FEATURE:
Beneath the Sleeve
Kate Hudson - Glorious
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A remarkable album…
PHOTO CREDIT: Guy Aroch
from 2024, Glorious is the debut from Kate Hudson. Though better known as an actor – who has starred in some truly huge films -, she has naturally transitioned into music. Releasing her debut album at the age of forty-four, I do think there were perils. The music industry has always been ageist and sexist, throw into the mix this is a famous actor making music, and there could have been this backlash and huge criticism. I did see some of that come up, though there was a lot of interest and positive reviews around Glorious. It is a stunning album that I hope Kate Hudson follows up. Right from the punchy Gonna Find Out, Kate Hudson reveals this incredible voice and musical talent. You can get the album on vinyl here. It has this beautiful and memorable cover. Before finishing with some reviews for Glorious, I want to cover some interviews Kate Hudson gave in 2024. The first I am coming to is from Rolling Stone. The fact that she possesses this Rock star voice and is a huge musical talent, she wasn’t ready until now (2024) to release an album. Let’s hope that she keeps the momentum going:
“It took decades, lots of therapy, and a global pandemic for Hudson to break through all of those barriers and finally write and record an album of her own. The result, Glorious, is one of the year’s most pleasant musical surprises, a thoroughly grown-up and strikingly assured collection of guitar-heavy songs that tend to land somewhere between Adele and Sheryl Crow, with Hudson’s big, slightly husky voice and deep rock & roll fandom always front and center. “The spirit of Penny Lane descends on everything in my life,” Hudson says. “Because I was Penny Lane.… I love all kinds of music, but I love rock music, and I love women in rock. Linda Ronstadt is my favorite rock star.”
When the Covid lockdowns hit, Hudson found herself forced into introspection. “I was like, ‘What am I doing?’” she recalls. “‘What is my life? What’s going to happen if I die? This will be my great regret ever, that I didn’t allow myself to share music. And even if it’s one person who loves it, it would mean so much to me.’ And that was it. Like, ‘OK, it’s time.’” So, she was in the mood to say yes when a friend of hers, Tor E. Hermansen of the production duo Stargate, asked her to sing a cover of Katy Perry’s “Firework” for a school-charity Zoom. Soon afterward, Hudson got a surprise phone call from songwriter and producer Linda Perry, a parent at the same school. “She was like, ‘What the fuck? I didn’t know you could sing like that! Do you write music?’ And I go, ‘Yeah.’ She’s like, ‘Well, come in the studio.’”
Hudson and Perry were near-total strangers, but Hudson arrived at the studio with another, much more familiar collaborator. Danny Fujikawa, her fiancé and father of one of her children, had a music career of his own as a guitarist and songwriter for the indie band Chief, who released an album on Domino in 2010. The touring life had led to substance issues for Fujikawa, and he thought his musical life was over. “Kate brought me back into music with this album, kind of full circle, and it’s been such a blessing for me,” he says.
At that first session, Fujikawa recalls, “it was me, Kate, and Linda Perry sitting in a room, and it was like an awkward first date. Linda just strummed a chord and then belted some howling, crazy sound out of her mouth. That kind of set the tone for Kate, and then, honestly, we just hit the ground running. We wrote 30 songs or something over the course of three weeks.” Fujikawa and Hudson eventually finished the album with another musician, onetime Max Martin collaborator Johan Carlsson, who co-wrote Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman,” among other hits.
The album’s power-ballad title track was one of the easiest Hudson-Perry collaborations, written in all of 10 minutes. “The process felt like channeling, and ‘glorious’ just was a word that came out,” Hudson says. “It was like we were in each other’s heads. It was awesome.” She connects that feeling to something that she’s experienced as an actor: “It’s the moments when you hit a scene with someone and everything goes away and it feels so good. It feels completely present. That’s the same thing for me writing music. You’re so present in it. ‘Glorious’ was just the best. It was better than sex.”
Hudson doesn’t mind acknowledging there are moments on the album that evoke the Black Crowes, the band fronted by her ex-husband, Chris Robinson. “Well, listen, I mean, talk about a foundation of my life,” she says. “I was a fan of my ex-husband before I met him. I remember what I loved about the Black Crowes when I was younger, before I fell in love with him — the naughtiness and the freedom in which they chose to create. I have a soft spot for people like that, even though they’re challenging and tough. Chris and I, we didn’t fall in love ’cause we liked opposite things. We fell in love ’cause we were into the same shit.”
