FEATURE: Superstar: Sheryl Crow at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

Superstar

Sheryl Crow at Thirty

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APART from one of its best songs…

having some suspect grammar (Everyday Is a Winding Road should be Every Day Is a Winding Road), it is hard to fault Sheryl Crow. I am not a fan of eponymous albums, as I prefer artists to come up with something. Also, that idea that the self-titled album is the most personal. I don’t think this is the case with Sheryl Crow’s second studio album. That may have been the case in 1996, though I feel its follow-up, 1998’s The Globe Sessions, is a bit more personal or true to herself. Or maybe not. Sherly Crow was released on 24th September, 1996, so I wanted to mark thirty years of a terrific album. I love the singles that were released. A Change Would Do You Good might be the best, though If It Makes You Happy is another classic. Not too many features written around the album, but I do want to source ones I have found. Sheryl Crow received widespread acclaim upon its release, Crow wrote every song on the album, but she had co-writers like Bill Bottrell and Jeff Trott. Bottrell was one of the musicians and writers on Crow’s 1993 debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club. There were disputes regarding songwriting credits on her debut album. There was some fallout and tension with Bottrell following the release of Sheryl Crow. I did want to lead off with The Ringer and their 2017 feature. They looked back at Crow’s early career and showed plenty of love for her 1996 eponymous album:

“Tuesday Night Music Club is stacked, for what else can be said of an album that begins with the stirring, self-mythologizing sweep of “Run Baby Run” and then segues into one of ’90s rock radio’s most immaculate one-two-three punches: “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Strong Enough,” and “Can’t Cry Anymore.” There’s a weary grit to these songs (what an iconic opening line, sold so convincingly: “God, I feel like hell tonight”), sung by a woman whom the industry had already put through the wringer. Crow was 31 at the time of her debut album’s release, one of many things that now make Tuesday Night Music Club feel like a pop relic from another era. But it also meant there was a wisdom in her voice that brings a particular swagger to a song like “Leaving Las Vegas,” on which she sings, knowingly, “Such a muddy line between the things you want and the things you have to do.”

Crow didn’t write those lyrics, though, and this seemingly inconsequential fact would go on to destroy her relationship with the Tuesday Night Music Club. In 1994, visibly nervous, she performed the song on her first David Letterman appearance, and in a quick interview afterward, when Dave asked if the song was autobiographical, she blurted out, “Yes.” The more successful the album became, the more contentious various band members got about songwriting credits — what they perceived as Crow taking credit for “Leaving Las Vegas” was the last straw. Like a real-life and even nastier version of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” video, the attention Crow was getting made her backing band turn on her. She and Gilbert broke up; Baerwald publicly turned against her, even writing a screed against her in LA Weekly. In a 2008 interview, TMC producer Bill Bottrell sounded slightly more forgiving, though with lingering spite, “It was all very vague and very complicated,” he said. “She wrote the majority of the album. The guys and I contributed writing and lyrics, including some personal things. However, the sound was the sound that I developed.”

As Crow’s star rose, a dark cloud settled over her collaborators. Baerwald’s friend John O’Brien, who’d written the eponymous novel that inspired “Leaving Las Vegas” the song (and later the film) died by suicide in 1994. Then in May 1996, while Crow was working with new collaborators on her next album, her ex-boyfriend and -bandmate Kevin Gilbert died at age 29.

And so Crow’s next album — the one that would contain some of her signature songs, including “If It Makes You Happy” — was written not only under such fraught circumstances, but also as a kind of defiant statement of self, to publicly take credit for her own voice and to prove to the naysayers that she wasn’t just the creation of her former backing band. “My only objective on this record was to get under people’s skin,” she said in retrospect, “because I was feeling like I had so much shit to hurl at the tape.”

In the company of such albums as Marilyn Manson’s Mechanical Animals and Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown, Sheryl Crow’s 1996 self-titled release had the great honor of being banned from Walmart. The reason is a lyric on the biting Americana number “Love Is a Good Thing,” which begins, “Watch out sister, watch out brother / Watch our children while they kill each other with a gun they bought at the Walmart discount stores.” When the corporation asked her to change the lyric, Crow vehemently refused, and was so defiant about the whole thing that she started introducing it as “the Walmart song” in concert. It probably did her more good than harm. Several local radio stations handed out copies of the album in their local Walmart parking lots, according to a 1996 article in Rolling Stone.

Sheryl Crow is a better, weirder, and much more barbed album than anything else in Crow’s catalog. “If there’s such a thing as a professional lo-fi album,” Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Sheryl Crow is it.” That’s not far off the mark. The production (credited to Crow herself) on this album is patchy, inventive, and odd: It sounds today like a sonic sister to Beck’s Odelay, which was released only a few months before. What separates these two albums’ retrospective reputations is that elusive cool factor, which is always a little trickier for female artists to achieve. (The veteran rock critic David Fricke, writing an alternate take on Rolling Stone’s official review, compared Crow unfavorably, and inexplicably, to Janis Joplin.)

Time has been kind to Sheryl Crow, though — almost too much so. The biggest hits off this record are so familiar and entrenched that it’s easy to take them for granted, so please just pause for a moment to appreciate how much story there is in this masterfully concise lyric: “He’s got a daughter he calls Easter, she was born on a Tuesday night.” This is the album on which she found her voice, and it’s nothing less panoramic as a true American tragicomedy. Crow’s lyrics on this album are delightfully cluttered, like the shelves of the thrift-store jungles she memorably evokes on “If It Makes You Happy,” peopled with strange, dusty artifacts: Geronimo’s rifle, Marilyn’s shampoo, Benny Goodman’s corset and pen. It’s also got characters for days: tough, sneering women and men with sad, grand names like James Dean Monroe. That last one’s from one of the best songs, “Hard to Make a Stand,” which also generated a bit of controversy for this second verse:

What a somber, lyrical, bleakly comic image. The song was released as a single only in Europe, because American audiences found the abortion reference too risqué. Due to a few laughable missteps in later years — the comment about using one square of toilet paper per wipe, the well-intentioned but sorta-cringey song “Woman in the White House” — it’s easy to undermine Crow’s liberal crusader role. It all becomes more admirable, though, when you look back to this earlier moment in her career and see how naturally this kind of political engagement came to her. In the early and mid-’90s, Crow was a former Paperdoll Queen from Kennett, Missouri, aiming her message straight at the heart of mainstream Middle America. If she thumbed her nose at the notion that it was easier to buy an assault rifle than a CD with explicit lyrics at Walmart, or that a woman doing something as simple as “taking care of her own body” put her in danger — well, she wasn’t exactly preaching to the choir, so that took some courage. She said it herself: It’s hard to make a stand”.

There is a lot of differences between her first two albums. Mostly male writers and musicians around her for Tuesday Night Music Club. This collective, the album was produced by Bill Botterell. Crow dressed in denim looking relaxed and happy. Her eponymous follow-up is black-and-white (or a particular filter that is similar to that) where she looks serious and determined. Male musicians in the pack, though Crow produced the album and was making this statement. There are a couple of reviews I want to finish off with. This article gives some great insights into the phenomenal songs on Sheryl Crow:

“Her real debut was Tuesday Night Music Club, which was co-written by a loose collective that — yes — met on Tuesdays. All the other musicians were male, which probably contributed to some of the acrimony between Crow and the rest of them after she blew way up. David Letterman asked her if “Leaving Las Vegas” was autobiographical, to which she said yes — despite the fact that that song was largely not written by her, and in fact was based on a book by mutual friend John O’Brien. Three weeks after the incident, O’Brien killed himself. (O’Brien’s parents did not blame Crow for the tragedy, noting that O’Brien had many problems.)

So she wrote, produced, and performed her second album almost entirely alone, playing nearly every instrument herself. Originally, Tuesday Night Music Club member Bill Bottrell was set to produce, but he backed out at the last minute. In fact, the first verse of the snarky “A Change Would Do You Good” was written about Bottrell: Bottom feeder, insincere/ Prophet lo-fi pioneer. Woof!

Crow’s Greatest Hits album is mostly sunny, country-tinged rock music. So I was caught off-guard by how dark and complex her self-titled sophomore album is. There are heavy, existential moments (“Maybe Angels,” “Ordinary Morning”) as well as bright, optimistic ones (“Everyday Is a Winding Road” — I get a little bit closer). There’s even a good amount of protest songs, some of which touch on controversial subjects. “Redemption Day” was inspired by America’s indifference to the Bosnian War, while “Hard to Make a Stand” touches on gender roles and abortion. Meanwhile, “Love Is a Good Thing” got her banned from Wal-Mart with the line Watch our children while they kill each other/ With a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores.

As ever, there are a good amount of love songs. “Home” is her softest, breathiest number, about how domestic bliss can get stale. “Superstar,” on the other hand, has her chasing a minor celebrity — while mocking them at the same time. And I felt a little called out by “The Book,” where she basically tells a writer off for writing about her. (But then again, Sheryl, aren’t you doing the same thing? Calling him The worst kind of thief is a little dramatic.)

Some of my favorites off this one were her empathetic portraits of women engaging in bad behavior. “Sweet Rosalyn” is about a prostitute who gets chastised by a priest, and “Oh Marie” about a divorcée who seems a little lost in her luxurious life. And she’s not afraid to turn the lens onto herself with “If It Makes You Happy,” which is about finding herself depressed after achieving success. It’s just awesome, her voice raspy and full as she wallows in her own despair. I’m not the kind of girl you’d take home, she says, and you feel every emotion for her”.

Because there is not that many in-depth reviews for Sheryl Crow, I wanted to include most of what Pitchfork wrote in 2023. The Missouri-born artist delivered “a collection of restless pop-rock anthems with something to prove”. Sheryl Crow is one of my favourite albums from the 1990s. So many of its songs sound fresh and are played widely:

“Tuesday Night Music Club sold millions. In the wake of its success, there were claims Crow had failed to properly credit her co-writers. There was tremendous backlash both in and outside her camp, talk of betrayal, dangerous amounts of drinking. Meanwhile the deceptively upbeat single “All I Wanna Do” reached a point of commercial ubiquity that began to haunt Crow, misconstruing her as a happy-go-lucky Los Angeles socialite. As bridges burned around her, she felt an increasing urgency to release something new and regain control of her life.

She and Bottrell got to work on some new songs in Pasadena, then decamped to New Orleans. It only took a day of recording for them to get into an argument and for Bottrell to abandon her. This is how Crow decided to produce the record herself. She continued working at Kingsway Studios in the French Quarter, where she had formed a close and lasting connection with engineer Trina Shoemaker. Together, they began working on a new set of songs she hoped would offer a clearer picture of who she was—songs that nobody else could take credit for.

Her ambition, as she told Billboard in 1996, was to make “a rural-sounding record—sort of Bobbie Gentry in the ’90s.” In an interview with Vivien Goldman for The Daily Telegraph, she elaborated that second part—“dragged into the ’90s.” It’s an apt word choice. You can almost hear the songs gathering dirt as they move along, catching fragments of the eras in between, resisting the flow of time as they move stubbornly forward. One of the first sounds on the record is a shovel being used for percussion; the last thing you hear is a noisy, tugging electric guitar solo that fades right on the verge of descending into chaos.

The whole record plays like a glitching patchwork quilt, flickering and fading as it unfolds. It’s self-titled, but it could just as easily be called The Sheryl Crow Songbook: an attempt to craft her own 13 entries in the American music lexicon. With the possible exception of “The Book,” whose chorus is more of a narrative Easter egg than something designed for road trip singalongs, nearly every song has an indelible hook. You get the sense, after the disputes of creative ownership that followed her debut, she would settle for nothing less: “My last record was heavily influenced by my writing from the standpoint of a woman with four guys around all the time,” she told the Telegraph. “I don’t feel like the same person anymore.”

She expressed this change through songs that refused to be misunderstood—an impulse that led to her first attempts at protest songs. On her previous album, there was “The Na-Na Song,” a “Loser”-style slacker rap that culminates in a jokey allusion to her experience of sexual harassment at the hands of Michael Jackson’s manager. “Frank DiLeo’s dong/Maybe if I’d let him I’d have a hit song,” she chants before the final iteration of the wordless chorus.

Now she trafficked in the type of songwriting that gets your record banned by big-box stores: Walmart, a dominant retailer during the height of the CD boom, refused to sell Sheryl Crow due to a lyric about gun violence in “Love Is a Good Thing.” The decision became so divisive that local radio stations banded together to sell the album themselves, in Walmart parking lots. (“Boo for Walmart or boo for me?” Crow once asked an audience after introducing it in concert as “The Walmart Song.”)

And then there was “Redemption Day,” a folk song inspired by Crow’s experience in Bosnia and her expanding perspective on the motives behind American intervention abroad. You can hear her ambition in her word choice—“Come leaders, come you men of great,” she sings, adopting early ’60s Dylan cadence—but it’s also in her performance. When she sings “freedom” in the closing line she repeats it a few times, allowing the word to be a conduit for contemplation and catharsis.

She brings this type of nuance to each song, and the ones centered on matters of the heart feel just as urgent and impassioned. There’s a reason why “If It Makes You Happy” is the track from the album that’s actually become a standard. Even Crow, who co-wrote the song with Jeff Trott, was overwhelmed by how many different ways she could find to accompany its lyrics: haunted and Lynchian, funk or punk, country or rock. What they landed on is maybe her defining performance: steady and simple, at 95 BPM, grinding through each verse before exploding in the chorus. “I’m not the kind of girl you take home,” Crow sings, and the song never quite comes to rest either. The wheels are always rolling.

No matter the highs and lows that followed, Crow had situated herself in the greater consciousness. This is how she fought the establishment and, in turn, became the establishment. As the album went multi-platinum and elevated her star far above the one-hit wonder or cautionary tale she’d feared becoming, she swiftly began remodeling herself as a legacy artist: a self-possessed, old-school singer-songwriter, already disillusioned with the industry and uninterested in catering to pop trends. Next up was the theme song for a James Bond movie; then a dark, triumphant follow-up that featured, among her own material, a brand new, unreleased Dylan composition; then a live album recorded in Central Park, where she welcomed childhood heroes Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards, and Chrissie Hynde onstage beside her.

And the decade wasn’t even over yet. Where could she possibly go next? In a ’97 interview with Charlie Rose, after discussing her brief dalliance with acting, the two have a jokey conversation that goes like this:

Rose: Let’s figure out something for you to do. We need an obsession.
Crow: Bridge? Knitting, perhaps?
Rose: How about your own label?
Crow: Actually, I’m thinking about doing that. I’ve talked about it with my manager.

They go on for a bit, suggesting names: “Cranky Old Lady Music,” Crow offers, and then: “Do It Yourself Records.” Rose changes the subject—“Is there anything you desperately, desperately want? Children?”—but there is something interesting about Crow aligning herself with DIY culture: a burgeoning scene at the time that ran directly against all her usual metrics of success. Her seeming commercial indestructibility, combined with her proudly boomer taste and earnestly optimistic political outlook, made her a perfect contrast to gendered, Gen X notions of cool and authenticity, a dissonance she increasingly noticed when she confronted the press. After an exhausting interview for Q in 1998—“Did you hear the rumor that you are a heroin addict?” “Do you think you are attractive?” “Can you be a ruthless bitch?”—the interview concludes thusly:

Q: Do you have anything to declare?
A: I’m sick of being a woman. That’s what I want to declare.

One track that didn’t make the cut for Sheryl Crow is a killer B-side called “Free Man.” Structured like a country song but bashed out like a scrappy garage band, it tells a story of a woman who hitches her wagon to a free-thinking, self-styled anarchist. She’s momentarily entranced until her casual observations start to form a larger picture. His friends seem a little off; he’s teaching her how to shoot a gun. Soon, she’s cooking for him, mothering him, sitting shotgun while he goes off on a racist rant. It all concludes with a punchline as she files for divorce: “I’d appreciate a little bit of government!”

Crow never ended up starting her own label, but she did start operating her own recording studio out of her Nashville home, where, among others, Kacey Musgraves booked some time to work on 2018’s Golden Hour. For someone who had spent a rollercoaster decade playing by the industry’s rules and wrestling, over and over again, with its ugly power dynamics, the splendid, isolated comfort of a recording studio seems a better fit, anyway.

On Sheryl Crow, you can hear her settle into this eventual legacy behind the boards, searching until she finds just the right sound. In the liner notes, Crow, who worked as a music teacher before she left Missouri for California, is credited with playing acoustic, electric, and bass guitar, along with Moog bass, harmonium, keyboards, Hammond organ, Wurlitzer, a Penny-Owsley piano, and loops. Deep within the buzz and clatter of these masterfully written songs, you can hear an even more elusive quality that makes them stick: an artist having fun. “There was a huge spectrum of emotions that went along with that record,” Crow recalled to Rolling Stone last year. “One of being burned out, two of being misunderstood… and very underestimated. But also euphoric: The euphoria of feeling like, ‘Well, nobody believes I can do anything anyway. So I’m going to do what I want to do.”

Later in the Charlie Rose interview, Crow performs “Home,” the best song on Sheryl Crow and one of three on the tracklist without a co-writer. She tells Rose it was the only one that arrived to her “on the mic,” claiming the whole thing came together in just 10 minutes. (“That’s probably why I still have a certain affinity for that song,” she says, cracking a smile.) The recording backs up her memory of this impromptu bolt of inspiration. It fades in and out, as if we are receiving a transmission of just the most crucial bit of a long, ongoing investigation.

At first blush, it might sound like a love song. “I woke up this morning and now I understand/What it means to give your life to just one man,” Crow begins. “This is home,” goes the chorus. Every detail, however, tugs at the sense of certainty in those words. The music sways and swells, in a cosmic country kind of way, as she traces a path from her teen years to the present day, her fantasies of wandering the world to the suffocating rooms where she now looks into the eyes of someone she used to love. Meanwhile, she measures the distance between their two breaking hearts: “Mine,” she observes, “is full of questions.” This may be where the relationship ends, she acknowledges. But it’s also the precise moment where any good story begins”.

We mark thirty years of Sheryl Crow on 24th September. An album that turned Crow from this promising and acclaimed songwriter into a superstar. Released almost two years to the day after her eponymous albumns, The Globe Sessions gained some positive reviews, though perhaps not as many as Sheryl Crow. I do really love her second album. One of the standout albums of 1996 – which is high praise, as Fugees, DJ Shadow, and Beck released masterpieces that year -, I can feel its influence in quite a few artists out there now. Anyone who has not heard it needs to check it out, as Sheryl Crow is…

A wonderful album.

FEATURE: Something in the Way: Nirvana’s Nevermind at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Something in the Way

Nirvana’s Nevermind at Thirty-Five

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THIS may be a contentious…

PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Bergen/Redferns

thing to say, but you wonder what Nevermind would sound like if it was gritter and rawer. Like Bleach or In Utero. The former, the 1989 debut album from Nirvana. The latter, their final studio album, which was released in 1993. Though you cannot argue against the genius of Nevermind. Released on 24th September, 1991, it ranks alongside the greatest albums in history. Though I feel the trio, especially their lead, Kurt Cobain, felt it was too commercial and resented the fame and attention. Or that people thought Nirvana were this mainstream and commercial act. They would strip things back and produce something purer to them in 1993. Though Cobain sadly died a year later. Produced by the legendary Butch Vig, there was this move to make something more radio-friendly. Perhaps feeling Nirvana needed more airplay and chart success. Singles like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, and Lithium were big successes. Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic becoming pin-ups. A number one in multiple counties, including the U.S., there is some controversy over the cover of Nevermind. I was nervous about using it in this feature, lest it cause issues or be blocked on Instagram. I did want to mark the upcoming thirty-fifth anniversary of Nevermind. Before getting to features and reviews, I wanted to start with this chat from Interview Magazine that was published in 1991, before Nevermind came out. We get to learn some of Kurt Cobain’s musical inspirations:

“In this interview, we meet Nirvana before Nevermind. It is 1991 and the triumvirate have only released one album, Bleach. While Bleach is by no means Nirvana’s best work, there is a reason it is so often overlooked, it does contain one marvelous song—”About a Girl,” which would later become one of the highlights of Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York set. Here, Kurt Cobain discusses his early musical influences, from Chicago to the Cars, to punk bands MDC and Black Flag. Cobain calls himself “Kurdt Kobain,” a pseudonym that some speculate was employed by Cobain to distance himself from his fame, or for when Cobain was feeling particularly disconnected. —Emma Brown

KURT COBAIN
By Adam Snyder

The first wave of music from the Sub Pop label in Seattle delivered a fine collection of young men, guitars, hair, and a new standard of stop/start dirge spasmodiscs—a punk/hard-rock reconciliation of sorts. The wave has subsided, and one particularly shiny pebble called Nirvana has been scooped up by Geffen’s DGC Records. A Sub Pop insider favorite—their first and so far only album, Bleach, came out in 1989 and has become a staple. The band is composed of Kurt Cobain, guitar and vocals, Chris Novoselic, bass, and Dave Grohl, drums. At a time when so many other young song-crafters strain to dazzle us with their esoteric influences, Cobain plays the clever hooligan. His compositions come across as the next logical musical phrase on the ballad of growing up cool in America. An album is in the works from DGC.

INTERVIEW: Your music has a surprising hook for such a heavy sound.

KURT COBAIN: Well, I started out listening to pop music. I had to mainly because of where I lived. In Aberdeen, Washington, we had an AM radio station that played stuff like Tony Orlando & Dawn, and Chicago, and I had no choice but to hear that kind of crap. Then I found out about Aerosmith, through some stoners that lived in our trailer park. They’d come over to my house and steal ashtrays and eat my food.

INTERVIEW: Then you got your first guitar.

COBAIN: Yeah. A few years later, in the eighth grade. I started playing Cars songs. I took lessons for two days and learned how to play “Back in Black” by AC/DC.

INTERVIEW: And then punk rock changed your life.

COBAIN: Right. I sold my Aerosmith and Led Zepplin collection for twelve dollars. I completely threw away my hard-rock roots and was into MDC and Black Flag.

INTERVIEW: They made everything else seem uncool, right?

COBAIN: Yeah, right.

INTERVIEW: As if you never even been into that hard-rock thing in the first place.

COBAIN: Right. I didn’t get back into that stuff until much later.

INTERVIEW: So when were you reborn as an Aerosmith fan?

COBAIN: Just a few years ago. It wasn’t that painful, actually”.

Last year, Guitar World told the story of Nevermind. The making of, its background and legacy. How it created a new genres, sold over thirty-million copies, and changed popular culture overnight. I am sourcing from the earliest part of the feature, as it is very in-depth, so I could not drop it all in here:

“Nevermind represented a quantum leap for Nirvana, both musically and career-wise. Their previous album, Bleach, was recorded in three days and cost $606.17 to make. Their initial budget for Nevermind was $65,000 – 100 times larger than the budget for Bleach. They ended up spending twice that amount. And while Bleach, which was Nirvana’s debut album, came out on the then-little-known indie label Sub Pop, Nevermind had the major-label clout of Geffen Records behind it.

The two-year period that separates Bleach from Nevermind was a time of tremendous growth and upheaval for the band. They went on their first national and international tours. Cobain started up and broke off a relationship with Tobi Vail of the band Bikini Kill. What’s more, Nirvana went through several personnel shifts.

Guitarist Jason Everman, who joined shortly after Bleach, exited the band nearly as quickly as he’d come aboard, once it became clear that his tastes were more hard rock/metal than his bandmates’. He later joined Soundgarden.

Chad Channing, who played drums on Bleach, left the band. Nirvana’s original drummer, Dale Crover, filled in for a seven-date West Coast tour. Dan Peters of Mudhoney played drums on a Nirvana single called Sliver and did one gig with them before Dave Grohl finally settled into place as the group’s permanent drummer.

The frequent personnel shifts and extensive touring seemed to have honed the band’s songwriting, as such experiences often do.

The process also seems to have sharpened the band’s pop sensibilities, which are in far greater evidence on Nevermind than on the sludge-guitar heavy Bleach. But Nirvana biographer Michael Azerrad suggests that those same pop sensibilities existed all along, and that Cobain deliberately suppressed them on Bleach in an effort to conform with Sub Pop’s retro Seventies metal agenda of that time.

“Half of the songs on Nevermind were written at the time of Bleach, but didn’t make it onto the album,” Cobain told journalist Roy Trakin. “So there really isn’t an obvious change. We’ve always been fans of pop music.”

A major milestone along the road to Nevermind came in April of 1990, when Nirvana began recording with producer Butch Vig at Smart Studios, his recording facility in Madison, Wisconsin.

Now perhaps best known as the leader of the band Garbage, Vig was then an up-and-coming indie producer whose credits included well-regarded records by the Laughing Hyenas, Smashing Pumpkins, Firetown, Tad, and Killdozer, among others.

In the week Nirvana spent at Smart, they recorded six songs that would later turn up on Nevermind: In Bloom, Dive, Lithium, Breed (originally titled Imodium), Stay Away (originally titled Pay to Play), and Polly. They also made an unsuccessful stab at another tune, Sappy, which they’d attempted to record at an earlier date, also with unsatisfactory results.

The Smart sessions were originally intended for release as Nirvana’s second album on Sub Pop. But a series of events led the band to change their plans. First, Chad Channing left Nirvana in May 1990. And then the prospect of major-label interest started to become more than an idle rumor.

“We lost Chad and there was uncertainty with that,” Novoselic told a radio interviewer in Australia.

“We didn’t want to release [the Smart sessions]. If we did anything, we wanted it to be with a new drummer. [Also] Sub Pop was doing some wheeling and dealing. They were going to sign a licensing deal with a big label, and that kinda scared us. There were so many variables to consider; it wasn’t wise to put out a record at all.”

Polly is the only song on Nevermind that was recorded at Smart; all the other tracks were re-recorded (although the final versions are said to be very similar to those laid down at Smart).

As for Polly, the band and producer realized there was something special in Cobain’s solo acoustic performance of this disquieting rape scenario, which was based on an actual newspaper account he’d read. The dramatic twist was that the very anti-violence, pro-woman Cobain sang the song from the attacker’s point of view.

Grohl became a member of Nirvana in September of 1990, joining them from the Washington D.C. hardcore band Scream. His muscular yet agile drumming took Nirvana’s power trio sound to a new plateau.

Grohl’s arrival also sparked a fresh burst of group songwriting. In a Tacoma, Washington rehearsal space that they shared with a local bar band, Nirvana embarked on a regimen of daily, 15-hour band practices for a period of four or five months.

“We came up with so much stuff where we’d go, ‘God, this is the best thing we’ve ever done!’ Then we’d forget how to play it,” Grohl told Circus magazine. “So many songs got thrown away, until we finally said, ‘Maybe we should start recording them on a cassette.’ So we’d record them, then lose the cassette.”

Two songs that didn’t get away were Smells Like Teen Spirit and Come As You Are, tunes that would prove to be cornerstone tracks of Nevermind. The attention-grabbing title of Teen Spirit was born on a typically relaxed evening at the Cobain residence, as Kurt explained to Australian radio listeners.

“A friend of mine and I were goofing around my house one night. We were kinda drunk, and we were writing graffiti all over the walls of my house. And she wrote, ‘Kurt smells like Teen Spirit.’

“Earlier on, we’d been having this discussion about teen revolution and stuff like that. And I took [what she wrote] as a compliment. I thought she was saying that I was a person who could inspire. I just thought it was a nice little title. And it turns out she just meant that I smelled like that deodorant [called Teen Spirit]. I didn’t even know that deodorant existed until after the song was written.”

Geffen Records had been taking an active interest in Nirvana since April 1990, when Gary Gersh – then an A&R man for Geffen and currently head of Capitol Records – saw the band play at the Pyramid club in New York.

