken my music seriously. It’s been years of being called “up and coming,” and when you’re almost 30, that starts to feel insulting. I channeled all of that into this album and the title. Sometimes I feel like I’m too drunk at a party, not doing what I’m supposed to be doing, not making people enough money. It felt like the perfect title to capture where I’m at in my career and life.

“GAS STATION” is also another standout. Production wise, it feels as if you took notes from early Crystal Castles.

I grew up listening to Crystal Castles and that Tumblr-era music. “GAS STATION” was one of the first songs for this project. My friend Marvy and I started it, and I kept saying I wanted to make “iPod music” — music that reminds me of being a teenager, downloading songs intentionally, curating what lived on your iPod. It was before Spotify really took over. “iPod music” almost feels like a genre to me — indie electronic from 2010–2011. Nostalgic but still forward-thinking. “GAS STATION” was the first one that really defined that sound for this project. It feels like something I would’ve loved in high school, but it also feels timeless. Crystal Castles is definitely an influence, even if the album wasn’t directly inspired.

Gosh, I feel like everyone wanted their own song to feature on an iPod commercial.

Back then, getting an iPod commercial sync could make an artist’s career. I remember discovering so much through iTunes’ Free Single of the Week and Free Video of the Week. It was such a big editorial moment. A lot of indie electronic or alt songs would get that placement — the kind of thing you’d hear on Gossip Girl. That’s the spirit of this album. Creative music videos that didn’t need huge budgets, just strong ideas. I’ve tried to approach the visuals the same way. The visuals are just as important as the music, and they’re very

You finish the album with “BRITTANY MURPHY.” Why did you want to end the album on that note?

That song is a very personal diary entry. I was feeling stuck in my career and having dark thoughts. I kept thinking, if this were the last album I ever made, what would I want it to be? Would I leave behind party songs, or something more personal? “BRITTANY MURPHY” isn’t really about her specifically — it’s about my own suicidal thoughts and feelings. But she inspires me. Uptown Girls meant so much to me growing up. The themes of girlhood and not feeling like a grown woman even when you are — that resonated deeply. The title is more about honoring her, but the song is about me. Ending the album there felt complete. You go through all the angst, insecurity, bravado, and then it lands in something sad and honest. It felt like tying a bow on the whole emotional journey”.

Adrian Horton, writing for The Guardian, spoke with an artist who was hitting a peak. She writes how “the self-described ‘worst girl in America’ is having a breakthrough”. It must be a bit frustrating for Slayyyter to be seen as a new artist or someone still coming through. I think WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA will change that. Horton also notes: “Slayyyter’s new album Worst Girl in America scratches a similar anarchic itch. Immediate, vertiginous and diabolically cheeky, the after-hours record finds her channelling a ferality that feels rare in our slop-ified pop culture (cue the rock-tinged Cannibalism), and has garnered breathless hype among those in the know”:

“Out of her midwest trash drag, Slayyyter is also midwest nice – chatty, digressive, eager to discuss any of the many naff noughties cultural references that inform Worst Girl in America’s haute-trash style, from paparazzi shots of Lindsay and Paris to Kate Moss’s rain-soaked boots at Glastonbury (as an homage, the album’s vinyl appears stained by dirt), and Perez Hilton to The Hills. We’re breezily FaceTiming from what appears to be her bed in Los Angeles, recalling mutual teenage obsessions from a time when celebrities “seemed both glamorous and totally out of control”, partying and battling TMZ in a way “that felt like a completely foreign world to my suburban midwest upbringing”. Like much of her fanbase, Slayyyter is highly pop-culture literate, shaped by years on Twitter (irony) and Tumblr (evocative pastiche). Growing up in suburban St Louis, she was “a bit of a loner kid” who found her tribe online, and whose interests in celebrity culture and music were “one and the same”.

Her early music, posted to Soundcloud in between shifts as a receptionist at a hair salon – “they wouldn’t let me touch the hair, only the phone” – turned popculturediedin2009 fixations into vibrantly tacky, bombastic, deep-fried pop. “It was very much a parody on that kind of paparazzi, McBling, tabloid, trashy girl,” she recalls – webcam photos with Paris’s mugshot in the background, knowingly ridiculous yet catchy songs about Juicy Couture and rhinestone jeans. After her first major breakup with a boyfriend in Missouri, the artist then known as Slater coped by trying to get all her social media handles in order – hence the three Ys, under which she released her first track with a beat bought from the underground electronic producer and fellow very online teen Ayesha Erotica. The Bacardi-soaked BFF went moderately viral in the right circles for 2017 – stan Twitter, largely – while Slayyyter was on shift at the salon. “I remember sitting at my desk at my job and a magazine put it on their songs of the moment list, and I was like: what is going on? It was so fast.”

At the time, “hyperpop” was not an overused genre term for any self-referential, boundary-pushing electronic music outside the mainstream, and Y2K was not yet an all-encompassing aesthetic. “I feel annoying saying this, but at the time when Ayesha and I were making music, no one was doing that yet, it wasn’t a trend yet,” she says. “Now you type Y2K into your search bar and it’s like every fast-fashion brand has a section on their site.” McBling had legs, and the stan internet-to-experimental-pop-darling pipeline flowed.

Still living with her mom in St Louis, Slayyyter cobbled together attention-grabbing tracks into a mixtape and indie record deal, then a spot on Charli xcx’s self-titled tour in 2019. There was a move to LA to make full albums: her gussied-up 2021 debut Troubled Paradise and the cocaine chic of 2023’s Starfucker, an intoxicating and deeply underrated exploration of Hollywood’s destructive and defiantly plastic allures. There were tours with Tove Lo and, more recently, Kesha. There were unexpected wins: Daddy AF, a dementedly horny and catchy riff on the slut persona, which in 2024 became one of the least likely songs to be included in an Oscar-winning movie when it soundtracked strip club scenes in Sean Baker’s film Anora.

But approaching 30, navigating pop’s hollowed-out middle class started to feel bleak. She had big co-signs but seemed to have hit the ceiling of being “famous but not quite”, as Charli xcx put it on her career-realigning 2024 album Brat.

“It feels so depressing to say, but I was like, ‘Oh, I guess it’s over for me,’” Slayyyter says candidly. “[I] started from a place of me wanting to do this for fun with the hopes that maybe I’ll be a star. And then when it kind of happens but not all the way, the goalposts shift. You’re like, ‘Well, my numbers aren’t good enough. Everyone’s getting TikTok hits, and I don’t have that.’

The urgency of Worst Girl In America can be traced to 80s gutterpunk and noughties electro sleaze as well as the whiplash pace of her internet-addled brain. “I have ADHD in a way that is so severe,” she laughs in one of many unfinished digressions. When I note that Crank does in fact hit like Adderall, she laughs – “How do you think that got written?” And, of course, there’s Kesha, the party-girl trailblazer Slayyyter recently supported on her Tits Out Tour. (Like Kesha before her, Worst Girl in America is stylized with a $.) Her tourmate has been a necessarily vocal critic of the music industry’s most predatory practices; Slayyyter has luckily avoided the worst – “I can’t even imagine,” she says – and Kesha has helped her learn through osmosis. “She was unapologetically herself always,” Slayyyter says. “That inspires me to do the same and to not feel the need to be so buttoned-up all the time.”

It is admittedly difficult to imagine the self-proclaimed Worst Girl in America buttoned-up, especially on an album this riotous, which rips through dive bars, motels and emotionally desolate gas stations with preposterously heavy beats and bared teeth. It’s certainly magnetic, and that rare thing for the very online these days: fresh. It feels like a breakthrough moment, but Slayyter has seen enough of the fickle music industry to not allow herself to believe that yet. “My biggest thing right now is just continuing to work on music and expand on the sound,” she says. “I’m not, like, looking for a mainstream moment. But if one happens, that’s great”.

 

I am ending with a review for Slayyyter. NME provided their take. WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA has received so much praise and affection. NME highlight how this year-defining album “finds salvation in the underbelly of American cinema”:

“Our first brush with the third studio album by the eternally up-and-coming pop genius Slayyyter is a blistering checklist of hedonistic excesses: “Money, drugs, chains on my chest, that vintage Celine / Diamond grills, champagne bottles, swagger I bleed,” she sings on lead single ‘Beat Up Chanel$’. It’s a state of mind for the fast-living, blunt-carrying, self-destructive narrator. “I want a cigarette,” she squeals at last, before the track lurches into a splendorous clash of thumping electro house, peppered with screwed synthesisers and all. This is the ‘Wor$t Girl In America’, take her or leave her.

Charting a chameleonic shift from the noisy proto-popstar of her self-titled debut, to the sultry, ’80s-noir of ‘Starfucker’, Slayyyter returns to the saddle on album three with her take on the lurid world of late-noughties indie sleaze (which she affectionately terms “iPod music”). Here, she indulges in clichés of American life as depicted on screen by her favourite auteurs, from drugged-up trailer trash (Spun) to deprived misfits (Gummo) and even homicidal showgirls (Faster Pussy Cat, Kill Kill!). Inspiration from the latter manifests in the spooky sonics of ‘Cannibalism’, a new-wave bop led by a lusty, cooing chorus that undulates between screamo-pop and the bravado of a tragic, on-screen heroine.

At the beating heart of the project’s explosive and utterly delirious sound lies ‘Crank’, a salacious, screaming techno track with shudders of industrial rip-roars that features some of this year’s best lyrical offerings. Lines like “She pick up then we fuck, I get so gay off that Tequila” and “He wanna fuck Slayyyter, Richard, we should link later” (the latter followed by a gallant Matthew McConnaughey impression) play to the singer’s historically cheeky pen, toeing the line between the project’s playful, rage-fuelled spirit.

These sonic experiments continue in flirtations with dark wave (‘Gas Station’), twinkling synthpop (‘Unknown Loverz’) and even religious sermon (‘Prayer’). But paramount to all of this is a note of club-led salvation, nowhere more so than on album opener ‘Dance…’, which charts a slinky new territory for the artist as she edges on the precipice of come-up with doses of acidic Korg basslines and slow-burning electro clash. Slayyyter fashions a similar patchwork of influences in the album’s self-directed music videos too, visually feasting on fireworks, rodeos, flickering cityscapes, derelict backyards and a trip to Prada Marfa, as if she was surfing through her own Tumblr feed.

The album concludes with an ode to the incomparable Brittany Murphy, the star of Jonas Akurland’s aforementioned Spun, which the singer has cited as a significant reference for the project. Synonymous with girlhood at its most challenging and delirious, Murphy couldn’t be a more fitting subject as archetype for the album’s final girl. Giggling through the chaos of the past 13 tracks as psychedelic dream-pop fills in the gaps, we can’t help but give in to the cinematic peak of ‘Wor$t Girl In America’, touching us the way all good movies do”.

If you have not heard Slayyyter or followed her music, then now is a perfect time to show support for an artist who is going to become one of the biggest on the planet. WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is one of my favourite albums of the year and I really love Slayyyter. She is a modern genius whose music is impossible to ignore. Let’s all salute and show respect for…

THIS music goddess.

____________

Follow Slayyyter

PHOTO CREDIT: Kait Muro

Official:

https://www.slayyyter.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/slayyyter/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/slayyyter

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/slayyyter/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjbIFp5s_kUgrH1S8-bG0vw

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4QM5QCHicznALtX885CnZC?si=TEywy4NlRUyxAfGu158Rhw

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs: Your Sister/Zeus (The Kick Inside)/Snowflake (Lake Tahoe)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs

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

Your Sister/Zeus (The Kick Inside)/Snowflake (Lake Tahoe)

__________

THIS is an interesting paring…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a publicity photo for 50 Words for Snow, creating Lake Tahoe

as I am combing characters from The Kick Inside (1978) and 50 Words for Snow (2011). Kate Bush’s debut and most recent studio albums, there are similarities between then. How, for 50 Words for Snow, Bush went back to the piano more and wrote songs in a way she would have done for her debut. Even though 50 Words for Snow is a different-sounding album and maybe steps into different genres, it is interesting that she sort of went full circle. I will come to an animal character from 50 Words for Snow that also shares the name of a song title from the album. Connections there. Before that, there are two characters from the title track of The Kick Inside I need to cover. One of those albums with a fair few characters – at least two more songs from the album I need to cover off -, Your Sister and Zeus are in my mind. I am going to investigate this more for a future feature, so I will not try to repeat it too much. I am going to come to some words from Kate Bush regarding a remarkable title track. I think it is unusual that a title track ends an album. Or perhaps not. However, Bush ended her debut album with a song that could only end an album. As it is emotional, heavy and brilliantly ends. This lingering and haunting note that finishes her debut. I want to first cover the live performances from 1978. The Kick Inside was memorably performed during Kate Bush’s appearance during the Efteling T.V. special:

“On 12 May 1978 at 7.12pm, the Dutch broadcaster TROS broadcast a 20 minute Kate Bush television special, recorded at the Dutch amusement park Efteling. On 10 May 1978, Efteling was ready to open the Haunted Castle, the most expensive attraction it had ever constructed, and they wanted to promote it as much as they could. Ton van der Ven, who designed the castle, appeared in a popular talk show and in April a documentary featuring the Haunted Castle was made by filmmaker Rien van Wijk, who was eager to shoot in the latest attraction before it officially opened. Kate, who just had a big hit with Wuthering Heights, was approached for a television special that would promote both Efteling and her songs. The special was filmed in April, a month before the official opening of the castle”.

I am going to first discuss the live performances of 1978 and this very special…well, special. For this performance, Kate Bush was filmed on the lake, lying in a death-barge. I guess having to show different areas of the amusement park, it was a fascinating moment. How that offer came to her and what attracted her to it. I guess the exposure was useful but, in a busy year, it was also quite a commitment! During The Kick inside, Bush sails down the river, which evokes images of Elaine and The Lady of Shalott, classic poetical figures of Arthurian legend. The sense of legend in the song. I will come to that. However, that idea of Bush as an ill-fated heroine on the water. Cast forward to 1985’s Hounds of Love and The Ninth Wave. Another stricken woman. Different circumstances, though Bush’s connection to and fascination with water present. Obviously, the title of The Kick Inside refers to pregnancy and there is that water link too. Amniotic fluid, often called the ‘water’ surrounding a baby in the uterus, is a crucial protective layer that cushions the foetus from impact, maintains a steady, warm temperature, and keeps the umbilical cord from being squeezed.

I am fascinated by touring commitments and live performances. Bush would not tour until 1979, though she was pulled to all sorts of places in 1978. Japan and the U.S. among them. You think of an album like The Kick Inside and its maturity and brilliance. If an artist released an album like that today, there would be great reviews and praise, though there would not be subjected to the demands placed on Kate Bush. Nineteen when the album was released, she undertook so many interviews and promotional duties. How taxing and draining that would have been. I am not sure whether Bush ever came to love T.V. appearances. Mainly in Europe, Bush was performing – or miming – her songs in front of audiences who perhaps didn’t know who she was. That translation issue. Especially evident and striking in Japan. However, her Efteling might be my favourite live appearances. She would perform The Kick Inside during 1979’s The Tour of Life. However, there is something unique about her in this Dutch amusement park. From the colour of her hair to the concept behind the performance, it is this fascinating thing that actually gives new meaning and insight into the song. Prior to moving to specific insight into the song and what Bush was thinking. However, this article highlights the energy, professionalism and work rate of Kate Bush in 1978:

“The special starts with a tombstone bearing the name Kate Bush. This tombstone was the subject of a lot of speculation among Dutch Kate Bush fans, since it disappeared from view between 1978 and 2003. The tombstone suddenly resurfaced in 2003 at the 25th anniversary of the Haunted Castle, and stood there at the entrance. Since 2007 the tombstone could be seen in the catacombs of the main show in the castle. The Haunted Castle was knocked down in 2022 and the tombstone has moved to the depot of the Efteling.

Light designer Bert Klos recounted about the recording of the special in 2014. “They were very heady days. There were so many different locations and I wanted to support the actions of Bush as well as possible with light. She was a short woman with a thin voice, but very professional. That woman couldn’t be stopped, she just kept on going. When we wanted to sit down for a while, she already stood up and said: ‘come on guys!’. I can even recall a soundman tripping across his own feet from sleep at 1am!” Henk Gulikers, who did camera during these days, recalled: “We didn’t sleep until 3am and at 6.30am we were back around the table with Kate and a cup of tea. We stayed in Hotel De Swaen in Oisterwijk. I got an LP from her, on which she’d written: ‘For dear Henk, the one who is very much alive behind the dead camera.’ Very nice, I liked that. Apparently she felt very much at ease”.

I have mentioned how The Kick Inside is this brave and bold album. A teenage artist releasing a debut in 1978. A woman in the industry. It was a time when there was male dominance and other styles of music were heralded and favoured by the press. Kate Bush’s incredibly original and unusual – compared to what was around it – received criticism and mockery. Sexism and misogyny from the start. It could have been easy for her to write lyrics about love and keep things commercial and simple. However, a song like The Kick Inside showed how different she was from her peers.

“The song The Kick Inside, the title track, was inspired by a traditional folk song and it was an area that I wanted to explore because it’s one that is really untouched and that is one of incest. There are so many songs about love, but they are always on such an obvious level. This song is about a brother and a sister who are in love, and the sister becomes pregnant by her brother. And because it is so taboo and unheard of, she kills herself in order to preserve her brother’s name in the family. The actual song is in fact the suicide note. The sister is saying ‘I’m doing it for you’ and ‘Don’t worry, I’ll come back to you someday.’

Self Portrait, 1978

That’s inspired by an old traditional song called ‘Lucy Wan.’ It’s about a young girl and her brother who fall desperately in love. It’s an incredibly taboo thing. She becomes pregnant by her brother and it’s completely against all morals. She doesn’t want him to be hurt, she doesn’t want her family to be ashamed or disgusted, so she kills herself. The song is a suicide note. She says to her brother, ‘Don’t worry. I’m doing it for you.’

Jon Young, Kate Bush gets her kicks. Trouser Press, July 1978”.

