FEATURE: Spotlight: The Belair Lip Bombs

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Bridie Fitzgerald

 

The Belair Lip Bombs

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THIS time around for Spotlight…

I am spending time with an Australian Indie rock band formed in Frankston, Victoria in 2017. The Australian group, The Belair Lip Bombs consists of lead vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Maisie Everett, guitarist Mike Bradvica, bassist Jimmy Droughton and drummer Daniel Devlin. The band released their debut L.P., Lush Life, in 2023. On 31st October, they put out the incredible Again. Their first album on Third Man Records, it has been acclaimed. The band seen as a great hope for the future. I will end this feature with a review of Again. Before getting there, there are some great interviews from this year that I want to cover. Currently touring Europe, the band head to the U.K. from 24th November, before a string of dates next year that sees them take in their native Australia and the U.S. You can check out their live dates here. Prior to getting to more in-depth interviews, there is one from Rough Trade from August:

“Maisie Everett, Mike Bradvica, Jimmy Droughton and Daniel "Dev" Devlin are Melbourne's The Belair Lip Bombs. Over the last 8 years, the "limerance-rock" four-piece have released two EPs and a debut album, honing a sound that channels classic rock icons like The Rolling Stones and Television through an indie lens influenced by The War on Drugs and Stephen Malkmus. In 2025, the group are ready to reintroduce themselves to a global audience - and boy do they have the material to back it up.

For round two, neatly titled Again, the Lip Bombs enlist the production credits of Nao Anzai (The Teskey Brothers), and Joe White (longtime Rough Trade favourites Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever), to perfect their gleaming melodies, all the while retaining the scrappy spirit that's seen them garner a loyal local following for the best part of a decade. The 10 tracks reveal a natural expansion of their sound, delivering something grander and brighter, packing pitch-perfect energy and euphoria that really makes you wanna get up and groove out.

For fans of:  The Strokes, The B-52s, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, The Beths and Television

We're excited to announce The Belair Lip Bombs as part of Rough Trade On The Rise, our dedicated curation putting a spotlight on the emerging music we are the most excited for you to hear, to follow and become a fan of. Read on to discover more about the band in their own words and don't miss brilliant new album Again, on Third Man Records.

5 records you listened to prior to making your album?

3D Country by Geese
Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay
Two Star & Dream Police by Mk.Gee
Bayou Country by Creedence Clearwater Revival

5 tips or words of wisdom you'd offer an artist entering the industry in 2025?

Embrace playing on musically diverse lineups.
Learn to truly believe in yourself.
Protect your mental health.
Be patient and be utterly yourself.
Don’t stop learning about your craft just because you can play a few chords and write a song. LEARN EVERYTHING.

5 essential items on your tour rider?

A steam inhaler
Sharpies + paper
Universal adapters
Goats cheese
Guinness”.

The Guardian spoke with The Bel Air Lip Bombs last month. With the release of the incredible Again, this band are going to gain a whole wave of new fans. Their extensive international tour dates will also add to that. 2026 is going to be a year when they will hit a new level. They are getting a bit of airplay in the U.K., though there are stations that have not connected with their music. Anyone who has not discovered the band need to follow them and see what all the excitement is about:

“The Belair Lip Bombs hail from Frankston, a suburb of Melbourne situated on the Mornington Peninsula, and cut their teeth playing at Singing Bird Studios, an all-ages venue and recording space around which a small, tight-knit community of bands has emerged. The band recorded their first two EPs – which were noisier and looser than either of their albums – there, and still see it as a vital community resource. “You kind of had to move to Melbourne if you wanted to play, so it’s great that something like Singing Bird existed for us,” Devlin says. “It’s pretty important for new bands that are coming up.”

The leap the band made between their 2019 EP, Songs To Do Your Laundry To, and Lush Life is remarkable – the songs became punchier and more driving; and Everett’s lyrics became more acerbic and deeply memorable, a quality she hones further on Again.

“From the first two EPs to Lush Life, I was growing up a bit – transitioning from being a teenager to being in our 20s,” Everett says. “People in the band were getting into relationships and going through breakups and we all did a lot of travelling.

The Belair Lip Bombs stand out in the Melbourne scene, if only because their sound – sharp, clean and direct as it is – is a far cry from the post-punk or art rock that many of the bands in the city tend to play. “The Melbourne sound or whatever, I wasn’t really introduced to it until I was in my early 20s,” Everett says.

Everett says the band “spent years writing songs” before Lush Life, in contrast to Again, where a lot more time was spent working out songs, restructuring and redefining them in the studio. Even so, the songs on Again feel even more clarified, evidenced by the deft intensity of tracks such as Again and Again and Price of a Man. Working with Joe White, from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “helped us tighten all the screws”, Everett says.

Devlin adds: “It was just nice having him in the room to support us – to build a bit of confidence in the band. When you’re trying to write a record that you know is coming out on a label for the first time, it was a little bit stressful – so it was nice having someone else there that could ease the pressure.”

Everett says: “You can’t really trust the opinions of your bandmates when you’re all fucking stuck in a room for 12 hours a day, right? Having a fifth person there to round everything out really helps.”

As so many other rising Australian bands have done before them, do they plan to move overseas now? “Spacey Jane, they all live in LA or whatever – it’s like, is that the only way? I don’t know,” Everett says. “We’ve been living in Melbourne so far … and everything’s sort of worked out!”

I will end with a review from NME for one of the year’s best albums. Again is one that you need to add to your collection. It is clear that The Belair Lip Bombs are one of the best bands in the world. Their second album confirms them as an act you cannot miss out on. It will be exciting to see what next year holds in store. If you have not seen the band play live then make sure you catch them. They are an extraordinary stage act. One that are going to be at a raft of summer festivals in 2026:

“The band’s second album ‘Again’, despite its title, is not a once-more go-around of ‘Lush Life’. Instead, it looks at that LP’s already-versatile nature and maps out new terrain for the ambitious indie rockers to explore. Such boldness is present in lead single ‘Hey You’, which buzzes with urgency due to its hypnotic Rhodes loop and the pounding, persistent drumming of new drummer Daniel Devlin (formerly of Delivery). It, paired with the satisfying rock-out finale of ‘Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair)’, showcases the band in full flight – reminding listeners that the Lip Bombs are a rock band first, indie band second.

Despite the aforementioned line-up change between ‘Lush Life’ and now, the band feel more sure of themselves from a musical standpoint. Lead guitarist Michael Bradvica, in particular, is an assertive presence throughout. His Nile Rodgers-style “chucking” on ‘Cinema’ gives the track both groove and depth, while his deft playing on the vulnerable, emotive ‘Smiling’ almost creates a dialogue of sorts between himself and vocalist Maisie Everett with transfixing results.

For her part, Everett has continued to develop her heartfelt vocal delivery on ‘Again’, making especially strong use of it in the album’s quieter, more pensive moments. Piano ballad ‘Burning Up’ might be the biggest sonic departure of the band’s young career thus far, and certainly feels like a considerable risk even when they’ve already established an eclecticism within their sound. For those that don’t talk over the quiet songs, however, a remarkable new side to the band can be found blossoming and blooming over the song’s four-minute runtime.

Rummaging through the wreckage of a relationship, Everett devastatingly assesses herself as “a prick in your thumb” and her former flame “a bruise in [her] lung”. “We were made for each other,” she sighs, “but we gotta blow out the flame.” With the churning guitars and swinging drumsticks traded in for E-bows and jazz brushes, the band aim for the heartstrings and don’t miss.

At an already exciting time for Australian music as a cultural export – from the rise of punk and hardcore acts like Amyl & The Sniffers and Speed, to the continuing arena dominance of Tame Impala and Rüfüs Du Sol – there’s unquestionably a space for The Belair Lip Bombs to thrive globally. ‘Again’, to paraphrase U2, feels like them auditioning to be the biggest band in the world”.

It is going to be interesting seeing how The Belair Lip Bombs develop in years to come. They have accomplished so much already, so what will be the next step? Coming to the end of a successful year, next year might be their most important yet.  Looking around at the band in the current scene, and it is clear that there are…

FEW better than them.

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Follow The Belair Lip Bombs

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Tyla

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Rafael Pavarotti for British Vogue

 

Tyla

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I have featured Tyla…

on a few occasions on my blog. I included her in my Spotlight feature in 2023. Her debut album, TYLA +, was released last year. I hear that a second studio album is not too far away. Because of that, it is a perfect time to come back to the brilliance of Tyla. The South African artist released her second E.P., WWP, back in July. It has been a busy time for someone who has some dates in Asia ahead. She is playing at the Ariake Arena in Koto City, Japan on Tuesday (11th November). Her new single, CHANEL, is among her best. I want to come to some recent interviews with Tyla. For those who do not know about her brilliance. In August, Variety spoke with a global artist who discussed her upcoming second album. Why she is rejecting the Pop machine:

“Since the release of her critically revered self-titled debut album last year — and the global success of “Water,” the smash single that started it all — Tyla has been fixated on how to follow it.

It’s no small challenge. The song, built on a foundation of amapiano — a subgenre of South African house music — but infused with pop and R&B melodies and accented by elements of Afrobeats, was unlike anything else on pop radio at the time. Despite the recent success of many African artists, “Water” has a directness that made it a breakthrough song for the diaspora.

It became a near-instant hit after Tyla and her choreographer, Litchi, posted videos of the singer doing a Bacardi-inspired dance on TikTok in August 2023. In it, she glides across the floor while pouring water over her swaying hips and singing, “Make me sweat, make me hotter, make me lose my breath, make me water.” The move went viral, and Tyla did too — everything from her dancing to her look.

Born on Jan. 30, 2002, as the second-youngest of the four siblings, Tyla Laura Seethal grew up in a loud, lively, music-filled household. Her father would sing to wake the kids up before school, and on Sundays he’d blast everything from country to R&B radio while cleaning the house. Her mother had multiple occupations, from candle-making to real estate and even acting in commercials.

Tyla signed with Epic Records in 2021 after a bidding war that saw Epic chief Sylvia Rhone posting billboards in Johannesburg featuring the singer’s image with the message “Epic Records, love Sylvia Rhone.” It was the only way to secure the singer’s attention despite travel restrictions tied to the pandemic.

It was a lot for a 19-year-old to absorb. “When I got signed, a lot of opinions came in,” she recalls, “and it was a very overwhelming experience.” She tried a number of different musical styles over the course of many songwriting sessions and content-creation workshops, some of which tried to steer her into a bubblegum-pop direction. Those songs “didn’t feel like me at all,” she says, remembering one session where the songs pitched to her “were the most generic compositions you could ever think of.”

Adding to the pressure were cultural mores whereby women are in submissive roles — “You stay out of men’s conversations, the men eat first,” she says — making it even more challenging for a young woman to take charge. “I remember being in my hotel room and my managers were calling me, ‘Come down, we need to cut the song,’” she recalls. “I was crying and thinking, ‘This is not what I want. I didn’t get signed to do this,’” she says of the push to record songs that didn’t reflect her vision. “They had to [coax] me out of that room. “But,” she continues with a deep sigh. “I think through doing that, I realized how much more I love African music. It made me more persistent in keeping my ideas.” So she cut out the noise and honed in on the sounds she felt in her heart.