Gersh had been brought to the show by Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. This set in motion a chain of events that would lead to Nirvana’s signing with Geffen. The deal was formally consummated on April 30, 1991. In May, the band arrived in Los Angeles to begin recording what would become Nevermind”.

Marking thirty years of Nirvana’s Nevermind in 2021, BBC discussed how this classic album made a huge global impact. It very much “offered a subversive outlet for a global audience”. I do wonder if there will be any celebrations or anything special for its thirty-fifth anniversary:

“When Nirvana released Nevermind in September 1991 (on major label Geffen, following the band's emergence on Seattle indie SubPop), the album's explosive success followed a European tour and proved a shock to the mainstream system (Geffen president Ed Rosenblatt described it as "one of those 'get out of the way and duck' records"). Back on the Seattle DIY scene, the mood was less celebratory: "My memory of Nevermind is that it felt like a betrayal," says Keshavarz. "People were protective because Nirvana were representative of a community and so many ideas. In retrospect, I have great sympathy for the band, because I think they legitimately made beautiful music that touched people's hearts. In fact, I remember visiting Iran soon after Nevermind came out, and smuggling in tapes to play to friends and relatives; you'd see their faces, like: 'What is this? It's kinda cool… can I get a copy?'

"But within Seattle at the time, people were super-upset; it was that DIY ethic that believed you couldn't achieve liberation through a major label. We knew rents and ticket prices would go up, and we were really protective of our spaces. Kurt would often turn up at the Old Fire House and just be quiet in a corner; he was a gentle soul, and everybody loved him – yet sometimes, he wouldn't be welcome, depending on who was playing, because the anger levels were high. That must have been hurtful."

Global reverberations

Nevermind has reportedly sold over 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the biggest albums in music history. It also arguably forged a kind of globalised youth culture, fuelled by the increasing reach of MTV (which had its videos, including Smells Like Teen Spirit, on heavy rotation). Brazilian cultural studies academic Moyses Pinto, now a professor at Lutheran University in Porto Alegre, was struck by Nevermind's initial release when he was 11. "I thought: 'this is perfect'; it sounded like a bright synthesis of noise and pop music," he says.

Neto points out that Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985) inspired many rebellious musicians, including pysch-rockers Os Mutantes (one of Cobain's favourite bands). The end of the dictatorship extended the range of rock, punk and post-punk sounds in Brazil, though Neto describes a "time lag" between international influences, before the age of Nevermind: "We had punks in Brazil, but almost a decade after their peak in the UK and US – and there was '80s pop culture and mainstream arena bands," says Neto. "But the impact of Nirvana and MTV made it synchronised; a new youth – including me – began to hear the same music, and wear the same styles; there was a cultural homogeneity probably never experienced before. Grunge culture became dominant very quickly; all that had been 'cool' suddenly became ugly and exaggerated, and Kurt was the symbol of transgression."

Another Porto Alegre kid in '91, Rogerio Maia Garcia, was intrigued by Nevermind's "swimming baby" vinyl artwork (the album arguably heralded an era of visual iconography, as well as musical influence), right before the music captivated him: "We were all listening to rock and metal, but Nevermind sounded totally different – like 'normal kids' playing at home: raw, and really loud," says Garcia. "It certainly opened our ears to the grunge scene; after Nevermind, bands like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam became well known in Brazil, and many kids started learning to play; in early '90s Porto Alegre, live music had been losing out to dance music, but suddenly there were local band gigs every night." He adds that established Brazilian bands such as Titas also incorporated the influence, working with Seattle producer Jack Endino for their own album Titanomaquia (1993).

I think Nevermind expressed the feelings and fears that any teen goes through, from my generation in Brazil to now – Rogerio Maia Garcia

Garcia grew up to be a criminal lawyer rather than a full-time musician, but he remains an ardent Nirvana fan: "In my mind, Nevermind's legacy can't be separated from Kurt Cobain's last years of life [Cobain was just 27 when he took his own life in 1994]," says Garcia. "I later realised that his voice expressed a sad violence and emptiness over life experiences; songs like Lithium took a new perspective. I think Nevermind expressed the feelings and fears that any teen goes through, from my generation in Brazil to now."

A blend of political revolution and personal revelation also brought young music student Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (now vocalist and guitarist for acclaimed Gdansk indie rockers Trupa Trupa) to Nevermind: "We're talking about Poland in 1991, only a few moments after defeating the communist system, and the beginning of the democratic system, which brought not only cynical capitalistic stuff from the West but super high-quality stuff – like Nirvana and Nevermind," says Kwiatkowski. "For Polish teenagers, MTV was a signal that we are part of international youth."

Kwiatkowski grew up listening to everything from Schubert to The Beatles, and saw Nevermind as a natural progression: "Very beautiful, very simple songs; the perfect combination of killer sound and great singer-songwriting". His own band would sign a worldwide deal with Seattle institution Sub Pop in 2019; Trupa Trupa continue to create original, expansive music while crediting their early inspirations. "In my opinion, Nirvana and Nevermind are still the symbols of freedom and normality," says Kwiatkoswki. "Not unreal superstardom, but something 'regular', and at the same time, great."

English remains the lingua franca of pop culture (for now), and Nevermind has inspired countless international covers. Jamaican reggae artist Little Roy released an album of reggae-fied Nirvana covers (Battle for Seattle, 2011); Brazilian tropicalia star Caetano Veloso would rework Come as You Are; Indian hard rockers Pentagram (fronted by film music composer Vishal Dadlani) would add Nirvana covers to their live sets.

Japanese music journalist Hiroko Shintani was immersed in international alt-music scenes in 1991, and already knew Nirvana's Bleach album – but couldn't initially believe Nevermind was by the same band: "My first reaction was: 'What's happened to them?!' – in a positive sense," says Shintani. "I was more shocked by the fact Nevermind went on to become such a cultural landmark, and sell that many copies. But what I admired was the innate pop sensibility that cuts through the musical style and the irony of these songs about Kurt Cobain's discomfort; his alienation from the mainstream ended up being shared by millions of people, thanks to that sensibility.

"I remember the thrill of hearing such a raw and vulnerable male voice on mainstream radio and MTV. Kurt sang: 'Never met a wise man/ If so, it's a woman' [on the album track Territorial Pissings]. That in itself was phenomenal."

Shintani notes that while Japan produced numerous home-grown rock bands in the late-'80s/early-'90s, that era's mainstream artists weren't necessarily driven by angst or social rebellion. "Remember, Japan was enjoying 'bubble economy' until the early '90s, and our 'Generation X' grew up in a relatively prosperous time," she says. "But obviously, Nevermind's legacy lived on, and I think it had much larger influence among bands that came out during 2000-2010." Indeed, 2012 saw the release of a compilation album, Nevermind Tribute, where a new generation of Japanese bands covered Nevermind's track-listing, in sequence.

Another artist who discovered Nevermind after its original release is Istanbul-based singer-songwriter and visual artist Gaye Su Akyol. She's widely praised for her fearless, politically-charged expressions (including latest album, Istikarli Hayal Hakikattir), and she cites Nevermind as a formative inspiration – it was 1995, she was at primary school, and she found her brother's cassette album in their mother's car. "I remember hearing Nevermind for the first time; it was groundbreaking!" says Akyol, adding that she badgered her brother with questions about Nirvana, learning how Kurt had died. "Probably to protect me from admiring that, my brother told me: 'He had everything: fame, money, love, but he chose to die'. I was confused and unsatisfied; I was looking at the cover art, the band's photos inside.

"I felt lucky to discover a treasure, and also remember feeling: 'this is exactly what I need!' I always had a rebellious and disobedient spirit. I was looking for a different way to express my feelings, and Nevermind caught me instantly; it opened the doors of rock'n'roll to me."

Akyol still describes Nevermind as a "homecoming" album; she has held onto the original cassette, though is now equally likely to listen to it on vinyl or digitally: "The intimate relationship I had with it is always alive, and it's a 'safe space' where I can breathe."

Nevermind made "outsider" spirit feel like a unifying experience, on a massive scale. This also struck a chord with Mpumi Mcata, co-founder of brilliantly sharp Johannesburg rockers BLK JKS; in the early '90s, Mcata had left high school to pursue his band dreams, and first heard Nevermind while working in a music shop”.

Reviews in 1991 were not all glowing. Rolling Stone gave uit three stars. Not a tonne of five-star salutes. In years since, it has been rated as this near-perfect masterpiece. I will end with Pitchfork’s 10/10 review. I think many were expecting another Bleach. Too comemrcual or the feeling Nirvana had sold out, it was short-sighted and ignorant. Nevermind became this juggernaught that affected Kurt Cobain. Though it is one of the most infleutnail albusm ever.

In 2011, Pitchfork provided a detailed review of Nevermind. With its brilliance beyond dispute, they reviewed deluxe versions. The demos and offcuts maybe not as valuable as the original album. Anyone who has never heard this album before needs to check it out:

“Despite its tremendous influence on the mainstream rock that followed, it's hard to think of another album that sounds much like Nirvana's Nevermind, a record with so much more pop and punk punch than any music it inspired. Of course, no diamond-certified, canonical treasure hitting the two-decade mark can be left well enough alone in 2011-- especially one that changed the lives of a lot people now approaching middle age, with the discretionary income to prove it. After all, "super deluxe" reissues of classic albums don't even have to be tied to an anniversary these days. But Nevermind is 20 this week, still a pretty respectable number in a world where any milestone marks an excuse to shift a few more units. The only question is whether these reissues-- a single-disc remaster, a 2xCD "deluxe" version, and a 4xCD+DVD "super-deluxe" edition-- are that rare essential repurchase that makes you hear an album you've possibly exhausted in new ways, or if it's just another mediocre jumble of odds and ends that inadvertently reveals the flaws and blemishes carefully excised from the original 12-song set.

Sadly, both expanded versions fall into the latter category, with material ranging from "interesting" to "historical curiosity" to "of zero value to even superfans." But this mish-mash of sketches, practice-space woodshedding, and alternate-but-not-very mixes does help explain what makes Nevermind so unique. Nirvana certainly never made another album like it. The precocious Bleach still has its partisans, folks who think its primal bash-and-howl is the be-all-end-all of rock, while In Utero stands as the band's most harrowing statement, where it's a toss-up as to whether the riffs or the lyrics hurt more. But Nevermind was and remains an unrepeatable object. It retains the gleeful pummel of the first album while hinting at the bleakness of the third. Yet there's also a concision and clarity that Nirvana hadn't quite mastered on the gnarly-by-necessity Bleach and wouldn't allow themselves on the stark and caustic In Utero.

Nirvana began their career with no illusions about their chances for mass success and ended it by seeing just how abrasive a platinum-selling band could get away with being. But when they got their chance at the brass ring, they went at it with a bubblegum band's canniness, however much Cobain shit on the shiny final product after the fact. Andy Wallace's radio-ready mix certainly helped sharpen this potentially no-concessions, indie-to-major leap into an obvious commercial proposition. But even if they'd settled on producer Butch Vig's slightly less slick mixes-- made as a reference for the band and identified on the super deluxe edition's third disc as the "Devonshire mixes"-- Nevermind would likely have fared well in the charts, since these early passes aren't far from Wallace's infamous high-gloss version. Listening in hindsight, though, they have the woozy effect of feeling just slightly off, leaving you to focus only on what's missing.

The box set does make clear that Nirvana honed these songs over a long period. Listening to the various sessions leading up to the one that gave us the album we know-- especially the nearly unlistenable "boombox" mixes of early demos-- you learn very quickly that these songs didn't arrive perfectly formed in one sustained burst of inspiration. The hours of rehearsals and the expensive time spent tinkering in the studio shaped them into classics. It helped that there are songs on Nevermind that might appeal to people who've never heard a hardcore album in their lives, who might have even (gasp!) kinda liked the glossier hard-rock bands whose era largely ended with the rise of grunge. Moving away from the heavy-at-all-costs sound he'd always been both enamored with and suspicious of, Cobain worked diligently on his big hooks and decided to stop smothering his natural melodic gifts under so much self-conscious sludge.

The key was that Nirvana, unlike many of their indie peers, didn't assume that intensity was incompatible with polish. Cobain's discomfort could be unnerving because it sounded as unmediated as anything allowed on the radio could get. There was too much pop-rock study involved to claim Nevermind as some kind of art brut document of one dude's unraveling. Confronted with something like "Polly", Cobain's distress was obvious in 1991, long before his shotgun-assisted exit. But it wasn't the way Nevermind exposed Cobain's psychic wounds that provided support for those who related to him. It was the fact that, fucked up as he was, Cobain still found pleasure in rock's most emphatic clichés and bent them to his own never-quite-smirking ends. He snuck into the spotlight while remaining an alienated weirdo, but for a while there, you suspected he was enjoying the attention, even if he knew that it was all a joke to be taken about as seriously as high school cliquishness. "Territorial Pissings" is as raw as any punk song I know, but it actually found its way into the hands of suburban tweens. How good must that have felt, to be responsible for such a thing?

Even as they moved toward the mainstream, Nirvana were trying shit that no one would have called an easy route to success. Nevermind is drenched in the filthy Pacific Northwest roar that slapped Cobain into action as a teen, but it's as catchy as any of the radio giants that caught his ear as a kid. It's driven by pain as naked and personal as the riot grrrl bands whose company he kept and as fuck-around goofy as the Seattle contemporaries who both reveled in and mercilessly parodied machismo. And despite the fact that none of those modes would seem to fit together on the same album, let alone all of them, it's all hammered into a still-disarming whole, a collection of anthems that retain the idiosyncrasies of the very weird band that made them. It helped that Cobain had yet to be disabused of the idea that you could be an idiosyncratic indie kid and a rock star without compromising on either front.

That's probably why the bonus material here feels less like a revelation and more like the kind of peek-behind-the-curtain that you wind up regretting. Nevermind is basically a great fake-out. It presents itself as an off-the-cuff explosion, a from-the-gut expression of realness and energy in the grand punk tradition, but it was actually the product of a shit ton of hard work. If you don't hold with the first-take-is-the-best-take philosophy, your respect for Cobain may actually increase when you realize how dedicated he was to getting every element right. Listening to him fumbling his way toward greatness on the "boombox" mixes of songs like "Come as You Are" and "Something in the Way" or hearing a newly cemented group working out the kinks in their interplay in the studio, you may also realize that you don't want to hear the missteps and rewrites and second guessing that went into the perfect-as-is final product. The "boombox" mixes, Devonshire mixes, and Smart Sessions (early Vig-produced takes recorded with drummer Chad Channing that were initially intended for release on a second album for Sub Pop) are largely work tapes. Listening to them feels like studying every unused scrap of a film classic that someone managed to sneak out of the editing room, which is about as fun as that description makes them sound. If you've always been suspicious of the album's production sheen, there's no Holy Grail here that's going to give you the raw take you're looking for.

For all its finessing and tweaking, though, Nevermind is still a thousand times closer to the unpremeditated intensity of Cobain's D.I.Y. days than any of the post-grunge rockers who claimed it as an influence. I defy you to listen to any of the live performances on this edition-- the only essential extras, though less uncomfortably intense than 1994's MTV Unplugged set and less definitive and uniformly powerful than 2009's release of their king-making set at the 1992 Reading Festival-- and not hear a ragged, joyful, charismatic band that makes those inert, angst-ridden followers sound like they come from another aesthetic universe.

That charisma is a big reason why Nevermind remains a 10. But in-concert takes on "Sliver" and "Been a Son" that are the third most thrilling live versions officially available on CD? It's not as if all this "exclusive" dreck-- most of which has been floating around on bootlegs and .zip files and YouTube for eons-- will permanently dull the excitement of the Nevermind, but trying to swallow it all might put you off the album itself for a long while. If you're truly interested in hearing this stuff, the two-disc deluxe set is easily the better deal, giving you a little hint of the various stages of Nevermind's construction without wearing you out the way the four-disc set will. But if you really want to celebrate the 20th, you'll be better off just giving the original album a few spins. Despite how much better-left-forgotten material is being offered up here as essential, there's still more life in the real Nevermind than anything that's attempted to replicate its attack since”.

Released on 24th September, 1991, Nevermind came out the same day as with Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory. Record buyers were spoilt for choice that week! Thirty-five years later, and you can feel the influence of Nevermind still. Nirvana’s most successful album still impacting artists. We all need to salute…

A truly monumental album.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Whole Story: The KBC Article Issue 15 (Christmas 1983), Dear Friends, and the Short Story, On the Road Home

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983 promoting The Single File

The KBC Article Issue 15 (Christmas 1983), Dear Friends, and the Short Story, On the Road Home

__________

THIS is…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the studio on 23rd September, 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix

the final time I am using this resource for inspiration for Kate Bush: The Whole Story. It is The Published Writings of Kate Bush. Her writing short stories, conducting her own interviews or being interviewed. Updating fans in different ways. The final article I am grabbing is from Christmas 1983. Or it was published at that time. Bush looking ahead to Christmas. Little did people know that she was working on Hounds of Love. In 1983, she was putting together a bespoke studio right by East Wickham Farm and the seeds were being sowed. It was a happy and productive year, so I did want to source a great article and a lovely story. Here is Kate Bush’s writing for Issue 15  of the Kate Bush Club:

“Dear Friends,

Here we are at Christmas again, so soon. Looks like a white one this year, with thermal underwear doing a booming trade.

Hopefully by now the video The Single File is readily available in the shops, and I hope those of you who have invested are pleased with the contents--I'd love to hear your comments.

As you will notice, we have a newcomer in this issue: Gray Levett, who has written us a Christmas article, and will be bringing us news in every issue from across the ocean in his Letter From America.

I met Gray a long time ago, when I went to stay at his house by the sea. He was very charming, and we talked of many interesting things. He was a perfect host, and we had a wonderful time. We've kept in touch over the years, through letters and calls, and since Gray moved out to America, his career has blossomed and grown, and now he is a very busy and sought-after man. But he still finds time to carefully research and compile his information and send it here to us, and I hope that you will feel as we do, that his material in our magazine is exciting and keeps us in touch with all the news, views and progress in America. [In fact, however, the readers--at least the American ones--did not find Mr. Levett's material very satisfactory. I was not the only American fan who wrote to this "American" correspondent to help him out and set him straight on some of his "facts", without ever receiving any acknowledgement or reply. Finally, after two more "Letters from America", Mr. Levett quietly dropped off the Newsletter writing staff, and he has not been heard from since 1984.]

Although Bush did not release an album in 1983, she was still promoting The Dreaming, which came out the year before. Night of the Swallow came out as a single in November 1983. The Single File (released in November 1983) was possibly a way of getting some commercial success after The Dreaming did not perform as well as EMI had hoped. It reached three in the U.K., but it did not have the same massive sales as an earlier album, such as her 1978 debut, The Kick Inside. Gray Levett someone who a lot of Kate Bush fans do not know about. I did not. It seems that his association with the Kate Bush Club was pretty brief! In any case, Bush was probably not as successful and popular in America as she would become. Hounds of Love reached the top thirty, but The Dreaming struggle. The Single File got the odd positive review, but I don’t think it is an official greatest hits. That would come in 1986 with The Whole Story. Instead, it provided fans a chance to see all these incredible videos up to this point. The Single File was after Hounds of Love, so it was popular because of that, and the videos from that album are so brilliant. Riding the tide of massive acclaim, whereas some critics were mixed towards The Dreaming.

I'm afraid there has been a delay with the boxed single set, and this will probably be released early next year now, rather than before Christmas. But as with the video, I hope the finished thing will dispel any disappointment from waiting. [Again, fans were not entirely pleased with this product, when it finally did arrive. There were numerous complaints about the poor quality of the re-pressings and their flimsy picture-sleeves. I, for one, have always admired the design of the box, even if some aspects of the product as a whole were disappointing.]

I hope you enjoy our Christmassy stories and games, and may all your Christmasses be white.

Lots of love,

Kate xx

Disappointment from fans regarding that compilation. It is why I do not consider The Single File cannon, where The Whole Story is. I still think that the videos need to be HD and 4K, as you go on YouTube and some of them still suffered from looking bad. Christmas 1983 was not white, either. Bush’s predictions of it being white did not get realised. On Christmas Day, it was also slightly mild in some parts of the U.K.! There was still magic happening, as Bush was working on Hounds of Love and building this masterpiece. She would release it on 16th September, 1985.

On the Road Home

It had been a good day, and as I tied the tree on to the roof it showered me in its green perfume. For just a moment it took me to that place where all my Christmas days meet as one; where there are reindeer and chimney pots and blazing fires. It hung in my head for an instant and then was gone as I checked the clock and made for the shops.

It was unusually quiet for an afternoon so near to Christmas. It had even snowed that morning, and the shop attendants seemed almost happy at their work. It felt like some kind of magic, wrapping everyone and everything up.

The ever-growing list was finally getting smaller--tick, tick, tick: the turkey, the pudding, the crackers. Tick, tick: a present for David, a present for Granddad.

With just five minutes to spare, I had finished the shopping and was wading back to the car through the snow. It really was quiet that night, and it had been dark for a good hour. I opened the car boot and wedged as much as possible into the already full space.

It was great to be in the car and on the way home. Everything looked so beautiful in the snow! It was like driving down a tunnel of trees to Narnia. I was in no hurry, and didn't feel like the radio--the snow and my thoughts were just right together. Not too fast, remember the driving conditions, ease off the accelerator, check the mirror (no-one around), nice and easy...

I wonder, when it comes to her stories, how based on her own life it is. Bush wrote several short stories for the Kate Bush Club. These traditional Christas themes and images that Bush put some of her into her 1980 Christmas single, December Will Be Magic Again. 1983’s Christmas not as snowy and idyllic as she was wishing. Though we do get this vivid and happy story. Many people can relate to the duties and stresses around Christmas. Getting everything prepared, bought and organised!

It was just as I started thinking about checking the tree on the roof that I got this feeling...this feeling that there was someone else in the car. I dismissed it--ridiculous, I'd have seen them. Check the mirror. There. Nothing. But what if he's lying down on the back seat and I can't see him?

I slowed right down, and twisted my head round. Nothing.

Check the mirror. It must be paranoia. I'm going just a little faster now. I know it's nothing, but it's just this feeling...

Then his face is right there, in between the two front seats:

"Look out, look out...Stop."

My eyes turned from his moving lips to the road, my foot already reacting on the brake. I skidded to a stop. After just a few seconds I had taken in that there was nothing in the road. Nothing in front, nothing behind...and no-one in the back of the car.

The thought of having to get out into the night--out of the car-- was more terrifying than staying in it, so I started up the motor, put my foot steadily on the accelerator and turned on the radio-- light music, nice and loud.

By the time I turned into the drive I was wondering if it had really happened at all. I was shaking, and hadn't checked my mirror once since I'd had to stop. I ran into the house. As soon as I saw David I released the tears.

The story taking a sinister turn. It starts to sound like The killer in the backseat (also known as High Beams). There is also folkloric anthologies like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. In it, a driver is relentlessly followed and flashed with high beams by another car, only to discover later that the driver was trying to save her from a killer ducking in her back seat. I took that information from this Facebook page. Kate Bush is a Horror fan and many of her songs and videos bring in Horror and something darker. I think many of us have that paranoia of someone being in the back of the car when it is dark and we are alone. It is the same with being at home alone in the dark. Something that our mind does that is hard to control! I wonder who the ‘David’ is. People might jump to say David Gilmour. A dear friend and mentor, perhaps he was not as in her mind and life as much in 1983 as he was in 1978 and before.

 

I don't know if he believed me or not, and it didn't matter at the time. He acted like he did, that was all I needed. After all, I was seriously doubting it myself.

It was a week later, and we were all to go out for the evening. We arranged for our friends to pick us up on the way. It was Christmas Eve--the first time for years we'd left the house on that night. We were looking forward to the break, and once we were at the party we relaxed and enjoyed the rest from the rush. None of us really drank, but we ate as much as possible, working our way up the table--the food was delightful; and like perfect guests, as soon as we'd had our fill we left, in order to be in our homes to celebrate Christmas.

Since we'd arrived the weather had broken into a storm--heavy wind and rain. We piled into the car--our friends in the front, David and I in the back--and rolled toward home. After a while I realised what route we were now taking on the way to our house: past the shops...My eyes fixed on the road ahead. I felt uncomfortable --it was that same feeling--I would not panic—

We came to the spot where I had stopped that night, that figure shouting in my ear. We were travelling at a fair speed. Then there he was--standing in the road, waving his arms to and fro. He was right in front of us.

"Look out, look out...Stop."

The words came out as if they were not my own.

I am not sure if there is an urban legend or Horror story where this thing happens exactly. It is Bush looking at folklore and stories she would have heard about when she was young. Adding to it. I do wonder why Bush never made these short stories into films, as it would have been great to see this one come to life. Bush as an actor is something many would have liked to see explored more. This figure that apparently Kate Bush – or the heroine – saw in the road but others did not.

The car ground to a halt, all four of us staring ahead. Still held by my fear, the other three slowly turned their faces toward mine.

"God, what's the matter with you?" shouted David, his face pale.

"Didn't you see him?" I screamed.

"See what?"

I couldn't believe it--he must be joking.

"What did you see?" queried my two friends, now laughing a little as they shook off their fright.

"The man...in the road!" I gasped.

As I pushed open the back door and got out, I looked back-- nothing. I looked ahead of the car--nothing. I would not have this! I knew I had seen him this time--he was real. The car headlights--the light beams filled with rain--stopped dead about six feet from the car. After that, darkness. Maybe he had fallen down. He must have been further ahead than I had thought. My friends, now concerned by my worry, were sitting with knitted brows in the car.

"Please," I said, "move the car forward very slowly--I need the light on the road."

The light slowly moved across the tarmac. I waited for a shoe, a hand. Then the edge of the light hit a rough brown surface.

How she thought she had hit something and there was nothing there. What caused this hallucination, I wonder? After starting out with this pleasant Christmas and build-up, it then gets darker and terrifying. I have not quite seen a story or film with this synopsis. Perhaps someone will suggest a few. I guess Identity, or Hallow Road, do something similar. It seems like a trope that would be in a lot of films but, doing some research, not that many that have this exact arc.

"There's something here!" I shouted. The light steadily moved forward and revealed the huge bough of a tree. It must have been a twenty-, thirty-footer, fallen in the storm. The car stopped. All four of us stood, fixed on the object.

"The speed we were going..." David said. "How did you see it? it?"

"I didn't," I answered. I hadn't seen it.

None of us could say anything--we were too shocked. We couldn't believe it. It had been close. So strange.

In the distance the clock struck the first chime of Christmas day.

And in the distance but coming towards us was the constant buzz of an engine. We'd all heard it. Something travelling fast: a motorbike, and now he's in view, he's coming straight towards us. He's not wearing a helmet, and with his hair pelted back by the rain, his face is white and stark in the night. His face is very like that man's--that man who was first shouting, then waving, is now coming straight for us.

"Look out, look out...Stop."

-- Kate Bush”.

