FEATURE: Digital Witnesses: The Importance of Three New BBC Radio DAB+ Additions

FEATURE:

 

 

Digital Witnesses

 PHOTO CREDIT: Good Housekeeping

The Importance of Three New BBC Radio DAB+ Additions

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I am going to start out with a feature…

IMAGE CREDIT: BBC

describing and expanding on a piece of news that I missed initially! It is hugely important. In terms of the way we listen to radio, I think habits are changing. Whilst many still listen through traditional and analogue radios, many are preferring the options and ease of a DAB radio. Although there is some contention and disagreement with the BBC expanding its radio empire and offering three new digital stations, I think that it is a good thing. Let us first come to Music Week and what they write about a development that will draw in new listeners and adds new station to a digital roster last updated back in 2002:

“The BBC is expanding its broadcast radio network with three new music stations – a move described as a “significant milestone” in the history of BBC Radio.

The three new station extensions from BBC Radio 1 and Radio 3 are the first to be added to the BBC’s music portfolio since 2002, when the BBC launched 6 Music, 1Xtra and Asian Network. 

After launching on BBC Sounds as streams last year, they will now be available to listen to on DAB+ radio following Ofcom approval. The new brand extensions will continue to live on BBC Sounds, as well as on DAB+. 

However, the new stations will not go down well with advertiser-funded commercial radio, which has consistently pushed back against BBC expansion. The commercial sector won a partial victory with the blocking of a proposed Radio 2 nostalgia station by Ofcom, which identified a negative impact on direct competitors such as Boom Radio.

While welcoming the decision on the Radio 2 spin-off last year, commercial radio trade body Radiocentre cast doubt on the distinctiveness of the three new stations and questioned their public service role as part of the licence fee-funded broadcaster.

“The fact that the other spin-offs will now go ahead is disappointing, especially given their lack of distinctiveness or news output,” said CEO Matt Payton. “We expect Ofcom to monitor these new BBC services closely and hope it will reconsider the case for insisting on enhanced public value on these stations in future.”

BBC brand extensions into online digital streams, such as its 24-hour BBC Radio 1 dance service, prompted calls for an Ofcom review of BBC Sounds in 2020.

BBC Radio 1 Dance launches on September 15 with a mix of new and archive sets from various DJs among its programming.

Radio 1 Anthems features songs from the 2000s and 2010s, including ‘workout anthems’ and Radio 1’s ‘chillout anthems’.

Aled Haydn-Jones, head of Radio 1, said: “I’m delighted to bring Radio 1 listeners not one, but two incredible new genre-led networks on DAB+. R1 Dance and R1 Anthems provide a strong and confident offer for younger listeners – delivering more choice and music to match every mood. 

“Both stations bring together the very best expert DJs, rising presenting talent, exciting events and the best of British music for our audiences to discover. More than two decades since the launch of 1Xtra, this marks another exciting chapter in Radio 1’s history as the number one radio station for younger listeners.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Aled Haydn-Jones/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

The new Radio 1 stations present a potential challenge to existing commercial operators including Kiss and Capital Dance, which has been a ratings success since its launch five years ago.

Meanwhile, Radio 3 Unwind aims – launching today (September 12) – aims to broaden the audience for classical music in the UK with a schedule designed for younger listeners (35-54) than other classical stations and is designed for a modern audience.

BBC Radio 3 Unwind features wellbeing content, combining classical music with mindfulness.

Sam Jackson, Radio 3 controller, said: “Radio 3 Unwind has already been positively received as a stream on BBC Sounds and I’m really pleased to now bring it to a wider audience on DAB+. The station offers a wide-ranging selection of calming classical music—perfect for listeners seeking an escape from the demands of daily life. It’s a fresh way to enjoy classical music, designed to be both welcoming and enriching.”

I’m really pleased to now bring Radio 3 Unwind to a wider audience on DAB+

Sam Jackson

When Music Week interviewed Radio 3 controller Sam Jackson last year, he stressed the distinctive nature of the BBC Sounds digital stream of Unwind – now upgraded to a DAB+ station.

“It has to be [distinctive], if it's from the BBC, it absolutely has to be,” he said last year. “That's our job to offer distinctive content that you can't get elsewhere, and we're working really hard to make sure that Radio 3 Unwind gives you exactly that. We really want to focus on recordings from the last 10 years or so to champion the recorded music industry. I think there's more that we could be doing to support labels and artists who are recording really exciting stuff within classical music. Because we're the BBC, we have an opportunity to really broaden the range of music that is heard. It would be all too easy simply to play the ‘hits’ on a station like this, to play the very well known classical repertoire. We're not here to do that.”

BBC ‘commitment to new music and British artists’

The BBC has said the new stations reinforce its “commitment to championing new music and supporting British artists”.

Radio 1 Dance showcases the BBC’s investment in dance music, reflecting all sub-genres, from chart hits to house and drum & bass. The schedule reflects the full range of electronic music and dance trends across the UK and globally.

British artists make up a third of Radio 1 Anthems’ airplay, with a quarter of the tracks unlikely to get regular play on key commercial stations. 

The new extension plays a broader range of music than any comparable station, according to the BBC, with a music policy developed by collaborating with the Student Radio Association and designed to resonate with younger listeners.

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Radio 3 Unwind broadcasts exclusive recordings from the BBC’s own orchestras and choirs. Living composers feature throughout the schedule, with a particular focus on both established and emerging homegrown British talent.

The station also reflects under-represented composers, including women and ethnically diverse composers. The dedicated new music programme Soundwaves, presented by Afrodeutsche, provides a platform for contemporary voices including BBC Introducing artists.

Digital listening habits

The BBC’s decision to launch three stations on DAB+ underscores the evolution of the audio landscape over the past decades, with 75% of the population now listening to the radio digitally (DAB/DAB+ and online).

It also marks the first DAB+ music stations launched by the BBC. Existing networks use the older DAB technology, though recent digital radios should be able to access both.

The BBC cited research showing that music streaming dominates among under-35s, who spend just 27% of their audio time with live radio compared to 49% with streaming services. 

Despite this shift, radio still reaches 13.6 million under-35s each week and remains a key source of music discovery across all age groups.

The rise of new stations on DAB/DAB+ reflects where the majority of live radio listening is projected to take place by 2030.

DAB/DAB+ covers 97% of the UK population and 87% of major roads.  It is also available in 100% of all new cars. 68% of households claim to have a DAB/DAB+ radio”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Afrodeutsche presents Soundwaves on BBC Radio 3 Unwind/PHOTO CREDIT: Kasia Zacharko

These new stations are important for so many reasons. For one, this is a reaction to changing trends. How people are listening to radio now. I don’t think that it is an attack on commercial radio. The BBC is allowed to expand and offer choices. To reach new audiences. Commercial radio will still exist but, at a time when we want to focus more on the content and people have less patience for commercials and any interruptions, we need to accept the fact that this is not going to disappear. I avoid commercial radio for that very reason. I know these stations need this advertising revenue but, when you are bombarded by cheesy and grating commercials between every few songs, it can be hugely off-putting. I do not want to listen to them so, every so often, you have to turn the volume down and wait for them to finish! Instead, with the BBC, you get more time dedicated to actual music and content. This is what people tune in for. However, I can appreciate that stations like Boom Radio are hugely important. Appealing to older listeners, their voice and opinions are hugely valid. They need a station that speaks to them. It is difficult. I don’t think the BBC should have its own equivalent, as that would take market share and focus from Boom Radio. However, these three new digital stations are going to easily and naturally fit into the BBC radio portfolio. Sitting alongside BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1 Xtra, I think it will attract more people to digital radio. There is also a progressiveness as well. BBC Radio 3 Unwind is a station I am especially looking forward to. I have been trying to listen to BBC Radio 3 more as I love Classical music and a lot of contemporary composers.

IMAGE CREDIT: Boom Radio

I am a huge BBC Radio 6 Music fan so find myself listening more to that. However, as BBC Radio 3 Unwind also shines a light on under-represented composers  - and an overdue acknowledgement of women in that arena -, then I think I will spend some time with it. The Anthems stations is going to be great. A blast of nostalgia but also some chillout anthems, it is going to provide respite and uplift for listeners! The stations also provide a platform for new music and artists. Perhaps they would struggle to feature on other BBC stations, so this is a positive move towards including more new artists. I love BBC Radio 3 Unwind and Cinematic Soundtracks. That sounds right up my street! There are so many fascinating shows and presenters. A chance to chill and unwind. Some incredible anthems. This great chance for digital radio to welcome these exciting BBC stations. I guess the flip side is that it maybe damage some commercial stations or take attention from them. And local radio. Local radio is declining and that is a sad thing to see. We need to recognise their importance and place. Stations that maybe struggle to grow and exist and need as big an audience as possible. I do sympathise. However, it is good that the BBC I reacting to future predictions. That digital radio is going to grow and listening habits are changing. There is a lot to look forward to. BBC Radio 1 Dance will tempt more teenagers to digital radio. Giving them choice that they might not otherwise have had. There was a lot of interest when BBC Radio 6 Music launched in 2002. Rather than them having rivals and worrying, they have stablemates. It is going to be a big week next week when we get these new stations all open for business together. Radio 3 Unwind launched on Thursday. Going forward, we will see those who otherwise would spend time streaming music go to digital radio. I think this is positive. In terms of the benefits. It is a new venture but one which will provide much more good than bad. A lot of listeners who might have felt unheard or struggle to find their place now have a home. Radio programmes that are beneficial for mental and physical health. Educational, progressive and escapist, it is what we all need! For that reason alone, this trio of BBC Radio DAB+ stations should be welcomed…

WITH open arms.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: What Would Be the Ultimate Project to Honour the Icon?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

What Would Be the Ultimate Project to Honour the Icon?

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THIS is very much a personal thing…

as everyone would have their own opinions about what the best Kate Bush-related project would be. This year, there have been magazine articles and features. There recently has been a Hounds of Love book from Leah Kardos. Looking ahead to next year, I wonder what might come. As we have marked forty years of Hounds of Love and Aerial turns twenty in November, I wonder if that will lead to any special projects or books. I have said how there should be a book dedicated to Aerial. Her eighth studio album released in 2005, there is a 33 1/3 book in it. There has been a bit written about Aerial, though nothing in the form of a book. It seems a shame that this has not happened yet. I have written features about what projects could come and what gaps there are to fill. I have said how it would be great to have photobooks with unseen photos or maybe an exhibition where we get to see Kate Bush photos, memorabilia and artefacts. David Bowie has this V&A archive. In fact, it is a permanent David Bowie Centre. Even though Kate Bush would not get something as prestigious, I think that she is deserving of something very special. Maybe she would feel this is too exposing. However, I am not sure whether she has been approached about anything like this. There is so much that could happen. However, you wonder what Kate Bush would allow and whether she would want herself exposed in such a way. It is a hard balance. For that reason, I don’t think there will be any documentaries about her. There have been in the past. However, I think we might get audio documentaries but nothing filmed.

I have always thought what I can do. I have written a lot of Kate Bush features, though it is all digital and could disappear at some point. I get people reading my stuff, though I wonder whether it is quite disposable. I am not sure whether I will do a podcast anytime soon. I would love to be a guest on a Kate Bush podcast but, for me, I am not going to do a long-running one. For a regular podcast, I would need to do something in a studio or space that was quiet. I do not have access to that. Even though I have never written a book, I wonder whether it is something that I could do. I do not consider myself to be a great writer. However, with enough research and guidance. I might be able to write something good. In terms of Kate Bush books, there have been ones about some of her albums. There have been some great biographies, including Graeme Thomson’s definitive, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Maybe there is not a lot to offer in terms of a new biography. However, I could always combine some of my features into a book. I have suggested that there could be a Kate Bush Encyclopedia book. There is a website of that name. Maybe a book that combined all her albums, some interviews and graphs. Pictorial representation of facts and figures. I would love to have this opportunity to pay tribute to Kate Bush. Something that is permanent and would be something you could hold. A couple of ideas I have narrowed down to is an equivalent of the book, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, written by Alex Pappademas with artwork by Joan LeMay. This book looks at the characters in Steely Dan’s music. Rather than it being a traditional biography, this looks at the people in the songs. Building worlds and images around that. It is a brilliant book.

There are plenty of characters in Kate Bush’s music where something similar could be created. It is very tempting. There would need to be an original angle. Not repeating what has gone before. Whether it is a book about Kate Bush as a producer or something else, I have been considering something larger. I would love to be specific and write a book about The Kick Inside. A new book, Kate Bush: On Location takes us inside some of the crucial and interesting spots of notes. Where music videos were filmed, various studio and locations important to Kate Bush’s career and story. It is wonderful. I do love that idea of creating a beautiful hardback book with some great illustrations and wonderful insights. That character book like Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. Rather than it being a straight Kate Bush biography, a chance to talk about her career and work but focusing on the characters. I think there are at least forty characters, named or otherwise, that could be included. The Kick Inside and Lionheart might not have that many but, from Never for Ever onwards, we do get quite a few. If there was not enough ammunition to match Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, I still want to show my love for Kate Bush and how important she is. I want to do something by 2028. That is when Kate Bush turns seventy. It is also when her debut, The Kick Inside, turns fifty. It is going to be a big year. I think something published is the best way to properly salute her, though I would love to be involved in an audio production or podcast. A book about her career through her characters would be new and fertile with possibility. Maybe expand and bring in influences for Kate Bush including literary and film. Artists thar she admired and mentioned. I am very determined to do something wonderful for…

THIS music queen.

FEATURE: The First Sign of Snow: Kate Bush’s Wild Man and the Taste of a Very Special Album

FEATURE:

 

 

The First Sign of Snow

Kate Bush’s Wild Man and the Taste of a Very Special Album

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I have written about…

Wild Man before, so I shall try not to repeat myself too much regarding that. This was the first taste of new material. After Kate Bush released Director’s Cut in May, there was no real feeling that she would follow it up so quickly. In terms of sound, 50 Words for Snow is very different to any other album from Kate Bush. Although it does not do great when album rankings come out, it is this incredible work. So atmospheric and grand. Maybe a little sparse compared to other Kate Bush albums in terms of instruments, there is so much beauty and space. In terms of the standouts, Wild Man is right up there. It was perhaps an obvious single as it is the second-shortest track on the album. The shortest, Among Angels, would have also been a great single. Even so, Wild Man is over seven minutes, so it did need a radio edit. Typical of Kate Bush, there were not a lot of obvious singles of 50 Words for Snow. I think this was deliberate. When she released Aerial in 2005, there was this feeling she was releasing a complete body of work and was not considering singles and what could be played on the radio. Even so, there were a few songs that had that single potential. Nothing really like this with Wild Man. Regardless, this was the official single that was released. I am going to mark fourteen years of 50 Words for Snow closer its anniversary on 21st November. On 11th October, it will be fourteen years since Wild Man was released. It was an exciting day. I remember. Kate Bush did say in interviews for Director’s Cut how there was an album coming. However, we did not get an idea or suggestion what it could be. I think 50 Words for Snow took us by surprise. In terms of just how evocative it is. If people associate her work with something lighter and more energetic, perhaps an album that was closer to Chamber Jazz or was a lot slower and more expansive took them aback. I will bring in a critical review soon.

Unlike Aerial or Hounds of Love, 50 Words for Snow is an album that also got rave reviews but does not score high on ranking lists like those other albums. Perhaps seen as inessential. However, Kate Bush’s latest album is tremendous. Wild Man is a song that could only come from her. I am going to reference some information I have include in features before. Let’s start out with stuff you have probably already read. Though it is good to get the reminder and context. Some words from Kate Bush about Wild Man:

“Kate about ‘Wild Man’

Well, the first verse of the song is just quickly going through some of the terms that the Yeti is known by and one of those names is the Kangchenjunga Demon. He’s also known as Wild Man and Abominable Snowman. (…) I don’t refer to the Yeti as a man in the song. But it is meant to be an empathetic view of a creature of great mystery really. And I suppose it’s the idea really that mankind wants to grab hold of something [like the Yeti] and stick it in a cage or a box and make money out of it. And to go back to your question, I think we’re very arrogant in our separation from the animal kingdom and generally as a species we are enormously arrogant and aggressive. Look at the way we treat the planet and animals and it’s pretty terrible isn’t it?

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

I guess in some ways, you could say that it’s the most immediate song on the album… It’s really a song entity for the Yeti – this mysterious creature that no one is sure whether or not it exists. It’s about how precious that mystery is, you know? We have such little mystery in our lives, generally, because of how we live now. I mean, of course, mystery is all around us, but the way we live our lives now, we’re too busy to be bothered with it.

Joe Tiller, ”50 Words For Snow’: How Kate Bush Made A Wintry Wonder Of An Album. Dig! Website, 11 DECEMBER 2022

Stephen W. Taylor about ‘Wild Man (with remastered shimmer)’

It was something I worked on with Rupert [Hine]. I added layers of sound to it, but they’re almost inaudible, which was done with Kate’s approval. In fact, fans were pissed off because they felt it wasn’t any different to the original version. In fact, it’s completely different. It has a very different sonic approach. We asked Kate to name it and she said it should be “With Remastered Shimmer” so that’s what it was called. (Anil Prasad, Stephen W Tayler – Experiential evocation. Innerviews, 2020)”.

That last interview relates to a version of Wild Man that appeared on the album The Art of Peace: Songs for Tibet II in 2015. I would love to hear different version of Wild Man. It is this song that could benefit from remixes and new versions. I don’t know if anyone has covered the song before. The musicianship on Wild Man are extraordinary. Steve Gadd is on percussion. He adds something magical to the song. His beats and drive gives Wild Man this mystery, energy and wonder. The late John Giblin provides bass. The late Del Palmer on bells. These two much missed musicians absolutely phenomenal. Dan McIntosh (Kate Bush’s partner) on guitars, with Andy Fairweather Low providing vocals with Kate Bush, who is on keyboards. The first taste of a new album, how did the press react to Wild Man in 2011? With no huge idea of what the other six tracks on 50 Words for Snow would sound like, it was a gamble. Wild Man sits beautiful in the centre of the album. After the epic Misty and Kate Bush’s duet with Elton John, Snowed in at Wheeler Street, Wild Man perfectly bridges the two halves. I would have thought that Bush would also release Among Angels as a single. I kind of thought an edited version of Misty would have come out at Christmas. It is about a snowman, so I would have thought the single would be a popular, if unconventional, single. NME provided one of the most positive reviews for Wild Man:

“For those of us who have been secretly longing for a return to the unflinchingly bizarre and Bush’s ability to conjure up strange new worlds, ‘Wild Man’ is a deep joy.

Lyrically we’re in a literal wilderness, where the ‘Wild Man’ of the title is a revealed to be a Yeti-type figure roaming the wiles of the Himalayas. Bush’s whispered vocal delivery of the lyrics (which are full of geographical intrigue and century old myth) is full of the right balance of fear, intrigue and empathy towards the plight of the shadowy figure (“I can hear your cry/Echoing around the mountain side/You sound lonely,” she sings).

As for the the chorus, it bursts forth mid-eruption; a choir of strange voices; echoing the ‘Wild Man”s own explosion out of habitation into civilization in the narrative of the song. Bush tackles this by a multiple layering of voices, creating several personas and the atmosphere of a village set adrift by the sudden intrusion. It’s a style which recalls some of her most classic work.

Musically, we’ve moved on subtly from the pared down production of ‘Director’s Cut’, and on ‘Wild Man’ a guitar riff-plays pan-Asian and ponderous, but there’s also a layering of sounds in the chorus (tinkling percussion, a bedrock of organs), which suggests her 80s heyday.

Multiple listens on, the references just keep coming; there’s ‘Scary Monsters And Super Creeps’ era Bowie and some of the ‘Tusk’ era Fleetwood Mac and her own ‘Sensual World’ and ‘The Dreaming’.

After the domestic bliss of ‘Aerial’, it’s a deep joy to have Kate roam the narrative wiles of her imagination. The result is her strongest single for decades”.

Billboard were definitely intrigued by Wild Man. In their review, this is what they had to say about a song that I think ranks alongside Kate Bush’s very best. They felt, as the first truly original single since King of the Mountain 2005 (Director’s Cut’s Deeper Understanding is a re-recorded version of the song that appears on 1989’s The Sensual World), it was a slight surprise:

“The weird and whimsical “Wild Man” serves as the first new single from British art-rock craftswoman Kate Bush in a whopping six years (not including the re-tooled tracks from this year’s “Director’s Cut”). A word of advice to first-time listeners: be sure to have an atlas and thesaurus handy. “From the Sherpas of Annapurna to the Rinpoche of Qinghai / Shepherds from Mount Kailash to Himachal Pradesh,” sings Bush in her breathy lisp, somehow sounding erotic while randomly referencing Indian provinces and Buddhist principles. For all of its impenetrable wordplay,”Wild Man” makes for a wicked headphone atmosphere, with Dan McIntosh’s expressionistic digital guitar curlicues wandering around a crisp Steve Gadd kit and John Giblin bass. As an announcement of Bush’s return, “Wild Man” is a tad off-kilter. But then again, when has the ever-singular Bush been anything but?”.

There were not that many reviews for Wild Man. That is understandable. Not a conventional or young Pop artist, there is less attention towards those who are older and are not considered to be ‘current’ or near the mainstream. Even so, The Needle Drop - https://theneedledrop.com/2011-11-kate-bush-wild-man-radio-edit/ - were impressed with a track that could only have been generated by the genius of Kate Bush:

“Wild Man” is the first track to drop from the album, and I’m loving the wintery feel of this song. Yeah, maybe I get that because of the vibe implied by the title of this album, but I really feel like playing this song is making the room I’m in colder. I think I can see my own breath.

But honestly, the icy grooves on this track are pretty pleasant. Kate’s voice guides the track through some quiet verses, and the chorus explodes with the beauty of a 60s psych pop tune. Can’t wait to review the LP tonight”.

This was the first taste of snow. The initial glimpse into Kate Bush’s tenth studio album. 50 Words for Snow is this underrated masterpiece. Wild Man a typically brilliant track that reveals new layers with each listen. I will include some interviews with Kate Bush when I do an anniversary feature for 50 Words for Snow nearer 21st November. However, as Kate Bush News wrote in  a feature from 2011, Kate Bush was pleased with how 50 Words for Snow came out and the guests who appear on it. I do wonder if an eleventh studio album will have guests on it:

“Kate says she doesn’t want anyone to mistake this for a “Christmas” album: “That is one concern I had when people heard the title and when they got to see the artwork on the cover . . . that they would think it was a Christmas album…people don’t seem to be saying that, which is great because it isn’t. If they did think that they’d be disappointed.”

Kate is thrilled by her guests on the album. On Stephen Fry, who features on the album’s title track, she tells The Australian: “What I was trying to do was find someone who had a great voice of authority. The idea of the song was that we would start off with straightforward words and then come up with completely ridiculous ones. That really tickles me because it’s meant to be fun.”

Kate also talks about Elton John’s performance on ‘Snowed in at Wheeler Street’: “I love his performance. He has a fantastic voice. If he had said no I don’t know who I would have asked, but luckily he said yes. I was really lucky that everyone I asked to be on the album agreed to do it”.

On 11th October, it will be fourteen years since Wild Man was released. On 10th October, The 7:16-minute version was first played on The Ken Bruce Show and the 4:16-minute ‘radio edit’ was made available for streaming on Kate Bush's official YouTube channel after the radio premiere. It is interesting, as 50 Words for Snow was released on Fish People. That is Kate Bush’s label. Newly-crated so that she could take more control of the music, Wild Man was released through Noble & Brite. That is Kate Bush’s business. It used to be called Novercia Ltd. Even though it is not a major anniversary, I wanted to shine a light on Wild Man. I have not even delved into the lyrics of the song. My favourite lines end the song: “While crossing the Lhakpa-La/Something jumped down from the rocks/In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak/We found footprints in the snow”. I really love Wild Man. I think that 50 Words for Snow should get more respect and love. It is an album from Kate Bush that ranks alongside…

HER greatest moments.

FEATURE: A Smarter Choice: Is the Comeback of the MP3 Player a Sign of Things to Come?

FEATURE:

A Smarter Choice

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jean Marc Bonnel/Pexels

Is the Comeback of the MP3 Player a Sign of Things to Come?

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THE slight turn away…

PHOTO CREDIT: Astell & Kern

from digital music is happening. Not that streaming will ever be replaced by physical music. It is convenient and affordable for many of us. I don’t think that it is a bad thing to listen to music digitally. I do it a lot. However, there is this demand for physical music and formats. When it comes to the way we listen to music, though we want to buy vinyl, it is not always the most convenient of methods. You have to be stationery and it is about sitting down and listening to an album. People do want to experience music on the go. I was born in the 1980s, and most of my best days listening to music were about C.D.s and cassettes. I would listen on a Sony Walkman or Discman. Those technologies still have a place today, though they were discontinued. They were replaced by other technologies such as the iPod and MP3 players. The MiniDisc (MD) was discontinued in 2013. When digital music and streaming came in, these physical devices were sort of phased out. Assumed to be irrelevant. Smartphones were seen as the natural successor. Although they are convincement and provide portability, the truth is that smartphones do not have the same quality as other devices. For people who want to listen to music on the go but want an actual music device, it seems that MP3s are experiencing a revival. Earlier this year, What Hi-Fi? provided a guide to the best portable music players. It is true that Smartphones do not provide good quality when it comes to music playing:

“We're sorry to break it to you, but for all of its communication cleverness and photography prowess, your phone is a pretty poor music-playing device.

For all their multi-tasking, modern-day mastery, smartphones simply do not sound good – not out of their built-in speakers, headphone output or over Bluetooth. And that's where dedicated portable music players (or 'DAPs': digital audio players) come in.

In contrast, they are designed first and foremost to store music and play it back in the best quality possible. Not only do even the best budget models sound miles better than the most premium phones – to the point that they can justifiably feed high-end headphones or even a hi-fi system – but they can also hold thousands of albums of the highest recording quality.

In a bid to remain relevant in this feature-competitive world, most now offer wi-fi and built-in access to music streaming service apps like Tidal and Spotify”.

For The Guardian, Alan Martin tested the best MP3 players. Maybe this isn’t the sign that all portable physical devices are coming back. However, it is notable that MP3 players are back in the spotlight at a time when many are turning away from listening to music on their phones. Even if the music being played is digital, the fact that people want to buy a device and spend that money is encouraging:

“An MP3 player? In 2025? Am I going to be covering Betamax and MiniDisc players next?

No, this isn’t a retro piece from the Filter. You may be reading this at least three years after Apple decided the iPod business was too niche to be worth bothering with, but MP3 players – or digital audio players, as they should more accurately be called – are seeing a small resurgence, despite the domination of Spotify, Apple Music and the like.

“In the past few years, since Covid, we’ve seen way more people looking to get a new MP3 player,” says Chris Laidler, office manager of Advanced MP3 Players, an Edinburgh store specialising in audio equipment.

The reasons are, essentially, threefold. First, there’s the pleasure of using something tangible: a nostalgia for devices with a single purpose, devoid of notifications and apps. More importantly, though, there’s a desire to have a music collection again – something led by the music-loving algorithm in your brain, rather than one outsourced to technology. “It’s their collection, rather than a playlist they’ve subscribed to,” says Laidler, and they own the music and aren’t simply “leasing it from Spotify”.

I sourced 15 modern MP3 players from the likes of Sony, Agptek, Majority, Shanling, iBasso and FiiO – which may not all sound that familiar, such is the niche we’re dealing with. While players can go for more than £1,000, I was keen to test mainstream devices, with the highest priced at £649 and the lowest at £30.

I supplemented this with two old Apple models via Backmarket, where preowned tech can get a second life rather than becoming e-waste. Neither made the list, however, for reasons I’ll get to later.

I listened to a lot of music in different environments. I became familiar with my old collection (out and about, and while connected directly to my Cambridge Audio AXA25 hifi). To get the most out of the high-end players, I borrowed a couple of high-end FiiO headsets from Advanced MP3 Players: the FH75 wired in-ear monitors, and the over-ear FT7 headphones. These offered a considerable improvement over my own somewhat tired headphones.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Activo P1/PHOTO CREDIT: Alan Martin/The Guardian

All the while, I diligently made mental notes about the look, feel, battery life and usability of each device, relative to its cost. File quality is also a factor, of course, and to that end, I not only played MP3s, but lossless Flac versions of the same track.

If you’ve done enough reading on the topic of digital audio players, you’ll have undoubtedly come across the Astell & Kern brand … and then possibly realised its products are out of your price range. Enter Activo: a sub-brand from the company, which promises to deliver a lot of what audiophiles want for considerably less cost.