Hudson, who was also once engaged to Muse’s Matt Bellamy, adds, “People always go, ‘You really like those music guys.’ And I’m always like, ‘They might like me, too!’ You know, there’s something about music. I’ve been in relationships where I can’t speak that language with someone, and I don’t know if I could exist in a unit where I couldn’t share it properly. It’s a really, really nice thing to share, and that’s been why I always end up having babies with [musicians]. It’s like my pheromones are like, ‘We’ll make a good child. We’ll make a musical child. So let’s do this!’”
Finishing the album felt almost like as momentous an occasion. “There’s so much emotion attached to it, and personal obstacles to overcome to get here,” she says. “When I knew it was done and everything was mastered and I was signing off on it, it was like giving birth to a baby — it really felt that way. I was incredibly emotional. But what was interesting was that I didn’t have any fear.”
Now, Hudson is looking forward to her first tour of her own, eyeing favorite venues like New York’s Bowery Ballroom. And as music biopics start to look like the new superhero movies, she has a few dream roles in mind that could combine her two artistic pursuits. “I think Dusty Springfield is a really interesting story,” she says. “People don’t know a lot about her, and she’s one of my favorites. She was very shy. She had a lot of stage fright and struggled with being open about her sexuality. That could be a very powerful movie”.
There are a couple of other interviews I want to come to before getting to review. GRAMMY spent some time with Kate Hudson to discuss her Glorious debut. I think that is genuinely is one of the best albums for 2024, and a work I would recommend to everyone. Go and get it on vinyl if you can. I have not seen Kate Hudson perform live, though I will try and catch her if she is coming to the U.K. this year:
“When legendary songwriter Linda Perry discovered that Kate Hudson could sing, she enabled the actress' childhood dream to come true.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Perry happened to be on a virtual school program during which Hudson sang a rendition of Katy Perry's "Firework." Soon after, Perry called Hudson in for a studio session — and before they knew it, they were creating Hudson's debut album.
But their interaction was much more serendipity than it was coincidence. And perhaps you could say the same for Hudson's breakthrough role as the music-obsessed "band-aide" Penny Lane in 2000's Almost Famous. Music was always Hudson's first love, now manifested as Glorious — a glittering musical coronation.
Across 12 tracks, Hudson shows off her sultry voice over an array of pop-rock melodies, conjuring the enchanting air of Stevie Nicks and the dynamic vocal power of Sheryl Crow. While some may remember hearing Hudson sing in the 2009 film adaptation of the musical Nine or her short stint as a sassy dance instructor on season 5 of "Glee," Glorious shows an entirely new side of the actress. She feels right at home as she rocks the soulful opener "Gonna Find Out," hits you in the heart on the tender ballad "Live Forever," and surprises with belting power on the soaring title track.
A musical venture has been on Hudson's vision board, first recognizing the pop star prowess of Madonna and Belinda Carlisle when she was just 5 years old. That lifelong aspiration has led her to feeling more assured in her debut album than anything she's done in her career thus far. As she declares, "I've never felt more present in something in my life."
She's already felt that synergy on stage, too. Hudson made her performance debut in Los Angeles the day after Glorious lead single, "Talk About Love," premiered in January; she's since shocked viewers of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and "The Voice" with her prowess ("Who knew Kate Hudson could sing?" one "Voice" fan tweeted). And while her singing career doesn't mean her acting chapter is closed, she's ready for a tour: "I can't wait to actually go out and meet people that I've never been able to meet before."
Below, Hudson details her journey to Glorious in her own words — from letting go of potential criticism, to gaining confidence in her voice (with help from Sia!), to simply enjoying a particularly special life moment.
I would always say no if someone asked me to sing. [Whether] it was a charity [event] or some sort of show, I just always had this thing where I didn't want to put myself out there like that.
I realized I had a fear of being on stage. And I was like, You know what, I've got to just start saying yes. So it started with that — I'm just going to say yes to singing, even if it scares me to death.
It's my happy place, singing and writing. The only thing that would have been holding me back was the fear of what people might say about it. And that is, I think, the worst possible thing to do — not make art because you're afraid of the criticism.
I'm always writing, but when Linda [Perry] said, "Will you come in and sing this song?" and I did, and then she asked if I wrote music, and she's like, "We should write together," that was sort of the beginning of what this album became. Getting in the studio with Linda, we had no expectation, we didn't know what it was going to be — one song, four songs. It ended up being, like, 20-plus songs.
It was a real passion project, versus being a younger artist, and wanting that to be my number one vocation. So I was able to be more present in the process and with no expectation. It sort of had that domino effect of starting the writing and then really just loving it — becoming kind of all-encompassing. Once you open the floodgates, there's so much to write about. I can't wait to get back in the studio already.