The tension that builds and builds before that clock strike! It would make an amazing video. I wonder whether Bush was ever tempted to do something with it. That motorbike coming towards them at the end. Who was that pale-faced man?! It is a great haunted Christmas story. There were bits and pieces happening in 1984, but it was not until 1985 when we would get this activity. Hounds of Love coming out. In 1984, aside from working on Hounds of Love, The Single File was doing well in the U.K. On 16th January, Bush helps launch the Sky Channel, the first satellite T.V. station in the U.K. I can’t find video of that, but she did all these cool things outside of music. After getting this great update from Kate Bush in 1983, it would take a while for Hounds of Love to come out. Though, very few people could have any idea…

WHAT was in store.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Whole Story: Her Kate Bush Club Article for Issue 20, An Interview with Auntie Hetty

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1986/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Her Kate Bush Club Article for Issue 20, An Interview with Auntie Hetty

__________

THIS might be the…

penultimate look inside The Published Writing of Kate Bush. What she wrote for the Kate Bush Club. Their newsletters. Whether an interview, short story or something else, it has been amazing discovering these treats. Though I love the interviews where someone else speak with Kate Bush, there has been a couple of occasions where she has interviewed herself under a different guise. Two consecutive newsletters where this happened. I have featured Issue 21 and Kate as Zwort Finkle interviewing their ‘cousin’. That was the Winter 1987 edition. Going back to Issue 20, this was published in 1978. I think the summer edition. Here, Auntie Hetty was interviewing Kate Bush. It is great that Bush was game enough to of this. She could answer the questions she wanted. I did want to discuss the interview:

“Let me introduce myself. I'm Kate's Auntie Hetty, and I've been waiting to do this interview for years, but she's such a busy dear, and I like to keep myself active with my amateur dramatics. Such a lovely group of boys and girls--so enthusiastic-- keeps them away from nasty things like sniffing glue and listening to Sigue-Sigue Sputnik. I'm terribly into Method acting and have just had a nice long sleep. I was playing a woman alcoholic who'd been up for three days and three nights, so I stayed up for three days and three nights and drank both bottles of sherry (from that lovely boy who played Bottom three years ago in Little Hampton). It's so much more fun than acting. But I feel most refreshed now, and as I enter Katie's front gate I notice the garden's a little untidy-- I really must tell her about old Mr. Squashy, and I've some lovely hollyhocks she could put by the door.

So, with a nice cup of tea, I refer to my notes, take up the old crochet hook and begin:

Now Katie, dear, we're all so pleased about this album doing so well and we heard a lot about a film called The Ninth Wave. Will that be your next project?

"The film was something I very much wanted to try. The b-side of the album was originally written with visual ideas in mind, and I am intrigued by the combination of pictures and sound on film. I went as far as approaching a couple of people about the idea, but I found the success of the album and the rate of single releases extremely demanding, especially as each single required a video, 12", single artwork...It soon built up, and there was no time to even think about this film. The promotion for this album almost lasted a year. By the time I'd taken a break, the gap between albums was already becoming too big to consider fitting in another project. I've now had a holiday and some time to do nothing, and am in the process of thinking out some ideas to take into the studio."

I like that she leads in with something comedic. This idea of a middle-aged aunt worrying about teens and their behaviour. Although I don’t think 100% it was confirmed Kate Bush is playing Hettie, I am pretty certain it is. This idea of the aunty tottering up to the house and noticing Bush’s unkempt garden. Deliberately phrasing questions so that she is slightly wrong but that then provokes an interesting answer from Bush. Like The Ninth Wave as part of Hounds of Love and not a film. I think that it is a missed opportunity that a film has not been made. Even if it was staged for Before the Dawn in 2014, it is not a film, and most people did not attend. I hope Bush picks up the idea again.

Oh, I see, dear. Well, you must have been very busy. Did you have a lovely holiday?

"Yes, it was...lovely."

Now, you have a video E.P. out called The Hair of the Hound, and it's been at number one in the charts, which is very nice, lovely. They must have taken a lot of time to do. You see, I understand these things--Amateur dramatics is the same thing, you know: rehearse, rehearse, struggle, toil, iron your costume every night...

"I really wanted to try and make videos that looked like short films this time. I think I've always wanted to do this, but apart from one or two of the previous videos I have not achieved it. I started approaching film directors. I believed that video and film were two very different worlds, and that people who made videos would be less likely to make a pop "video" look like a piece of 35mm film.

"All the people I approached were very kind but very busy, and I began to realise that unless I was extremely lucky, no one that I wanted would be able to shoot the promo.

"I am a big admirer of Terry Gilliam's work--he is a great director. I asked his advice; could he suggest people I could work with who were good. He recommended David Garfarth, who had worked as a cameraman for him. The lighting cameraman was Phil Mayheux-- who, interestingly, worked on the Max Headroom special, which was superbly lit--"

Max who?

"The video [ Running Up That Hill ] took eight weeks: six weeks' training and choreography working with Dyane Gray, and three days shoot, plus editing and various meetings.

"Cloudbusting took eight to ten weeks, working with Julian Doyle, who has worked many times with Terry Gilliam. He is multi-talented, and covered many areas of the shoot, with Brian Helighy lighting for the first time--it's hard to believe that it is his first time at lighting."

Yes it is so atmospheric, I love the story. But I'm very upset that you didn't bring that lovely Donald Sutherland to see me. You know your Uncle Bertie used to get quite jealous...eh, hmm, yes. Now I noticed you didn't move your lips to the music in three of the videos--or should I call them films?

"Well, they were all shot on film, but all eventually were edited on video.

Kate Bush speaking about her love of film. She directed a couple of Hounds of Love’s videos. The title track and The Big Sky. That rehearsal and preparation for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). The time it took to make the videos. I am not sure how long it takes for major Pop artists to make videos now. Possibly a couple of weeks. With Kate Bush and Hounds of Love, there was this longer period. Like short films. It is interesting how there were videos where Bush did not mime. More like an acting piece, it is a shame that this is not done more often now.

"Apart from Running Up That Hill, which was edited totally in the video suite, the others were edited on film as much as possible: doing all the cuts--except the ones that need special effects: slowing down, speeding up. All this is much quicker (and sometimes cheaper) to do on video, and with promo deadlines video is so convenient. But it does change the quality of the pictures when the film is transferred to video: it somehow loses its depth. But I'm sure in a couple of years the quality will be brilliant. Video is advancing all the time, but for me you can't beat the original quality of film, it's a very ancient form. The advantage of video is being set loose on all the effects, although on the E.P. all except Big Sky have been approached from a purist film-maker's point of view: very few special effects. We deliberately encouraged this, again trying to emphasise the film aspect. Which has a lot to do with no lip-synch: as soon as a performer is 'singing', they become that performer doing other things while singing. Which is great live, but on film, people acting out events without the lip distractions have more chance of playing a character. I found it very interesting and much more enjoyable. I'm always concerned about the miming being as accurate as possible, and that takes a lot of concentration and makes me behave like a singer. So without the lip-synch I could put much more effort into a character. I felt a little nervous about it in Cloudbusting. In Running Up That Hill it was different: no lip-synch, but I was trying to act a dancer, and they are facial expressions I know the sensations of. But playing a little boy, and playing opposite Donald Sutherland, I began to wonder if I was going mad, voluntarily putting myself in these situations where I had a ninety percent chance of looking a total absolute idiot! But if anything, Donald made it seem extremely natural, he was just like my Dad. He could make it rain, and I would watch him being taken away. I must say it was an extremely moving experience, burnt strongly into my memory upon the hill with the machine and the wind..."

I had a similar experience with Sir Cecil Dill in the last performance of Ooh, Was It Really? at Dulwich. He was playing Mortimer West, and as he rushed on the stage with his epee in his back and said, "Good God! It was him all along!" I knew I would never forget that moment, and with tears in my eyes I said, "Ooh, was it really?" and down came the curtain to the roar of applause, with that smell of old velvet--Still brings a tear to my eye.

I am not sure if artists now are concerned about miming and it being in time. I do like the idea of videos not relying on that. They can be more like short films. The Big Sky has some miming, but it has quite a lot of cuts and fantastic scenes. A lot thrown into the mix! How different the videos for Cloudbusting and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) were. Bush being an actor and playing alongside a legend. He sadly died, but Bush will remember her time with Sutherland forever. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is about the dancing and less like a short film where there are scenarios and characters. A performance piece. 

Now, where was I? Oh, my dear, you've made more tea. I didn't see you go!

I notice that you directed two of the videos. Did you enjoy doing that?

"It was very interesting and extremely educational. I've had a lot of encouragement from people to get more involved, and it can be difficult sometimes to find directors who are enthusiastic about the amount of involvement I like to put in. I found it took all my time rather than most, and the actual shoots felt very relaxed. Cupcake, Aunt Hetty?"

Ooh, don't mind if I do, dear.

"I am extremely lucky to have worked with such a good film crew: Mike Roberts was the cameraman. He's worked on The Killing Fields and The Mission, and Billy Camp was assistant, who organised everyone and everything so efficiently on the days of the shoot that I could almost relax. I used two different lighting men: Hughie Johnson; and Roger Pratt, who again worked with Terry Gilliam. The crew were so receptive, and made a very daunting, expensive task a lot of fun.

"It is very like making early albums: I feel a bit disappointed with the results, not having enough rehearsal, a big enough budget, etc., etc., but the shoots were so much fun. It's such a good feeling to work with a big group of people. I seem to like working with such a crowds. On both Hounds of Love and The Big Sky shoots there was a relaxed air--both shoots involved crowd scenes, and The Big Sky was especially satisfying. Besides a large number of performers to fill a stage and give the effect of a live concert, we needed an avenue of people, from the Wright brothers to two astronauts, to simulate aviation history. The Wright brothers looked remarkably like Dave Cross and Peter FitzGerald-Morris, and one of the astronauts looked so like Jay...We also needed a large, enthusiastic crowd, so we asked Dave Cross to organise some members of the Club, and two hundred beautifully behaved people arrived on the day of the shoot. It was very moving, they filled us all up with energy-- It made it feel like a real concert.

"All the film crew remarked on how incredible everyone was. They had been terrified with past experiences of invited audiences, but I told them they hadn't met the right ones. Everyone left just as beautifully--nearly everyone with a burnt thumb from being a star in the sky holding up lighters and waving. I'd never been in the same room with so many stars before."

What Kate Bush says about directing videos and the support she had around her. Rather than being told to stay away from the camera and stay in her lane, she was being encouraged. She would go on to direct quite a few videos. She would direct a short film, 1993’s The Line, the Cross and the Curve. Not many people discuss The Big Sky and its video. So many characters in there. It seems like it was a blast to be involved with! I know like Dave Cross and Peter FitzGerald-Morris (who interact with my Kate Bush posts now and then), and it would have been a thrill for them to be on set. They were part of the HomeGround team. This was a Kate Bush fanzine. It does not exist now, but they are part of Kate Bush News and the team there.

Oh, the little angels, how lovely! Did it take long to edit those clips?

"No, I worked with John Mister as film editor. On both those shoots we worked to very detailed storyboards, and in both cases could give John a photostat of the script beforehand so he'd know the gist of what we were working on. Then he'd do a rough cut by himself, following the storyboard. Then we'd work together until we were happy. He was great to work with, and both edits were very quick: just taking them into the video suite for bits and pieces. But it would have to be transferred to video for T.V. showings, anyway, so all ads [sic--Does she mean 'adds' here, as inq. 'additions'?], etc., end up on video.

The Big Sky was a little more complicated. The beginning part on the rooftops involves chromakey, where all the live action goes on in front of a blue screen and then the various weather effects were put in at the edit. The pieces of film with the weather were chosen beforehand and transferred to video; they then replaced the blue screen."

That sounds awfully complicated, dear. We just roll our scenery up and down from the wings, it's so much easier.

Now you must tell me about all these darling people you've been working with. What was it like working with that lovely Peter Gabriel again?

"I was so excited that he asked me to sing on that track-- It's such a lovely, haunting song, and I love his work. But I do get nervous, especially when it's something I really like. His music is very strong, and he is a great person--I love working with him."

And those dear Big Country boys...

"Yes, I like the Celtic influences in their music. They were lovely to work with--I really enjoyed it. They asked if I'd like to do some backing vocals, and I went in for an evening. They were really nice. It was fun. I like working with different people.

"I really enjoyed doing the Comic Relief concerts."

It must have been quite a trial getting The Big Sky edited. However, it is one of her best videos. It always lifts my mood. Quiet silly in places, you can feel the positivity and energy throughout. In a feature where I popped in Issue 19, Bush was discussing the videos too and promoting in the U.S. Rather than repeating what she said there, we get new insights and angles. Bush getting to work with Big Country and Peter Gabriel. Her duet with Gabriel, Don’t Give Up, is forty in October. Bush’s vocal is Absolutely stunning. So filled with warmth, it sounds perfect alongside Gabriel’s. 1986 and 1987 were very busy. Bush got to work with other artists and also be involved with Comic Relief. In April 1986, she performed Breathing (from 1980’s Never for Ever) and a duet with Rowan Atkinson, Do Bears…? At the peak of her fame, she was also using her time for charity and doing this amazing work.

Oh, but my dear, the language was appalling. I'm afraid I had to write to Points of View. I was more than a little shocked that you and Cliff Richard of all people...

"It was fantastic. I'm a big fan of so many of those comedians--they are so talented. For me, alternative comedy is the most exciting thing coming out of this country at the moment, and to be involved in something with them all was really fulfilling. I felt nervous there, too, it's been a long time since I've performed live to an audience, but they were so warm. Unfortunately the piano pedal jammed on the first night in Breathing and I sang to the most horrific combination of chords you can imagine, so the second and third nights were relatively relaxed after that!

"Singing with Rowan was hilarious. He's one of those people who can make his face and body language make you laugh without him having to speak. Again, I was so pleased that they asked me to take part. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I just wish I'd been brave enough to ask most of them for their autographs-- 'Er, Ben, would you? I say, Rick, I've got this nephew...Just sign it, don't bother signing it to him...' You know, you're meant to act nonchalant, but I found myself starstruck."

I did see gorgeous Ronnie Corbett and the Monty Python chappies-- Wasn't Terry Gilliam there?

"Yes, he was...Just so much talent. British comedy is unique and the best."

Here, here, Gr-r-reat Britain...

I hear you sang Brazil on the soundtrack to Terry Gilliam's film.

"Yes, what a beautiful song--and I always thought it was a really bad cabaret number, but actually it is very sad and nostalgic."

Of course it is, you silly girl--One of the best tunes ever...Br-a-a-zil-l-l-l...

"Michael Kamen did the orchestral arrangements. He worked on The Ninth Wave: Watching You Without Me and Hello Earth. He is very clever. He did the music for the film, and was putting the soundtrack album together with Terry, and they played me this beautiful arrangement without a voice. I'm not sure if this piece was in the film or not, but I don't sing in the film at all. It has such a 30s/40s feel, and Michael asked if I would sing over it--My immediate reactions were fear and 'Yes'."

Now, just before we have another cup of tea, I want to ask you if you're going to work with any more famous actors, because if you worked with that lovely Peter O'Toole you could tell him to pop in and see me and have a nice cup of tea, and we could act out one or two scenes from Romeo and Juliet...”.

There are tracks and things people might not be aware of. That Comic Relief appearance. Brazil ()Sam Lowry’s First Dream) was included on Best of the Other Sides last year. This song was not included in the actual film or the original soundtrack release; however, it has been subsequently released on re-pressings of the soundtrack. You can see what Kate Bush was doing in 1986. 1987 was pretty busy too, though the following year she was doing fewer activities. Focused on writing The Sensual World. That came out in 1989. I do love the interview, where Kate Bush played a fictional aunty and got to conduct an interview different to one you would get from journalists. It is…

A brilliant read.

FEATURE: So Many Moments of Pleasure: The Gems and Underrated Appeal of Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes

FEATURE:

 

 

So Many Moments of Pleasure

The Gems and Underrated Appeal of Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes

__________

I will end…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart

with a review or two of The Red Shoes. This is the album that fell between 1989’s The Sensual Word and 2005’s Aerial. Both hugely acclaimed, The Red Shoes is seen as weaker or less essential. When it comes to polls of her music, as I will show later, The Red Shoes comes last or near the bottom. It turns thirty-three on 1st November, I did want to sort of defend the album. I am also going to include an interview with Kate Bush from 1993. There are gems on this album that get overlooked. I feel the overall quality is higher than The Sensual World. The issue is with the production. Perhaps too layered/tinny or not warm-sounding, I feel if the original album was reworked so that the production sound was more similar to The Sensual World, then there would be more love towards the songs. Why Should I Love You? suffers from too many musical layers. Prince taking it away and ruining it. Moments of Pleasure perhaps the standout song from The Red Shoes. Though I feel there is so much to recommend. Big Stripey Lie is Kate Bush being Grunge-influenced. The first time she plays electric guitar on record. There is extraordinary range throughout. Eat the Music and The Red Shoes have this great energy. Even You’re the One, which is a song I have been unfair to, is actually wonderful. One of the issues might be the tracklisting. I think You’re the One shouldn’t be the final track. Maybe the title track could sit there.

The running order and production do sort of take away from an album that is fair stronger than people give it credit for. The Song of Solomon so intriguing. In terms of the lyrics, there are some great standout lines. “Comfort me with apples/For I am sick of love/His left hand is under my head/And his right hand/Doth embrace me”. Top of the City is another brilliant track. One that came to life in 2014 for Before the Dawn. I do really love that track. The lyrics throughout The Red Shoes is magnificent. Not written about enough. The fruit-based imagery on Eat the Music. The brilliant Lily. “Lily, oh lily I'm so afraid/I fear I am walking in the veil of darkness/And she said/Child, take what I say”.  Constellation of the Heart would benefit from being stripped back. Bush did do this for Director’s Cut, though she re-recorded the song for the most part. I feel taking the original album and just doing something with the composition and production would make it such a strong album. The more I listen to The Red Shoes, the more I find its strengths. What is interesting is how The Red Shoes has raised in terms of polls and features. It always used to come bottom or near the bottom. There have been some fairly recent pieces where The Red Shoes has fared better. Though I have seen a couple place 2011’s 50 Words for Snow last, which is a travesty! In 2023, The Red Shoes was placed seventh by Rough Trade:

“Another nod to her love of film, The Red Shoes is recorded during a turbulent time for Kate. The end of her relationship with Del Palmer, the death of close-friend and guitarist Alan Murphy and of her mother, Hannah, all in a relatively short period of time. It feels like an album torn between two worlds, one of grief and one of marching on with a no-time-to-dwell, British stiff-upper-lip attitude. The latter is evident in bangers such as Rubberband Girl, the Naked-era Talking Heads groove of Eat The Music and the Prince-featuring and co-penned Why Should I Love You?

These numbers are placed amongst the more reflective - most evident on Moments of Pleasure, where Kate gives ode to the aforementioned Alan Murphy, Micheal Powell (of Powell & Pressburger, who in turn gave us the film The Red Shoes), dancer Gary Hurst and Bill Duffield, who died tragically during Kate’s 1979 tour (which was up until 2014’s Before The Dawn her only ever tour). But it’s the reminiscing of her mother that packs the most punch - “And I can hear my mother saying… "Every old sock meets an old shoe"... Ain't that a great saying?... "Every old sock meets an old shoe"... Here come the hills of time”.

MOJO put it seventh in their feature from July. It is nice that The Red Shoes is not at the bottom, though I feel people still don’t discuss it. Because it is thirty-three on 1st November, I did want to show it some love and appreciation:

“Its inner sleeve image of juicy fruit with seeds spilling out points to what came next (ie motherhood), but The Red Shoes is half future hope, half immediate pain (her mother and other bereavements, her break-up with bassist Del Palmer). Dry eyes are impossible while Moments Of Pleasure mourns the people, and You’re The One mourns the love. But Eat The Music and Rubberband Girl come bouncing back. Bush may have retrospectively voiced her unhappiness at how these songs turned out, returning to them on The Director’s Cut, but it’s easily up there with her greatest work”.

I want to get to some reviews of The Red Shoes. Though it is important to bring in an interview from 1993. We get an idea of where she was and what was being asked. I think it was a point where Kate Bush was tired of promotion and the whole cycle. It was an exhausting time. She did not want to make another album right away after The Red Shoes. He plan was to take a year out. After that, she wanted to extend that. Bush felt that The Red Shoes was too long. She wanted to give people value for money in the C.D. age. Aerial was more an album for vinyl. Though a double, she did not want to repeat mistakes.

I have used this Time Out 1993 interview. I wanted to bring it in again. There were not a tonne of print interviews in 1993. Though you do get a sense of how people perceived her. That idea that she was a bit mad, reclusive or strange. Though, as interviewers discovered, she is unique, charming and down to earth. I think these myths about her still present in 1993:

“She pours tea and places herself on the edge of her chair. She is small, not minute, and erect. One booted leg crosses the other and bumps gently up and down. She cocks her head and waits. She is courteous, cool and suspicious.

My friend Catherine has never opened any post addressed to Kate Bush. There was, however, a letter that came addressed merely to 'Catherine '. So Catherine opened it. Inside was a lot of stream-of-consciousness stuff about dreams, and about how the writer was watching Catherine. So Catherine snorted, noted the postmark and forgot about it. Then another letter arrived, identically addressed, from the same postal region; then another, and another, each of them increasingly weird and disturbing. Sometimes three would arrive in a day. And it so happened that on the day that Catherine decided to go to the police, a letter arrived that included a reference to Catherine's poetry and music, neither of which are big with Catherine. Also, the letter included the appellation Kate.'

'It's so nice to talk about my work for once,' she says. By this she means she's glad we've started by talking about the great film director Michael Powell and his influence on her, which is signally manifest in the title track of her new album 'The Red Shoes'.

'The Red Shoes' is a ballet film made by Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948, telling the story of a dancer who is torn between the demands of a great impresario, who can help her to become an artist of destiny, and those of her composer/husband, who can bring her happiness. The story elides an old fairy tale and a take on the power struggle that raged between the dancer Nijinsky and Diaghilev, first director of the Ballet Russe. Bush says the song evolved out of a feeling she had one day at the piano of music running away with itself. The image in her mind 'was like horses galloping and running away, with the horses turned into running feet, and then shoes galloping away with themselves'. Which corresponded, conveniently enough, with the key fairy-tale element in the Powell film: the red pumps worn by the tragic ballerina, which are imbued with a magic that carries their wearer off in a terrible outpouring of expressiveness.

Bush contacted Powell shortly before he died, 'to see whether he'd be interested in working with me. He was the most charming man, so charming. He wanted to hear my music, so I sent him some cassettes and we exchanged letters occasionally, and I got a chance to meet him not so long before he died. He left a really strong impression on me, as much as a person as for his work. He was just one of those very special spirits, almost magical in a way. Left me with a big influence.'

Which makes some kind of sense. Powell's super-rich three-strip Technicolor, his English-ness, his 'expressiveness', his interest in the shadows cast by daylight; even, you could argue, his thematic preoccupation with islands, solitary souls and the unconfined spirit; these are some of Bush's favourite things.

'His work is just so... so beautiful,' says Kate, in her tiniest voice.

Meaning what, exactly?

'Well, there's such heart in his films. The way he portrayed women... that was particularly good and very interesting. His women are strong and they're treated as people...'

That's one kind of beauty.

'The heart, I think, is the main beauty. This human quality he has. Although there's clever shots in his films, they're not really used for effect, to be clever. They're used for an emotional effect. I'd call that a human quality. Like vulnerability. Also, I like the emotional qualities of the characters. I suppose in one way they're very English ...'

To combine her interest in Powell with her lust for new directions, and perhaps to solve one or two promotional problems, Bush has directed a 40-minute film interpreting six songs from the excellent 'Red Shoes' album. It will be premiered at the London Film Festival.

'I'll be very interested to see what people make of it. To see whether they regard it as a long promo video or as a short film,' she says.

Where do your stories come from?

'Oh, all kinds of sources but generally they come down to people. People's ideas or works. Films, books, they all lead back to someone else's ideas, which in turn lead back to someone's else's ideas...'

I've always assumed you must be a bit of an Angela Carter fan.

'Um, no. I don't think I know her stuff.'

She wrote 'Company Of Wolves' and was big, I believe, on pomegranates, the predatory nature of nature, the heat of female sexuality; that sort of thing.

'Oh, yes.' Bush smiles, and her dimple disappears.

Other post addressed to Kate Bush arrived which went unopened. Then one day a letter came for the attention of Catherine Earnshaw. This being ambiguous, Catherine opened it just to make sure. Inside was a note from a Harley Street doctor indicating that Catherine was fit as a fiddle. This was good news. Unfortunately, Catherine had not been to see a Harley Street doctor. She hastily sent the letter on to Bush's record company, blushing at her daftness in not remembering immediately that Catherine Earnshaw is the name of the storm-tossed tragic heroine of 'Wuthering Heights '.

You're 35 and you've been doing this since you were a teenager. How have you changed?

'I think I've changed quite a lot. Essentially I'm still the same person but I suppose I've grown up a lot, and learned a lot.'

What's made you grow up the most?

'You get lots of disappointments. I'm not sure that they make you grow up but they make you question intentions.' She pauses. 'But life is what makes you grow up.'

That's a fantastically evasive answer.

'It is quite evasive but I think it's true.' Still no dimple. 'It's hard to say... when I was young I was very idealistic, and I don't really think I am any more. I think I'm more... realistic. I think it's good to change. I think I'd be unhappy if I didn't change. It would mean I hadn't learnt anything.'

Do you ever get curious about living another way?

'I do. But so far I'm extremely lucky to be doing what I'm doing. I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to do it”.

I did want to end with The Quietus and their feature from 2018. Marking twenty-five years of The Red Shoes. Rather than it being a misstep or an average album – a lot of the reviews I have seen are quite negative -, it is filled with many moments of pleasure. It most definitely is:

“The most powerful moments on The Red Shoes are its most intimate and personal. ‘Moments Of Pleasure’ starts with piano so soft and gentle it feels like it might vanish if you breathe too hard, before it’s swept up in Michael Kamen’s elegantly soul-stirring orchestral arrangement. Bush’s voice goes through a similar transformation, too, growing from a gentle flutter to something stronger, which makes her heartfelt cry on the chorus sound like a defiant refusal to be swallowed by grief: “Just being alive/ It can really hurt/ And these moments/ Are a gift from time.” Its outro remembers some of Bush’s lost friends – including guitarist Alan Murphy, producer John Barrett and lighting director Bill Duffield – and plays out like the closing credits of an old-fashioned weepy. Even more devastating is an old conversation she recalls with her mother, Hannah, who was ill while Bush was writing the song and who passed away before the album was released. “I can hear my mother saying ‘Every old sock needs an old shoe,’” remembers Bush warmly. “Isn’t that a great saying?” It is, even if it sticks a tennis ball-sized lump in your throat.

There’s emotional heft on ‘Top Of The City’, too, which takes a similar premise to ‘And So Is Love’ but adds higher stakes: Bush sits up in the skies, looking down at the lonely city below and hoping to find an answer. “I don’t know if I’m closer to Heaven, but it looks like Hell down there,” she declares, caught between exhilaration, melancholy and desperation: the moments of quiet calm are both beautiful and unsettling, with eerie pockets of silence hanging between delicate piano notes, until there’s a big, dramatic burst of violins and celestial backing vocals. “I don’t know if you’ll love me for it,” she yells wildly, forcing the moment to its crisis. “But I don’t think we should suffer for this/ There’s just one thing we can do about it.”

As heart-rending as those two tracks are, the simplicity of The Red Shoes can be endearingly playful. In 2o11, Bush called the happy-go-lucky ‘Rubberband Girl’, with its twanging guitars and parping trombones and trumpets, a “silly pop song”: she’s right, and the reason it spreads so much contagious joy is because you can tell she and her band are having such a ball, especially when she wails “rub-a-dub-dub” and makes her voice wobble and vibrate like a boinging bungee cord. The calypso-flavoured ‘Eat The Music’, which features Malagasy musician Justin Vali on the valiha and the kabosy, is equally fun, as Bush puts a new spin on the idea of getting fruity with a lover. “Let’s split him open, like a pomegranate,” she chants. “Insides out/ All is revealed.” “I wanted it to feel joyous and sunny, both qualities are rife in Justin as a person,” said Bush, who met Vali through her brother Paddy. “I just had to provide the fruit.”