Why we love it
While £399 represents a significant outlay, it’s nowhere near as pricey as some models and still offers a lot of bang for your buck. The dual-DAC structure provides high-resolution audio, aided by its Digital Audio Remaster upsampling tech, plenty of pre-programmed filters and a built-in EQ to modify 20 frequencies to your tastes.

File support is strong, and it has 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced audio ports for wired connections, along with Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless playback. It can even work as an external DAC for your computer if you like.

It comes with 64GB of internal storage, and you can expand it with microSD cards of up to 1.5TB. It uses Android – which I always worry detracts from the point of a dedicated MP3 player – but it’s a highly pared-back version focused on music. The Google Play Store is here, but it’s really only present to allow you to install Spotify, Tidal or whatever your streaming poison is. It’s intuitive, smooth enough, and not trying to mimic your phone: you won’t find yourself distracted by social media nonsense.

It’s a shame that … it doesn’t have more dedicated physical playback buttons. That and its chunky size almost made me give the cheaper £346.80 Sony NW-A306 the nod, but Activo’s smoother, pared-back version of Android and additional 4.4mm output gave it the edge”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dalila Dalprat/Pexels

This isn’t an isolated thing. Many younger people are ditching their smartphones for something more basic. Going back to older phones. Buying digital cameras and relying less on their phones. That is a positive move. Part of this is the resurgence of the MP3 player. This feature highlights how the reliance on smartphones is like an addition. This move back to the physical, or at least older devices and technology, is a healthy thing. Maybe a sign of things to come:

“Why isn’t ‘Do Not Disturb’ enough?

The addictive nature of both social media and the phones we use to access social media is real. “Smartphones have the same chemical reaction in the brain as drugs and alcohol,” Melissa DiMartino, associate professor of psychology at New York Institute of Technology, tells Yahoo Life. “Getting ‘likes,’ messages and notifications from your phone releases dopamine, which makes us feel good. And, in turn, we want to repeat these feel-good behaviors.”

Looking at your phone to feel better becomes an addictive cycle that ultimately leads people to feel depressed and lonely when they aren’t getting those alerts, explains DiMartino. Increased anxiety and stress can also result from the continuous stream of updates and constant connectivity.

Once you open that phone, it’s like you just opened up Pandora’s box.

Ari Lightman, digital media and marketing professor

Interacting with a phone’s more standard operations, like calls and messages, is just a part of the sequence. “Once you open that phone, it’s like you just opened up Pandora’s box,” says Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University. He tells Yahoo Life that just checking the weather can entice a person to click on the app that sits right next to it, whether it is LinkedIn or Instagram. “Then there’s a sort of cascading series of actions that basically snap up all your time, even in ‘Do Not Disturb,’” he says.

Deleting apps is not a solution, because “there’s always a replacement,” says Lightman.

What do MP3 players and digital cameras have to do with it?

The use of dumb phones has ushered in the need for other legacy technology. Caleb’s Nokia flip phone, for example, is limited to playing FM radio, which influenced his decision to use a separate MP3 player to access his personal collection of music.

Some others, like 32-year-old Alex Biniaz-Harris, haven’t made the switch to dumb phones but use other technologies for listening to music or taking pictures, so that they can avoid getting sucked into more screen time. Biniaz-Harris tells Yahoo Life that he opts to bring his iPod on drives, while leaving his phone behind, so he can listen to music without the added distractions of his iPhone. Having more limited options than Spotify makes the experience more intentional and even nostalgic, he says.

IMAGE CREDIT: Yahoo News (photos from Getty Images)

Using a device with limited functionality ... can be a welcome escape from the pressures of constant connectivity.

Riani Kenyon, anthropologist and behavioral analyst

Nostalgia plays a key role in the switch to legacy technology among young people, says Riani Kenyon, an anthropologist and behavioral analyst at the consumer insights agency Canvas8. “Despite not having firsthand experience of the 1990s or early 2000s, Gen Z expresses a strong affinity for the era’s tangible, straightforward technology,” she tells Yahoo Life. “For many, using a device with limited functionality, one that prioritizes calls and texts over endless notifications, can be a welcome escape from the pressures of constant connectivity.”

The deliberate use of these tools for specific purposes enables “greater levels of concentration and autonomy of thought,” says Lightman, whereas an iPhone tends to require attention on everything at once.

Digital minimalism is a lifestyle choice

While taking time away from your smartphone might not seem like a big deal, committing to a life where you use your device either more intentionally or not at all is difficult in today’s interconnected world. “The convenience of modern smartphones, which consolidate navigation, communication and entertainment into a single device, is difficult to replicate with older technology,” says Kenyon”.

Cost is an issue when it comes to devices. You have to invest in something additional to your smartphone. For music listening, it is clear that MP3 players off a benefit of being digital and also physical. Excellent playback quality and plenty of options – if you shop around and do your research -, is this going to be a movement that sees people buy C.D. playing devices and something to play cassettes in? There are modern-day equivalents of the Walkman, and I have covered this before. Whilst that will not be as notable as the rise of the MP3 player, it is clear that many do not want to rely on their phone and want to detach. Play music without being sucked into their smartphones. In addition to the quality of what we hear, MP3 players and other devices allow us to focus on music and not be distracted by other functions on the phone.  Rather than being drenched in nostalgia, it is a way of being able to listen to music portably and get that quality but also not have to do everything on a smartphone. Something that can be additive and damaging. For that reason, the new surge in interest in MP3 players is good…

PHOTO CREDIT: Karolina Grabowska

FOR all of us.

FEATURE: Beautiful Feeling: PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Beautiful Feeling

PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea at Twenty-Five

__________

THERE is no doubt that…

PHOTO CREDIT: Tony Mott

PJ Harvey is one of our best artists. Her fifth studio album ranks alongside her very best. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was another major commercial success story, following her successful breakthrough To Bring You My Love (1995). Upon its release, the album received massive acclaim. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea earned Harvey several accolades, including the 2001 Mercury Prize. Released on 23rd October, 2000, I am going to mark twenty-five years of this incredible album. I will introduce some features and finish with a review. Although it only got to twenty-three in the U.K., the album has since been certified Platinum. Let’s start out with some background to the album:

“I wanted everything to sound as beautiful as possible,” said Polly Harvey of her fifth studio LP, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, in an interview with Q magazine. “Having experimented with some dreadful sounds on Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love – where I was really looking for dark, unsettling, nauseous-making sounds – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was the reaction. I thought, No, I want absolute beauty. I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work.”

Two decades on, the sumptuous Stories is the latest in Harvey’s ongoing reissues project, accompanied by a collection of its demos. It has a towering reputation in the Harvey catalogue, having won the first of her two Mercury Music Prizes in 2001, and it has become something of a fixture in ‘best albums’ lists. Where Is This Desire? married unsettling atmospherics with disquieting experimentation (just take a listen to the suffocating misery of “My Beautiful Leah” and “Joy”) often to darkly beautiful effect, Stories is the sound of openness – strident vocals, chiming guitars, harmonies, layers of melody. But crucially, it never forgoes her customary inventiveness for banal commerciality.

The notion of Harvey trading artistic, creative ingenuity for commercial success is, especially with the hindsight of her now almost 30-year career, preposterous; Stories may have a reputation as Harvey’s most accessible record, but are such moody jewels as “Beautiful Feeling” and “Horses In My Dreams” commercial? Doesn’t “Kamikaze” have more in common with her brutal first two records, 1992’s Dry and 1993’s Rid of Me? If it’s pop, as she later said, it’s “pop according to PJ Harvey.”

New York City looms large in Stories, from its genesis in the city where she filmed The Book of Life with Hal Hartley, to its myriad lyrical references (“on a rooftop in Brooklyn,” “I’m in New York,” “when we walked through Little Italy”). But it’s curious that, in fact, much of it was also written and initially recorded at Harvey’s home in Dorset and then produced for real at Linford Manor in Milton Keynes in March and April 2000 – about as un-New York as you can get. Working with her long-time collaborators Mick Harvey and Rob Ellis as the core trio of musicians, the Stories demos are, as with the previous instalments in this reissue series, routinely fascinating. This time they’re captivating for just how ‘demo-y’, for want of a better word, they are – yet how comprehensive. That’s the story of these Harvey demo albums – they clearly indicate that the bulk of these songs, arrangements and all, were all there from the beginning.

But where Is This Desire? was built almost entirely on top of those original demo tracks, Stories’ demos are more often than not true alternates. You can certainly detect parts of the originals that were then loaded into the multi-tracks and built upon (the gorgeous chiming guitars of “Good Fortune” were all there from the start, with Harvey’s Patti Smith-meets-Chrissie Hynde vocal re-recorded to become a little sleeker), but then you get something completely leftfield like the charmingly rustic “A Place Called Home,” with its drum machine pattern and more rudimentary presentation.

Harvey told the LA Times upon the album’s release in October 2000 that “it kind of feels like a combination of every album I’ve made so far rolled into one.” And it’s true that there is the balance between ferocious rockers (“Kamikaze”), slow-burning blues (“Horses In My Dreams”), and murky atmospherics (“Beautiful Feeling”) – but there’s also a newly lush, panoramic melodic and production style. “We Float” shimmers and opens out beautifully, “Good Fortune” is pop perfection, and “You Said Something” finds Harvey in classic songwriter mode. She told Hilton Als in Interview magazine that “I wrote the songs in a different way. I went back to writing songs just with guitar and voice, and the songs had to be strong enough to work at that level. I wasn’t relying at all on equipment, I wasn’t writing in the studio, I was just purely writing in time, if you like. I think that’s quite a good basis for writing strong songs”.

Opening their 2021 feature with the words “Considered an atypically ‘pop’ experiment and even doubted by its own author, Polly Jean Harvey’s fourth album was nevertheless her biggest UK album. Isn’t it time it’s considered simply a great record?”, Guitar.com investigated the genius of Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea:

“Indeed, it’s actually a very simple record, with big bold melodies and minimal personnel – Polly Jean on guitar and vocals, Rob Ellis on keys and drums, and the Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey on organ, bass, and drums. All three co-produced, and there’s a notable flash of superstar glitz in guest vocals by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. And how ‘pop’, anyway, is a song like Kamikaze? Not very.

The title itself alluded to the songs’ creative birth: half written between Europe, London and her home in Dorset; the remainder were penned in New York, where Harvey lived for seven months prior to recording. With the cover picturing a gold-handbagged Harvey (sunglasses on: at night, natch) amid NYC’s neon streets, one might surmise big city glamour was reflected in the whole project, but that’s not strictly true either. Her time there may have informed a share of the songs (yet most of those songs are about escaping), and it was recorded in six weeks at the genteel English setting of the 17th-century Great Linford Manor recording studios, the nearest metropolis being the totally un-rock’n’roll Milton Keynes. At a push for hell-raisin’ cred, you can claim Marshall make amps down the road at Bletchley.

Of all PJ Harvey’s album’s Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea is perhaps the most instrumentally vivid. And her voice has rarely sounded more elastic. It kicks hard from the off. Opener Big Exit (“too many cops / too many guns!”) is clearly informed by life in the USA, and its clear-as-a-bell G-F-G-F riff grips like a choke-hold. It’s sparse, though. It’s only when the bass kicks in (defining a Dm) than any chordal identity really takes hold. The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore is cut from similar rags, being a harsh-riffing disapproving stare onto the urban underbelly that seems to prompt flight not fight.

That ‘escape’ can be found in the overtly romantic A Place Called Home (“One day there’ll be a place for us / And the bells keep ringing… / and the girl keeps singing”). Meanwhile, This Is Love is downright dumb-sex lusty. Over a great deep fuzz riff, it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a paean to happiness-in-sex. This, it should be said, is a good thing. Good Fortune is another “exit” song in which “I fantasize of our leaving / Like some modern-day gypsy landslide / Like some modern-day Bonnie and Clyde”. If all these songs were written in New York, it doesn’t sound like she much fancied anything more than a temporary visit.

Harvey’s guitar playing doesn’t often garner attention, but it’s to the fore on Stories… and not amid the grungeoid blast of her earlier records, bar the exception of hidden track This Wicked Tongue. A big part of Stories… was the bell-like tones of her 60s Gibson Firebird, though she still plugged into the 335-alike Gretsch Broadkaster used on her early records. She also used a rosewood board Fender Telecaster, like collaborator John Parish. Her amps are trusty classics: various Marshalls, Fenders, Mesa-Boogie, Vox AC-30s… Great Linford Manor would have had its own anyway.

It’s accessible, dare we say ‘commercial sounding’, but also highlights her own unique guitar playing and finely-honed sense of composition in a simple format. Not everyone likes it, of course. The credder-than-thou taste-makers of Pitchfork labelled it “tepid” and guilty of “style over substance” but that’s to miss the point of its position to Harvey’s overall career arc. If she spent her whole career writing songs about twisted relationships as on Dry, one would probably fear for her wellbeing. Stories… is thankfully happier than that”.

There are a couple of other features I want to get to before finishing off. In 2020, Albumism talked about a dramatic shift in terms of sounds and themes, PJ Harvey painted “vivid and sensual picture of life in New York City”. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea won the Mercury Prize on 11th September, 2001. The event coincided with the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S., with PJ Harvey learning of her award while in a Washington, D.C. hotel room and witnessing the Pentagon attack from her window:

“Harvey has shown vulnerability on her previous recordings, but on Stories From The City, there's a beauty and joy that radiates throughout the entire album. It's just one of the many reasons why it's in my list of 20 albums I can't live without. The next two songs, "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling,” bring the mood to a more tranquil place, with the latter being one of the darker yet gorgeous songs on the album (“And when I watch you move / And I can't think straight / And I am silenced / And I can't think straight / And it's the best thing / It's the best thing / The best thing / Such a beautiful feeling”).

The one song that does not have an overt reference to the album's romantic theme is "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore," a song whose lyrical DNA reminds me of a Lou Reed song. The subject matter is definitely in his wheelhouse, as evoked through lines like “Speak to me of heroin and speed / Of genocide and suicide, of syphilis and greed / Speak to me the language of love / The language of violence, the language of the heart / This isn't the first time I've asked for money or love / Heaven and earth don't ever mean enough / Speak to me of heroin and speed / Just give me something I can believe.”

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"This Mess We're In," along with the previously mentioned "Good Fortune," ranks high on the list of Harvey's best songs in her career. When I first listened to the track twenty years ago, I did not expect it to be a duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke singing its first lyrics. The pairing of Harvey and Yorke is sheer perfection, and "This Mess We're In" made me want to hear more from them. Yorke also did backing vocals on "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling," but this one stands out amongst the three. The song is about two lovers whose affair is approaching its end and the conversation leading up to that point, with the duo echoing each other, “What were you wanting? (What was it you wanted?) / I just want to say (I just want to say) / Don't ever change now baby (Don't ever change) / And thank you / I don't think we will meet again / And you must leave now / Before the sun rises over the skyscrapers / And the city landscape comes into being / Sweat on my skin / Oh, this mess we’re in.”

Additional highlights include "Kamikaze," "This Is Love," and the album send-off "We Float," which, like the opening track "Big Exit" musically and lyrically takes the listener to an unexpected place (“We wanted to find love / We wanted success / Until nothing was enough / Until my middle name was excess / And somehow I lost touch / When you went out of sight / When you got lost into the city / Got lost into the night”).

Harvey has always incorporated sex within the thematic thrust of her albums, but with Stories From The City, it feels different from her previous output. Her inspiration had come from another place in her life. Harvey was living in Dorset, England at the time, but a couple of lengthy stays in New York influenced her writing. "New York certainly gave me a different kind of energy,” she explained in a 2000 Los Angeles Times interview. “I do think that has permeated to some of the music. I had long wanted to [live there]. I made a film with Hal Hartley in New York, and I realized at that time what an inspiring sort of place it felt to me. I can remember even when we were filming, I was writing songs, some of which ended up on this record. I just felt very inspired”.

I am going to finish off with an article from Stereogum. I wonder if there are going to be new features written about Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary on 23rd October. Stereogum write how “The general-consensus narrative around PJ Harvey’s Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea goes something like this: It’s PJ Harvey’s happy album”:

“Stories From The City wasn’t a hit in any conventional way, but it sold. Worldwide, the album moved about a million copies — roughly the same number that To Bring You My Love had done five years earlier. But To Bring You My Love had alt-rock radio airplay and 120 Minutes rotation working for it. That didn’t happen with Stories From The City, at least in the US. (In the UK, where the album went platinum, all three singles from Stories From The City just barely missed the top 40.)

Instead, Stories From The City found its audience through mainstream critical love, like Robert Christgau’s Rolling Stone rave. (Snotty young Pitchfork was more suspicious.) The album earned Harvey two Grammy nominations — in the rock category, not in the nebulous “alternative” zone. She lost to U2 and to Lucinda Williams, but that’s still pretty good company. (Stories From The City and Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory, two albums that came out on the same day, both lost Best Rock Album to U2. These are the only things that Stories From The City and Hybrid Theory have in common.) More importantly, Stories From The City won the UK’s Mercury Prize, beating out huge albums from Radiohead and Basement Jaxx and Gorillaz. It was her first time winning that award. A decade later, she became the first artist in history to win it twice.

The day that Harvey won that first Mercury Prize happened to be September 11, 2001. Harvey had been gone from New York for more than a year at that point, but New York was still inscribed onto the album. After that day, it became impossible to hear Stories From The City the same way. When “You Said Something” plays, I think about the rooftop in Brooklyn, the lights flashing in Manhattan. I think about how the view changed, how many of those lights no longer exist. I’m guessing Harvey does, too. In the fall of 2001, Harvey was touring North America. The day she won the award, she was in Washington, DC, and she saw the wreckage of the Pentagon from her hotel room window. Harvey phoned into the Mercury Prize ceremony and sounded utterly shellshocked.

Harvey never even flirted with mass appeal after Stories From The City. Instead, she moved in more harsh and extreme directions, often brilliantly. This wasn’t a surprise. Harvey was always a restless artist. She always moved on. Stories From The City was a moment for her, and for me, and for everyone else who heard it. Shortly after the album’s release, worlds changed, in ways both normal and not. In the past 20 years, I haven’t returned to Stories From The City the way I have to Dry or Rid Of Me or To Bring You My Love. But that has less to do with the quality of the album itself, which rules, and more to do with the strange and uneasy and short-lived moment that it captured. When I think of it, I think of it fondly. I hope PJ Harvey does, too”.

I will finish off here. Perhaps PJ Harvey’s most remarkable album, I still think that it sounds revelatory and phenomenal twenty-five years later. If you have not heard the album before, then I would encourage you to do so. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea earned Harvey PJ Harvey BRIT Award nominations as Best British Female Artist for two years running, as well as two GRAMMY Award nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Female Rock Performance for the single, This Is Love. Turning twenty-five on 23rd October, this masterpiece from PJ Harvey is…

ONE of the best albums ever.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Gorillaz Hits and Deep Cuts

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Gorillaz Hits and Deep Cuts

__________

I have been a fan…

IMAGE CREDIT: Warner Records

of Gorillaz since their eponymous debut in 2001. The virtual group’s ninth studio album, The Mountain, will be released next year. It follows 2023’s Cracker Island. Created by Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett in 1998, this is a unique and stunning group whose music has remained consistently brilliant and inventive since their debut. I love Damon Albarn and he is one of the best songwriters of all time. His voice carried such gravity and character. Because Gorillaz have announced another album, I want to use this opportunity to compile a Gorillaz mixtape. Featuring their biggest songs and some deep cuts. An introduction to those who do not know about them or a reminder and refresh for those who have been fans for years. Before getting there, NME provided details about the upcoming The Mountain:

“Gorillaz have announced new album ‘The Mountain’, alongside UK and Ireland tour dates and shared new single ‘The Happy Dictator’ featuring Sparks.

It comes after the Damon Albarn-led animated band debuted their upcoming ninth LP during the final of four gigs at London’s Copper Box Arena earlier this month. Fans attending the show weren’t allowed access to their mobile phones, but many took to social media afterwards to share details of the album and the multitude of special guests included on it.

Now, Gorillaz have officially announced the record, which is called ‘The Mountain’ and due out on March 20, 2026. It will mark the first release on the band’s own new label KONG, and you can pre-order it here.

Today (September 11), they’ve also shared the first taste of the record with ‘The Happy Dictator’, a theatrical collaboration with Sparks that sees Albarn sing: “No more bad news, so you can sleep well at night and the palace of your mind will be bright.”

Alongside the album, the band have also announced a UK and Ireland tour, set to kick off in March 2026. They’ll play in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff, Nottingham, Liverpool, Belfast and Dublin, as well as a one-off headline show at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with support from Sparks and Trueno”.

I will get to the mixtape. The extraordinary Gorillaz are always surprising. They collaborate with such a great range of artists and their albums always sound different. They do not repeat themselves. I am excited to see what The Mountain sounds like. I wanted to highlight the brilliance of Gorillaz and provide a much deserved salute to…

A genius virtual group.

FEATURE: The Most Beautiful Sunset: Kate Bush’s Aerial at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Most Beautiful Sunset

PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Kate Bush’s Aerial at Twenty

__________

IT seems so odd…

celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Kate Bush’s Aerial. It does not seem like the album came out that long ago, because I remember it so clearly! Very happy and personal memories of listening to the album not long after it came out. Released on 7th November, 2005, in the first of five features ahead of its twentieth anniversary, I want to explore various sides of the album. I am going to start out by sourcing a couple of promotional interviews for Aerial. Some chats with Kate Bush from 2005. I am also going to share some critical reviews/features, and I also want to discuss why Aerial is so spellbinding. I shall give some context. We celebrated forty years of Hounds of Love on 16th September. In many ways, Aerial is similar to Hounds of Love. Released just over twenty years later, like Hounds of Love, Aerial has a conceptual side. Or, as Aerial is a double album, a conceptual second disc. A Sky of Honey is this course of a summer’s day. A full cycle where we get to see this transformation of the light. Basking in the beauty and transcendence. In a later piece, I will discuss what more could come from Aerial. In terms of a book or visualisation. It is a magnificent conceptual suite that is among Kate Bush’s most accomplished works. Bush released The Red Shoes in November 1993. Twelve years later, when many felt she would never release another album, she released something truly unexpected. The Red Shoes is a great album but not considered one of her best. Aerial was this radically different album. Especially in terms of its scope and production. Bush’s production on both albums. The Red Shoes more compressed or tinny. Aerial is this lush, airy and open album.

The first interview I want to source is, I’d imagine, a phone interview with The Toronto Star. After so long since she released an album, a lot of the press and questioning was around her being a ‘recluse’ or ‘weird’. Never able to avoid these descriptions and judgements, she released a masterpiece with her eighth studio album. Although the deepest interview for Aerial were on the radio, there are some interesting print interviews. This one is particularly engaging;

“Cheerful and talkative except when it comes to details of her personal life Bush sounds genuinely at a loss to explain her reputation in the media as a wacky recluse.

"Reclusive, mysterious and weird it's ridiculous, isn't it? Just because I've chosen to live a normal life, and not in the public eye. I've never promoted myself, I'm not a celebrity, I'm a worker, and I don't see a reason to do interviews unless there's something to talk about, a piece of work.

"I don't hide from people. I go shopping, I go to restaurants and movies ... yet somehow I'm made out to be some mad hermit. It's too much.

"I think my cult following got grumpy waiting so long," she laughs.

That all sounds a bit disingenuous in light of the number of high-end European art and fashion photographers whose ubiquitous images of Bush created at least the impression of a showbiz diva between 1978 and 1990, when an eight-CD anthology appeared in the box set This Woman's Work complete with a colour booklet containing nothing but these extravagant portraits.

In lieu of personal appearances erroneous reports of stage fright that have apparently prevented her from touring after 1979 are another bone of contention with her fans have had nothing to fuel their addiction other than Bush's wild, rich and allusive music, and magnificent, stylized graphics.

"I never consciously gave up touring," she explains. "I only did just one, in 1979 and 1980, and I think other people gave up on me. I remember it as a fantastic experience, like being on the road with a circus. We're working on some ideas about doing some shows to promote this album, but it's early days."

And she says she has no regrets about the image she helped create, though Aerial comes unadorned with large and ornate likenesses of her, and instead features realistic images of the ornaments of an ordinary village life washing on the line, a view from the kitchen window, a placid seashore, pigeons in the yard.

"Graphics are important," she adds, by way of explaining the effort that went into designing the honeyed landscape artwork for Aerial. "This may sound pompous, but I'm uncomfortable working with the CD format. I used to work in vinyl, when the artwork was big, and said something significant about an artist.

"And I loved double albums. They indicated that the music was conceptual, too important to be reduced, and you could open up the covers and get lost in the pictures and information inside.

"I liked it when an album was 20 minutes of music a side, with a breathing space in the middle. I think CDs are too long for people with short attention spans, people who are distracted by all the technological tools we have these days."

The Aerial format, she explains, is a respectful nod to the great days of vinyl. The package contains two discs, both around 40 minutes in length, the first a collection of single songs, the second a conceptual piece that unfolds as a musical panorama encompassing the span of a single day, with vast dreams and powerful reminiscences inspired by simple sounds of nature, the words of passers-by and routine chores.

The album lacks the frenetic pace and bluster of her last conceptual effort, 1985's Hounds Of Love, and achieves an almost elegiac, English pastoral grace. Several songs feature just vocals and piano, and expose matters closer to her heart than the turgid melodramas of her earlier work: the joy childhood brings in "Bertie," memories of her late mother in the eerie but strangely comforting waterscape "A Coral Room," the bucolic "Sky Of Honey" with its compelling echoes of Vaughan Williams.

Orchestral charts were written by award-winning composer Michael Kamen, who died of a heart attack at age 55 in 2003. They were recorded just weeks before his death.

"He was a lovely person, very talented and brave," Bush recalls. "I'd worked with him on other albums, and he was never offended if I suggested changes he'd rewrite arrangements on the spot, even with the orchestra waiting in the studio. I admire his work for its visual qualities."

While it's debatable, as acolytes claim, that Kate Bush's impact on Western music and female artists in particular is as profound as Joni Mitchell's, it can't be denied that Bush has attracted more than a fair share of serious attention from new artists in the years since her so-called self-exile began. This includes R&B singer Maxwell, whose reworking of Bush's childbearing chronicle "This Woman's Work" was a hit in 2001, as well as male-dominated British rock acts Placebo and The Futureheads, who scored a hit last year with a version of her "Hounds of Love."

Her beginnings were more than auspicious. Bush was "discovered" at age 16 by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. He who paid for an orchestra to back her distinctive, hyperbolic soprano on demos of several elaborately theatrical, sexually loaded romantic fantasies that would become the core, three years later, of her hair-raising debut, The Kick Inside.

Though she had nothing in common with the post-punk, new wave acts with whom she shared the high end of the charts she was genteel, well educated, and possessed of aesthetic and artistic sensibilities that had less to do with rock than with the progressive side of opera, world music, jazz, musical theatre and epic cinema she became the darling of British prog-rock. Peter Gabriel gave her a nod by recording the moving duet, "Don't Give Up" with her in 1986. Procol Harum member Gary Brooker's organ and vocal contributions anchor Aerial, an exotic two-CD set.

Some pieces on Aerial will remind fans of the daring Kate Bush of old: "Pi" is little more than a series of numbers sung with dramatic extremes of emotion; "King Of The Mountain," the first single, is a contemplation on celebrity and its cost, with direct references to Elvis; in "Mrs. Bartolozzi," a washing machine becomes a sexual allegory in the romantic fantasies of a cleaning woman.

"After seven years with Bertie, I know a lot about washing machines," Bush chuckles. "He keeps me normal. I never wanted to be famous. I just want to create nice music, and I believe celebrity threatens creativity.

"What's important to me is to have a soul and my lovely little boy”.

I am going to come to another international interview. In December 2005, Weekend Australian published a great interview with Kate Bush. Iain Shedden asked the questions. Although I have sourced some of these words before, as Aerial is twenty on 7th November, it is worth coming back. What was being asked in 2005. How Bush responded. After being away from the media’s fascination and scrutiny for over a decade, it must have been odd to be back in promotional mode. Professional, warm and fascinating as ever, few could deny the genius and wonder of Aerial:

“Her tone is light-hearted, salt-of-the-earth friendly, occasionally mischievous and peppered with self-deprecating humour. If this is the Greta Garbo of pop, she has had a crash course in gregariousness.