I think [my hesitation to sing before] was more about, Why am I singing? I find music so precious that, if I wasn't ready, ready, ready, I just didn't want to do it. And it's kind of my personality too. I was the little girl that wouldn't do anything unless I felt like I had perfected it and had the confidence to be doing it.
And then COVID [hit]. Honestly, it was like, Okay, I'm not getting any younger. I want music to be a part of my life in a bigger way. I can sort of see myself, as I get older, being more surrounded by music and writing music, and being more immersed in music like that, because I love it so much.
I was thinking about this the other day — lately, Danny [Fujikawa, Hudson's musician/actor fiancé] and I write, like, a song a week, and sometimes multiple. I love it, we love doing it together. So it's something that I can't wait to, hopefully, be able to do just more of.
The performance thing is so new for me that it's wild. This past month of performing, and being in front of people, and sharing music, and sharing my voice like that, is something brand new. I call it, like, putting on a new pair of shoes and wearing them in a little bit — going to different places and your voice sounds different in different rooms.
In reflection, at that time, crossing over [into music] was sort of looked poorly upon— if you're starting to become successful in one thing, you need to stick to that. You have to understand, like, if someone even did a commercial, the perception of it would be like, "Oh that person's career is over."
Now, the world has completely shifted and it just doesn't matter anymore. Which is such a nice thing for a lot of artists.
At the end of the day, these are art forms that we really care about. It's really important to us to make the right movies — when you're creating a character, or when you're writing an album. People might not see [that] from the outside in. It fuels something that is just like, you couldn't live without it.
So when you get to a certain place that you are being known for what you love, for the art form, and you become a celebrity, the criticism is so extreme. It's so extreme that it's like, if you feed into it, it will stop you from wanting to take any risks as an artist. You start to become precious about things — you get nervous to step out on a limb because it could destroy things that you've been really working hard to build. But the irony of that is, you aren't really an artist unless you're taking those chances.
Entering this phase of my life age-wise, I've been through all of that harsh criticism so many times that after a while, you realize like it just doesn't matter. What matters is that you're putting your best foot forward, you know?”.
The final interview I am keen to spotlight is from Variety. Maybe there was surprise that Kate Hudson was a great singer. However, more and more actors are going into music. I can imagine singing and having a strong voice is important for a lot of actors, so not a huge shock that Hudson is a natural musician. Glorious is an album that really cannot remain the only album from Kate Hudson! I feel like a strong debut like this will build all this anticipation:
“A commonality of a lot of the promotional appearances you’ve been doing for this album is people telling you what a great voice you have, as if they’re surprised. You’ve probably experienced that hundreds of times in recent months. Do you think you might get tired of people telling you you have a fantastic voice?
Oh my God, how could you ever get tired of hearing that? It’s so kind. You know, I think the thing that feels really good is that I can feel a lot of kindness around this. On social media, people have a tendency to want to be very mean to people, and some people really like to be able to jump on that opportunity. So I’ve felt very emotional about the kindness that I’ve felt. I don’t know what that is about. But it brings up the reality that when you’re doing something from a really honest place, I think most people feel it and root for it. I’ve felt that in certain moments in my career, but this feels different because this is so personal to me. As you know, as a writer, you’re sort of jumping off of a cliff a little bit, and you just kind of put it out there and it doesn’t really belong to you anymore. It’s like having a baby, you know? I remember what my mom said when I had my first son. I was like, “Why am I so sad?” And she goes, “Because when he comes out, he doesn’t belong to you anymore.” And I feel that way about this album and music: It belongs to everybody else. And so I think that’s why it really hits the heartstrings when I feel people being supportive and kind.
Can you talk about the style you arrived at? Because it feels like what you are doing is ultra-mainstream in one sense, and yet, there’s not a lot of it around.
It’s so funny that you just said it like that, because I feel that way about it.
It recalls for people Fleetwood Mac or Sheryl Crow, and you’ve mentioned the Rolling Stones as an influence, too, not just to make it about female front-people. But it’s funny that when that “Daisy Jones and the Six” series came around, it made people wish this fictional band was real, because it reflects a thing people want and don’t get that much of.