I couldn’t think of an artist today who would write and perform a song like this. Maybe Ethel Cain (just the first name that came to mind!). Maybe seen as taboo or not something people could share, this tale of an incestuous pregnancy and suicide would really create some division. If many male journalists felt Bush was toothless or lacked Punk rebellion and importance in 1978 clearly didn’t listen to her debut album! How many Punk artists were writing songs like The Kick Inside?! She was as compelling and provocative as any around her, though her music was beautiful and sophisticated. Maybe seen as odd or too oft, we really need to reappraise an album that stands alongside the greatest and most important debuts ever.

It is the bravery of the lyrics. How they tackle subjects very few others were discussing. The sister and brother are not named in the song. However, you sympathise with the sister. Never sure how that pregnancy happened – whether it was consensual or not -, to avoid shame on her family and any issues, she takes her own life. I am not sure whether an artist could write about this in the modern day. Even if this is fictionalised and based on old traditional song, it still mentions topics that would be seen as inappropriate or controversial. However, this is one reason why Kate Bush is such a remarkable and relevant artist. She was so far ahead of her time. That idea of her being inspired by folk tales, traditional songs, film, T.V. and literature. I cannot speak for other artists in 1978. However, think about the scene and her contemporaries. I do love how Kate Bush was tackling subjects and themes that went beyond love and politics. Not to say music was narrow in 1978. However, you did not get too many artists going beyond that in any striking or inventive way. It is not the only song in Kate Bush’s catalogue where a pregnant woman takes her own life. In The Wedding List (from 1980’s Never for Ever), a bride whose husband-to-be is assassinated, and she avenges his death by going after the killer. Another song where Bush took inspiration from an unexpected source. On that occasion, it was the 1968 film, The Bride Wore Black. I do love how worldly and sophisticated Kate Bush was and is. This perception that she was this rich girl from a middle-class family and there was this stereotyped and insulting view of her. Lizie Wan (or Lucy Wan, Child Ballad #51, Roud 234) is a traditional English murder ballad focusing on incest, adultery, and murder. In the song, a woman named Lucy (or Lizzie) becomes pregnant by her brother, who then murders her, attempts to hide the deed from their mother, and flees. How do you even discover that?! Her brother John/Jay is a poet and might have brought it to her attention. Bringing that into popular music. Darker elements than what one would associate with a Pop artist. However, Bush grew up loving artists like Captain Beefheart, David Bowie and The Beatles. It is not a great leap to imagine why she would go beyond the normal and write a song like this. I do love The Kick Inside. It is a song that is so heart-breaking. It is also very beautiful. One of her finest vocal performances. The sister in the song is this poor woman who seems to have no choice. Rather than face punishment or judgment from her family, she finds no other way out. Rather than glorify or sensationalise this, Bush handles the subject matter wonderfully. The end of the song (and the album) is the sister saying that she has left a (suicide) note and by the time you read this, she will be gone forever. It is so sad and poetic.

Although not integral to the song, Zeus is mentioned. I have written before also how Kate Bush had this fascination with mythology. The ancient world. Zeus is the king of the gods in Greek mythology, ruling as the sky and thunder deity from Mount Olympus. As the son of Titans Cronus and Rhea, he overthrew his father to lead the Olympians. Known for his power, scandals, and justice, he is associated with the lightning bolt and is considered the ‘father’ of both gods and humans. You can see why Kate Bush chose Zeus to mention in the song. It is a fascinating inclusion. How does he fit into the song? The opening lines are like poetry that warrant scrutiny: “I’ve pulled down my lace and the chintz/Oh, do you know you have the face of a genius?/I’ll send your love to Zeus/Oh, by the time you read this/I’ll be well in touch”. The peculiarity and brilliance of those lines. Maybe it is Bush portraying this sister who knows she is going to die and reach the heavens and join Zeus. The lyrics also mention “No more under the quilt to keep you warm”. That young sibling relationship and how that innocence cannot be reclaimed. I actually have lines from The Kick Inside tattooed on my arm: “You must lose me like an arrow/Shot into the killer storm”. Such exquisite imagery! There is drama and turbulence. This idea of a killer storm rumbling. Zeus is this powerful God that plays a part. Kate Bush saying in an interview how she was bored of ordinary love songs. The Kick Inside is about love, though it is this complex sibling relationship and situation. That mythological mention. Almost like a Greek tragedy in a sense. This once carefree brother and sister who had all the great times are now divided. A sense of shame befalling their family. The sister unable to come back but feels that, once she has died, she will see her brother again. The domestic and everyday combining with mythology and something somewhat ancient. The Ballad of Lucy Wan was first published in Herd's Scottish Songs in 1776. Two-hundred years later, this young modern artist inspired by this tale for the title track that ends a sublime album.

There are unnamed characters through 50 Words for Snow. We have the lover that Elton John plays on Snowed in at Wheeler Street. Lake Tahoe has one character that is alluded to but never really named. It is this lady in the lake. It sort of connects to The Kick Inside. Water once more. How Bush performed The Kick Inside at Efteling and was on a boat and evoked The Lady of Shalott. Lake Tahoe about a woman that died in the river and was this ghostly figure. I will write about her. I cannot help but focus on water once more. So crucial and key throughout her career. From The Kick Inside’s title track and other songs on that album – Wuthering Heights evokes this storm-lashed night -, right through to Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave and Aerial’s (2005) A Coral Room, Bush has always been fascinated by water. The fear of being trapped on it or the mystery and potential wonder under the water. I do really love the story behind Lake Tahoe:

“It was because a friend told me about the story that goes with Lake Tahoe so it had to be set there. Apparently people occasionally see a woman who fell into the lake in the Victorian era who rises up and then disappears again. It is an incredibly cold lake so the idea, as I understand it, is that she fell in and is still kind of preserved. Do you know what I mean?

John Doran, ‘A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed’. The Quietus, 2011”.

Lake Tahoe is situated by the Sierra Nevada mountains, directly on the border between California and Nevada in the Western United States. 50 Words for Snow takes us to the U.S. on more than one occasion. In fact, it is one of the most globe-straddling albums. Wild Man mentions various locations. The Garo Hills by Dipu Marak among them. Snowed in at Wheeler Street recalls a photograph taking in New York on 9/11 (“Have we been in love forever?/9/11 in New York, I took your photograph”). I guess The Ninth Wave might have taken place near the U.S. Somewhere in the Atlantic. However, it is interesting that we have this Victorian legend from the U.S. Ghosts, spirits and the otherworldly have also been key from throughout Kate Bush’s career. What I love about Lake Tahoe is that we never know who this Victorian woman was and how she got into the lake. A whole story there. There is something to be written about that. However, I did want to mention an animal. Bush warns in the song that nobody should step near Lake Tahoe. The danger. This Victorian woman whose eyes were fixed or dead. This pale apparition. “She was calling her pet, "Snowflake! Snowflake!”/Tumbling like a cloud that has drowned in the lake”.

Animals have featured in Kate Bush’s music. Her cat, Rocket, in Rocket’s Tail. I do love how this dog called Snowflake shares the same name as the opening track of 50 Words for Snow. Although the songs are not connected, it is interesting that we get this story of an animal who has lost their owner. I am going to mention another animal, Little Shrew, and the symbolism of that creature and how it plays into the song and gives it power. There is something more heartbreaking about an animal being lost or distressed than a human. There shouldn’t be, though that is human nature I guess. “No-one's home/Her old dog is sleeping/His legs are frail now/But when he dreams/He runs.../Along long beaches and sticky fields/Through the Spooky Wood looking for her/The beds are made. The table is laid”. This dog that may be old or he is just deprived of warmth and food. It is quite a tragic story.  Maybe the woman was walking the dog and went into the water. I am not sure whether the dog dies and they are reunited or the ghostly figure of the woman “The door is open/someone is calling: It's a woman/"Here boy, here boy! You've come home!/I've got an old bone and a biscuit and so much love/Miss me? Did you miss me?/Here's the kitchen - There's your basket/Here's the hall - That's where you wait for me/Here's the bedroom - You're not allowed in there/Here's my lap - That's where you lay your head/Here boy, oh you're a good boy/You've come home/You've come home”. You sort of picture this home where they used to live. When the woman died in the lake, Snowflake wandering and looking out for her. Now she is back. Maybe the dog did die and they are reunited in another world. This is Bush and her curiosity beyond the human realm. Exploring the mysterious and unexplained. Wild Man has that sort of curiosity too. Another way of tying back to The Kick Inside. Think of Wuthering Heights. Catherine Earnshaw as this ghostly figure outside the window at Wuthering Heights trying to get to Heathcliff. “My one dream, my only master”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in promotional photograph for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow

I am going to get to some reactions to Lake Tahoe and some of the unfair criticism of 50 Words for Snow. This is an album that was not made for singles. Wild Man was released and we had a radio edit. However, this was a song that Bush loved. Maybe an unofficial single, she actually wrote and directed a short animated video to accompany Lake Tahoe called Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe. It features five minutes from the eleven- minute track, and contains elegant shadow-puppetry. It is this dramatic and wonderous song that feeds into an album that feels like a film or short story. Maybe each song that seems like a short film in itself. Very few musicians in the mix. Steve Gadd and his brilliant percussion. Never to imposing, he creates this nuanced mood. So many different shades and emotions in his percussion. Bush on the piano. One of the most divisive element was the vocals from Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood. I do think that they create this heaving aspect. An ethereal nature. It has this choral angle that seems to fit with the Victorian inspiration. Something classical and old-world. Look at the animated video for the song. Bush would direct more than one animated video. Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe focuses on Snowflake. The dog that gambles and runs along. We see this frail woman come down the steps of a house whilst her dog waits. The combination of the song, the video and the haunting vocals from Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood is phenomenal. Lake Tahoe was released as a picture disc 10″ single, made exclusively for Record Store Day in 2012 in a limited edition of just two-thousand copies. Among Angels was a B-side. One of the absolute highlights from 50 Words for Snow. I love everything about Lake Tahoe. How we do go to America and this great lake but tie it to a Victorian legend. Maybe people visit there now and feel they see this woman rise from the water. Rathe than it being all about that idea, it is more about Snowflake and this bereft or lost pet trying to find their way back to the woman. Like The Kick Inside’s title track, such a fascinating and different subject to write about. How many other artists in 2011 were writing songs like this?!

I do feel that 50 Words for Snow got a lot of unfair criticism. People not willing to listen to seven longer songs, rather than shorter numbers. This idea that Kate Bush was a Pop artist who was going to write shorter tracks or something more commercial. Beyond the fringe of the mainstream, this was an artist always changing and doing something new. Chamber Jazz you might call 50 Words for Snow. Bush also released Director’s Cut in 2011. She wanted to release it in 2011 and would have to wait until winter 2012 otherwise. It was tis hectic time of releasing two albums. She started it as a winter piece but, as she wrote, it honed down to it being about snow. She wanted to explore the longer structure of songs, so that the storytelling and journey would be longer. Bush feeling her music needed that exploitation and detail. Allowing it more space and ambition. Perhaps this idea that songs that run so long are stretching people’s patience. I feel 50 Words for Snow is one of Kate Bush’s underrated and misunderstood albums. Lake Tahoe is one of the gems on the album. There were some mentions of Lake Tahoe it in reviews. This is what The Guardian noted:

“Then there's "Lake Tahoe", which tells of a legend in which a drowned woman seems to rise up out of the lake. "Is your kitchen as you left it?" Bush wonders, making the domestic poignantly romantic as she did on Aerial's "Mrs Bartolozzi" ("Washing machine/ Washing machine… "). But despite some sylph-like singing from Bush, and arresting atonal passages, "Lake Tahoe" never quite electrifies; guest chorister Stefan Roberts is just too churchy”

The sense of the outside world and atmosphere. Rather than it being about the intimacy of home or love or something more focused. 50 Words for Snow is so widespread and expansive. Snow is the common theme, yet the geographical spread is immense. Snowed in at Wheeler Street takes us to the U.S. and Ancient Rome. Lake Tahoe to this very distinct and evocative space. Collapse Board had this to say when they discussed Lake Tahoe:

“This album is no exception; the great majority of tracks are strongly evocative of natural environments. Yet despite settings often as specific as Delaney’s teeming grey Salford – Kangchenjunga’s caves, buried beneath the snow in the roof of the world; glacial Lake Tahoe, where Cousteau is said to have found his white forest of perfectly-preserved lost swimmers – Bush nonetheless keeps these real places at one remove. She seems less preoccupied with location than with dislocation, as though the snow, in hiding the land, revealed a land beyond the land – and in particular the lost, occupied land of the indigenous people Bush invokes here, the Wahoe, the Yupik, the Inuit and the Sami.

50 Words For Snow’s multitude of characters and voices fall from the sky, rise from lakes, wind around trees, are rolled into golems, thick with twigs and stones. Its architecture is granular: the songs borrow ideas, names and settings from one another, crystallising into pairs, triplets, drifts. In the thick of this exchange, people aren’t so recognisable”.

Kate Bush was aware of the long period it takes to record album. 50 Words for Snow is perhaps less structured and honed than many of her albums. Bush said there is this divine intervention that is part of the creative process. When speaking with John Wilson in 2011, this is what she said. How she was getting near the end Lake Tahoe and she was playing so lightly that there was this space. She felt like she should keep going. This little hole. Almost like a live take. I want to come to a review from The Quietus and their approach to Lake Tahoe. What they say about the vocals on the song:

“Just as Benjamin Britten blended the voices of a tenor and a countertenor in his second canticle – singing together in perfect and still unison, they represented the voice of God advising Abraham to sacrifice his own son – fifty-nine years later Kate Bush scored Lake Tahoe for a tenor and a countertenor. Singing together they become the voice of a ghostly narrator. “Cold mountain water, don’t ever swim there”, they warn. Lake Tahoe is 1,645 feet deep. Lake Tahoe is filled with mosquito fish, bluegill, cutthroat trout, the bodies of Chinese railroad workers from the 1870s and a drowned Victorian woman still dressed in white satin. The dead don’t float in Lake Tahoe, the cold preserves them. A thousand feet down their blue eyes are open but once a year they walk the shore. Kate Bush sees her Victorian woman searching for a dog. “Snowflake! Snowflake!” she calls out. Kate Bush becomes a Victorian woman. “Snowflake! Snowflake!” she sings out. Her dog is warm at home sleeping in the kitchen. Kate Bush’s skin and hair are wet, her eyes blue, underneath her fingernails is Tahoe silt. We cannot save her. And the snow is falling – softly at first but soon in deep plodding flurries like the heavy walking chords of her piano as she climbs the keyboard out of Lake Tahoe. Quavers of snow crown the surrounding peaks, melting into the chilled water. Lake Tahoe doesn’t freeze. You cannot walk across it, unless you are Snowflake running towards his ghostly mistress – ears flailing, curly white hair windswept behind him. – Richard Scott”.

This song about a woman that comes from the depths and rises, fully dressed. Preserved by the icy water. Kate Bush noting how it was such a heavy image. How she was so proud of 50 Words for Snow, in a way she had not felt since The Kick Inside. The piano-led approach. Bush consciously or not linking to that album. Lake Tahoe exists because Bush was arguing for the importance of the album. 50 Words for Snow very much this complete work that was intended to be this full work that you would listen to in a single go and not separate tracks. Snowflake, the canine character from Lake Tahoe, one of the most interesting I think. Even if we feel the song is about the woman who died in a lake and can be seen rising, it seems like a story about a dog who is looking to reunite. Something that holds on but is lost and scared. Maybe I am reading that wrong. 50 Words for Snow, named or not, has this broad and fascinating cast of characters. Snowflake up there with the most compelling. That is why I wanted to examine him/her for…

THIS Kate Bush feature.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Domi Hawken

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Domi Hawken

Domi Hawken

__________

I am not sure…

how I came across Domi Hawken. I think I was on Instagram and her profile was suggested for me based on my likes/preferences. I had never heard her music before but, upon further investigation, I was intrigued! You can follow her on Instagram (all the links are at the bottom of this feature), and she does have a Twitter and Facebook page, but the former especially has not been updated for a long time. Domi Hawken is a London-based Indie/Alternative artist known for a Dark-Rock sound that merges Punk, Folk, and Rock 'n' Roll with emotionally raw vocals. Someone who used to write for others, Hawken launched her solo career in Liverpool before moving to London, releasing the stunning 2024 E.P., Sociable Pariah, and launching a 2026 project to release twelve songs in twelve months. I am writing this feature on 28th March, so I am too early to include the March song from her. Break My Heart Again will be available from Tuesday (31st March). Her February song, Stalling., is one of my favourite of this year. In terms of her influence, I have seen in interviews how she has discussed Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. Or journalists have noted how these artists are important to her and feed into her music. This ‘holy trinity’ of songwriters, you can sense some of their genius and mood through her own work. However, in a scene where there are soundalikes and samey artists, Domi Hawken definitely stands as an original. That’s what I think.

I am going to get to some press about her. Although Hawken is quite new to a lot of people’s radar, she is someone who has been in the music industry for a while, as I say, writing for others before embarking on her own material. When you look at the visuals for her songs too, you realise that Hawken has this gravitas and pull. Someone who is as engaging in front of the camera as she is on the microphone. Effortless cool and authority, but also a sense of mystery and vulnerability. I wonder if she will ever consider acting in the future, as she has this hugely engaging aspect that makes the songs strike even harder. I digress somewhat! I am going to start out by wondering whether there are dates coming up for Domi Hawken, as this is someone I would love to see live. I can imagine she is such a spectacular and powerful solo artist who leaves the crowds wowed. After recently discovering her, I am really fascinated by her sound, influences and the whole package! This complete artist that warrants wider airplay. I wonder if too if stations like BBC Radio 6 Music have picked up on her, as she seems ready-made for their playlist. Maybe I have missed her music being played on the station but, with a new single dropping late each month for this year, it is a perfect time to embrace and celebrate such a distinct and enormously talented artist. Someone who I can see spending years in the industry building her reputation as a world-class vocalist and songwriter. Maybe producing for other artists in the future too.