"I'm in a privileged position to say that I'm very happy," she goes on. "I'm very lucky. I'm even happier now that the album has been received with such ..." She searches for the right phrase. "I have never been so surprised. It's extraordinary. I was really worried that people were going to forget me."

Well, they could hardly have been blamed for that, could they? Taking a 12-year break between albums is unusual. The fickle world of pop demands that you ride the wave of success until it dumps you unceremoniously on your backside.

Bush, on the other hand, decided after her 1993 album The Red Shoes that the music business could take a running jump. Enough with fame; she was going to have a life.

"I was working very hard trying to be an artist," she recalls of her heyday. "Somehow I just wasn't being seen as who I was. I was being mistranslated. It was very frustrating."

So, after 15 years, a handful of albums and with a string of hit singles including Them Heavy People, Sat in Your Lap and Breathing behind her, Bush said goodbye to the charts, the recording studio and the spotlight to devote herself to things that she believed were more real, such as cleaning the house and, eventually, having a child.

Both these subjects are addressed on Aerial. Bertie gets a few mentions and did the artwork that appears on Bush's recent single, King of the Mountain, while domesticity in the shape of a washing machine gets a full cycle on Mrs Bartolozzi.

It's no accident that these and other quality-of-life issues dominate the two CDs that make up Aerial. Bush wrote some of the material for it in the years immediately following her retirement, when she was looking for something more than artistic fulfillment.

It wasn't the writing that took so long, she explains, more the recording.

“I think a lot of people think I spend years writing stuff," she says. "I don't. It's shockingly quick."

WHAT took her so long to make a comeback was combining her home life with the recording process. She tackled the latter in her spare moments, which became less frequent after the birth of Bertie.

"A lot of my friends couldn't carry on working when they had a child," she says. "They either had to get child care or they had to stop working. I feel very privileged that I was able to do both [working and parenting], but I was also very tired.

"It's difficult to do both. I made a conscious decision early on that my son would come first."

Her record company, EMI, fretted as another year went by and Aerial remained a work in progress. Company executives went to visit, hoping to hear it at last, or at least some part of it. Most often they left, disappointed, after an earful of tea and cakes.

Early this year, however, their patience was rewarded. The headline on Kitty Empire's review in British newspaper The Observer was: "Admit it, guys, she's a genius". For Bush the album's release and the positive reaction to it have been a validation of her methods, but the proof came only after months of worrying about how the public would react.

"When I was most anxious was when there was this huge amount of anticipation starting to build about the record and I hadn't actually finished it," she says, laughing. "It's hard enough trying to keep that creative focus without feeling that everybody's banging on the door going, `Where is it?' Mind you, I've got good soundproofing." Now that it's done, she says, the relief is palpable. Hardly surprisingly, after that period of gestation she hasn't been able to listen to Aerial.

"I always put myself under a lot of pressure. It is not an enjoyable process spending 12 years making a record. Lots of it was fun but it wasn't something I intended to take 12 years to make.

"I'm so fed up listening to it, I can't tell you. The sense of relief at actually having it finished ... that was one of the greatest senses of elation, after all that time. There were so many points where I felt, almost in a religious sense, that I wasn't going to have the strength to carry on."

Now that the album is out and in the charts, there will be some expectation, from her record company as well as her fans, of another one appearing before her 60th birthday. So will she make one?

"I hope so," she says. "It's not meant to be my last work. Of course I'd really like to make another one."
Nor is she ruling out performing again. She has even returned to dancing after a long break.

"This is the first time in years I've had time to do other things, so I've just started again recently. It's something I've always enjoyed, but it doesn't hold the same importance to me any more. That's the thing about dance, it's such a discipline. You can't have too many airs and graces because it's all about the fragility of the body. It's really hard work. Being a dancer for a living ... I've got so much respect for people like that, being so strong."

Bush has other strengths, however. She has withstood the pressures the music industry can impose on artists to do things their way and has made herself happy in the process.

"There were quite a few times where I found the way I was living my life was more ... I thought it had more value than someone who was living the life of a celebrity," she says.

"What is amazing about the way people have responded to this record is that I did approach things that way. People get it. It's incredibly freeing."

It's as liberating, perhaps, as Wuthering Heights was to that unknown singer 27 years ago. Does she still see herself as she was in that video?

"I think in essence I am much the same person," she says. "But in other ways I've changed tremendously. I'm glad I have, though. Imagine going through life without any changes at all. How depressing is that!”.

I will look at the songs and various sides of Aerial in future features. Whereas I have now looked at the promotional interviews and the ‘sunrise’, the ‘sunset’, I guess, comes from critical reviews. As there was such anticipation and excitement, it could have backfired. A double album that had filler or was not that great could have had a huge impact on Kate Bush. As it was, she released one of her very best albums. Gaining almost unanimous praise, I think it is up there with Hounds of Love in terms of brilliance and legacy. How Bush releasing her first album of the twenty-first century confirmed her place in history. This pioneering artist who was so consistent and also proved she is one of the music world’s greatest producers.

There are review options to choose from. I want to start with this review from Stylus. They were blown away by an album that, whilst not perfect in their view, was simply stunning and moving. Engaging with a work from an artist that was leagues ahead of anyone else. Someone who releases the most individual, original and wonderful music. So different to anything that was released in 2005. Aerial still sounds epic and truly engrossing twenty years later:

“Kate Bush has been changing the world since before I was born. I am now 26 and Kate is comfortably in her 40s; logic, sense and precedence decree that she should no longer be relevant, that her record releases, like those of The Rolling Stones—hell, like those of U2 and REM—should be treated with a muted fanfare by the industry and certain sections of the press and with glum bathos by everyone else as returns steadily diminish and distant peaks are listlessly recreated in Xeroxed monochrome.
But this is Kate Bush.

It has been 27 years since “Wuthering Heights,” since a 19-year-old girl in leggings danced like a white witch on Top Of The Pops. 12 years since The Red Shoes. It is 20 years since I saw her on Wogan, performing “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” since Hounds Of Love. Aerial comes in two parts—A Sea Of Honey and A Sky Of Honey. The former is 7 songs over 38 minutes, a paean to domestic bliss, to chores and children and Citizen Kane and Joan of Arc and Elvis. The latter is 9 songs over 42 minutes (with some editing, and I’m talking seconds removed, the two could be combined), a day in the life of light from dawn through afternoon and dusk to the monochrome glaze of moonlight. A double song-cycle about bliss mundane and ecstatic, familial and artistic.

Sonically Aerial is a Kate Bush record in the style of The Dreaming and The Hounds Of Love: luscious, experimental, romantic (of course). The palette may be a touch dated in this post-Timbaland, post-Fennesz age, but it is still beautiful. There are huge expanses of piano—the oceanic, mournful swoon of “Mrs. Bartolozzi”—and strange, post-ambient pop grooves for dancing to alone as if immersed in a pagan ritual (“King Of The Mountain”). There is birdsong, and lots of it; there are guitars, dubby basslines, Latinised rhythms, strange and unidentifiable spirals and planes of sound summoned perhaps from synthesizers. And most of all, of course, there is Kate’s voice, a thousand instruments unto itself, delivering words both sublime and ridiculous.

There will be doubts, because Kate Bush’s genius and muse is a female genius and muse and thus utterly different to what we expect from… Mark Hollis? Michael Jackson? Stevie Wonder? Thom Yorke? (Don’t make me laugh.) Jimi Hendrix? David Bowie? Any man, ever. None of them could get away with enunciating words like “Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy / Get that dirty shirt clean”; none of them would even dare. Well, maybe Bowie would. We seem to think genius is a male trait. We’re wrong. The candour and honesty with which Kate delivers the lines “You bring me so much joy / And then you bring me / More joy” on “Bertie,” an unashamedly sentimental song about her love for her son, are a broadside to anyone who’s ever shied away from emotion, from love, from the things that make us human and remarkable and which convinced us we must have come from the clouds such is our potential for beauty.

She duets with birds, invites Rolf Harris once again to play didgeridoo (23 years after he first did on The Dreaming), juxtaposes Michael Kamen’s ethereal, modernist strings with bluesy rock guitars and unhurried disco beats, sings of washing machines, mathematics, sex, the sea and spiritual transcendence. She is still relevant because she doesn’t seek relevance—Kate Bush has always been external to trends, to the fluctuating verisimilitudes of popular culture. She has always operated within a world of her own creation, and that is why she will always be enticing, enlivening, fascinating.

Frankly it’s an honour to be on the same planet as her. Because, even after 12 years of laundry and washing the dishes and making fairy cakes and raising a child, she is still absolutely visionary, a creative talent and empathy untrammelled by conceit or time or self-consciousness; she is a genius. Aerial isn’t perfect, but it is magnificent”.

The Guardian awarded Aerial five stars. They noted how the release of this album was like an event. In some ways, you can look at major artists today whose album release is this event and huge occasion. A real sense of this music royal gifting the world with something truly magnificent. Even though Kate Bush was not someone on social media and doing lots of T.V. interviews, there was rightful buzz. Even though EMI did not spend a load on promotional and everything, the fact this was a new Kate Bush album was special enough:

“In the gap since 1993's so-so The Red Shoes, the Kate Bush myth that began fomenting when she first appeared on Top of the Pops, waving her arms and shrilly announcing that Cath-ee had come home-uh, grew to quite staggering proportions. She was variously reported to have gone bonkers, become a recluse and offered her record company some home-made biscuits instead of a new album. In reality, she seems to have been doing nothing more peculiar than bringing up a son, moving house and watching while people made up nutty stories about her.

Aerial contains a song called How to Be Invisible. It features a spell for a chorus, precisely what you would expect from the batty Kate Bush of popular myth. The spell, however, gently mocks her more obsessive fans while espousing a life of domestic contentment: "Hem of anorak, stem of wallflower, hair of doormat."

Domestic contentment runs through Aerial's 90-minute duration. Recent Bush albums have been filled with songs in which the extraordinary happened: people snogged Hitler, or were arrested for building machines that controlled the weather. Aerial, however, is packed with songs that make commonplace events sound extraordinary. It calls upon Renaissance musicians to serenade her son. Viols are bowed, arcane stringed instruments plucked, Bush sings beatifically of smiles and kisses and "luvv-er-ly Bertie". You can't help feeling that this song is going to cause a lot of door slamming and shouts of "oh-God-mum-you're-so-embarrassing" when Bertie reaches the less luvv-er-ly age of 15, but it's still delightful.

Aerial sounds like an album made in isolation. On the down side, that means some of it seems dated. You can't help feeling she might have thought twice about the lumpy funk of Joanni and the preponderance of fretless bass if she got out a bit more. But, on the plus side, it also means Aerial is literally incomparable. You catch a faint whiff of Pink Floyd and her old mentor Dave Gilmour on the title track, but otherwise it sounds like nothing other than Bush's own back catalogue. It is filled with things only Kate Bush would do. Some of them you rather wish she wouldn't, including imitating bird calls and doing funny voices: King of the Mountain features a passable impersonation of its subject, Elvis, which is at least less disastrous than the strewth-cobber Aussie accent she adopted on 1982's The Dreaming. But then, daring to walk the line between the sublime and the demented is the point of Kate Bush's entire oeuvre. On Aerial she achieves far, far more of the former than the latter. When she does, there is nothing you can do but willingly succumb”.

I wanted to start out with this overview. Some interviews and reviews. A sense of how the album was being talked about and what critics were saying. In future features, I am going to look at the songs and the legacy of Aerial. How it still has life left in it. On 7th November, we mark twenty years of this double album that is an undoubted masterpiece. The awe-inspiring Aerial from Kate Bush is…

ARGUABLY her best album.

FEATURE: The Singles Club: 2025, and an Especially Strong Year for New Music

FEATURE:

 

 

The Singles Club

IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Dean

2025, and an Especially Strong Year for New Music

__________

ALTHOUGH the albums…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kae Tempest

released this year have been fantastic and among the best of the past decade, I think that the singles released have been particularly strong. I will look at some of the best albums of 2025 in a future feature. I will revisit singles later in the year but, as I think about the music that has been released so far in 2025, there have been some really incredible moments that have lingered in my mind and affected me. I will highlight ten singles that I would put among my favourite of this year. I will highlight HAIM’s Relationships, Doechii’s Anxiety, The Last Dinner Party’s This Is the Killer Speaking, Wolf Alice’s Just Two Girls, Sam Wills’ Amelia, Iraina Mancini’s Running for your life, Suede’s Dancing with the Europeans and CMAT’s Take a Sexy Picture of Me. I will also include Olivia Dean’s Nice to Each Other and Kae Tempest’s Diagnoses. These are just examples of songs that have particularly resonated with me. A lot of British (and Irish) talent. In years where I would normally favour releases from American artists, it is homegrown music that has struck a chord with me harder in 2025. I am not sure whether anyone has statistics, but it seems like this year has been especially prolific and eclectic. Maybe artists putting out more singles ahead of album releases. There have been some astonishing songs from rising artists. Those coming through and putting out these early cuts. I think a lot of articles highlight songs from bigger artists. To be fair, I will include a few of those. However, there are so many gems from newer artists which have struck my ear. Including Punishers from Die Spitz and Look Down on Us from Maruja. I have been drawn to albums, of course, but I have found my mind engaging more with singles. A spread of wonderful songs from established greats and newer artists. The singles market has never been stronger!

Although it is impossible to cover them all, I have found a few that have gone into my mind and are still very much there. I am going to start out with a sweeping and anthemic songs from a band who I have been following since the 1990s. Suede’s latest album is Antidepressants. They have said in an interview with NME how there are no bands of their generation making records and vital as them. That may seem boastful, but listening to their latest material, they may have a point! I have not always been committed to Suede. Maybe more attached to their earlier material. However, Dancing with the Europeans is a song that I really like. I have heard some it is not as engaging as recent Suede singles, though I think that Dancing with the Europeans is this stirring and standout song that is definitely one of my favourite songs of this year. DORK ran a feature where Suede’s lead discussed this emphatic and impassioned single:

“There’s a sense of optimism about this song,” Brett Anderson says of ‘Dancing With The Europeans’. “I remember specifically we were doing a gig in Spain during the time we were writing this album. I was going through a bad time and at a low, personally. But we played this brilliant gig. There was a great connection between me and the audience. I thought of the phrase, dancing with the Europeans. There’s something about that word, Europeans, that I really like. The phrase summed up the experience of looking for connection in a disconnected world. This sense of, where do we find those bonds with our fellow human beings? That show in Spain broke down those barriers”.

There are a couple of incredible singles from queens of music that rank alongside my standout choices from this year. I have mentioned CMAT more than a couple of times recently, and quite rightly! The Mercury Prize-nominated EURO-COUNTRY is among the best albums from 2025. It has more than its fair share of standout songs. Released in May, it is the combination of a catchy and beautiful chorus together with the distinct songwriting talents of CMAT that make this a tremendous single! In a hugely strong year, NME highlighted the single upon its release:

“CMAT has shared the empowering new single ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’, which calls out those who have previously criticised her appearance.

The single marks the latest to be shared from the Irish singer-songwriter’s new album ‘EURO-COUNTRY’. Set to arrive on August 29, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson announced the record back in March and also shared the first preview in the form of uplifting lead single ‘Running/Planning’.

Now, the latest track to be shared shows another side of the forthcoming record, and sees CMAT boldly stand up to those trying to knock others down with hateful comments.

“So you see/ I’ve been having a horrible time/ Of late, I get none of your sympathy/ But all of the pain hits and the fog lifts/ And then it’s too much for therapy,” she sings in the build-up to the chorus.

“With the internet, every woman is now in the public eye. And no matter who you are, or what you look like, somebody will take umbrage with the fact that you even exist, and there’s no escaping it,” CMAT explained. “‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’ was born out of that, because I held back for so long; not out of frustration or sadness for myself, because I AM in the public eye, but I realised it’s actually like this for every woman.

“It’s all women, all the time. That song is me calling out anyone who criticised my weight or how I looked… and it’s one of the best songs I’ve ever made”.

I am going to move to HAIM and Relationships. I have been a fan of theirs for years now. Their new album, i quit, was released in June. I am bringing in words and reviews from others, not only to enforce my view of how strong the singles are. It is also worth bringing in some various takes. Part of this new chapter and fantastic album, it did gain a lot of positive press. Both classic HAIM but also a bit similar to music from their 2020 album, Women in Music Pt. III, it might be one of the best things they have released. Again, a bit of a classic from his year. A stunning single from a year that has offered a load of them. CLASH delivered their verdict on Relationships:

“Musically, it carries traces of DNA from the outstanding ‘Women In Music Pt. III’ released in 2020. The revisitation of vintage, analogue sounds and warped digital modernity teases a subtle extension rather than reinvention. Whether this turns out to be something of a red herring remains to be seen. The production, meanwhile, sounds crystalline as ever; Este’s bass glides, serene keyboards cast a melancholic shimmer, and the drum track provides something fabulously addictive and kinetic.

From a lyrical perspective, it appears to invert the sentiments displayed on the ‘Something To Tell You’ lead single ‘Want You Back’. Instead of a reversion to a past relationship that ended too soon, Danielle sings about one she can’t wait to exit from: “I hear a voice in my head / And it keeps asking, ‘Why am I in this relationship?’ / Baby, how can I explain / When an innocent mistake / Turns into seventeen days?” Of course, ‘The Wire’ dealt with similar tribulations, albeit in a much more playful manner. Perhaps the difference here is the slight but audible undertone of sadness, especially during the verses and it results in a more emotionally complex offering than a few cursory listens would indicate.

Almost 12 years on from ‘Days Are Gone’, Danielle, Este and Alana’s knack for crafting a marvellously glossy pop earworm shows no sign of diminishing. If HAIM are indeed entering their imperial phase, ‘Relationships’ is one hell of an introduction”.

The band market has been healthy this year. Although most singles released this year have been from solo artists, I do think that some group-made tracks rank alongside the best solo cuts. I shall highlight two singles from two of our best bands. The Last Dinner Party release their second studio album, From the Pyre, on 17th October. Alongside HAIM and Suede, The Last Dinner Party show that band music is in no danger of fading in quality. Because of its incredible lead vocal and a wonderfully interesting composition and set of lyrics, this is a single that has nestled in my mind. I have seen some say that the chorus is not as punchy and strong as their previous singles. However, This Is the Killer Speaking boasts a pretty memorable and fine chorus from a group that I really love. This is what The Indiependent said about This Is the Killer Speaking:

“The new record is described as being “the sound of a band having a lot of fun” rather than it being a reflection of them “feeling any innate pressure to follow-up on what was an explosively successful debut record. It’s also the sound of a young band developing and maturing their songwriting together”.

This is clear from the get go. It starts off slow, with a beat and tempo that resemble that of a 1950’s Nashville record, a trope that the pop music industry has seen a rise in over the past eighteen months, with the likes of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter making country mainstream again.

The track speeds up around the one minute mark. The pre chorus’ oxymoronic lyrics “Good morning, good looking! This is the killer speaking / Good morning, handsome! This is the killer on the line”, being a fitting way to show off the track’s combination of genres. Their darkly humorous nature helps smooth the transition from raw country riffs into a mainstream indie-pop beat with ease.

Despite the catchy chorus showing similarities in style, tone and genre to their other hit singles ‘Nothing Matters’ and ‘The Feminine Urge’ this is an individual record in its own right. It returns to its slower, country-esque beat and temp after the chorus before picking the pop beat back up for one final run in moments that for me had glimpses of the work of Lady A and The Chicks.

Edgy lyrics in the final verse, such as “You look like a weeping saint / With your infected eye and “And I’m down so bad / Hope my television appearance drives you fucking mad!” paint the band in a more mature light whilst still allowing them to maintain their lyrical solidarity along with their almighty fierce yet somewhat camp presence.

So, whilst this track is a masterclass from The Last Dinner Party in genre-bending as well as lyrically maturing and evolving as a band, it also stays true to their indie roots and as long as they are still doing that, nothing (else) matters”.

Doechii is an artist I only discovered near the start of this year. I can see she is going to be a future Rap icon. I also want to see her live too. I thought that DENIAL IS A RIVER was my favourite song of hers. However, Anxiety might have topped that! Her mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal, was released last year. This is a new song. I am not sure if Anxiety will form part of a new E.P. or album. So inventive when it comes to her lyrics and compositions, I think Doechii is one the most talented and passionate rappers in the world. I am going to come back to CLASH and their review of Anxiety. It is not only the songs that hit hard. Doechii’s videos are incredible and always burst over with personality and passion. Someone who really wants the visuals to represent the song and come off as these mini masterpieces. Which they are! I can see Doechii appearing in some great films:

“Teased earlier this week, new single ‘Anxiety’ comes at a crucial time for the rapper. ‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’ has been clutched by fans, but she’s clearly ready to stretch a little, and see where she could go next.

As a result, ‘Anxiety’ crosses multiple lands. There’s a soul vocal, some revelatory lyricism, and hard-hitting flows, with a unique sample flip at the centre – yep, she’s re-tooled Gotye’s one-off 00s smash ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ as an ultra-funky bedrock for introspection.

The lyrics find Doechii crushed by expectation, dealing with problems both external and internal. She rhymes: “Fightin’ with my demons and my demons is winnin’ / I feel like don’t nobody ever feel how I feel…”

Cross-referencing Jacques Cousteau and abolitionist campaigner Harriet Tubman, Doechii throws name upon name, attempting to come to grips with her situation.

Often, the bluntest lines shine out – the crippling “You keep the fame, I just wanna get paid” for example, displays the paradox at the centre of the hype.

It’s also a personal moment. ‘Anxiety’ finds Doechii working towards self-forgiveness, embracing a rounded maturity that can be lost amid the brash glare of the spotlight. At one point she rhymes: “Made mistakes, ain’t no way to rewind / But fuck it, we get over shit over time…”

Another crucial step forwards, ‘Anxiety’ finds one of American rap’s brightest natural talents magnifying her skills”.

I am going to end by exploring my favourite three singles of the year. I have not even mentioned essential examples from the likes of Lambrini Girls and Antony Szmierek. It just goes to show how strong this year has been! Most of the singles I have connected with have come via BBC Radio 6 Music. That is my stations of choice, so their picks and guidance is always influential. However, I have been listening to BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. Their recommendations are pretty decent. However, with BBC Radio 6 Music, there are so many singles that are right up my street. Bands like Coach Party. Too many to mention. However, before I get to my favourite three, I want to mention Kae Tempest. His music is so powerful. One of the world’s great wordsmiths, Diagnoses is so moving because it seems his most personal song to date. Tempest is someone who I feel used to write in a more abstract or fantastical way. There were personal and really incredible songs that revealed so much soul and tenderness. However, there were character-driven tracks. His recent material gives us a deeper understanding and glimpse into his mind and heart. I am surprised Kae Tempest’s Self Titled album did not get nominated for the Mercury Prize. It seems like an oversight! Diagnoses is one of the standout singles from this year. The Line of Best Fit published news of Diagnoses back in June:

“Of the song, Kae Tempest says: "It’s a Summer banger about antipsychotics and HRT. And loving each other regardless of how mental we are.” The song is a dexterous exploration of neurodiversity, ‘me and you and our trauma flashbacks, relaxing at home with a Horlicks. Backpacks stuffed full of my dysphoria, your dyspraxia | off exploring | panic attacks to get the heart rate up.’

A sample from the godfather of modern psychology, Carl Jung, opens ‘Hyperdistillation’ – “it’s a reminder to look again,” explains Tempest, “we are all more alive than we give each other credit for."

Working with the Grammy-winning producer behind Adele and Stormzy for the first time on an album sparked a union that saw a flood of new ideas and unexpected directions. Fraser encouraged Kae to be both an active participant in production and guided him to write in the first person, to tell his own story. The result is a body of work that sees Kae Tempest reconnect with his Hip Hop roots while paying a gentle homage to contemporary pop”.

Prior to getting to the ‘big three’, it is worth highlighting an incredible single from Olivia Dean. Nice to Each Other was released in May. Dean released the Mercury Prize-nominated Messy in 2023. I cannot wait for her second album. She is a real gem of an artist. Such a captivating human! Someone whose voice melts the heart but also gets the blood running. So many aspects and emotions that perfectly fit with the lyrics. Someone that is going to go down as one of the greats. Aside from pretty much every review I am sourcing saying that these singles are ‘returns’ and ‘comebacks’ from artists, which f*cking pisses me off no end, their insights are valuable. It does seem you need to release new music every month or else you are deemed as gone or dormant! Olivia Dean is someone who has been working solidly for years and has not gone anywhere. The Honey Pop wrote how Nice to Each Other is a bit like David Bowie’s Modern Love wrapped in this soulful warmth:

“Olivia Dean Is The New Classic

From the very first line, “Here we are, back again, fighting what’s in front of me,” Olivia captures that push and pull we’ve all felt. Wanting someone, but not wanting to lose yourself. The relationship she sings about lives in that in-between space. There’s so much vulnerability tucked into the humor. Yes, we’re referencing lyrics like “I’ll probably crash your stupid car.” And there’s a refreshing dose of realism when she sings, “I don’t want a boyfriend.” ‘Nice To Each Other’ isn’t your typical love song; it’s an invitation to let love be softer, freer, and more honest.

One Take Masterpiece

The single comes with a stunning one-take music video directed by Jake Erland, where Olivia meanders through an ever-shifting world that follows her lead. It’s light, stylish, and powerful. The video carries that easy vibe she sings about in the song, and feels so wonderfully Olivia Dean, we absolutely adore it!

Rewriting What Relationships Mean

One lyric we simply have to talk about is: “You know I’ve done all the classic stuff, and it never works, you know it.” This line feels like the heartbreak of the whole song, in our opinion. Olivia clearly isn’t interested in playing by the rulebook anymore. No grand declarations, no forced labels. Instead, she suggests a quieter kind of connection. It’s about showing up as you are and letting the small things like late-night talks, patience, and playfulness do the heavy lifting.

A New Era: The Art of Loving

‘Nice To Each Other’ kicks off The Art of Loving era, Olivia’s highly anticipated second album, dropping on September 26th. We couldn’t be more excited to see what she has in store! It’s hard to believe this is only her second full-length project. She’s already carved out a unique sound and secured her spot in the industry. The Art of Loving promises to be a tender, thoughtful dive into love in all its forms, and honestly, we already know we’re going to love it.

Olivia Dean’s ‘Nice To Each Other’ feels like a song made for right now, but it could belong to any era. In a world full of chaos, ghosting, and situationships, Olivia reminds us to do one simple thing: just be a little nicer to each other. That’s what makes it a classic we’ll keep coming back to”.

Three more standout singles before I round things off. In third place is an artist whose debut album, Undo the Blue, was my favourite album of 2023. It is my favourite album of the 2020s. A new single from an as-yet-untitled second album arrived in February. Running for your life has elements of songs from Undo the Blue, though it is a step in a new sonic direction. Tantalising and a potential glimpse into what a second L.P. could offer, I raved about the single when it came out. Rather than quote my own review of Running for your life, I will instead bring in the review below. Iraina Mancini has had a busy year. She has performed in the U.K. and abroad. Performed at some incredible festivals like Glastonbury and Green Man. She has supported The Coral at gigs. A brilliant recent gig on London Bridge. This is someone who works tirelessly and is building her fanbase. I would love to see more journalists and radio stations interview her and play he music more. I do not often spend so long spotlighting a single artist. However, when it comes to Iraina Mancini, the hype and love is real and justified:

“Today is a really good day. Iraina Mancini is back with 'Running For Your Life', and if there was ever any doubt as to whether she could match that incredible run of singles from her first album, they've been blown clean out of the water by this phenomenal track. What kicks off as a dark and brooding number in her trademark retro Soho style, about the devil we all have whispering in our ear when things get too much, explodes into one of the most exhilarating, breakneck speed choruses I've heard in ages. A total rush from start to finish”.

A single from a recently Mercury-nominated album, Wolf Alice’s Just Two Girls is my second-favourite single of this year. Taken from The Clearing, even though I cannot find the single on Spotify, Wolf Alice released a video for this song last week. It co-stars Lucy Boynton. Some have recognised how The Clearing is a bit of a new sonic direction for Wolf Alice. Just Two Girls is a dreamy Pop song that sounds like something vintage. A track you could imagine coming out in the 1960s, maybe. A band perhaps known more for something harder and edgier, this is them simply bringing in new influence and sounds. Far Out Magazine provided their impassioned review of a song whose chorus is without doubt the best of the year. It is so indelible and gorgeous:

“Songs about friendship are nothing new. Sure, in the rock and indie worlds, it never quite suits the prevailing angst that often cuts through, and Wolf Alice have provided plenty of that. But out of all of the experiences and emotions they’ve put to tape, there is something special and deeply poignant about the way Ellie Rowsell captures friendship, specifically, female friendship.