Hearing her equate emotional intimacy with scoffing mangoes and plums might suggest that The Red Shoes still has plenty of idiosyncrasies. There’s certainly something quintessentially Bushian about some of its songs, including the title cut, which soundtracks the fate of a girl who puts on a pair of red leather ballet shoes and dances a frantic Irish jig: it combines her fondness for Celtic sounds, old stories and classic film (The Red Shoes was written by Hans Christian Andersen and later adapted into a 1948 film directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the former of whom Bush salutes on ‘Moments Of Pleasure’), and her shrill, possessed vocal makes it sound like a feverish fairytale. The steamy ‘The Song Of Solomon’, meanwhile, mixes a literary text and desire in the same way that ‘The Sensual World’ let Ulysses’ Molly Boom step off the page and experience physical pleasure. This time, there was no-one stopping Bush lifting lines from her chosen book, the Hebrew Bible, although the erotic charge of the chorus is all hers: “Don’t want your bullshit, yeah/ Just want your sexuality.”

And if Bush has dabbled with the gothic and supernatural ever since ‘Wuthering Heights’, there’s more magick on the moody, witch-rock of ‘Lily’, a tribute to her friend and spiritual healer, Lily Cornford. “I said ‘Lily, oh Lily, I’m so afraid,’” trembles Bush. “I fear I am walking in the vale of darkness.” She banishes the evil spirits with fire and the help of four angels, although Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and Uriel couldn’t save The Line, The Cross And The Curve, the Bush-directed film-meets-visual-album which included videos for ‘Lily’ and five of the LP’s other songs. Inspired by Powell’s original movie, the singer is tricked by Miranda Richardson into wearing the cursed ballet slippers, and must free herself from the curse under the tutelage of Lindsay Kemp. It was, Bush later claimed, a “load of old bollocks”.

It’s easy enough to find the common thread running through The Red Shoes: time and time again she returns to being brave, to being strong, to being open, to having to decide between holding on or letting go, and still trusting you’ll come out OK on the other side. There is, admittedly, less of a sonic coherence, especially in its latter stages. ‘Constellation Of The Heart’ is a colourful swirl of funky guitars, organs and saxophone, while ‘Big Stripey Lie’ is built upon Nigel Kennedy’s gorgeous violin but is undercut by bitty guitars and discordant squiggles of noise, its scorched beauty hinting at violent chaos as Bush frets: “Oh my god, it’s a jungle in here.”

That’s then followed by the absurdity of ‘Why Should I Love You?’ Bush had originally asked Prince to record backing vocals for the track, but he decided to take it apart and add guitars, keyboards and brass, too. Conventional wisdom is that great collaborations are the result of a shared vision, but ‘Why Should I Love You?’ is great even though there’s absolutely no shared vision whatsoever: for the first 60-odd seconds it’s built around Bush’s hushed vocal, until Prince’s huge rush of ecstatic, kaleidoscopic sound steamrolls everything in its path. It’s less the meeting of two minds and more the smashing together of two completely different styles, the most special of cut-and-shunt hybrids. (And somewhere, among all the hullabaloo, you’ll also hear backing vocals from Lenny Henry).

There’s another cameo on the closing song, the fantastically histrionic breakup ballad ‘You’re The One’, on which Jeff Beck’s dizzying, drawn-out guitar solo pushes Bush to an exhausting catharsis. Like so much of The Red Shoes, it finds her preparing to leave a lover to save herself, although this time she’s less bullish, more prone to tying herself in knots. “I’m going to stay with my friend/ Mmm, yes, he’s very good-looking,” she admits. “The only trouble is, he’s not you.” By the song’s end, she’s so frazzled by frustration and anguish that she lets rip a larynx-tearing shriek: “Just forget it, alright!” Bush, who had spoken of feeling emotionally burnt-out years before the album was released, was ready to withdraw, too: she vanished for 12 years until Aerial, and then went on hiatus for another six before returning with Director’s Cut. “I think there’s always a long, lingering dissatisfaction with everything I’ve done,” she said in 2011, glad to have the chance to right some of the wrongs that had been bothering her for 20-odd years. For me, though, the original album has always been enough: it might have its flaws, and there might be a handsome alternative, but just like Bush on ‘You’re The One’, I still want to keep going back”.

Thirty-three years old on 1st November, I did want to speak about The Red Shoes. Two singles were released before the album came out. Rubberband Girl on 6th September, 1993. Eat the Music came out as a U.S. single. Moments of Pleasure arrived on 15th November. I have celebrated Rubberband Girl in a separate feature. In terms of The Red Shoes, go and listen to it, as there are some many highlights. I know the production sound is not great. However, focus on the lyrics and vocals. Those interesting songs you may have overlooked, such as Big Stripey Lie and Constellation of the Heart. The Red Shoes clearly is…

AN incredible album.

FEATURE: The Queen of Tea: Kate Bush’s Aerial, and the Preparation and Release

FEATURE:

 

 

The Queen of Tea

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Kate Bush’s Aerial, and the Preparation and Release

__________

I am flicking back…

through Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. I am revisiting it to get ideas for new features. There is a lot written about Aerial. This is Kate Bush’s 2005 double album. On 3rd November, Del Palmer would have turned seventy-four. He sadly died in 2024. He worked on every Kate Bush album in some form. Reading about him in the book lets you inside some of the magic. He performed on Aerial, but his biggest role was engineer. He worked so closely with Kate Bush. Even though they were in a relationship and split in the 1990s, they remained very dear friends. Palmer being one of the only people Bush could work closely with. He would turn up early and get to work. It is wonderful because Kate Bush got a little bit of loving mockery from Del Palmer and others in the studio because she kept offering tea! I think we associate The Beatles with tea when it comes to artists. There is a whole website and discussion around photos of them drinking tea. I think Kate Bush might be the ultimate tea-drinking artist. She drank a lot during Aerial and would offer it all the time. Legendary hospitality! In 2006, when Tom Doyle interviewed Bush to mark twenty years of Q magazine (which unfortunately is no longer around), she was asked what she is going to do after the interview. She said going to the toilet, because of all the tea she had drank! I wonder what her bag of choice is?! I feel it is Yorkshire Tea, as that is the only answer you should give! Though you feel she has these special teas and goes a bit deeper. I would love to know what she has as her tea. The working of the studio did not differ much from the earliest days. During Hounds of Love in 1985, Bush’s mother, Hannah, would offer tea and supplies. I think Kate Bush was also pitching in.

If musicians were probably being ferried about by her husband, Dan McIntosh, and he would go and pick up takeaways – or was this done more for later albums -, Bush was always making sure everyone has enough tea inside them! Graeme Thomson notes how the air of hospitality had not changed much from East Wickham Farm. Kate Bush now the mother figure. I think it helped where she was living. Not shuttling between studios and in a very happy space, she gave birth to her son, Bertie, in 1993. She was a literal mother and had that responsibility. Though she was also looking after the musicians and those around her. There was a feeling of collaboration. Musicians improvising and, if something worked that was great, but if not then no issues. That was very different to how things would have been before. Some of those involved with Aerial note how they met a very young Bertie, drank tea, had some pizza and saw the house. In the middle of this familial pleasantness was a hugely ambitious album coming together. EMI must have been nervous they would never hear an album. King of the Mountain, the only single released from Aerial, was written around 1995. So a decade since she wrote the first bits of Aerial, it was released to the public. Unlike The Kick Inside or one of her earliest albums, this one was packed with musicians. I think there are about fourteen musicians (including Kate Bush) who play on The Kick Inside. Around twenty-two on Aerial. These people coming in and out. There must have been a mountain of tears, biscuits and cakes on hand! Aerial is a bit of a pun. Though Bush has never said specially what Aerial refers to, it could be the washing powder. Its standout song, Mrs. Bartolozzi, is about a woman washing and scrubbing the floors. Maybe Bush as this new mother, there are erotic elements to the song. Was Bush thinking about that song when titling Aerial? Graeme Thomson writes how Tony Wadsworth of EMI felt King of the Mountain jumped out and was an obvious single. If Bush fought EMI and won to get Wuthering Heights released as her debut single rather than the more conventional James and the Cold Gun, there were no fights now.

How to Be Invisible was suggested at one point. I do wonder why only one single was released. How to Be Invisible and Mrs. Bartolozzi would have been popular singles. Though King of the Mountain was the final video to feature Bush in. Maybe conscious about having been away for a while and conscious about how she looked. Or not wanting to be on camera. Thomson is cold about King of the Mountain and feels the vocal is uncommitted and it is flat I guess it is propulsive and works as a single, but Mrs. Bartolozzi or even Nocturn would have made for a more intriguing single. In any case, there was not a massive hoopla regarding promotion. Today, major artists have to do the online thing and post videos, teasers and promote endlessly. There is a generous assortment of interviews, though I don’t recall there being this build-up and sense of anticipation. Instead, we got the first single in October 2005 and Aerial arrived the following month. When celebrating twenty years of Aerial last year, The Quietus observed this:  “But it was the perceived ‘wait’ for Aerial – a wait that inspired John Mendelsohn’s novel/non-fiction hybrid Waiting For Kate Bush, a wait built up to grandiose proportions by a British press eager for any glimpse of this apparently reclusive icon – that her fan community so keenly and acutely remembers. The days before social media, when any tiny detail – a tantalising report of an Abbey Road recording session in 2003 on a fan forum, a rare sighting at a Buckingham Palace reception – was pored over, dissected, analysed. Of course, for Kate Bush herself, in her embrace of the domesticity of motherhood, she was running towards the real world, not away from it. But the mysteries abounded as she lived a quieter life with her husband and son in their home in Berkshire with its own recording studio. To paraphrase Tom Waits, what was she building in there?”. Aerial reached number three on the U.K album chart and Bush performed the second disc, A Sky of Honey, in its entirety for her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. It is one of her most popular albums. For all its immense and amazing production (by Kate Bush), I think about Bush serving tea and the atmosphere recording it. How musicians came ands went but there was this looser feel. A real convivial and communal aspect. Bush guiding rather than dictating. John Giblin and Del Palmer tickled by Bush always offering tea. It seems like one of her happiest recording experiences. Many compare it to Hounds of Love because of that. To think, as we speak, musicians might be at Kate Bush’s house wiring on an album with her. Will it be as packed as Aerial, or slightly more slimmed-down when it comes to personnel? Who knows! What is guaranteed is that Bush will deliver something incredible, be this amazing host and, no doubt, serve up…

PLENTY of tea!

FEATURE: There’s Just One Problem: Which Kate Bush Song Has the Most Personal Meaning to You?

FEATURE:

 

 

There’s Just One Problem

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed during the making of her 1993 short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Which Kate Bush Song Has the Most Personal Meaning to You?

__________

THE first part of the title…

IN THIS PHOTO: Lindsay Kemp looming over an asleep Kate Bush during the production of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

of this feature is taken from Kate Bush’s You’re the One. That is from her 1993 album, The Red Shoes. I am writing about that separately and how the album has these gems that stand out. I want to ask people which Kate Bush song has the most personal meaning. That can be because of the lyrics or when you first heard the song. In terms of tracks that I love and arrived at moments when I needed to be lifted, I have a different list to those whose lyrics have personal meaning. When it comes to memories and one of the biggest rushes of affection for her music, I think of Aerial. Mrs. Bartolozzi is a track that hits me personally. In 2005, I was in my twenties and still trying to figure things out. Something about this song and the emotion in it really hit me hard. Though it is not the one that has the biggest personal meaning, it is very important. I do think that a song having meaning to an individual does link to their age. I heard Kate Bush’s earliest music when I was young, so that was about discovery. I don’t think there are many songs from her first three or four albums that have personally significant meaning or weight. Though they are my entry into her music, so of course, they are treasured. I love Hounds of Love, and there are songs on the album that hit me hard. The Big Sky is the one that I go to if I need to be lifted. Though, in terms of lyrics, is there a track that has that special place? The one that has a personal connection? I guess the title track. Kate Bush and that idea of her being afraid of love. Running way from it. In actual fact, when you commit and jump in, it is not scary at all. I feel that song resonates with many people. Even if The Sensual World and The Red Shoes are albums not as rated as others, I do tend to find songs on there are more meaningful to me.

Perhaps this is because Bush was in her thirties when the albums came out. I am in my forties, though this time of life is transformative. I feel that she shed one part of her career and life and was entering another one. Responsibilities and priorities were starting to shift. I find, even though The Red Shoes suffers a bit from its production and how Kate Bush was burning out or facing a lot, there are tracks on there that really mean a lot. You’re the One is so intriguing. I always think it is about Bush’s past relationship with Del Palmer. They were together since the 1970s, and they broke up in the 1990s (although I am not sure the exact year they split). She married Dan McIntosh in 1992. That was the same year her mother died. She was dealing with turmoil and loss. I am sort of there at the moment. In terms of unhappiness and life being on a decline, perhaps the album connects hardest because of that. Though You’re the One is fascinating. This idea that Bush is packing up her stuff, getting in the car and staying with a friend. One that is handsome but not the same as the guy she is leaving. Was it about changing relationships and ghosts of the past? Although she did split from Del Palmer, I am not sure if he is the subject of You’re the One. Though there is something about the lyrics and that idea of packing things up and leaving. I sort of feel like that. The need to pack things up and go somewhere else. Similarly, there are moments on other songs that have meaning because of where I am in life. When speaking with Len Brown for the NME in 1989, Kate Bush said this of Never Be Mine: “It’s that whole thing of how, in some situations, it’s the dream you want, not the real thing. It was pursuing a conscious realisation that a person is really enjoying the fantasy and aware it won’t become reality”. That has some real weight in terms of my life. The dream of music journalism or living somewhere else. Loving the dream and the ideal, but not quite the reality. Is this something that a lot of us struggle with?

Bush re-recorded this track for 2011’s Director’s Cut. It may have taken on new meaning for her by then. There are songs from her earliest work that are definitely important and I play when I need to escape or feel better. Among them is Babooshka from Never for Ever. Though the track that has the greatest personal relevance and meaning. That is a tough one! Listening through The Red Shoes. Aside from all these gems that don’t get talked about, the lyrics on the album ae wonderful. I think Graeme Thomson wrote in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, how they became a bit pedestrian or boring on some tracks. I would disagree. I feel there are one or two tracks on The Sensual World that suffer this. Between a Man and a Woman. Perhaps the production lets down one or two tracks on The Red Shoes, though I feel the lyrics are brilliant. The song that has most personal meaning to me is Top of the City. I read this track as Bush discussing London. If it seems like she is talking about someone who needs to get out of the city and escape, it seems to be more about her. She has lived in London or nearby since she was born. In her mid-thirties, this idea that the city was doing her harm. Bush moved from London in 2005. She was living in Eltham. Aerial was released when Bush was living in Berkshire. Though not a complete retreat, I think the surroundings were so beneficial. Sounding much happier and contended, having this wonderful house and lots of garden space and a quieter life resulted in music that sounded so free and happier. Like Hounds of Love when Bush recorded at her family home, she had family around her. You can feel Top of the City as being about her wanting to get away from London. It would take her a while to do it, but she was tiring of the city: “I don’t know if I’m closer to Heaven but/It looks like Hell down there/These streets have never been paved with gold/Welcome to the loneliest city in the world/It’s no good for you baby/It’s no good for you now/Keep looking up for the ladder”. That idea of the loneliest city in the world. I always think that about London. How you are surrounded by people but it is lonely. I connect with a lot of the lyrics on Top of the City.

I don’t know if there is personal meaning behind some of the lyrics. “One more step to the top of the city/Put me up on the angel’s shoulders/And I don’t mind if it’s dangerous/I don’t mind if it’s raining/Take me up to the top of the city”. Is Kate Bush referring to The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, popularly but mistakenly known as Eros,? It is a fountain surmounted by a winged statue of Anteros. That could be the angel she is talking about. Maybe not a decrying putdown of London, I translated it as such. Or it is what it means to me. At a point where I am thinking of moving out of London. In 2005, Bush turned forty-seven. She was thirty-five when The Red Shoes was released. I am sort in the middle. I am not sure if I can cling to London for five more years. Though more and more, Top of the City creates reflection and emotion. It is a great song that Bush performed at her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. It also featured on Director’s Cut. Rare that it was included on two albums and performed live. A song that Bush clearly has affection for. Aside from this track, there are some honourable mentions. In terms of personal relevance, I split between lyrics resonating and a particular time when I heard the song. Them Heavy People (from The Kick Inside) was one I heard when I was a child. Wild Man is also important, as that was the single from 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. I started my blog the following month, when the album was released (November). All the Love from Never for Ever is important because of those answerphone messages at the end. I regret not speaking enough to people who used to be in my life. How we text and do not really leave messages. Perhaps we don’t phone people as much as we should. I get pangs of remorse when I think about that. However, Top of the City is the one that has the deepest and most powerful personal meaning to me. If there is something romantic about the character (or Kate Bush) climbing up a statue and looking down on the city, I sort of see it as a way to get away and find solace. It hits me hard because, now more than ever, I really want to…

ESCAPE the crowds.

FEATURE: Hammersmith, 1979: Is This Kate Bush The Tour of Life Performance in London the Greatest Live Gig of the 1970s?

FEATURE:

 

 

Hammersmith, 1979

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 12th May, 1979 (the day before a gig I feel is the best of the 1970s)/PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Still/Redferns 

Is This Kate Bush The Tour of Life Performance in London the Greatest Live Gig of the 1970s?

__________

THERE is a specific…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush pictured in Liverpool shortly before her The Tour of Life date at the city’s Empire Theatre on 3rd April, 1979

performance that I feel is the greatest live gig of the 1970s. As part of 1979’s The Tour of Life, Kate Bush performed at the Hammersmith Odeon. I will drop the video in at the end. As this is specific to one particular date, there are not photos specifically to go with it, so I am bringing in others from The Tour of Life. On 13th May, 1979, Bush performed at the Hammersmith Odeon. Now the Eventim Appollo, she staged her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, there. The full-length video of that Hammersmith fate gives you an insight into what crowds witnessed in 1979. I am not sure whether anything was edited out or if there was added in. I assume everything from the video was from that date. What we get to see is Kate Bush demonstrating why she is one of the greatest live performers ever. If this video was cleaned up and it could be HD or 4K, we could get something even more powerful. The final date of the tour was on 14th May, 1979. On 12th May, the setlist was changed slightly, as it was an In Aid of Bill Duffield gig. He was part of her crew and tragically died after suffering an accident at the warm-up gig in Poole on 2nd April. So I think there is this emotional weight to that gig on 13th May, 1979. I do think that it is the best gig of the 1970s. In terms of the spectacle and what Bush and her team accomplished. People might point to David Bowie and what he was doing. In terms of other people’s views, there have been some features. This one lists legendary concerts by Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and The Who. I do think that Kate Bush needs to be mentioned in the same breath. In terms of the spectacle and the theatrical side, there were few concerts that could stand with hers. Her physicality and performances through that date are phenomenal. A test of endurance, it is a groundbreaking and hugely memorable gig. Before coming to Dreams of Orgonon and their general assessment and insight into The Tour of Life, here is some critical feedback: “As the tour rolled out around the UK the reviews were euphoric: Melody Maker called the Birmingham show “the most magnificent spectacle ever encountered in the world of rock. (…) I hadn’t expected to be impressed by her as a singer, both she and the band were nothing short of immaculate”. According to Sounds, the show was “so finely realised that it’s beyond criticism”.

By 13th May, 1979, Bush was exhausted. She has played around the U.K. and Europe and had only one date left after this one before she could rest. Though, it was not long until she was in the studio working on a new album. Also, she had performed enough dates to have everything honed and perfect. You would think there was fatigue and issues given how tiring the tour was. Though you do not get a sense of that when you see the video. Bush has this captivating charm and energy. She did not speak to the audience, as this was more like a theatrical performance than a traditional gig. Dreams of Orgonon gives us a window into the extravaganza that is The Tour of Life:

“Every tour performance began with “Moving.” Whale sounds were played for several seconds, as they were on The Kick Inside, while a transparent blue curtain cordoned off those onstage from the audience, with only a bright light in the center of the stage and the silhouette of Bush completely visible through it. Then came the vocal and the piano: “moving stranger, does it really matter/as long as you’re not afraid to feel?” called Bush to her audience as the curtain was pulled back. Her dance, made up of open arms and gestures aimed at the outline of her body, was an invitation to the audience to collaborate and be part of her music. According to every recording of these concerts, it was a steady introduction: when the first number ended, the audience cheered loudly. “The show went well and the audience was wildly appreciative,” said Lisa Bradley in the Kate Bush newsletter, “it was unfortunate that we rarely had a chance to see it as the merchandise stand had to be looked after all the time.”

Every night of the show got stark raving reviews from the British press. Mike Davies of Melody Maker admitted going to see Bush “more as a pilgrim than a critic,” John Coldstream of the Daily Telegraph praised her “balance between the vivid and the simple,” and former Bush naysayer Sandy Robertson of Sounds announced she had “seen the light.” There were a couple reviews from more negative quarters, mostly notably by Charles Shaar Murray in NME, who opined that “her songwriting hints that it means more than it says and in fact it means less” and “her shrill self-satisfied whine is unmistakable.” One could smugly grin at Murray for panning a critically praised and influential tour in 1979, but why do that when he invented every sexist whinge about Lauren Mayberry more than three decades early? It’s a break from the orthodoxy of Bush’s tour reviews, and thus in keeping with Bush’s ethos.

An oft-commented on aspect of Bush’s shows in reviews was its synthesis of theater and rock. This is a glib and useless description are there were many “extravaganzas” in rock music at the time, but even among them the Tour of Life broke rank. Bush had more planned for her debut concerts than simply playing her new album — she was producing a stage show, a colorful spectacle with extensive costuming, mime routines, dancers, act breaks, poetry, and elaborate set design. “I think the most important thing about choosing the songs is that the whole show will be sustained,” said Bush later. “…the songs must adapt well visually: a show is visual as well as audial, so there must hopefully be a good blend of the two.” As per usual, Bush’s way of proving herself was unorthodox. While there were other especially theatrical rock acts performing at the time (glam was the world’s loudest costume drama, and prog acts like Genesis and Pink Floyd thrived on massive setpieces, and disco and ABBA were more theatrical than they were credited for), they were mostly playing their songs live with different arrangements and more props. Bush was staging a long play, with dance acts, characters, and spoken word segments. The concerts were made by small flourishes: “The Kick Inside” got a spoken prelude by John Carder Bush with a foreboding call-and-response (Kate hauntingly shouts “two in one coffin!”), “Saxophone Song” has a saxophonist projected onto the stage, and mime Simon Drake appears decked out in white make-up as Charlie Daniels’ devil channeled through Iggy Pop. A classic component of the shows is, bizarrely, from the “Room for the Life” performances, in which Bush is rolled around in a velvet cylindrical egg (get it? It’s a uterus). She eventually departs the egg and frolics with her band during the song’s outro, giving way to Bush’s greatest performance ever as she enthusiastically calls “a-woom-pa-woom-pa-woom-pa-woom-pa-woom-pa!”, elevating the worst song on her debut album to a highlight of her career.

Salvaging “Room for the Life” isn’t Bush’s greatest feat at this time, however. It was unprecedented for women artists to undertake projects of this scale at the time. Bush was hopping into a steadfastly rockist tradition and putting a feminine spin on it. We have Björk, Laurie Anderson, and Florence + the Machine because of shows like this. You know those weird headset mics artists use sometimes to stay handsfree while performing? Bush was the first singer ever to use those, and she did it here. This is pretty much the Seventies equivalent of Zoo TV and The Wall Tour, and a woman got there first.

Rather than feeding on nostalgia (a hard feat for a recent artist to pull off), Bush used her existing work as a diving board for her live shows. For all the strengths of The Kick Inside and Lionheart as albums, the live versions of a few of their songs are superior: the revamped band bring the songs a power the original recordings sometimes lacked. “Coffee Homeground” sounds tighter, and even the unimpeachable “Wuthering Heights” improves slightly when Alan Murphy improvises bits of the track’s guitar solo. There are plenty of odd musical choices throughout the shows: there’s an electronica-inflected rendition of Satie’s Gymnopedies leading into “Feel It,” and “James and the Cold Gun” becomes the 10-minute prog jam its album counterpart was itching to be. This doesn’t suggest that Bush has been constrained by the studio — in fact, it’s likely she works better outside of the traditional rock band format. But in many ways she’s liberated by her chance to do musical theater, showing off what her songs look like and pushing some aspects of their sound a bit further.

In theory Bush was doing the Lionheart Tour, as it was her most recent album. Yet in practice, it was equally the Kick Inside Tour. All the songs from both albums were performed barring “Oh To Be In Love” (perhaps justifiably — it’s the Bush album track which most feels like a holdover from the Phoenix years), plus a couple of new songs called “Violin” and “Egypt,” the latter of which we’ll return to next week. It’s a well-organized setlist, as Kick and Lionheart are both preoccupied with the sort of adolescent world-storming the tour is. Bush’s concert setlists show off this interplay of albums well: Act One is constructed around the lighter songs of The Kick Inside like “Them Heavy People” and “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” with the two new songs, while Act Two centers the anxiety-ridden bulk of Lionheart plus “Strange Phenomena,” and Act Three provides the show with a theatrical climax of “Coffee Homeground” and “Kite” before the encore of “Oh England My Lionheart,” and finally “Wuthering Heights.” Setlists can be unruly things: while touring for albums, you’ll want to intersperse the newer material with the hits. Bush keeps this in mind while also remembering she’s doing a stage show with act breaks and thematic resonances. It’s a strong act, one that’s bolstered by its setlist.

The artistic precision of the concert belies what occurred behind the scenes. Bush was exhausted by the shows and the preparation for them, with her essentially all-day rehearsal schedule giving her little-to-no time off. The scale of the shows and the extensive travel involved (Bush is famously afraid of traveling by plane) are likely a contributing factor to Bush’s decision to never tour again. A likely further cause is the tragic first night of the tour. During a warm-up concert at Poole, lighting director Bill Duffield fell through an open panel around the stage and landed on a concrete floor 17 feet below. After a week on life support, Duffield died. It was a traumatic moment for everyone involved in the tour, and gave the group pause about whether to continue. When they inevitably did, it was as much as because of the effort put into the shows as it was for Bill himself. 

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing at Carré, Amsterdam, Netherlands on 29th April, 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

Bush didn’t forget Duffield, keeping tabs as she did on everyone she worked with. The first date of the final London stretch of the tour was a benefit concert for Duffield’s family. The night saw a drastic departure from Bush’s other concerts in many respects: the setlist was significantly different, as Bush wasn’t the only singer performing that night. Two other artists who’d worked with Duffield were present: Steve Harley and Peter Gabriel. Bush had previously worked with established names (e.g. Geoff Emerick), but appearing onstage with established British rock stars was a step forward for her. Harley had scored a #1 single with his glam band Cockney Rebel in 1975 when they released “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me),” and didn’t fall out of the albums charts for the next few years. While in 1979 he was hardly the big name he had previously been, with his attempt to go solo beginning with a critically savaged and commercially disappointing album, he had hardly been forgotten by listeners of British pop. Peter Gabriel, however, was at the top of his game. Unlike Harley, Gabriel was confidently traversing through the early years of his post-Genesis career, with the first two of a quartet of self-titled albums under his belt, both of which had made the top 10, and a major solo tour under his belt. The classic “Solsbury Hill” had climbed to #13, and Gabriel was good to go. At the Duffield concert he performed the effervescent “I Don’t Remember,” a wild ballad of the kind of formalist mountain-climbing and despair Gabriel had made his bread and butter while in Genesis. A wailing Kate Bush joins him on backing vocals, and sounds like her larynx is about to combust under the weight of the song’s Frippertonics. Much easier on Bush is a traditional cover of “Let It Be,” a song she’d sung before but still hadn’t made her way into (this would change — wait until this blog hits the late Eighties). Conversely, Gabriel seems to struggle with the song, as Paul McCartney’s gentler songwriting chafed with the new modes of composition he’d been exploring on his own albums and tour. A duo was established, however: Bush and Gabriel would sing together again.