I am wondering whether Domi Hawken will release an E.P. or album this year. I guess, with a single a month coming, that in itself is an album’s worth of material. There will be such big demand for her to come to the stage. I do love artists who are so honest with their music. That it is not about being polished, TikTok-ready and following the herd. It is going to be so exciting seeing where this stunning queen goes from here and how her career develops. I do hope that we get an interview with Domi Hawken in the middle of the year maybe, as she is embarking on this project of a song every month. Catching up to see how it is progressing and what is inspiring her songs. It is not just the case of putting out songs quickly that sound the same. Blue Fish and Stalling. are very different. Last year’s E.P., Water and the Wine, very different too. Such a curious and diverse artist, perhaps I should have held out writing this until the new single came out! I might pop it in a future feature about her. Or, if I get to interview Hawken, slip it in there. I want to come to Mystic Sons and their interview from last year. Around the time The Moment I Need You the Most was released, I do love the artists Domi Hawken name-checked when asked about her childhood tastes:

“Erupting with raw rock 'n' roll energy 'The Moment I Need You The Most' dives deep into unrequited love while transcending conventional heartbreak through Hawken's signature blend of punk swagger and folk storytelling. "To me, the song is unhinged," Hawken reveals "It isn't about pining over someone you're in a relationship with - the protagonist is desperate, maybe the person she's singing about barely knows her, their relationship being completely overblown in her mind."

Following the single's release, we sat down with Domi to explore the inspirations behind her sound as she prepares to unveil what promises to be her most ambitious work yet.

What kind of music did you love when you were younger?

All sorts, it was a real mix. There was all the older stuff that my Dad was showing me, which I loved, mixed in with what my older sister was showing me. So I loved led zeppelin but I was also super into Steps, then when I was 14 I ‘discovered’ Bob Dylan and that literally changed my life forever.

What was the first album you remember owning?

It was either Maroon 5, Songs about Jane or White Stripes,  Elephant. We did have a Spice Girls cassette, but I’m not sure I can claim ownership, it was probably my sister’s.

What’s the most rewarding part of being a musician? And the most frustrating part?

The people who listen to the music, it’s a double edged sword. I’ve had messages from people saying they listened to a song of mine before going on a date and it made them less nervous, or on the way to work to pump themselves up, and that’s great seeing a song become bigger than what you created, watching it mean something to complete strangers. But also, you can’t control any of it. I can’t make anyone like what I’m doing, or come to a show, or listen to a song, and sometimes it can feel like you’re just throwing stuff into the void and hoping someone notices it.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received as a musician?

Stop thinking. You’re not a musician if you’re not engaging in some kind of music, playing or writing. Don’t overthink or question ‘will this be popular?’ The very worst songs I’ve ever written were when I was trying to write like somebody else or in a way I thought people wanted. I have no control over that, in a way it’s none of my business what people think of the music once it’s out there and if you focus on that you’ll never create anything. So, stop thinking, just write, play, put it out and then drop it, onto the next”.

There is not a lot online so far regarding Domi Hawken at the moment. However, given the amount of new music she is putting out this year, there will be more promotion and insight into this remarkable artist. I am going to end with Richer Unsigned and their piece this year about Blue Fish. A phenomenal single from an artist who I think will have a very bright future:

“London-based indie/alternative artist Domi Hawken launches her bold 2026 project – one new song every month – with the haunting first release, ‘Blue Fish.’

Dark, guitar-driven and emotionally unfiltered, the track explores self-discovery at the point where love, life and death collide. Raised on Leonard Cohen and Led Zeppelin, Hawken blends poetic introspection with raw rock intensity, delivered through a DIY, home-recorded, grunge aesthetic that favours honesty over polish”.

If you have not discovered the remarkable Domi Hawken, then make sure that you follow her. I am a recent fan but, after hearing her music, I am going to keep an eye to see where she heads. Her work is progressing and growing. Her second E.P., last year’s The Water and the Wine, built on the promise and brilliance of Sociable Pariah. Spill Magazine wrote about the incredible sophomore E.P. last year: “Her upcoming EP Water and The Wine promises to be Hawken’s most ambitious work to date, showcasing a different side to her artistry. Moving away from the rigid vision of her debut, Hawken has embraced a more collaborative approach with her band members Matt Robson, Cyprien Jacquet, and Kobi Pham. “When our drummer Cyprien sent back his first version of ‘Water And The Wine,’ he asked if it was what I wanted,” she recalls. “I told him it was so much better than what I wanted. From that moment, I was much more relaxed about letting the guys put their stamp on the songs.” The result is a grittier, more creative sound that benefits from the collective input of the entire band”. 2026 has already been a really busy one. Releasing a new track each month, I wonder what the long-term holds for Domi Hawken. She is such an exciting talent with a sound that instantly stands her aside from her peers, you simply need to hear her music right now. An artist who will put out incredible music…

FOR so many years to come.

____________

Follow Domi Hawken

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/domihawken/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@Domi.Hawken.Media

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2ACipMMoIPtFYZ0MHtMAUU?si=X5Y2h5l4Q-KFv4bx8Mh6wQ

FEATURE: Smile Away: Paul and Linda McCartney's RAM at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Smile Away

Paul and Linda McCartney's RAM at Fifty-Five

__________

THERE have been various…

IN THIS PHOTO: Linda and McCartney in 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Daily Record

incarnations of Paul McCartney’s career. As part of The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist. However, the Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney partnership is perhaps the most unknown and best. RAM is the only album credited to each of them, in spite of the fact that Linda McCartney worked on several of her husband’s albums. It turns fifty-five on 17th May. Before getting to some features about this incredible album, here are some notes and a bit of background:

“The only album credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM reached Number 1 in the UK and stayed in the US Top 10 for five months. Recording after he’d left The Beatles and before the formation of Wings, Paul initially flew with Linda to New York to record the songs they'd written but arrived without a band. As Paul recalls, “We were thinking of forming a group at that time, Wings. We went to New York, found a really grotty little basement somewhere and auditioned a bunch of people. We got someone to throw a lot of drummers at us, out of which we picked Denny Seiwell who’s one of the best, and his personality fitted. Then we went in, worked with him, Hugh McCracken, Dave Spinozza, a couple of New York session men, and did RAM.” To avoid arousing too much interest, the auditions were held under the guise of a session for a commercial jingle. As well as Paul’s lead vocals there are harmonies from Linda. “I gave her a hard time, I must say, but we were pleased with the results. Elton John later said somewhere that he thought it was the best harmonies he’d heard in a long while. It was very much the two of us against the world at that point.” Despite an initially lukewarm Rolling Stone review, it was later hailed by them as one of his best solo albums. In 2012, RAM was reissued in remastered form with many extra elements, as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.

Performed by Paul & Linda McCartney with Denny Seiwell, Dave Spinozza & Hugh McCracken
Tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 11, 12 composed by Paul McCartney
Tracks 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 composed by Paul & Linda McCartney
Produced by Paul and Linda McCartney
1993 reissue: Tracks 13 (‘Another Day’) & 14 (Oh Woman, Oh Why’) produced by Paul McCartney
Sound Engineers: Tim, Ted, Phil, Dixon, Armin & Jim
Mixing Engineer: Eirik the Norwegian”.

I am going to lead to a review from 2012. Pitchfork reviewed the reissue of RAM and provided some interesting insights. In 1971, there was still a lot of animosity around Paul McCartney. People blaming him for the break-up of The Beatles. His debut solo album, 1970’s McCartney, was hammered. Even though RAM is a masterpiece, there was this negativity because it was a Paul McCartney album:

“Sometimes an album gets a review so resoundingly negative that it lurks forever like a mournful spirit in its rear view mirror: Jon Landau, writing for Rolling Stone, claimed to hear in Ram "the nadir in the decomposition of Sixties rock thus far." Which is intense. But people wanted impossible things from Beatles solo albums-- closure, healing, apologies, explanations for what to do with their dashed expectations. John Lennon tried telling everyone outright "The dream is over" on Plastic Ono Band's "God", but that still wasn't a cold-water jet hard enough to prepare people, apparently, for the whimsical pastoral oddity that was Ram.

Landau was right, however, that it did spell the end of something, which might be a clue to the vitriol: If "60s rock" was defined, in large part, by the existence of the Beatles, then Ram made it clear in a new, and newly painful, way that there would be no Beatles ever again. To use a messy-divorce metaphor: When your parents are still screaming red-faced at each other, it's a nightmare, but you can still be assured they care. When one of them picks up and continues on living, it smarts in an entirely different way.

Ram, simply put, is the first Paul McCartney release completely devoid of John's musical influence. Of course, John wiggled his way into some of the album's lyrics-- in those fresh, post-breakup years, the two couldn't quite keep each other out of their music. But musically, Ram proposes an alternate universe where young Paul skipped church the morning of July 6, 1957, and the two never crossed paths. It's breezy, abstracted, completely hallucinogen-free, and utterly lacking grandiose ambitions. Its an album whistled to itself. It's purely Paul.

Or actually, "Paul and Linda." This was another one of Paul's chief Ram -related offenses: He not only invited his new photographer bride into the recording studio, he included her name on the record's spine. Ram is the only album in recorded history credited to the artist duo "Paul and Linda McCartney," and in the sense that Linda's enthusiastically warbling vocals appear on almost every song, it's entirely accurate. Some read Paul's decision as the ultimate insult to his former partner: I've got a new collaborator now! Her name is Linda, and she never makes me feel stupid. In the album's freewheeling spirit, however, the decision scans more like guilelessness and innocence. The songs don't feel collaborative so much as cooperative: little schoolhouse plays that required every hand on deck to get off the ground. Paul had the most talent, so naturally he was up front, but he wanted everyone behind him, banging pots, hollering, whistling-- whatever it is you did, make sure you're back there doing it with gusto.

It is exactly this homemade charm that has caught on with generations of listeners as the initial furor around the album subsided. What 2012's ears can find on Ram is a rock icon inventing an approach to pop music that would eventually become someone else's indie pop. It had no trendy name here; it was just a disappointing Beatles solo album. But when Ben Stiller's fussy, pedantic "Greenberg" character painstakingly assembles a mix for Greta Gerwig intended to display the breadth and depth of his pop-culture appreciation, he slides Ram 's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" on there. It's the song we see her singing along to enthusiastically in the following montage.

Critics hated "Uncle Albert". "A major annoyance," Christgau opined. Again, from the current moment we can only plead ignorance, assume that some serious shit had to be going down to clog everyone's ears. Because "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is not only Ram 's centerpiece, it is clearly one of McCartney five greatest solo songs. As the slash in the title hints, it's a multi-part song, starring two characters. To put its accomplishments in an egg-headed way: It fuses the conversational joy listeners associated with McCartney's melodic gift to the compositional ambition everyone assumed was Lennon's. To put it a simpler way: Every single second of this song is joyously, deliriously catchy, and no two seconds are the same. Do you think early Of Montreal, the White Stripes at their most vaudevillian, or the Fiery Furnaces took any lessons from this song?

What a lot of people thought they heard on "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", and everywhere else on the album, is cloying cuteness. But it turns out you can say a lot of things-- things like "go fuck yourself" ("3 Legs"), "everything is fucked" ("Too Many People"), and even "let's go fuck, honey" ("Eat At Home)"-- with a big, dimpled grin on your face. "It's just the critics who say, 'Well, John was the biting tongue; Paul's the sentimental one,'" Linda observed shrewdly in a dual Playboy interview from 1984. "John was biting, but he was also sentimental. Paul was sentimental, but he could be very biting. They were more similar than they were different”.

This review from 2021 also highlights the vitriol aimed at RAM. Even Ringo Starr dismissed it. Saying there were no tunes on RAM and feeling McCartney was getting weird. Fifty-five years after its release and the magic and sheer brilliance of RAM has not dimmed. AS huge critical shift and retrospective positivity:

“Fifty years on from its release, the album is now being held aloft beneath the spotlight and readily proclaimed a classic. Still simple but now “relevant”, “revealing” and “austere”, an endearing snapshot of the time, and of a singer’s circumstance. It has taken time, Lord knows it has taken time, but this collection of songs is now seen and loudly credited for those very same joke-filled, shuffling and spontaneous lyrics to a loving young family that had rescued a tortured man from unrelentingly dark hours, and from the bottom of a bottle.

“The break-up had its effect on me,” Paul revealed later. “I took to the booze. I was trying to recover in whatever way I could.”

Remnants of those dark and unrelenting hours still managed to seep through somewhere though, as thinly-veiled barbs and none-too-subtle digs at his one-time friends and now former bandmates being torn apart by money-fuelled arguments and the endless rounds of high court meetings; four friends now angrily and hungrily picking very publicly over the bones of their joint creation and legacy. And, as a testament to all of this, RAM now stands alone, although suddenly proud. As the sole McCartney album credited equally to both Paul and Linda McCartney. As a family’s scrapbook of lyrical snapshots from a life together, far away from all the madness and recriminations, and of an artist waiting to be rediscovered within the sanctity of a sprawling farm hidden far away from prying eyes in remotest Scotland.

“If Linda hadn’t got on his case,” drummer Denny Seiwell told Tom Doyle for MOJO magazine, “RAM never would’ve been made.”

“She just eased me out of it,” MOJO reports McCartney as saying of that time, “and sort of said, ‘Hey, y’know, you don’t want to get too crazy.’ And made me feel a lot better. And then I moved again into music therapy, which was RAM…”

With each song, cathartically penned and reworked between the daily chores demanded by a working farm and a young growing family, and demoed at night, single-handedly, in a homemade studio that was little more than a simple “lean-to” propped up against an old out-house but containing a favourite four-track machine, McCartney began to rediscover his joy. He began to sober up, “to heal”. He began to emerge from the shadows of The Beatles, from the ties that bound him to John, George and Ringo and from the debris of all the legal wrangling that had threatened to bury him.

“I suppose I was just letting myself be free,” he would admit later to Tom Doyle.

In New York, fulfilling an ambition and finally managing to record in the U.S., something The Beatles had never done, and working with a new band comprising of David Spinozza, who had been recruited personally by Linda, Hugh McCracken and drummer Denny Seiwell, who would later join Wings, the recording sessions for RAM began on the 18th October 1970, and saw everyone enveloped within a family atmosphere, Paul and Linda’s daughter Mary content in a playpen installed in the control room of Columbia Record’s Studio B.

“Immediately what dawned on me was how good the songwriting was,” Spinozza tells MOJO.
“It was some of the best stuff that he did – definitely since leaving The Beatles,” Denny Seiwell revealed to Classic Rock.

The album opens with the track ‘Too Many People’, throughout which McCartney’s feelings begin to form and take shape, rising bitterly to the surface and aimed specifically towards his one time writing partner, John Lennon; the track famously beginning, apparently, with the words, “piss off”, sung in a whisper just above an otherwise slightly psychedelic intro, although now, Paul insists that he actually sings, “piece of cake”.

“And hey,” he tells Doyle, “come on, how mild is that?” And of the lines, “Too many people preaching practices…” and “you took your lucky break and broke it in two”?

“I felt that was true of what was going on. ‘Do this, do that.’” Now it seems as though Paul would not have cared so much if all the “preaching and the practices” he saw coming from those advising John, George and Ringo, namely Allen Klein, had been wise. But, according to The Beatles’ former business associate, Peter Brown, Lennon strongly believed that several songs, including ‘Too Many People’ and ‘Dear Boy’ had been aimed directly towards him and Yoko Ono, whilst both George and Ringo interpreted the song ‘3 Legs’ as attacks directed at them and John, especially the lines, “My dog he got three legs, But he can’t run”, and “I thought you was my friend, But you let me down”. The small image of two beetles, strategically placed on the back of an otherwise simple album cover, would only help to add to all these pent-up feelings of frustration, mistrust and recrimination, to what fans read and heard as barely hidden innuendoes.

One track that McCartney insists had nothing to do with Lennon though, is ‘Dear Boy’. Instead, he says, it was written to Linda’s first husband, who, as Paul sings, didn’t realise quite, “how much you missed”. But, the songs had been pored over endlessly by former bandmates, fans and critics alike, and the interpretations and lasting first impressions had been made, rightly or wrongly. And it was the songs ‘Too Many People’ and ‘Another Day’, the single released just before RAM, that Lennon would soon respond to directly, his track ‘How Do You Sleep’ famously including his own bitter observation that: “The only thing you done was yesterday, And since you’ve gone you’re just another day”. There would be no disguising who that was aimed at.

“Those freaks was right when they said you was dead, The one mistake you made was in your head.”

For Paul though, RAM was a way of making sense of all the conflicting emotions, and of working through them, finally ridding himself of all the confusion and frustrations. “Like I say,” he would explain to Tom Doyle, “that was my saviour.”

Ram is now seen as a more highly polished and professional offering than the album that had come before, McCartney, and with much less of the “homemade” or “rushed” feel about it, even including the New York Philharmonic who added full orchestrated flesh to the singles ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ and ‘The Back Seat of My Car’. Still minimalistic and simple, according to the various reviews that mark this anniversary, but now it is revered as tuneful and heartfelt, as a classic album from an artist cheerful and seemingly fulfilled, even in the midst of all the adversity.

“Looking back at it now, like a lot of things in retrospect,” Paul admits to Classic Rock, “it looks better than it looked to me then”.

I am going to end with an interview from 2021 from Paul McCartney. A RAM special, it is interesting hearing his recollections and insights into a time which was very strange and stressful. However, being in Scotland on a farm and away from the pressure and rush of the city must also have provided some space at least:

“Locutus on Twitter: In another interview you mentioned (when composing songs) "you know when it's a good one". When making RAM - a now highly acclaimed record - did you know it would be a good one?

Paul: I thought it was a good one, and enjoyed making it, and felt like I’d made a good album. What ruined it for me was that it was not well received critically, and that kinda put me off. Which is weird, it’s sort of weak of me to be put off by a review, but these things happen. The adverse reviews made me think ‘oh, maybe it wasn’t such a good album, I better try and make another one’.