I did what I love. And I’ve written all kinds of music, , but when I was making the album, I was like, what I love is band-led, and guitar-led… I like music that makes you feel like you’re surrounded by the band. You mentioned Sheryl Crow. I was a 14-year-old girl when “Tuesday Night Music Club” came out. That album and (the Stones’) “Tattoo You” were it for me when I was 14 and discovering music. Sheryl was my foundation of loving female rock music. And from “Run Baby Run” to “I Shall Believe,” I was like, this is it. Just in my stomach, just thinking about it now, it’s like, ugh — it’s just the fucking best. She’s such a rock star, and she was a real hero of mine when I was younger. And then, from there, obviously really discovering Fleetwood Mac and all of the women, like Pat Benatar and fucking Joan Jett, and the women in Heart. Ann Wilson is like that voice, and Nancy’s songs, and getting to know Nancy during “Almost Famous”… That kind of band-led music for me was it.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Hudson performs onstage during the album release concert for Glorious at The Bellwether on 18th May, 2024 in Los Angeles/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
But it was also the brightness… I like that kind of golden sound that comes from David Crosby’s album with “Laughing” (1971’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name”), or discovering Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” which to me also has that kind of golden feeling. Sheryl has it; I think Lucius, now, have that sound. I just love it and so I’m sure it comes out in the album. I hope it does. When I’m singing the Patty Griffin song (“When It Don’t Come Easy”) on stage… there’s something about organic music. That being said, then I get into Brian Eno and I’m like, ooh, I could get weird too. I don’t know where it’s gonna go. Fuck, there’s so much great music out there, you know?
What covers do you most enjoy doing on stage?
The one we all love playing the most is “Voices Carry” (by Aimee Mann, from ‘Til Tuesday). You know it so well, but you don’t hear it all the time. People love that cover… I love taking a song like “Vaseline” (by Stone Temple Pilots) that wouldn’t be necessarily a song that I would write, but it’s a song that moves me, and is from a time in my life,and then you can build a fucking jazz sound around it… I’m such a huge TP fan. I had the honor of being on the road with Tom Petty one summer when the Black Crowes opened for them, and so I got to really meet their whole crew and to live with that music. He was the best… a very quiet, shy man. I’ll always want to do his songs, and we worked up a bluegrass version of (“You Don’t Know How It Feels”), which is one of my favorites”.
I shall end with a couple of positive reviews for Glorious. A remarkable album (the song included above is from the Deluxe version) from a renewed actor who I feel is equally strong an artist, there were some who claimed this was a vanity project. That is was undemanding music. I think it is incorrect, offensive and elitist. Because Kate Hudson is an actor and is going into music. If she were an unknown artist in her own right, then those words would not be applied to Glorious. Those who heard the album and judged it as a debut album from an artist and not an actor trying out music, you get something more considered. This is what AllMusic observed in their review:
“Kate Hudson spent much of her career orbiting the center of rock & roll so the transition from acting to singing doesn't seem awkward in the slightest on Glorious, her debut album. Hudson spends the record on comfortable ground thanks to her chief collaborators Danny Fujikawa -- the onetime leader of Chief and Hudson's domestic partner since 2016 -- and Linda Perry, the superstar producer who encouraged the actress to follow her dream of writing and performing music after hearing Hudson sing for a charity event at a school both their children attend. Perry's schedule didn't allow for her to complete Glorious, giving Hudson and Fujikawa the opportunity to work with Johan Carlsson, an associate of Max Martin who found success co-writing with Ariana Grande. Having two prominent producers as collaborators winds up putting the spotlight on Hudson herself, as her passionate, full-throated vocals -- raspy without seeming ragged, powerful yet controlled -- are the focal point throughout the record. Unsurprisingly for an actress who became a star playing Penny Laine, the chief "Band Aid" in Cameron Crowe's album rock epic Almost Famous, Hudson is firmly rooted in classic rock, displaying clear debts to such '70s titans as Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks. The trick Hudson pulls off on Glorious is that her classicism never seems staid: it's bright, lively, fresh and fun, tuneful, and knowing without succumbing to rote, respectful tropes of traditionalism. Part of the reason Glorious sounds so engaging is that she's working with Perry and Carlsson, pop producers who are keenly aware of fashion but who also know Hudson isn't gunning for the Top 40. Instead, the team knows how to give the insistent "Romeo" and pulsating "Fire" a New Wave sheen and how to let the power chords of "Gonna Find Out" settle into a blues-rock groove that's as slick as it is earthy. Similarly, there are both dimension and depth to the quieter moments -- "Live Forever" builds from a hushed acoustic guitar to a lovely shimmer of harmonies and strings -- that emphasis emotion instead of overwhelming it. The suppleness of the production mirrors Hudson's range -- she not only adeptly handles the shifts in style and tone, but provides the music with a dynamic center. Perhaps Hudson is indeed a bit of a throwback to another era -- not so much the '70s as the dawn of the 2000s, when Sheryl Crow made this kind of colorful classic rock a radio staple -- but Glorious shows she's a rock star in her own right”.