It was a wild time for Bush. “It’s like I’m seeing God, man!” she said enthusiastically. When she’s onstage in a black-and-gold bodysuit and blasting her bandmates with a golden, it’s easy to believe she made that comment while looking in a mirror. It takes a shot of the divine (or perhaps a deal with it?) to stage a tour of this magnitude and success while dealing with such severe drama behind the scenes?”.

A lot of the gigs that are considered the best of the 1970s are about technical performance. In terms of the visuals and taking things beyond the music, not a lot is happening. Bowie has his merits in terms of costumes and changing personas, though Kate Bush created this template that you can see in the biggest and most celebrated concerts of all time. I feel artists like Madonna were influenced by Kate Bush. Huge gigs today where there is this multimedia aspect and it is like a film or theatre production. Not many artists prior to Kate Bush were doing this. Taking a Pop concert to new places. I do feel that epic gig on 13th May, 1979 for The Tour of Life was the best…

OF the decade.

FEATURE: Say, If I Only Could: Thinking of Lightroom’s David Bowie: You’re Not Alone and a Kate Bush Equivalent

FEATURE:

 

 

Say, If I Only Could

Thinking of Lightroom’s David Bowie: You’re Not Alone and a Kate Bush Equivalent

__________

ALTHOUGH I have…

pitched ideas in other features about Kate Bush, I do think that there is scope for more examination of her work. In a deeper way. Recently I attended David Bowie: You’re Not Alone. It runs at London’s Lightroom until October. It is their first installation dedicated to music. It has received some amazing reviews. This is what Uncut said when they attended:

“Given the density of material, it’s probably worth experiencing the film more than once. The visual and sonic information comes thick and fast. A loose narrative is provided by Bowie himself, speaking in clips drawn from various interviews, while the imagery seeks to evoke the eras or ideas he describes: memories of neon‑soaked Soho, reflections on his many characters, or his anger at the inevitability of death.

These visual sections are imaginative and lavishly realised. When Bowie talks about his childhood, we are dropped into his bedroom in 1950s London, surrounded by piles of comics and John Wyndham paperbacks, before the camera drifts back through the front door and away from suburbia. Projected onto the three walls and floor, the effect is dizzying: like one of those old 360‑degree amusement‑park cinemas, except instead of a rollercoaster you are flying out of a Bromley terrace. Other locations are conjured similarly, from a paranoid, sleazy Berlin to the National Gallery, alongside reconstructions of Bowie’s stage performances at the Rainbow in 1972 and during the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour.

Music is almost constant, whether murmuring in the background or blasting out via concert and TV footage. A handful of songs are treated as extended set pieces, played more or less in full. The film opens with one of these: “Rebel Rebel”, performed in silhouette at one of Bowie’s final shows in 2004. This dissolves into the same song on the 1990 Sound+Vision tour, then Live Aid, before rewinding through earlier tours until it reaches Top Of The Pops in 1974. “Space Oddity” is handled in reverse, jumping from the frizzy‑haired newcomer of 1969 to the seasoned professional of 1990, where Bowie’s more muscular delivery transforms Major Tom from victim to pioneer. “Let’s Dance” and “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide” receive similarly luxuriant treatment, with single performances split across multiple screens to show Bowie, his band and the audience simultaneously. The sound system is superb: a thundering Earl’s Court performance of “Heroes” from 1976 is so immersive that Dennis Davis’s bass drum feels like a physical massage.

There are omissions and quibbles. Bowie speaks warmly of collaborators, yet Brian Eno is the only one named. Blackstar and Glastonbury are surprising absences; Tin Machine and Labyrinth less so. You’re Not Alone makes no claim to be comprehensive, and its tone is celebratory without being shallow. While the images and music are often breathtaking, the most indelible moments come from Bowie himself. The reason he remains such compelling biographical material — the reason Bowie is everywhere in 2026 — is his intelligence and self‑awareness. He is unusually articulate about his motivations, fascinations and failings, and often very funny, whether bumbling through an awkward Russell Harty interview or comparing himself to an emperor penguin or a grasshopper”.

I was at that installation and felt that it was a great way of bringing together interview archives and performances. There was a lot to pack in but, over the course of an hour, you do get this great insight into David Bowie. The installation blends together archives with animation and bespoke visuals. Like a title would appear on the screen and there would be all these effects. People were immersed and entranced. I have been thinking about Kate Bush and her work. Although there might not be as many clips of Bush performing live – perhaps miming but not as many actual live performances -, there is a lot of interview archive. Those music videos. I wonder whether these could ever be brought together at a space like Lightroom. What you would get is this career-spanning look at a true icon. Similarly with David Bowie, there could be these imaginative visuals. When Bush discusses her childhood and growing up. Her musical heroes (one of whom was Bowie). It could seem quite exposing, though surely Kate Bush has heard about David Bowie: You’re Not Alone. I have been looking at videos of her performances and interview clips. There is so much out there, and most of it is not know to people. I don’t think that they dig deep enough or are aware of all of this amazing archive. There are archives that are quite recent. Her interview from 2024 with Emma Barnett for the Today programme. The Little Shrew (Snowflake) video from that year. Bringing this together in an installation, I feel, would be hugely popular. I have pitched various exhibitions and things like this. Though I came away from the David Bowie installation and was stunned. The way it was presented and put together. I learned more about an artist who I feel I know quite a bit about.

Kate Bush is obviously a fan of David Bowie. In this interview from 2016, she remembered David Bowie (who died in January that year). In terms of her live work, you can tell that Bush was influenced by Bowie. She was there in 1973 for his final performance as Ziggy Stardust. That was at the Hammersmith Odeon. A venue that she performed in for 1979’s The Tour of Life and 2014’s Before the Dawn (the later was a twenty-two-date residency at that space):

“What contemporary artists do you admire?

I don't listen to a lot of contemporary music, especially when I'm working. I tend to watch films or do other stuff. But one of the most powerful things that I heard recently was Blackstar by Bowie. I thought it was beautiful. Very moving of course, but I think one of the best things he's ever done.

You wrote a beautiful tribute to Bowie after he passed away. What was your relationship with him like?

Well I was asked whether I would write something, and because he meant such a lot to me, I really felt moved to do so. He was one of my great heroes when I was growing up. He was such a brave artist, so unusual, and I loved his music. I met him a few times; he was really charming and playful. But I just sort of admired what he achieved creatively.

Bowie always challenged gender norms, which I think your work does too.

Oh, thank you. I think when I'm working creatively, I don't really think of myself of writing as a woman. I just think of writing as me, as a person, if that makes sense”.

With everything, it is whether Kate Bush would allow it. Though I was thinking of her career and music when seeing the Bowie installation. How there are all of these interviews and live performances that can be mixed together.

There is this huge modern-day influence too, so artists could talk about what she means to them. For anyone who is already a fan or may be new to her work, a Lightroom installation would be fabulous! They will already have lined up something else for their next installation but, down the tracks, you sort of think that a Kate Bush exhibition and show of love would prove popular. I guess a lot of people went to David Bowie: You Are Not Alone for the live videos. Those evolutions and his amazing sets. Kate Bush is an extraordinary live performer though, compared to Bowie, does she have the same impact and archive?! This might be the only drawback. Though there are so many interesting interview. Her story and upbringing is fascinating. There is plenty of scope and potential to have something put together. I think Kate Bush has this huge legacy. Even though she is going to release more music and is active, that is not to say something like this would be for artists who have retired or died. Celebrate an artist whilst they are still with us. Give them their flowers. I wonder how come it took so long for Lightroom to feature a musical artist as an installation. It works so well. Others, such as Madonna, could definitely be given the same treatment. It is an hour-long experience that is hugely memorable and dazzling! I would recommend people book tickets for David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, as it ends in October. It will be a shame to see it end. I was thinking of Kate Bush when walking around Lightroom and imagining what could be. Considering all of the archives we have and how compelling she is, I definitely think that something wonderful could be put together. Though it may just be me dreaming and nothing will happen. In any case, a Kate Bush Lightroom installation…

WOULD be remarkable.

FEATURE: Can’t Buy a Thrill: Is There Room for Nuance and Discussion in Songs Around Some Tough and Controversial Themes?

FEATURE:

 

 

Can’t Buy a Thrill

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Green/Pexels

Is There Room for Nuance and Discussion in Songs Around Some Tough and Controversial Themes?

__________

I have written features…

PHOTO CREDIT: Alexandre P. Junior/Pexels

before around a dream or hypothetical album. I am not a musician myself, so I could not compose songs. Though I have titles and ideas for lyrics. A cover for an album called, American Grammar, and a composition on the cover that depicts various controversies and scenarios. Including women’s reproductive rights being removed in the U.S. Looking around music, there are artists who are tackling bigger themes. Hip-Hop used to be the scene where big issues in society are tackled and discussed. Pop artists might occasionally discuss something away from the normal themes, though there has been a real absence of anything approaching political, socially-minded or controversial. A few songs here and there but, as there are so many big issues that can be discussed in music, I wonder whether artists feel nervous of blowback or dividing fans. When I mooted the possibility of an album, I mentioned Donald Fagen as a songwriting inspiration. What he has done in his solo album and being part of Steely Dan. He has addressed subjects that are quite tough or not discussed by other artists. He has not released an album for a while, and I look around if bigger subjects can be represented with some humour but also nuance and urgency. What is off limits and what is okay to put into song? When I was putting tracks together and themes in each, they did include sexual assault and misogyny, the climate emergency, and an ageing hipster that might be out of touch and struggles to keep up with modern music. Few artists are tackling a (pun not intended) burning issue. The climate emergency and how it is out biggest threat. Not to say the song would be humours, though you can write about it on an album and get a serious message across, but do so with a slightly lighter heart. Giving it layers and nuance. There have been songs in the past, mainly be female artists, about weight loss drugs such as Ozempic. It is not deigned to be a weight loss drug. It is designed treat adults with type 2 diabetes by helping manage blood sugar levels and lower cardiovascular risks. However, it has sort of been repurposed by many celebrities.

At the moment, there are a few celebrities who have been highlighted on social media and the press because of their dramatic weight loss. Ariana Grande was subjected to so much scrutiny. Whilst many were concerned and felt they needed to speak out, there was a lot of judgement and pressure on her. Though she is a role model, so it does need to be brought up, though in a more sensitive and respectful way. The same with actress Jenna Ortega. I suggested a song called Can’t Buy a Thrill (the title of Steely Dan’s 1973 debut album) could look at American culture and mention drugs like Ozempic and this horrifying thing of celebrities using it to lose weight. Can a subject like this ever be brought into music? If done with intelligence, seriousness but also some wit, would the risk of criticism be there? The same with some universal like the climate emergency. So few artists documenting this in music. Reproductive rights, misogyny, racism, the endless horrors of Donald Trump, evil billionaires and A.I. I think all of these can and should be brought into music, though getting the tone right is difficult. Why are relatively few artists using their platform to go beyond their own lives? It is important they are open. Subjects like depression and loss are themes that definitely need to be in music. Though there is so much that should be tackled in music. Genocide in Gaza. It may seem a weighty album and quite bleak, though some of these topics – not the genocide, of course! -, can be slightly lightened by humour. We do seem to have reached a point where there are a few artists speaking out against genocide, highlighting he climate emergency, and attacking corruption, sexism and injustice. It is wonderful to see, though little of this goes into the music. Not to say Donald Fagen and Steely Dan are the best examples of artists incorporating serious issues into the music and doing it in a humorous or lighter way. Yet there have been songs in their catalogues that have a darker side. Maybe not ones we could write today. I do worry about all the things that should be sung about in songs that isn’t – or is done so rarely. Rather than it being a lack of awareness or concern, is it anti-commercial or not personal enough? Will fans take offence or hit back? My pitch of an album would blend in some funnier and lighter songs with ones that definitely highlight some, very impotent themes. Right now, we are seeing the planet burn, the ethics of the press and academia brought into question, genocide and warfare rage, and women’s rights and safety threatened and not really a priority. Music should be a place where these subjects are spotlighted. This might change. I hope so. We need more artists to…

TAKE a stand.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Keith Moon at Eighty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Keith Moon in London in 1968/PHOTO CREDIT: Barrie Wentzell 

Keith Moon at Eighty

__________

I do wonder whether…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Who (Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Pete Townshend) in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Tony Frank

Shaun Keaveny will salute Keith Moon on his BBC Radio 2 Rock Show on Friday, as Moon turns eighty two days later. The late drummer for The Who is one of the most influential and the greatest drummers ever. In terms of his talent, power and technical ability, he is right up there with the most celebrated drummers ever. If I had a top-five, I would have Keith Moon in there with Ringo Starr (The Beatles) and John Bonham (Led Zeppelin). Perhaps Meg White (The White Stripes) in there. I am going to mark Keith Moon’s eightieth birthday with a mixtape featuring some of his greatest drumming performances with The Who. First, there is some biography about a legend who died aged thirty-two in 1978:

“Keith Moon, The Who’s celebrated drummer, was born in Wembley on 23 August 1946, and is widely acclaimed as the greatest drummer in the history of rock. Brashly confident, he played quite differently to his peers, turning his massive kit into a lead instrument, and his up-front technique was crucial in establishing The Who’s passionate style. His playing ushered in an era wherein the drums became far more than simply a means of keeping the beat, and much of his recorded legacy from 1965-73 has a timeless quality that has never been repeated, let alone bettered. In this respect Keith Moon was to the drums what Jimi Hendrix was to the guitar – a complete original – and as such he was probably the most influential drummer the rock world has ever seen.

There was nothing in Keith’s humble background to suggest the extraordinary turn of events his life would take. He became a surf music fan as a schoolboy, took early lessons on drums as a teenager and played with three local bands in his native Wembley in north west London, the Escorts, Mark Twain & The Strangers, and The Beachcombers, before joining The Who in the spring of 1964 after an impromptu audition at the Oldfield pub in Greenford. Shortly after Keith’s recruitment, the Who became managed by Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp whose energy and ambition focused the group and set them on the road to stardom.

Moon announced his arrival in spectacular fashion on The Who’s first real single ‘I Can’t Explain’ (1965) on which his rifle-shot snare pre-empted Roger Daltrey’s leap into the chorus. Mostly, though, his foil was Pete Townshend with whom he developed an uncanny musical relationship, the product of which became one of the Who’s great trademarks: the chiming, bell-like, open-stringed power chord, cross cut against pounding drums and bass and allowed to feedback on itself and drone into a wall of electronic discord.

Moon’s drumming is outstanding throughout the group’s début album My Generation and on several Sixties singles, most notably ‘Happy Jack’ (1966) and ‘I Can See For Miles’ (1967), but it is on the double album Tommy (1969) that his talents are best utilised. On Townshend’s celebrated rock opera he becomes an orchestra within himself, driving the band along with an intelligence and sureness of touch that defies analysis. On Who’s Next (1971) Moon is reined in somewhat but his playing on the bridge on ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and throughout both ‘Bargain’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ ranks with anything he ever did.

The Who’s greatest strength, though, was in concert and by the end of the Sixties they were justifiably billing themselves as ‘‘the most exciting rock band in the world’’. To this Moon contributed an almost superhuman energy, his hands and feet battering his kit into submission night after night, the relentless power of The Who in full flight spiralling out from his arms and legs.

Moon’s kit was the biggest in rock, at one stage boasting at least 10 tom-toms, twin bass drums, twin timpani, snare, half-a-dozen cymbals and a gong. With this vast array of percussion at his command, he adopted a peculiar style wherein he pointed his sticks downwards and, as John Enwtistle once remarked: “He didn’t play from left to right or right to left, he’d play forwards. I’ve never seen anyone play like that before or since.” Keith was also a virtuoso showman, twiddling his drumsticks between his fingers and flamboyantly tossing them into the air and, occasionally, catching them when they fell. He developed an on-stage image as a wise-cracker and often ad-libbed comical asides between numbers, and like Pete he took an almost manic delight in wrecking his equipment at the close of a concert, especially in the group’s early days.

At the same time Keith was rock’s wildest character in the Sixties and Seventies, an unapologetic freewheeling hedonist whose lifestyle became synonymous with the mad, carefree image of the rock star at large. He courted the press and became notorious as ‘Moon The Loon’, the incorrigible clown who respected no authority whatsoever and never knew the meaning of the word embarrassment. As The Who became massively popular worldwide, so Keith Moon became a celebrity, not just as a drummer, but as the mad jester to rock’s high court whose exploits included cross-dressing, elaborate practical jokes and a much-publicised episode when he and his great friend Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band visited a London beerkeller dressed in Nazi SS uniforms. Keith’s Chertsey home, Tara House, became the venue for many memorable parties, not least the 1971 launch of Who’s Next.

When The Who slowed down and Pete Townshend sought creative outlets elsewhere Keith moved to California and took cameo roles in several movies, most notably in That’ll Be The Day (1973) and its sequel Stardust (1974), as the drummer in a fictitious rock band led by David Essex. He also completed a solo album, Two Sides Of The Moon (1975) before moving back to the UK in 1977 to play on Who Are You, his last recorded work with The Who.

Keith died in London on 7 September 1978, from an accidental overdose of the prescription drug Heminevrin, prescribed to combat alcoholism.

In 2016 Keith’s life was celebrated in the book There Is No Substitute, A Tribute To Keith Moon, in which fellow drummers, musical allies, friends and fans assessed Keith’s impact on rock and its lasting legacy. The book, with an introduction by Pete Townshend, was authorised by his Estate”.

Because this drumming genius turns eighty on 23rd August, I wanted to pay my respects to someone who has not really been equalled. There are some great drummers around today, though none that have the same abilities and that sound that Keith Moon crafted. Many might seem him as quite ramshackle and lacking technical ability. That is wrong. He mixed groove, a distinct and personal sound with power. This feature lists five reasons why Keith Moon was a genius. Unconventional yet hugely popular, he was the heartbeat of The Who: “Keith Moon wasn’t “drummy” for the sake of being “drummy” – he accented and accompanied the music expressively, much like a jazz or orchestral drummer. Pete Townshend once said, “Keith decorated as he played”. Max Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen’s drummer) says, “He was as influential in the sixties as Gene Krupa was in the thirties” and “in my view, was the lead instrument in The Who”. Below is a mixtape of epic and unforgettable Keith Moon performances. Proof, if any were needed that, he was…

IN a league of his own.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Jorja Smith

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Annie Reid for GQ

Jorja Smith

__________

THIS is one of my…

favourite artists. Someone I have been following since the start of her career. Jorja Smith is one of our greatest treasures. Her new album, What Are the Odds, is out on Friday (21st August). I am going to end with a review of the album. Smith has a busy diary and she plays All Points East in London thew day her album is released. I am going to come to some interviews with this queen. I will come to a fairly recent interview, though I do want to head back to last year first. Jorja Smith has stepped away from the spotlight, or she did in 2025, and was living away from London. That peace and being close to family has been of real benefit. Vogue spoke with her last year:

“Beyond a new ease in her style, a fundamental ground shift has occurred for Smith. On “High”, her first single back last year, she asked: “Where do you run if you can’t?” For Smith, the answer was simple: home to Walsall, the West Midlands town just north of Birmingham. Inspired by a friendship breakup and reconnection, the track flows almost like a voicenote. When she sings, “I went to find myself, I couldn’t take you there”, it feels like she’s addressing something deeper. “I can’t lie, I didn’t think me moving back home would be such a big thing,” she says, laughing. When she made the move from London in 2023 it became a news story in itself, people seemingly incredulous that a star might choose to live somewhere other than the capital. “I’m from Walsall, and I’ve gone back home,” she shrugs. “That’s it.”

She has chosen a home town date in Wolverhampton to kick off her upcoming tour in May, which will be followed by two London shows and dates in Europe, North and South America. After we meet, she releases a new single, “Crush”, with AJ Tracey, which sees her try her hand at a sprinkle of rapping, over a beat that feels like it’s lifted directly from the Channel U era. (Days later, her Black Country accent goes viral on TikTok, with thousands of viewers around the world lipsyncing to her playfully rounded vowels.) A joyous performance at the Brits, where she was nominated in the best R&B category, with Mercury winners Ezra Collective, was proof of just how pleased she is to be back where she belongs.

“When I was in the studio and he played me the song, it just took me back. It’s proper nostalgic,” she smiles. She connects to my Bluetooth headphones to play me the two songs she’s working on right now, written with Maverick Sabre and producer Ed Thomas. Even in their nascent stage, I’m transported. The lyrics are brooding, her vocals that signature rich blend, over a Y2K-tinged breakbeat. “I used to come up to London when I was 15, in the summer holidays and work with Mav and Ed and it just felt like that. They were the first people I ever wrote with.” Playing the next one, she says, “This reminds me of a sunrise and a sunset at the same time.”

Even if Smith doesn’t get the big deal about leaving London, when I ask how she’s gotten closer to the peace she’s after, it dawns on her that the biggest catalyst has been her move. “Maybe moving back did have a big impact on me, I think it did,” she pauses. “Even my mum says to me, ‘You look like your old self.’ She texted me that and I thought it’s kind of sad and really sweet.”

There’s a sense that, despite her business, fame is her lowest priority. “I didn’t go in thinking, ‘I want to be famous.’ Oh, man, even the word,” she cringes. “When I started, all I wanted to do was put out music. I didn’t even want to be in my first video because I thought, ‘I just want to be music. How can I just be music?’” It’s a luxury so few femme artists are afforded, instead required to be the perfect blend of everything to everyone: alluring and relatable, accessible yet infallible, outstanding but nonthreatening. But, from Chappell Roan to Doechii to Billie Eilish, we’re in an age of pop stars refusing to bend to the will of the machine. So the fact that Smith spends her time talking about where she lives and what her body looks like feels bizarre: “When I put out music when I was younger, this is not what I thought we’d be talking about.”

She’s protective of her privacy now – be it familial or romantic – and says she now fills her time with stillness and play; writing songs at the piano and going on long countryside walks like she did when she was younger. “I like getting lost,” she says with a smile. “Phone’s dead, off-track, but I’ll find my way back eventually”.

Before getting to a GQ interview with Jorja Smith, I want to come to this one from AnOther. The fired twenty questions at Smith. She is one of our greatest artists. Someone I have not seen live yet, I do feel that I need to correct that. She has a very busy tour diary, so it may be next year when I can see her next:

“How would you describe it in three words?

Upbeat, fun and in motion, if that’s a word … Well, it’s kind of two words.

Is there a song that you’re particularly excited about? Can you tell me about it?

I’m excited about a song called I Lied You Lied. It’s super funky, and when I say funky, I mean a bit housey funky. It’s just a song about when shit isn’t reciprocated and being fucked about, really. I like it.

How long has What Are The Odds been underway? What is the process of making an album for you?

This is my third album and making it was a totally different process to my last two. It’s produced by P2J. We started talking about making this music in 2023 and we were going back and forth for like two years, and then we finally got together in September 2025 and I submitted it in April 2026, so it’s the shortest time I’ve ever spent making an album. Everything felt right, and I just kept moving forward with this energy – I felt really present. My first album was like a collection of songs, and the second, I had decided I’d make an album but hadn’t fully figured it out, so that was a challenge. And now, this third time, I’ve really enjoyed the process.

What does music offer as a tool for communication?

I like listening to people sing about things they’re going through and relating to them. Maybe I’m going through them too – then I don’t feel so alone. It’s the same when I’m writing music about things I’m going through and people say how they relate to it and that listening to it helped them through something. I also love how songs can take a life of their own. How I interpret a song may be nothing like what it was written about. Sometimes they mean completely different things for other people, and I think that’s beautiful.

If you weren't doing music, what do you think you’d be doing?

I think I’d still be writing – maybe I’d be writing books, novels, scripts. I used to write poems. Before I wrote songs, I wrote stories but I never finished them. I’d always do like chapter one and a blurb, then stop.

How do you find life in the public eye?

Strange. It’s challenging. It’s still changing and I’m still figuring it out. It’s not something I wanted as an 18-year-old putting out music. I didn’t really think about the consequences of what happens if you put out music and it does really well. I’m getting to grips with it, trying to take it in my stride, and yeah, I’m still figuring it out. It’s only now I think I’m reflecting on it, and thinking about, you know, going from being somebody nobody knows from Walsall to someone people from across the world know. It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? It’s definitely not normal”.

I shall end with a review for What Are the Odds. GQ interviewed Jorja Smith last month. After a career break, she “is as revitalised as her music sounds”. I don’t think there is anyone in music who sounds quite like her. A unique and brilliant artist who is going to be making music for many years, she sounds at her most relaxed and free:

“Smith, right now, is “so excited that we need a new word for excited”. Her third album, What Are the Odds?, has been finished for months, and she’s waiting for it to come out; her pure ebullience is practically seeping through the screen. The promotional grind hasn’t always been Smith’s bag, and a few years ago, while releasing her second album, Falling or Flying, she actually reached breaking point (more on that later). This time around, however, she feels energised. “We’ve got shoots, we’re planning videos; I’ve been in the studio, but nothing to do with my album – I’ve been working on other stuff because I’ve got lots of ideas floating around up here that I want to get down,” she says. “It seems quite natural, so I’m just taking it in my stride. I’m trying to make everything as easy and fun as possible – I know some things can make it not enjoyable, early call times and whatnot, but…”

Made entirely with Richard Isong, the London producer and Beyoncé collaborator better known as P2J, What Are the Odds? is a dynamic survey of British and African dance sounds, from funky house to garage, drum’n’bass and Afrobeats that highlights Smith’s power as a club vocalist. Lyrically, Smith is still laser-focused on relationships, whether between friends, lovers or exes – but, with the help of P2J and longtime co-writers Hope and Millie Katana, she translates everything into the drama and shimmer of the dancefloor.

Smith says What Are the Odds? is a natural transition from the elegance and grandeur of 2023’s Falling or Flying – an outgrowth, in fact, of “Little Things”, a P2J-produced track from that record. “After those songs, me and P were like, ‘It’d be great to explore more of this music.’ Tap into funky house, garage, more of that, because I have a lot of fun making it,” she tells me. For the better part of two years, she and P2J talked through “how we wanted to feel and make people feel,” she says. “We’d share some music – little sounds we liked, whether it was a bass line and how it made me feel, or the sound of certain keys.”

In September 2025, they met up in the studio again with a view to making a four-song EP. To Smith’s surprise, P2J revealed that he had an entire tranche of beats made just for her, based on their conversations over the prior years. In just one day, Smith laid down vocals for five tracks; the next day, she freestyled four more. “It’s probably the quickest album I’ve ever been involved with – we were just flowing, literally going back to back,” says P2J over the phone. “When we work, it’s always fun – we don’t overthink it. She makes me feel proper heard in the studio and vice versa. She’s always coming with sick ideas; we’ll send each other old-school songs and new-school songs, and it’s super organic.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Annie Reid

After the second session, Smith walked around the corner to the office of her label, Famm, played them some demos, and delivered a surprising message: “I was like, ‘Guys. I’ve got an album,’” she recalls. “They couldn’t hear [what the songs would sound like] – I can hear everything finished, where it’s gonna go – but they can feel it.” Smith was so excited about the music she was making that it even impacted the holiday she went on shortly afterwards. “I was like, ‘Oh, fuck’s sake, I just want to be in the studio,’” she says, slipping into an exaggerated, clowny sad face.