But the saving grace in all of this is that years later people would tell me RAM was their favourite album, and that made me go back and listen to it and think again. The critics put me off it, and the fans put me on it! I remember my nephew Jay said to me ‘oh, my favourite album of yours is RAM’, and that was especially nice to hear because he grew up with it. Whenever I had a new album I’d want to play it for my family, so the kids got to hear it, which means he’s probably got nice memories of listening to it at home.

I actually did an interview the other day with a guy called Lou Simon from the Beatles channel on Sirius XM in America, and he said that it’s not only his favourite album of mine, it’s his favourite record of all time. Wow! Considering what great records there have been over the years, that was a pretty big compliment. But yeah, there are people who really like this. So, it’s really nice to rediscover something like that, particularly when you weren’t sure whether it was good or not.

PM.com: Does that change how you think of reviews now?

Paul: Yeah. Obviously, you’re always trying to make the best record so you only put records out that you think are good. The first person I need to please is me. You start there, and you think ‘if I like it, there’s a good chance that other people who are going to like it’. And then when you talk to the fans and they say they like it, or you see them writing in or tweeting in.

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney during the recording of RAM at Columbia Studios, New York in 1970/PHOTO CREDIT: Linda McCartney

Pintaadaptor on Instagram: How was writing on your farm in Scotland different from writing at studios such as Abbey Road etc?

Paul: Because of the lifestyle we were living, it was very free. The Beatles had been great, and I’d loved it, but I couldn’t say it was free, personally. I couldn’t exactly go to Scotland for a few months. If you were in The Beatles, you had to make records and work. But when we went to Scotland, we had a very free, sort of hippie lifestyle. It meant I could sit around in the kitchen in the little farmhouse we lived in, with the kids running around and me just with my guitar, making up anything I fancied. ‘Three Legs’ for instance was me jamming around with a blues idea, and then with no particular relevance I sang ‘my dog, he got three legs, but he can run’, meaning that everything doesn’t have to be perfect, it can still work. And then I added the lyric ‘a fly flies in’, and I’m sure that happened, with the window open in Scotland! I’m sure a fly actually flew in and I went ‘okay – you’re in the song! Fly flies in, fly flies out’. So yeah, it was a very free period and I think that found its way into the record.

I always think that the way we were living then was the way a lot of young people would like to live. We were escaping the constrictions of society. It’s why people move out to the country, or do a lot of gardening, all of those sort of things. It’s a great opportunity in your life to do something different.

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in Scotland in 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Linda McCartney

Fleur on Facebook: How did the writing partnership with Linda work? Did you sit down formally together like you did with John?

Paul: No, it was much looser. I would be writing something mainly, because Linda didn’t really play a guitar and we didn’t have a piano knocking around, so it would be me messing around with a guitar and I might say to her ‘sing along!’ and then ‘ah that’s good, we’ll put it in’. She’d make suggestions as we went along, or sing a harmony or something, but it wasn’t a formal thing like John and I where you had two people sitting down with the intention of writing a song. With Linda I’d be sat in the kitchen making it up, and she’d throw a suggestion in and that made her a co-writer.

Brendan on Twitter: Linda’s harmonies on this album are exceptional. Did it take a long time to get right or was she naturally brilliant from the start?

Paul: Well, we worked at it. Because that’s what you do when you work on a record, you want it to sound right. Linda told me that she used to be a member of a glee club in America, when she was in college. Like the TV series ‘Glee’! I’d never heard of a glee club before, because in Britain we didn’t have that, and she explained that they would sing together and they used to go to a bell tower at the school because it had a good acoustics. She knew certain things about it, so when it came to writing and recording, she would naturally just sing a harmony or I would suggest one and we’d harmonise at home. Then when we would get into the studio, we’d work a little bit harder to try and get it right.

Looking back at the records we made together, I think our harmonies were a really individual sound, and a very special sound. Probably because she wasn’t a professional singer, that gave her an innocence to her tone that comes through on the records. I’d be singing ‘hands across the water’ and she’d echo ‘water, water’ and do this funny little American accent, and we’d put it in! We were having fun”.

On 17th May, RAM turns fifty-five. It is this exceptional album that I still don’t think gets enough credit. Paul McCartney recently announced a new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. That arrive on 29th May. This masterful genius still producing amazing music. I wonder whether he will say anything about RAM on its fifty-fifth anniversary. Despite how disheartening and damaging it would have been reading some of the reviews in 1971, Paul McCartney can be immensely proud of what he and Linda McCartney created. It is their album. Whilst we sadly lost Linda McCartney, Paul carries the legacy and can discuss the album. His memories of recording with his beloved wife. An album warmly received now, someone who went through such hell during the time and when it was released can now…

SMILE away.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Nadine Shah

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Amelia Read

Nadine Shah

__________

I chatted with the…

queen that is Nadine Shah last year, as she was part of the Together for Palestine single that almost made it to the Christmas number one slot. It was a remarkable and important single that raised money for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Lullaby is this incredible song I asked Nadine Shah about. Here, I am spotlighting her as a solo artist, as I believe she is currently working on her sixth studio album. 2024’s Filthy Underneath was my favourite of that year and its lead single, Topless Mother, is a song I listen to loads now and absolutely love. The video is amazing too! I am revisiting Nadine Shah, not only because I am a fan, but I feel she is one of the most important voices in music. There are some fascinating interviews from throughout the years I have included in other features about Shah. I am going to dip back into a slightly older one released around the release of the 2020 album, Kitchen Sink. For The Quietus, Nadine Shah selected albums important to her. To provide a bit of context, I will include several that she mentioned that you can sort of detect in her work. Though Shah is a huge original, and the abiding takeaway from her music is this singular and peerless voice:

“Tori Amos

Little Earthquakes

“It’s an honest one, this. I guess I call them my emo years, not that I listened to actual emo. I’d left London for a time and moved back to the north east when I was about 20, and I stayed there for a year. And I realised I’d made a mistake and I wanted to go back to London. I was living with my parents and I had no money and I was saying "Please dad, can you lend me some money so I can move to London?" and he was saying, "No, I already lent you money years ago, you’re not getting anymore. Get a job’; ‘I don’t want a job!’ [laughs]. I was feeling really sorry for myself.

I had a really camp manager at the time, a brilliant guy called Steven Brains, and he was such an advocate for great female musicians I didn’t know about like Diamanda Galas and also Tori Amos. He told me how important she was to him. My mum and dad live by the sea and I would play this Tori Amos album to myself over and over again feeling so sorry for myself. Walking across the dramatic north east coastline looking out to the North Sea and singing along really loudly on the clifftops. I thought she really knew me and she felt my pain. Now I cringe!

There’s something about her vocals that has a unique character. I appreciate artists who show you every bit of them. They’re not there to appease or blend in. These people provide the soundtracks of our lives, and she provided one for me when I was feeling very, very sorry for myself. And it was a really great way to exorcise that pain, so aye, thanks Tori Amos for that”.

Richard Dawson

Nothing’s Important

He’s an old friend of mine. You know when you go to house parties and someone pulls out a guitar and you’re like, "ah right, it’s time to go home"? When a boy pulls out an acoustic guitar, it’s like, ‘Fuck off, he’s gonna play ‘Wonderwall’, see ya later. Time to go to bed, party over’. And when I first knew Richard Dawson years ago, I was at a house party in Newcastle and he gets the guitar and starts playing, and I couldn’t even finish saying "party’s over" because he started to play. Honestly, I’ve never known anything like it. I was spellbound by his voice, his presence, his playing, the way he detuned his guitar strings so they were slack, and I’ve not heard tuning like that ever.

He’s completely phenomenal and he was a cult icon in Newcastle for years. He had a big drinking problem, which he’s talked about, and he’d turn up at parties wasted and play, and then he really got his act together and he honed his craft. He’s been such an inspiration of mine. For me and my friends he was this huge inspiration.

I try not to listen to any Richard Dawson when I’m writing because it makes me want to put the pen down and stop what I’m doing and not bother. I’m in love with his voice too. The lyrics for ‘The Vile Stuff’ are just sensational. And some of the names in the song – I know who those people are! And then I spoke to a music journalist who said, "It’s really clever how he mentions all the Apostles in that song" and I was like, what? Fucking hell, Richard Dawson, you clever bastard. It has all the makings of the perfect song for me, ‘The Vile Stuff’: I love a drunken sea shanty or a song that sounds like you need a tankard to bash against a wooden table. It’s one of the most glorious pieces of music that I’ve ever heard and so different from the music that I do hear or I imagine that I ever will hear. I put it on when I’m mischievous and whisky drunk. Bloody Richard Dawson, he’s the best.

Lauryn Hill

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

I would have been 12 when this came out and I think it’s probably one of the only albums I can think back on from childhood that’s quite a cool one. I didn’t have a very musical family, I didn’t have a bunch of muso friends, so I dunno how I stumbled upon it. I would have heard something on Top of the Pops or it would have been on the wall advertised in HMV because it was a really big album and that’s the one you go to.

I knew every word to every song on the album, even the rapping. I’ve been banned from rapping in isolation by my boyfriend which is quite frustrating because I love rapping. I remember being really proud of myself and knowing all the lyrics, but there’s a lot of stark political commentary in her words too, and maybe I wouldn’t have noticed that at the time. There’s beautiful nostalgia attached to it from my childhood but I think it still stands out compared to so much stuff I’ve listened to. Whenever I listen to new music I find it interesting to go back to old favourites, and that still stands out as unique and quite revolutionary.

It’s a really coherent piece of work. It’s amazing, there are all these segues between songs which take place in a classroom, and there’s a teacher talking to the kids. They’re really sweet, lovely, gentle moments, and there’s that one song ‘Doo-Wap (That Thing)’ – it’s quite retro even for the time – and there are these silky songs sung by Lauryn Hill and she just has such a beautiful singing voice. It’s the album I’ve given to people and never got back the most. I swear I’ve replaced it at least 12 times saying, ‘you’ve got to listen to this!’

There wasn’t much after that. You wonder, when you make such a pivotal album, whether an artist feels pressurised and thinks they can’t make anything else like that. And in a way, if you feel within yourself that you can’t make anything better then just leave it at that. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do. Retire as heavyweight champion, why not?”

Last year was a pivotal one for Nadine Shah, I feel. She released her Live in London album. That was taken from her 2024 performance at the Kentish Town O2 Forum. I was at that gig, and I can attest at how phenomenal that show was! Such an utterly engrossing and powerful performance that blew me away, Shah also performed at festivals including Glastonbury. One reason why I want to highlight these events is how she used her platform not just to play her music and leave it there. She uses that musical pulpit to talk about vital issues like the genocide in Palestine and humanity. She is an artist who has a huge heart and conscience. Someone who has spoken out against the bloodshed in Gaza and the pacificism of government. Shah also will be busy this year with gigs. I am not sure when a new album is arriving, though I am also going to drop in a review of Filthy Underneath, as it is a masterful and enormously memorable album. One where some of the most potent moments are when Shah opens her soul and brings you into her struggles and tougher elements. Someone who can be very personal and soul-baring, she can mix that deep emotion with humour. Topless Mother is an example of her wit and songwriting genius at the fore! To give a bit of background to Filthy Underneath and Nadine Shah’s life leading up to the recording of that album. It was one of the hardest periods of her life. The Guardian write how “the singer became isolated in grief, PTSD and addiction. But after ‘falling in love with everybody’ in rehab, she’s put her experiences into her biggest music yet”:

“On leaving rehab, she felt sturdier. “In the past, I wouldn’t be able to do an interview or a show without having a drink,” she says. “I didn’t realise how difficult I found it to exist within this industry, being quite an awkward, shy person.” Perhaps inevitably, her skin is much thicker now; her marriage has now ended, but she remains friends with her ex. “I don’t sweat the small stuff. I guess that happens when you nearly die. A lot of things that used to bother me don’t any more. I have no issue with people criticising me on the internet.”

The first thing she did when she got out was get back to work. She’d never acted onstage before until September 2022 when she joined a “gleefully anarchic” Shakespeare North Playhouse production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, playing Titania; but she revelled in her part’s playfulness and earned a nomination at the What’sOnStage awards.

She also finished her fifth album, written with the same playful spirit. Filthy Underneath is a document of Shah’s downward spiral and recovery set to an impeccable groove. It builds on the sonic world of Kitchen Sink but several songs have a wilder rhythmic looseness, recalling the Burundi beat of 80s new wavers Bow Wow Wow, and the gothic exotica of Siouxsie Sioux’s side project the Creatures. Other songs are shot through with 70s influences, such as the Turkish psych of protest singer Selda Bağcan and Indian siren Asha Puthli’s sensual cosmic disco.

PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

I thought: is this too personal? But I lost my mystery a long time ago. I may as well make brutally honest work

The melodies are adventurous, and the contradictions of Shah’s inner psyche loom large, as she confronts her shadow self and ego, and laments the end of her marriage. If that sounds a bit like therapy-speak, lead single Topless Mother takes sardonic aim at some uncomfortable counselling sessions she had during recovery. Its delirious word association (one example: “Sharia, Diana, samosa”) comes off like a playground taunt, as she appears to flip between herself and the voice of her therapist.

Shah uses her vocal range to its fullest, too: there is weightless falsetto and, on the serpentine Food for Fuel, a trill familiar to qawwali, the Arabic-south Asian devotional music style. “I’ve always underplayed my singing, singing in my lower register and not doing too many acrobatics in order to be taken more seriously,” she says. “Whereas actually, I’ve got a big voice.”

It is put to stellar use on Greatest Dancer, a strident goth banger inspired by the time she took some of her mum’s prescription meds in front of an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, and the operatic synthpop ballad Keeping Score – both feel primed for her current shows supporting Depeche Mode in huge arenas. The latter song returns to a familiar theme of hers, toxic relationships, but the subject matter is still raw. “I haven’t worked out how to talk about that one yet,” she says. “It’s about male violence against women, verbal or physical.”

At one point, she was unsure whether she would be able to do this as a job again. But her mum gave her her love of music – especially Scott Walker – and it helps to keep her close: “I am holding the note for her,” as she sings on the deeply moving See My Girl. “I couldn’t give up music because it brings me back to my mam,” she says now. “I’ve got that connection to her, always.”

Another standout is the biting spoken-word sermon of Sad Lads Anonymous, with its wince-worthy depiction of rock bottom. “I’m describing being at an awards show, and my band have left, and I’m still there in a toilet cubicle telling a work experience kid my darkest secrets,” she says. “I look back on this stuff and I’m laughing about a lot of it, but so much of the dumb stuff I did, it was humiliating.” Making Filthy Underneath, Shah thought: “Is this too personal? Is this giving away too much? But I lost my mystery as an artist a long time ago. I’m not gonna get that back, so I might as well just make brutally honest work.”

And there is none more brutally honest than the closing track, the sinister yet wry French Exit, about “sliding off the dancefloor” of life. At first she was apprehensive about showing a song about suicide to Ben Hillier, with whom she makes all her music. But another image springs to mind when she thinks about French Exit now. “We actually used the instrumental of it in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have a sexual dance with a donkey to that song”.

There is something I am leading up to before looking ahead to the rest of this year. Uncut were full of praise for one of the true standout albums of 2024. Maybe her finest work to date, I do feel it warranted award recognition. Even so, the live dates Nadine Shah performed were full of fans sending their love to her on the stage. I am so excited to hear what comes next for her:

“After a hellish few years, versatile songwriter produces her best work to date

To say that Nadine Shah has been through a lot since 2020 would be an understatement. On top of a global pandemic, she lost her mother to cancer, got married, attempted suicide, went to rehab and got divorced. All of which is funnelled directly into her latest record. Although it explores pain, death, mental illness and the dizzying process of coming out of all of that, it’s also a record that contains bundles of beauty, tenderness, humour and even joy.

Made in collaboration with her long-term writing partner Ben Hillier, it is also musically the most varied and exciting album the pair have made together. The opening “Even Light” is driven by an infectious and bouncing bassline that drills into the core of the song as Shah’s voice floats atop, while subtle electronics bubble away and brass-like synth stabs punctuate. It sets the tone for an album that is leaps and bounds above anything else Shah has done before – a record that’s layered and detailed, coated with beautifully rich production, yet also spacious and considered.

Lead single “Topless Mother” is perhaps the track that feels most in keeping with Shah’s previous work, with a whiff of the PJ Harvey and Bad Seeds influence still hovering around, but the song is somewhat of an anomaly. The flurry of drums, crunchy guitars and animated vocal delivery – which, combined, could easily be mistaken for something by the Swedish psych-rock outfit Goat – soon gives way to an album that winds things down rather than cranks them up.

Any familiarities quickly dissipate: “Food Or Fuel”, for instance, absorbs the influence of the Indian disco-jazz-pop artist Asha Puthli, and turns it into a subtle funk strut that is soothing and hypnotising as it locks into its twisting, pulsing rhythm. Shah leans into singing more than ever here, so her voice feels like a vital instrumental force as well as functioning as an intimate and captivating narrator. This is most perfectly embodied on the sprechgesang track “Sad Lads Anonymous”, which sees Shah lashing out generous helpings of self-deprecating humour. “This was a dumb idea, even for you,” she begins, as a gothic groove locks in, and she recalls tales from “the madhouse” along with a preceding spiralling period. It’s brilliantly direct songwriting that is honest and raw but also goes way above the diary entry confessional. The lyrics are dark and anguished but biting, funny and vivid; it almost feels perverse to extract such pleasure from something so clearly rooted in torment and turbulence, but such dichotomies are what gives the album its flair and punch.

As a whole, guitars take a backseat role here and are generally utilised for adding texture and atmosphere, while synths are plentiful. Itchy, propulsive post-punk-esque rhythms are largely ditched for a more glacial and unfurling pace that gives Shah’s voice room to breathe and soar. On tracks such as “Greatest Dancer” and “Hyperrealism”, her voice sounds truly remarkable. On the former it wraps itself around immersive electronics and a potently hypnotic beat, while the delicate composition of the latter, merging piano and warm blasts of synth, leaves room for a vocal performance that at one point suggests Nina Simone before gliding into something else, sparkling with pristine and devastatingly beautiful elegance.