Maybe it’s purely a tenderness towards watching her, one of our time’s finest singers, carve out not just space but total domination among the male-dominated indie landscape. Escaping the landfill that so many of her initial peers fell into, Rowsell is on top, and from that podium, she’s singing about hanging with the girls. For the girls in the crowd, that’s always going to be something special.

But it’s more specific than that. In her lyricism, as the topic of friendship routinely comes up, Rowsell handles it with just as much, if not even more, love as she does romance. On ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’, the band’s ultimate love song, she nervously ponders a crush, wondering if it’s right, contemplating her moves. But on ‘Just Two Girls’, the love Rowsell writes of that she feels for her friends is steadfast. It’s assured, it’s unquestioned, it’s as pure and powerful as any girl knows her relationship with her bestie to be.

“When I undress my every thought / The way that you can’t pay for / We’re just two girls at the bar / Like two kids in the park,” Rowsell sings as the central lyric. Two girls who are both the therapist and the fun, the song dips between those role, from sipping palomas at a bar to the depth of a morning-after hangover debrief. From beauty tips to a heavy chat, she sings so adoringly and admiringly of her friend, “I like the way she chain-smokes incessantly / Tiny epiphanies when she’s drinking with me.”

‘Bros’ exists in the same world and that’s why I love that song too. Dipping between silly memories of bad haircuts and bus routes, there is also so much depth to the love in that song. In fact, really, if any song is the band’s ultimate love song, it’s that one – written by Rowsell for her best friend Sadie, which she reminds the crowd of near enough each time she plays it.

Love songs for best friends. Love songs for girls to sing about their girl, capturing the utter adoration you feel when you’re sitting there having some drinks with someone you feel completely understood by, who you can switch at lightning speed from fun to hard feelings. That’s friendship, that’s girlhood, and Ellie Rowsell is a poet of that particular experience”.

The final single I am diving into is one I only heard a few weeks/a month or so ago. Sam Wills releases his new album, Speak, on 3rd October. A massive highlight from the album is Amelia. It is my favourite single from the year and one I have heard perhaps a hundred times. One that I can play ten times in a row without getting bored of it! I initially compared it to Scritti Politti in terms of the vocal and sound. However, it has a bit of Tame Impala to it. However, comparisons take away from the individuality and personality of the song. This is a tremendous single from the Hastings-born artist. As much as I love other singles from this year, Amelia strikes me harder and deeper than anything else. There is not much written about it. However, I did find this from Indie Shuffle:

“I’ve started to notice a pattern with what I like to call “transitional songs”—tracks that bridge one season to the next while still holding onto the essence of the one before it. Summer carries a jubilant energy, while fall leans into a slower, winding-down mood. Sam Wills, a master of crafting atmospheres, taps into this phenomenon with his latest single, "Amelia."

The upbeat, infectious track follows a quest to win back a lost love. Wills cleverly invokes Amelia Earhart as a metaphor for searching across the world—or, in this case, being adrift on an emotional journey. It’s a smart blend of bright production and bittersweet storytelling”.

We still have a few months to go in terms of new albums and singles. There could be some that dethrone or rearrange my favourites. However, I wanted to publish this feature to celebrate the strength of music this year and some of the diverse and brilliant singles that have come out. You may have your own favourites or have a different take. However, the ten singles above have a very special place in my heart. In the time we have left until the year is through, it is exciting and intriguing to discover…

WHAT that could offer up.

FEATURE: Prime a Dozen: In Reaction to This Year’s Mercury Prize Shortlist

FEATURE:

 

 

Prime a Dozen

IN THIS PHOTO: Scottish artist Jacob Alon is shortlisted for the 2025 Mercury Prize for their debut album, In Limerence/PHOTO CREDIT: Garry Jones for The Line of Best Fit

In Reaction to This Year’s Mercury Prize Shortlist

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EVERY year…

IN THIS PHOTO: FKA twigs is one of the dozen shortlisted artists for her hugely acclaimed album, EUSEXUA/PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Hemingway

produces some surprises when it comes to the Mercury Prize. Taking place on 16th October at the Utilita Arena, Newcastle; this is the first time the Mercury Prize is taken out of London. It is a positive sign for a ceremony that is often seen as London-centric. Over the past ten or so ceremonies, I think the award has only gone to artists based or born outside of London once. That was last year with English Teacher for This Could Be Texas. Hailing from Leeds and Lancashire, it was a long overdue move from the capital. Now that the Mercury Prize has a new home in Newcastle, it is giving focus to a part of the country underrepresented in terms of winners and shortlisted artists. Sam Fender is one of a dozen artists on this year’s Mercury shortlist. He was born in South Shields (which is close to Newcastle). I will come to a feature from The Guardian and their take, before I provide mine. Only a dozen albums can be shortlisted, so there are always some omissions. I was convinced Lambrini Girls (Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez) would make it for their mesmeric debut album, Who Let the Dogs Out? Maybe too Self Esteem (A Complicated Woman), Billie Marten (Dog Eared) and Nova Twins (Parasites & Butterflies) would be included, I thought. Lambrini Girls are a great new act that should have made the cut, in a year where newcomers and rising artists are in very short supply. Service Station at the End of the Universe by Antony Szmierek is another debut that I feel is worth of shortlisting. I think we can also dispel the narrative that every year the Mercury Prize includes an ‘out there’ or ‘niche’ artist just to be different. Sure, mainly Pop, Rock and Alternative has won the award before. R&B and genres that are more commonly discussed and played. You always get a Jazz or Electronic artist that is seen as an also-ran and there to make up the numbers. When the Jazz quintet Ezra Collective won in 2023 for Where I'm Meant to Be, that was a first. This year’s shortlist includes Emma-Jean Thackray. Her album, Weirdo, is nominated. She is a phenomenal Jazz artist, though limiting her to one genre seems misrepresentative.

IN THIS PHOTO: Martin Carthy (who is nominated for Transform Me Then Into a Fish) at the Mercury Prize Shortlist event

In terms of takeaways from this year’s dozen, there are some steps forward - and some back. Two Irish artists, CMAT and Fontaines D.C., are in the running. Ireland is traditionally under-represented and awarded, and it may be the case that the former artist wins for her hugely acclaimed new album, EURO-COUNTRY. She is my tip. Artists outside of London, whilst in the minority, are a strong showing. From Sam Fender and Pulp from the North to Welsh Jazz pianist Joe Webb, there is more of a spread than some previous years. In terms of age, eighty-four-year-old Martin Carthy is the oldest shortlisted artist. Wolf Alice are back on the shortlist after they won the 2018 Mercury Prize for Visions of a Life. In terms of the new, I guess there is not a lot of choice. Jacob Alon is nominated for their debut album, In Limerence. They are an incredible artist and 2025 has been a huge year for them. Alon has gone from this relatively unknown artist to someone being spoken about in the highest terms. Hailing from Dunfermline, this is an important nomination for a Scottish artist. Again, making sure the awards do not remain with London artist is important…so it is great that Sam Fender, Jacob Alon, CMAT, Pulp and Fontaines D.C. are among the favourites; who were born/based outside of the capital. Previous years have seen some unusual choices and albums that are included maybe to appeal to certain labels/radio stations/demographics. Some mainstream Pop from huge artists that was a slightly odd selection. Nothing like that this year. Whilst some might feel that Pulp could have made way for a new band like Lambrini Girls, it goes to show that the Mercury Prize is a broad church and not exclusive to either young and upcoming artist or the established. It is nice when newer artists win and can use that platform and prize money to further their career, though it is judged on merit and, without doubt. Pulp’s More is among the best albums of the past year.

I shall continue in a minute. However, there has been reaction to the shortlist. Announced this morning on Lauren Laverne’s BBC Radio 6 Music show, she spoke to nominees like Emma-Jean Thackray and Jacob Alon. It is exciting writing about the shortlist and picking our favourites. I shall keep my powder dry until the very end (though I have shown love and leaning for CMAT!), but, in terms of progression, representation and taking a leap forward, my heart says that Jacob Alon or Emma-Jean Thackray should win. However, as it is so unpredictable, you can never be sure of safe! In terms of gender, women are in the minority this year. There are four female artists nominated (Emma-Jean Thackray, FKA twigs, CMAT and PinkPantheress). There is the female-led Wolf Alice, six male artists/male-fronted or heavy bands (Fontaines D.C., Pulp, Sam Fender, Joe Webb, Pa Salieu and Martin Carthy) a and one non-binary artist (Jacob Alon). In terms of newcomers or newer acts, Jacob Alon and Joe Webb. A lack of new bands appearing on the Mercury shortlist is quite concerning. However, there is such an eclectic and strong mix for this year. This is what The Guardian noted:

“CMAT, Pulp and PinkPantheress among Mercury prize shortlist light on new names

Only two debut albums – including the ‘token’ jazz release – feature among this year’s list of nominations for the coveted UK and Irish music prize

A raft of familiar names fill this year’s list of Mercury prize nominations, with only two debuts among the 12 shortlisted albums. In Limerence, the first full-length by the Scottish folk songwriter Jacob Alon, and Hamstrings and Hurricanes, the first by Welsh jazz musician Joe Webb, will compete with the likes of Pulp’s comeback album More, folk godfather Martin Carthy’s Transform Me Then Into a Fish and the album with the UK’s biggest opening week of the year so far, People Watching by Sam Fender.

The list is split 50/50 between male and female or mixed acts. The solo female artists on the list tend to the iconoclastic: Irish pop star CMAT’s acclaimed third album Euro-Country, Leeds jazz musician Emma-Jean Thackray’s Weirdo, FKA twigs’ Eusexua and PinkPantheress’s mixtape Fancy That. As for bands, as well as Pulp, the Irish band Fontaines DC (Romance) and London four-piece Wolf Alice (The Clearing) appear.

There is just one rap album on the list, Afrikan Alien by Pa Salieu. As ever, the Mercury seems unafraid of its reputation for nominating just one “token” jazz album, in Webb’s Hamstrings and Hurricanes. Metal, as usual, does not feature.

Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the body behind the awards, told the Guardian that she was delighted by the breadth of albums nominated. “It’s a real celebration of such an eclectic mix of achievements across all kinds of genres, and it’s been a really competitive year.”

There are several repeat nominations: CMAT was previously recognised for her second album, 2023’s Crazymad, for Me; FKA twigs for her 2014 debut LP1; Fontaines DC for their 2019 debut Dogrel; Sam Fender for his second album, 2021’s Seventeen Going Under.

Both Wolf Alice and Pulp have three prior nominations and one win apiece under their respective belts: Pulp were nominated for 1994’s His ’n’ Hers (controversially losing to M People), won in 1996 for Different Class, and were nominated again in 1998 for This Is Hardcore. Wolf Alice were nominated for their 2015 debut My Love Is Cool, won in 2018 for Visions of a Life, and were nominated again in 2021 for Blue Weekend. They are now four-time nominees, only bested by Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys, with five apiece”.

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I did think that Sam Fender would be included, though I think that the frontrunners and favourites will be CMAT, Fontaines D.C. and Wolf Alice. I think Pulp are less likely to win, though their nomination is very well deserved. Whilst we would love to see a Jazz artist win for the second time in three years, I have a feeling that judges might go more conventional. That sounds insulting but, even though Jazz is not outsider or ‘token’, I am not sure history will repeat itself so soon. FKA twigs is exceptional and one of our best artists. Pa Salieu is incredible and worthy. PinkPantheress a hugely talented voice. Jacob Alon seems like the artist that the heart roots for whilst the brain or bones go for, say, CMAT or Fontaines D.C. I would love to see the award go to an Irish artist, as that is a rarity. CMAT and Fontaines D.C. both passionately regarded and exceptional. The dozen shortlisted albums are prime and phenomenal:

“CMAT – EURO-COUNTRY

Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo

FKA twigs – EUSEXUA

Fontaines D.C. – Romance

Jacob Alon – In Limerence

Joe Webb – Hamstrings and Hurricanes

Martin Carthy – Transform Me Then Into a Fish

Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Pulp – More

Sam Fender – People Watching

Wolf Alice – The Clearing”

In terms of progress, a non-binary artist on the shortlist is hugely positive. Jacob Alon is a raw talent with years ahead of them. It would have been nice to see women in the majority, though there are legends and older artists sitting with younger artists. Not many debut albums or newer artists is a step back. Rock and Alternative is very much in the mix and in with a great shout. Sam Fender and Fontaines D.C. are among my favourites. The Mercury Prize has always been broad and all-inclusive, though some years have seen certain genres side-lined or seen as tokenistic. That is no longer true. More integrated and united, there is a wonderful music palette in the dozen shortlisted albums. One could say, in terms of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ representation, it is not that great. Nodding to Black and Asian artists. Is it as diverse and all-inclusive as it could be?! I think there is a pretty good balance. The shortlist neither overly panders or excludes. There are no inclusions that are politically motivated or cynical. Every artist has released a stunning album that deserves the award. The lack of fresh faces does call into question whether the Mercury Prize learned anything from English Teacher winning last year for This Could Be Texas. I hope that the 2026 shortlist redresses this, as the prize should be about including rising and debut-album artists alongside those more established. Lest it be elitist or inaccessible! With live performances and a new home, it is a good sign. Fresh starts and evolution. Lauren Laverne hosting. Twelve wonderful albums in contention. Will CMAT steal the show or will Jacob Alon take the prize? Can favourites Pulp and Wolf Alice overcome newer artists like Pa Salieu and Joe Webb? Will it be FKA twigs’ night or will Sam Fender win? He was born in South Shields, which is a very short distance from where the Mercury Prize has been relocated to. A local win would be amazing. Impossible to call but always fascinating, we will see who walks away with the coveted Mercury Prize…

IN Newcastle in October.

FEATURE: Perimenopop: Why the Young and New Are Not the Most Exciting and Essential Queens of the Genre

FEATURE:

 

 

Perimenopop

IN THIS PHOTO: Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Why the Young and New Are Not the Most Exciting and Essential Queens of the Genre

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THAT is not to say that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tate McRae

the artists I am going to mention are not young. It is to say that, as has been the case for decades, those that get the most attention in Pop are the young. The very young. It is still very much a genre where the mass attention goes to the mainstream’s youngest. Perhaps things have broadened and improved a bit. You can look at the most celebrated and hyped Pop artists of today and many of the women mentioned are in their thirties. That is not necessarily super-young, though they can still be considered young. In the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, there was this hype of women who were in their teens and twenties. A feeling that, if you were in your thirties or older, then you were less relevant. Although there is still ageism in music and some stations rarely play artists over a certain age, it is clear that one cannot necessarily link the best and most essential Pop with youth. I am focusing on women in Pop here, as they are subjected to ageism more blatantly and, in my mind, are dominating the genre. Today, whilst the most popular artists are perhaps in their late-twenties and thirties, there is still a majority of the spotlight put on those who are younger. These new and rising artists. Unconsciously or not, younger women are seen as more vital and worthy when it comes to Pop music. That is not a new revelation and realisation. I don’t think we have progressed as much as we should have. Look at women in Pop who started out very young and are still going today. Artists like Kylie Minogue producing her best music and delivering her most memorable tours in her fifties. It is the experience they have gained being in the industry for years that I think makes their music richer and their performances more assured and dynamic. The stagecraft and command is a result of the years and decades they have been playing.

However, clearly, some truly exceptional live sets are coming from younger women in Pop. However, think about modern Pop and its health. Women in Pop not necessarily dominating the charts. There is this assumption that Pop has lost its fun and is not what it used to be. I would disagree. I think Pop has become more interesting the past five years or so. Artists like Charli xcx and Chappell Roan adding to that. Maybe CMAT could not be defined as a (purely) Pop artist, though she is among a wave of women in music who add wit, spice, energy and fun into music. In addition to revelation, vulnerability and honesty. Melody in Pop is less common or has been in decline. Some saying that Pop is all but dead and the fate of it rests with The Last Dinner Party. There is always going to be that debate as to whether Pop is declining and as good as it used to be. I think that it is in great shape. So many interesting and promising artists coming through. However, I do feel like there is the assumption that age and youth equates to the best Pop music. That women in Pop of a certain age are less exciting and have lost that spark. That is definitely not the case. Legends of the genre like Louise are still producing music as essential and interesting as their earliest work. What I am finding is that so many major Pop artists of today are releasing music that is quite forgettable or formulaic. Maybe their experiences and perspectives are either too familiar and over-discussed or else there is that lack of melody, killer chorus or anything with genuine invention. Sabrina Carpenter is an artist I respect, though there is little to distinguish her from other artists. Her new album, Man’s Best Friend, might not linger as long in the mind as it should.

She is not the only one. I think that the most interesting and impactful music made by young women is in other genres. R&B and Rap especially fertile and exciting right now. Although there are clearly a lot of brilliant and inventive young women in Pop, I wonder if we should be paying more attention to a different generation. I am going to end with an artist who I think makes a huge argument as to why you cannot define the best and most relevant Pop sound with youth. Pop pioneers and icons who have been making music for decades, I feel, have a lot to say. They should not be relegated to a certain radio station have to stand aside whilst the industry focuses on the very young. There is still ageism in music. Especially against women. Lady Gaga spoke about this earlier in the year. Just getting warmed up and hitting her stride, this might also be the case for one of Pop music’s queens. Sophie Ellis-Bextor is someone I spoke about recently when I marked twenty-five years of Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) by Spiller. Ellis-Bextor co-wrote and sang on that track. Her new album, Perimenopop, is among the best of the year. A phenomenal album that confidently shows why you cannot exclude or marginalise women in their thirties, forties and fifties. In her mid-forties, Sophie Ellis-Bextor is in an age range that is defined by restriction. Maybe played on stations like BBC Radio 2 and not considered appropriate for ‘younger’ stations. Women in their forties not seen as cool or as important as their younger peers. Sophie Elli-Bextor’s new album is perhaps her best. I think that it is so memorable and phenomenal because of her experience and intuition. Someone who has been in the industry for decades, she brings everything that came before into Perimenopop. There are not as many interviews with Sophie Ellis-Bextor as there should be this year. Maybe indicative of the media and how, still, age is linked with importance and relevance. That the freshest, best and coolest Pop is from those in their teens, twenties or thirties. There are a couple of interview archives I want to bring in. The first is from The Bristol Magazine:

“I wrote Perimenopop when I was in the absolute momentum and head rush of everything that happened with Murder on the Dancefloor last year [which appeared in key scene of the aforementioned smash-hit movie Saltburn]. That is actually a really glorious way to make pop music, because pop music thrives on momentum. It’s something that needs that rush of vitality in its veins. So it was the perfect time.
“I was already going to make a pop dance album anyway, but having all of this rocket fuel with Murder on Dancefloor returning to the charts and taking me all around the world with it again just injected this real fizz into the project – and also into the people I was lucky enough to get in the room with. I’ve worked with some incredible people, artists, producers and writers on Perimenopop. I just wrote a wish list and managed to get in the room with most of them. Happy days – and lucky me. I took full advantage, quite frankly, and this album is joyful, it’s celebratory, it’s inclusive, and it’s also about how lovely is to have all of those feelings”.

Before moving on, I am keen to include this extract from a recent Billboard interview that answer a few questions and tackles some stereotypes. Amazing to read Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s words. How she feels at her happiest and most content. That reflects in her music:

“I have to say, Perimenopop — album title of the year. How did you come up with it?

For me and all my girlfriends in our mid-40s, there’s a bit of a narrative about some aspects that might sound a bit gloomy. And I just wanted something that would flip the script on it a little bit — and also invite into the room the fact that I’m not the way I was when I was 20. I think it’s also quite a good indicator of how much more ballsy I’ve gotten as I’ve gotten older. But how lucky am I that I’ve been able to have a career long enough to feel that comfortable?

Are you liking what you’re seeing from the rest of the U.K. pop world these days?

What happened with Charli xcx and brat is ­obviously so brilliant. But also what I love about it is it really lets the mask fall. And I think teenage me would have completely resonated with that. We talked about a Brat Summer, and I think in my head I was like, “Well, maybe Perimenopop is your autumn?”.

What Sophie Ellis-Bextor said about feeling ballsy. That determination, courage and strength that you get as an older woman. It lends something to music that is not necessarily easily ands readily possessed by younger women. Also, as she said, it is quite fortunate to have a career after a certain number of years. It is so completive and cutthroat, so many do not have the luxury of releasing albums decades since their debut. I still think it is needlessly tough for women. How they need to prove themselves in a way men do not. I do find that, in terms of emotional and sonic range, Pop artists like Sophie Ellis-Bextor have that experience and gift that takes years to come. Life experiences and a full catalogue that means, decades later, she can pull in all of that and release an album that is marries so many styles, emotions and layers. So much modern Pop music is aimed at TikTok and it can be very samey. Artists that are not necessarily aiming for that market, I feel, are releasing the most interesting and listenable Pop. Music that lasts longer and has genuine depth. This is what The Line of Best Fit in their rave review of Perimenopop:

“From lesser known singles, to deep cuts, b-sides and more, the British siren has proven that the pop genre can (and should) move about in various sound spheres. Which brings us to where she last left off: HANA (花) (2023). Her seventh release capped off her trilogy of progressive adult alternative recordings helmed by the renowned Ed Harcourt; it courted positive notices and respectable sales tallies. Contrary to the aforementioned “Saltburn effect” (and ensuing mania) with her signature tune "Murder on the Dancefloor", Ellis-Bextor had been mulling over a more straight ahead affair for the follow-up to HANA (花).

Not dissimilar to her antipodean foremother Kylie Minogue’s post-Golden (2018) chess move with DISCO (2020), Ellis-Bextor is seeking to reclaim and refine the U.K. dance scene of the 2000s she helped shape with Perimenopop. Originally the set was denominated as The Invisible Line, she ultimately chose this, a portmanteau title for her eighth collection that pithily plays on "perimenopause" – a medical term for when women in their late 30s through to their early 40s transition between reproductivity and menopause – as a comment on the ageism-sexism women endure in the music industry. It is a signal from Ellis-Bextor that growing older won’t find women any less vital, artistically or otherwise. The content of Perimenopop – twelve tracks total – reflect this declarative/celebratory gesture. What’s more? Ellis-Bextor's pen leads on every cut.

The writer-artist-musician-producer talents onboarded demonstrate Ellis-Bextor’s commitment to her vocation in how she balances both compositional substance and hooks aplenty in her songcraft: Hannah Robinson, MNEK, Selena Gomez, Finn Keane, Sam "Karma Kid" Knowles, Shura, Duck Blackwell, Thomas "Kid Harpoon" Hull, Richard "Biff" Stannard, Nile Rodgers (of Chic fame), Janée "Jin Jin" Bennett, Luke Fitton, Caroline Ailin, James Greenwood, Jon Shave, Baz Kaye, Julia Michaels and the cited Ed Harcourt make up Ellis-Bextor’s diverse collaborative court on this outing.

Studied Ellis-Bextor fans will thrill knowing that she hasn’t lost her way kicking off a long player with a bang as "Relentless Love" evinces. The throwback floorfiller – think prime era Taste of Honey or Baccara – packs a punch with its vivid string charts, coruscating programming and sylph-like beat; genres aside, it sits comfortably alongside prior notable album starters such as "Making Music", "Revolution", and "Birth of an Empire".

Switching from old and new school modalities gives Ellis-Bextor room on the production front to rope in various elements from song to song. As such, Perimenopop is always an engaging listen.

Post-"Relentless Love", flashes of disco-pop – in classic-to-contemporary tones – pulse on "Vertigo", "Taste", "Stay On Me", and "Dolche Vita". The uptempo rush of those first five tracks will bring immediate comparisons to her last four-on-the-floor affair Make a Scene (2011), except everything contained on this body of work feels that much richer and more sumptuous. Additional entries on Perimenopop like "Glamorous", "Freedom of the Night", "Layers", and "Diamond in the Dark" keep with this glacial nightlife persuasion.

As with any Ellis-Bextor exercise, Perimenopop contains the hallmark pop eclecticism her discography is known for. On the record’s back-end are "Time", "Heart Sings" and "Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone". This triptych winningly utilizes a cooler synth-pop palette. "Heart Sings" and "Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone" are quite the pair; they close Perimenopop with a gorgeous emotional nuance in their respective lyrical scripts and performances. Drawing down on the latter aspect, Ellis-Bextor reveals her hand at how effectively she handles vulnerable stock with her vocal instrument.

Perimenopop doesn’t disguise that the mirrorball is the muse here, but don’t mistake this as some retreat into dance music indulgence. Instead, as stated previously, reclamation and refinement sit at the heart of Perimenopop with a few other sonic surprises tucked in. This should be expected. Ellis-Bextor's decorated back catalog has always split a complementary difference between a good groove and inventive intrigue. Even when she turns the dial ever so slightly in one direction, Perimenopop is no exception. Turn it up and enjoy”.

Although the media and music industry is not going to change its tune or reverse its policies when it comes to women in Pop and who they deem to be worthy and relevant, I do think that a lot of the best and enduring Pop music is not being made by artists starting out or the very young. There are some exceptions though, to me, there is a blandness and homogenisation happening. So many artists repeating what is popular and not adding anything new. Embrace and listen to the enduing queens of Pop and that is where you are going to find the kind of Pop sound that should be played more. It should be talked about more. But it isn’t necessarily. I hope that attitudes do change because, as Lady Gaga said, and something that can be applied to so many women in Pop who experience ageism or restrictions, they are very much…

JUST getting started.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Nova Twins

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

Nova Twins

__________

CURRENTLY on…

tour, and with a new album, Parasites & Butterflies, out, it is a very big time for Nova Twins. I will end with a review of the exceptional third studio album. The London duo of Amy Love and Georgia South are among the most important artists around. I know I use the word ‘important’ when describing artists, though I think it is apt. In the case of Nova Twins, there is no doubt that the music they are putting out is of the highest importance. In terms of the messages in the lyrics. An openness and introspection that might not have been obviously present during their first two albums. A broader but no less urgent and stunning palette, the musicianship on Parasites & Butterflies is also a notch up from their previous work. A duo always improving and adding to their brilliance, I will start out with a few recent interviews with Nova Twins. I will lead with an interview I have sourced before. Back in March, The Guardian chatted with Nova Twins. They talked about silencing the doubters of Heavy Metal. In a scene and genre that is still defined by white men, two Black women coming into this arena have to fight twice as hard. With high-profile fans including Elton John and Tom Morello, they do not have to prove themselves to anyone – though they have to face misogynoir and sexism:

“The Twins – not actual twins, but rather old, perfectly matched friends (what did they do on those long van rides? “Honestly we just yapped the whole time”) first met in their teens, when Love dated South’s brother: she became part of the family – the two girls even shared a bedroom – and eventually they started making music together. An early iteration of the group was named BRAAT way before the lime-green album was even a twinkle in Charli xcx’s eye, and their first song tumbled out of them amid giggles on the sofa. “Bad Bitches” – “It was just bass and vocals,” South recalls, “and we were like, oooh this is cool …” But this time, nothing was tumbling out of anywhere.

Slowly, as they decompressed from the tour and started engaging with “real life”again, reconnecting with friends and spending time enjoying London, themes and ideas started coming up. Third album Parasites & Butterflies is alive with that feeling of separate existences: it pings from serpentine hellfire (Glory) to kick-you-in-the-face rawk (Monster) to Beastie Boys-esque chanting (N.O.V.A) and potent balladry (Hummingbird).

On Supernova, they felt they had to be basically superheroes, relentless with manic positivity and power; the album has a hint of dread. “There’s a kind of dark undertone – which is reflective of where we were at the time – but in a good way,” Love says. “It’s open. Honest. Because we’re not all happy and super-strong 100% of the time.”

The Twins made a conscious decision not to use any synths on the album – all the sounds are made using guitars (Love) and bass (South) with vast boards of effects pedals to manipulate their output. “We’ve always pushed ourselves to do things really manually live,” South says. “And I think being women in music … people don’t question men. So they can have everything on the track and they can still be ‘the greatest’ – people won’t question if they’re playing live, they won’t question if they wrote their riffs, or if they’re miming, or anything. Because we were women going into it – and Black women – we were like: we need to play everything, do everything.”

It might have started as a reaction to the misogynoir that dogs heavy rock genres but it turned out to be an integral part of a Nova Twins show, with South in particular marshalling two vast planks of pedals at her feet, stomping on them periodically to take her bass from a muscular strut to a thundering dubstep fuzz.