The album is called What Are the Odds? in part because, when they started making it last year, Smith wasn’t sure she’d ever truly love making music again. “Falling or Flying was at a time where I was just like, ‘Oh my God.’ I’ve been in this industry for so long – it gets a lot, and I don’t think I was enjoying it. I don’t think I was enjoying being Jorja Smith,” she says.

She is quick to clarify that this industry break wasn’t as dramatic as she’s making it sound. Or maybe it was. She’s working on expressing her emotions without minimising them. “I didn’t even step away, I can’t lie – I still had shows. I just –” She pauses, about to say something she doesn’t mean. “I’m not dramatic, actually. I need to stop saying that, because I’m actually not dramatic. I wasn’t on socials as much, so it was that type of break, you know?” she says.

Smith makes a point, whenever she meets a younger artist, to offer herself up as a font of knowledge and advice on how to navigate the industry, given how thorny it can be for young artists, and young women especially. When she was coming up, she was fortunate enough to have other musicians in her corner offering advice on how to make sense of the world. The Iranian Dutch singer Sevdaliza reached out on Twitter early on, “being like, you know, ‘The industry’s tough for young women.’” Raye, back when she was just a songwriter and not an arena-selling superstar, had Smith’s back too. “I met her at a studio in London before I dropped ‘Blue Lights’ – we followed each other and then she messaged me, and we hung out a few times when I started,” Smith recalls.

Despite the occasional reminder, Smith hasn’t been consciously thinking about the fact that it’s been a decade since she released her first song. “I’m definitely like, Wow, I’m still here and making this music, and people still listen to me and come to my shows,” she says. “I’m continuing to grow my audience and I’m able to touch more people with my music. This whole year has been emotional, but I’m more thinking about the future – 90 per cent thinking about the future. No, 25 per cent reflecting, and the rest thinking about the future”.

NME gave a four-star verdict of What Are the Odds. A slightly stylistic shift and evolution, Smith “uses dance as her source of refuge on album three”. I feel that this will rank alongside the best albums of this year. Make sure that you pre-order What Are the Odds:

“Jorja Smith has never been afraid to be noisy. Among sombre and sobering offerings lie the exhilarating, elastic segments of the 29-year-old Walsall native’s discography; the pulse of the two-step-infused ‘On My Mind’, the clubby ‘Little Things’ or the alt-leaning ‘Go Go Go’. Smith is as much R&B as she is house, an equilibrium of sorts – once she acquaints herself with a genre, she’s able to contort it to her will, translating it to her audience in a hue that makes sense to her.

On ‘What Are The Odds’, however, the singer-songwriter clearly wants to dance. What happens when Smith embraces the noise? Perched alongside executive producer P2J, the pair worked across three immersive sessions to create an arresting, club-ready collaborative effort. There’s a familiar tension amid the escapist synths though: the confrontation of emotions. The all-encompassing embrace of the challenging, difficult, soothing and harsh realities of a person that’s lived, loved and wore her heart on her sleeve along the way.

Smith has always been one to confront her realities in the booth, and ‘What Are The Odds’ is no different. ‘What’s Done Is Done’ is cocky and confrontational as it taunts a guilty ex. “Do you think about me / Do you know it hurt me”, she hisses. Her hollow assertions a near-perfect match atop a moody, smoky blend of hip-hop and garage. Here, Smith flirts with rapping once again, but on the album’s title track, she leans in fully, utilising a skill she’s harnessed as a feature artist alongside Enny (‘Peng Black Girls’) and AJ Tracey (‘Crush’). “That’s a thing about a life up high / In the lights you can’t see what’s off”, she warns. It hints at the star’s relationship with fame. Perhaps it explains her aloof relationship with hypervisibility, her retreat, away from London back home.

‘What Are The Odds’ is also flirtatious in its use of sonics, ‘I Lied, You Lied’ acting as an ode to P2J and Smith’s first project together ‘Little Things’ – a single that formed the genesis of the pair’s ideas for a holistic dance LP. Here, the singer embraces her mystery, an alluring meld of funky house, jazz, afro-house and R&B prancing beneath Smith’s runs. “You won’t figure me out,” she asserts. ‘Dancing’ leans further into percussion, a rumba tease ushered onto the dancefloor. “The music feels like, la, la, la, la / Makes us move like la, la, la la”, it appears that Smith is ready to get lost, enchanted and mystified by each and every note. Soon joined by Wizkid, for ‘Alive’, P2J’s afrobeats signature makes an appearance, something which feels equally as natural to Smith as it does to Wizkid.

‘Young Heart’ also exists in this eco-system, its name as a double-entendre of sorts. It both explores Smith’s youthful approach to love, sometimes naïve in calming her yearn to love and be loved, but also speaks to her sentience as someone still in their 20s, her ability to embrace the youthful sounds of the dancefloor. In 2026, afro-house – through the likes of Piano People, Dankie Sounds, GroupTherapy – is steering a new generation of ravers. Smith’s ability to champion and harness such sounds speaks to her adaptability as an artist – and in this case, it works for her.

‘What Are The Odds’ is Smith at her most comfortable, loosely embodying her emotional state. All that she’s been, and all that she will be – the mess, desire, regret and state of armour she’s built across her ten years in the headlights. It’s endearingly charming, brutally honest and ultimately fun. Now able to enjoy the catharsis that comes with perspective, Smith comes of age once again on this album, this time bold in her instincts and ability to laugh at herself along the way”.

I wanted to feature Jorja Smith in this Modern-Day Queens, as she is an artist I have admired for over a decade now. Her latest album finds her in a happy space. Maybe it is being where she grew up and having that comfort around her. It may be her stage of life and this new perspective she has. Whatever it is, Smith is at the top of her game. One of our best and most consistent artist, she is someone I will follow for as long as she is recording music. The divine Jorja Smith is…

AN amazing songwriter.

___________

Follow Jorja Smith

Official:

https://jorjasmith.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/jorjasmith_/

Twitter:

https://x.com/JorjaSmith

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/jorjasmithmusic/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/jorjasmith

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1CoZyIx7UvdxT5c8UkMzHd?si=Z-VKupQdTgW_Q5YnjsM9tA

FEATURE: Before the Names Are Announced… What the Glastonbury Festival Has to Consider Next Year

FEATURE:

 

 

Before the Names Are Announced…

What the Glastonbury Festival Has to Consider Next Year

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IT is that time of year…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna

when Glastonbury Festival preparing to announce its first names. Well, it will be in the autumn at some point. Though there is this usual speculation and rumours happening. Everyone has their own idea of who will or should play. People hoping that Madonna would headline next year have been disappointed, as organiser Emily Eavis said this will not happen. The Guardian provide information about what Eavis’s reaction was to the rumours:

“Madonna will not be performing at next year’s Glastonbury, the festival’s organiser, Emily Eavis, has said.

The singer, who has the most top 10 singles in UK chart history of any female artist, has never featured at Britain’s biggest music festival.

Eavis said Glastonbury had booked all its headliners for June 2027. Asked about the lineup and speculation that the Queen of Pop would make her debut at the event in Somerset, Eavis told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “No, it’s definitely not Madonna, I’ll tell you that.”

She added: “But we have got three [other] headliners and we’re very excited about it – it’s all coming together really well.”

When asked about the possibility of a performance from Taylor Swift, Eavis laughed and said she did not want to discuss the lineup any further.

Speculation about Madonna, 67, appearing at Glastonbury began in June when the singer suggested to the BBC talkshow host Graham Norton that she was planning “something bigger” in the UK next summer.

Eavis said: “Pretty much 95% of the stories [about Glastonbury] you read are not true, and rumours are pretty much always wrong.

“But the good news is that we’ve got our headliners and we’re cracking on, and we just can’t wait to get back.”

Last year’s Glastonbury festival was headlined by the 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo, with Rod Stewart in the legend slot”.

I didn’t think Madonna would headline. For a start, I think that she would be too expensive. In terms of her budget and fee, I am not sure that this is something Glastonbury would accommodate. Also, she might not be interested in doing that. She does her own thing, so is Glastonbury going to hold any appeal? As I will explore later, Glastonbury has only once booked a woman to headliner the Pyramid Stage over the age of forty. I am not including the Legends slot, as that is reserved for older, more established artists, I do worry that the weather will play havoc. This year has been one of the most brutal and horrible summers ever. In terms of the relentless heat, droughts and the issues we have faced, what is that happens next year? Glastonbury has always conscientious of the environment, but are artists going to be attracted to performing at the height of summer in extreme heat? Also, there are thousands of people coming together, and it is worrying to think what could happen. It is going to be a struggle. In years to come, I feel a lot of festivals will have move to the autumn, because it will be too hot. Glastonbury will happen next June, so it might not be as hot as it is now. Though I do worry that it is going to be a heatwave and this might put some people off. Though there is no point predicting who will headline, some feel that Harry Styles is going to be one of the names. This article explains more:

“Festival organiser Emily Eavis reportedly called Styles her Glastonbury’s dream booking back in the lead-up to the 2025 festival (which he reportedly was also approached for). In an interview with The Sun, an insider told the paper that: "Harry would be the perfect Glastonbury headliner and Emily has long wanted him on stage at Worthy Farm, but the dates have never quite worked out.”

“Harry would be an incredible act to watch on the Pyramid Stage," the insider continued. "Glastonbury has a fallow year in 2026, so booking Harry for next year would be perfect. It is something the team at Glastonbury are pushing for. Whether that dream will come true, however, is still to be decided by Harry’s team”.

His fourth studio album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, was met with some positive reviews, though it is not his best. Even so, his live dates in support of the album have been well received. Incredible shows that have won massive reviews. If Harry Styles’s name was one of the headliners, it would mean that there is not going to be an all-female line-up. Glastonbury has never had an all-female line-up. There are other male artists who could headline. Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and Jack White. I do hope that there is only one male headline act, as Glastonbury has only once had more than one women/female act headline the Pyramid Stage. That was in 2024, when SZA and Dua Lipa were headliners. Only ten women have headlined the Pyramid Stage. I mean in terms of acts, even if they have had more than one woman in. Ten female headliners since 1970. That is out of eighty-seven. Half of those female headliners have been booked in the past decade. Most of the 1990s saw no female headliners booked. It is not just Glastonbury that has an issue. This year, Reading & Leeds had gender balance regarding headliners, though I think this is the first time this has ever happened. As most of these major festivals have been going for decades, it is appalling that they have taken so long to balance the headliners. Women rarer in the headline slots than men. Glastonbury is our biggest festival, so it should lead be example. The best-case scenario would be two female artists being booked, though you have a feeling that it may just be one again. If there is only one female artist headlining in 2027, Glastonbury would have to answer some questions. Will they ever book three women to headline? Given how women have been dominating music for years, why is it so hard for festivals to reflect this? Not only in terms of headliners. The bills in general.

There has been a lot of talk about Taylor Swift. I feel she is another artist who will have this big budget and might be a bit challenging to spring for. Also, is 2027 the right year to headline her? She would have been more at her peak last year or the year before. Though it would be amazing if Taylor Swift headlined. There are so many female artists that could and should headline Glastonbury. Phoebe Bridgers, Hayley Williams, Jill Scott, Robyn, Mitski, Kylie Minogue, ROSALÍA, Björk, RAYE, Olivia Dean, Wolf Alice, Slayyyter, Sabrina Carpenter, Zara Larsson. I think that Raye and Kylie Minogue would be incredible to go alongside Harry Styles. We all predict headliners and we are rarely bang on, so this is just a guess. What is evident too from Glastonbury’s headliners, aside from the fact that most are men, is that the women booked are younger. Only once a woman over forty has been booked to headline (Marcella Detroit of Shakespears Sister). Kylie Minogue seems owed a headline slot, as she was due to headline in 2005 and has not headlined. Why has she been overlooked? I do hope that Glastonbury books a female headliner over forty. It absolutely has to book at least two female headliners, because it fears going backwards. Only one year since its start where there has been more than one female headliner, it cannot afford to regress. There are more positives than negatives regarding Glastonbury. It is the broadest line-up and so many artists get their first big break playing Glastonbury. So many stages and artists across multiple genres, there is a reason why it is the most popular festival we have. We will discover soon enough who is headlining Glastonbury. It is this festival that so many people look forward to. Those who have been going for years alongside first-time attendees. The headliners are the biggest pulls, and it will not be long until we find out…

WHO will feature.

FEATURE: If I Fell: The Undying Magic of The Beatles’ 1964 Film, A Hard Day’s Night

FEATURE:

 

 

If I Fell

The Undying Magic of The Beatles’ 1964 Film, A Hard Day’s Night

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I have been thinking a lot…

about The Beatles films that are due in 2028. Sam Mendes’s films that focuses on each of the four members. I am not sure what time period each films concentrates on, whether there is crossover and what to expect, but it looks exciting. Apart from people slagging off those cast and commenting on their lack of resemblance to who they are playing - Saoirse Ronan plays Linda McCartney, and many have said she does not look anything like her -, there has been chat and buzz. We have a way to go, though one of the most heartening things is that, we all hope, the two surviving Beatles will see the films. Paul McCartney will see Paul Mescal play him, whilst Ringo Starr will have his views on Barry Keoghan. I admit a couple of the Beatles castings are clearly going for the acting strength rather than pure physical resemblance, but I think Sam Mendes will deliver these acclaimed and brilliant films. I write a lot about Kate Bush and note that, whilst she has not released an album since 2011, her influence is everywhere. Arguably one of the most influential artists in terms of today’s music, and yet so little is written about her! The Beatles broke up over fifty years ago, yet there are countless books and projects about them. Their peak period of influence may have been the 1990s and bands clearly indebted to them. Oasis obviously and unapologetically; Blur more subtly (or were they?!), and everyone from Shed Seven to Kula Shaker to Suede clearly taking bits of their music and weaving it into their own. I do love how there is constant talk around the band. McCartney and Starr, far from distancing themselves, celebrating it. I think that, if George Harrison and John Lennon had lived, they would be more distant. Pleased some films are approaching, through they would both possibly detached themselves in a way that Starr and McCartney won’t. A whole new generation are connecting with a band whose peak and regency was in the 1960s.

Even though they were not alive when Beatlemania swept the global, their parents or grandparents were (my parents in my case, as I am forty-three), and it is was like nothing we will ever see again. Taylor Swift has some of that hysteria behind her, but The Beatles changed popular culture so fast, and was this never-seen-before explosion! Their screaming fans, predominantly girls and young women, got a lot of bad press. Some were aggressive and took things too far, though there was a lot of misogyny around them. These are thew fans that made The Beatles. That provided this primal and world-shaking energy. If it was a bit draining for the quartet, the passion these screaming fans showed was something else. I feel we need to give them a lot more respect and credit! This takes me to my second-favourite film ever (my favourite is 2012’s Frances Ha): A Hard Day’s Night. The 1964 debut film featuring The Beatles, it is also their best outing. If 1965’s Help! had its moments and is good, I feel it is not up there with A Hard Day’s Night. I also like how their debut is in black-and-white and gives it this instant nostalgia (which is also why Frances Ha was shot in black-and-white by director, Noah Baumbach). We know that Ringo Starr is the best actor in it, yet George Harrison is the best dressed; I feel Paul McCartney is maybe the most charming, whereas John Lennon features in some of the best scenes (him in the bathtub and being like an overgrown child; on the stairwell where a woman thinks he has recognised him and Lennon says he is not himself, whereupon she takes a closer look and agrees!). We are blessed that A Hard Day’s Night’s director, Richard Lester, is still with us. He turns ninety-five in January, and I do hope that, a) he is still with us then and, b) A Hard Day’s Night is shown at smaller cinemas again to mark that. Its screenwriter, Alun Owen, died in 1994. I wonder if Lester will see the four Beatles films. What he help create in 1964 perfectly captured this growing hysteria around the band, but you also got to see the boys interact. Different sides to their personalities. George Harrison and him doing a bit of fashion modelling. Paul McCartney with his fictional grandfather, played by Wilfrid Brambell. John Lennon didn’t get a story arc quite as defined or interesting, I feel. Ringo Starr with a mudlark who rolls a tyre that knocks him off his feet. He was played by David Janson. He actually appeared at the final I Am the EggPod live event, that was held at London’s Holland Opera Park in 2024. That podcast was helmed by Chris Shaw, and I miss it dearly! That final live event was a mixture of sadness and great cheer and love.

This all takes me rather clumsily to Samira Ahmed. She featured on the podcast numerous times, including my favourite episode, where she was chatting about the band’s debut album, 1963’s Please Please Me, where she made some great observations. She, at the live podcast and on an earlier episode, chatted about A Hard Day’s Night. We both have in common the fact that A Hard Day’s Night is one of our favourite films. It may be her all-time favourite! I love that episode too, as we learned why the album and film was and is so important to her. I have been rewatching it and was overcome with the joy of seeing it! I love that chase scene where fans are racing after the band and there is this scramble and high-jinx. It is brilliantly written and all the band really commit. It is one of the earliest examples of a popular group featuring in a film about them or their work. Albeit, a slightly heighted or fictionalised version. Since then, everyone from Charli xcx to Spice Girls to Prince to Eminem have done their versions of A Hard Day’s Night. People might not see a connection, though I feel The Beatles did sort of start this (though Elvis Preseley was appearing in films before 1964). I did want to talk about Samira Ahmed, because she wrote a book about the film. It came out in April and it is a book that every Beatles fan should have on their shelf:

“How did a film made to capture a pop phenomenon become an enduring cinematic classic?
With warmth, wit and precision, Samira Ahmed reveals how the Beatles’ first film changed both the band themselves and pop music’s relationship with the screen.

In a vivid and personal exploration, she shows how this black-and-white gem, shot in a documentary style and brimming with youthful energy, captured Britain at a moment of social transformation, with a portrayal of celebrity, camaraderie and media frenzy that still resonates today. Drawing on her own experience of first discovering the film as a child and going on to work in the television industry, Ahmed shines a spotlight on the craft behind its enduring appeal. With insights from members of the cast and crew, including her own new interviews, Ahmed highlights A Hard Day’s Night’s class and sexual politics, and adds a delightfully original analysis of the women in the film.

In these pages you will be transported to a time when four young men from Liverpool, via the mass medium of television, changed the way Britain saw itself and the way the world saw Britain, revealing how, and why, A Hard Day’s Night has become a landmark of modern cinema”.

I will end with reviews around the 1964 masterpiece. It is a film a lot of non-Beatles fans (and who are those freaks?!) might not know about. It is understandable in a way, as it is sixty-two years old and is not spoken about in the same tone as the perceived greatest films of all time. I feel A Hard Day’s Night is among the most important films ever. Worthy of a book, for sure, which is why I wanted to highlight an interview with Samira Ahmed, where she discussed it. As I am thinking about The Beatles and there is always activity around them – the expanded and deluxe editions of Rubber Soul are out in October -, I did want to discuss the film. I can’t imagine whether Giles Marten has any more Beatles albums he will do the expanded treatment work to and give us demos, outtakes and the like. Is Help! (the 1965 album that preceded Rubber Soul) next, and is there much from the A Hard Day’s Night sessions to warrant a release?! I do genuinely think the film is among the best ever, and there is so much to discuss around it, which is why I hope it form part of Sam Mendes’s Beatles films – though he might be documenting the band a bit later on from that. Here, Samira Ahmed discussed her fabulous Beatles book:

“At the beginning of your book, you note, “With the huge growth in Beatles scholarship in recent years, I was wary of adding another book.” What compelled you to press on even though it feels like everything that there is to say about The Beatles has been said.

I was first introduced to The Beatles as a child via their films. My brother taped their movies off television in 1979 when I was 11. A Hard Day’s Night is a fascinating film because it captures them in the white heat of Beatlemania in Britain just before they go on The Ed Sullivan Show. I wanted to look at how this film captures Britain at that time. It’s not glamorized. You see ordinary trains and ordinary girls. There’s no sense of it being a fantasy. I didn’t think anybody had really looked at the social history side of this film.

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At the beginning of the book, you argue that A Hard Day’s Night “was in fact a kind of cinematic Big Bang, shaping entire genre of screen entertainment: sitcoms, rock band films and spawning a new form—the pop video, for which in 1984 MTV gave Richard Lester a special Vanguard Award.” Let’s talk about this quote piece by piece. How did A Hard Day’s Night change sitcom television?

The most obvious impact is The Monkees, which is essentially a sitcom replica of A Hard Day’s Night. In his book Funny or Die, the comedy writer Joel Morris argues that the sitcom requires a patriarch, matriarch, craftsmen, and clown. A Hard Day’s Night has all of those things. John is the patriarch, Paul is the matriarch, George is the craftsman, and Ringo is the clown.

Comedy was also a big part of their lives. They wanted to work with director Richard Lester because they loved his film The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film. The Beatles were also natural comedians, though. Many of the contemporary reviews note how funny they are.

I think the biggest reason that The Beatles have stood the test of time is that their music still sounds so fresh. But their personalities are a big reason too. Decades later, those personalities are quite compelling.

Absolutely. It’s also important that they had a legitimate sitcom star, Wilfrid Brambell, in A Hard Day’s Night. (He was in Steptoe and Son, which was remade in the US as Sanford and Son.) His presence was almost a statement that The Beatles had entered the world of adults. This wasn’t just for kids”.

I will end with some reviews and retrospectives. I am starting with Empire and their 2000 essay/review. A mere thirty-six years after the film came out, and following a decade where so many artists were influenced by The Beatles, they had some interesting perspectives in their four-star review (A Hard Day’s Night is definitely a five-star film, I reckon!):

“Now before you get antzy, this is a comedy — albeit a comedy with music. Think about it. What transformed The Beatles into the Fab Four? The music got the girls screaming and had academics making comparisons with Mahler, but it was their quick wit that made them the loveable Mop Tops. John Lennon asking those in the audience to rattle their jewellery at the Royal Command Performance charmed the Establishment. A Hard Day's Night seduced the parents.

Even before the watershed conquest of America, the screenwriter (playwright Alun Owen) had accompanied the Fabs on a flying visit to Paris to witness the insanity of Beatlemania first hand. Although, whether his day-in-the-life format predated the Maysles brothers' strategy for US Beatles' documentary Yeah Yeah Yeah remains open to conjecture.

What's indisputable, however, was that the band was dead against the idea of making an Elvis-Cliff style musical and had already nixed Brian Epstein's enthusiasm for The Yellow Teddy Bears, as they wouldn't have been allowed to write their own songs. Indeed, it was the music that persuaded United Artists to back the movie in the first place — as not only would they make a quick killing while the group's sure-to-be short-lived popularity lasted, but they would also secure exclusive rights to a new "soundtrack" album.

Ultimately, this was to be the only LP solely composed by Lennon and McCartney and remained at No. 1 in the UK for 23 weeks.

Ironically, the director that producer Walter Shenson attached to the project had a history of those pop musicals the Fabs so detested. But, Dick Lester's use of camera in It's Trad, D.ad (1961) and the fact he had steered the Goons through their transition from radio to television won the Beatles over. Indeed, Lester's genius for physical comedy, that had informed Spike Milligan's The Running, Jumping And Standing Still Film (1959), would resurface in the manic playing-field shenanigans accompanying Can't Buy Me Love.

More importantly, Lester was something of a movie magpie. Just as John and Paul drew on R&B, rock'n'roll and showtune ballads for inspiration, so Lester borrowed liberally from Buster Keaton, Cinema Verite, documentary style Free Cinema, Fellini and the nouvelle vague for his unconventional approach to narrative and image-making. In the process, he became the godfather of MTV, as he sought ways of breaking from the lip sync and strum approach to filming pop. Even when he had no option, as in the final TV show sequence, he managed to use angle, lighting and rapid editing to fashion an anti-performance style,later followed by Ready, Steady, Go and Top Of The Pops.

His attempt to jettison traditional narrative altogether was less successful, however, as Ringo's runner and the Mack Sennettesque search for him definitely constitute a storyline. Moreover, it induces the only slackening in the breakneck pace, even though it did give Ringo a moment in the spotlight, similar to George's dismissal of the "grotty" trend-spotting media and John's mistaken identity encounter with Anna Quayle. Sadly, Paul's backstage showdown with a Shakespearean luvvie was cut.

Similarly, Wilfrid Brambell, as Paul's Irish grandfather, was given a few Steptoe-like set-pieces to cash in on his TV celebrity. But there was nothing sitcom about the rest of the film's humour. Whether scripted or ad-libbed, it managed to showcase the irreverent charm that had made the Mops the media's darlings, while also proving that, despite the fame, they were still just four likely lads from Liverpool.

Based on their now legendary performance at Kennedy Airport (which took place just weeks before shooting began), the press conference sequence is particularly revealing of their rapid-fire repartee. John later dismissed comparisons with the Marx Brothers. But there are definite similarities between their caustic combinations of sarcasm, puns, irony, insult and nonsensical deadpan, with the reporters almost becoming a collective Margaret Dumont (the stuffy comedy foil for the Marx brothers).

But Lester was keen to demonstrate both his and the group's catholic comedy influences. There's mild surrealism in the way the Fabs suddenly appear outside the train to taunt the snooty commuter and in John's unexplained disappearance from an emptying bath-tub. A hint of Chaplinesque pathos (or at least Norman Wisdom sentimentality) informs Ringo's riverside meanderings, while slapstick dominates the anarchic "playtime" sequence, which Lester makes all the more hilarious by his use of helicopter shots, unexpected angles and variegated film speeds.

With global takings of $11 million on a £200,000 outlay, A Hard Day's Night changed the visual presentation of pop forever. Moreover, it gave the Beatles a taste for movies. Following the singularly undistinguished Help!, John co-starred in Lester's How I Won The War. Ringo teamed with Peter Sellers for The Magic Christian. George formed HandMade and saved Monty Python's Life Of Brian. And Paul made Give My Regards To Broad Street — and they don't come much funnier than that.

Because Samira Ahmed’s excellent book is part of the BFI Film Classics series, it is worth bringing in the BFI’s sixtieth anniversary examination and tribute to one a film that was revolutionary. “Through the Fab Four to Take That, One Direction and Taylor Swift, the lines between public and private, star and fan, reality and fantasy have been blurry ever since”. Last month was the sixty-second anniversary of the film. Might anything happen in 2029 for its sixty-fifth anniversary? I don’t think A Hard Day’s Night will age or loses its magic, as it is seems more relevant now than it did in 1964:

“The French film critic and director Jacques Rivette once said that “every film is a documentary of its own making”. A Hard Day’s Night captures modern pop stardom as it was being invented. The film’s faux documentary style was partly dictated by necessity: black-and-white film was cheaper, and since the boys had no acting experience, director Richard Lester didn’t want to force them into a situation where they’d have to awkwardly deliver dialogue, or crowbar in excuses to perform songs. This was a situation that Elvis Presley found himself in constantly, and which was already starting to seem passé in 1964.

Screenwriter Alun Owen wrote the script after spending time on the road with the band, taking note of their distinctly Scouse humour, their intimacy and banter, and their individual parts in the group’s dynamic. He wrote a heightened version of each Beatle for them to play. Crucially, Owen was a working-class Welshman who’d grown up in Liverpool, so he understood the group’s vernacular and wrote scenarios and dialogue based on their real experiences, which they would be comfortable delivering.

And unlike Elvis, or Frank Sinatra, or any other pop star on film before, these guys live in a world where The Beatles exist. Their awareness of their fame places them at a distance from it — they’re as amused by it as the audience is.

The scene where John convinces a woman that he’s not, in fact, John Lennon, encapsulates how a person’s celebrity can become divorced from and unrecognisable to the real person.

A woman tells John: “You don’t look like him at all” and John says, to himself: “She looks more like him than I do.”