The closing track exists as a perfect embodiment of the album and Shah’s approach to tackling the difficult subject matter. Its title, “French Exit”, uses a phrase that means ducking out of a party without saying goodbye to explore her suicide attempt. “Just a French exit/A quiet little way out/Nothing explicit,” she sings over a gentle yet compelling beat that almost recalls Oneohtrix Point Never as it gently builds. It’s a roomy, expansive song that feels quietly haunting and devastating, perhaps even more so because it leaves such space for genuine contemplation as the album ends. It allows you, forces you even, to reflect on the remarkably hard journey this artist has been through, while soaking up the immense beauty that’s been created in its wake”.

I do want to include a live review from last year. Performing in Bradford last year in promotion of Filthy Underneath, On Magazine shared their thoughts and takeaways spent in the company of one of the music world’s greatest live performers. When I saw Shah in London, she caused such an incredible effect. People were talking about the brilliance of the songs, though they were also stunned by what Shah brought to the stage and how hypnotising and jaw-dropping she was. In terms of the power of the performance:

“The dark and moody stage lighting worked perfectly with Nadine’s first offering, ‘Keeping Score’, from her critically acclaimed fifth album, Filthy Underneath, released in February 2024. It’s one of Shah’s most personal and profound lyrical works. The songs are a walk-through of her documented breakdown, mental health struggles, spiralling addiction, a stint in rehab and – more happily – her recovery. They offer a vivid account of what she has overcome.

‘Sad Lads Anonymous’ verges on spoken-word poetry and showcases her Tyneside dialect, drawing the listener in. There’s an abundance of positivity too. A BSL signer stood at the side of the stage, and Shah jests that ‘Topless Mother’ might be an interesting one to interpret. The song, about a counsellor she disliked, is a crowd-pleaser that has the audience hooked. She stalks the stage with jerky but purposeful dance moves.

‘Twenty Things’ appears emotionally draining as she recounts some of the people she met during her recovery. The lyrics, “They’re laying flowers by the bus stop, some poor old junkie’s luck’s up,” echo hauntingly around the auditorium.

“Passion and pain”

Introducing the “serious part” of her set, she urges people not to go to the bar – rightly so, no one moves. Reaching back to her 2015 album Fast Food, she has the audience in the palm of her hand, hanging on every word of ‘Stealing Cars’. Shah then moves on to a BBC 6 Music favourite, ‘Greatest Dancer’, wowing with her stage presence and dominating the entire floor. The band are tight and with her all the way. The crowd is fully on board now – eyes closed, arms in the air. She clearly speaks to people.

If you follow Nadine, you’ll know her political passion. Wearing a Palestine badge on her blazer, she delivers an unbelievable and floor-shaking performance of ‘Out the Way’ from her 2017 album Holiday Destination. Chanting “Ceasefire,” the crowd responds. Her passion and pain are palpable, making it an emotional experience.

Nadine is one of a kind. Her vocal range and gift for storytelling through song are a force to behold. If you’ve never seen her perform, I urge you to – she’s a truly unique and deserving artist”.

Far Out Magazine named Nadine Shah their Spokesperson of the Year. Her tireless dedication to activism and music. That was a great way to end 2025. I feel that the rest of this year is going to be really interesting. Hearing that first taste of new music from Shah:

“For some people, music is a means of escaping the often ugly realities of life, but over the course of the past year, artists like Nadine Shah have been quick to point out that we are well past the point of escapism.

Throughout the entirety of 2025, whether on the news or through a constant stream of content on social media, we have been bombarded with deplorable, heartbreaking scenes from places like Sudan and Palestine. Some of the worst atrocities imaginable – genocide, enforced famine, and the levelling of entire cities – have been beamed into our retinas on a daily basis, yet there is still a plethora of prominent voices telling us to ignore it all.

With that horrifying backdrop, though, one ray of hope over the past 12 months has been the prevalence of artists and musicians using their voices and platforms as a means of political activism.

One of the most important events in the musical calendar – Glastonbury Festival, for example, was awash with admirable activism. Whether it was artists like CMAT or Amyl and the Sniffers halting their performances to stand in solidarity with Palestine, countless calls for the British government to take action, or the farcical controversy surrounding Kneecap and Bob Vylan in the weeks that followed, the weekend was a perfect reflection of just how unavoidable these issues have become.

Perhaps the most powerful speech of the weekend, however, came from Whitburn’s finest, Nadine Shah. On the Other Stage, during an untelevised, early afternoon slot, Shah used her incredible set to bring attention to the war crimes occurring in Palestine and the UK government’s complacency in those horrors.

Reading out an open letter on behalf of the persecuted activism group Palestine Action, the songwriter shared, “Palestine Action is intervening to stop a genocide, it is acting to save life. We deplore the government’s decision to proscribe it, labelling non-violent direct action as terrorism is an abuse of language and an attack on democracy.”

“The real threat to the life of the nation comes not from Palestine Action but from the Home Secretary’s efforts to ban it,” she continued. “We call on the government to withdraw its proscription of Palestine Action and to stop arming Israel.”

It was an incredibly poignant, emotional address to the crowd, and one which was reflected throughout the entirety of Shah’s performance. Throughout the year, and throughout her entire life as a performer and songwriter, Shah has always made an effort to hold up a mirror to injustice and directly call out those responsible for them.

During a performance at Bradford’s St George’s Hall in March, for instance, she had the sign-language interpreter sign the word ‘genocide’, declaring, “Now we can all say it.”

During a year in which countless people in the public eye have been falling over themselves not to take a public stance on the genocide in Gaza, or taking the Israeli government’s clear falsehoods over their war crimes as gospel, the unwavering activism of Nadine Shah has been as essential as it has been refreshing.

So, we can think of nobody more befitting of being Far Out’s ‘Spokesperson of the Year’ for 2025 than Nadine Shah, not just for her undying dedication to speaking out against injustice over the past 12 months, but throughout her illustrious career.

“I’m often mocked over my political outspokenness; it doesn’t bother me,” the performer told Far Out. “I’m not an artist that thinks that all others should follow suit and use their platforms the same way I do, and I won’t engage in pressuring them into doing so either.”

Continuing, Shah highlighted the importance of integrity when it comes to activism. “It’s quite clear when artists are speaking out politically as a result of peer pressure, it feels disingenuous. Just do or don’t, I do and most likely always will…until the day you mute me or until the day the whole world is on fire cause you sat there and took it and did fuck all.”

She signed off, “Namaste”.

As we march on into 2026 – and I’m sorry not to come bearing a festive message of hope and cheer – it seems unlikely that things will improve in the near future, either with relation to the genocide in Gaza and Sudan, or, for instance, President Donald J Trump’s countless illegal actions as he marches the USA further into the bowels of fascist oppression.

If things are to improve, however, then the position of artists like Nadine Shah, and their dedication to raising awareness for these issues when many politicians and traditional spokespeople will not, is utterly essential”.

Nadine Shah has posted to Instagram how she is in the studio and working on her sixth album. I am a huge fan of everything she does, so it is going to be exciting when the album is released. Considering the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ineffectiveness of world leaders in tackling the dictatorial evil and inhumanity that is affecting so many nations who are in the grip of war and genocide, will Shah’s music react to that? Maybe more to do with relationships and how her life has been transformed the past few years, though things are obviously not perfect. There were some really raw and heartbreaking songs on Filthy Underneath, though there was so much warmth, wit and the sort of distinct and unforgettable music only Nadine Shah can make! That is why I wanted to write about her now. Keep your eyes peeled for what comes next. Even though it has not been released yet, I think her sixth album will be the most important and best…

OF her career.

FEATURE: The Ivor Novello Awards and Gender Disparity: An Issue in Music That Needs Addressing

FEATURE:

 

 

The Ivor Novello Awards and Gender Disparity

IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine have been nominated in the Ivor Novello Awards category, Best Song Musically and Lyrically, for Everybody Scream (written by written by Florence Welch, Mark Bowen and Mitski)

An Issue in Music That Needs Addressing

__________

YOU might think that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz has been nominated in Best Contemporary Song for Free (written by Little Simz (Simbiatu Ajikawo), Alex Bonfanti and Miles Clinton James)

the music industry is dominated by male songwriters. In terms of the best music and most successful songs, all men behind the scenes wiring the music and lyrics. I do feel that there is an issue that urgently needs to be addressed. I don’t think that it is the case that the best songs are coming from huge mainstream artists where the writing team is mostly men. Or hugely successful male artists. Look around at music now and the most incredible albums and songs being released, and the majority are being made by women. In terms of songwriting, a lot of the albums and songs are either written by the artist or they are among a small team of writers. It does seem to be case that male songwriters are represented more at awards shows. That is the case today. The Guardian reported how the Ivor Novello Awards’ nominations that have just come out skew more towards men. The awards are about songwriting excellence. Even though Olivia Dean, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell and Self Esteem are nominated, the biggest takeaway is that the majority of the award nominees are men. I will come to some recent findings. However, I want to ask if things have progressed in the past six or seven years. In 2019, Vick Bain published a report that is a study of gender inequality across the music industry. These words are particularly striking and impactful:

“Another thing that was striking was observing the low number of women, until very recently, winning music industry awards, including both the public-facing awards on television and internal-facing industry awards. Of course, I had an especially privileged view of the awards BASCA organised such as the British Composer Awards and the Ivor Novello Awards (The Ivors). In 2013, all 13 winners of the British Composer Awards were men (thankfully not repeated). In over six decades women have been the recipient of 6% of all Ivor Novello Awards; that percentage has risen to only 10% since 2010. These low statistics are mirrored across the industry; according to the Annenberg Initiative ‘Inclusion in the Recording Studio’ (Smith, Choueiti and Pieper, 2018) report from the US, only 12% of songwriters of the 600 most popular songs appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 end­of­year charts from 2012 through 2017 were women.

At PRS for Music, the royalty collection organisation for songwriters and composers in the UK, 17% of its 140,000 registered members are female (2018). Similarly, 108 (17.5%) of the 616 songwriters nominated for Best Single Brit Awards since 1999 have been women. This year the BBC published its own research looking at the disparities of women in the charts: ‘In 2008, 30 female acts were credited on the best­selling 100 songs of the year. In 2018, the figure was still 30. But the number of men has risen by more than 50% as the number of collaborations has grown over that time ­ from 59 men in 2008 to 91 in 2018. Which means the gender gap has grown.’ This demonstrates the prevalence of men preferring to work only with other men. Moreover, these low numbers affect how women view the industry. In talking about screen­music awards, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA AMCOS) comments that, ‘Largely male­dominated awards nominations and ceremonies have the potential to contribute to how women view both the value of screen music awards and also the position of women in the screen music industry more generally’. This scenario is applicable across the industry worldwide. So, the question must be asked… are women just not as good as men at music? In the past decade, we have seen men still winning the vast majority of music industry awards, getting the lion’s share of classical commissions and achieving far more economic success in the pop charts. Music awards are ostensibly the pinnacle of an industry; the best of the best. However, the winners of music awards can only be chosen out of entries entered; in the case of the Ivor Novello Awards entries mainly come from music publishing companies. Moreover, those entered will have usually fulfilled certain criteria such as chart placing, requiring label support and a huge amount of investment leading to that success. You have to be in it to win it”.

Also in 2019, PRS for Music outlined the extent of gender disparity and inequality in songwriting: “Over 1,000 women in the UK registered as working songwriters and composers last year, yet the ratio of male-to-female songwriters and composers remains disappointingly flat year-on-year, with only 17% of PRS for Music’s writer membership identifying as female, signalling slow progress across the music industry to address gender disparity in the profession. This figure was just 13% in 2011”. If anything, things might be going backwards. This article reacted to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative on a new study that makes for troubling reading:

“The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has published its annual Inclusion in the Recording Studio study, which examines the representation of women and people of colour in the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End charts as artists, songwriters and producers.

The report's conclusions are troubling, finding that 2025 saw "no progress" for women in music, with a decrease in participation across every single category measured. The percentage of female artists dropped by 1.6% year-on-year to 36.1% in 2025, while the percentage of women credited as producers fell from 5.9% in 2024 to 4.4% in 2025.

The USC Annenberg report also found that more than 90% of 1400 songs evaluated across 11 years did not feature a female producer – in comparison, only seven of those songs did not credit a man in a producing role.

The numbers are even less encouraging when it comes to female representation in songwriting: the percentage of women credited as songwriters decreased from 18.9% in 2024 to 14.5% in 2025, a ratio of 5.8 male songwriters to every one woman.

"There has been no change for women songwriters since we began this research," the report summary reads. "The numbers are going backward and now are not significantly different than the 11% of songwriters in 2012 who were women. Half of the songs on the Hot 100 Billboard Year-End Chart were missing women songwriters entirely. Across 14 years, women held 13.9% of all songwriting credits."

“The lack of women songwriters does more than prevent women from working,” added USC Annenberg's Dr. Stacy L. Smith. “It means that some of our most culturally pervasive ideas and beliefs are crafted by men and exclude women’s creativity and perspective. Of the 1,400 songs we examined, 11 men were credited on 21.7% of those tracks. This gives a very small group incredible influence to shape culture and ideas”.

The Guardian reacted to the Ivor Novello Awards and the fact male songwriters dominated. Even though a lot of the categories have a majority of women nominated – particularly Best Album -, categories overall are male-heavy in terms of the nominees:

“Olivia Dean, Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, Jacob Alon, Self Esteem and Kae Tempest lead this year’s Ivor Novello awards for excellence in British and Irish songwriting, with two nominations apiece. Self Esteem’s cowriter Johan Hugo, and Tempest’s Fraser T Smith, are also credited among the leading acts.

Tempest will go up against himself in the best contemporary song category, with two nominations: one for I Stand on the Line, written with Smith, and one for Know Yourself, written with Smith and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers. Both songs come from Tempest’s fifth album, Self Titled.

The nominations reveal the gender disparity in British and Irish music: there are more than twice as many male nominees (40) than female (19), with two non-binary artists making up the 61 songwriters and composers recognised.

Research by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California found that the number of female songwriters across the 1,400 most popular songs of the year had starkly decreased from 18.9% in 2024 to 14.5% in 2025.

Elsewhere among those names, stalwart artists such as Lily Allen, Florence + the Machine and Gorillaz stand alongside those at the breakthrough end of their career, among them CMAT, Jerskin Fendrix and Lola Young, last year’s most-nominated artist.

Billing the awards as recognising “exceptional craft, originality and cultural impact in songwriting and screen composing”, the Ivors have also this year positioned themselves as “a powerful affirmation of human creativity and the cultural value of songwriters” as many are asking fearful questions about how AI will affect musicians’ livelihoods.

Little Simz receives her fifth Ivors nomination for her song Free, from last year’s album Lotus. Young’s nomination is her fourth in total, as is Florence Welch’s; Allen’s is her third, a reflection of the era-defining songwriting of her fifth album – and first in seven years – West End Girl, a partly fictionalised account of the breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour.

Coldplay’s 2008 song Viva la Vida receives its third nomination in and of itself, this year for most performed work, following the band’s vast global tour. It is its second time being nominated in the category; it previously won best-selling British single in 2010.

Allen, Wolf Alice, Dean and CMAT make up the best album category alongside rapper Jim Legxacy for his 2025 record Black British Music. Wolf Alice, Sugababes (best song musically and lyrically) and Divorce (rising star) are the only bands nominated among a wealth of solo artists”.

This is something not often written about. When a report is published or you get an award ceremony where women are in the minority, it does raise discussion. This is not a case of female (and male/non-binary) artists choosing to work largely with men. Instead, there is a systemic issue that goes right through the industry. The same is true as was the case in 2019 that this disparity is driven by systemic industry sexism and a ‘boys' club’ culture, tied to a lack of female representation in technical roles like producing. A small percentage of professional songwriters are women, due to unconscious bias in hiring. There are also far fewer networking opportunities, and the persistent pigeonholing of women as performers rather than creators. That is what PRS determined in 2019. Claire Jarvis, Director of Membership, PRS for Music in 2019 said this: “These statistics are indicative of widespread gender disparity across the entire UK music business and shine a light on the need for continued positive action to be taken to make our industry a fairer and more inclusive space. Whether through creating opportunities, breaking down barriers, improving education, or mentoring, we need to work together to ensure tomorrow’s songwriters have visible role models to aspire to”.

I do hope that there is a new report published that outlines a growing issue. There are so many amazing female artists who are obviously writing their own music. However, when it comes to representation overall, there is this imbalance that has been present for years. For International Women’s Day in 2024, Youth for Music wrote about the underrepresentation of women behind the scenes in music and “how finding and supporting the right grassroots organisations can change that”:

“Making music accessible at an entry level and allows communities to fuel the creative scene. It allows those who may feel unwelcomed in the mainstream industry to make a space for themselves and others alike,” stated Nat Greener, founder of Tits Upon Tyne, a breast cancer awareness and women in music platform. “Supporting grassroots movements proves there is a demand for representation and equity at the core of the industry,” she continued.

However, as much as these organisations do to encourage and support women into behind the scenes roles, lasting change will only happen when the rest of the industry steps up.

“We don’t believe it should be the sole responsibility of charities to fund future diversification of British music,” Matt Griffiths asserted. “The industry benefits directly from the work we do, so we need to start to see major labels stepping up and taking the lead in investing too”.