Growing up in Essex and south London respectively, Love and South dealt with varying degrees of racism (Love is of Iranian and Nigerian descent, and South is of Jamaican and Australian). When they were playing endless toilet venues and open mic nights around the capital, they soon felt like outsiders in the notoriously white, male world of heavy music. “We couldn’t really see where we fit in,” Love says. “We’re like the only women on the bill, definitely the only Black people on the bill, or were at the time when we first started. And it would be like, well, we don’t quite belong here but the audience are really receptive to us. And then we’d be like, we didn’t really fit in the R&B hip-hop world, either”.

I am going to move to an interview from Punknews.com. They herald Parasites & Butterflies and how it “is a testament to the incredible strength of vulnerability and the indomitable spirit of Georgia South and Amy Love”. There is no denying the fact that we should embrace and celebrate Nova Twins. If you are not aware of them yet then I would definitely recommend that you check them out:

“You recorded Parasites and Butterflies with Rich Costey in Vermont. What went into your decision to record here?

Georgia: I think fate kind of put us all together with schedules and everything aligning. It was quite sudden that the opportunity came up to work with Rich. Obviously, we jumped at it and flew to America and did it with him in Vermont. [laughs] It was a really great experience. We were kinda in the middle of the woods for about four weeks, and we had the Foo Fighters tour in the middle of it and a few festivals. It was a crazy trip.

How did the environment impact the recording?

Amy: It was quite a juxtaposition from our rooms in winter, where we started writing the album. By the time we went to Vermont to record it everything was welcomed, like the scenery because it’s so green there. It was in the middle of the woods. It was a winter going into spring kind of thing and it was really beautiful and exactly what we needed; the calm, the peace. We had a studio dog, she was the engineer’s dog and it was just lovely. It was just what we needed.

Growth is a huge theme on the album. How do you feel you’ve grown as people and as musicians during your time working on the album?

Amy: With the theme, we like to say it is the bridge between chaos and beauty and just addressing all sides of the spectrum. We’ve always been known to be like Supernova, superhuman, superpowered, and we are definitely still those girls, but also, we are all human at the end of the day. It’s very important to share both sides of the coin and to make sure that people understand that there is power in being vulnerable as well. You don’t always have to be this front-facing titan; you can be vulnerable and honest with your emotions and still be just as powerful by sharing that. That went into the album a lot.

I think we say each year that it doesn’t ever stay the same. We naturally just evolve. We naturally grow. We definitely got more into the production on our side. We enjoyed that part of the growth. We’ve learned a lot, and to look back and see what we can do ourselves is really great.

What helps you look after your mental health on tour?

Georgia: We’ve started journaling, which is really fun. We started in January and we both got these cute little diaries. We write in there every night and that really helps. Just to have more of a routine of something you can do every day that grounds you again when everything is so different and crazy every day. You can come back to this journal. [laughs]

I think being more open in terms of if your social battery is feeling drained or if you feel a bit off, just communicating it. It’s fine to have to go for a walk by yourself and just chill. And trying to get as much sleep as we can because last tour was hardcore, we wouldn’t sleep for days and try to fit in as many shows as we could from LA to Bristol to Glasgow to God-knows-where. [laughs] It was crazy. We’re just trying to be more mindful with that. We’ve got a really amazing team that we travel with who also help keep morale high. We’re a really good unit.

Which part of Parasites and Butterflies are you proudest of?

Amy: It’s really hard. I feel like generally, the album as a whole. The songs are all very different from each other as well. You’ve got all these different concepts and energies. I think when we look back at the album, that’s the story. That’s the final thing. Like I said earlier, I was really excited to put “Black Roses” in the set but then it changes, it depends what mood you’re in. Now I’m in a “Fuck it!” chaotic mood.

[laughter]

Amy: I need to bring out “Parallel”! It just depends. For me, I would say I'm proud of the album as a whole.

Georgia: I would say the same, like as a whole body of work. It takes a lot to put a whole album together. You don’t see all behind the scenes; it’s not just writing it, it’s recording it, mixing it, then mastering it, and ordering it. It takes a long time. I think we’re proud of being proud of the work. [laughs]”.

DORK spoke with Nova Twins recently. They opened by stating how there is a lot of pressure on the second album from an artist. How it is ‘difficult’ and a big test. However, a third album is perhaps more relevant. In the sense that it proves that the artist has grown and has longevity. That album that really matters. No pressure on Parasites & Butterflies, but Nova Twins have definitely shown that they are here for the long-run! Although there are festivals and line-ups featuring Nu-Metal or Heavy Metal acts that are largely white and male, that is not the case everywhere. Nova Twins are hard to pigeonhole as they are the result of all of their influences. Neither straight-up Rock/Metal or Pop and R&B:

“Nova Twins have never been afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and that honesty remains front and centre. Tracks like ‘Piranha’ hum with tension and expectation, while ‘Parallel Universe’ explores the disconnection of a society glued to DMs and dating apps. ‘N.O.V.A’ is a call to arms for self-belief, while ‘Drip’ feels like it’s delivered with a sly grin – the sound of a band comfortably claiming their space in the spotlight.

There’s no grand plan – just raw emotion. “The album was definitely very healing for us,” Georgia says. “It’s very honest. Whatever we wrote that day was rooted in where we were at that moment. We didn’t pre-plan it. If we needed a pick-me-up, we wrote ‘N.O.V.A’ or ‘Soprano’. We didn’t force anything.”

Sonically, things were equally fluid, though this time they wrote with the live show in mind. Having conquered massive rooms filled with crowds ready to mosh at the drop of a bassline, they channelled that energy into an album that builds up, breaks down, and refuses to stay in one genre for more than a moment.

“Now we know how things sound through a fat PA or massive stage speakers, or how the crowd will feel when it breaks down and kicks off,” Georgia grins. “It’s inspired by big moments in big arenas, so we definitely added more of that in!”

They might be working with heavyweight producers like Richard Costley now, but the heart of Nova Twins remains unchanged. From their first release as BRAATS back in 2014 to the behemoth they are today, the band still runs on the same fuel: the fierce bond between Amy and Georgia.

“We’re very lucky that we’re a duo,” Georgia says. “We balance each other out, which is the foundation we can build from. It makes us feel really empowered that it’s just us two. It keeps us inspired, and hopefully it can inspire other women and girls to write music, get on stages, to produce albums.”

Their place at the top of the nu-metal ladder isn’t just a personal win – it signals a bigger shift. Gone are the tired old tropes. In their place, new voices, new perspectives, and a scene more diverse than ever. Just ask anyone who saw their recent set at Vans Warped Tour.

“That was great,” Amy recalls. “We played quite early, I think it was lunchtime, but we still had such an amazing crowd that were really up for it. American crowds always seem to have that spark. They just get it. I think they’re used to those showbiz-heavy bands, so we feel really at home in that scene.”

“It was great to see so much diversity in the line-up and in the crowd,” Georgia adds. “It’s amazing how far it’s come even since we first started. We would turn up to festivals and we’d be the only Black people there – sometimes we’d be the only women there – so it’s definitely encouraging to see that progression”.

I will end with a review from Metal Hammer. On an album that ranks alongside the best of this year, Nova Twins have released something that is both chaotic and beautiful. There is darkness and weight on the album. However, there is also plenty of uplift and energy. These contrasts make Parasites & Butterflies so enthralling and nuanced. An arresting and compelling album that you will keep coming back to:

“Chaos and beauty – those are words Amy Love and Georgia South have repeated like a mantra around the release of the third Nova Twins album, Parasites & Butterflies. By their own admission, it’s a record that was born out of darkness, for even amid the crashing lows that inevitably accompany the highs of success, deadlines wait for no one.

The album is a response to the intense pressure that follows the whirlwind of early success, with a focus on the impact on the girls’ mental health that sees them wearing their hearts on their sleeves.

From the frenetic, shimmering Glory all the way to the darkly sweet Black Roses, the emotional arc of their storytelling is more immediately apparent this time around. It starts out in a vulnerable place and builds in confidence that at times turns to rage.

Which is not to say it’s all doom and gloom: Parasites & Butterflies is energised and exciting. Amy’s incandescent voice is more versatile than ever and she flexes her full range with all its colour, light and shade, from her lightning-fast verses on the cheeky, sensual Drip to the beautifully controlled performance of Hummingbird, an almost-ballad about grief.

What hasn’t changed is their talent for making immense, danceable songs that transcend genre. They never make the obvious choice: confessional anthem Monsters incorporates drum’n’bass and industrial elements, but with a big, soaring chorus.

Georgia can make just about any conceivable sound with just her bass and pedals, creating a deliciously heavy wub-wub-wub sound that you can feel in your stomach. N.O.V.A has the flavour of a 90s rock/ hip hop crossover, with its RATM-esque guitar riff and addictive chant chorus. At this point, their punk swagger seems to have returned; by Hurricane, they’re resolute, spitting ‘Keep the pressure on, ’cause we ain’t going nowhere.’

Parasites & Butterflies’ conception may have been fraught, but Nova Twins have made something beautiful out of the chaos”.

Let’s leave things there. I have been a fan of Nova Twins for a while, though I feel like this is a particularly huge moment for them. The release of their third studio album. Big tour dates. Amy Love and Georgia South are an incredible partnership that is defined by this close and deep connection. The music Nova Twins makes is among the best in the world. They are no doubt inspiring so many people. Helping to change the conversation around gender and racial bias in genres like Metal. Helping to break down barriers. If they are not there already, then do make sure that you add Nova Twins…

TO your playlist.

___________

Follow Nova Twins

PHOTO CREDIT: Tamiym Cader

Official:

https://novatwins.co.uk/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/NovaTwinsMusic/

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7I95CM75shzCjHuTzrepjM?si=4LD1VchUTG2NaoNRUm2P3w

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https://www.youtube.com/user/novatwinsmusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/NovaTwinsMusic/

FEATURE: Superdeluxe: Are Reissues, Special Editions and Various Vinyl Versions a Good Thing?

FEATURE:

 

 

Superdeluxe

IN THIS PHOTO: Baby, That’s Show Business Edition (Lakeside Beach Blue Sparkle Vinyl) is one of at least six unique vinyl variations of her upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl

Are Reissues, Special Editions and Various Vinyl Versions a Good Thing?

__________

MAYBE it used to happen…

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa

decades ago but, more noticeable now than then, artists releasing new albums will often quickly follow it up with special or expanded editions. The studio album will come out and then there will be another release with a couple of extra tracks. Maybe some remixes. You do wonder whether they could have just included that on the original album. Whether there is a point or putting out the same album with a couple of additional tracks. It is a bit of a difficult balance. In some cases, an artist might release a second version of a studio album with modifications. I will come to Taylor Swift soon. The Taylor’s Version of some of her studio albums. Taking control back from a major label and how they treated her. Getting the rights to her music back. However, she is someone who released multiple versions of the vinyl album and it seems like exploiting fans. However, there are cases when there are positive reissues and new editions. Maybe there was this feeling that Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism had to be quite short or commercial. The psychedelic Radical Optimism (Extended) version adds something to the original. As CLASH explored, it does seem like a different album. Maybe one that improves on the original:

“When Dua Lipa shared her new album ‘Radical Optimism’ earlier this year it sparked celebration from fans, but also confusion in some quarters. The pre-release narrative held that this would be a psychedelic statement, co-piloted by Tame Impala guru Kevin Parker. The final record, however, was a slick, finessed pop record – somewhat different from the expectations we’d been fed.

Released overnight, the extended version of ‘Radical Optimism’ feels like the weighty psychedelic mission we’d been expecting. A solid hour of funky bass lines, ridiculous synths, and lysergic textures, it blends the pop suss Dua has long since made her own with markedly different landscapes.

It dials into the statements the Kosovo-born, UK-raised artists made to the press a few months back. “No one’s really making Britpop at the moment,” she told the Face in February, “but I have a feeling 2024 is gonna be the year.”

The multi award-winning star added that she was “looking through the music history of psychedelia, trip-hop and Britpop…”

These words frame the Extended edition much more effectively than the standard edition, the No. 1 smash that was delivered earlier this year. It’s a reminder that disco was – in effect – a truly psychedelic form of music, and that Dua Lipa has always had a multitude of threads on her studio locker”.

In the case of Kylie Minogue’s Tension II in 2024, which followed 2023’s TENSION, this was a sequel to that album. Maybe a companion piece. If this kind of album feels like a whole new work, then it is okay. I am not a fan of when artists put out an album and then there is the rush to put it back out with tiny additions. Charli xcx’s BRAT was followed by Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not and then later last year, she released Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. A star-studded remix album, whilst this was Charli xcx building a universe and empire, I am a bit split as to whether it is a benefit to fans and their dedication or it is just repackaging an album or cashing in. Last month, we learned about the various variants of Taylor Swift’s upcoming The Life of as Showgirl album. VARIETY explained more:

“The Life of a Showgirl” looks like it’s going to have nine lives and then some, when it comes to variant editions with different album cover images and vinyl color schemes. Only Taylor Swift and her team know how many different versions of the album will go up for pre-sale before all the variants get shipped for the official Oct. 3 release date, but it looks like it will be a lot, given the pace at which the singer has already been issuing limited editions that have mostly been near-immediate sellouts.

The latest variants, as of Sept. 7, are three compact disc editions that Target will be carrying exclusively. (Target made a splash by announcing that 500 of its stores will remain open past midnight on the night of release to sell these CDs, along with the album’s standard edition, starting at 12 a.m. local time.) The newly revealed CDs from Target are the “It’s Frightening” edition, the “It’s Rapturous” edition, and the “It’s Beautiful” edition. These carry the same subtitles and cover artwork that Swift previously used for three CDs that were only available in her webstore, and quickly sold out; it’s unclear whether the Target editions have any exclusive packaging elements (apart from losing the trinkets that were advertised with the D2C versions).

One thing is clear from all these variants: Swift had some very fruitful photo sessions for this album. With each new image of each different edition, there has been a positive response to the alternative LP jackets or CD sleeves that follows along the lines of this tweet: “SHOULD’VE BEEN THE ALBUM COVER, BUT OK.”

Each of her limited editions for her own webstore releases — not including the Target variants — has arrived preceded by a countdown clock, and the promise that the variant would be on sale for 48 hours or “while supplies last.” The latter has definitely applied, as several of these releases to date have sold out within about an hour, although some took the better part of a day to sell through”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

There are clearly major artists who are cashing in and are just seeing how much they can make from fans. Some artists that release a different take of an album because it is more representative of them. Some might say that legacy artists do the same thing. Anniversary editions that are remastered or expanded so that they have some demos and outtakes. The Beatles among them. Whilst it adds layers and depths that were not present when the studio albums were released in the 1960s, all of the versions can be quite expensive. Vinyl packages that are not instantly affordable for most fans. However, I do think that there is a lot of it happening now. Artists swiftly reissuing their new album with a couple of new tracks. I guess, for legacy artists, reissues and expanded editions can add to their legacy. It can introduce their work to new fans. I am a bit torn about the subject. I can appreciate how artists today are not making money from streaming services. The only way they can earn money is from touring. Physical music not as profitable as it was decades ago. There is also pressure on artists to keep releasing music. If there is a gap of a few years even, then artists are seen as having gone away. Maybe overlooked. Reissuing albums or providing new editions keeps fans engaged. It also means that fans get these outtakes and songs not included on the album before. What do you do with these new songs? You could release them as singles, though I can understand why artists put out expanded editions with a few new songs. However, does it seem a bit too much to expect fans to shell out on this new, perhaps more expensive of an album they already have?!

People can choose not to buy that new edition, though I feel you get more value for money or something bigger with the new version. If I buy the original, I might not have money for this new version. Vinyl especially is expensive, so expanded and special editions can be pretty pricey. I don’t think most artists are trying to take advantage of fans’ dedication. I was a little galled by Taylor Swift and the various version of The Life of a Showgirl. Many fans will buy all of them and, as someone who does not need the money, what is the reason behind it? Swift might say these are collectable items. More interesting than release one version of the album and not giving fans choice. She is not the only one. Many artists put out a range of vinyl versions. Different colours and styles. Is this simply providing choice for fans or an opportunity for them to collect all the versions? I love a vinyl album with a great colour or design, but I struggle to see the purpose of multiple options. Positives of deluxe versions and reissues is that you do get something extra from artists. In the case of Kylie Minogue and Charli xcx, there are interesting reasons for their decisions. Remix albums allow us to see these songs in a different light. I do think that problems arise when there are those rushed reissues with bonus tracks. It seems a little pointless or too much. Not really offering much value. Multiple vinyl versions can cross the line into gauging fans. However, most artists do want to give their fans options and something special. Is the rise in reissues and special editions because artists realise that physical music and touring is their only revenue options? Is it more about creative freedom? I opened by talking about Dua Lipa and the Radical Optimism new version. One that extends the songs. Perhaps less to capitalise on fans’ devotion and more to do with releasing the album that she wanted to from the off. The subject of reissues, deluxe editions and multiple vinyl options is something that definitely…

DIVIDE opinion.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Laufey

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight: Revisited

Laufey

__________

AN artist who is…

PHOTO CREDIT: Cara Kealy

simply extraordinary and someone I spotlighted back in 2023, I am returning to Laufey now. The Icelandic-Chinese musician, born Laufey Lín Jónsdótti, released her new album, A Matter of Time, in August. I am going to end this feature by including a review of a standout from this year. One of the most acclaimed of the year for sure, if you have not heard of Laufey, then you really do need to check her out. Rather than repeat interviews I included in 2023, I am going to get to some more recent ones. Some from this year. Laufey’s debut album, Everything I Know About Love, came out in 2022, though her debut single arrived in 2020. That was Street by Street. Some might say she is pretty established by now. With a massive social media following and a huge tour currently underway, this is a major artist. However, this feature is about revisiting someone I spotlighted when they were rising. It is amazing to come back to Laufey. Music Week chatted with her in August. As we learn from the start of the interview, last year was a pretty eventful and memorable one for Laufey:

“Laufey ticked off everything she’d ever dreamed of in 2024, the sort of phenomenal year that has required the 25-year-old to draw up a new bucket list. She won a Grammy, something that felt so outlandish for her that it never even figured in her thinking when it came to lifetime goals, and played headline shows at her all-time favourite venues (Royal Albert Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Radio City Music Hall). Tick, tick, tick.

Along the way, the artist born Laufey Jónsdóttir in Reykjavik to a Chinese mother and Icelandic father began to mull over what success actually meant. She discovered that when you’re an ambitious type, as Laufey undoubtedly is, you’re always looking for the next bigger thing.

“That’s how I got to where I am,” she says. “Once I have played the 1,000-cap venue in a city, I’m excited to play the 4,000-cap venue the next year.”

But she followed this thread and wondered, where does it end?

“I’ll hopefully be playing arenas soon,” she states. “And I don’t want to play venues bigger than an arena, so it’s going to have to stop somewhere.”

Laufey’s remarkable rise is showing very few signs of slowing down, though. She is the ultimate modern trailblazer and Gen Z superstar, someone for whom there are no clear forebears to measure herself against. There have been pop artists signed to independent labels before, but not independent pop artists whose music is rooted in ye olde world classical and jazz sounds, her music giving the Great American Songbook a new twist. No one had that down as the next big thing in pop and yet, with almost 14 million monthly listeners on Spotify and nearly 650m plays for 2023 hit From The Start – not to mention 7.8m followers and 293m likes on TikTok – here we are”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Erlendur Sveinsson

I am moving to an interview from The Guardian. At a time when Laufey’s stock is rising and she is vulnerable to haters, Laufey discussed this. She also talked about filling arenas, and how she was slightly scared of success. It is a pivotal time for her. One where she has gained this whole new legion of fans and put some new music out. An artist who has to balance how much of her personal life she puts into the music:

“Now Laufey is keen to rough up her reputation as gen-Z’s favourite jazz savant, at least a little. Her new album A Matter of Time splits the difference between sugar-plum symphonics with imperfect notes and vocals that crack with emotion. One song has jolting strings that she compares to a scream. “I wanted to make more of a statement on this album,” she says. “I’ve become known as a bit of a soft singer. I am that, but I also want to show parts of myself that aren’t that pretty.”

She arrived in the hotel lobby this morning on time and as neat as a pin, with a cardigan-wearing bunny rabbit dangling from her handbag. (The critter, named Mei Mei, is Laufey’s mascot and alias of sorts – she releases alternative versions of her songs under its name, and it is also available to buy, with a portion of the proceeds aiding music education as part of the Laufey Foundation.) “Do you want to go in there?” she asks, leading me into a side room and getting out the best biscuits: “It’s the guests-only lounge.” The place is done up like a hunting lodge, with artfully oxidised mirrors, a wall-mounted antelope head and, most bizarrely, given that it is summer, a burning log fire. When I comment on the strangeness, Laufey says, wryly: “Well, it’s now reached a very cool 24 degrees.”

She says she was driven by a “hunger” to imbue the new experiences of a whirlwind few years into her new album. It radiates a sense of adventure, dovetailing between twangy campfire country to swoony ballads and sherbert-spiked pop. The record is produced by Laufey and longtime collaborator Spencer Stewart: between them, they can play just about any instrument you have heard of, as well as some you may not have. I was unfamiliar with the celesta, an obscure kind of idiophone that Stewart and Laufey play on the record (it sounds like a child’s musical jewellery box). On the Busby Berkeley-worthy confection Lover Girl, she knowingly leans into her Cupid-struck image, while on Carousel, Laufey reckons with inviting a partner into her circus-like life while a seasick accordion plays. The rapturous Forget-Me-Not, recorded with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (for which she was a teenage cello soloist), is her most accomplished work of composition to date; her voice soars among flurries of flutes.

“I wanted the album to reflect all sides of my emotional scale,” she says, huddling in air-con that has apparently been set to “Himalayan”. “Within one day, I will have a happy hour and a crying hour. I have no interest in making an album that’s one vibe throughout.” But there is, she says, an emotional through-line about learning to accept yourself while falling in love with someone else. She won’t talk about her relationship status today though, and I ask if internet scrutiny makes it hard to write candidly about her dating experiences. “There’s always a line of ambiguity,” Laufey says, before smiling mischievously. “But if you get into a situation with me, you kind of know that I might write about it.”

A Matter of Time marks her creative world opening up. Two spry new songs were created with Taylor Swift collaborator and the National founder member Aaron Dessner at his Long Pond Studios, in an experience that Laufey says “opened a third musical eye”. And she is more lighthearted than ever on Mr Eclectic, a bossa nova-inspired track featuring Clairo that pokes fun at men who mansplain classical music to her. “I just think it’s funny to be the type of man who performatively reads a beaten-up paperback outside a coffee shop,” she says, her nose wrinkling. “I’ve dated guys like that, but this is a forever type of man. Why do you think all philosophers are men? They just had the platform and the audacity”.

The last interview I am including is from ELLE. As she reveals in the interview, her audience very much are a reflection of her. She can look out at them and see people that relate to her and who give her strength. This is someone whose music has clearly connected with so many people across the world. I am excited to see what comes next for Laufey. An artist I have been following for a while, she is one of these artists who will not get the same fanfare and attention as the biggest Pop artists in the mainstream. I think Laufey’s music is stronger and goes deeper. Maybe that sort of exposure and spotlight would be too intimidating and exposing:

“Women obviously create great music every year, but the last year felt like a notable moment when they were really dominating the mainstream. How did that feel for you?

I just think it’s such an incredible time to be a woman in music. It’s not only that women are dominating, but that they’re dominating in every single little corner of music as well. Everyone is so different. Doechii is making completely different music from Sabrina Carpenter. And Sabrina, Chappell Roan, and Charli xcx are pop princesses, but in such completely different ways. That is really, really beautiful, and it speaks to how modern audiences are so open to different types of music. I think women are more versatile than we’re given credit for. That’s the main thing that stood out to me this past year....Though I’m so happy with the progress that women have made in music and how much they’ve been in the forefront of driving culture, there’s such a long way to go when it comes to women in the background.

Why is it important to uplift women songwriters and producers?

You can really see when there’s a woman writing with a woman, the magic that it creates, because there’s a level of honesty. Like, a man could never get into my head, never understand what I’m going through. That’s one of the main reasons that female producers and writers should be highlighted, because nobody understands the female experience like a woman.

How do you feel about being called “Gen Z’s jazz icon”?

It’s weird, because I don’t really see myself as one genre or the other. I think when I started, I needed something to tell people. I’m a trained jazz singer, and when I was younger, before I started writing music, I only sang jazz music. I started my career singing jazz standards on TikTok, so I could see why that would be the thing that people gravitated toward saying. But as I’ve grown as a songwriter and a musician, it’s so much more than that.

How would you describe your fan base?

They are genuinely the funniest people I know. They’re so kind. Growing up, I really struggled finding a group of people that I really understood and that understood me—whether that was coming from mixed cultural backgrounds, or having mixed interests that weren’t as simple as soccer or reading. The fact that I’ve kind of summoned an audience of exactly that—it just makes my younger self really, really happy.

For fandoms, there’s this stereotype of crazy fan behavior and cultlike behavior. And though they’re [Laughs] definitely, in a way, a cult, it’s a really, really positive, happy, cute one. Very wholesome. I very, very rarely see or experience toxic behavior. It seems very friendly. I’ve heard so many stories of fans making friends with each other at concerts. It’s the best part of being a musician.

They look like me. I look out into the audience, and I just see direct reflections of me. I didn’t think I could ever gather such a big audience of Wasians. I didn’t know that was possible, but somehow it is.

They dress like me, too. Oh, my God, when it’s little girls, they’re so adorable. I feel such an immense joy, but also a deep understanding of what I am to them and how I should carry myself. It really gets me through anything”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Adrienne Raquel

Prior to wrapping things up, I will get to a positive review for A Matter of Time. One of the best albums of this year, this award-winning artist no doubt will be in the conversation when it comes to next year’s GRAMMYs. The review I want to include is a 9/10 from The Line of Best Fit. They heralded a multitalented artist who is one of the most exceptional in all of music. A big reason why I wanted to revisit her music a couple of years since I spotlighted her:

“It wouldn’t be enough for Laufey to merely establish herself as a singer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, and aesthete. She insisted upon being exceptionally prolific at it.

Impacting with Typical of Me (2022), her debut extended play, Laufey captured critics and record buyers alike. Then over the next three years, she continued developing her sound – rich and sonorous – across another triptych of EPs, two live albums, and a pair of acclaimed full-length studio efforts, Everything I Know About Love (2022) and Bewitched (2023). These discs consolidated additional reviewer praise and grew her reach on the charts.

Bewitched earned an inaugural GRAMMY Award (“Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album”) in 2024, bringing her to the notice of the ultimate songstress herself: Barbra Streisand. Currently, Laufey features amongst a decorated roster lining Streisand’s 37th long player The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume 2 (2025). Despite this vertiginous rise, Laufey conserves her music’s core: a traditional-to-modern pop fusion curated from a complex mix of jazz, classical, acoustic, and bossa nova. It’s the ideal canvas for her voice and songwriting on third album A Matter of Time.

She refines her formula enlisting the talents of Spencer Stewart and Aaron Dessner to produce.

Dessner – one of the founders of the indie-rock clique The National – is fire-new to Laufey’s orbit; his tunesmithing on a few of Taylor Swift’s recent releases has only yielded him further renown. Stewart’s work history with Laufey on Everything I Know About Love and Bewitched makes him a welcome figure on this affair. Laufey joins them as a co-producer, partial arranger and session hand. Her way with piano, cello, electric bass, celeste, wood block, upright bass, and more (see the sleeve notes for details) demonstrate her keen abilities.

The three musicians spare no expense maintaining the filmic grandeur her projects have become known for. It casts A Matter of Time as a spellbinding experience for any audiophile. Opener “Clockwork” is a decadent slice of big band nostalgia, indicative of the quality one can expect.

Even better, there’s a deepening of Laufey’s unique, aforementioned fusion throughout. The drums feel more punctuated with “A Cautionary Tale”, the guitar-strumming feels balmier on “Castle In Hollywood”, and the strings zing just a little bit more via “Forget-Me-Not”. All these particulars are revealed with that introductory listen and will make any subsequent visit to this set as exciting as that initial spin. This method reaches a beautiful crescendo on “Cuckoo Ballet”, an instrumental reprise of A Matter of Time’s first six selections; it recalls “Nocturne”, an antecedent version of “Cuckoo Ballet” on Bewitched, but with its compositional contrast set to a brighter tone here.