The film also distinguishes the ‘real’ Beatles by drawing attention to the way that their images are captured, copied and disseminated. Paul’s grandfather (an agent of chaos played by Steptoe and Son’s Wilfrid Bramble) repeatedly asks the boys to autograph a group photo, which he makes forgeries of and attempts to sell. In the press conference scene, George poses for a photographer whose snaps appear on screen as a contact sheet. In the ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ sequence, the slow motion shots of the band jumping references their already established iconography, particularly Fiona Adams’ photo of the band leaping behind Euston Station, which was used on the cover of the EP Twist and Shout. The band is seen through various TV monitors in the studio’s control room, and there’s a visual gag involving large beetles in the background while the band rehearses on stage. Through editing, mise-en-scene and blocking, the film distinguishes the flesh-and-blood Beatles at its centre, from the two-dimensional avatars most fans were used to seeing.

The level of fame The Beatles experienced during the making of the film was intense and new. Watching it with 60 years of hindsight, in the era of stan culture, phone chucking, and parasocial relationships, it’s striking to see the light-headedness with which the film portrays the intense fandom.

The fans presented a problem for production, and Owen observed how the band’s movements were restricted by the mania surrounding them. But the film’s purpose was to serve Beatlemania, so the feeling of constraint was expressed through surrealism and humour – for example, during ‘I Should Have Known Better’, literally placing the band in a cage while schoolgirls try to touch them like zoo animals.

This attitude seems to have been couched in reality. A documentary called The First US Visit, shot by the Maysles brothers just weeks before production on this film started, shows that, at this stage, The Beatles treated their fame with humour and bemusement. The darker, more dangerous side to fan behaviour had not yet reared its head.

More recent films about pop stars tend to walk a fine line between appreciating fandom – because without it, where would the star be? – and exploring the toll it takes on the artist. Of films about celebrities who have reached the levels of fame comparable to The Beatles, two stand out: One Direction’s This Is Us and Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana.

Both films feature their subjects interacting with fans, but they’re in much more controlled environments, like meet and greets (which are surreal in their own way). Modern celebrities know the double-edged sword of fame: they know that they need to connect with fans, but the implications for their personal safety are on a whole other level to what was considered when The Beatles were filming A Hard Day’s Night. They live in a world that, for better or worse, The Beatles helped usher in. This is all the more tragic when considering that 16 years after filming, John Lennon would be shot and killed by a fan whose warped justification for the act was that Lennon had become, in his unstable mind, “a phoney”.

But this would all happen later. For the time being, John, Paul, George and Ringo took Beatlemania in their stride, building their public personas on the fly. In fact, that carving out of four distinct personas for The Beatles was another invention of Alun Owen. According to Paul Du Noyer (writing in MOJO):

“Owen watched the four personalities and amplified them for effect. Though each of The Beatles would come to find their respective stereotypes stifling, it was an accidental stroke of marketing genius. At that time, the British and American publics had only the vaguest notion of individual Beatles. In fact their defining qualities, to most adult minds, were the identikit mop tops and peculiar accent. It was through A Hard Day’s Night that The Beatles first emerged as four distinct entities, immeasurably adding to the interest and complexity of the group.”

This set the template for the way in which musicians are marketed to this very day, from Take That to the Spice Girls, to BTS and TXT.

Yet the film also goes a long way to reinforce the idea that The Beatles are strongest when they are together as a unit. When Ringo decides to go AWOL, thanks to some meddling by Paul’s grandfather, he proves to be completely inept at navigating the world. He nearly gets into a fight, is rejected by women, and causes minor havoc at a pub. The scene is played for comedy, but it also shows us a glimpse of a world without The Beatles: drab, hostile, devoid of humour. It reinforces the idea that four Beatles are better than one, and the freedom they crave is better experienced as a group. Like Nowell-Smith said: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

A Hard Day’s Night is a bundle of contradictions: a scripted comedy that feels authentic, a celebration of image making that both critiques and revels in the process, a commercial product that’s genuinely artistic. Its lightning-in-a-bottle quality is proven by the fact that it didn’t set a formula: aspects of the film have permeated pop culture separately, but there’s no A Hard Day’s Night 2. That’s fine, because even though the film turns 60 this year, it never gets old”.

With there being talk around The Beatles appearing the biopic films, Rubber Soul getting the Giles Martin treatment, and just the fact that Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are still massive fans of the band and can tell us first-hand what it was like, I have been thinking about A Hard Day’s Night and what it means to me. A near-perfect film featuring my favourite band, I think it was ahead of its time and had this brilliant script that was given to a brilliant director. How Richard Lester made this huge impact, and what A Hard Day’s Night means today. Anyone who has not seen it, I would implore them to do so. I can’t seem to find it on streaming platforms, but this YouTube video gives us the entire film. Go and get Samira Ahmed's book too, as it is not only a great companion; how she writes about the film is extraordinary and has received glowing reviews like this. I think that The Beatles’ 1964 debut film is one of the most extraordinary things…

EVER committed to film.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Rowlene

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Rowlene

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THERE are not a lot…

of interviews from this year with Rowlene. She has releases some incredible singles this year. Bittersweet is her latest, and it is magnificent. I did want to spotlight this South African queen. I want to start out with an interview from 2022. NOTION chatted with Rowlene around the release of her E.P., Frequency:

“The South African singer-songwriter was born and raised in Cape Town, finding a love for performance in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. Breaking a musical hiatus with singles “Only (feat. WurlD)” and “Would You Like That”, and now heading to LA and Europe, she’s proving an artist to get on your radar. We caught up with Rowlene to discuss her process, a collaboration with WurlD and career rollercoaster so far. Dive in!

Can you talk me through the process of putting together the EP?

It was such a majestic process, I found everything I wasn’t looking for and now I’m in a space where I feel understood and respected more than ever before.

Growing up in Cape Town and later moving to Johannesburg – do you think these have contributed as influences to your music?

Not really, I think it may have inspired me more than influenced. Everyone who I was surrounded by, their grind and hustles has been so inspiring to watch and learn from. Seeing people push the boundaries and showing up as the best versions of themselves and still staying true through the creation process it just gave me hope for my future.

With six platinum records and having performed multiple stages across the continent, do you have a particular venue you love or a favourable memory from a past live show?

Rocking the Daisies was definitely a crazy experience. Something I want to still do is perform at Afro Nation, Coachella, The O2 Arena London and Madison Square Garden”.

Rowlene is gearing up for the release of her new album, Some Strings Attached. I am writing this on 14th August. He album comes out on 21st August. It is a perfect time to connect with Rowlene. There are a couple of recent interviews. I do think that she has a growing fanbase here in the U.K., though she probably has a larger following in South Africa. I do hope that she plays here soon. It is clear that Some Strings Attached is a very personal album. Maybe her most revealing work to date. This Sahiphopmag feature gives us a little insight into Some Strings Attached:

“For Rowlene, the album represents years of emotion, reflection and rebuilding. Taking to Instagram, the Cape Town-born artist gave fans a glimpse into the deeply personal story behind the project, revealing just how much of herself went into creating it.

“I’ve held these songs close for a long time. Every lyric, every late night, every version of me that had to exist for this album to become what it is,” she shared.

The album digs into the complicated emotions that follow loss, particularly the process of finding your footing after relationships come to an end. Rowlene has previously explained that heartbreak does not define all of her  music, but this particular body of work required her to confront that part of her story.

Over the past few years, she has focused on learning how to rebuild and rediscover herself, with each song capturing a different point along that emotional road.

Even the album’s title speaks to those unresolved connections. Some Strings Attached explores the invisible ties that can remain long after a relationship or friendship has ended, making the project particularly relatable to anyone who has had to let go while still carrying pieces of what once was.

Fans will also have an opportunity to experience the album live shortly after its release. Rowlene is scheduled to host an album launch show at Hard Rock Café in Sandton, Johannesburg, on 22 August, one day after the album drops”.

The Guardian recently recommended Rowlene. They raved about her music and suggested that people connect with it. I am very new to her music, though I am instantly engrossed. She is such a phenomenal artist that I would love to see play in London. Such a powerful and compelling voice. Her songs might seem personal to her, yet they will be familiar and relatable to so many of her listeners:

“Rowlene Bosman learned to sing in a Cape Town school choir, and the discipline never left her: she is a precision vocalist in a scene that rewards volume. Most South Africans first heard her in 2018, delivering the hook on Nasty C’s SMA – she was the first signing to his Tall Racks label – and the featured artist circuit kept her busy for years. But while South African pop stampeded towards amapiano, Rowlene held her ground as a balladeer, writing slow, confessional R&B in which heartbreak is examined instead of danced away. Her 2020 debut album 11:11, a set of aching, close-quarters soul songs, brought a South African music award nomination for best pop album, and three of her originals – Cupid, Stay and the Nasty C collaboration I Need You – landed on the soundtrack of Netflix’s SA teen crime drama Blood & Water, carrying her voice far beyond home.

Hurts 2b Reminded, from her new album Some Strings Attached, is the best argument yet for that patience. Over spare, unhurried production with a faint Afropop pulse ticking underneath, she sings about the ambush of memory: the places and small details that resurrect someone you thought you had let go. The twist is who she is mourning: not the dead, nor an ex, but friends who are alive and well yet simply elsewhere, people whose lives moved on without her. Losing them, she has said, was the price of finding herself. After 10 years of stealing the show from other artists, she sounds ready to headline her own”.

I am not sure if NME or Rolling Stone UK will chat with Rowlene next week. So I am only going with the interviews that are out there. A look back to Glamour South Africa and their conversation from May. This was when Rowlene was still finishing her album and we did not know what we do now. I am excited to see what is next for her. I feel there will be a lot of international dates. One of the greatest artists of her generation:

“What creative process do you go through when writing your songs?

I basically just sit with my team and get in the zone. Throwing ideas around and getting inspiration from that. Sometimes it doesn't happen and I experience writer’s block, which is okay. We can try again tomorrow. Let’s get to know each other instead, maybe I’ll get inspired by that. I try not to overthink the process and just let it happen. Trust the process. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t and that’s okay.

What moment in your career would you say shaped you and who you are as an artist?

A moment in my career that I would say shaped me and who I am as an artist, I think would be losing friends along the way. In life we outgrow people and we all go our different ways. You make some, you lose some and I’m really grateful for the people I currently have around me.

Your voice is silky and soothing on your latest single, Sweet Escape and we can’t stop listening to it. What was the inspiration behind the song?

A lot of the time as female artists we create music and sing for fun, although that is all good and well, for this song I wanted to create something sexy, witty, and fun. I wanted to make women feel sexy and with doing that I’m also showing a different side of myself.

What advice would you give young women/girls who wish to pursue a career in music?

I’m going to tell them what I wish I was told, which is educate yourself as much as you can about whatever you want to pursue. Don’t rush to get signed. Invest in yourself. Experiment. Download beats if you have to. Get a feel for things, because you may find that you don’t actually like singing or performing, but rather enjoy writing songs. Understand yourself and push yourself to the best of your ability or you’ll just get twisted in other people’s narrative and get pushed around if you don’t stand up for yourself”.

Some Strings Attached is going to be one of this year’s best albums. The brilliant Rowlene should be on your radar. This South African artist is a phenomenal talent that has decades ahead. I have just connected with her music, but I know that she is going to be a major mainstream and world-straddling artist. As I have said before, I do hope that she comes and plays in the U.K...

VERY soon.

___________

Follow Rowlene

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/rowlene_sa

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@row1ene

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/RowleneSA/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzzbbmM4bAlK0aXjBVs1hJw

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0pEJe38UHfdkFEEaPgwH0P?si=l4vdsKNGSSy6bbWDuK5NaQ

FEATURE: All Queens: Will We Get a Daisy Chain Fields Festival-Like Event in the U.K.?

FEATURE:

 

 

All Queens

Will We Get a Daisy Chain Fields Festival-Like Event in the U.K.?

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I will be interested…

IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Rodrigo/PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan McGinley for DAZED

to read the reviews for this one-day festival, as Daisy Chain Fields has been curated by Olivia Rodrigo and brings women to the front. It is a festival featuring women and female-fronted groups.  The line-up is brilliant. Not only is it this chance to see these incredible artists together at a wonderful location. 100% of net proceeds will go to charities and organisations dedicated to advancing and advocating for women and girls. That is so commendable and vital! At a time when major festivals struggle with gender and women are not booked as headliners as much as they should, festivals like Daisy Chain Fields is a necessity. Things in terms of U.S. festivals are bad regarding gender equality. Only this year did Download Festival book its first female headliner. Linkin Park’s Emily Armstrong the first female headliner. Shocking that such sexism has raged for years. Reading & Leeds has always been male-heavy for headliners, though this year has been a step forward. Though, again, how does it take this long?! A festival should not be congratulated for booking 50% female headliners! It should be the norm! It seems like the bare minimum! Women are dominating music, so why is 50% the best a major festival can do?! Things are even worse for non-male D.J.s. Women and non-binary D.J.s struggling to be included on bills. Primavera Sound 2025 had an all-female lead, and showed how it should be done. Though they took a slight step back this year regarding headliners, their commitment to gender equality continued. Last year was a bad one for women in music. Festivals largely ignoring them. Even if it is hard to predict headliners years in advance (as festivals need to these days), there are so many to choose from, there can be no excuses for disregarding women! This year, Bristol’s FORWARDS Festival has all female Saturday’s co-headliners including Little Simz, Self Esteem, Tems and Wet Leg. Hopefully, Daisy Chain Fields Festival is an annual event. I wonder if we will get a U.K. equivalent. Details have emerged regarding stage times. NME provide more information:

“Olivia Rodrigo has unveiled the stage times for her forthcoming all-female Daisy Chain Fields festival, with sets from Chappell Roan, Bikini Kill, Doechii, Garbage and more.

The single-day event will take place at Great Park in Irvine, California on August 29, bringing together a line-up of women and female-fronted artists across two stages, alongside non-profit and community-focused organisations.

Rodrigo will be performing at the festival, with the line-up also set to include Mitski, The Breeders, KATSEYE, Santigold, Rachel Chinouriri, Die Spitz, Eli, Not For Radio and Quiet Light. Special guests Karen O, Sarah McLachlan and Stevie Nicks are also on the bill.

The event will alternate performances between its Dandelion and Marigold stages throughout the day, meaning none of its 14 scheduled sets overlap. You can join the waitlist for tickets here, and check out the stage times below.

Daisy Chain Fields 2026 stage times are:

Dandelion Stage:
11:55 am -12:25 pm – Eli
1:05-1:35 pm – Santigold
2:15-2:45 pm – KATSEYE
3:40-4:20 pm – Mitski
5:20-6:00 pm – Doechii
7:00-7:40 pm – Chappell Roan
8:40-10:00 pm – Olivia Rodrigo & Special Guests

Marigold Stage
11:20-11:50 am – Quiet Light
12:30-1:00 pm – Rachel Chinouriri
1:40-2:10 pm – Die Spitz
2:50-3:30 pm – Bikini Kill
4:30-5:10 pm – The Breeders
6:10-6:50 pm – Garbage
7:50-8:30 pm – Not for Radio”.

A mix of newer artists and some legends on the bill, it is great that there is some British talent in the mix. Of course, people will see the line-up and ask why so-and-so wasn’t book. How come no Phoebe Bridgers? She is over in the U.K. at the moment in readiness for some intimate shows promoting her new album, Lost Weekend. What we get from the Daisy Chain Fields Festival is proof that women can carry festivals. There is still imbalance. When it comes to the biggest stages, headliners still tend to be men. Even with Glastonbury.

The Cut interviewed Olivia Rodrigo earlier in the year to discuss the anticipated Daisy Chain Fields Festival. It seems to have that mix of a modern bouquet festival and something from the 1960s or 1970s. Woodstock, perhaps. It will be a wonderful event that looks like it could run every year. That would be amazing:

“How did you determine the aesthetic for the items and the festival? And where did the name come from?

I wanted Daisy Chain to feel like it was separate from my album campaign and my album rollout, so we always wanted the aesthetic to be sort of a riot-grrrl-meets-flower-child vibe, and that was what we were going for in the collection too. When I thought of the festival, I pictured girls running around and making friendship bracelets, engaging in community, making new friends, and listening to music they love. Daisy Chain Fields sounds like what it felt like to me, and the imagery of a chain symbolizes how strong we can all be when we work together.

Do you want it to be an annual thing?

I really believe in the festival and what it stands for, so I want it to be an annual thing. I really wanted the charities that the festival benefits to reflect the world that we live in and have as much diversity and inclusion as possible. I was very intentional about it, and I’m learning a lot from all these organizations. I’m also excited that the patrons who are watching the shows can get a chance to learn about these charities — because they’re doing such incredible work — and to engage with them in a meaningful way. That’s one of my biggest hopes.

Have you thought about how you want fans to dress, and can you give some style clues for what you want that day to look like?

Whatever people feel comfortable rocking out in is what I think they should wear. I just want people to feel comfortable, confident, and happy. This festival is so much about trying to cultivate joy in the face of adversity, so as long as people are having a grand old time, I’m happy”.

I do think that we could benefit from having a festival like this in the U.K. I do know that there are smaller festivals that are all-female. That is brilliant, but one that can do something similar to Daisy Chain Fields, where we get slightly bigger or more established acts. There is no shortage of artists who could play. Olivia Dean seems like the first obvious name. Having an America artist or two in there. Having it as a one-day event and perhaps pushing it towards autumn – as the weather is less severe and it will be more manageable! -, it would ensure that queens are up front. I suspect that major festivals next year are going to be male=heavy regarding their headliners. Many festivals still are not gender-balanced across their line-up. We do not have anything like Daisy Chain Fields in the U.K. In terms of the calibre of the artists all sharing the bill. Though there are all-female festivals and events. In June, LOUD WOMEN highlighted their own event. Writing how women are shaping music:

“It’s a remarkable snapshot of where women in music are right now: established icons sharing space with newer artists who are redefining what success looks like for the next generation.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, our friend Lauren Estelle Jones has announced God Save The Queens, a historic celebration marking 50 years of she-punk. Taking place in Londonon 16 October, the event features LOUD WOMEN favourites Big Joanie alongside Essential Logic, Gina Birch and HotWax, bringing together artists whose influence can still be heard across punk and alternative music today.

What strikes me about these announcements is that they’re not simply celebrating women who are making music right now. They’re celebrating the entire lineage. The pioneers who kicked down doors. The artists carrying that legacy forward. And the musicians who are only just picking up their first instruments.

Here at LOUD WOMEN, we’re proud to be part of that story. We’ve already announced lineups for Bristol, Dublin and our biggest event of the year, LOUD WOMEN Fest London. Before that, we’ll be back at Rebellion Festival, where the LOUD WOMEN stage continues to introduce thousands of punk fans to artists from around the world. We’re also putting the finishing touches to festivals in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Toronto, Colorado, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

From California to Blackpool, from London to Tokyo, women and non-binary musicians are creating some of the most exciting music being made anywhere right now. More importantly, they’re creating spaces where the next generation can see themselves reflected”.

 I realise that smaller festivals struggle and many are disappearing, though there is definitely room for another all-female festival. If a major artist in the U.K. curated it and did something similar to Daisy Chain Fields Festival, it would give pause to a lot of major festivals who are not booking enough women and there are relatively few female headliners. Glastonbury might be the most gender-balanced, though they are terrible when it comes to putting women on the Pyramid Stage. I have no idea why that is, and I hope 2027 is a year when they have at least two female headliners – which has only occurred once since they started in the 1970s – and, God forbid, they have an all-female line-up! That has never happened at Glastonbury. Things do need to change, as women are shaping and pushing music forward. It would be amazing to join LOUD WOMEN and those already doing incredible work. A big one-day festival where it is all-female. Putting these queens onto the stage and…

WATCHING them slay!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Diane Warren at Seventy

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Diane Warren at the 98th Academy Awards ion 15th March, 2026. She was nominated for Best Original Song for Dear Me, from the documentary, Diane Warren: Relentless/PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Diane Warren at Seventy

__________

THIS biography might…

be a little out of date but, when Diane Warren was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001, we got some biography about her. This is one of the most successful and talented songwriters ever. Ahead of her seventieth birthday on 7th September, I did want to spotlight this legend:

“Diane Warren is one of modern music’s most celebrated songwriters.  She has penned nine #1 and thirty-three Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and is tied for having written the most #1 songs as a sole writer in Billboard history.  Her distinguished catalogue features beloved songs including “Only Love Can Hurt Like This,” “Un-Break My Heart,” “If I Could Turn Back Time” and “Rhythm of the Night.”
She has received 15 Academy Award nominations, is a GRAMMY winner with 15 nominations, an Emmy winner, and a two-time Golden Globe winner whose songs have been featured in more than 150 films, including chart-topping hits “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (Mannequin, 1987) “Because You Loved Me” (Up Close and Personal, 1996) “How Do I Live” (Con Air, 1997) “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” (Armageddon, 1998 ) and “Til It Happens To You” (The Hunting Ground, 2015). In November 2022, Warren became the first songwriter in history to receive an Honorary Oscar, as voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors. Most recently, she wrote the original song “The Fire Inside,” performed by Becky G for the film Flamin’ Hot, directed by Eva Longoria, which marked her 15th Oscar nomination.

She is the sole owner of her publishing company Realsongs, the most successful female-owned and operated business in the music industry. Warren is a recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a nod to her legendary career, having worked with many of today’s most popular artists, including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, H.E.R., Snoop Dogg, Paloma Faith, Jon Batiste, Maren Morris, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Andra Day, Justin Bieber, Jennifer Hudson and Janelle Monáe, in addition to having written songs for iconic artists such as Whitney Houston, Cher, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and many more”.

Diane Warren has been nominated for seventeen Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song but has never won. I think she had found the funny side, though it is scandalous that she has never won! In March, Diane Warren was interviewed by The Telegraph. She reflected on her career and missing out on an Oscar once more:

“I love proving people wrong. It’s my favourite thing to do,” grins Diane Warren. “I proved my mom wrong when she said I couldn’t make a living writing songs. Cos, I f---ing could!” This is an understatement. My 69-year-old Californian interviewee is one of the most successful songwriters of all time, with a self-owned back catalogue of songs worth an estimated half-a-billion dollars. “Although I won’t tell how much I’ve been offered for it – and I’d never sell, anyway,” she tells me. “My soul’s not for sale.”

Which means that, although you might not recognise the name Diane Warren, you’ll know a wind tunnel’s worth of her belt-em-out ballads. She’s the one-woman hit-maker behind nine US number-one songs and 33 top-10 hits including Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now (1987), Cher’s If I Could Turn Back Time (1989), Toni Braxton’s Un-Break My Heart (1996), Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (1998) and Paloma Faith’s Only Love Can Hurt Like This (2014).

Often at her best writing the kind of songs that swell the emotional sails of blockbuster movies, she’s got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She’s got a Grammy (for Because You Loved Me from the 1996 movie Up Close and Personal), two Golden Globe Awards (for You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me from 2010’s Burlesque and lo si (Seen) from 2020’s The Life Ahead) and a Primetime Emmy (for Til It Happens to You from 2015’s The Hunting Ground).

Despite an unprecedented 17 Academy Award nominations, however, she still hasn’t won the Oscar for Best Original Song written for a Motion Picture. And this really bugs her. Unlike most LA types who feign cool disinterest in shiny statues, Warren is campaigning hard for her latest song ahead of next week’s ceremony. “And this time”, she says, “it’s personal”, because her song, Dear Me, is the tender ballad she wrote for the documentary about her own life, Diane Warren: Relentless.

The docu-film offers raw insight into the eccentric existence of the scrappy workaholic who has been described as a “mogul-urchin” as well as, because of her reclusive nature, the “Emily Dickinson of pop”. She is known to relentlessly badger A-list singers until they listen to the demos she records using her “awful” nasal voice in her cave of an office, crammed with teetering stacks of cassettes. Relentless opens with Cher’s assertion that Warren is “nuts” (Warren pushed so hard for Cher to record If I Could Turn Back Time that she paid for a studio even though Cher said she “hated” the song), followed by streams of praise from artists such as Beyoncé and Steve Tyler.

Most fascinating, perhaps, is the revelation that though Warren has made her fortune writing love songs, she has never been in love. “A lot of people think I’m gay,” she shrugs on camera. “I’m not.” She just prefers to “sleep with my cat”, and finds some of the physical acts of affection she describes in her lyrics make her wince. Warren cringes when asked to unpack the lines she wrote for Aerosmith’s Oscar-nominated I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing (from Armageddon): “I don’t want anybody kissing my eyes. I don’t want anybody staying up all night to hear me breathe. What the f--- are you kissing my eyes for?”

The documentary’s director Bess Kargman drafts in one of Warren’s collaborators, Paul Stanley of Kiss, to play the role of psychiatrist, with Stanley suggesting that perhaps “it’s easier to write about heartbreak when you don’t have to live it, but you fear it.”

Talking today via Zoom from a tidy conference room at her LA office, Warren shrugs off Stanley’s theory. “I don’t think I’m fearful of [love],” she mulls. “I’m just not the most trusting person, you know? I just don’t want to wake up with someone or sleep with anybody, or answer to anybody.” The widescreen romance expressed in songs, she says, is the product of “a good imagination, y’know? When I’m writing, I can feel what that feels like. It’s like method acting”.

Viewers might suspect that Warren’s wariness of romance has its roots in a difficult upbringing. Dear Me is, after all, a song addressed to her childhood self. It is full of tender assurances that “[while] you feel like nobody understands… like the whole world’s against you… all of the pain is all gonna fade”. As she tells me today more bluntly: “Being a kid sucks.”

Running away from home

Born in 1956 to insurance salesman David, and hypercritical housewife Flora, who never showed her children any physical affection, Warren grew up in the lower-middle class Van Nuys community of Los Angeles. She was the youngest of three daughters and, while both her elder sisters conformed to parental expectations and worked hard in school, little Diane (who now identifies as autistic) was an “alienated” rebel and a loner from the get-go. “Mom used to say she got the wrong baby from the hospital,” she says.

While she was clearly clever, she had “no interest whatsoever in anything academic” and her social awkwardness saw her bullied by “mean kids”. An early passion for pop meant she turned to music for solace, but when her father took her to guitar lessons, her teacher sent her home after two tutorials – pronouncing she had “no future in music”. In retrospect, she thinks he did her a favour as “not learning music in a conventional way” allowed her to write more originally. She tells me: “I don’t know what rules I’m breaking!”

Childhood friends tell the documentary team that at teenage parties, where other girls went in search of boys and booze, Diane would hole up in bathrooms with her guitar to enjoy the echoey acoustics. She wrote her first song at 11, was sexually molested at 12 and ran away from home – sleeping on lawns and in “not nice” hotels – at the age of 14. The first time her picture appeared in the paper was not for her musical talent, but because she was a missing teen. “I ran away because I’d flipped off a teacher in school and I didn’t want my parents to find out I had been kicked out,” she tells me. “I must have had an angel watching over me, because I stayed with these very scary characters for a couple weeks.” She shudders. “Anything could have happened, really, anything. I was pretty innocent in a weird way.”

Relieved after she returned home, Warren’s father invested more time in supporting her songwriting ambitions; he bought her a 12-string guitar and a metal shed to write in. Her song Because You Loved Me (recorded by Celine Dion in 1996) was written for him. Today, she tells me she “always believed in myself” and she spent her teens and 20s plugging away at her songwriting, even getting a job as a courier for the music industry so she could slip her own demo cassettes into record executives’ in-trays.

“I’m a born hustler,” she says today. “I will still DM [direct message] artists I don’t know if I think I’ve written a song that would work for them. It all comes from wanting my songs to be heard. I know they’re good!” But it took a solid decade of hustling for Warren to really start getting those songs heard. She had her big breakthrough with Solitaire, a hit for Laura Branigan in 1983, and things really took off when she wrote DeBarge’s jaunty Rhythm of the Night (1985) – she’s been flying since.