When it came to crafting the thematic material of her new album, Tyla had more than a few life lessons to bring. “I had to grow up fast, especially for someone coming from a strict family,” she notes. “It was a constant challenge to learn.”

One of those challenges related to her ethnic identity. Her background — a combination of Zulu, Irish and Mauritian-Indian heritage — became an unexpected point of controversy as her fame surged, fueled in part by the resurfacing of a 2020 TikTok in which she refers to herself as a “Coloured South African.” In a June 2024 interview, Charlamagne Tha God asked her to explain the “debates that they be having about your identity,” and she declined to answer, furthering the drama.

But although the term “Colored” can be triggering for Black Americans, a painful reminder of the country’s ongoing racist history, in South Africa, the term is more nuanced, often used to reflect a mixed-race heritage. In a statement posted online, just hours after the Charlamagne interview, Tyla said, “I don’t expect to be identified as Coloured outside of [South Africa] by anyone not comfortable doing so because I understand the weight of that word outside [of South Africa]. But to close this conversation, I’m both Coloured in South Africa and a Black woman.”

“That [controversy] was really confusing for me,” she admits. “I understood both sides of the story, but I was left asking, ‘OK, but what do I do now?’ When who you are is challenged, especially when it’s all you’ve ever known, it shakes you. You want to stand your ground, because if you don’t, someone else will try to define it for you.”

That tension — the constant negotiation between personal identity and public perception — is one many artists know intimately. For those who move between cultures, like Tyla, identity isn’t just personal; it becomes part of their artistic appeal, adding depth and global resonance to their work”.

I want to move on to an interview from British Vogue. Full name Tyla Laura Seethal, there are sections of an in-depth interview that caught my eye. We learn more about Tyla’s upbringing and the controversy around how she discovered her racial diversity. British Vogue sat down with Tyla as she “adjusts to life as the Queen of popiano, Funmi Fetto travels from London to her home town of Johannesburg, where she discovers a 23-year-old on the cusp of global domination”:

“From the outside looking in, Tyla’s rise to fame has been nothing short of phenomenal, seemingly exploding out of nothing and nowhere. That’s not how she sees it. “Since I was little, when anyone asked me what I wanted to become, I always said, ‘I’m going to become a singer,’” she tells me, a determination in her voice, in between delicate mouthfuls of pap, boerewors sausage and chutney, a quintessential South African meal she cooked herself as part of her Vogue video shoot and packed up for the car ride.

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Michael Jackson, Aaliyah, Beyoncé and Britney Spears: these were the artists that soundtracked her childhood in Johannesburg, where she grew up, the second of four siblings to parents of Zulu, Indian, Mauritian and Irish descent. But it was the Barbados-born Rihanna who really moved the needle for Tyla and to whom she is most often compared. “Coming from somewhere outside the States, I really looked up to her,” she says. “I used to think you’re only going to become famous if you’re born in America. She made me realise there is another way.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Rafael Pavarotti for British Vogue

Young Tyla would sing everywhere. “For my family, for competitions, on talent shows, on Instagram…” The latter is where she was spotted, in 2019, by photographer and music producer Garth von Glehn, who would introduce her to manager Colin Gayle (the British-born Jamaican behind Africa Creative Agency, known for taking African musicians global and bringing the likes of 50 Cent and Ne-Yo to the African continent). “He wanted me to come in to record in a studio,” Tyla recalls. “So I met him – my parents came with me – and I recorded my first song that day.” Following that, she was “literally going between school and the studio, school, studio, school, studio…” The

The UK, in particular, has long embraced and been influenced by the South African music scene. Reading-raised DJ Charisse C, the South African amapiano powerhouse and NTS radio presenter, explains that amapiano’s success in the UK stems from a long-standing relationship with South African dance music. “It goes back to the times when sounds like bacardi and songs like DJ Mujava’s ‘Township Funk’ were really instrumental to shaping and influencing underground club culture in the UK.” Which, ironically, resonated deeper when lockdown hit. “On social media, people were seeing the ways in which South African people were connecting to dance music at home and the viral videos of them dancing at parties. That spirit of joy really connected with people.”

Hence the level of fame Tyla is now operating in hits far beyond her home turf. But it can be lonely – and, at times, intimidating. Once, not long after the launch of her first single, “Getting Late”, she was accosted by three middle-aged men at a US airport. “They were like, ‘We know you. You’re Tyla,’” she recalls. “‘We should go for a drink.’ I was alone because my friend went to go get something and there’s these big men asking me all these questions. It was scary.” She now has security with her at all times, which means she can no longer do the things she once took for granted. “Sometimes I even cry over it,” she admits. “I just miss being able to walk. Or sit in the park. Or go to Nando’s.” The last time she tried, she went to order “and they all started singing ‘Make me sweat…’”

She can “probably walk around, but I have to be in disguise because I don’t like when people record me”, she continues. “It’s not like I don’t love my supporters or anything – ask for a picture, we can take one – but when people secretly try to take videos or photos… How do you have the right to just do that? It feels like it should be illegal”

I am ending with an interview from last month. One of Glamour’s 2025 Women of the Year, this artist and fashion icon has the sound and look of a new generation. An artist ready to stand alongside the most popular and biggest artists of today. In a fascinating Glamour interview, we learn new sides and dimensions of Tyla. If this artist is not in your life, then make sure that you bond with her now. Someone who is primed for global domination and huge longevity:

“Tyla is still defining where she’s going to go for this sophomore album. “[Making WWP,] I didn’t feel like I wanted to commit to anything as yet. I wanted to still play around,” she says. If the element that represents her first album is water, then the EP is definitely fire. “We wanna party” is a carefree statement often chanted by crowds in clubs in her home country, but a deeper look at the lyrics in the dance-floor-ready tracks reveals a tension often felt by the singer—she’s trying to create a carefree world while under intense and sometimes ruthless public scrutiny.

As happens for almost all young females in the spotlight, her public appearances have been judged. Sometimes the judgment feels flimsy (e.g., she wasn’t dancing closely enough with Usher at one of his concerts), but other times it’s more fraught, often spurred by the fact that Tyla refers to herself as “coloured” and has done so in a 2020 TikTok and in interviews. This led her to be pressed on the radio show The Breakfast Club by cohost Charlamagne tha God. Then, when WWP was released, some commentators, like Black news media outlet The Root and rapper turned broadcaster Joe Budden, focused on making comparisons between the physical sales of her debut album versus the EP to prove the point that her comments have turned Black listeners off. She’s not letting it get in her head, though.

“I just wanted to have a good time. I wanted to go out, I wanted to party, I wanted to say anything and everything. I realised that people just like to talk—that’s just my life now,” she says. Tyla briefly changed her Twitter bio to “Entitled uppity African,” echoing an insult leveled at her by media commentator Armon Wiggins. “Instead of social media clapbacks—[which] I’ve been doing—I just wanted to sing about it and turn it into something fun and pop.”

Even though she’s creating a public persona, Tyla still feels that internally very little has changed.“When I’m at home, I’m who I’ve known for 23 years of my life, and when I’m out in the world, I have to do all these things that are not normal. It still feels like me but like I’m playing a game. Like I’m in a virtual world.”

The unusual thing now is that the eyes of the world are watching her live out her young years. In August, after a picture circulated of her allegedly being carried out of a party in Brazil—a scene many may have experienced in their early 20s—she tweeted an iconic photo of a young Beyoncé slumped in the back of a car. The club brings her so much inspiration for her music, but her fame adds a new complex dynamic.

“When I’m on stage, I really do not care. I want people to look at me. I want everyone to be entertained. But when I’m off the stage, I’m kind of shy,” she says. “I don’t want people watching me party. I want to be in my own world. I remember in the beginning it was very weird for me, because it felt like an overnight switch. It was very drastic.”

The singer admits she likes to keep her circle tight, especially when it comes to getting advice on how to navigate fame. “Being very honest, I don’t really speak to people besides my family and very tight people. I’m kind of just figuring it out by myself. I’m very private,” she says. She unwinds from working by taking trips to get back in touch with nature, finding quality time with herself to bike over the Brooklyn Bridge, journal, and “doodle” (although a quick web search will show that word is modest, as her paintings could be hung in the Louvre.) “I want to be in a chill outfit, barefoot, no makeup, to just feel like myself”.

Let’s finish there. The remarkable Tyla is going from strength to strength and is releasing the best music of her career. When her second album is released, it will draw spotlight and scrutiny. I think it will confirm that she is one of the most important artists of her generation. There are some who do not know about Tyla and her brilliance, though that is going to change…

VERY soon.

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Follow Tyla

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Diana Vickers

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Leo Cackett

 

Diana Vickers

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MY Modern-Day Queens feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex James for OK!

celebrates remarkable women right across the industry. They might be artists who have been around for a couple of years or a lot longer. Diana Vickers is a Lancashire-born artist who was the semi-finalist on The X Factor in 2008, finishing in fourth place. Vickers has released two studio albums so far: 2010’s Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree and 2013’s Music to Make Boys Cry. Both incredible albums, I am focus on her now as she released a brilliant single, Ice Cream, in August. I am excited by the prospect of a new album from her. I am starting out with an interview from last year that Diana Vickers had with OK! Appearing in a new production, I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical, she also spoke about the highs and lows of appearing on The X Factor as a teenager:

“The 33 year old from Blackburn, who has opened up exclusively to OK! about her hilarious new lead role in I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical – a show complete with musical numbers like I’m Gwynnocent, money guns and a giant vagina candle – also reflected on her life-changing time on the show which shot her to fame.

Diana admits that she’s happy, over 15 years later, that after what’s been a difficult journey at times, that she has been accepted into the theatre community and isn’t just “that girl off The X Factor”. But she is also the first to agree that Simon Cowell ’s seminal talent show was a huge springboard for her career. Diana was mentored by Girls Aloud’s Cheryl in the Girls category and came fourth, in the same year as Alexandra Burke, JLS and her former boyfriend Eoghan Quigg.

Looking back at her time on The X Factor, Diana does admit there was one element of it that she did find difficult, the ‘pressure’” to finding herself suddenly a known name, overnight - and be judged on her performances by grown-ups sitting on a panel.

She says: “I was really young, and being judged in front of a lot of people – all these adults, telling you their opinions. But I really enjoyed it. And even back then I was able to say, ‘Diana, it’s just a TV show,’ which was healthy. I took it all with a pinch of salt. I remember I’d get quite nervous onstage. Even now, I’m super-confident but I have an anxious side, which people are surprised about.

She adds, recalling some of the crazier times on the show: “But yeah… I have some mad memories, Kate Moss running about backstage, Britney Spears appearing, Beyoncé… It was a whirlwind.”