Alongside Laufey’s signature styles are some fresh motifs too. The record’s lead-off single “Silver Lining” is all brushed drums, reverb, and assorted torch spice evoking the likes of Dionne Warwick or Nancy Wilson. Laufey wraps this tune around her handsome alto with an uncanny poise. “Tough Luck” begins in downbeat pop-rock fashion before flowing into a slinky, disco-lite groove with chamber pop effects. Echoes of the countrypolitan past (Emmylou Harris) and present (Maren Morris) are gorgeously realized on “Clean Air”. Laufey also dips into the adult alternative of fellow Icelander Björk circa Selmasongs (2000) on “Sabotage”. In this collision of experimental and classical pop, it is notably the economy of her voice that is its most stunning feature.

As the lead writer on every cut for A Matter of Time, Laufey continues to thread a mean needle with thematic elements. Whether it’s romance in full bloom (“Carousel”) or wilted (“Too Little, Too Late”), Laufey demonstrates that love often exists somewhere between the poles of escapism and reality.

This is done brilliantly on sister cuts “Lover Girl” and “Mr. Eclectic”. The former captures the blush of attraction before the latter uncovers evidence of incompatibility. Both are sequestered as the second and twelfth entries on the wax, respectively. The expanse between each gives them a chance to narratively breathe on their own while remaining linked as Brazilian rhythm-backed exotica.

However, the best tendered script on A Matter of Time is “Snow White”, an examination of Laufey's Icelandic-Chinese heritage and its associated societal pressures. She had approached this topic before with “Letter to My Thirteen Year Old Self” on Bewitched. This time, Laufey explores what she’s endured and her growth thereafter.

To my ear, Laufey is an emergent retro-modernist genius on par with Swing Out Sister, Pizzicato Five, Raphael Saadiq, and Emma Bunton. While their genres differ, that commitment to consistency, craft and “something old made spectacularly new” unites them. Similarly, Laufey colours both inside and outside her established lines to create a joyful tension on A Matter of Time. It makes for the boldest chapter in her artistic story yet”.

Laufey will play in the U.K. next year. She has a large fanbase here. And so many nations around the world. Her music is universal, but also there are these personal moments that take you to the heart of Laufey. She puts herself in the music, though she is aware of being judged or putting too much of herself out there. I would recommend everyone follow Laufey. The twenty-six-year-old is…

A supernova of a talent.

___________

Follow Laufey

PHOTO CREDIT: Gemma Warren

Official:

https://www.laufeymusic.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/laufey

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/laufey

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChpKl3waLmccNeYH9LGYjUQ

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7gW0r5CkdEUMm42w9XpyZO?si=N9HhwfaQQ2GeJPIdeTtEAg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/laufeymusic

FEATURE: All Hooked Up: All Saints’ Saints & Sinners at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

All Hooked Up

All Saints’ Saints & Sinners at Twenty-Five

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THERE is a 25th Anniversary Edition…

 IN THIS PHOTO: All Saints in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Ellen von Unwerth

of this album available from 10th October on Spotify. A vinyl version was released on 19th Septemeber (“Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Saints & Sinners, All Saints' iconic 2000 album is now available for the first time on vinyl. This special limited edition 2LP Black & Red vinyl edition features the band's signature blend of R&B, pop, and soul, including hit singles like 'Pure Shores' and 'Black Coffee'. To further celebrate, this vinyl edition will include various remixes released over the years such as The Neptunes Remix of Black Coffee, alongside the recent Tourist remix of 'Pure Shores’”). I am including the 2000 version in this feature. I am using this feature to dovetail two big events. First, All Saints second studio album, Saints & Sinner, was released on 16th October, 2000. On 14th October, All Saints member (and chief songwriter) Shaznay Lewis turns fifty. I did not know that her twenty-fifth birthday and the release of Saints & Sinners was just two days apart. That must have been quite a celebration in 2000! One of my favourite albums of the 1990s was All Saints’ eponymous debut. I have featured the group a couple of times recently. I spent some time with Black Coffee. The second single on Saints & Sinners turned twenty-five on 2nd October. Three singles were released from Saints & Sinners. The single release gaps were quite large. Pure Shores arrived on 14th February, 2000; All Hooked Up on 27th January, 20001. Rather than bring out five or six singles, the band (Natalie Appleton, Nicole Appleton, Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt) put out three. Perhaps less well-reviewed and acclaimed as their debut, Saints & Sinners is still a gem. It has a great cover like All Saints does. Pure Shores and Black Coffee perhaps the two best songs All Saints ever released. Saints & Sinners also features great deep cuts like Whoopin' Over You and Surrender. Rather than put out a Shaznay Lewis playlist to mark her fiftieth birthday, I will end by wishing her many happy returns, but I want to focus instead on twenty-five years of Saints & Sinners.

I remember buying All Saints when it came out in 1997. It was one I played a lot. I was a fan of other girl groups like Spice Girls and Destiny’s Child. I think All Saints are the best British girl group (even though Natalie and Nicole Appleton are Canadian). Shorter in length than their debut album, Saints & Sinners was recorded out of multiple studios. Although not packed with other producers and songwriters, perhaps there is not the same quality that was on All Saints. I think many critics in 2000 were needlessly dismissive of Saints & Sinners. Some feeling the four-piece erased a lot of the credibility that their excellent debut offered them. Entering a new decade – and century – with a slightly different sound and perspective, this was the group recording an album after they had achieved success. Their 1997 debut was them pre-success. However, I have a lot of love for Saints & Sinners. It is hard to ignore the impact of Pure Shores and Black Coffee. They do not overshadow the album and the other songs. Instead, it shows that here was a group who still had plenty left in the tank. I wonder how they will mark twenty-five years of Saints & Sinners. Additional tracks are included on the 25th Anniversary Edition. When All Saints was released in 1997, there was a lot of great Pop and R&B around. Girl groups like Spice Girls. It fitted into the scene. Maybe critics felt that All Saints in 2000 were fitting into a Pop scene that was changing. Madonna released her album, Music, in 2000, and she was criticised by some for this reinvention. The same with All Saints. I think that the songwriting is as strong on Saints & Sinners as it is on All Saints. I am going to get to a positive review of the album in a minute.

Saints & Sinners did not original have that title. According to Dot Music in November 1999, All Saints had finished their long-awaited second studio album. One that was slated to come out in the spring of 2000. The fact that it gained a new (and better) title and was pushed back showed that it was not an entirely smooth process:

“All Saints have finally completed the much anticipated follow up to their million selling first album 'Never Ever'. Shaznay, Nicole, Natalie and Mel have finished working on 'I Need The Mic' which is due out in March/April 2000."The album is finished and we are now mastering it," said Shaznay Lewis. "It has great tracks on it. We were even working on the mixing desks. We wanted to get involved with every aspect of the album right down to the final version."

The new album will also feature the title track to the new Leonardo di Capro film 'The Beach'. Other artists who have contributed to the soundtrack include Blur, Moby, New Order, Leftfield, Asian Dub Foundation, Goldie and Faithless.

All Saints had their last hit in December with 'War Of Nerves'. The girls schedule this year has been dominated by acting as Nicole, Natalie and Mel all appear in the feature film 'Honest' which is directed by Eurythmics star Dave Stewart.Meanwhile we can reveal that David Blatt (father of All Saint Melanie Blatt) has been busy chatting to fans in our All Saints discussion area.

Using the alias byebyebenson (a reference to the band's former manager John Benson), Blatt criticised Benson and the US arm of their record company, London Records. A spokesman for London Records declined to discuss the matter but added 'he is free to criticise if he wishes'”.

The Guardian offered a four-star review for Saints & Sinners. If some felt the album was too close in sound to Spice Girls or Madonna’s Ray of Light, the reality was that there are shared elements. But All Saints have always been distinct. Saints & Sinners is distinctly their work and voice. An album that offers up some huge hits and some interesting deeper cuts. A group that released an album that endures to this day. I think that it has not aged. You can hear artists today who have aspects of Saints & Sinners in their work. A modern-sounded album from 2000, I hope there are some positive words written about it closer it its twenty-fifth anniversary on 16th October:

“That's the trouble when a band becomes bigger than their music. The watching world notes that Gomez have released about six albums in the three years since All Saints' 10m-selling debut, and begins to question the Saints' commitment. Because they've been enjoying their success too publicly - turning up to the opening of envelopes with lunkish celebrity beaux - no one cut them any slack as the release of their second album was delayed time and again. It's finally materialised, but too late to retain the sympathy of the very people who originally welcomed them as a streetwise alternative to the Spice Girls.

There's a ratio governing the balance of work and play that goes like this: for every night of Met Bar shenanigans with Liam Gallagher, you need to put in a month of solid studio graft to avoid a reputation as pop tarts. All Saints got the balance wrong. Already the bad reviews are appearing as avenging critics hit them where it hurts. Deep down, the foursome are serious about their music, and to have Saints & Sinners written off as "dull" and "unconvincing" (and that's just Q magazine) must be wrenching.

It's also unfair and inaccurate. Saints & Sinners is sophisticated, quiversome and anything but dull. Gomez are dull, the Beautiful South are dull; this is edible. Compared with the Spice Girls' new stuff, it's the veritable gold standard of commercial pop - the sort of frothiness-with-extra-dance-vitamins that has turned Madonna's career around. Now imagine if Madonna could actually sing...

Singing is Saints & Sinners' core value, the one constant amid a mixed bag of R&B flourishes and William Orbit ambient twiddles. The chemistry of the four voices is potent in a way that has no British equivalent. Only Americans like Destiny's Child have a similar gift for finessing complex arrangements and getting into the heart of a melody. Pure Shores, this year's biggest-selling single, illustrates it perhaps best of all, with sinuous, overlapping vocals that would be haunting even without Orbit's sparse production. Almost uniquely in current UK teen-pop, there's no need to make allowances. Blatt, songwriter Shaznay Lewis and the errant Appleton sisters just have it.

Although the record, like their debut, was produced by men, including old cohort K-Gee and Blatt's bass-playing fiancé Stuart Zender, the result is a confederacy of equals, with the band imposing their personalities on every song (they seem to have only two moods, kittenish and kick-ass, but no matter). So although Orbit may receive most of the kudos for getting Pure Shores and Black Coffee to number one, it's mesdames Saints who lend radiance to his twinkling fairy lights. And while K-Gee will probably end up getting the credit for the stylish R&B of All Hooked Up and Distance, the sassy Saintly input is what makes them work.

Distance, in fact, is their most evocative song ever. Written by Shaznay while the others were off fruitlessly making the film Honest, it exactly captures the feeling of separation and boasts their most beautiful harmonies. Natalie Appleton makes an unexpectedly decent writing debut with the luminous Dreams, which gets the full Orbit spectral-bleeps treatment for a winning result. Melanie Blatt also offers a song of her own with the dreamlike I Feel You, which is dedicated to her daughter but not as yuk as such things usually are. Surrender is this album's hormonal Booty Call, though it's spoiled by an Appleton sounding like a Dawson's Creek airhead: "See, like, I believe when two people meet and express themselves it's really sweet..." Like, really?

They have most fun with R&B/hip hop hybrids such as All Hooked Up and Whoopin' Over You, party-like affairs featuring scratching, rapping and the Saints giving it their west-London best. While it's ludicrous that they've even attempted lines like "I know you want a piece of my ass/ Don't you know a guy like you won't last?", these are just blips on an otherwise cloudless horizon. Even Saints aren't perfect, but they come close enough on this album”.

Perhaps not one of the biggest albums of 2000, it is important recognise twenty-five years of an album from one of the most popular groups of their generation. In 2018, when talking with Classic Pop about their then-new album, Testament, All Saints reflected on some of the struggles of Saints & Sinners. How they have more control of their voice and music now:

“The band’s superb new album Testament distils everything we’ve grown to love about the foursome over the past 20 years, but also pushes their sound forwards.

“The main thing that we wanted to do our way was the new record itself,” explains Shaznay, the Ivor Novello Award-winning chief songwriter in the group. “When we made our albums beforehand, tied to a label, it was all based on sales and being in that environment. I don’t think we made the best albums that we could. I think we’ve made better albums under our own umbrella. We compromised a lot back in the day, but we were young. You’re being asked by the biggest A&R people in the country to come up with hits and that’s all they’re concentrating on.

“By the time we got to our second album [2000’s Saints & Sinners], you don’t actually trust your own ears, and you think they should know better. But that’s not actually how it should be either. An artist should be making the music that they want to make, and if it fails, then it fails. At least it’s made authentically. Having said that, I feel actually that there hasn’t been a lot of things we’ve had to say no to. Because of the music we’ve made, the right things have come along with it.”

“With Testament, we funded it ourselves. Literally, we’ve been left to do exactly what we want to do with it,” Natalie adds”.

I do hope that we get more music from All Saints. It is great we get to celebrate Shaznay Lewis’s fiftieth birthday on 14th October. Two days later, she and her bandmates can look back at twenty-five years of Saints & Sinners. 2000 was a heady and really busy time for All Saints. I wanted to provide some kind words to Saints & Sinners. One that has some incredible tracks on it. If not as cohesive and solid as their 1997 debut, it is still a fantastic album that is rightly getting a twenty-fifth anniversary edition that should appeal to those who heard the album in 2000 and those who are newer to All Saints. In spite of some critical spikiness and dismissiveness, Saints & Sinners is…

MUCH more Heaven than Hell.

FEATURE: Can You Dig It? Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley: Life in the '90s

FEATURE:

Can You Dig It?

Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley: Life in the '90s

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I do love how…

IN THIS PHOTO: Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball host the Dig It podcast/PHOTO CREDIT: Scarlet Page

two radio queens, Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley, have teamed up for a great podcast. Though it is not brand-new, I am writing about it now because I want to tie it to a recent interview they gave to The Sunday Times. About surviving life in the 1990s. The podcast, Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball, can be accessed here. You can also stream it on Spotify. Check out the podcast’s Instagram. They alternate the episode structure. Every other episode has the sub-header, ‘DIG IN’. This is a fairly new addition to the podcast. There has been relatively little written about if from the press. I suspect, in an age where the young, trendy and fashionable are still drooled over and people, especially women, over a certain age are seen as irrelevant or bygone, that people have skipped it on principle. However, it is a fantastic podcast with two close friends. Two incredible BBC Radio 2 broadcasters who are legendary and hugely loved, it is great to hear them chat about topics such as lawn care (as the podcast explores the home and garden) and why it is harder to make friends later in life. We know about the podcast now but, back in June, Deadline posted news about a then-untitled podcast pairing two icons of the broadcasting and T.V. worlds:

“In their first ever show together, the broadcasters and presenters will lift the curtain on the “messy and beautiful reality of living well.”

No title yet revealed, but the pod will launch mid-July, the duo engage in heartfelt and unfiltered conversations about everyday life such as discuss raising a family, cultivating gardens, home improvements, careers, fostering healthy habits and aging.

The pair have been friends and worked alongside each other for nearly three decades, primarily as DJs at the BBC, and also on classic British 1990s shows The Word and Big Breakfast. As such, Persephonica is billing the podcast as “a warm and welcoming conversation with old mates.”

Dino Sofos’ Persephonica is known for podcasts such as Miss Me?, hosted by Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver; Dua Lipa: At Your Service; and the Westminster essential Political Currency. It also created the UK’s biggest daily podcast, The News Agents, but no longer makes it following a split with UK audio giant Global, as Deadline revealed in April last year.

Two episodes will each week with special bonus content for subscribers, and the show will be fully visualised on YouTube. Special guests and close friends are expected to appear, to chat about their family life, careers, life experiences, homes and gardens.

“I’ve been part of some amazing duos over the years, but I’m not sure any will quite compare to this new adventure,” said Whiley. “Starting a podcast with one of my oldest broadcasting friends – and let’s face it, doppelgänger – Zoe, is so exciting.

“The show will open a world of conversation on topics we don’t normally discuss on air and, importantly, will bring us much closer to the listeners and fans who have made our careers so special over the last 30 years.”

“I’m so super-excited to dive into the world of podcasting with my girl Jo, I’ve got so much love and respect for her – she’s been a true lifeline,” added Ball. “Our friendship goes back 30 years, to our days on The Word and The Big Breakfast. We’ve grown up together, personally and professionally, along with our listeners”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Leckie for The Sunday Times

Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball is very open and honest. In August, Whiley shared a tragic story of their family cat and how her husband accidentally ran it over. It is vulnerable and personal, which differs from a lot of podcasts, which are either angry, edgy, impersonal or cold. Those that go deeper and feel warmer and more heartfelt always leave a bigger impression on me. In any case, go and subscribe to the podcast and follow all the episodes. When the podcast was fresh in July, this is what The Guardian wrote about it: “BBC broadcasting besties Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley follow those who have enjoyed new freedom in the podcast world. In a breezy series, which was nearly called “Jo and Zo’s Big Bushes”, they invite listeners to ask them questions on subjects from kids to gardening, interiors, music and the menopause. What they won’t be talking about, Zoe confirms, is band members they slept with in the 90s. Sorry!”. It is a great podcast that explores hefty and serious topics but also has a lighter tone. It is not restricted to a certain age group or demographic. What struck my eye and ear is how people will ask about Whiley and Ball’s experiences when they were coming through. Back in the '90s. An era when, between them, they were hosting T.V. shows and broadcasting on the BBC, they had this fame and notoriety. Zoe Ball especially linked to the ladette culture of the time. Fellow broadcasters like Sara Cox also included. Maybe gaining a reputation as being quite hedonistic or excessive, I feel a lot of it was them being caught up in what was expected in the decade. Now, both Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball might look back at regret. Not entirely, though some fog her hazier memories, tabloid photos and headlines might still leave them cold. The reality is that life for women in the public eye in the 1990s was especially challenging and toxic. This is something that we often overlook and see through rose-tinted glasses.

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A post shared by Dig It with Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley (@digitpod)

Whilst we mark big album anniversaries of classics from the 1990s and have entire shows dedicated to that decade, we often overlook what it was like for women then. From artists to those behind the scenes and women working for big radio stations, they did not get the same treatment and have the same experience as many of their male contemporaries. I read an interview from The Sunday Times from Saturday (6th September). A new chat with these two great, not only were they talking about their podcast and what the brilliant Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball is about. A big conversation was what it was like for them in the 1990s. There are some portions of the interview that I want to include:

“They met in the early 1990s when both worked at the production company Planet 24 on two of TV’s edgiest shows at the time: Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast (Ball) and the unmissable Friday-night post-pub The Word (Whiley). In 1997 Ball co-hosted Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, Whiley presented the lunchtime show. As two blondes, they joke, they’ve always been mistaken for each other.

I’d been surprised that Ball hadn’t teamed up with fellow Radio 2er Sara Cox, who in the lairy 1990s was her hard-partying “ladette” partner. “Sara already has a podcast!” Ball and Whiley shriek simultaneously, clearly horrified this will be interpreted as a dissing (indeed, Cox hosts The Teen Commandments with Clare Hamilton). When I spoke to Whiley two years ago, she told me how relieved she’d been back then — when she and Ball were regularly fronting Top of the Pops — that Ball and Cox “took one for the team” for her female cohort, by posing for lads’ mags such as Loaded.

“It was very male and we just sucked it up, went with it, we were almost expected to play up to it a little bit,” Ball reflects of the era. “It’s only years later you look back and think, goodness me. It was actually [the 46-year-old singer] Sophie Ellis-Bextor [in her memoir] that undid me, reading some of the stuff she went through and how what she could see of women in the media was Sara and I.

Yet Nineties nostalgia is tinged with Gen X guilt, for having come of age not only to a banging soundtrack, but in a period of peace and prosperity. “I find myself apologising to my kids now when they say, ‘We should have lived in the 1990s.’ I really appreciate how blessed we were to be venturing into the world then, when finding a job wasn’t that competitive really,” Whiley says.

While Ball had connections (her first job was presenting the BBC preschool show Playdays), Whiley was the daughter of a couple who ran a post office in Northamptonshire. “I just wrote letters, real actual letters and someone gave me a job. Today it’s really stressful and heartbreaking. It worries me a lot.” Nor do they buy into the “slacker” Gen Z perception. “They’re really, really hard workers, they have to say yes to anything and everything, to be the best of the best”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley with Jayne Middlemiss in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Nicky Johnston/BBC

There are mixed feelings towards the '90s. Both were very much part of an industry that treated women as objects and sexualised them at every opportunity. There was misogyny and sexism and, even though Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley did not court the same sort of controversy as some of the biggest acts of the day, they were often dragged in the papers. Or celebrated as these hard-drinking ladettes. The idea of them being asked in photoshoots to pose in a certain way or things being judged on their looks rather than their talent. That still happens today. It was, by all accounts, quite a sadly traditional and conventional experience that so many women faced. Now, with hindsight and clearer vision, we can rightly call out the attitudes and toxicity of the time. However, as they say in that interview, there were some good times. Happy memories. The revival or '90s music and new lease from bands such as Supergrass and Oasis, sort of connects them back to that decade…albeit with wiser shoulders and experience. I do think that there is still this glamourisation of the era. Zoe Ball had some turbulent and rocky experiences in the Nineties. That was made tabloid fodder. The scandalisation of women and the intrusion into their personal lives. Whilst we herald the music and culture of the time, I feel like some of the darker and dirtier elements, especially the way women were viewed and what they had to endure, is not discussed – or else seen as insignificant. However, rather than purely dwell on the lack of kindness and progressiveness of the 1990s, we can see that decade as hallowed in a way. The music that came out at the time. The fact Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball met then. Sharing their experiences of the days. Also, in the process, that will give guidance and support to many women in the public eye now that are facing scrutiny and toxicity. Intrusion and invasion of their privacy. I would urge everyone to listen to Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. Their remarkable friendship, shared experiences and connection makes it a compelling listen. A brilliant offering…

FROM two queens of broadcasting.

FEATURE: When the Cameras Stop Rolling and the Crowds Go Home… Imagining the Private Kate Bush Behind the Scenes

FEATURE:

 

 

When the Cameras Stop Rolling and the Crowds Go Home…

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

Imagining the Private Kate Bush Behind the Scenes

__________

I was going to write…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of Cloudbusting in 1985

another feature about Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting but, as I recently did so for a run of features to mark the fortieth anniversary of its sister album, Hounds of Love (which turned forty on 16th September), I will start off mentioning it and expand. The single turns forty on 14th October, so I needed to highlight it. That song is fascinating because of its video. That is not the only fascinating element, though its video was a huge production. Featuring the late Donald Sutherland, it was a like a short film. Shot around the White Horse Hill in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire (you can read more about this location in this excellent new book), I can imagine there were these moments of contemplation and quiet. No doubt her and Donald Sutherland chatted in each other’s trailer/dressing rooms. Sutherland had a word with Bush about smoking marijuana before filming the Cloudbusting music video, and Bush responded that she hadn't been straight for nine years. It is these kind of moments that we do not really think about often. What happens when the camera stop rolling or just before they start. I often imagine what happened on the set of music videos or just before a live performance. The Cloudbusting video is an example where Bush and team would have travelled to set and there would have been these conversations about the video and the excitement of what was ahead. I think about Bush waiting on stage to do a performance. Maybe Top of the Pops in 1978 when Wuthering Heights was climbing the charts. Perhaps just about to go and perform a set for The Tour of Life in 1979. Before the Dawn in 2014. The sort of conversations that were happening before and after. Sometimes Bush has spoken about these times in interviews, though most of the truth and all these possible stories will never be told.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the make-up chair whilst filming for The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

It is the video shoots that are especially interesting. You know there would have been a lot of setting up shots and technical equipment chat. If everything was working and what needed to be done. I feel there would have been hours of Bush waiting around to go on set. However, I often dream of these great videos and what was happening between takes. Some of these shots are captured by John Carder Bush (her brother) for his 2015 book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow. Where she was sitting with extras or in make-up. I do love these moments. Guido Harari also documented many of the behind the scenes moments during filming of the 1993 short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. Those videos for Hounds of Love would have been bustling with activity and chat. Think about the title track. Kate Bush directed that video. Directing herself, there would not have been much time for contemplation and peace. Instead, she was thinking about the shots and her acting too. I’d love to think that there were these chats with costume designers ands wardrobe. Small talk about what she was wearing, but also her thoughts on the video. As director, Bush would have been getting advice from others, but also would have been keeping the actors and crew up to date with everything happening. Like song outtakes and demos, it is fascinating learning about the components that go into making a video what it is. We don’t have a lot of that kind of footage. Some artists have behind the scenes documentaries or there are interviews with them where they are shooting a music video and we get to see those moments away from the camera. There is not anything like that for Kate Bush. Bits of her in the studio though, for the most part, we have to imagine what that would have looked like.

As Cloudbusting is forty on 14th October, it did get me thinking about that video and the fascinating chats and moments that not only would have shed more light on the Kate Bush that we only really see in interviews. It also gives us window into what the shoots were like. I think about photoshoots too. What was being discussed before and after the shot. We are unlikely to ever get unheard demos and early takes from Kate Bush. Audio from the vault. There are some of these candid and rare photos where we see her on sets or in studios. Catching her playful or unguarded, these are among my favourites. As much as I love the finished product, my mind wanders and I can’t help but speculate what was happening before and after! Into the studio when she was recording an album. Life at Abbey Road Studios for Never for Ever or The Dreaming. Maybe bonding with her team or there being these private moments between her and Del Palmer (her boyfriend until the 1990s, he worked as a musician and engineer on many of her albums). I know Kate Bush, as a producer, had this special relationship with the musicians. There would have been games and times when she was having fun with them. You can see in some photoshoots how there would have been a lot of laughter behind the scenes. I think The Tour of Life is my favourite scenario to imagine. The rehearsals and what happened after the shows. Bush in a new place exploring and what she and her crew were talking about in transit. Maybe the Cloudbusting set is the most vivid and epic, so that would have heralded a lot of interesting times. However, there must be stiff competition from Experiment IV (from 1986’s The Whole Story), Army Dreamers (Never for Ever, 1980) and There Goes a Tenner (from 1982’s The Dreaming).

 THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and an extra during the shoot/rehearsals for the There Goes a Tenner video in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

I will wrap up in a minute. A happy forty-fifth anniversary to Cloudbusting for 14th October. It made me step inside the video and what was going on before the camera rolled and after a scene was completed. Also, the sort of dialogue and snapshots that you could have imagined when Kate Bush performed live. I am not sure whether we have seen the last of Kate Bush as a live performer. She has not emphatically ruled it out. Same with interviews. If there is a new album, then there will be moments where journalists get to meet Kate Bush at her home. What goes on then? The chat and tea before the interview starts. The sort of conversations that would take place. Now, as Kate Bush’s son, Bertie, is grown up and is not at home, what is the energy and feel of the Bush household with her partner, Dan McIntosh? Also, what about possible music videos? I don’t think Bush will ever appear in any of her video. I suppose there will have to be photoshoots for promotional reasons. Will Kate Bush work with a new photographer or stick with a trusted pair of hands? If she is directing a music video, what form will that take? The life of Kate Bush has so many facets and layers. We all know about the videos and the visible stuff. However, many of us want to go deeper. Kate Bush has not really allowed much out into the world that is private and behind the scenes. I am guessing there would have been video shot at times that is personal. Photos from various recording sessions she will not allow out. What we have is pretty good, though there is that tantalising possibility that there is stuff in the archive that will never see the light of day. Because of Cloudbusting’s fortieth anniversary, I imagined the conversations where Donald Sutherland tried to dissuade Kate Bush from smoking weed. What they were talking about before shots. The sort of interactions and scenes that unfolded. These are the unseen and private moments that…

LIFT the spirits.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Catherine Marks

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Vintage King

Catherine Marks

__________

I usually reserve…

IN THIS PHOTO: Catherine Marks receives her Music Creative Award at Women In Music Awards from Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell

this series for amazing women in music. Artists. However, I have so much love and respect for Catherine Marks. I have written about her before. One of the best and most successful producers in the world, I have spoken about her in the sense of there not being many women in professional studios. Whilst many female artists self-produce, there are still not that many in studios. The industry does not to address this and redress this. Catherine Marks no doubt has inspired so many aspiring women to go into production (and engineering). To recognise her brilliance, I am going to get to some fairly recent interviews with her. I am going to head to a couple of older interview first. In terms of her discography, Marks’ work includes production on boygenius' the record, The Mysterines' Reeling, Alanis Morissette's Such Pretty Forks in the Road (co-produced), and The Wombats' Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life (co-produced). Other significant works include producing for The Amazons, Frank Turner, and Manchester Orchestra. I want to start out with an interview from 2023 (there are a few on YouTube like this that I do not have space to include, but I would advise people to check out) that was published by The Hollywood Reporter. Nominated for GRAMMYs for her work as producer on boygenius’s the record, it did win, among other things, Best Alternative Music Album. Though it was not a standalone producer nod, it did break boundaries in the fact that not many albums with a woman as a producer win GRAMMY awards. Marks was helping to break down the boys’ club and pave the way for other women:

“Catherine Marks had just graduated with her master’s degree in architecture, but before launching that career she wanted to take a stab at another passion: music. So the Australian took off for six months, moved to London and got a job at a recording studio.