Not to take anything away from anyone else nominated for an Ivor Novello (the awards take place on 21st May), but I am including songs here made by female artists. Even if they may have a few male songwriters in the mix, it is their incredible sonic and lyrical voice, teamed with their talent and gravitas, that makes the award-nominated music so worthy and phenomenal. The awards recognise impactful accomplishments in songwriting and composing; presented to music creators by their peers from within the United Kingdom. After the celebrations have ended, there does need to be renewed focus on this enduring disparity. Whether findings have been addressed and there is genuine change happen. Without that, we will be in s situation where girls and women will be discouraged from pursuing music and choosing it is a career. That would do huge damage to the industry in terms of diversity, inclusion and richness. That bleak possibility needs to be…

TACKLED as a priority.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: A Live Innovator Whose Influence Can Be Seen Today

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Albert McIntosh (Kate Bush’s son) and Bob Harms playing son and father for a scene during Kate Bush’s extraordinary and acclaimed 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX

A Live Innovator Whose Influence Can Be Seen Today

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IT is a little confusing…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and band during the finale of a Hammersmith date from 1979’s The Tour of Life/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne

using the name of Kate Bush’s only tour as part of the title for this feature. However, I have been spending a bit of time writing about Kate Bush’s live influence. On 3rd April, it was forty-seven years since The Tour of Life started. Thirty-five years later, on 26th August, 2014, Before the Dawn began. For the production of each live spectacle, Kate Bush innovating constantly. I wrote about this a bit when covering The Tour of Life. I will nod back to it, as there are some live tours today that have been celebrated for their scale and feel. Even if David Byrne has been touring more than Kate Bush and actually was recording music before she put out her first album, I feel that his current tour – which has been getting some incredible reviews can be applied to Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn. Even if legends like David Byrne and massive Pop artists of today have their own concepts and might not directly cite Kate Bush as influential, I don’t think that we discuss enough how her impact has definitely remained today. The live album for Before the Dawn turns ten in November, so I will explore the residency again nearer the time. I did not get to see Before the Dawn. However, there are a couple of questions to raise. How many artists, unless they are major and mainstream, can afford to mount something like Before the Dawn? Also, in terms of preparation, it was an intense process. Lots of preparation. Again, perhaps only the most massive artists. Even so, I have argued before, and will again, how Kate Bush’s live brilliance and invention influenced artists after 1979 when The Tour of Life was mounted. Again after 2014 and Before the Dawn. The sheer scale, joy and ambition of the residency did compel many artists to become more ambitious. I know there were artists mixing media and various artforms into a music concert. That said, it was not really a hugely common thing in 2014.

Before the Dawn was more of a spectacle and theatrical production than a gig. Almost filmic in its scope. You do not need to produce something big and highly ambitious to leave audiences’ jaws dropped. Smaller, intimate and powerful shows can leave an impression as deep and long-lasting. I do wonder, when we think of the great live performers, whether Kate Bush’s name comes into the conversation. The fact she has only been on one tour and one residency since her career began. A lack of consistency. This blending of disciplines and sectors of the arts is maybe not as common as it should be. Modern artists like ROSALÍA do it. Are Pop artists a little too rigid in that regard? You can say that there are phenomenal artists who put more choreography and larger set pieces into their tours. What strikes me about Kate Bush is how The Tour of Life, and especially Before the Dawn, pushed boundaries and definitely took live performers to new heights and areas. Twelve years after that residency and there are some artists today who embody Kate Bush. Reading about Before the Dawn in Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. David Munns, an old friend of Bush’s, was chosen to scout venues in addition to offering advice. Another Dabid, Garfath, who directed the video for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), directed the filmed sequences for The Ninth Wave for Before the Dawn. Bush in a water tank and singing And Dream of Sheep. The component parts and how many aspects go into Before the Dawn. Bush assembled an experienced and hugely reliable group of session musicians. Including David Rhodes, John Giblin and Mino Cinelu. When you watch a massive tour of a show that does have filmed pieces and there are different disciplines and layers to it, how often do we think about behind the scenes and its coming together? The Chorus who adopted various personae throughout the performance, four of whom came from the stage and musical theatre. Her son, Berie, Sandra Marvin, Jacqui DuBois and Jo Servi joined Bob Harms. Maybe sharing something with David Byrne and artists executing these staggering and awe-inspiring live performances. The people they share the stage with are just as important.

For Before the Dawn, Kate Bush teamed with Adrian Noble (former creative director of the Royal Shakespeare Company) co-directed. His role was to ensure Bush’s visions came to the stage and included some of his finesse and experience. David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas and other hugely important books, the two were almost kindred spirits and had this spark and bond. For the written pieces for The Ninth Wave and creating this narrative, Bush turned to Mitchell for his help. Before the Dawn took eighteen months of planning, revising, rehearsing and performing. Actors and singers auditioned. Rather than this being Kate Bush concert, Before the Dawn was credited to the KT Fellowship. That is just skimming the surface of the preparation and detail that went into a residency that wowed thousands of fans. It was not only about Kate Bush on the stage after so many years. If she had done something basic or like her contemporaries then the reaction would not have been as ecstatic. It was the whole package. The costumes, lighting and visuals. Bringing together two album suites that are very different but each unfolded beautifully and with incredible effect. The Ninth Wave from Hounds of Love and Aerial’s A Sky of Honey. The incredible players and this blend of filmed sections and what was happening on the stage. This is what The Guardian wrote in their review of David Byrne’s extraordinary show that they say will restore your faith in humanity. Byrne, as they observe “once again reimagines the possibilities of the live gig”. It did instantly put me in mind of Kate Bush: “Throughout a hideously apropos Life During Wartime, footage from ICE raids bleeds into the arena, while the insularity of the pandemic is a recurring theme, notably when the screens re-create his home for My Apartment Is My Friend. Byrne’s response is noise, laughter and community. It’s beautiful to see the audience pulled from their seats – slowly at first, then all at once – by the guitar stabs of This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), their voices turning something lithe and delicate into a collective shout along. “Love and kindness are a form of resistance,” Byrne says at one point. You’d hope so”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Pick

It might be me connecting loose threads or tenuous links. Before the Dawn is in my mind and I will write about it more before the end of the year. I can see how 1979’s The Tour of Life and the revolution caused. Completely shaking up live music and what it could be. Even if the sort of thing Kate Bush did then was more prolific and evident by 2014, I do feel she once more reimagined live music and going beyond the limits. The venue, the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, helped a lot. In terms of its high ceiling. Opened in 1932 as a cinema named the Gaumont Palace, it is perfect for live performances that really utilise the full space. That is what Bedore the Dawn did. There was the blend of the dramatic and intimate. Kate Bush not just standing on stage. Out in the audience at one stage and being carried down the aisle. Technically, the Fish People carried her down the ramp and into the theatre. Performers on stages wearing masks/heads and there being this almost surreal edge. Bush being raised from the stage during The Ninth Wave. It was such an immerse and cinematic experience. Think about some of the biggest concerts that followed Before the Dawn, and I do really think that the impact of that residency inspired so many others.

Looking at modern artists reinventing live performance, it does raise the question around a new Kate Bush live chapter. If there was a final residency or concert, you could imagine it being even bigger than The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn. Kate Bush has no plans to perform live anytime soon, and there is the question about what she would include and what a show would consist of. She is this phenomenal live artist who pushed forward and helped transform live music. I don’t think that is acknowledged much. This is what Pitchfork observed in their review of Before the Dawn: “And her humanity is what we should all love her for, anyway—for helping to turn a spirit of restless invention and emotion into a music industry touchstone, for translating high art, high thinking, and her huge heart into catchy, hooky modern pop music. The two-song encore that sends us on our way shows us that knack in excelsis: "Among Angels", from 2011's 50 Words for Snow, played by Bush, perfectly, alone on the piano, then "Cloudbusting", her 1985 hit about Wilhelm Reich's rain-making machine, with her band. Tonight wasn't an exercise in the time-honoured art of battering an audience to death and making them like it, after all. It was about a raft of new ideas from someone who we didn't expect to see onstage again”. That stream of ideas and genius. Remaining fresh and surprising. Her warmth and humanity. You can feel that encoded and embedded in the bone and blood of some of the most arresting and remarkable modern live shows. As someone who has helped broaden and evolve the definition and boundaries of live performance, the divine Kate Bush definitely should…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush embraces her fans as she takes to the stage for the first of her Before the Dawn concerts/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX

GET that recognition.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Dolder

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Tonkin

Dolder

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IT would be wonderful to see…

more new interviews with Dolder, as they are a beguiling sibling duo that people should know about. To be honest, I only discovered their music this month, so I am kind of catching up. There is a recent intervbiew that I want to bring in. Dolder are the Newcastle-based duo of Dani and Zara Dolder. In terms of catching them live, you can see the dates here. Some brilliant U.K., Irish and European gigs. If you can go and see them and grab a ticket then I would definitely recommend it. You listen to their voices on record and how transcendent it is. Experiencing that in a venue with that intimacy and directness must be spine-chilling and this memorable experience! Their E.P., The Motive, was released last year. It is a sublime and unforgettable listen. They released the single, Sleeping Dogs, recently. In terms of genres, I wonder if you can categorise them. There is Pop, Country and Folk. It is a beautiful blend that works wonderfully. Distinct songwriting and gorgeous vocals means their music stays in your head and heart. I will come to that new interview to wrap things up. There are a few other bits to include here first. I want to include Karma Magazine and their feature from last year. They highlighted and gave praise for the first single from Dolder, Charlie. This is a song that has resonated with fans and made a big impact:

“Identitical twin sisters Dani and Zara Dolder have emerged on the music scene with their first single, ‘Charlie’. The song is an enthralling hybrid of nostalgic and new, with timeless lyricism and arresting harmonies.

The song begins with softly strummed acoustic guitar and delicate vocals. Twinkling piano and the twins’ heavenly harmonies in the chorus give it an underlying country feel. The stripped back instrumentalism are complemented by the melodious vocals, enhancing the track’s emotions. The song is a thoughtful and disarming, as the sisters slow things down to contemplate their unsuccessful experiences with love.

Emotions cut deep on ‘Charlie’, with the track’s lyrics detailing different heartbreaks experienced by the twins. The lyrics are dark and poetic, with lines like “Kiss me one more time before / You send my heart back / Wrapped in barbed wire and it’s dripping black” painting a vivid picture.

Speaking about the track, the sisters reveal how it came to fruition one Halloween: “We drove home in the dark, pouring rain replaying the demo from that day over and over again. It just has such a warmth to it. Charlie is a multitude of boys who we have felt heartbroken by.”

‘Charlie’ marks the first step in Dolder’s journey and a mesmerising debut. The song is out now on EMI and available to listen to on streaming services. Add Dolder on social media to stay tuned with what comes next from the duo, and get a ticket to one of the concerts below to see them support Ben Ellis on his tour”.

It is exciting that Dani and Zara Dolder are working on a second E.P. Their debut was recorded in Newcastle, though the second is them working in New York. A lot of artists do go to New York to record, as it gives new impetus and energy. The inspiration of the people and landscape. It must have been a costly jaunt, through you feel it will add something extra and new to their music. The Line of Best Fit shone a light on the wonderful Girl I Know. Following on from Charlie, it is one of their very best songs:

“Emotionally resonant, the duo's second-ever single following “Charlie” lingers long after it ends, balancing heartbreak with moments of tender reflection. “‘Girl I Know’ is about a very honest part of young womanhood,” say 22-year-old twins Dani and Zara Dolder.

The track fuses narrative songwriting with stripped-back guitars and harmonies, giving it a timeless quality. Their sound feels intimate; the vocal polyphony conveys a sense of closeness as they confess heartache and self-blame over bare instrumentals. “We always knew we wanted to keep this whole EP more stripped back so it allowed space for our vulnerable lyrics to come through,” they share.

Growing up in Newcastle, the twins have been making music since they were eleven. With Dolder, they craft an atmosphere of honesty and vulnerability through acoustic arrangements and effortlessly catchy melodies, transforming soft narrative pop into anthems for deep thinkers and anxious romantics.

“Girl I Know” came directly from a stream of consciousness in Dani’s diary: “Told you I thought about dying on the day that we met.” “[The line] is verbatim and extremely overdramatic (not surprising for us),” Dani says. The conversation that inspired it took place outside a bar on Grey Street in the early hours of the morning. She reflects with candid humour: “No wonder he ghosted me.”

Delicate piano keys shimmer beneath a repeated acoustic guitar riff in the refrain, while raw lyrics — “You craved a body / But it was my mind you broke” — are delivered through soft, harmonising vocals. The track’s analogue warmth lingers like the ghost of a lost love, with minimalist production highlighting the fragility of its emotions.

The bridge introduces an empowering shift, where overthinking gives way to the realisation: “You’ll move on, grow, and be better off, while some guys just stay stuck in their cycle of lovebombing and leaving.” The feeling of redemption emerged intuitively during the writing process: “This song took some time to run, but once we got there, it just flowed from one lyric to the next. Having a slight euphoric, claiming-my-power-back bridge was the perfect place for it to go,” the duo explain.

Dolder's supply feels both immediate and classic. The chorus of “Girl I Know” sticks with you like a half-remembered daydream, while the acoustic textures evoke a warm, nostalgic glow. It's the kind of track that revisits old diaries, late-night conversations, and past heartaches. It stands as a delicate reflection on how growth and melody can coexist in the most intimate of pop songs”.

It is worth highlighting a positive review for The Motive. A wonderful debut E.P. from Dolder, Pop Passion Blog shared their insights and thoughts. I would say to anyone who has not discovered Dolder to go and listen to their music now. Really do go and see them live if you can:

“Coming out from mentally abusive relationships is a battle with your mind. You spend so long being manipulated by someone who was supposed to love you and it causes internalized blame and guilt. It feels like you’re out of touch with yourself and it’s a spiral that feels like it will never end. Dolder just released an EP titled after one of the singles “The Motive.” “The Motive” is a heartbreaking confession about the self-hatred that follows after a damaging relationship. With tension filled melodies and angelic harmonies, this song rips at your heartstrings. If you’ve ever been broken by someone you were supposed to trust the most, this song is for you.

“The Motive” truly shows how deeply manipulation can distort someones perception of care and self-worth. “I assumed that this was love.” You feel like you’re doing everything in your power to make them happy, but they never are and even though it’s not your fault, it’s easy for their deceptions to make you feel like it is. "Lately I've had the motive to hate me." Dolder wrote from a place of reflection on how much trauma can live in your mind without realizing. It’s hard to confront and it follows you every time you feed it. All of this can feel isolating and there’s comfort in songs like this to know most of us have been there. Let “The Motive” be a reminder that your emotions are worth feeling and it’s okay to sit in the pain before getting up and moving on. It's not your fault for the damage caused by someone elses hand.

Dolder is a duo name for identical twins Dani and Zara. They are 22 year old alt-pop singer-songwriters from Newcastle. The sisters are heavily inspired by the rich 60/70’s sound that they bring into their music to create a nostalgic feeling. Emerging just this year, their debut single “Charlie” brought immediate attention. With confessional lyricism and timeless ease, they’ve received recognition from Rolling Stone, Wonderland, The Line of Best Fit, NME, Dork and more. “The Motive” is their debut EP which is out now for everyone to listen. If you’re a fan of Gracie Abrams and Fleetwood Mac, Dolder is the perfect combination while bringing their own unique sound. Follow the links down below to stay up to date on future releases”.

I am ending up with an interview from The Indie Scene. Last year was a very busy one for Dolder. Releasing their debut single and E.P., they are preparing their second E.P. and have released Sleeping Dogs. They are preparing for live dates and maybe performing new or unheard tracks for the audiences. I have so much admiration for Dolder. Obviously they are very close and are completely in-sync. That reflects in their music. This phenomenal chemistry and harmony that made The Motive such a jaw-dropping listen. I am excited to hear their second E.P. It is going to be one of the year’s best releases:

“2025 was a year of firsts for Dolder, a singer-songwriter duo made up of identical twins, Dani and Zara. They released their first single, played their first shows while supporting Ben Ellis on tour, and wrapped up the year with the release of their first EP. Despite being in the early stages of their career, the duo are already making a mark on fans thanks to their intimate lyrics and lush harmonies. We had the pleasure of chatting to the girls in one of their first interviews to talk all things songwriting, growing up in a musical family, and new music to come.

Although they’ve only just started formally releasing their work, music has always played a large role in Dani and Zara’s lives. Their father and former Prefab Sprout drummer, Steve Dolder, fostered their love of music from a young age. “We were obsessed with The Beatles. Our first crushes were John Lennon and George Harrison. And dad tells this story: when we were about five or six, we were sat in the back of the car and just harmonising to The Beatles without realising,” Zara explains. “It’s just been ingrained in us. We’ve been singing together forever, and then, when we were about ten or eleven, we started writing.”

“They were absolute rubbish,” Zara quips when describing their earliest material. However, the twins kept at it and, as COVID struck during their teenage years, they began to take it more seriously. During that time they were constantly producing new material.

When asked about how they found the fan response to the project, the twins agree the experience has been unreal and found themselves surprised by how quickly their community has already grown. “I’m in complete sort of denial because I’m like ‘they’re not fans, they’re just like our friends’. They’re just like our online friends, which is adorable,” Dani says. “It’s really strange because obviously we don’t have like a massive platform yet and we’re very much in the early stages but to have such obsession from certain fans and respect and excitement is a really strange feeling… but they’ve all been so amazing and to see like comments or get messages about how the songs relate to them or their friends’ situations.”

While this moment in time is quite surreal, there was little time to process it all as they’d already started working on their next project. “We’ve been making the second EP since November, before the first one actually came out, so we had almost like halfway detached from that world and put ourselves into the world of the second EP,” Zara says. When asked what more they could share about what’s to come from Dolder, Zara shared, “We have a single coming out in February, which is one that we played live, and I think that will be [a] deluxe [single] off the end of the first EP. And then the second EP will be coming shortly after. We’re very, very excited about it.”

While the first EP was recorded in Newcastle, the second EP was recorded in New York, bringing a different energy to the project. “We loved the first EP because it was done at home, and we could drive home and we were staying with family, which was lovely. And then we had this new business around the second EP and chaos with being in a city like that, which was so inspiring. It just made you want to get up and go,” Zara says.

Having a dad who has been through the same things has also proved invaluable. “He’s the triplet,” Dani jokes, “He’s the third member and, honestly, if it wasn’t for dad, we would not be pursuing music at all, I don’t think.” Steve would play the girls records of great artists like Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Eagles, Glen Campbell and Carole King, which had a large impact on the twins from an early age. “If it wasn’t for dad believing in us so much, we wouldn’t believe that we could do it. He is our best friend, and he’s the funniest man I’ve ever met,” Dani adds”.