The actress also believes it was her self-belief and drive that saw her even have the guts to audition on The X Factor - and continues to push her on today. “I don’t feel like I’ve changed, I still have that drive,” she says, thoughtfully”.

There are a couple of great new interviews with Diane Vickers. Speaking with MiS Magazine, they highlighted an artist who, with Ice Cream, “delivers a camp, queer-pop anthem that nods to her early hits while embracing a new era of playful freedom”. Even though Vickers has no immediate plans for an album or anything extensive, she did talk about the urge and necessity of putting out a camp single. One that is for her L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fanbase. Vickers was also asked about being part of a comedy duo and her experiences on The X Factor:

“After nearly 12 years, you’re back with Ice Cream. What made now the right moment to return to solo music?

I performed at Mighty Hoopla a couple of years ago, and it really reignited this sort of fire in me where I wanted to sort of make music again, just absolutely love my LGBTQIA+ community and their reaction and response to me. I was like, wow, there is definitely a market, an audience here for me. And I do a lot of gay gigs at the moment. I’ve sort of been doing that circuit and just had a really, really great response. And I was like, well, I’m doing this circuit. I’d absolutely just love to do some new music as well. So, it’s definitely for the gays, theys and the girlies.

Your new single feels like a wink to your early hits but with a fresh, queer-pop energy. How did you shape its sound and vibe?

Yeah, I’m glad that you think it’s queer anthem. The minute I said hi, I’m back. Did you miss me? I was like, ok, this is gonna be camp and then ice cream came out. I’ve been listening to a lot of Kylie. I think Queen Kylie for me. I was just sort of listening to a lot of her and that. Yeah, that definitely inspired me a lot.

Fans have been calling for your comeback for years. How does it feel to finally give them the summer anthem they’ve been waiting for?

Yeah. I saw a meme that went viral recently and it was saying we don’t get a song of the summer this year because we’ve been bad and I saw that go and sort of circulate. I was like ohh wait but little do they know it feels really, really, really good. I was, like, super excited as well because I knew I was playing at Manchester Pride on the weekend of release and I was like, OK, it’s the week, the summer week of the defrosting of ice cream. I’m melted and I’m ready to serve.

Gen Z are rediscovering you through TikTok while millennials see you as a nostalgic indie-pop icon. How do you navigate speaking to both audiences at once?

Gosh, I hadn’t even really thought about the whole Gen Z. I was in an interview the other day thinking, you know, millennials remember you, but then you got this whole little audience are gonna look at you. Like, I literally didn’t think about them. It’s quite overwhelming because obviously when I released music, or even when I was on when I released my first album, I didn’t even have Instagram or TikTok, and so even now doing the new formula with it all is really overwhelming. And I’m like, oh my God, am I doing it right and yeah, hopefully, they’ll connect with it. You know, it’s fun and pop and camp and playful. So, I’m really hoping that the millennials and the Gen Z love it and up for it.

Looking ahead, what can we expect after Ice Cream — more singles, maybe a full album, or something completely unexpected?

I do have an absolute banger up my sleeve. I really wanted to come out with Ice Cream. I thought that was really camp and fun for the gays, theys and girlies, but I definitely have another banger. That’s an undeniable one in my eyes up my sleeve and I would love to get that out there. And then, yeah, let’s just see. I want to focus on my acting and other projects, and my dream would just sort of do a play, do a musical, do a TV show, do a movie and then bam, out of nowhere, queer banger for you all when you least expect it”.

Diana Vickers is definitely busy right now. In addition to the comedy duo, Ki and Dee, and her new podcast, Just Between Us, it is also great that we have new music from a fantastic artist. Numéro Magazine spoke with a multi-talented artist who “is stepping back into her pop star identity, this time on her own terms”. It would be amazing if there was more music from Diana Vickers. An artist that I have been following for years, Ice Cream, let’s hope, marks a productive new phase:

“Your debut album shot straight to No. 1. How do you look back on that era of your career now?

I look back on it really fondly. It was such an exciting time, but also a lot of pressure for someone young. I was so proud of myself when the album hit number one, because it’s not always a given when you come from a reality TV show. There’s a stigma attached, and it could’ve gone either way. I’d done the West End before even releasing the album, so I really wasn’t sure what to expect. But the way it was received was amazing, and I just remember being so proud of myself.

Songs like ‘Once’ and ‘The Boy Who Murdered Love’ are still cult favourites. Do you feel pressure to recreate that sound, or are you eager to evolve?

Honestly, I don’t feel pressure to recreate anything. I love good pop, I credit myself with knowing how to write a proper pop song, but this time I wanted to do something different. Something a bit camper, a bit sexier. I didn’t want to mimic the past, I just wanted to make a really great little banger.

Your career spans music, theatre, comedy, and now podcasting. Do you see all of these as connected, or do they feel like separate creative worlds?

They’re connected in some ways, because I think that cheekiness runs through everything I do, but I also see them as quite separate. I’m literally about to do a play where I play an 11-year-old boy and an older male police officer in a show about the witch trials that’s a completely different world to releasing a pop single. But that’s what I love, slipping into all these different hats and creative spaces. And then something like the Gwyneth Paltrow musical I did, it was so fun and camp, and honestly really inspiring too. Those moments definitely fed into me wanting to embrace that side of myself again with the music.

Your new podcast ‘Just Between Us’ launched straight to #2 in the UK. Why do you think listeners have connected with it so strongly?

I think it’s because, for a long time, it was still pretty taboo for women to talk openly about sex and pleasure. The podcast gives people a safe, honest space to connect with those conversations. We have ordinary people calling in with their real issues, and listeners really resonate with that. Everyone has questions or challenges in their sex and love life, so hopefully it feels like a warm, safe hub where they can go, “Oh my gosh, this is me. I feel seen”.

I wanted to spotlight Diana Vickers, not only for music, but everything else does. An acclaimed a stage actor, a comic and a podcaster, it has been a busy year for this incredible talent. Someone who I know will put out more new music when she is ready. With an adoring and dedicated fanbase, it is clear that Diana Vickers is…

AN outstanding queen.

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Follow Diana Vickers

FEATURE: Brick By Brick: Industry Plants: The Case of Say Now, and Misogyny That Still Exists

FEATURE:

 

 

Brick By Brick: Industry Plants

IN THIS PHOTO: Say Now/PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Ibram

 

The Case of Say Now, and Misogyny That Still Exists

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THIS is a conversation that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale (left) and Hester Chambers were accused of being industry plants early in their career/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Backham

we should not be having. One that only applies to women. I think the last time that I wrote about it was when discussing The Last Dinner Party. The London band were accused of being industry plants. Because they came onto the scene seemingly full-formed with these remarkable songs and growing fanbase. They were not and never have been industry plants. By that, we are talking about an artist/group who, despite presenting themselves as independent or self-made, are secretly backed by major record labels and industry connections. This backing gives them advantages like funding and professional opportunities that are out of reach for truly independent artists, leading to a rapid rise in popularity. I have never seen a male artist accused of that! There would be no point in an industry plant. What it is designed to do. It does seem to be the case that, when you get an incredible female group that pretty quickly establish themselves and are exceptional, that they must be funded by a label and have cheated their way in. The Last Dinner Party pointed out discrepancies with the term ‘industry plants;’ and what it means: “Now, they’ve spoken out against these claims, arguing that “there’s no definition” for what an industry plant is, and that the charge is typically levelled at “just young women who are successful.” “The Beatles were industry plants,” bassist Georgia Davies told The Guardian. “If that’s your definition – ‘the industry helps you’ – then every single artist who’s been aligned with a record label is the same”. Even if we can sort of question what an industry plant means, there is no getting around the fact that women are the ones who face the accusation.

This takes us to the amazing Say Now. I would suggest to everyone to go and follow them. Formerly known as needanamebro (which, to be fair, is an awful name (though it was a placeholder); they announced themselves as Say Now in 2023. They have been around for a little while and have been building their name(s) and music. It is not like they have released a debut single that went to number one, had this vastly expensive video and they came online with millions of fans. They then went on a world tour and got airplay all over the place. I wrote about them in 2023 before they became Say Now. The group (Ysabelle Angeli, Amelia Onuorah and Madeleine Haynes) have released some incredible singles this year, including Can’t Keep a Beat and Supermarket. It is quite rare in this day to see a girl group succeed. Maybe that is an outdated term for what they are. There is not the same vibrant and competitive scene that there was when I was growing up in the 1990s. There were some in the 2000s too. As solo Pop artists are more popular and common, there are not that many girl groups at the forefront. I think that one of the reasons why Say Now are being called industry plants is because they are being noticed and it is unusual. A girl group catching on and getting this love. It is down to their hard work and talent, so naturally the industry would be suspicious. Some that are labelling them as industry plants. In a recent interview with NME, Say Now talked about bringing back the chaotic energy of U.K. groups. Having found a sweet spot in their sound, there is this forward momentum. They also addressed the accusations of being label plants:

“Quite obviously, we stand for diversity,” Haynes says proudly. “I think it’s really nice for young girls – well, young anyone growing up – to see that representation you might not get in other groups.”

Because they’re signed to a major label, Atlantic Records, and hail from the same management stable as One Direction and Little Mix, Say Now have frequently faced a predictable accusation: “You’re industry plants!” These rumours were fuelled, perhaps, by the fact that they launched publicly in 2022 with the witty but slightly gimmicky temporary moniker: needanamebro.

“Honestly, in the beginning, we had it all the time,” Onuorah says, sounding more amused than exasperated. “And we’d always be like: ‘Guys, if we were industry plants, we’d have a Number One single by now.’” The trio released three trip-hop-flavoured singles as needanamebro – ‘Better Love’, ‘Not A Lot Left to Say’ and ‘Netflix (Better Now Without You)’ – before settling on an official name and rebranding as Say Now in July 2023.

Today, they dismiss any suggestion that this might have halted their early momentum. “A name change will always have some sort of controversy around it,” Angeli acknowledges, “but because we asked our fans to help us decide, it defo helped with that transition.” The trio received “over 500 submissions”, including some “really, really bad ones”, but plumped for Say Now, a name that Haynes came up with during a band brainstorm.

Say Now love sitting down with pen and paper to plot their next move. Earlier this year, they held an “emergency band meeting” where they decided to refine their musical direction – a pivotal moment in their trajectory. “We were like, ‘We’re sat on all these songs that are so, so good. Why haven’t we released them?’” Haynes says. “They feel so Say Now so let’s just put them out, even if it’s scary because they’re more R&B than what we’ve released in the past.”

Next up: a multi-song “project” planned for early next year. “We have so much music, but we just need to put it together. And we’re writing all the time,” Onuorah says. “We’ve found a sweet spot now where it feels like we’re really embracing R&B melodies, but with pop production that’s fun and upbeat.” US girl group icons Destiny’s Child are a vocal touchstone. “They’re so known for their incredible riffs, and we always try to embody that too,” Haynes says.