I will wrap things up with The AU Review. Awarding Glorious four stars, they heralded someone proving themselves to be a Pop poet. Glorious debuting at number 3 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart and number forty-one on the Independent Albums chart. The album got to number nineteen on the Vinyl Albums chart. In the U.K., Glorious debuted at number eighty-one on the UK Album Downloads Chart Top 100 on, peaking at number eighteen in February 2025, after the release of the deluxe version of the album. In 2025, Glorious debuted and peaked at number twenty-eight on the UK Independent Albums Chart, and at number seventy-one on the UK Physical Albums Chart. Even if it was not a massive commercial success, I feel Glorious is a wonderful album that deserves to be played and appreciated:
“It isn’t an uncommon road travelled for actors to further express their creativity through the release of music. Whilst some commit to both with a certain vigour (Jennifer Lopez, Cher, etc) and others dabble with more consistent subtlety (Keanu Reeves, Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe), it does feel a little out of the ordinary to switch to the medium so late into an already established career.
That’s how it may appear on the surface when looking at Kate Hudson and her foray into music with the release of Glorious. But, if you’ve paid close enough attention, you’ll know that Hudson has always had an instrumental expression running through her blood, she just hasn’t had the ability to
At the age of 21 when she was thrust particularly into acting stardom off the back of her Academy Award-nominated performance as Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000), Hudson – whose father Bill Hudson was a vocalist in the familial troop The Hudson Brothers – rode the wave of attention towards a fruitful career that saw her top such studio successes as How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, The Skeleton Key, Fool’s Gold and, most recently, the Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion.
Hudson has stated that music is something she’s always wanted to pursue, but acting, for whatever reason, took precedence. She fuelled her own musicianship through a recurring role on the TV series Glee and as one of Daniel Day Lewis’s muses in the musical Nine, and, however ill-advised the film ultimately ended up being, she flexed further in the Sia-penned Music.
Those musical outlets were specific to those projects however. Glorious is authentically Kate Hudson, with the creative leaning into a poetic songwriter mentality that comes across as a folk-inspired Adele or a pop-fused Joni Mitchell.
The album’s launch single, “Talk About Love”, is indeed the most commercial sounding of the 12 tracks on hand. It may not necessarily be a sonic representation of Glorious as a whole, but with its booming chorus and plucky riff it makes sense as to why it would suit as an introduction to Hudson as an artist. The album flits between a predominant soft-rock and country aesthetic (the romantic “Live Forever” and the boot scootin’-lite “Romeo” proving strong examples), but her pop hook sensibilities are never discarded in favour of lyrical depth, with “Lying To Myself”, with its 80s inspired bassline, serving as a spiritual sibling to the aforementioned debut single.
The slight husk in Hudson’s voice at once suits the rock edge the album oft leans into, whilst also serving the vulnerability required for the softer, more open moments that speak to her strength as a storyteller. The album opener “Gonna Find Out“, a breathy rock number that expresses a more sexually liberated Hudson (“It’s a hot night, it’s a low light. It’s a full moon, I’ll take you on a fun ride, I’m gonna stay down
‘Cause you’re my goal line”) and the following “Fire”, which enjoys a new wave-lite instrumental that brings to mind Icehouse’s seminal “Great Southern Land”, ensure the listener’s attention before the softer touch of “The Nineties” allows a moment of reflection.
Given the stigma that can so often come from an actor trying their hand at music, it’s a testament to Hudson’s commitment that she packaged Glorious and set it out for all the world to listen. And whilst her bubbly, inviting persona may suggest a fluffier approach to pop music at its most basic, the emotionality and maturity of both her vocal tone and the production is sure to silence any naysayers that assume this venture is void of credibility”.
Turning two in May, I wonder if Kate Hudson has plans for a sequel to Glorious. She is a wonderful singer and artist who I would love to hear more albums from. I would love to see her perform live too. She may well be tempted to record more music after appearing in Song Sung Blue last year, where she starred alongside Hugh Jackman as the Neil Diamond tribute band, Lightning & Thunder. The role has won her a BAFTA nomination for Lead Actress. On 22nd February, we will see if she walks away with the award. Looking ahead, I do hope that she find time between film projects to record another album, as Glorious is a superb debut album. One that I get something new every time…
I pass through it.