I can imagine the house where Dani and Zara Dolder grew up was filled with classic music. These legendary artists. A dad in the music industry with all that experience and insight. Even though they are only in their twenties, you feel their earliest years were exposed to some of the best music ever made. It definitely would have fostered their ambitions and desires. Such a magnificent duo who I feel are going to be making music for so many more years, go and follow them and show some love. It is impossible to listen to their music and not be carried away and engrossed. Their distinct and utterly superb songs are…

TREASURES to behold.

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Follow Dolder

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/dolder/

TikTok:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyrHsa1F5NQa8cxERkj8AAg

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2zzssv1I5AKOEPI98SZvQb?si=j-DEbeXhS72oe7f3VqmjwA

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyrHsa1F5NQa8cxERkj8AAg

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: UPSAHL

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

UPSAHL

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THIS artist is someone…

PHOTO CREDIT: Emily Schumacher

whose music I have huge respect and affection for. I last wrote about UPSHAL in 2023. Even if she has not put out new music for a little while, there are questions from fans around a new album. UPSAHL has assured them that she is working on new stuff. Taylor Cameron Upsahl is an Arizona-born artist who released Lady Jesus in 2021. An amazing debut album released during the pandemic. I am going to get to some interviews from last year with Arizona. The twenty-seven-year-old is someone I feel everyone should connect with. This is a moment where she is building the foundations for a new album. Putting stuff together. There is a lot of demand on artists. That idea of putting stuff out consistently. Not enough time to allow them to breathe and work on albums. A gap of five years or so might seem like a very long time, though artists like UPSAHL have been releasing singles and touring. She put out a live album on 2022 called This Is My First Live Album. In 2023, UPSAHL PRESENTS: THE PHX TAPES came out. She has played here in the U.K. a fair bit, and I do hope she comes back at some point. I have never seen her live, though she is an electrifying and phenomenal live performer. I shall bring in a live review. This is such a uniquely talented and vital voice in modern music. It is a transition period where she is building songs or looking ahead to her second studio album. If you have not heard of her or need a bit more information, then I hope that this feature is of benefit. She is someone who might not garner the same focus and adulation as mainstream artists. However, UPSAHL’s work and live shows, tied to her aesthetic, story and personality, are up there with the most incredible and distinct artists. She will be in the music industry for many years to come.

Before getting to a few great interviews, this live review from 2023 reacted to UPSAHL playing at Roadrunner in Boston. I am sad I missed her when she last played in London. I will try and correct that if she comes back here at any point. I love all the music she has put out to date, and I am looking forward to what comes next. We need to give this artist space to create an album in her own vision in her own time. Being UPSAHL, whatever does come is going to be truly magnificent and memorable:

“On Sept. 12, Taylor Cameron Upsahl, better known for her on-stage mononym UPSAHL, arrived at Roadrunner in support of Swedish dance-pop star Tove Lo for the North American leg of her “Dirt Femme” tour. UPSAHL has been writing and producing music since her early teens, garnering a small following in her hometown of Phoenix through a collection of self-released projects. In 2019, UPSAHL shot to TikTok notoriety with her single “Drugs,” which remains her most listened-to track with over 100 million streams. She then released her debut album “Lady Jesus” in 2021, followed by a series of EPs titled “The PHX Tapes.” One could only describe her style as provocative and outrageous, with selections like “WET WHITE TEE SHIRT” and “Lunatic” as some of the standouts from her more recent releases.

UPSAHL’s performance at Roadrunner was nothing short of electrifying, matching the fiery shock of her red hair. After drenching her white tee shirt in water to begin her set, it was clear from the get-go that UPSAHL was there to make a statement. The crowd’s energy seemed to embolden her as she confidently strutted across the stage, making a name for herself with any audience members unfamiliar with her music.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly her viral hit “Drugs,” which turned into a thrilling call and response between UPSAHL and the audience. Supported by two members of her band decked out in bubblegum pink coveralls, UPSAHL managed to connect with the packed venue effortlessly, encouraging them to groove and sing along.

Throughout the performance, UPSAHL wasn’t afraid to experiment with the work of other established artists. Interpolating a cover of The Ting-Tings’ “That’s Not My Name” into her song “GOOD GIRL ERA,” UPSAHL not only welcomed new listeners into the fold, but also commanded the attention of her own fans in the crowd.

Throughout the performance, UPSAHL’s stage presence was undeniably exhilarating, reflecting the edgy nature of her music. She fearlessly interacted with the crowd, at times even running down from the stage to sing directly to audience members. It was this close connection with her listeners that made the concert feel intimate despite the large venue.

Adding to this intimacy were the song choices she made, like the inclusion of her song “Toast,” co-written with Tove Lo. In contrast to her cool-girl affect on “Drugs” or “WET WHITE TEE SHIRT,” “Toast” was a heartfelt and desperate plea to an ex, adding a touch of vulnerability to an otherwise explosive set.

“Wonder if I am still on your mind,” she crooned to a swaying crowd. “How didn’t I know it was coming to an end?”

As the evening drew to a close, it became readily apparent that UPSAHL’s performance was not just thrilling but also profoundly memorable. Her ability to blend the provocative with the authentic, all while maintaining an infectious energy, solidified her as one-to-watch in the indie pop scene. For those lucky enough to be in attendance, it was a night filled with unforgettable music and a powerful connection between artist and listener. UPSAHL’s star is on the rise, and her performance in Boston left no doubt that she’s a force to be reckoned with”.

Before a couple of interviews from last year, I want to go back to 2024 and this interview. I love the fact that UPSAHL gets such a buzz from touring. It can be exhausting for artists to tour quite a lot. However, it is clear the audiences show such love for UPSAHL and there must be this incredible energy when she performs:

“When it comes to your stage/artist persona, is “UPSAHL” a reflection of who you are, or is your persona something opposite?

Everything I do for my artist project feels super authentic to me as a person, but I like to think that UPSAHL is just the most confident, badass version of myself that I get to embody whenever I go on stage. Whenever I’m feeling down or insecure, “UPSAHL” kind of saves me from those feelings.

You have mentioned before in other interviews/posts that you’d be on tour 365 days a year if possible - what is it about the transitory lifestyle that you love?

I just love how connected I feel to my fans when I’m on tour. To be in the same room, getting to engage with them every night, makes the craziness of this job worth it to me - the energy I feel from these shows every night is unmatched. And honestly, I feel like I have the most stability and sense of routine when I’m on the road - Even though it’s a lot of travel, it really is just the same shit in a different city every day, which I love.

In your songs, you mention and discuss things such as your struggles with depression and anxiety - how honest do you get with your work? Are there things you feel like you can’t talk about still with your fanbase?

The honesty and vulnerability that makes its way into my songs kind of happen by accident - I feel grateful for my collaborators that create such a safe space for me in the studio to talk about how I’m feeling, but that means I sometimes write songs and realize the next day like “Oh fuck, is this embarrassing to say/does everyone need to know that this is how I’m feeling?” But I think that’s the point of music. If I’m feeling some type of way, odds are at least one other person feels that way, so why not put the music out into the world? There are still parts of my life that I haven’t shared in the music I’ve released yet, but that doesn’t mean those songs haven’t been written… I feel like I’m a pretty open book when it comes to my music, especially with my fans, so it’s just a matter of time until those songs come out.

When you aren’t on tour, what would a regular day look like for you?

When I’m not on tour, I’m usually in the studio every day, working on new music. I love a sweaty morning workout/sauna and an overpriced coffee down the street from my house in LA, and then I usually will spend some time filming content for social media, staying connected with my fans online. Then, I head to the studio for a session. Usually, my sessions go until about 10 pm, and my day ends with me half asleep cheffing it up in my kitchen. No complaints!

In your song “People I Don’t Like,” you express a great deal of apathy and disconnection - it resonated with our generation a lot, the exhaustion with it all. Yet you are still here, on tour, doing interviews which I’m sure can feel tedious and similarly plastic. How do you keep going with it all? What is it about you that you think allows you to push forward?

Yesssss, love this question! When I wrote “People I Don’t Like,” I was feeling so frustrated with the surface-level conversations that I felt like I had a lot within the industry… and I easily blamed this on everyone else rather than recognizing myself as a part of the problem. In order to continue touring and doing interviews and constantly having social interactions, most people would think you have to sort of dissociate so that you don’t completely drain yourself emotionally. But for me, over time, I’ve found that bringing my full self and finding a way to be as present and authentically myself as possible for all of this makes it feel the most rewarding and real for me”.

The Luna Collective spoke with UPSAHL last year. Maybe she would not see herself as a rising artist anymore. However, it is clear that she is only just getting started. I do think we will be talking about this artist for many years to come. I think I first heard in 2020. It is amazing what she has achieved so far and how many fans she has behind her. That will only grow:

“UPSAHL has quickly become a rising force in the pop and alternative scene. As she embarks on her Melt me down headline tour, there’s a palpable excitement — and it’s not just about the  music. From intricate visuals that tease her forthcoming album to a community of die-hard fans who have been with her from the beginning, UPSAHL’s world is one of transformation, growth, and fierce artistic vision.

With a balance of icy new vibes and the fiery energy fans love, UPSAHL gives us a glimpse into the next chapter of her career — and we can’t wait to see what’s next. Ahead of her Austin show we got a chance to chat about the evolution of her live performances, the journey of working on her upcoming album, and how she's merging the concept of "fire and ice" into a cohesive artistic experience. She opens up about the emotional layers of her creative process, the incredible team of badass women behind her visuals, and how she’s pulling early 2000s pop inspiration into her modern sound.

LUNA: How has your live show evolved since you first started performing?

UPSAHL:  It’s changed a lot. A fan recently tweeted me a video of one of my first-ever performances, and then they stitched it with a video from a recent show. The growth is crazy. With this tour specifically, I really wanted to elevate everything. A lot of fans come to multiple shows, so I wanted to make it feel fresh each time by adding old songs, unreleased stuff, and new covers. I want it to feel brand new for everyone.

LUNA: It feels like you’re in a new era, musically and with your live performances. How has your creative process changed to reflect that?

UPSAHL  I've been working on an album for the past nine months, which is coming soon. I wanted the album to live in this cohesive world, and I wanted the live show to hint at what’s to come, which is why the tour is called the *Melt Me Down* tour. It’s a blend of fire and ice, which ties into the album’s themes.

I’ve been able to roll out little easter eggs throughout the shows that will make more sense when the album drops. It’s the first time in my career that I’ve been able to do something like this, and it’s been really fun.

LUNA: You mentioned the album earlier, so without giving too much away, can you share any themes or narratives you're exploring? Is it a concept album?

UPSAHL: Yes, it’s a concept album. I wanted it to feel icy, hard, and cold-hearted. A lot of my previous projects have centered around fire, which resonates with me because I’m a Sagittarius—such a fiery sign. My brand has always been fiery, and I’ve connected with that. But after seven years in the  music industry, with all its highs and challenges, I’ve developed this hardness to myself that I’ve always admired in others. I wanted the album to reflect that—this icy, cold-bitch energy. Musically, it’s inspired by a lot of early 2000s pop, like what Gwen Stefani did with Pharrell or Nelly Furtado with Timbaland. That era is back in style, and I’m pulling from that energy—badass, hot baddie vibes”.

I am finishing off with Lucire and their interview from last year. Based out of L.A., I am curious whether UPSAHL will base herself there full-time in the future. It does seem like the landscape and the people suites her music and lifestyle. If a new album does arrive this year, it will see UPSAHL travelling the world:

“Are you usually in LA these days and what has been the vibe there recently? Do you still get to travel around at all?

Whenever I’m not on the road or visiting family back in Phoenix, I’m at my place in LA doing sessions every day and working on new music. Right now, I’m in full self-discovery–album mode, so I’ve been writing a lot for my project, as well as working with a lot of other artists on their projects. I’ve spent the past couple years touring a bunch, so it’s been nice to just lock in on writing for a bit.

There's a large visual component to Upsahl with photo shoots, videos and social media. Where do you get your inspiration and does your look and fashion sense reflect the music you’re making at the time?

I love the visual component to being an artist. When I’m working on music in the studio, I’m already dreaming up music video ideas, or what the song “looks” like, and I’m constantly saving a bunch of weird visual ideas to my own mood boards to reference later. So when it comes time to do a photo shoot, or make a video, even if it’s just for social media, I have a well of inspiration to pull from. It just feels like I’m constantly collecting little visual ideas. I always want my look and my fashion choices to reflect the music that I’m making at the time. It allows me to fully dive into the world of the music and live and breath the music I’m making.

Do your sound and look change over time naturally or do you consciously plan out new looks and sounds?

I feel like I naturally notice when I’ve outgrown a sound or a look. Once that happens, I’m pretty intentional about planning what’s next for me. I’m in that phase of my life right now, and it involves a lot of soul searching, mood boarding, listening to a lot of music, journalling, consuming a lot of art, and a lot of solitude. It makes me feel so inspired going into creating a new world”.

Go and follow the brilliant UPSAHL. Check out her music so far. It is an excited period. How she is working on new stuff and we will get that revealed in time. I am looking forward to seeing what comes from her, as UPSAHL is a truly awesome person and artist. Someone who I feel is…

SUCH a musical force of nature.

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Follow UPSAHL

Official:

https://www.upsahl.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/whatsupsahl

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/whatsupsahl

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/upsahlmusic/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1294QqYm1VuxxjRiL9M0h9?si=4LJxlNldSYeIH1AHl0s8Ew

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRcL5nuXfXB_8k2ikExgCuw/featured

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs: Kashka (Kashka from Baghdad)/Adolf Hitler (Heads We’re Dancing)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Kashka (Kashka from Baghdad)/Adolf Hitler (Heads We’re Dancing)

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FOR this run of features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at her home in Eltham, London on 13th September 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins/Getty Images

I am joining together characters mentioned in Kate Bush songs. The first I am mentioning is from 1978s Lionheart. I may not have too many opportunities to write about characters from this album, as I think I have covered most. The same with the second album. I will come to an evil historical figure that was mentioned in a deep cut from 1989’s The Sensual World. I am beginning with the eponymous Kashka from Kashka from Baghdad. I did write about this song last year, so there may be a bit of repetition. One of the most interesting facts around this song is that Kate Bush performed it on Ask Aspel in 1978. I will come to an article written about Kashka from Baghdad. Subjects around L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ representation and possible cultural appropriation. It is fascinating that Bush wrote this song and what inspired it. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia highlight an interview where Kate Bush talked about Kashka from Baghdad:

“That actually came from a very strange American Detective series that I caught a couple of years ago, and there was a musical theme that they kept putting in. And they had an old house, in this particular thing, and it was just a very moody, pretty awful serious thing. And it just inspired the idea of this old house somewhere in Canada or America with two people in it that no-one knew anything about. And being a sorta small town, everybody wanted to know what everybody what else was up to. And these particular people in this house had a very private thing happening.

Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979”.

I am going to cover unusual and unique instruments providing nuance and layers to Bush’s music. I will also move to Kate Bush and the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, in addition to the reasons why Lionheart needs to reappraised and discussed. This was a song Kate Bush wrote in 1976. As a teenager, another example of her maturity and curiosity. Not that there were too many contemporaries writing at such a young age. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, a lot of the Pop mainstream was filled with commercial songs about love and relationships. Although there were exceptions, there were few artists breaking from that norm and convention.

Not only does Kashka from Baghdad take us away from the traditional heteronormative narrative of Pop music. We also visit characters away from the U.S. and U.K. Rather than Bush writing a song about a same-sex couple in the U.S., she wrote about a gay couple in Iraq. When Bush wrote the song, Iraq was experiencing a high point in its modern history, characterized by rapid economic development, industrialization, and the consolidation of power by Saddam Hussein, who was then Vice President under Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Following the 1975 Algiers Agreement, which temporarily resolved border disputes with Iran and ended support for Kurdish rebels, the government in 1976 focused on internal stability and regional influence. By 1978, Iraq under the de facto leadership of Saddam Hussein (as deputy to President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr), experiencing a period of high oil-driven economic growth while aggressively consolidating political power and shifting away from its alliance with the Soviet Union. The nation in the news perhaps for bad reasons. In November 1978 (when Lionheart was released), the 1978 Arab League summit was held. It was a meeting held between Arab leaders from 2nd and 5th November in Baghdad as the 9th Arab League Summit. The summit came in the aftermath of Egypt's Anwar Sadat's unilateral peace treaty with Israel. In terms of public opinions and perceptions of Baghdad and Iraq, there might have been a lot of negativity. People only knowing about the people because of conflict and political tensions. Kashka from Baghdad never names Kashka’s partner. “At night they're seen/Laughing, loving/They know the way/To be happy”. There is this feeling that it is illicit. They cannot be seen in the daylight. The silhouettes seen at the window under the moonlight. A neighbour looking across. The lady who rents the room knows what is happening. Perhaps taboo and dangerous for this gay relationship to be brought to larger attention. “'Coz when all the alley-cats come out/You can hear music from Kashka's house”. Kashka’s house seems like a place of love and joy. It was the case in 1978 as it is now. So much of the Middle East has such regressive and Stone Age attitudes towards L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ people. As we see here, those in L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ relationships are open to stigma, punishment and imprisonment: “individuals are subject to criminal penalties under the 2024 law making homosexual relations punishable by up to 15 years in prison with fines and deportation; the 2024 law also criminalizes and makes punishable by prison time promoting homosexuality, doctors performing gender-affirming surgery, and men "deliberately acting like women”.

There were very few songs released in 1978 that were discussing L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ people. I want to explore this further. Kate Bush very much standing out or not repeating what was seen as popular and desired at that time. This article provides some interesting personal observations from Michael Langan:

“This is an album I wasn’t very familiar with, being immersed in The Kick Inside, Hounds of Love, and particularly The Sensual World (still my favourite), so I had the lovely experience of discovering something new from her, and a whole new story opening up from him. Henrique told me how he’d heard the first lines, “Kashka from Baghdad lives in sin, they say, with another man,” when he was a teenager and they’d awakened something in him that seemed hopeful and hidden, exotic and strange. As we listened to it together the song’s story unfolded, as told by a curious observer, of a reclusive gay couple; “Old friends never call there. Some wonder if life’s inside at all … But we know the lady who rents the room. She catches them calling a la lune.” But they’re not tragic figures these gay men, instead they engender love and hope; “At night, they’re seen laughing, loving. They know the way to be happy.” The narrator’s interest intensifies into longing, perhaps for a life different from the mundane, that Kashka and his lover personify. “I watch their shadows, tall and slim, in the window opposite. I long to be with them. ‘Cause when all the alley cats come out, you can hear music from Kashka’s house.”