Still, there’s zero chance of Say Now forgetting their roots. “I think British girl groups have a kind of authenticity,” Haynes says. “We’re very outspoken and slightly more rough-cut. Less polished.” And if that means getting chucked out of Asda every now and then, well, so be it”.

I do hope that we end this habit of doubting and mistrusting successful women. Those who are hugely talented and have this confidence. Instead of them being planted by a label, they are instead like any other artist. As I said, Say Now are not industry plants. The Last Dinner Party are not either. Women have to face enough challenges and barriers as it is. They do not need to be diminished or called out falsely. Say Now dealt with industry plant rumours with good humour. They shouldn’t have to! There was a lot of discussion around industry plants last year. What the terms means, why the term is misused and why fans hate industry plants. This article explores this subject more and looks at some of the women who have been accused of being label plants:

“Billie Eilish: Due to her rapid rise to fame and the polished nature of her debut, some speculated that she had significant industry backing. However, Eilish and her team have consistently credited her success to her unique style and organic growth through platforms like SoundCloud.

Lana Del Rey: After her breakout with “Video Games,” some questioned the authenticity of her image and backstory, suggesting she was a creation of the music industry. Del Rey has been open about her struggles and journey in the industry, countering these claims.

Halsey: Halsey’s rise to fame, particularly after she collaborated with The Chainsmokers on “Closer,” led to some labelling her as an industry plant. She has spoken about her grassroots beginnings and the hard work that went into building her career.

Lizzo: Lizzo’s sudden mainstream success, especially with her album “Cuz I Love You,” led to some speculation about industry backing. However, Lizzo had been actively making music and performing for years before her breakthrough”.

Social media platforms have made it easier than ever to witness the struggles and successes of these independent artists. Fans can now follow an artist’s journey from their early stages, often involving years of hard work, setbacks, and gradual growth. This direct connection and the transparent view into an artist’s development foster a deeper appreciation for their efforts and achievements. In contrast, industry plants are often seen as bypassing this struggle, gaining unfair advantages through connections and financial backing. This can be perceived as undermining the meritocratic ideal that the best talent, regardless of background or connections, should have the opportunity to succeed.

The visibility of hardworking artists on social media, who may struggle to gain recognition despite their talent, underscores the perceived injustice of the industry plant phenomenon. It’s a narrative of authenticity versus manufactured success, resonating deeply in a culture that increasingly values genuine artistic expression and the democratisation of opportunity in the music industry.

Every talented band who isn’t getting paid their dues in the industry will have been told, ‘all you need is one lucky break’ by well-meaning fans and politely agreed, meanwhile knowing that all they really need is millions in marketing money at their disposal. So is it any wonder that artists who rise to fame and get all the backing they could possibly need are posited as the natural enemy of the average independent artists tolling the dilapidated fields of the music industry? The same goes for promoters who pour their blood, sweat and tears into promoting an artist only to be ignored by the gatekeepers such as the BBC and NME”.

I want to delve a little deeper before wrapping up with Say Now. In 2023, DAZED wrote about the latest group who were seen as being label plants. Picture Parlour had to face backlash and these false accusations. Even if some men have had to face the industry plant claims, it is mostly women and bands fronted by women. This has to stop! At a time when women are dominating music, this kind of slur and misogynistic practise is detrimental and insulting:

“Maybe we’ve forgotten that hype can be generated elsewhere, in real world spaces, at gigs we haven’t attended. It’s not so implausible that a band could generate hype and get discovered by a high-profile management agency, simply by playing live. The existence of ‘industry plants’, rather than being a conspiracy theory, is how the music industry has always operated – the term could apply to just about any band who get scouted and then heavily promoted. While Picture Parlour weren’t dreamed up in an executive boardroom, it’s clearly true that the music industry decides to throw its weight behind certain bands and not others. Some artists make it big organically, after years of slogging away, while others are plucked out of obscurity and chosen for stardom (or as close to ‘stardom’ as you can get as a rock band in 2023.)

According to Stuart Bennet, associate director at Deacon Communications, a music PR agency, the backlash against Picture Parlour has been over-the-top. “They seem to have plugged away in bands for years and hit a hot streak with this one,” he says. “I think it’s good to be skeptical about what you’re being fed and challenging the dynamics within the music industry. There are undoubtedly elements of privilege and power that come into which bands are picked up. But in this case, it seems a bit misdirected towards a band who essentially seem to have done something rather normal.”

When you look back at the ‘industry plant’ controversies of the last few years, it’s notable that most of them (including Wet Leg, Panic Shack, The Last Dinner Party, Tramp Stamps and now Picture Parlour) have involved bands that are fronted by women. For a certain kind of male rock fan, it’s a more plausible explanation than believing these bands made it off the back of their own talents – particularly as “being young and good looking” is often a core feature of the complaint. Bands fronted by men, which have had similar trajectories and make music of similar quality, aren’t accused of being industry plants at the same frequency, although it has been known to happen – the “private school”/ “rich parents” allegation seems to be more gender-neutral.

But according to Chardine Taylor Stone, a Black Feminist scholar and the drummer with punk band Big Joanie, it’s reductive to dismiss concerns about ‘industry plants’ as inherently sexist. There are a wider range of disparities at play: as she points out, it’s comparatively rare to see Black women or Black artists generally on the cover of NME. “The industry saw the rise of underground feminist women bands but rather than support those grassroots bands as they are, an industry of men decided to water that movement down and support the kind of women they find less threatening: nice young white middle class women,” she tells Dazed. “Criticising that is not misogyny, it’s exposing the industry's sexism, it draws attention to how the industry patronises audiences and how it only allows women to prosper if they fulfill certain beauty standards and don’t cause too much of a fuss”.

Even back in 2022, there were articles written about industry plants and how it is a misogynistic myth. That same year, Wet Leg discussed with Rolling Stone the notion that they are seen as industry plants. Sexism and misogyny at the root of it all. Still alive and well today! Say Now are where they are because of their determination, talent and vision. I don’t think we will see an end to women in music being seen as industry plants. It is an outdated and problematic term that has misogynistic roots. Say Now will succeed in spite of this labelling, but the industry needs to address this and endure that women feel secure coming into music and do not have to face witch hunting or conspiracies! Rather than words over deeds, the industry should not just say it now, they also need to…

DO it now!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Annie & The Caldwells

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Carl Martin

 

Annie & The Caldwells

__________

I am glad that…

Annie & The Caldwells are coming to the U.K. later this month. The American group released their exceptional album, Can’t Lose My (Soul) earlier this year. A six-track work of wonder from the family band. Before I get to interviews with the group and a review for Can’t Lose My (Soul), I want to highlight their biography from their official website:

“Annie Caldwells says, “My family is my band,” and so naturally the history of the band—and their music—dovetails with the family’s real life. ANNIE & THE CALDWELLS are a family that plays a powerful disco soul from West Point, Mississippi. When Annie was 16 years old, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, she played in a band with her brothers (they were called the Staples Jr. Singers, a group of teenagers with a single album recorded in the 1970s). One day, the Staples Jrs. were singing on a church program in West Point, when a guitarist who played with one of Annie’s brothers in another band heard her and said, “Who — is that?” That moment Annie met Willie Joe Caldwell, Sr., her husband of the last fifty years, and the co-founder and guitarist for the Caldwells who supports his family’s high-flying vocals with fuzzy, psychedelic riffs.

Annie and Joe got married so young that their parents had to sign for them. They started their own family, and Annie opened a store on Main Street in West Point called Caldwell Fashions—which has been a beloved staple for women dressing for COGIC (Church Of God In Christ) convocations and church anniversaries since the ’80s. Things changed for the Caldwells when their eldest daughter was old enough to be invited to sing at a high school talent show. The Caldwells were shocked that their daughter was singing the blues—“the blues!” for Annie, means any music of any genre that doesn’t speak the gospel.

“We thought, if we don’t do something, the devil’s going to get her,” Annie said. “We decided we better get these children because people wanted them to sing in places where they played the blues, and I didn’t want that.”

So Annie and Joe started their own group, which pulled from the music their kids loved — The Gap Band, Chaka Kahn, Bootsy Collins. “We started singing ‘Is My Living in Vain’ by the Clark Sisters,” Annie said, illustrating how the group infuses gospel with grit and street savvy. Two decades later, the constellation of family members in The Caldwells is more or less the same: Annie is backed by their daughters Deborah Caldwell Moore and Anjessica Caldwell and goddaughter Toni Rivers; their eldest son Willie Jr. is on the bass and youngest son Abel Aquirius is on the drums. Their real troubles and experiences—as an intergenerational family run by women—are at the center of their music: Memories of a daughter’s birth or a brother’s recovery from an illness spill into transcendent moments onstage.

“I feel like the message is often for me first,” Annie said about the songs she writes. “But so many ladies come up crying and say, ‘I feel like what you were saying was for me.’”

“What does it mean to seek God as a woman?” Danielle Amir Jackson, who wrote the liner notes for Annie & The Caldwells’ new record Can’t Lose My (Soul) (out via Luaka Bop on March 21), asked Annie’s daughter Deborah this potent question after listening to her song, “Wrong.” Deborah is a hairstylist in West Point—she styles the group's hair in jazzy side swoops before their shows. Between Deborah’s work and Annie’s styling of the girls in royal blues and purples, gabardine fabric and peplum accented by gold jewelry and bright-red nails, the Caldwell sound is married to a vision of opulent feminine power, unflinching, honest witness, and devotion.

She wrote “Wrong” as a testimony after a tumultuous period in her marriage to her beloved late husband. Reeling from a betrayal, Deborah believed that getting revenge on her husband might improve the balance of tensions between them — but getting revenge only left her feeling depleted.“Being a married woman / experiencing heartache and pain,” Deborah sings in a performance that is raw and direct.  “Girls, I was wrong.”  The song is a confession, and just as it happened in real life, her family’s voices answer her call: “Wrong! Wrong!,” her mother and sister sing behind her. That’s the family dynamic at work.

“I sing about my life. I don’t just sing to be singing,” Deborah said. “A lot of women liked it and a lot of men didn’t like it. The women can relate. But we wouldn’t be in this position if men didn’t put us in this position.”

Can't Lose My (Soul), is twenty years in the making. They recorded it in West Point down the street from Annie and Joe’s house—at a church where Joe plays guitar every other Sunday, and where his father used to be a deacon. It was produced by Ahmed Gallab, the artist Sinkane, who together with the engineer Albert DiFiore drove a mobile rig down from Nashville and turned the back room of the church into a control room.

As a producer, Gallab saw his role there as making sure that “each song felt as powerful, as raw, and as genuine as the family dynamic behind it. The goal was always to stay true to the feeling behind the music,” which is why “everything was tracked live, in their church, together as a family.”

From a practical level, a big part of Gallab’s job was to get out of the way. When the band was in a groove, he would stick his head out of the control room and frantically swing his arm around like a pinwheel and stage whisper, “Keep going!” and “More! more! more!”