“I started making tea there,” she says with a light laugh. Fast-forward nearly 20 years, and it’s clear Marks made the right decision. She trained and worked alongside Grammy-winning creatives Flood and Alan Moulder, and went on to work with Alanis Morissette, St. Vincent, The Killers, Wolf Alice, The Wombats, Foals and more.

This year she’s been nominated for three Grammys, thanks to her work on the record, the highly regarded debut album by boygenius (the ironically named indie supergroup consisting of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus). Marks, who produced and engineered the record, is up for record of the year for “Not Strong Enough” and best engineered album (non-classical), and could make Grammy history Feb. 4 with her nom for album of the year.

“I didn’t even know that was going to happen,” Marks says of her triple nom. “I was sort of like, ‘I’d love to go, but would I even be invited?’ I would celebrate for ‘the boys,’ ” as she refers to the band, “but little old me getting to go to the Grammys, I don’t know.”

The few female producers who have won album of the year have been artists who self-produced their own projects, including Lauryn Hill, Taylor Swift and Arcade Fire’s Régine Chassagne and Sarah Neufeld. Singer Autumn Rowe won the award for co-producing two tracks on Jon Batiste’s We Are and Imogen Heap won for co-producing a song on Swift’s 1989 — and those were in years when the Grammys awarded all producers on an album. Now, nominees have to produce at least 20 percent of an album to be nominated or win. Marks, in contrast, produced all 12 tracks on the record alongside boygenius.

A recent USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study reported that only 3.4 percent of producers were women in 2022. No woman has ever won the Grammys’ coveted non-classical producer of the year award in the show’s 65-year-history.

When she’s asked about the lack of female producers in music, Marks has some theories. “When I started, I was the only one. So I wonder if it was a case of ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’ ” she says. Marks notes that, culturally, the studio can be a tough place for women. “I definitely never saw it or experienced or perceived it that way, but I think it can be a pretty brutal situation.”

More than three-quarters of women in music say they have been treated differently because of their gender, according to the Women in the Mix study published by The Recording Academy, Arizona State University and the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship last year. The study also reported that women in the industry are overworked and underpaid.

Marks is excited about changing the tune at the upcoming Grammys, which is dominated by female nominees in the top three categories, among them Swift, SZA, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey, Janelle Monáe, Dua Lipa and Victoria Monét. And though Marks is the only non-artist female producer up for album of the year, several female engineers are also up for the prize, including Sarah Tudzin (boygenius), Jayda Love (Monáe), Yáng Tan (Monáe) and Laura Sisk, who engineered albums by Swift, Del Rey and Batiste, and is a triple nominee in the big category.

“It’s changing a lot,” Marks says of the industry. “I think you will see that shift because the women who are starting, or have started in the last five to 10 years, their names will start coming up.”

More will follow in their wake, Marks predicts. “Other young engineers and producers will go, ‘Oh my God, I could do that, too,’ because there’s more visibility”.

Not that Catherine Marks is short of accolades. And all rightly deserved! Her honours include the Music Producers Guild (MPG) Awards for Breakthrough Producer of the Year in 2016 and Producer of the Year in 2018 and 2024. She also received the Music Business Worldwide (MBW) A&R Award for Producer of the Year in 2023 and the Women In Music Award for Music Creative in 2024. Catherine Marks lives in London, though she was born in Melbourne, Australia. She moved to London in 2005 to work as an assistant engineer. Before moving to some 2024 interviews and one from this year, I want to include this interview (I am not sure when it was published as there is no date on it):

“So what has kept you at this career? Your family's on the other side of the world, you come to London and you're sitting in sessions for 12 hours a day.

I think part of it is just determination. I think that a lot of people thought that I wouldn't last very long, that I was doing the wrong thing, or that it wasn't what I wanted to do. But it turned out that it was. Even though I found it difficult initially, just being an invisible nobody, I slowly started to realize how crucial that aspect was, and how you were suddenly part of a team. I wanted to be part of making music, and it didn't matter how.

What do you think you bring to a session?

I'm very organized. I think it's all about seeing the big picture. Everyone's got this common goal. It's thinking about what I can do to help everyone realize what they want to achieve. I still feel like it's not about me and my vision. I think, in that way, I'm quite reactive. It's about the energies and the excitement; all the emotion, or whatever that goes on on that particular day, with those particular people. Creatively, that's definitely the way I work. What excites me at that time? Obviously I've got a plan of what we need to achieve; but musically, and emotionally, it's very experimental. It's the happy accidents that color and shape the fundamentals of a song. That's definitely what excites me. I remember asking Flood a stupid question like, "What did you do back then [on tape] if someone played out of time, or sung out of tune?" He'd say, "Turn them up!" I know he was being flippant, or annoyed by my question, but I took that to heart. You either make the most of it, or find a way that you can work around it.

What do you see in the future?

I'm working so much at the moment that time is just getting compressed, more and more, into ridiculous schedules. I feel like I'm now coming back to working around the clock. I have a couple of weeks off coming up, which I'm really excited about. I'm just going to sleep. But I don't know what's next. Hopefully I can maintain the interest there is, with the people who want to work with me. Some of the productions I've been doing over the past few years are coming out now, which is exciting. I don't get offended if I don't get chosen for a job though. I think it's so much about personalities, and the dynamic that you have with the band. You're going to be spending loads of time with them, so they need to respect and trust you”.

 

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Earlier this year, Catherine Marks shared on her Instagram account that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Having lived with pain for years, the news was both a relief and a huge shock. I am not sure whether she has been given the all clear or is still living with cancer. However, it was a very power and personal post that led to a wave of love and support. I have see recent posts where she does appear to be back in the studio and working. I hope that she is almost back to full health, or at least is in a position where she can work without that many obstructions or pain. I am going to bring in parts of an interview from November 2024 from Music Week. One of the winners of that year’s Women In Music Awards, Catherine Marks discussed how women as producers have their achievements politicised rather than celebrated. She was asked if there are enough resources to support women and encourage them into production and studios:

“Catherine Marks is a force of nature, one of the music industry’s most highly-regarded producers, and this year’s winner of the Music Week Women In Music Awards Music Creative honour.

With a career that has so far spanned over 20 years, Marks has been renowned for her work in the studio as a producer and mixer, as well as a campaigner, advocating for better recognition of female producers.

"There are a lot more of us than people seem to think!" she stated, in an interview with Music Week earlier this year.

When you spoke to Music Week earlier this year, you said that you were frustrated with how women’s achievements are often politicised rather than celebrated. What can the business be doing more of to shift the focus onto inspiring women instead of tokenising those in more senior roles?

“That’s the issue, I feel like the women who already exist in the industry and have been working hard for a long time, they haven't been celebrated enough, there was always a lack of that. If you don’t educate everyone in the industry that there are incredible women working in it, then young people don’t know about them, and you can’t be what you can’t see. I felt that, while it is so important to carry on the conversation about why there has been a barrier for women who want to enter into this side of the industry, acknowledging those who have had success in their career – of which there are so many globally – is needed. When I first started, there were women who had been there before me, but there weren’t any I knew of. As time went on, there were more entering the industry, but it takes time to build a profile, so of course people were still not aware of them. Now, however, there are women who do have a profile and are making significant gains, so if we celebrate them – whilst talking about the work that can be done to bring in the younger generations –  that will help. It’s so important that the decision makers, the managers and the record labels are aware of those producers, songwriters, creatives who are available. But the culture is definitely shifting, which is great.”

Do you think there are enough resources in place to support young female producers coming up nowadays?

“I hope so, I think we’re living through a shift. But again, it’s about showing the representation and, ultimately, in order to have a career you need to have access to particular projects. Especially for myself, I’m not an artist, record labels, managers and artists come to me to make records, and that’s because they’re aware of me, so it’s all about making people aware of all the others who are around. It’s also about how you access that situation. It’s an ongoing thing, but having award shows like this are really important because it’s a celebration of how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved, and also just a lovely experience to be in a room of all these incredible women.”

You’ve previously spoken about how, when you were coming up in the industry, you didn’t want to step on people’s toes or seem overconfident. How did you establish a more confident voice in your work?

“I wonder if it was a combination of a lot of things – one being that I was very inexperienced in the industry and, coming from an architecture background to making tea in studios, I thought that I had to be invisible to be able to learn. Then, as my experience grew, as did the industry, there was this natural shift where I started to feel really confident in what I was doing and what I could deliver. I remember someone telling me to always be myself, and for a long time I felt like I could only show a little part of myself, but because I live in the studio, it’s a hard thing to put on an act, and in the end I did just have to be me! I work with people now who I love and are inspiring, which allows me a real sense of personal freedom.”

What is the key piece of advice you would give to younger creatives entering the industry now? Is there anything you wish you’d known when you started out?

“This industry, as I imagine a lot of industries are, is a trust-based one in that even if your role is just making tea, it’s so important that you get that right and put as much passion into it as you would if you were a producer. It’s also such a unique environment, often you’re working long hours in a small room with a core team. Thankfully, there is a lot more mental and physical health support and awareness of peoples’ lifestyles now, but even so, your role is always significant and you often can't 'call in sick'. This business is small and it is about building a reputation. That's something I didn’t know that when I started out, I was just like, ‘Goddamnit, I’m making tea!’ or ‘I’m just hoovering!’ But those things are important, and people pay attention”.

I want to skip back a little further to July 2024. Another interview with Music Week, Catherine Marks talked about conquering her fears, representation and she also paid tribute to Steve Albini (who sadly died last May). I think the last time that I spotlighted Catherine Marks was in 2023. I am long overdue a return to her brilliant career and work. One of the world’s greatest producers:

“Marks, who tasted her first Grammy success earlier this year with Boygenius' debut album The Record (77,664 sales, OCC), reflected on how the wider industry could improve its treatment of producers.

“I think it’s about respecting the process," she said. "Traditionally, the producer’s role was there to help carry the burden - of the pressure, the finances, the budget, schedule - as well as facilitate for the artist to achieve whatever it is that they wanted to achieve.

"The roles outside the studio and the roles inside the studio are constantly evolving, so it’s about working together with the producers and the artists, and supporting them as they throw their blood, sweat and tears into something, and having a little bit of compassion...This is a very convoluted way of saying, ‘Just tell us we’re amazing.’ Because often, we’ll just need to hear it.”

Marks, who also took home the top accolade of Producer Of The Year from the Music Producers Guild Awards 2024 for her work on The Record, learned her craft as an engineer on records by acts including PJ Harvey, Foals and The Killers.

She has gone on to collaborate with the likes of Alanis Morissette, Wolf Alice, The Big Moon, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and The Amazons, while her relationship with Boygenius has extended beyond the studio - joining the band on stage at Gunnersbury Park last summer to recreate the scream she recorded on the track $20.

“That was the most terrifying experience of my life," Marks told Music Week. "I knew I had to say ‘yes’ when they asked me to do it because I was like, ‘This is an experience I can’t give up.’ But I’m pretty sure I was hyperventilating at the side of the stage before going on and then as soon as I walked out I think I blacked out.

"But then I just came to and I’m screaming and I see their three faces beaming back at me and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this chorus is still going, I still have to carry on screaming.’ And then, once it was over, I realised no one cared and no one knew who I was. But it was fun for me to do. It’s good to put yourself in terrifying situations because once you’ve done it, it’s like, ‘Oh, I want to do that again.’”

Marks has spent much of her career advocating for better treatment and recognition of female producers.

"I do understand that the conversation is important and always will be, because it appears as if there are not that many women in the industry," she said. "And I understand that there are these percentage figures, but that [relates to] what is in the charts…

"I think there are a lot of people who are producing who might not necessarily be working on the kind of music that would chart. I know that I don’t all the time."

Marks namechecked Steph Marziano, Marta Salogni, Manon Grandjean, Jennifer Decilveo, Alex Hope and Laura Sisk as ones to watch in her field.

"There are a lot more of us than people seem to think," she added. "Also, what’s frustrating is politicising that, rather than celebrating the achievements of the women who are doing really well, to encourage the next generation. I wish there was more of that”.

Speaking with Vintage King earlier in the year, they asked this super-producer twenty questions. We get an insight into her favourite gear, studio routines and what she has coming up. In terms of her work, you can check out her official website and keep abreast on her Instagram page. This is one of the most important women in music. We do not often highlight the relevance and role of producers. Especially when it comes to women. This is a trailblazer and pioneer who is helping to break down walls and ensure that more women are seen in studios:

“You’ve worked on some incredible projects. Can you think of any familiar thread that runs between all of them?

That's a really good question. It's hard for me to say sonically whether there is. I mean, there's always a little part of me that makes its way into the records I’m a part of, but I think the common thread is the artists that I worked with and the chemistry that we have. That is always why I pick a project—because I would love to spend time with the artists, no matter what the genre is. I want to work with artists who inspire me.

That's more a philosophical thread, but I don't know—maybe there's a sonic thread. I like things that are a little bit rough around the edges and very human. So I'm always very conscious to maintain that element, to maintain the personality of the artist that I work with, and make sure that that comes through as a unique sonic identifier to whatever project that I'm working on.

Who's an artist you’d most like to work with next?

There are a few artists I’m really intrigued by: Ethel Cain, Kacey Musgraves, and Amyl and the Sniffers. I would also really love to work with Coldplay. I don't know why, but I’d love to make a live album with them. Kind of Parachutes again, if they wanted to go back and make that kind of record. I’d love that challenge. I mean, honestly, you know, people ask me that all the time and the only reason I'm answering it's because I saw the question before.

It’s rare I ever think, "Oh, I'd love to work with that artist." It's more, I meet the artists that approach me and again, it's whether they inspire me through that initial chemistry. I mean, I would've loved to have worked with Bowie. That would've been awesome, but in the 70s. There are a lot of my favorite records where I think, "God, I would've loved to have worked on that." And albums like Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk. Sometimes I think I wish I’d been a part of that record.

To be honest, I’m more often thinking of other producers I’d love to work with. I love that kind of collaboration.

Do you have a production philosophy, and does it differ from when you are mixing?

Production philosophy: I like to feel, so the way that I produce is very reactive. I never know what kind of journey we're going to go on, but I usually sort of have a plan. I've heard the demos, I’ve/we've done pre-production, and I've watched them play. Imagery will start to form. I guess it's sort of hard to explain. I like to see the mix, see the production, and see the music, if that makes sense. So perhaps I think about things in a three-dimensional way. I guess my approach to production is the same as mixing, in that I'm trying to get a sense of an emotion that also has a visual attached, which is also in three dimensions.

When I close my eyes, where am I? Where is the guitar placed? Can I reach out and touch it? That sort of thing. Where are the drums sitting? Are they sitting behind the speakers or right in front, to the left, or to the right? I'm building a three-dimensional thing. How can I make that read through something that has no dimension, essentially?

So, yeah, it’s a constant science experiment.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vintage King

Was there ever a point when you questioned if music was the right thing for you? And if so, how did you know to keep going?

That is a very good question. I think probably in the first three or four years, when I was assisting, and I was like, "Why have I not progressed?" I remember someone saying, “You've still got a long way to go.” So there was that point, which I think everyone goes through, when they're like, "How long do I have to put up with this shit?" and, "Will I progress?" I'm really grateful that I carried on.

I did have tunnel vision, and I knew where I wanted to get to, but when I got to that point, I was so grateful because I had the experience and understood how to deal with people, managers, and record labels. When I was under a lot of pressure, I was able to handle it. Whereas had I gone out on my own when I thought I was ready, I would never have been able to handle it. Reputation is such a massive thing in a relatively small industry of producers and engineers that, had I failed on the first hurdle, would I have recovered?

It wasn’t until I understood the studio dynamic that there was a point, probably around three years in, where I was just like, "Oh God, this is so hard and brutal;" the long hours, no social life, and the sacrifices. But deep down, I had this end goal in mind. I got some great advice from my peers and my mentors: "Just when you think that you're ready, you're not." The learning process was so important. I think, had I not persevered and accepted that, I wouldn't have been ready when I was in a position of responsibility.

As a producer, how do you approach pre-production? Or do you just dive in?

Pre-production is such an important aspect of making a record for me, because it's not only the part where you get to know the artists' personalities, but also the way that they play. It’s a springboard of ideas for how I'm going to record it. I've talked about it before, but what the album will look like, just being in a rehearsal room, not thinking about microphones or the sonics, but just feeling their energy. It really starts to spark ideas, and also it's a way for them to break down the song aspects, whether it's the groove, or the way that the guitars are being strummed, or the vocal metering and how that relates to the drum groove. I break all those things down and then build it up again with tiny little tweaks that make things a bit tighter and a bit stronger.

But it also means that they're learning the parts, so that when we actually get into the studio, while it's an extension of pre-production, it becomes more about performance rather than learning the parts on the go. I try to make the experience from pre-production to recording as seamless as possible. It's all rehearsal until it's not, basically. We're always trying, we're always experimenting, but if you have the basics and we've really honed in on those in pre-production, it means there's more room for exploration and experimentation while we're in the studio.

Do you have any upcoming projects that you’re excited about and can share with us?

I've just done this great record with an Australian band called Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers. We spent five weeks in Australia making the record in a residential studio, working six-day weeks. I think this album's so exciting, I’m very excited about it”.

I am going to finish on that note. As I started by saying, Catherine Marks is someone for whom I hold a lot of respect, love and affection. Considering the amazing albums she has produced and how she is both championing women in the industry and also calling out the fact that, even now, studios are male dominated. The work of women still undervalued. Despite experiencing health issues and setbacks, I feel things are going to be pretty busy for Catherine Marks. I cannot wait to see what comes from her…

GOING forward.

___________

Follow Catherine Marks

Official:

https://www.catherinejmarks.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/cjmarks/

Twitter:

https://x.com/cjmarks

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GYVuwoR9xM4iXaX2CZKES

FEATURE: Free As a Bird: The Importance of The Beatles’ Anthology 4

FEATURE:

 

 

Free As a Bird

The Importance of The Beatles’ Anthology 4

__________

I realise that I have…

spent a lot of time with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and The Beatles in general over the past month or two. I will move away until closer to December, when Rubber Soul turns sixty. However, with the upcoming release of Anthology 4, I need to return to them. Actually, these are expanded editions. I am writing a separate feature where I talk about Deluxe Editions of albums and artists like Taylor Swift who will release multiple versions of albums. How much is this costing diehard fans?! In the case of The Beatles, there is quite a lot of activity when it comes to reissues. We have seen several of the studio albums reissued on various formats. I am not sure if there are plans for Giles Martin and his team to reissue Rubber Soul or even A Hard Day’s Night with outtakes and extras. It is exciting that we get these reissues and expanded editions, as we get to hear outtakes ands demos. Getting a bigger and wider impression of an album compared to the finished studio release. The Anthology 4 releases are particularly intriguing, as we get to hear various takes and demos of Beatles songs from throughout their career. On 14th October, an Anthology book will be available:

“The landmark international bestseller—The Beatles’ own story, in their own words—reissued on the 25th anniversary of its first publication.

The Beatles Anthology is, uniquely, the story of The Beatles by The Beatles. Created with the full cooperation of Paul, George, Ringo, and Yoko Ono Lennon, it also includes the words of John, painstakingly compiled from sources worldwide. Interwoven with The Beatles' own memories are the recollections of such associates as road manager Neil Aspinall, producer George Martin, and spokesman Derek Taylor. From their years growing up in Liverpool through their ride to fame to their ultimate breakup, here’s the inside story.

The Beatles Anthology is, in effect, The Beatles autobiography.

The Beatles Anthology also features over 1300 images, most previously unpublished. Paul, George, Ringo, and Yoko Ono Lennon all opened their own archives just for this project, as did Apple, EMI, and others long associated with The Beatles, allowing the unprecedented release of photographs, documents, and other memorabilia from their homes and offices. The result is an extraordinary wealth of visual material brimming on each and every page”.

Depending on your budget, you can invest in a twelve-L.P. version of Anthology 4. Even though it is expensive, it is good value when you consider how that breaks down for that much music. It might be one of the most important releases, as we get to hear these demos and raw recordings. Some live recordings too. There is this staggering array of music for £319.99! Although a lot of fans can’t afford that, just consider what you are getting for that money:

“4 x 3LP albums in triple gatefold sleeves and slipcase + 4 x photo art cards in unique numbered envelope

The Anthology Collection 12LP set includes the three groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-1990s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the musical development of The Beatles from 1958 to the final single ‘Now And Then’ released in 2023.

Anthology 4 features 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of five classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes dating from 1963 to 1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’.

Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 26 tracks that have never previously been released on vinyl.

Pressed on 180g black vinyl, each 3LP album will be housed within a triple gatefold sleeve, featuring the original art, sleevenotes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3; Anthology 4 has brand new sleevenotes written by Kevin Howlett alongside photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art, and a 3/4 O-Card image of the band with detailed track listing.

The Beatles Store exclusive format will contain 4 x 12” band photo art cards in a custom black, numbered envelope (8500 total)”

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Of course, there will be a digital version of Anthology 4 available on 21st November. In the 1990s, three Anthology volumes were released. Anthology 3 took us to their final recordings in terms of the chronology. Between the volumes, we got to hear these early and alternative versions of songs that defined our childhood and young years. I think the fourth volume is going to be the definitive one. Some might say it is cashing in. However, thirty years after the first Anthology, it is a chance to own a slice of Beatles history. You can see all the Anthology options here. It is not only the music we will get and a book. There is an Anthology 4 documentary that will feature on Disney+. This feature explains more:

“The Beatles Anthology arrived in November 1995 as an eight-part TV documentary and three double albums of unreleased outtakes and alternate mixes (released over a 12 month period). Now 30 years on, this landmark examination of The Fab Four returns, offering remastered and remixed audio, restored visuals and new content, in the form of a fresh episode of the documentary and a fourth volume of music available in new 8CD and 12 LP Anthology Collection box sets. The book, issued in 2000, is also being made available again.

New physical music releases

In terms of the music, the new Anthology Collection box sets have been remastered by Giles Martin. The original three double albums are unchanged (remastering apart), but are joined by Anthology 4, newly curated by Giles, including 13 previously unreleased demos and session recordings and other rare tracks. This extra volume also includes new mixes of the 1995 and 1996 singles ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. They have been freshened up by original producer, Jeff Lynne, using de-mixed John Lennon vocals (the original ‘Free As A Bird’ music video has also been restored). ‘Now and Then’, the last Beatles song, is also on Anthology 4. There is no mention of Dolby Atmos Mixes of any of the 191 tracks that make up The Anthology Collection. That would be a massive undertaking, to be fair.

Both 8CD and 12LP box sets include the original sleeve notes for Anthology 1, 2 and 3; the new Anthology 4 includes track notes written by Kevin Howlett and an introduction compiled from 1996 interviews recorded with The Beatles’ close friend and adviser Derek Taylor. If you are wondering about the packaging, as far as I can tell, that rather dubious photo that has been chosen of The Beatles appears to be a ‘bellyband’ which is removable to reveal the classic Anthology artwork below. Phew!

Documentary coming to Disney+

The original eight episodes of The Beatles Anthology documentary series have been restored and remastered. These were originally screened on TV networks around the world (ITV in the UK) at the time and were released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1996 and then on DVD in 2003. They never made it to blu-ray and there is a question mark over whether that will now ever happen, since as with The Beatles Get Back and Let It Be, restored Beatles Anthology is coming exclusively to Disney+, beginning in late November.

The restoration has been overseen by Apple Corps’ production team, working with Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films & Park Road Post teams along with Giles Martin, who has created new audio mixes for the majority of the featured music.

There is now a completely new Episode Nine, including unseen behind-the-scenes footage of Paul, George and Ringo coming together between 1994 and 1995 to work on “The Anthology” and reflecting on their shared life as The Beatles.

The book

The Beatles Anthology book took so long to come to market (five years after the first episode and the first album was released) it felt like something of an afterthought at the time. That’s not to say it’s not an impressive tome and the 368-page book remains the only official Beatles Autobiography. It’s back in print for what is its 25th anniversary, although it appears to be exactly the same content as before, and as such is the least exciting element of this reissue campaign.

The 8CD and 12LP vinyl Anthology Collection box sets are released on 21 November, The Beatles Anthology documentary will screen on Disney+ from 26 November and the book is available from 14 October 2025”.

Some might say that this is a bit too much. With all these options. Is it better to have something more focused so that you get this true essence of the band?! Is the Anthology 4 release a bit unwieldy and unfocused? I think that having this expansive and definite collection of takes, demos and live recordings is a dream. Surviving members of The Beatles, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, will be around to see how fans take to it. Whilst the studio albums are immense, I think Anthology 4 is more powerful and intimate. We are listening to the process and some earlier versions. More involved with the creative process and development of the band compared to the final versions. Remastered and brand new, it is going to be exciting hearing these songs in a new light. Recently, Free As a Bird was remastered and reissued. Blending all the harmonics and elements beautifully, it have extra weight and gravity to a song that I remembering hearing back in 1995. This review nails why the remastered version is perfect:

“One of the worst-kept secrets of the last week has been the impending announcement of Anthology 4. A fourth instalment to the gold mine of The Beatles’ earliest and remastered recordings. It remains a project of Herculean efforts, one which seemed to be capped off nicely two years ago with Now and Then. But there is more in the archives. More worth sharing. We hold our breath and wait for Carnival of Light to be snatched out of the vault by Paul McCartney, dressed as a cross between Indiana Jones and the man on the cover of Trout Mask Replica. While we wait for this heist to take place, presumably after the North American Got Back dates, we have a remaster of Free as a Bird. It was certainly in need of sprucing up. There was nothing wrong with the original, though the new technology Peter Jackson has used on previous Fab Four projects is notable.

Free as a Bird is amplified with this mix. A clearer sound is presented, and that, effectively, is the major change. But what a change it is. A necessary one, too. We should not take for granted just how different a sound comes from this and the original. Free as a Bird, one of three originals worked on during the Anthology project, is given a touch-up, which brings a cleaner sound not just to John Lennon’s vocals but the acoustic guitar work, too. Those layers of instrumental brilliance are that little bit clearer. We can use this Free as a Bird remaster as an indication of how the rest of the project will sound. Granted, there will be changes here or there, not because of studio personnel but because of tape quality. Free as a Bird sounds magnificent, though. It doesn’t have that slight, uncanny valley feeling Now and Then had, nor the awful music video.

Vocal similarities between this and the work Paul McCartney featured on Flaming Pie is clear. You can tell it’s from the period, but the cleaner production injects new life into it. George Harrison, too, sounds fantastic. The vocal quality is continued, the three Beatles harmonising over some steady, crashing drum work from Ringo Starr. Like Now and Then, it’s as close as many generations will get to a fresh-sounding Beatles track. An added tambourine is the big change here. How a little instrumental flair can make such a major change is truly inspiring, and it works well here. It gives the song a lighter flourish, a detail which feels like more than an easter egg for returning listeners. It’s a change which breathes a little bit of new life into the song but does not overwhelm it, nor turn it into a whole new project.

Walking the line, not falling into hailing the old versions or overriding them either, is tricky. But trust in the Anthology process and hear out those changes. They are for the better, and a slightly louder, more present instrumental range, is clear. Remastering can often feel like a non-event, just take a look at the Pink Floyd discography, but it is the subtleties of these changes which can revitalise a song. Free as a Bird sounded good in ‘95, it sounds better in ‘25. Tech has come a long way in thirty years, and those touching lyrics Lennon penned on a tape still hold incredible meaning. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr all sound magnificent, be it in their vocal work or, in Ringo’s case, the instrumental steadiness. All of it sounds just right. A perfectly balanced remaster which is far stronger than the original”.

There will be more interviews and articles about Anthology 4 closer to its release in November. With the book out before then, it is another great year for fans of The Beatles. If we might not get a reissue and expanded edition of one of their studio albums again, there is always activity. I would like to think, in 2026 and 2027, there will be even more. I think 2027 marks seventy years since Paul McCartney and John Lennon first met. However, before then, we can enjoy the delights of Anthology 4. These are not just throwaway releases and music to listen to and discard. This is something to cherish and keep for years to come. To pass down to other people. The eight-C.D. and twelve-L.P. vinyl Anthology Collection box sets are released on 21st November, The Beatles Anthology documentary will screen on Disney+ from 26th November, and the book is available from 14th October. Early takes of some of the greatest music the world has ever seen, Anthology 4 is going to be an essential purchase…

FOR every Beatles fan.