There’s some brilliant footage of Kate singing this song live on Ask Aspel. (Click here to watch the clip.) Those of us of a certain age will remember that, before iplayer, before video recorders even, kids would write in to Michael Aspel at the BBC and ask him to show clips from TV programmes that we’d missed or were desperate to see again. It amazes me to think that a song about a gay relationship was performed live on children’s television in those days. It’s possible that I even saw it and didn’t twig, but that somehow it seeped into me by osmosis”.

At a time (1978) when Punk was at the forefront, Kashka from Baghdad was hugely unusual in terms of its sound and themes. Not only was it unusual for a same-sex relationship to be represented in popular music. Setting it in Baghdad in a period when there was conflict in Iraq and homosexuality was illegal then, this was such a bold and important song. One that does not get enough attention and discussion.

will end with Ask Aspel, the unusual instrumentation in the song, and the huge merits of Lionheart. I am coming back to a compelling and deep article from Dreams of Orgonon and their take. Whilst heterosexuality is almost subtextual in many of her songs, Kashka from Baghdad removed those layers. However, there are problematic elements to Kashka from Baghdad:

“Any fulfilling discussion of Kate Bush will inevitably detail her relationship with queerness and queer fandom. She’s influenced queer artists such as St. Vincent, Anohni, and Tegan and Sara. You could spin a whole book out of why this is — Deborah Withers has essentially done so with their seminal text Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory. Suffice it to say that Bush has long fostered LGBT-positive readings of her work with her engagement of camp and glam, her crossing of gendered lines, and her general positioning as an outsider. There’s no shortage of queer friendliness in her music — her most famous single of the Eighties demands a trans reading.

There is, of course, something to be made of the racial exoticization at play here. Kashka is first and foremost defined by his nationality. So the fetishization he receives is troubling to say the least. He is represented rather than seen. Bush has never been great on race issues, and this is just one example of that. Nonetheless, it’s intriguing to note exactly what his relationship with race (and by extension class) is. Kashka is an immigrant — he’s not in Baghdad but from it (although his un-Anglicized name, Qashqai, has more to do with Iran than Iraq). Bush’s use of “we” suggests that Kashka is the subject of gossip (“we know the lady who rents the room/she catches them calling a la lune”). Having pinpointed her primary influence for the song as an American detective show (which she’s frustratingly not named), it’s clear “Kashka from Baghdad” is something of a mystery. It’s a whodunnit with the emphasis on whodunnit. More pertinently it’s a fantasy, one about lust.

Homosexuality is a spectre that haunts the song. It’s never allowed to appear onstage. It’s hearsay or it’s a shadow on the wall, something nobody in the song sees up close (“old friends never call there/some wonder if life’s inside at all”). It’s the stuff of gossip and its pleasure comes from its illicitness. Bush clearly has no problem with the illicit. In fact, she clearly considers it a good thing. But she still falls into the trap of speaking of it in hushed tones, something naughty that must be kept behind closed doors rather than pushed into the light.

This makes her treatment of Kashka’s gay life as a matter of secrecy distressing. The polite heterosexual audience needs its eyes shielded from the gay sex it’s teased with. Yes, remaining in the closet is a safety measure for many if not most gay people. But it takes a severe toll on one’s mental health. In “Kashka” the closet is a place where great, magical events happen (“at night they’re seen laughing”). The difficulties of closeted life don’t enter the equation. Bush reduces Kashka and his partner to an instrument of pleasure and titillation”.

In my previous feature about Kashka from Baghdad, I argued the point whether the song was ingenuine because Kate Bush is straight and the gay relationship was never truly explored and executed in the way it should have been. I noted how it was a brave and brilliant song too. One that is bold and taboo-addressing. However, there is this balance between it being an empathetic representation or a ‘ghettoised’ view of queer love kept behind closed doors. I shall discuss further Kate Bush’s continued influence and importance in the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. I do think that her heart was in the right place. I am fascinated to see who she visualised as Kashka. She did perform the song as part of 1979’s The Tour of Life, though the story was never acted out on stage. It was amazingly ballsy that Bush performed this song for Michael Aspel in 1978. She originally wanted to perform In the Warm Room, though it was seen as sexually explicit. A song about two gay lovers was deemed less controversial and appropriate for a young audience! It makes me wonder whether there was a certain dismissal of Bush’s music and whether people paid attention to her lyrics. 1978 was a year when Bush was being parodied. Everyone from Faith Brown to Pamela Stephenson was taking her off. A song like Kashka from Baghdad ripe for ridicule and piss-taking. However, there is so much to commend about Kashka from Baghdad. Another example of Bush being influenced by T.V. Like Wuthering Heights and a BBC adaptation, Kashka from Baghdad started life after she watched a U.S. detective series. One of the most notable elements of the Lionheart gem is the strange instrumental elements. Paddy Bush playing Strumento da Porco, mandocello and panpipes. The Strumento de Porco is “a variety of the psaltery, a stringed instrument of the zither family. It was originally made from wood, and relied on natural acoustics for sound production”. The mandocello is “is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family. It is larger than the mandolin, and is the baritone instrument of the mandolin family”. Few artists were breaking beyond the drum-guitar-bass dynamic. I think a lot of Punk and mainstream music in the late-1970s lacked complexity or depth. Kashka from Baghdad has this sense of the unusual and exotic. If some feel that there was some cultural appropriation in the song; Bush and her problematic approach to race is reflected here. The composition and musical dynamic of Kashka from Baghdad is extraordinary. I do feel like Kashka is one of Bush’s most interesting characters. Whilst reserved to home and the shadows, he does provoke conversations and wider discussions.

Prior to moving to a dictator mentioned in a song from The Sensual World, it is worth noting how Lionheart remains underrated. It turns fifty in 2028, though it will not get the same celebration as The Kick Inside. That turns fifty in February 2028. Bush’s debut album more acclaimed and revered. Underestimated and lacking proper love, the sophistication of the songs should be commended. The reviews around Lionheart were mixed to negative. People thinking Bush would create a follow-up to The Kick Inside that was the same. Bush caught in this awkward position. Forced almost into quickly following up The Kick Inside, she was being ridiculed and parodied. That temptation to break away from her debut album. However, its immense popularity and commercial success also would have made her feel the public at least wanted more of that. Recording in France and with only three new songs written for Lionheart, it is incredible that she released something so extraordinary. Nearly fifty years after its release, we do need to revisit Lionheart. It is a fascinating album. It is that bridge between the debut album and where Kate Bush was heading. Even though Bush liked Lionheart when it was completed, she did put distance between it shortly after. That feeling it was not as she wanted or did not have enough time. I think that there are three or four songs on that album that sit alongside Bush’s best. Kashka from Baghdad among them. Wow and Symphony in Blue right up there. After her second album, Bush did not want to head back into the studio. Perhaps EMI would have pushed her back in to sort of ‘undo’ some of the negativity towards Lionheart. Instead, Bush worked on The Tour of Life and released Never for Ever in 1980. That live exposure and experience benefiting the sound and songwriting scope. Bush co-producing with Jon Kelly. I do feel like Lionheart is a remarkable album where Bush’s songwriting so refreshing and different to what was around her.

This may be the most controversial character Kate Bush has included in a song. Another song I covered recently, Heads We’re Dancing is a track beloved by Charli xcx. Before addressing a few subjects related to Heads We’re Dancing, Kate Bush discussed the background and origin of this track:

“It’s a very dark idea, but it’s the idea of this girl who goes to a big ball; very expensive, romantic, exciting, and it’s 1939, before the war starts. And this guy, very charming, very sweet-spoken, comes up and asks her to dance but he does it by throwing a coin and he says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” Even that’s a very attractive ‘come on’, isn’t it? And the idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror. What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening. And I think Hitler is a person who fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And I don’t think you can blame those people for being fooled, and maybe it’s these very charming people… maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to be.

Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1, 14 October 1989”.

The Sensual World was released in 1989. Fifty years after the start of World War II. That decision to use Adolf Hitler in the song. The nature of appropriateness of the song. Some would read Heads We’re Dancing as a glorification or romanticisation of one of the worst people in history. I think Kate Bush wrote Heads We’re Dancing around 1987. It has personal origins: “But it was all started by a family friend, years ago, who’d been to dinner and sat next to this guy who was really fascinating, so charming. They sat all night chatting and joking. And next day he found out it was Oppenheimer. And this friend was horrified because he really despised what the guy stood for”.

When discussing Kashka from Baghdad, I discussed the context of releasing that song in 1978 and what was happening in Iraq. In 1989, major global conflicts were defined by the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, the U.S. invasion of Panama, and the beginning of the Liberian Civil War. The year year saw the ‘Revolutions of 1989’, which effectively ended communist rule in Eastern Europe and brought down the Berlin Wall. It was a year when Germany was being unified and divisions removed. Recording a song about a dictator who divided Germany and created such evil during World War II, I do wonder how people perceived the song in 1989. You can understand why Bush might have felt uncomfortable talking about the song. How she would not write about it now. Whilst not a political or protest song, it is also not showing Adolf Hitler in a positive light. She recalled a dream a friend had and she adapted that for a song. Essentially, this is a song discussing a dream. Bush did write about other historical figures. Joan of Arc is one example (immortalised in Aerial’s Joanni). However, few of her songs focused on evil or desperate people. Many of her songs courted some controversy because of some of the lyrics or inspiration. The Dreaming’s title track. The Infant Kiss from Never for Ever. If Heads We’re Dancing seems problematic or controversial on paper, it does raise interesting discussion points. The representation of dreams in songs and what certain images reveal. Pitchfork mentioned Heads We’re Dancing in their review of The Sensual World: “Even its most surreal songs are rooted in self-examination. “Heads We’re Dancing” seems like a dark joke—a young girl is charmed on to the dancefloor by a man she later learns is Adolf Hitler—but poses a troubling question: What does it say about you, if you couldn’t see through the devil’s disguise? Its discordant, skronky rhythms make it feel like a formal ball taking place in a fever dream, and Bush’s voice grows increasingly panicky as she realizes how badly she’s been duped. As far-fetched as its premise was, its inspiration lay close to home: A family friend had told Bush how shaken they’d been after they’d taken a shine to a dashing stranger at a dinner party, only to find out they’d been chatting to Robert Oppenheimer”.

There is this acting performance happening in the song. How it is almost like a film scene. Bush, as the girl/woman in Heads We’re Dancing, being approached in 1939 by a man who she did not recognise. This idea of The Devil approaching her. Almost caught in this trap and dancing with Adolf Hitler, it is a fascinating visual. Even if she could never release a video for this song, you do immerse yourself in the track and are stood by the side and watching things unfold. Whilst not trying to be comical or overlook Hitler’s atrocities, it is this real-time unfolding. Someone duped. That Pitchfork question where they ask what it says about a person if you cannot see through the disguise. Heads We’re Dancing raises psychological questions. There is an article that raises some themes I want to explore. Kate Bush said in an interview how Adolf Hitler duped and fooled a nation (Germany) and brainwashed them. It would be forgivable if a woman was fooled by Hitler if he approached her at a dinner. What is remarkable is how Kate Bush wrote into songs these characters and subjects that could be seen as jokey or mishandled by others. She has written from the point of view of a foetus (Breathing). Bush turned into a donkey for The Dreaming’s Get Out of My House. She talked about a night of passion with a snowman (50 Words for Snow’s Misty). As this article examines, The Sensual World documents sensuality, growing and exploring passion. Across the album, there are tales of love, break-up and pregnancy/childbirth. Although fantastical, Heads We’re Dancing is another song that examines sensuality and passion - albeit from a darkly comical or unusual angle:

“Taken in this way, Heads We’re Dancing is actually not quite the outlier on the The Sensual World that may be first assumed. The whole album deals with the trajectory of growing and manoeuvring through a world of sensual experiences. It charts the highs as well as the lows, where the joyous imagining of Molly Bloom entering our three-dimensional world is contrasted against tales of dangerous obsession (A Deeper Understanding) and of desires being snuffed out by reality and leading to heartbreak (Never be Mine). A lyric on the latter, a confession of “I want you as the dream, not the reality’’, reflects an important component of The Sensual World’s vantage point on sensuality — that of recognising the barrier between fantasy and fact, of desires and realities, that takes on a new relevance when applied to Heads We’re Dancing. The song embodies that horrifying moment where pleasures become pain — perhaps where we recognise that our habits are dangerous, our vices degenerative, and that now it is too late to change and the damage is done. Here it is presented with extremity — being seduced by a fascist dictator, on the eve of a world war — but it can be easily scaled down to represent any person, thing or idea that enters into your life and seduces you into acting with careless abandon. As Bush states above, Hitler stands in as a perfect metaphor for destructive behaviours or obsessions because he was so seductive to the German public, and this was so intrinsically tied to his villainy — 1939 was both the year Hitler threatened the extermination of ‘the Jewish race in Europe’ in the Reichstag, and the year he was voted Time Magazine’s Man of the Year”.

Many love songs talk about being attracted to bad people. Having your heart broken. These toxic people. Whilst a definite extreme, could an artist today ever write a song where, say, Donald Trump replaced Adolf Hitler? This idea of someone evil involved in this wooing and seduction?! It would be interesting to discuss. That idea of a bad or wrong person coming into your life and leading you down a bad path or leading you to bad decisions. Rather than Bush talking about an ordinary person, she took a historical figure. However, there is still something relatable about Heads We’re Dancing. I have written before how Bush was hugely positive towards men. Even if she would have been in relationships that broke down, I am not sure she ever dated anyone that was duplicitous or damaging. Her long-term relationship with Del Palmer broke down after 1989, though they remained friends and worked together right up until 2011 (Palmer died in 2024). It is also worth noting how a lot of modern music avoids political figures. At a time when there is political unrest around the world and we have these corrupt leaders, you do wonder whether artist should address this more. Following on from the passage quoted above, these points were raised:

“But it is impossible to listen to it today without giving thought to its political ramifications, and its more overt commentary on the seductive powers of corrupt politicians. In the UK we are grappling with a government fronted by a man who won his position masquerading as a lovable buffoon, and sold as a preferable alternative to an idealist who was framed as a dangerous radical. Bush often tackled political subject matter at the beginning of her career (the aforementioned anti-nuclear war centric Breathing, or the critique of militarism in Army Dreamers), but by the time of The Sensual World her political commentary was mostly smoothed out, replaced by more internal, emotional affairs. Heads We’re Dancing may in fact stand as her last overtly political parable, and it retains all of the bite of its predecessors”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Kate Bush would have been conflicted about including Heads We’re Dancing on The Sensual World. It does stand out from the other songs in terms of tone and its lyrics. It does raise that question of human nature and whether we would see true evil if it was standing in front of us. How these diabolic people seduce entire nations. We are seeing this now across the world. Especially in the U.S. In an article I have sourced before, they ask whether we could see true evil. That idea that, if faced with Hitler in 1939 and knowing how evil he was, could you justify killing him? A song that is truly engrossing and thought-provoking:

“Who would be the ultimate figure when it comes to envisioning the most evil person to ever exist? One that says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” in a softly-spoken voice, with no indication whatsoever that he might be harbouring some big, dark secret? For Bush, Adolf Hitler was the only person to fit the role. “The idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror,” she sad. “What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening”.

The Sensual World is another Kate Bush album that is not as lauded as it should be. Heads We’re Dancing is one of the deeper cuts. Never released as a single and never performed live, I do feel it is one of the most relevant tracks. How it applies to today and conversations around world leaders. That braveness of Kate Bush when it came to song inspiration. Always intrigued by flawed, dark and unusual figures, the song is filmic. You can see songs played out. Bush narrating this situation where this man approaches a woman and if a coin toss lands heads-up, then they dance: “They say that the Devil is a charming man/And just like you I bet he can dance/And he's coming up behind in his long/Tailed black coat dance/All tails in the air/But the penny landed with its head dancing”.

Before wrapping up, I want to discuss Kate Bush songs that are fantastic and worthy but could not get played on the radio. I spotlighted this when I assessed The Infant Kiss recently. A song that could be seen as a woman attracted to a child, it is not about that at all. However, if played on the radio, people can misunderstand and it could see Bush criticised. Heads We’re Dancing rarely or never played on the radio. Could it ever be played where people appreciate the song and it is not judged? Although it should be examined and applied to the modern day, perhaps stations and broadcasters are censoring more. Especially when it comes to politics. Though not Bush being political, discussing any politician or someone like Adolf Hitler would be seen as political. Organisations and bodies censoring artists for calling for Palestine to be free. Anyone who criticises Israel’s genocide seen, wrongly and stupidly, as being antisemitic. I do wonder if there were fewer barriers in 1989 than now when it came to releasing a song like Heads We’re Dancing. Bush said this about Heads We’re Dancing when interviewed: “but I do know that whereas in a piece of film it would be quite acceptable in a song it’s a little bit sensitive”. That notion of talking about Adolf Hitler in a song and putting him in this scene much more controversial than if it was in a film. That raises conversations around acceptability and censorship in film and music. Whether the former is a more open and less reactionary and excluding industry. Can we make films today about dictatorships and put that into a scene without much attack or censorship? Artists who sing about this more open to criticism and issues. It is really curious to explore that. Bush did use her platform to write about historical figures rather than modern-day ones. What we should take from Heads We’re Dancing is her boldness and how she was (and is) such an original and inventive songwriter. Kashka from Baghdad and how unusual that was in 1978. Heads We’re Dancing and its power and relevance in 1989. Both of these wonderful and discussion-worthy cuts displaying how Kate Bush always has been…

AN astonishing songwriter.