“Hearing Annie’s voice for the first time was like witnessing something rare,” Gallab said of the recording session, “Like you’re in the presence of a force of nature that’s been here long before you. It’s visceral, almost like it’s coming from her soul. You can feel every part of her life, every little piece of her journey, in each note she hits. It’s pure talent: no effort, no pretense, just real and raw.”

“And working with Deborah was like tapping into pure fire,” he said. “She's feisty, no doubt! That spark, that intensity she brings, spills right into her music. The tough love that these girls gave each other. Calling each other out when one wasn’t in key. It was pretty funny.”

In November 2024, ANNIE & THE CALDWELLS travelled to Utrecht in the Netherlands to perform at the prestigious Le Guess Who? Festival, where MOJO caught their showstopping performance and reviewed it as, “The most exciting, most dynamic family of faith imaginable: their rhythm section (dad and two sons) would give the Family Stone a run for its money; the front line (mum and daughters) have unquenchable sass and spirituality, and the crowd doesn’t need persuading to crash the stage and be saved by songs. It feels like 2025 may already be their year.” Amen to that!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Welles Nystrom

I love Annie and the Caldwells is this family group that spans generations. I can’t think of any other that does this. Annie Caldwell (vocals), her husband Willie Joe Caldwell Sr. (guitar), their daughters Deborah Caldwell Moore and Anjessica Caldwell (vocals), and their sons Willie Jr. (bass) and Abel Aquirius (drums). The band also includes their goddaughter, Toni Rivers (vocals). It is a wonderful blend of ages and dynamics. You can feel the harmony and closeness in the music. How there is this obvious connection and chemistry. I want to head back to an interview from The Guardian from Boxing Day last year. I only discovered Annie & The Caldwells earlier this year. It has been amazing learning more about them. A phenomenal group that are “now sending audiences into ecstasy with disco-tinged soul gospel”, make sure that they are on your radar:

“Annie and the Caldwells’ appearance looks extraordinary: a mother and her three middle-aged daughters, clad in matching multicoloured harlequin-print dresses, belting out raw, disco-tinged soul gospel in the midst of a delirious stage invasion by ecstatic, dancing punters.

“It was just beautiful,” says Annie Caldwell down the phone from her home in West Point, Mississippi. “The lord, you know, he’s not just in the church buildings, he’s going to highways and byways – wherever he sends us, we’re willing to go, because a lot of people aren’t going to come to church. I heard people say that they felt something they never felt before, and that makes them believe more in what we believe in, and that is lord God almighty.”

Eagle-eyed viewers with an interest in obscure gospel might recognise Annie Caldwell from the Staples Jr Singers, the band she formed with her brothers in the 70s, whose solitary 1975 album When Do We Get Paid was rescued from obscurity and reissued to wild acclaim in 2022. Annie and the Caldwells are the band she subsequently formed in the 1980s with her guitarist husband, Willie, after hearing their daughters rehearsing for a talent show: they were singing secular material, which she didn’t like the sound of. “I said: let me get those girls before the devil gets them!”

With the band rounded out by their sons on bass and drums and Caldwell, a dress shop owner by day, in charge of the band’s wardrobe (which she accurately describes as “jazzy”), they spent decades performing in churches around Mississippi and occasionally recording demos, a few collections of which are on Spotify. Then David Byrne’s label Luaka Bop – which had reissued the Staples Jr Singers album – suggested they make an album proper. “We recorded it in a little church on the corner of the street from where I live,” Caldwell says. “There was so much power and spirit within that place, and I thank God for that – he really came in and started blessing us.”

It is a fantastic album – funky, gritty and powerful, packed with incredible singing and potent songs that cast a stark eye over life’s hardships. Nevertheless, it must be odd, releasing a debut album 40 years after you start performing. But Caldwell seems unfazed. “Ever since I was young, God let me know that this was going to happen,” she says. “I have to give him praise and thank him that he remembered me after all these years”.

It is clear that music is family for Annie & The Caldwells. I want to move to an interview from Bandcamp from earlier in the year. There is this fascinating backstory when we look at this group. I have not included all of the interview and edited it down, though I wanted to include as much as possible. Anyone who has not heard Can’t Lose My (Soul) needs to listen to it right now. I am glad that they have support in the U.K. and have gigs here. I do hope that their music gets shared and there is more backing and airplay, as they deserve to be huge:

“Annie was raised by a mother who was also a head. Annie’s parents “got saved” when she was nine years old, back when she was just Annie Brown from Aberdeen, Mississippi. They joined the Church of God, a Pentecostal denomination, where her father became a deacon and her mother a minister at a time when very few Black churches in the South allowed women to wear the cloth. Even though the Brown’s church was among the more progressive in the community, her mother never got the opportunity to lead her own congregation. Instead, she ministered at several local churches and took her family on the regional gospel circuit. It was on those tours that Annie and her siblings began singing and playing music. “I never went to music class in school, “ she says. “My momma and my daddy was in the church. I thank God that I heard a lot of great singing when I was coming up. I relate myself to some of their songs, because the music was so sweet—Mavis [Staples] singing songs like ‘Somebody Save Me.’ Those songs stick with me today.”

As their popularity grew, the siblings took up the name the Staples Jr. Singers, inspired by their frequent comparisons to the American gospel and R&B group The Staple Singers. When Annie was only 13, the Staples Jr. Singers (with her brothers A.R.C., Bobby, Cleveland, and Edward) self-funded their 1975 album When Do We Get Paid. The group managed to sell a few hundred copies—mostly on the front lawn outside their house. That record found its way into crate-digging infamy, with original copies fetching up to $700 on Discogs. In 2022, Luaka Bop reissued When Do We Get Paid and requested a follow-up, which became 2024’s Searching.

But that’s only half of Annie’s story.

When Annie was in high school, the family band dropped the Staples name, performing instead as the Browns. After a performance at a church in West Point, Mississippi, roughly 20 miles south of Aberdeen, a young man named Willie Caldwell approached Annie’s youngest brother Ronnel to ask about the girl in the band with that special voice. Caldwell had a family band background of his own as a guitar player and singer in a church group with his brothers. Before long, he and Annie were married. Caldwell asked for Annie to move to West Point with him, a decision that weighed heavily on her. “I didn’t wanna leave my brothers,” she says. “I didn’t wanna tell them that I was leaving to make my own family. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of things that was joyful. The good days outweigh the bad ones.”

Annie and Willie started a family right away, naming their firstborn Willie Caldwell Jr. The Caldwells eventually had a total of five children. The boys Willie Jr. and Abel both learned to play from their father. Annie says that Junior was five when he “started pecking at the drums” at rehearsals and at church. By age seven, he was playing alongside his father, while Annie and her daughters Anora and Deborah sang. When Abel was old enough to play drums, Willie Sr. taught Junior to play bass. A family band was taking shape. “Music really comes from both sides of the family,” Annie says. “I guess that’s why it is what it is now.”

Just like their mother, Annie’s daughters sang in talent shows. But when Annie and Willie Sr. saw their daughter Deborah drifting toward secular music, they got serious about making Annie & the Caldwells a real band. Rather than forbidding secular music outright, the group instead adjusted the message of songs by Bootsy Collins, Rufus & Chaka Khan, and the Gap Band to reflect their own beliefs. So Bootsy’s “I’d Rather Be With You” became a message of devotion to a Higher Power by including an “Oh, Lord” between repeats of the refrain. Then, Bootsy gives way to Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody,” changing the lyrics to declare, “Ain’t nobody…love me like Jesus.”

Following in the footsteps of her mother, Annie took her family band on the road, providing custom stage attire for her daughters. Annie & The Caldwells recorded two albums for the Memphis blues and soul label Ecko Records, 2013’s Answer Me and 2018’s We Made It. As Deborah Caldwell Moore grew into her role in the band, she began writing originals. Complications in her marriage inspired an R&B slow jam called “Rough Spot.” That personal perspective on heartache and forgiveness was further explored on “Wrong,” the lead single for the group’s Luaka Bop debut. “I thank God that they was into the music, just like we was,” Annie says. “A lot of times children go another way. They see the parents doing something and don’t want much to do with that.”

Annie’s youngest daughter Anjessica was once that type of child. She says she resisted joining her siblings in the band until she was 15. She loved music, but wanted a life outside the family tradition. It took her older sister Deborah, who works in a hair salon and styles all the sisters, to offer an ultimatum: “Sing, or you can’t get your hair did.” Anjessica chose singing. “I’m stuck like tuck now,” she says, admitting that her love for the band continues to grow.

The Caldwell Singers have been together for over 30 years now. Annie says they never limited their performances to strictly Pentecostal churches—she’s always willing to take their act wherever they’re welcomed. “God don’t have no denomination,” she says. That same belief encouraged them to sign with Luaka Bop and record their new album with Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab, aka Sinkane.

Annie always trusted that God had a plan for the Caldwells. For her, the support from Luaka Bop for both the Staples Jr. Singers and The Caldwells is a blessing that has allowed the families to take their message to overseas festivals. But no matter where the success takes them from here, the lineage of musicians within the Browns and Caldwell families remains strong. The sons and grandchildren of Edward and R.C. Brown played on Searching, while Annie’s goddaughter Toni Arlanza Rivers and Deborah’s daughter Hikemia Moore sang backup on the Caldwells record. When asked if there’s a next generation of Caldwells interested in singing, the proud grandmother in Annie shares that her granddaughter called her after getting a microphone for Christmas to sing “Dear Lord (You’ve Been Good To Me)”.

Prior to getting to a review, I want to finish up by sourcing from this interview from Woman & Home. Annie Caldwell remarks how it has been an astonishing year and the group have had so many adventures. They have a big fan in Elton John. He admired their debut album and advised people to go and buy it. You do not have to be a fan of Gospel or be familiar with the music they play. It is joyous and mesmerising and crosses all musical barriers. It is an album that everyone needs to hear:

“The family recorded their album, Can’t Lose My (Soul) all live in their local church and the uplifting tunes, based on personal experience, have been likened to the slinky grooves of Gloria Gaynor and the funk of James Brown.

“It can get emotional as we sing about what we’ve been through, but the energy when we perform together is powerful and we all build off what each other’s doing. It’s just been such a privilege and a blessing to have been given this opportunity,” she says.

“I’d never been on a plane before until last year and now we’ve played in festivals in Australia, Spain, Holland and the UK. Every performance ends up being my favourite as I love seeing the crowds dancing and getting such energy from our music. I always want to go immediately back to the stage and do it all over again.”

When she’s not performing, Annie still runs Caldwell’s Fashions, a dress shop in West Point, Mississippi, so she and her daughters had a lot of fun designing the outfits for the tour with matching multi-colored harlequin print dresses that set the tone for their energetic performances.

Luckily, Annie’s granddaughter, Hikemia, was on hand to run the shop while the band was touring in Europe.