Warren always writes alone and has no time for the kind of songwriting by committee that sees a string of credits attached to most modern pop songs. “I’m not into anything by committee. I’m a committee of one,” she says. British pop star Lewis Capaldi spoke out about the stress he felt working with the big Californian songwriting teams a few years ago and Warren has huge sympathy for him. “I would tell him not to listen to those f---ers,” she says. “I would tell him to listen to his own heart. Or come to me. I would love to work with him.”

Frustration at Oscar losses

The documentary makes much of Warren’s sweary defiance. She’s often filmed flipping off the crew and today she waves a silver bracelet reading “Relentless as F---” at the laptop camera. She says she doesn’t care about the critics – “what other people think of me is none of my business” – so I wonder why winning the Oscar means so much to her. “I think it’s because it’s an award that gets voted for by your peers, and for songwriters there’s just one award. Plus I always watched the Oscars on TV with my mom and dad, and now I have these ‘sleepless sleepover’ parties [on the night of the nominations]… it’s just special,” she shrugs. She rolls her eyes over the way her evident frustration at losing has been caught on camera over the years. “You can see me saying ‘F---!’” she winces.

Written for a documentary about sexual assault, Warren’s song Til It Happens to You (2015), performed by Lady Gaga, was expected to be a shoe-in for an Oscar and she was hugely disappointed when it lost out to Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes’s Bond-theme Writing’s on the Wall. It was another personal song for Warren, who had experienced “a couple of creepy things” in the music industry.

“One time”, she says, “I was playing a song for somebody and I, you know, opened my eyes and he was, you know, jerking off.” She shakes her head. “I left. But stuff like that is kind of gross. But I know other people have had worse kind of things, been in horrible positions. I don’t know why the music industry hasn’t had its MeToo moment.”

Warren believes that Gaga’s performance of the song at the 2016 Awards ceremony – during which she was backed by 52 male and female survivors of sexual assault – was “still a beautiful thing” regardless of whether it won her a gold statue. Warren did, however, get an honorary Oscar in 2022, which she promptly waved at the heavens telling her mother she “finally got a man” and now keeps on her piano.

Even though she’s got stiff competition – mainly the number-one hit Golden from Netflix’s record-breaking smash animation KPop Demon Hunters – Warren would really like another statue for Dear Me this year. “Even though it’s such a personal song, that I wrote for myself, it seems to have a universal appeal. It shows how many people feel the same about themselves as me.” She smiles and offers a cheery parting shot. “If you don’t fit in, stand out!”.

On 7th September, we mark the seventieth birthday of the wonderful Diane Warren. One of the most successful songwriters ever, I do hope that she wins a long overdue Oscar. To mark her birthday, I have complied a mixtape of songs that she has written for other artists. Showing the depth and range of her songwriting genius. This is a salute to…

A true colossus.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: A Goodbye to Summer…

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Polina Tankilevitch/Pexels

A Goodbye to Summer…

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I don’t think it is…

PHOTO CREDIT: Helena Lopes/Pexels

an exaggeration to say that most people are glad to see the end of summer. It has been a summer of droughts, heatwaves and uncomfortable days. I have never looked more forward to autumn ever. I hope that we are in for a cooler and wetter season. One where we get plenty of rain and the warmest days stays cool enough. In the Northern Hemisphere, 31st August is when meteorological summer ends,  while astronomical summer ends with the autumnal equinox on 23rd September. We have a little way to go, but I hope we look back in a month or two with plenty of rain and cooler days. Relief that we have got through summer! However, I wanted to put out a mixtape that is lie an end to summer. I will do another one with autumnal songs very soon. This one is the last gasp of summer. A mixture of summer chillout classics and tunes. As awful as this intense summer has been, we have had some days that have not been mega-hot and have been quite nice. Though the lack of significant rainfall the entire season is the result of the climate emergency. To end with a good note, the songs below are a range of classics and some songs you might not know. A stifling and sweaty season that we will all bid…

PHOTO CREDIT: Charl Durand/Pexels

A fond farewell to.

FEATURE: Spotlight: KatzPascale

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

KatzPascale

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THERE have been a fair few…

contenders for E.P. of the year so far, but KatzPascale’s ELEGY is up there with the best. How would you define the duo of Sammi Katzmann and Jenna Pascale? Many go with Chamber, or they could be Neo-Classical. However you categorise them, their music is extraordinary. ELEGY is a staggering listening experience. I will end with a review of it. KatzPascale is a stunning New York City-based Chamber/Neo-Classical, Anti-Pop duo formed by cellist Jenna Pascale and saxophonist Sammi Katzmann. They are known for looping their instruments and using vocals texturally; they blend classical training with immersive, unconventional live performances. In October, they come to the U.K. If you are able to go and see them perform live then please do, as I can only imagine how incredible and awe-inspiring their music sounds on the stage. Against a Pop landscape that can be samey and offers few surprises, the music of KatzPascale is a welcome breath of fresh air. I want to start out with some interviews. I don’t think that you can call their music Classical, because there is immediacy and flexibility rather than the more rigid structures of the genre. Sweeping and experimental at one point, it can then switch to something as immediate as Pop. I am going to start out with CLASH and their Next Wave feature from June:

“KatzPascale began two years ago, even though they had known each other for four years after meeting through playing in indie bands in New York. Both have a background in classical training and after promising to make music together for years, the chance came when Pascale wanted to switch up her indie project for a gig she was booked for. She asked Katzmann to join her.

“It was just us fucking around on our instruments playing ambient, vibey, ethereal stuff,” says Pascale. “Everyone was like ‘what the fuck is that?!’.”

“It was the most magical live experience we’ve felt,” reminisces Katzmann.

They have since built up many hours playing together to refine their sound that has culminated in their debut EP ‘ELEGY’ released this month on the SONIC GUCK label. They call it neo classical, post punk anti pop.

The pair stress their sound was never intentional but evolved from improvising live together. It’s akin to melancholic chamber pop, but more abstract and avant-garde. To recreate that magical energy from their first show, they held a residency at 66 Greene Street in Soho that helped them build a setlist.

“It was an ominous space, pretty foggy and you couldn’t really see anything. But it was free, the doors were open and the music played out onto the street,” says Katzmann.

It proved an ideal spot that birthed tracks from ‘ELEGY’ that move fluidly between soft, gushing harmonies into prickly, disconcerting textures. Drenched in layers of loops and fx, the core of the cello and saxophone hold together the expansive range of classical, ambient and jazz into experimental elegance.

KatzPascale are influenced as much by Brian Eno, Four Tet, Max Richter and Boards of Canada, to artists 2hollis, Addison Rae, Bjork and Imogen Heap. Another influence of what they’ve created came from a gig in an unusual venue.

“We went to see multireedist Colin Stetson in a graveyard,” says Pascale. “That was the first time I heard anything like that. We were like ‘aaarrrggghhh, this is crazy!’”

“That subconsciously plays a part in our sounds,” adds Katzmann. “We just wanted to make something different. That’s what happened with the first show. We had no direction; we just did it.”

Colin Stetson-inspired saxophone is present throughout ‘ELEGY’, with their cover of the Sam Wilkes and Sam Gendel track ‘GBTC’ one of the best examples of how their sound can feel heavy, but hauntingly delicate too. The raspy saxophone warbles beautifully as the cello teeters on top of the percussion.

The meditative energy from the music even puts Katzmann into her own “flow state” when playing. “It’s so fun and nice to lock in with just one person. We look elusive and mysterious on stage, but Jenna will do something cool and I’m just smiling.”

“Sometimes I get the chills from something you do,” Pascale responds. “We get surprised by ourselves a lot while it’s happening. We came up with the track ‘MOTHER’ at the residency and both of us cried on stage because it was really touching.”

With a UK tour coming in the autumn, the pair is looking forward to collaborating with artists and releasing more music. But they want to go further with their live sets and put their fans in places they’re not expecting.

“We want to get weirder with it,” says Katzmann. “We’d play a show in a butchers, or an abandoned mall. The space we play is really important and we want to experiment in more unique spaces”.

I did want to bring in byline and their interview from this year. I like the questions they asked and how it is a bit different from other interviews. They spoke with a phenomenal duo who make “ambient, spell-like music for grief, catharsis, and whatever people need to feel”:

“Since this is for our Out of Body issue, I have some spiritual questions. Have you guys ever had an out-of-body experience?

JP: I feel like every time we play.

SK: When we saw Colin Stetson at Green-Wood Cemetery, that was out of body. That was before the band started, probably like two years ago. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Green-Wood Cemetery, but they throw concerts there, and we went with some of the indie rock people, which is ironic. Colin Stetson is a saxophonist, and he mics his body to give a percussive element to the music. It’s not just the saxophone, it’s also his voice. He did the Hereditary soundtrack.

JP: It was just him on stage with these massive speakers, so subby, and we were standing in front of them like, holy fuck, what is this?

SK: It’s a very unique feeling that I hadn’t felt from live music in a while. I feel like that’s only been replicated when we play.

JP: I also think it was when we accidentally wrote “Mother.” It was at one of these Soho shows I mentioned earlier, where we were just messing around in front of an audience on our instruments. We locked in over this drone that I looped on the cello, and we played the melody that’s in “Mother.” I was actually crying as it was coming out of me, and you were crying too. We had never played it before. We just locked in, in a moment, and made this melody, and it actually made me cry.

SK: And at that show, there were so many technical difficulties. Everything was not working, but we still randomly wrote that. It was so awesome.

JP: We took that melody and turned it into “Mother” way later.

Does making music bring you closer to your higher selves? And what have you found out about yourselves in writing these songs for the upcoming EP?

JP: 100%. Another realization I had in the past month was that the only thing that takes me out of anxiety or overthinking is music. That’s the only surefire way to reset my brain.

SK: Totally. It is the ultimate form of happiness too. Playing or making something is number one of all time, I think.

JP: Definitely. Part of it is that I feel like I’m doing something, like I’m being productive, which is a good feeling. But it’s also something else.

SK: There’s a lot in it. The ability to have it resonate with others positively is such a reward. Of course that’s a product of it, but creation is so fun.

PHOTO CREDIT: Zoe De Blasis

The songs you’ve released so far, and this upcoming EP, sound like they’re dealing with grief or getting through some kind of traumatic moment.

JP: Something someone said recently after one of the shows was that because there’s no clear storyline in our lyrics, it gives people space to project their own shit onto the music. I think maybe that’s part of the reason why it’s helpful for people when they’re going through something. What we want people to take away from the EP is that they can go in with their shit and be able to project their own things all over it, and hopefully come out the other side feeling lighter. Here’s the soundtrack. Go through the shit. It’s less lonely that way, because we’re there with you.

SK: Yeah, I completely agree. The EP is like the show. We play all the songs at the show, and it’s not about us. When people are watching us or listening to this EP, it’s totally not about us. It’s about how you react to it and how it makes you feel.

JP: We had a girl bring her dad and her mom to the show in Leeds, and after, the mom came up to us and was like, “I haven’t seen him cry since our wedding.”

SK: Twenty-five years ago.

JP: Then he came over and started saying, “I don’t know what about it…” and then he started crying again.

SK: That was such an awesome moment. This curmudgeon dad who hasn’t cried in 25 years is sobbing in this random little city in the UK. That’s what we want, if that’s what feels right. We want to be a safe space to feel any emotions. What the music means to Jenna or me or you is going to be different than anyone else in the crowd, and I think that’s a good thing.

JP: It’s kind of more like the way visual art is. I feel like that’s more common with visual art, where you look at it and everyone’s got their own thing. Songs aren’t always like that. They’re more like, here’s how I feel, I’m in a breakup, you had a breakup, the song’s about a breakup. But our music is more like, it could be about anything”.

KatzPascale are, in the words of NME, “rewriting the rules of live music and making you cry in the process”. An entrain live act, I can see their U.K. dates selling out pretty soon. NME spoke with KatzPascale earlier this month. They have had an extraordinary summer. In terms of their live sets, audiences often pour into the streets afterwards “heralding the experience as a catharsis, an awakening, perhaps even an exorcism”:

“In an age of detachment, terminal online-ness and AI, the gigs offer a sensation that feels increasingly hard to find. “You know when you’re a kid, and you’re lying awake at night, and you’re just seeing shit in your brain before you fall asleep? I feel like we don’t do that anymore because everyone is just putting a show on or scrolling,” Pascale ponders. “[The shows] are like putting you back to your child self and letting your imagination take over again.”

“Playing together is the ultimate distraction from all of the other distractions in the world” – Sammi Katzmann

It’s a notion carried into their debut EP ‘Elegy’, released earlier this year. The project is unique in that every song on it was played and perfected live for months before being recorded, with each gig in some way informing the way it exists today. It’s why pressing play feels like bearing witness to two musicians born to play together, their instruments circling each other in a dialogue that drifts from deeply harrowing and frantic to delicate, sombre and, for brief moments, even sweet.

Though unmistakably chamber music, the EP also contains elements of their eclectic range of influences, offering a sonic scrapbook that shifts from Ethiopian jazz in Katzmann’s saxophone playing to references to their shared childhood love of The Beatles in the way Pascale’s cello slides down in harmonic, repetitive overlapping on ‘An Elephant Never Forgets’ – a direct nod to ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Another key inspiration was ‘Clube da Esquina’, a collaborative album from Brazilian musicians Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges, which deeply informed Katzmann and Pascale’s shared musical language. “We ultimately were very, very inspired by that album,” Katzmann says. “The melodic ideas are just so, so rich and so, so sticky, as we like to say.”

A creative relationship like theirs is rare – one that spawns art which somehow, without words, can depict the deepest human experiences. It’s a calling that cannot be ignored, which is why, they tell NME, new music is already on the way. “Playing together is the ultimate distraction from all of the other distractions in the world,” Katzmann smiles. “It’s like the reset button. When we play music, we can just be totally present and real in our own minds. And it’s amazing to be able to extend that to others who are witnessing it”.

I am going to end with a review of ELEGY from Pitchfork. There were not as many reviews of this E.P. as you’d hope. I think it might be the best E.P. of the year. I am new to the music of KatzPascale, and I am instantly stunned and seduced. I will have to see them live very soon, as it sounds like an unforgettable experience:

“At a recent performance at the Whitney Biennial, Sammi Katzmann played a run on saxophone while Jenna Pascale bore down on her cello with such weight and precision it seemed as if the bow were forged from titanium. They had been darting close and drifting apart for a while, then suddenly happened upon a perfect harmony. It sounded like beauty and it sounded like terror. The two musicians looked at one another and began to cry. They had communicated telepathically and for a moment became one: KatzPascale.

The duo formed two years ago, shortly after meeting while working as hired guns for bands across New York, from Porches to Sunflower Bean, as well as backing a live performance by Michael Imperioli and recording a couple of songs for the Terrifier 3 soundtrack. They bonded over a shared love of Olivier Messiaen, 2hollis, and Addison Rae. At the time, Pascale and Katzmann were trying to find their footing in New York City’s music scene while promoting themselves on TikTok with hashtags like #indieartist and #songofthesummer.

Both musicians came up through classical training from a young age. Katzmann began piano lessons at five, while Pascale, daughter of the director of the South Pasadena Strings Program, was just two when she started playing violin, five when she switched to cello. At six, she played Carnegie Hall. It’s been three years since she gave up classical cello for “absolutely any other genre.” KatzPascale’s entire modus operandi now is to liberate the process.

They refer to their music as “neo-classical-post-punk-anti-pop,” which sounds facetious, but there’s something in all those modifiers and adversatives. It’s ambient and experimental and a bit like a Nicholas Britell film score, but with an anti-institutional streak. Theirs is chamber music that is socially divorced from the classical music world.

Their debut EP, ELEGY, runs on the euphoria of quitting school, and does what any debut should: It gathers every idea and feeling they’ve ever had into a single work. It is ostensibly a record about memory and relief, and the whole of their lives sounds concentrated within it: childhood recitals, lonely practice rooms, post-college ennui, friendships, breakfasts, love. ELEGY transforms all of it into something emotionally direct and simply pleasure-inducing.

Pascale’s cello generally swoops and sustains while Katzmann’s saxophone jitters in search. Playing together, they are two lost wanderers shining torchlights down a tunnel, with no destination in mind other than back to each other. On “SINK WHERE YOU SLEEP,” their instruments zoom around each like frantic bugs trapped in an upturned glass. The saxophone sounds tangled in lament and inquisition before skronking what sounds like an emergency signal. It’s sexy and it’s scary and it keeps the Roadhouse’s red lights running.

Pascale’s vocals float in on “AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS,” operatic and glass-like, recalling her grandmother, who was also an opera singer. The closest recent comparison might be Maria BC. She sounds like she’s calling to Katzmann, flickering and throwing light around the swinging lampshade of the saxophone. Pascale’s playing is deeply measured, the years of classical training paying off, with not a hint of scratchiness to be heard. Together, they sound electrically activated, as though their nerves are starting to work for the first time.

The greatest moment on the EP is Katzmann’s all-timer of an ostinato on “SPILL YOUR TIME.” Katzmann plays it with a throaty voice, a little like Colin Stetson, the physicality irreducible. Pascale accompanies her with deceptively simple down-bows and up-bows, bearing the technical difficulty lightly, as though that’s just the shape and movements her hands happen to take.

During an immersive 30 minutes, ELEGY achieves something many postclassical records strive for but rarely attain. It is unmistakably chamber music in its concentration and instrumental discipline, yet its six pieces communicate with the immediacy of a song, particularly on “HOLD ME (SLOWLY),” with its simple guitar riff and clear vocals, which even lean towards pop. Together, Pascale and Katzmann dart after heart-sinking feelings, shooting their arrows and nailing life to the wall”.

It is a shame that more mainstream Pop will get a lot of attention and streams, whereas music which I deem to be deeper and much more affecting and good will struggle comparatively. However, KatzPascale have a growing fanbase and word-of-mouth is creating so much buzz and love. If you are new to them, I implore you to listen to ELEGY right now. It will definitely leave an impression and it will move you. I have to catch Jenna Pascale and Sammi Katzmann when they visit the U.K…

IN October.

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Follow KatzPascale

PHOTO CREDIT: L.J. Ripley

Official:

https://katzpascale.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/katzpascale/

TikTok:

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

Bandcamp:

https://katzpascale.bandcamp.com/

YouTube:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/23vJAg53gio3DsY5jJof5H?si=nXD72M7xQkaULEAvgcXnKA

FEATURE: The Ultimate Commitment: The Need and Dilemma Associated with a Kate Bush 33 1/3 Book

FEATURE:

 

 

The Ultimate Commitment

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed on 4th April, 1978 whilst promoting her debut album, The Kick Inside, in Holland

The Need and Dilemma Associated with a Kate Bush 33 1/3 Book

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I have been re-reading…

IN THIS PHOTO: Leah Kardos, journalist, author and senior lecturer in Music at Kingston University wrote a 2024-released book for Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love as part of the 33 1/3 series/PHOTO CREDIT: Madeline Randall

Leah Kardos’s fabulous Hounds of Love book for the 33 1/3 series. You can purchase it here. The series is a fabulous look inside albums. Every year, there is a pitch for submissions. One of the reasons I like the 33 1/3 series is because it focuses on an album, and yet we get this conversation around the artist and some biography. What I love about the Hounds of Love entry is that we get a bigger picture. Kardos talks about Bush’s work prior to Hounds of Love and we get some lead up, rather than jumping straight to 1985 or into the songs. There is a chapter called The First Woman, where we see the ways Kate Bush has been the first woman to achieve remarkable feats and break records. Here is some further information about a book every Kate Bush fan should own:

“This book charts the emergence of Kate Bush in the early-to-mid-1980s as a courageous experimentalist, a singularly expressive recording artist and a visionary music producer.
Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener's point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush's songwriting, production and sound design. It considers the vast impact and influence that Hounds Of Love has had on music cultures and creative practices through the years, underlining the artist's importance as a barrier-smashing, template-defying, business-smart, record-breaking, never-compromising role model for artists everywhere.
Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into realms of imagination and possibility. Poised and accessible, yet still experimental and complex, with Hounds Of Love Bush mastered the art of her studio-based songcraft, finally achieving full control of her creative process”.

It is shocking that this is the only book in the 33 1/3 series dedicated to Kate Bush. I understand The Dreaming (1982) was written or was going to published by there was an issue. I think every Kate Bush album should be written about, because you get so much background and the period between albums is fascinating.

Not every album is as good as Hounds of Love, and it may be harder to invest as many words about, say Lionheart (Kate Bush’s second studio album, released in 1978). I do feel there are at least five of her albums that should get the 33 1/3 treatment. I have written about this before, though I am approaching it from a different angle. Aerial (2005) is an album, a double album, a tonne can be written about. The Dreaming needs to be revived. Never for Ever (1980) could have a wonderful book written about it, as could The Sensual World (1989). Although Laura Shenton has written a book about this album – and The Dreaming, for that matter -, I do feel that there is more to be said about The Kick Inside. Laura Shenton’s in-depth book about The Kick Inside can be purchased here. Apart from, as Leah Kardos notes in her Hounds of Love book, was Kate Bush owed an entry into the esteemed series. It is perhaps her most influential album. Definitely her most popular. I will come to The Kick Inside, though this interview, gives us some insight into why Leah Kardos tackled Hounds of Love for a brilliant 33 1/3 book:

“How would you describe your book in one sentence?

My book analyses the music, ideas, creative methods and far-reaching influence of Kate Bush’s 1985 masterpiece Hounds Of Love, one of the most visionary albums of the twentieth century.

What drew you to this album?

When I was considering what to pitch for the open call back in 2022, Kate Bush was experiencing a bit of a miraculous year – the resurgence of ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’ was setting records and had put her back at the top of the charts all over the world. I was also acutely aware that there hadn’t yet been a volume in the series about one of her albums. Bush is such a special artist in my world, and I have always felt an empathic connection with her music – its sensitivity, intelligence, generosity and magic. It just made perfect sense to choose her.

It turns out that Hounds Of Love is a gift to write about. There’s so much musical, sonic-cinematic and conceptual detail to consider. And this period of her creative life in the early-to-mid-1980s is fascinating for many reasons – her developing process and aesthetic, her hard-won autonomy, her uniquely expressive handling of the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument). I feel like people often forget about her technical mastery, that she was (and still is) an elite producer of records. It’s wild that she had achieved all of this by the time she was in her mid-twenties.

What was it like writing the book?

Working on my last book, Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (2021), was such an intense experience compared to this one, which was fun and hugely pleasurable. That book covered Bowie’s final three works so it was a treat to spend so much time and have so much space to sit with a single album. Once the book was done, I went through a period of feeling sad because I missed how it felt to work on it!
The tricky part was trying to strike a balance between writing something accessible for the newer, younger fans, who probably weren’t even born in the 20th century, and also making the book a worthwhile experience for the hardcore Love-hounds who already know everything. I also had to prioritise the story that I wanted to tell, which was about how Hounds Of Love marked Bush’s arrival as an artist and music producer of culture-changing influence.

Did you learn anything new about the album that you didn’t know going into the project?

I learned so much, even though I thought I knew the album well going in. Subtle connections and correspondences between sides A and B that I hadn’t noticed before emerged through the study. Thematic, conceptual, musical and sonic echoes that bounce between the worlds of day and night. I found it really instructive to observe how Bush engaged with the press during this period, how she seemed very energised to chat about her studio and the technical aspects of her creative process but was quite reticent to speak about meanings or pin her work down with definitive answers. It showed me an artist inspired by possibilities, who desired to keep those possibilities open. I tried to apply some of that world-building spirit to my writing about the music itself.

Are there any interesting stories or points that didn’t make it into the final book?

Yes, loads! Though, being an academic I wonder if other people would have found that stuff as interesting as I did? The tight 33,000 word count meant I had to jettison a lot of tangential research that I had accumulated along the way – stuff on Bert Lloyd and whaling shanties and witch trials, oceanic metaphors in literature, myth and psychoanalysis, Arthurian Avalon, etc. There were also some extended investigations into the Fairlight CMI and the technical ins and outs of designing sounds and sequencing song compositions with it. Being a music technologist myself, I was completely fascinated with how technology transformed Bush’s creative process. I ended up cutting most of this stuff but for a smattering of references. Hopefully readers will be able to pick up on the breadcrumbs and investigate further, should they so wish”.

I have always thought about pitching an idea. The Kick Inside is my first choice, as it is my favourite album ever. It turns fifty in 2028, so it would be a suitable second entry into the 33 1/3 series. Laura Shenton’s book is authoritative, though I would be interested to interview those involved making the album, some modern artists who have talked about it and its legacy now. Also, what is great about 33 1/3 and Leak Kardos’s book is that she is forensic about the music. In terms of the kit used and a real dig into the compositions. Laura Shenton does this a bit, but I feel I could take a different approach and still add something to this album without repeating what has come before. In reality, I feel authors like Tom Doyle and Graeme Thomson (who have written Kate Bush biographies) could do a 33 1/3 book. What is apparelling is that they are handy little books that are authoritative without being exhausting and too long-winded. 120-160 pages in a wonderful paperback, pocket-sized book (I mean, a large pocket in a raincoat!), that I see as an extensive form of linear notes. That dig inside an album and the recording. It is an ultimate show of passion and fandom writing a book. The time commitment is something that is an issue. I have to work a full-time job and, if I was lucky enough to write a 33 1/3 book, I suspect I would need to quit my job or reduce my hours – neither of which I can afford to do. You do not get paid to write the book, but you would get a share of the sales. I am not sure how much, but it is less about the money side of things and more about the love of that artist/album. I feel The Kick Inside is an album that people do not discuss and relatively little is known. It is compelling, as you can talk about the early years of Kate Bush and the lead-up to her recording the album in 1977. I feel it is more influential today than it ever has been. The associated success of its debut single, Wuthering Heights, after the film of the same name came out earlier this year. One of its stars, Margot Robbie, recreating Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights dance in a clip that was shared online. Artists like CMAT and Billie Eilish have nodded to the album or, in the case of the former, covered Wuthering Heights.

There are a lot of positives when it comes to a book for 33 1/3. In terms of how to approach an album like The Kick Inside. For me, it would be a case of leading in with Kate Bush’s upbringing and the seeds of her debut album and then ending with its relevance and impact. I am not a musicologist and am not a musician, so my approach to the songs would be some insight and personal analysis. As I say, interviewing musicians involved with the album would be great, and even speaking with producer Andrew Powell It is a shame only one Kate Bush album is in the 33 1/3 series, and so many more of her albums should be in there. There used to be a strict – or a bit looser – policy that only one album per artist could be in the series, to keep things broad and varied. So that there is not this repetition. However, given justification, a second album could be permitted. As has been the case with Radiohead (OK Computer and Kid A), The Beach Boys (Pet Sounds and Smile), David Bowie (Low and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars), and The Rolling Stones (Exile on Main St. and Some Girls). I think that The Kick Inside is more important and better than Some Girls so, if The Rolling Stones can have a second book, why not Kate Bush?! One of the most influential artists today, her debut is one that deserves examination and closer inspection. The drawbacks would be the time commitments and maybe having to sacrifice work. If I could fit it around work and write it and still earn a wage, then the temptation is huge. As it turns fifty on 17th February, 2028, there is this need and huge desire for me, or someone else, to write about The Kick Inside. This year’s proposals have already been submitted, but you can look at the books in the series and the incredible range of wonderful albums. A pitch in 2027 for a publication in 2028 or late-2027? Perhaps a harder sell to get a second album for the same artist in the 33 1/3 series, I feel there is plenty of justification when it comes to the…

GENIUS Kate Bush.