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Little Richard

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Little Richard

__________

WHEN we think about…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ralph Morse/Life/Getty Images

the all-time most influential American artists, Little Richard comes close to the top of the list. The Beatles were fans of his, and they covered his work and performed some of his songs live. He undoubtably inspired Led Zeppelin, Freddie Mercury, Elton John and so many other titans. Born in Georgia in 1932, we lost the legend in 2020. I think the first song of his I heard was 1955’s Tutti Frutti. So exciting to me! I can understand why so many musicians have taken his music to heart. Little Richard was such an exhilarating performer. An architecture for thew Rock and Roll movement, few artists in music history are as important as Little Richard. I am going to get to a twenty-song mix that combines some of his best songs. A great starting point if you are not familiar with him. I want to first bring in a feature from The New Yorker that was published the day Little Richard died (9th May, 2020). A postscript that paid tribute to someone who helped transform music and paved the way for giants who, in turn, have inspired generations of artists and fans:

“The core of Little Richard’s career was brief—he recorded an incandescent string of hits in the mid-fifties and then went off to rediscover his faith. In the years that followed, he’d dip in and out of show business, and there were some inspired moments, but he was a comet, not a planet. The trail of light that he left behind was, and is, everywhere. Try to imagine Muhammad Ali without Little Richard’s winking persona, his swing and swagger (“I am the King!”). Try to imagine James Brown, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Elton John, and Prince without his electrical charge. Little Richard was an original, and he did not hesitate to remind his students of their debt. He once looked into a television camera and, with affection, told Prince, “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”

Rather than watch the news–––it can wait––go to YouTube and watch Little Richard’s performances of “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Rip It Up,” “She’s Got It,” “Lucille,” “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” “The Girl Can’t Help It,” “Good Golly Miss Molly.” Banging boogie-woogie time with his right hand and singing miles beyond anyone’s idea of a “register,” he is a human thrill ride. There is more voltage in one of those three-minute performances than there is in a municipal power station.

One of the underrated books in the pop music library is “The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock,” an authorized biography/oral biography, by Charles White. Calling on multiple voices, it tells a revolutionary, ecstatic, sometimes heartbreaking story. Richard Penniman was born in 1932 into a large, poor Christian family, in Macon, Georgia. His father was a brick mason and a bootlegger. One of Richard’s legs was shorter than the other, making him a source of mockery among other children. “They thought I was trying to twist and walk feminine,” he once told Rolling Stone. “The kids would call me faggot, sissy, freak.”

As a boy, Richard was raised in the Pentecostal Church and sang gospel on Sundays with a family group called the Penniman Singers and another group called the Tiny Tots Quartet. His earliest musical influences included Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Brother Joe May, the “Thunderbolt of the Middle West.” Even as a child singer, Richard was known for his high range and incredible volume. But, in his father’s eyes, he was unbearably effeminate and not to be tolerated. When Richard was a teen-ager, he was thrown out of the house and went to live with Ann and Johnny Johnson, a white couple who ran a local venue, the Tick Tock Club.

Richard was a poor student but, musically, he was a fast learner. He first learned to play the piano in church, but after hearing Ike Turner’s recording “Rocket 88,” and studying the style of S. Q. Reeder, Jr., better known as Esquerita, he adopted a pounding, mesmeric style. Throughout his teens, he was in and out of outfits like Buster Brown’s Orchestra (where he got the name Little Richard) and the Tidy Jolly Steppers. He sang, sometimes wearing a red evening gown, under the name Princess Lavonne, in Sugarfoot Sam’s Minstrel Show. He was serving his musical apprenticeship in the last days of these minstrel shows; he also inhabited a world of strippers and drag queens and brash comedians. He studied the flashy showmanship of Atlanta-based performers like Roy Brown, who had a hit with “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” and he adopted the pompadour and pancake makeup of the jump-blues singer Billy Wright. He played the Dew Drop Inn, in New Orleans, where the m.c. was a famous female impersonator and performer named Patsy Vidalia.

Little Richard signed with RCA Victor in the early fifties, but his career didn’t quite ignite. He was still washing dishes in a Greyhound bus station to make a living. Things changed in 1955, when Art Rupe of Specialty Records put him together with some stellar New Orleans players, including the drummer Earl Palmer and the saxophonist Lee Allen. On September 14th of that year, they recorded “Tutti Frutti,” a bawdy boogie-woogie that Little Richard had been performing in countless drag bars. It included lewd verses such as “Tutti Frutti, good booty / If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy.” At the instruction of the producer Robert (Bumps) Blackwell, a songwriter named Dorothy LaBostrie worked with Little Richard to tone down the lyrics. But it wasn’t so much the lyrics as the beat and the ecstatic yowl—“A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!”—that made the song a hit. The record sold widely to blacks and whites. (And it did even bigger business among white listeners when Pat Boone recorded it.) For the next couple of years, Little Richard was a star at the highest level of the new art of rock and roll.

In the late fifties, while touring Australia, Little Richard said that he saw a powerful vision in the sky that caused him to give up rock and roll, come home, and enroll in Oakwood Bible College, in Huntsville, Alabama. In the years to come, he made forays back into music, secular and religious, but he was always torn. When Little Richard played the Star Club, in Hamburg, the Beatles were his opening act. “He used to read from the Bible backstage, and just to hear him talk we’d sit around and listen,” John Lennon told an interviewer.

Despite Little Richard’s own ambivalence about rock and roll, his influence spread quickly, and it ran deep. In the Iron Range town of Hibbing, Minnesota, a high-school kid named Robert Zimmerman listened all night to faraway radio stations playing country music, blues music, and the first rock-and-rollers: Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Bill Haley, and, the one he loved the most, Little Richard. In his high-school yearbook, he wrote that his ambition was “to join ‘Little Richard.’ ” His high-school band, the Golden Chords, played Little Richard covers. At a talent show in Hibbing High’s unaccountably ornate auditorium, the principal yanked the curtain shut on the Golden Chords and their cover of a Little Richard tune. Zimmerman wore his hair in a high, poufy pompadour, just like his idol. “I was trying to look like Little Richard, my version of Little Richard,” he told an interviewer years later. “I wanted wild hair, I wanted to be recognized.” He left town and became a star in Greenwich Village with a new name: Bob Dylan.

It seemed evident that Little Richard both thrived on his sexuality but suffered terribly from the time that he had been cast out of his own home as a boy. Despite the flamboyance of his performances and his carriage, he never quite settled, publicly, on a sexual identity. Sometimes, he would say he was gay, sometimes bisexual, sometimes “omnisexual”; there were moments, feeling the weight of his religious background, when he even denounced homosexuality. As recently as 2017, in an interview with a Christian broadcaster, he talked about “unnatural affection.”

Chuck Berry, in his autobiography, recalls performing on the same bill as Little Richard at a school in Connecticut in the sixties. Little Richard, according to Berry’s account, asked Berry to come to his hotel room to “party.” Berry asked him if that meant just the two of them.

“Chuck, I’ve always wanted to perform with you since the first time I saw you on television and have thought about it ever since.”

To make love? Berry asked.

“You’d love it; it’s like no other performance in the world,” Little Richard replied.

Berry recalled, “I tried to match his smile, and then I suddenly excused myself in a rush to get ready for the show, but he bade me farewell in a contented voice, and that was that.”

In the seventies, Little Richard struggled mightily with a consuming cocaine habit. By the eighties, he was starting to suffer from a variety of health problems. Sometimes he would show up to receive an award, sometimes not. He turned down interview requests, played rarely onstage, and gradually faded from public view. But the recordings, the legacy, is there to pick you up, even in the hardest times. “You can’t keep still when you hear the great Little Richard,” as Buddy Holly put it. “He’s the wildest act in rock and roll.”

Or, as Little Richard himself described his effect on body and spirit, “My music made your liver quiver, your bladder splatter, your knees freeze—and your big toe shoot right up in your boot!”.

This run of features travels through the years and honours modern and legacy American artists whose songbook is among the richest and most notable in music. I am going to feature a modern contemporary artist for the next visit. However, I could not overlook Little Richard. Someone I and so many other people first heard during childhood. Recognising the astronomical impact he has made to music. I don’t think we will ever see another musician and songwriter…

AS influential as him again.

FEATURE: Humble Mumble: Outkast's Stankonia at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Humble Mumble

Outkast's Stankonia at Twenty-Five

__________

IN terms of deciding…

IN THIS PHOTO: Outkast’s Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin) in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: GRIP Magazine

which album is the first real classic and work of genius of the twenty-first century, you could argue that Outkast’s Stankonia takes that honour. Released on 31st October, 2000, it is the fourth studio album from of Big Boi and André 3000. I think it is their best album. One of the best of all time, in fact. Because it turns twenty-five soon, I am exploring some features about the album. Notable and standout songs from Stankonia include Ms. Jackson, Humble Mumble, B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), and So Fresh, So Clean. Following 1998’s Aquemini, Outkast incorporated a broad array of styles into their next album, which included Funk, Rave, Gospel, and Rock within a Dirty South-oriented Hip Hop context. This could have been a risk for a duo whose fans expected perhaps a certain sound. However, Stankonia was a massive success with fans and critics. Reaching number ten in the U.K. and two in their native U.S., many publications have included Stankonia in their best of lists. Also, this was an album that acknowledged Rave culture. Hip-Hop prior to 2000 was largely about slower beats. Outkast added something new and spliced the previously detached worlds of Rave and Hip-Hop. The songwriting throughout is commanding, fascinating and masterful. I want to start out by quoting a bit of FADER’s 2000 interview with Big Boi and André 3000:

“Stankonia is where they got they funk from.

But first, are you experienced? Uh, have you ever been... experienced? You, with your conscious rappers and Black Augusts? You, with your headwrap, and you, with your backpack? You, with your getting-it, and you with your 360 degrees of hip-hop? Have you ever been knock-kneed, mind-blown, zooted and looted, all funked up and no place to go?

The thing about Big Boi's house is that inside it he has a Boom Boom Room, and the thing about the Boom Boom Room is that there's a stage in the corner. The stage isn't big, maybe three feet by three feet, but the surface is mirrored and there's a pole in the middle that reaches to the ceiling.

In fact, the stage is so small that you really don’t notice it's there until one of the women gets off the couch and starts to dance around the pole. Except that it's not really dancing, just a repetitive slow-mo gyration suggesting ennui. No one's really watching her and she’s not dancing for anybody else, a caged bird needing no listener to sing its song.

On the other side of the Boom Boom Room, several more women languish on low-slung couches. They all have names in which Ys replace Is— Chyna and Kym. At the bar, more of OutKast's Earthtone crew— Slimm, C-Bone, DJ and Nathaniel are making headway on a gallon of Hennessy and more than a couple of blunts. Unmastered tracks from OutKast's upcoming album blast from the stereo system.

A lot of shit is talked in the Boom Boom Room, but most of the conversation remains unspoken. lt's like any foreign land in that way, men and women acting out roles that are diffcult to understand when observed from the straight world. The only thing to do is keep up, keep your eyes open, and try not to pass out in that chair in the kitchen.

Downstairs in the garage the photographer is still shooting in a race against sunrise.

"I do this all the time," says Big Boi, leaning up against his mint Cadillac. Shutter clicks. The car is a pale cheddar with purple iridescence, and there is pride in his voice when he calls it his Paddymelt. "Really, this what we doing tonight? I love this type of shit. Little get-togethers at the crib, with the fellas and some hoes. It's just fun, you know?"

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Mannion

At 4:37am a few of the women come down from the Boom Boom Room. In various stages of undress, they pose in and on the Paddymelt. "This is how we made the album," continues Big Boi. "While we were working on this album we would do this three or four nights a week. Every time we finished at the studio, we‘d head to the house. From four in the morning ’til two the next afternoon, just kickin‘ it."

Twelve hours earlier everything was understandable: OutKast, a new album, a photo shoot, an interview. In and out; no one gets hurt. But now the moment has taken on a timelessness, a surrealism that threatens to steal it all away to a land of no return.

Andre has fallen silent, leading only Big Boi holding the lifeline. "Stankonia is whatever's the funkiest shit ever," he explains, lucid. ’It could be that purple, or that funky-ass music."

And the photographer clicks away.

A RAINY NIGHT IN GEORGIA

It’s been storming for hours.

Andre is driving. But even as he watches the road and directs his Land Rover or whatever towards Big Boi's house in the woods, his eyes have turned inward and his mind has moved in another direction, past the other side of the game. This is when he conjures most the man from Electric Ladyland. More than the headband or the mixed metaphors of his clothing, its the occasional sad, faraway look in his eyes that reminds you of Hendrix, a sense of being young and world-weary at the same time.

"The funk is basically freedom," he says, not real heavy on it, just kind of think-ing aloud. "The funk is not a certain sound or a certain way you dress or a certain look. Something can sound funky or look funky, but my opinion of the funk is a certain freedom that started way back in Africa. But we don‘t want to make it no big racial issue or no shit like that."

That's because the Promised Land of Funk is an uncharted expanse of electro-magnetic technicolor modulations, and being Afrocentric alone might not qualify you for the trip. This probably explains why the roadside of such a pilgrimage is littered with DAT cassettes, gold records and backup bands with shallow pockets. Rhyming—or writing—about the funk without ever having gone there is pointless, like feeling the heat without complaining about the humidity.

"I guess we’re talking about an individual freedom," he says”.

I will end, like I have for several recent features, with a review from Pitchfork. I think their depth and analysis is particularly strong and interesting. However, first, this CLASH feature from 2020 marked twenty years of the masterpiece that is Stankonia. It was an album that won over people who were not fans of Hip-Hop. A varied album that still has not aged and throws up surprises, I remember it coming out in 2000. It was a big moment:

“The album was named after the recording studio that the duo bought in 1998. ‘Stankonia’ was a word that Andre created himself, and he explained that ‘Stankonia’ “is this place I imagined where you can open yourself up and be free to express anything”.

The album cover shows Andre standing shirtless facing forward, arms stretched outward and chin held high, along with Big Boi rocking a baggy t-shirt and big necklace. Both are placed in front of a huge drooped black and white American flag. The image is simple yet iconic, but gives little away as to how colourful the 24 track album really is.

The leading single 'B.O.B' exemplifies the album; it never sits still, unapologetically getting in your face with constant surprises. Bombs Over Baghdad remains calm for a maximum of five seconds, before a countdown from Andre 3000 sets off the fireworks. Both loud and lively, the song makes commentary of life in the ghetto, whilst referring to political turmoil in Iraq at around the same time. The duo's influence on the 90s rave culture can be heard through drum 'n' bass beats. The track is constantly switching, adding other layers.

With most OutKast songs, it's easy to tell who has had the most influence creating the track. Big Boi firmly stands at the front for 'We Luv Deez Hoez'. The sarcastic pimping song is both catchy and straight up gangster. Whilst ‘Stankonia (Stanklove)’ is all Andre 3000, he sings the hook, stretches his voice during the verses. The song is all harmony, with no rapping, providing more of an insight into what you would hear more of on their following album ‘Speakerboxx / The Love Below’.

The duo were now grown ups, and the subsequent problems they faced are referenced on the album. Standout track ‘Ms. Jackson’ is a prime example of this. Both radio friendly and catchy, the track pushed them into stardom, winning a Grammy and being the first of three songs to reach No.1 on the Billboard charts. If you hadn’t heard of OutKast before, you certainly would’ve by now.

Influenced by Andre and his relationship with Erykah Badu, ‘Ms. Jackson’ is the story of ruined relationships, and promises that weren’t kept. A storm is centred as the central theme through the music video and track, a metaphor for 'stormy' relationships, as Andre states: "Hope that we feel this, feel this way forever/You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson".

‘Stankonia’ is a journey through sounds of funk and hip-hop, 'So Fresh, So Clean' is a straight up anthem, both catchy in the hook and beat. Then, there’s the turbulent ‘Toilet Tisha’, a vivid story from the hood of a 14-year old girl struggling with the idea of having a baby. 'Spaghetti-Junction' shows the duo's chemistry at its fullest. Each raps a verse before coming together on the last back-to-back, with their flows blending into each other. The opener ‘Gasoline Dreams’ has guitar strings that hit you like a truck and ‘Gangster Sh*t’ is an aggressive head bopper. In-between songs, skits lead onto tracks or are used for comedic effect in heavy Atlantian slang”.

There is another interesting article that I found from 2020. NPR. A fascinating interview and conversation between Dr. Regina Bradley (an award-winning writer and researcher of the Black American South), Gavin Godfrey (a freelance writer and editor from Atlanta, he’s written for CNN, Rolling Stone, Vice, FADER and COMPLEX) and Christina Lee (an award-winning storyteller whose writing, commentary, and production work appears in iHeartMedia, NPR, and more). They chatted about an album that “was a curation of not only OutKast's investment in the future, but a blueprint for what was to come later with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below: a look at the group's evolution as men and as artists, solidly and firmly centered in a stronghold of how the South could sound”:

“When OutKast released its fourth studio album Stankonia, the pioneering duo out of Atlanta, Ga., was not new to this, but they remained true to the hip-hop thing. Released on Halloween 2000, months after the initial Y2K scare that left people terrified of being throttled back into a period of darkness and technological paranoia, Stankonia took full advantage of the new millennium. They stayed true to what they did best and created something powerful on the fringes of mainstream pop culture's expectations of them as southerners and as rappers.

Breaking new ground cleared from the debris of nostalgia, burned with their Chonkyfire, Stankonia challenged listeners to reconsider what it meant to be OutKasted in the wilderness of an unknown new world. Never ones to shy away from the stank of imagined and social-historical realities, Stankonia is a demonstration of André Benjamin and Big Boi evolving their sound, their identities, and their art. Benjamin was blasting centuries ahead with his latest moniker, André 3000, an Afrofuturist prediction that the future was Black and dope as hell, and Big Boi was growing increasingly experimental in not only his lyrical delivery but his fashion sense, paralleling Benjamin's own eccentric flair for fashion.

Stankonia was a curation of not only OutKast's investment in the future, but a blueprint for what was to come later with Speakerboxxx/The Love Below: a look at the group's evolution as men and as artists, solidly and firmly centered in a stronghold of how the South could sound. Earthtone III — consisting of Benjamin, Big Boi, and DJ David "Mr. DJ" Sheats — are on full display for the majority of the album. Stankonia showcases influences from multiple genres, eras, feelings, and experiences, including EDM on the much celebrated and canonized "B.O.B."

Dr. Regina Bradley: I feel like I'm back in high school, junior year — shout out to Westover High School — running to lunch, listening to Stankonia. I'm really in my feelings. Chris, Gavin, what are your immediate reactions to listening to Stankonia 20 years later?

Gavin Godfrey: Man, it still sounds super fresh 20 years later. To me, not much has changed other than time. They still sound as fresh as they did 20 years ago.

Christina Lee: I mean, listening to this album kind of feels crazy. I sometimes forget just how vibrant this album is, how ambitious this album is, but that's what immediately strikes me. It's amazing how OutKast is able to really just branch off at this point, especially when you compare it to their previous discography.

What do you think it is about the Stankonia album that really made folks sit up and pay attention to what they were doing and why they couldn't just be considered Southern hip-hop after all?

Lee: I think what's really interesting about this album is that it is absolutely Southern hip-hop, but there is a part that is very conscious of the world around them. You're seeing these dichotomies play out, the sort of balance between mainstream hip-hop and the conscious hip-hop era. We have to remember that, at this particular time, those two genres are starting to branch off. And the thing is, Stankonia encompasses all that.

Godfrey: I think they built a world with this album. I'm gonna nerd out real hard real quick, but OutKast, for me, is almost like George Lucas when Star Wars was good. He was known for building whole worlds, but he literally was just telling stories about everyday occurrences. But he made you see it through this lens. OutKast is still very much rooted in Atlanta. Through the lyrics, through the sounds, they're not only thinking globally, but universally; these boys are thinking about the cosmos.

When I talk to DJ and Big Boi about this, the name Stankonia comes from Dre just always referring to everything they did as funky. They want everything to be funky, funky, funky and go back to the crazy lack of limitations that came from Parliament Funkadelic before them. I think it all stemmed from them being comfortable in their world, but also trying to step outside of their comfort zone and bring everybody along with them.

We're not just going to gush on Stankonia, you know, I got to ask you: What do you think has aged well about the album and what do you think hasn't aged so well?

Godfrey: In the culture now, I don't know how "Snappin' & Trappin'" would have been received, how much folks would have responded to what Killer Mike was saying in there. Back then, maybe lyrically, you could get away with a lot more because there wasn't the proliferation of social media, a constant influx of information to call out every single lyric, every little thing somebody did.

Listen to Stankonia now and it's wild, you know, because, man, these dudes knew. It's like they knew everything that was going to happen today. But they were talking about it 20 years ago and it's still so, so relevant. So, I mean, a lot has aged well for me in terms of I think it sounds even better now than it did then.

Lee: I mean, I echo absolutely everything that Gavin said. I think the thing with OutKast is that the perspective is always coming from, like, "Here we're going to give you some food for thought." And I think in this particular age, giving food for thought isn't clear cut enough for listeners. I think listeners expect groups to kind of take on a very particular stance. And maybe this is because I'm reading a book called The Butterfly Effect; it's the first biography of Kendrick Lamar by Marcus J. Moore. But in listening to some of Kendrick's discography and comparing it to Stankonia, I think I'm most struck by how, at this particular time, there's a lot of hip-hop acts that are turning to rock past and Black music past and understanding that even though we're operating within the space of hip-hop, we have the entire musical gamut to pull inspiration from”.

will move to Albumism and their twentieth anniversary feature about Outkast’s Stankonia. Each feature provides new details and focus. I really love this album twenty years later. One that is still influencing artists. An undeniable work of genius from a duo who are among the legends of Hip-Hop:

“Still, Stankonia is at its best when OutKast comes at the audience from unexpected angles. The quirky “I’ll Call Before I Come” is often an overlooked entry on the album, and one of my personal favorites. For a song about fucking, both members of the group are pretty gentlemanly, as André declares his preference for “old school, regular draws” and Big Boi states that a woman’s sexual satisfaction is of paramount importance. With Eco and Gangsta Boo appearing to detail their fantasies and desires, the song is also equal opportunity in its freakiness. I also love the instrumentation for the track, which sounds like it could have been lifted from a late era Sly Stone song or some late ’70s funk.

“Humble Mumble,” bizarre in its own right, is anchored by upbeat Caribbean-influenced grooves and unexpected beat shifts. In terms of subject matter, the track is all over the place, but still feels coherent. While Big Boi addresses coping with adversity in the pursuit of one’s goals, André ponders the complexities and contradictory nature of everything from hip-hop music to life itself. The song also features the vocal talents of Badu, who apparently was on good enough terms with André to contribute both the chorus and a melodic final verse to the song.

OutKast reach deep into their bag of way-out funk tracks as Stankonia draws to a close. First is “Toliet Tisha,” the sorrowful ballad of the late 14-year-old Tisha. Damn, we miss her. Musically, the song sounds lifted from a mid-1990s Prince album. Amongst layers of watery synths and guitars, André sings through heavy vocal distortion, voice nearly unrecognizable, and Big Boi delivers a harrowing spoken-word verse. Together, they narrate a tale of an unwanted teenage pregnancy, and the heartrending outcome. The song is legitimately sad but doesn’t wallow in tragedy for its own sake.

“Slum Beautiful” is another personal favorite on the album, a psychedelic dedication to their female companions. The song oozes cool, as André, Big Boi, and Goodie Mob’s Cee-Lo wax philosophic about the effects that the objects of their affection have on their mentalities. Back then, Cee-Lo could still be considered one of the best emcees around, and his vivid and awestruck verse is a highlight. The musical backdrop is a mix of Jimi Hendrix and Graham Central Station, as backward-masked guitars mix with a resonant bassline and complex percussion.

The album ends with the funk-drenched title track a.k.a. “Stank Love.” Clearly inspired by late ’70s/early ’80s P-Funk ballads, André and Sleepy Brown channel George Clinton and Garry Shider, inviting the objections of their affection to release their inhibitions and soar with the kites in the sky through their freaky love. The song is mostly instrumental, rattling with gurgling bass and keyboards, and ghostly voices wail. Big Rube delivers an appropriately way-out spoken word piece, speaking of an act of love so profound that it’s “engulfing, encompassing like a cataclysmic shockwave of an impact so deep, but not one of destruction, but of creation.” The song doesn’t so much as end as it fades out into the ether, remaining with the listeners as it echoes through the speakers.

In some ways, Stankonia is the “final” OutKast album, as the group followed it up with the Speakerboxxx/The Love Below project (2003), a combination of solo albums for each of the duo. They effectively broke up afterwards, only reuniting to release the 2006 Idlewild soundtrack, which was largely phoned in. Suffice to say that OutKast went out as a group on a high note here, having travelled just about everywhere there was to go, and treating their followers to a hell of a journey. People still clamor for another OutKast album, but I personally feel like they went out on top. Always leave them wanting more”.

I will wrap things up with Pitchfork’s 2018 review. They heralded Stankonia and how it is this “transcendental funk fantasia, an unequivocal commercial and artistic triumph”. I am curious how journalists will cover Stankonia on its twenty-five anniversary on 31st October. How it still changes and evolves Hip-Hop. How it broke barriers and was revolutionary:

“There is so much going across Stankonia—the coordinated confetti of noises on “Gangsta Shit,” the uneasy meditation of teen pregnancy that is “Toilet Tisha,” the playful lasciviousness of “I’ll Call Before I Come,” the melodic menace of “Red Velvet,” the skits that spoke in metaphors to the subconscious via hood tongues, the arrangements and progressions that felt capricious, but totally natural. The backing tracks weren’t soundscapes as much as they are aural murals graffitied on the cosmic underpasses where abandoned tricked-out space shuttles rest, stripped of their Brougham rims. It was music that was tangential to crunk, a predecessor to trap, indebted to hip-hop, electro, funk, rock, and anything alternative—the type of music that usually succeeds on intellectual levels and rewards nerds, but not readily equating to an album that would sell more than 4 million copies. Yet OutKast is probably best defined by defying parameters and expectations.

Stankonia is easily the group’s most expansive and abrasive effort. It’s more accomplished than their biggest seller, the double-disc Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which lacks the tension and dichotomy of André and Big Boi locked in a studio, warring with each other and themselves to the extent that created numbers like “Humble Mumble,” Stankonia’s breakbeat-ish, Caribbean-tinged track where Big Boi admonishes a simp with “Sloppy slippin’ in your pimpin’, nigga/You either pistol whip the nigga or you choke the trigger,” before André recalls speaking with a rap critic: “She said she thought hip-hop was only guns and alcohol/I said ‘Oh, hell naw!’/But, yet, it's that too.”

OutKast had always consisted of a politically conscious pimp and a spiritual gangsta, but on Stankonia, those identities came to the fore with a greater distinction that paradoxically allowed them to sound closer together than they had since their inception—even as André sat out songs like “Snappin’ & Trappin’” and “We Luv Deez Hoez.” On Stankonia’s first proper song, “Gasoline Dreams” Big Boi raps about their clout and the limits thereof—“Officer, get off us, sir/Don’t make me call [my label boss] L.A. [Reid], he’ll having you walking, sir/A couple of months ago they gave OutKast the key to city/But I still gotta pay my taxes and they give us no pity”—while André throttles out a brainy hook: “Don’t everybody like the smell of gasoline?/Well burn, motherfucker, burn American dreams.”

Stankonia is an album about many things and full of epigrams; so ahead of the curve that one of its many double entendres—“I got a stick and want your automatic”—is now a bona fide triple entendre. It’s about sounds as smells and music as sex, but mostly it’s about two black kids from Southwest Atlanta, boogieing with chips on their shoulders, making Molotov cocktails of songs that sound like a revolution’s afterparty. It’s peppered with personal narratives and small slips of autobiography, and it tackles big ideas both directly and obliquely. But, ultimately, it sounds like two artists going pop on their own terms while trying to make sense of, and change, the world around them. Closing in on two decades after its release, Stankonia remains loud as bombs over Baghdad and humble as a mumble in the jungle”.

Without doubt one of my favourite albums ever, I think back fondly to 2000 and the release of Stankonia. Big Boi and André 3000 were in perfect harmony on this album! Rather than repeating what they had done before, they pushed their vision and sound out. Bringing in different genres and directions, it all blended perfectly into this masterpiece. One that continues to stun me. It is an album hard to top…

AFTER quarter of a century.