“I still fuss over all my family, even though most of them are all grown up now, but we love being together on tour,” she explains. “I have nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, so there wasn’t room for them to join us, but I loved FaceTiming them from all over, telling them about our adventures.

"They just wanted to know when we were all coming home!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Adam Wissing

The album has been an out-and-out success, receiving great reviews in The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Boston Globe and MOJO Magazine, not to mention from some famous faces in the music industry, including Candi Staton and Sir Elton John.

“It was incredible when Elton said he thought our album was a great record and told people to go out and buy it,” Annie recalls. “It goes to show you never know who’s hearing your music until they come out and say it.

“We also get messages from so many people through Instagram and Facebook who are fans and say they find our lyrics and music relatable and inspiring. All that positive feedback gives me huge energy to go on and make more music.”

With such success already under their belts, the next 12 months are going to be equally action-packed for The Caldwell family with the release of their new album and more performances around the world.

“I used to get nervous performing, but that feeling left a long time ago. Now there's simply joy from getting out on stage together as a family. We get along so well and there’s a lot of laughter,” Annie says.

“We’re off to Japan, Brazil and Europe again soon, which has me so excited. It’s an absolute whirlwind but I feel so blessed that we’ve been given this chance and we’re making the most of every moment.

“Ever since I was young, I felt that God let me know that this was going to happen one day. I'm just thankful that He remembered me after all these years”.

I am going to return to The Guardian and their five-star review for Can’t Lose My (Soul). Lauding the extraordinary harmonies and the fact that this album lifts you from despair and is life-affirming. The group are playing huge festivals and getting all this plaudits. It might be strange for them but, if they did not have the talent to back it up, then they might otherwise have been overlooked. As it is, they are this insanely talented group that are rightly getting rewards and celebration. Let’s hope that it continues for years more:

“The vocals are raw but perfectly pitched; there’s a kind of telepathic interplay between Annie Caldwell’s lead and the harmonies of her daughters during the improvised sections of the lengthy title track and Don’t You Hear Me Calling. So is the band, who somehow contrive to sound both extremely tight and yet spontaneous: if, as Deborah Caldwell has claimed, the band “don’t practise”, then their performances here are an advert for the honing effect of playing in church every other Sunday.

They’re also musically diverse. For all Annie Caldwell claims to have co-opted her daughters into the band after hearing them singing blues – “I said: let me get those girls before the devil gets them,” she told me last year – there’s a distinct blues undertow to the title track. Dear Lord deals in tough funk, equipped with a liquid bassline that Bootsy Collins would have been proud of. I’m Going to Rise bears the influence of southern soul, the emotional edginess of the vocals cushioned by the wah-wah lushness of the music. Their uptempo tracks, meanwhile, sit in the vicinity of disco: you can detect something of Chaka Khan’s late 70s solo albums about I Made It and Wrong, the latter track momentarily shifting its gaze from the heavens to infidelity – albeit laying the blame at Satan’s door – to the accompaniment of a fabulous cyclical guitar lick that’s begging to be sampled (disco legend and sometime house producer Nicky Siano has already remixed it).

These are great, powerful, moving songs, made all the more potent by the fact that they’re recorded live, without an audience, in a church in the band’s hometown of West Point, Mississippi. The plain production makes Can’t Lose My (Soul) feel as if it’s happening before your eyes, adding a vividness and urgency, particularly in extempore moments. Mercifully, it steers clear of the kind of faux-antiquing that’s often applied to 21st-century soul music rooted in the past, as if trying to convince you that you’re listening to a long-lost album.

The lyrics steer clear of the hellfire and brimstone sermonising to which southern gospel can be prone: they never stint on describing hard times – bereavement, grief, a miraculous escape from a house fire (“God spoke to death, he told death: behave!”) – but their message is ultimately one of hope. You don’t need to share the Caldwells’ faith to find something powerful and inspiring in that, particularly given the current climate, which can easily incline you towards hopelessness; something steeped in tradition seems apropos right now. You should listen to Can’t Lose My (Soul) purely on musical terms. Moreover, it’s an album you might need”.

You might not have heard of Annie & The Caldwells. That is fine. However, I would urge you to listen to Can’t Lose My (Soul). Not only one of the absolute best debut albums from this year, it is up there with anything else released. Maybe it has flown under the radar of some websites, though I have seen other reviews and they are all ecstatic. There is no doubting the credentials and quality of the album and Annie & The Caldwells. If you let this group pass you by, then you will…

LOSE out on something incredible.

____________

Follow Annie & The Caldwells

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Nell Mescal

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

 

Nell Mescal

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I am excited…

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

to revisit an artist that I spotlighted in 2023. The terrific Nell Mescal is an artist I have been following for a long time now. Her incredible E.P., The Closest We’ll Get, was released on 24th October. It is a spectacular work from an unmistakable artist. Someone who very much has this distinct and incredible sound. Because I am updating my previous feature, I am going to bring in some recent interviews with Mescal. So we can learn more about someone you really need to know about. Before coming to 2025 interviews, I want to go back to last year and this from The Independent. Putting out her debut E.P., Can I Miss It for a Minute?, there was a lot of curiosity around this incredible artist. Born in  Maynooth, County Kildare, Mescal relocated to London in 2021 to fully commit to and pursue music:

“When Nell Mescal was in her early teens, she dreamt of going to boarding school. Growing up in her small hometown of Maynooth, Ireland, she fell in love with Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series of novels – their depictions of cosy dormitories, spectacular sea views and ivy-covered walls.

It was a far cry from the reality, where she struggled with bullying at her local school and eventually dropped out before taking her exams, aged 18. It was around this time that her eldest brother, Paul, was rocketing to international fame as the charming, sensitive Connell in Normal People, the BBC’s pitch-perfect adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel. Four years since the show first aired, Paul is now a bona fide A-lister, nominated for an Oscar for his quietly soulful turn in Aftersun and soon to be stepping into Russell Crowe’s sandals as the lead in Ridley Scott’s keenly awaited Gladiator sequel.

Mescal, the youngest of three siblings, isn’t doing too badly herself. At 21, she’s released her debut EP, Can I Miss It for a Minute? and performed this month to a massive crowd on the same bill as Shania Twain at BST Hyde Park festival. It speaks to her clout that both Peter Mensch and the reclusive Cliff Burnstein – co-founders of the legendary management company Q Prime, to which Mescal is signed – were in the audience at her sold-out show at London’s Omeara in January.

PHOTO CREDIT: David Reiss

She moved to London not long after dropping out of school to pursue music. Her parents – a retired police officer and a primary school teacher – trusted her decision. “They’d seen Paul do it and were like, well, he’s survived it,” she recalls. We’re sitting in one of her locals in north London, where she shares a flat with her older brother Donnacha, who works in recruitment. (“We’re friends, too, which is so nice, but it’s also OK if I scream at him for not filling the dishwasher.”) She and Paul look remarkably alike: her eyes are huge and round, a bright blue ocean beneath thick Keira Knightley brows. She has the same aquiline nose, the same strong jaw. Her profile wouldn’t look out of place on a Roman coin.

It was a difficult first year, living in a strange city with no friends: “It was so scary – there were some fun moments, but it was very lonely.” She was placed in writing rooms and started playing live, which was when things changed. Mescal channelled her feelings into her 2023 single “Homesick”, which has something of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” about it in the yearning synths and racing guitar riffs. She struggled to find someone who could record her voice in a way that felt right, eventually landing on producer and mixer Duncan Mills (LCD Soundsystem, Florence and the Machine).

Songs on Can I Miss It for a Minute? sit comfortably in the indie-folk or folk-pop spheres; Mescal says her sound is indebted to artists such as Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker (she trails off before name-checking the third and final member of boygenius, her brother’s ex, Phoebe Bridgers). There’s a dreamy, romantic quality to “Yellow Dresser”, with its soft piano notes and Mescal’s lilting voice. “Electric Picnic” is wonderful, incorporating subtle Americana elements with a slide guitar and deft picking on the banjo.

“[London] definitely feels like home now,” she says, “which is weird – I’m always afraid of saying that. Obviously, my home is Ireland, but I’ve created a life here that I really enjoy.” She considers that chapter, a fraught couple of years trying to find her way in the city, closed.

What will she write about next? “I tend to get these emotional blocks,” she explains. “I could write about my mum being sick, but now is not the time.” (Mescal’s mother, Dearbhla, shared that she was in remission from cancer in June). “Writing about it is [still] too hard,” she continues. “But I also don’t want to feel like I’m avoiding it because of that.”

Mescal is charming in her candour. I imagine she’s had a few tips from Paul, who was equally frank in his 2020 interview with The Independent. There is that same polite but firm resistance to the more superficial trappings of celebrity, even if Mescal still loved accompanying her brother to the Oscars last year”.

I guess it was investable that there would be talk of her brother, Paul Mescal, and comparisons. The better known of the siblings, we need to instead focus on Nell Mescal and her beautiful music. An artist who will succeed in her own right and should not even be viewed as living in the shadow of her brother. Back in September, Nell Mescal sat down with Nouse on the first day of the Leeds Festival (where she was playing). She was asked about her upcoming E.P. I am going to end with a review for The Closest We’ll Get. For the Nouse interview, Alexandra Pullen asked the questions:

“AP: Who would you say are some of your lyrical or songwriting inspirations?

NM: I have so many. I think Adrianne Lenker is a huge huge inspiration for me. I actually got to work with her producer Philip Weinrobe on my next music which was the most exciting thing ever to be listening to a record I love so much and the lyrics I love so much and then getting to record something that just felt like something I would listen to was really really lovely. So, Adrianne Lenker. There’s so many people. I love Stevie Nicks.

AP: Love Stevie Nicks, she’s incredible. Off the back of that, who would be your dream artist to collaborate with?

NM: Maybe Stevie, you know. I keep on saying her today but she’s great. Maybe Stevie or maybe Amble, the Irish folk band. They’re really sick.

AP: You’ve got your EP coming out in October! Could you tell us a little bit about that?

NM: Yeah, so the EP is called The Closest We’ll Get and the title track is out now. It’s an EP about two people who are in the grey area of friendship and something more and not quite being brave enough but maybe sometimes trying to [be] and missing the mark a little bit. It’s a little bit sad but I’ve tried to bring the vibes up a bit.

AP: I love that! We’re from the University of York so do you have any advice for upcoming artists or student bands looking to get into the industry?

NM: I think, honestly, just keep going. Keep trying because it can be really difficult. I’ve been there. I started releasing music when I was 16. If you just keep on going you learn and you know yourself so much better. You become so much more confident. Just keep going.

AP: Thank you for that. Final question, last summer was notorious as ‘BRAT summer’, or ‘Chappell Roan summer’. So, what is your song of the summer for 2025?

NM: My song of the summer for 2025 is ‘Carried Away’ by Nell Mescal!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

I want to move now to a recent interview with Rolling Stone UK. We learn how Nell Mescal travelled to America to record her E.P. and discovered her voice in the meantime. Although her previous singles and E.P.s are tremendous, her latest E.P. is very much her most complete and extraordinary statement so far. One that sounds more like her than anything else. This is something that we observed in the interview:

“But it’s on her latest EP The Closest We’ll Get where Mescal comes into her own like never before. It’s her first release since signing to Atlantic Records and a sprinkling of star power comes courtesy of Grammy-nominated producer Philip Weinrobe and – a personal hero of Mescal’s – Adrienne Lenker.

“It was an amazing experience and one that was really changed the way we work,” Mescal explains.

Part of that, she explains, came from the fact that Weinrobe would work diligently between the hours of 10am-6PM on the EP and once those hours were elapsed, a day’s work was done. She says that working with Weinrobe felt like a “dream,” but it should also be noted that Weinrobe was preparing to pack up his upstate New York studio, Sugar Mountain, and head to pastures new. Such was the impact of Mescal’s music upon Weinrobe that he stayed around long enough for this EP to be the final project made at Sugar Mountain. “It was just the most magical experience,” Mescal beams.

Give the EP a single listen and you’ll understand what Weinrobe saw in the songs. Mescal tells me that the title track is a heart-rending listen, but there’s beauty to be found in the way she discusses situation-ships and the fizzling out of half relationships. “But if I’m only your half-drunk, sometime lover, Then I guess that’s more than nothing,” comes her emotional revelation.

Similarly, there’s a symmetry of sorts to be found in the searing ‘Middleman’, which she wrote it about a relationship she found herself in several years ago. It was only upon revisiting it for these sessions Mescal she realised that the person being addressed in the song, the one who needed to make bold decisions, was herself.

It’s heady stuff, Mescal explains, but it helps she’s found a pocket of North London where she lives with her brother Donnacha, a force of much-needed levity, she explains, and her A-List brother Paul. Though understandably reluctant to be drawn on the latter, she does tell RSUK that she’s been writing music with the actor, partly stemming from his need to inhibit the mindset of one of the greatest songwriters in history (Paul McCartney) for Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics.

But the bottom line for Mescal on this EP, ultimately, is that it marks the rise of a star who can lift your heart and break it within the next couple of minutes. With a rising online fan base behind her too and a sold out UK tour, it’s an exciting next chapter for a truly unique voice”.

I am finishing off with a review from Northern Transmissions. If you have not yet discovered the music of Nel Mescal, then do go and follow her. I cannot wait to see what next year has in store for her! I have loved her music for years now, and I want to get as many people headed her way. Mescal is touring the U.K. at the moment, before she heads to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in December:

“If you were to look for Nell Mescal, you’d probably find her in nature, drawing inspiration from the beautiful scenery that surrounds that. There’s a sliver of undeniable mysticism which resides in her songwriting – the kind of attribute you’d be right to assume made Taylor Swift’s fans fall in love with folklore.

Mescal was born to be a storyteller, no doubt about it. Her latest extended play, The Closest We’ll Get, is a poignant collection of stories which feel like they were penned by a poet who yearns to be heard. The EP’s title track embraces its core theme of two people swaying between platonic kinship and the aftermath of it becoming something more. Accompanied by Philip Weinrobe’s folk-inflected production, which employs a captivating, somewhat orchestral string arrangement, ‘The Closest We’ll Get’ sees Mescal confess her unconditional devotion in a way that seems extremely intimate, but never timid.

In fact, you could argue that confessional lyricism is the Irish musician’s strongest suit, but it’s actually her gentle, mellifluous vocal that makes the lyrics work so well. The project’s lead single ‘Carried Away’ is a great example of this, with Mescal’s performance sort of guiding the song’s rather eager instrumental. Her voice pierces through the recording, almost as if she’s singing right in front of you – a folkloric quality that contributes to the EP’s charming character.

The only sticking point is that the record’s opener, ‘Middle Man’, doesn’t really benefit from its comparatively tame production. The musical arrangement here isn’t flawed by any means, however, it sounds slightly disjointed from the hard-hitting lyrical content, especially in the bridge (“Grow up, find a girl / From your childhood / White dress, she’ll get cold feet / You’ll get angry / It gets scary”). ‘Middle Man’ doesn’t quite take off as much as it leaves you hoping it eventually would – its composition appears better suited for a track that isn’t as lyrically daring as this one”.

Such a hugely talented artist with so many years ahead of her, go and listen to her music now. The Closest We’ll Get sits alongside the best E.P.s of this year. I can see an album and some big stages waiting for her very soon. In a packed scene with so many artists you can choose from and follow, Nell Mescal is…

ONE of the best around.

____________

Follow Nell Mescal

FEATURE: Groovelines: Whitney Houston – How Will I Know

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

Whitney Houston – How Will I Know

__________

THERE is a reason why…

I am covering this song, other than the fact that it is a classic! The penultimate single from her eponymous debut album, Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know is one of her great songs. It was released as a single on 22nd November, 1985, so I want to mark its fortieth anniversary. Among the iconic singles from a much-missed icon, I will explore the song a little bit for this Groovelines. Reaching number one on the U.S. chart, How Will I Know was written by George Merrill, Shannon Rubicam and Narada Michael Walden. In interviews, Whitney Houston revealed her scepticism about releasing the song as a single. How Will I Know was recorded in one take and perhaps was not seen as a natural single. In 2020, Billboard celebrated Whitney Houston's self-titled debut and gave their opinions about the tracks. This is what they said about How Will I Know:

“How Will I Know”: Where “Someone Like Me” faltered, “How Will I Know” succeeds. The spunky pop track slinks with charm as a shy Houston obsesses over how to discover if a lover shares her feelings. What makes “Know” work is, as with Houston’s other classic uptempo records, producer Narada Michael Walden‘s skill in blending a bubbly personality and the dynamic voice. It’s hardly a surprise that Walden and the songwriting team, George Merill and Shannon Rubicam, later teamed for another smash record in “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” Houston may not sing the most original lyrics here, but with every burst and run up the octave ladder, she reminds listeners, “Oh yeah, I’m the real deal.” And unlike, well, any other Houston song, “How Will I Know” is linked to its music video. That hair. That dress”.

It is interesting what Medium wrote about How Will I Know in 2017. The song was originally meant to be for Janet Jackson. Although Whitney Houston was not that eager to record the song, her mother, Cissy Houston, sang backing vocals. It is an amazing blend where mother and daughter provide this incredible energy and spirit to a dazzling and timeless song! One that I feel Houston came to peace with and performed live quite a bit. We sadly lost her in 2012, though songs like How Will I Know demonstrate why she was a seismic talent and one of the greatest artists who has ever lived:

“In 1985, George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam were signed to A & M records as the group Boy Meets Girl. Although they would have their own hit “Waiting For A Star To Fall” in 1988, their first major break came in 1985 when A & M executive John McCain sought their songwriting talent. McCain — a key player in pairing Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis — asked the duo to write a song for Jackson’s Control album.

After completing “How Will I Know” they were confident they’d written a flawless record for Jackson and were optimistic when they handed a demo recording of the song to McCain. Unfortunately, Janet and her team decided to go in a different direction. “Janet and her management passed on the song. We were pretty upset because we thought it was perfect for her at the time,” Merrill said in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.

Despite their disappointment, a second chance came when Gerry Griffith entered the picture. Griffith, who worked in the A & R department of Arista Records at the time, was searching for a hit record that fused pop and R & B together. “We had a lot of R & B-based tunes, we had a few ballads, but we didn’t have a pop crossover song, Griffith said.

As Griffith sought out potential songs for his new artist Whitney Houston, Merrill and Rubicam’s publishing company sent him “How Will I Know”. “Our publishing company played it for Gerry Griffith when he was in Los Angeles gathering material for the unknown Whitney Houston. He loved it, sent it to Clive (Davis), and Clive said, ‘We must have it,’” Rubicam told the website Songfacts.

Eager to find the right person to pair with his newfound potential hit, Griffith sought the services of super producer Narada Michael Walden, who would later produce Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”. Walden, who was hard at work on Aretha Franklin’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who? album, was hesitant to take on a project with the then unknown Houston. “I had no idea who Whitney Houston was; none of us knew who Whitney Houston was,” he later admitted to Billboard.

Despite his initial hesitation, Walden decided to give it a shot. But it wasn’t long before the song hit another snag when Merrill and Rubicam refused to let Walden make changes to their song. Frustrated by their refusal and still unsure of what a massive success Houston would become, Walden came very close to calling off the whole project. “We didn’t know Narada and we had never spoken to him before. We weren’t used to the idea of someone changing our song,” Rubicam said. “Now it’s easier to let go, but at that time it was hard to be flexible.”

“Clive Davis heard the mix and immediately proclaimed it a 10, which is outrageous for him, because he doesn’t like anything!” — Narada Michael Walden

Eventually a compromise was reached and Walden agreed to produce the song, earning himself a songwriting credit in the process. Once they were in the studio together, Walden was stunned by Houston’s efficiency. “She did ‘How Will I Know’ in one take. Maybe I’d fix one thing here and one thing there, but the majority of it is one take,” he explained to Songfacts.

Merrill and Rubicam’s friends happened to be recording Walden and Houston’s session and gave the songwriting duo a preview of the magic that was taking place over the phone. “They said, ‘Guys, you’ve got to hear this.’ They played it over the phone, and I swear, her voice, hearing the first take of ‘How Will I Know’ on the phone we knew we were on to something special, too,” Merrill recalled”.

I will wrap up soon. However, Stereogum shared their thoughts about How Will I Know for The Number Ones series. Awarding it nine out of ten, I thought it was important to source most of what they wrote, as they make some interesting observations about a huge Whitney Houston single still played frequently to this day. Insatiable and something that has not aged at all, it almost didn’t reach her. Songwriters George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam did not want to give the song to Houston a s they had not heard of her, and it seemed like a risk. The more established Janet Jackson seemed like a more natural and safer choice. She had released her debut album three years before Houston and I don’t think anyone could have sold the song like Whitney Houston. It is among the all-time great vocal performances:

“Ultimately, though, “How Will I Know” probably does a better job showing off Houston’s voice than anything else on that first album. Houston just goes off on this thing. It’s amazing to behold. Houston sells the emotion of the song, sounding like she’s utterly caught up in this dazzling, exciting, world-ending crush. She also nails every little melodic turn. Singers with Houston’s insane gifts sometimes get so caught up in their voices that they can lose the thread of the song. Houston even does that sometimes. On “How Will I Know,” though, she nails it.

But even in the context of a song as fast and bubbly as this one, you can still hear the power and control in her voice. There’s a lot of gospel in her delivery, in the unearthly joyous yelps and whoops and out-of-nowhere high notes. (There’s a whole lot of gospel in those backing vocals, too.) And while Houston never fully cuts loose on “How Will I Know,” she also keeps her abilities in full view. You can hear that voice bursting its way out of the song, ready to dive and curl and soar. The biggest note — the “how will I knoooooow” just as the sax solo kicks in — is enough to give a motherfucker goosebumps.

For the “How Will I Know” video, Houston worked with director Brian Grant, who’d already made videos for hits like M’s “Pop Muzik” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.” Grant’s “How Will I Know” video is ludicrous, with Houston roaming around a psychedelic-pastel hall of mirrors and looking genuinely taken aback everytime the ridiculous ’80s dancers pop out at her. (Arlene Phillips, a future host on various UK dance-competition shows, did the choreography.) It’s pure, overwhelming ’80s cheese, but Houston’s movie-star smile does a whole lot to make it work.

“How Will I Know” had a job to do, and it accomplished its mission. Houston had already landed her first #1 pop hit with the ballad “Saving All My Love For You,” but “How Will I Know” is her first true crossover moment — the point where it becomes obvious that she’s an unstoppable no-shit pop phenomenon. I can’t help but admire the meticulous logic of Arista’s whole project with that first Houston audience. First, they made sure R&B fans knew what Houston could do. Then, with “Saving All My Love For You,” they turned her into an adult-contempo titan. Finally, Arista made kids love Whitney Houston, too. Those kids embraced “How Will I Know,” and the track knocked “That’s What Friends Are For,” the big hit from Houston’s cousin Dionne Warwick, out of the #1 spot. (If Warwick had made “That’s What Friends Are For” six months later, Houston absolutely would’ve been on it, and the song might have been even bigger.)”.

 Whitney Houston's How Will I Know cemented her legacy as a global Pop phenomenon and, in the process, making history as the first music video by a Black female artist to receive heavy rotation on MTV. On 22nd November, this globe-straddling chart success turns forty. Perhaps the defining song from her 1985 debut album, I wanted to investigate and dive into How Will I Know. It is a song I first heard when I was a child and I have loved it ever since. One of the greatest things, the legendary Whitney Houston…

EVER recorded.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Upchuck

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Upchuck

__________

THIS is another classic example…

of a great band having a terrible name. I have highlighted a few recently, including Turnstile. However, I will focus on Upchuck and the brilliant music, rather than dwell on their name. They have released one of this year’s most remarkable albums with I’m Nice Now. I will end with a review of that album. I want to start out to getting to a few interviews with the band. Despite the fact they have been around since 2018, they are not a well-known name in the U.K. That said, they have signed to Domino and are releasing their first album through the British label. The five-piece formed in Atlanta out of the city's skateboarding and D.I.Y. scene. The group consists of vocalist Kaila ‘KT’ Thompson, guitarists Michael ‘Mikey’ Durham, Alex ‘Hoff’ Hoffman, bassist Armando Arrieta, and drummer Chris Salado. I am quite fresh to Upchuck, but there are a few radio stations here that play them. They are currently touring in the U.K., which I hope means that their music will get more exposure and discussion here. Let’s get to some interviews. CRACK featured the band in September. Among the tour dates they had lined up for the U.K. was Blackpool. A band that seem out of place there, this was an interesting discussion point. However, the band’s intensely energetic, raw, and aggressive performances are resonating with people around the world. They are a band that people want and need to hear. Especially at such divided and horrible times like this:

“Upchuck bonded over their mutual love of skate culture and working the same part-time jobs before starting the band in 2018, with Thompson and Hoff both working at Tabernacle – a downtown Atlanta concert hall she jokingly describes as “for real artists”. Since tearing through Atlanta’s hardcore scene, they’ve shared stages with everyone from UK anarcho-punks Subhumans to garage-punk heavyweights Amyl and the Sniffers and Ty Segall.

The band have since racked up a catalogue of crazy tour stories in addition to the trolley incident, and Salado is happy to add to their lore, recalling a memorable exchange with Amy Taylor. “I was bitten at a gig and she said, ‘Dude. Please, go get a tetanus shot,’” Salado laughs, without confirming if he actually did. Disarmingly lovable, Salado quickly identifies himself as the one who keeps the group from taking itself too seriously. When asked who’s most likely to get arrested on tour, Thompson giggles and says: “Oh, definitely one of us,” nodding towards Salado and herself. As the two trade theories about what they’d be locked up for, the rest of the band sprawl out with greasy rider pizza, occasionally listening in and squeezing past to use the bathroom in the cramped green room.

Upchuck found a devoted cult following with their first two albums, Sense Yourself and 2023’s Bite the Hand That Feeds, even catching the attention of no-fucks-given rock royalty Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins on their radio shows. Now, the five-piece return with I’m Nice Now, their debut release with Domino. Pushing into new territory while keeping the raw urgency that propelled their earlier work, the result is nastier, filthier and, at times, unexpectedly groovy.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lilah Culliford

Upchuck’s politics are something they refuse to dilute or compromise, even as their audience grows. Drawing on Thompson’s lived experience as a Black woman and Salado’s as a Latin American, they use their time on stage, between crushing guitar onslaughts, to condemn the systems of oppression. This need to raise awareness was thrown into sharp relief after an incident that took place shortly after shooting the video for Plastic in their home city. In the video, Salado cruises through the streets in a lowrider like an already-made-it rock star, screaming headfirst into the camera. But a day after they wrapped, the scene quickly changed. “ICE pulled up in Sandy Springs, where the day labourers wait for work,” Salado says, his voice dropping heavily. “They took like ten people. No warrants, no proof. Just because they spoke Spanish or looked Hispanic. Some of them were even US citizens. This is what is happening.”

Unsurprisingly, much of I’m Nice Now grapples with Upchuck’s frustration over Trump’s second term and the fractured, volatile climate that has settled across America. But also, the record allows a space for Thompson to be vulnerable. She turns the lens inwards on Forgotten Token, softly describing her place in the world as a woman of colour. “The song is about being Black, and how people value your worth. Being Black can dictate how people perceive you or how they understand your talents”.

In this interview with Loud Women, Upchuck revealed how U.K. audiences are even rowdier than U.S. ones. Whilst American audiences I feel will always be louder and more exaggerated, it seems like we channel something else. A certain sense of chaos that you do not get in the U.S. No wonder that Upchuck are touring and loving it here. Let’s hope they come back to the U.K. next year and play another run of dates:

“I’ve heard you say previously that the Atlanta’s DIY scene is kind of a bit of a melting pot of punk bands and rappers and indie kids all colliding. Do you think that kind of cross pollination is part of the reason why Upchuck sounds the way it does?

Oh, for sure. I think, yeah, that’s the epitome of why we were even able to meet each other.

How did you come together then?

So, Mikey [guitarist Michael Durham] and Chris [drummer Chris Salado] were the first ones to start it. They, like, work together, in something like construction, okay? And I think Hoff [guitarist Alex Hoffman] ended up going with them and the bassist [Ausar Ward] as well. And I was working with the bassist, and he was like, ‘hey, I’m in this band, and we’re looking for a singer, like, if you want to, like, come check it out and try it out!’ And so I went over to Mikey’s, and I just seen, like, these men sitting on the couch, and they’re, like, writing lyrics. And I’m like, ‘Whoa, what?!’ Didn’t know it was going to be like this! But kind of once I recorded my part, I think, like, it all just kind of clicked for everyone. And we were like, man, okay, I think we should take this seriously.

So the album! I thought there’s punk and also a kind of a 90s grungy sound to the album. Were you deliberately drawing from different influences?

We were speaking to another interviewer the other day, and we were asked questions about, like, our writing process, and more and more I was like, ‘Wait, we’re kind of mad chaotic!’ Because there really is, like, no thought process behind it. It’s kind of just like a practice session, and it just gets created and made. We all just come together and sync up on that right there. But I think whatever is going on, like, instrumentation wise, when it comes to the to the boys, because I just play whatever they write. But when it comes to my writing, I’m just writing about whatever is literally happening in real time, or what I’ve dealt with in that process of writing. You could see the different levels of growth within that process, yeah.

And, wow, ‘Tired’ as the as the opener – it’s quite a ferocious way to open an album!

I think it’s, it has to do with, like, even the whole ‘I’m nice now’ concept. It’s upsetting. I’m kind of getting over yelling the same shit over and over again, preaching the same lesson, shit not changing, and watching real time shit get worse. The way that they have things set up over here in the States is just back-to-back-to-back bullshit, to break you down, and keep you weak, keep you defeated. But, at the end of the day, I’m tired of these tactics. I’m tired of these games. I’m tired of this ongoing and forever. It seems like the troubles never end”.

Prior to getting to Kerrang! and their review of I’m Nice Now, there is an interview with Femme Metal Magazine that I found interesting and had some good exchanges. Kaila ‘KT’ Thompson was questioned. I think there is a lot of love from a lot of the press. With every tour date and release comes this real sense that Upchuck are going to be massive. You can tell they are going to be remembered and talked about decades from now! So clear is that potential, you really need to follow Upchuck:

“The new album of Upchuck – I’m Nice Now

I know that I’m Nice Now is to be released via Domino Records on October 3rd. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the album’s general production and conception—when you started to collect the first ideas for it.

Actually, I would say it’s about a level of preservation. There’s so much shit being thrown at us constantly. I feel like there isn’t a day when something is going to shit, and that’s meant to break us down and make us feel defeated. I think that’s why the title is important; I’m trying to preserve myself to continue to deal with this day-to-day shit.

Upchuck debuts with Domino Records

“I’m Nice Now” also marks your debut with Domino Records. I wanted to ask how Upchuck came in contact with them and how the new collaboration adventure is treating you so far.

Our manager, Cyrus, was the main person behind this. We were with him on his old record label, but he had worked for Domino Publishing. We were talking about how sick it would be to be on Domino Records’s roster.

He did it, and Lawrence came to see our worst show. The sound man came up to us right before we went on, and the show sounded like shit. It’s funny, but they gave us a chance and saw us in Florida. It’s been sick; everyone comes to our shows and helps us out with logistics and everything. I feel like that’s a crazy weight lifted. I know it’s new for us, but I don’t feel overwhelmed”.

I am finishing up with that review from Kerrang!. James Hingle provided his assessment of perhaps the most angered, direct and powerful album of the year. One from a band who have released three albums so far, but you feel like their best is still ahead. Getting stronger with every album. The more they perform, the more they hone their skills and strengthen as a force. The Atlanta band can look back proudly at everything they have achieved this year:

“Atlanta punks Upchuck don’t just play songs: they spit venom, grind teeth and slam their fists against the rotting walls of America. On their third album, I’m Nice Now, the band sound like they’ve swallowed every injustice and vomited it back as pure punk fury. They take on the subjects of racism, sexism, classism and the whole ugly scaffolding of modern-day oppression and use their anger to add more fuel to their already fired-up punk sensibilities.

Opener Tired is an unflinching rallying cry. It’s the exhaustion of existing in a society built to grind you down, flipped into a giant middle finger at the powers that have constructed the foundations we’re expected to adhere to. Vocalist Kaila ‘KT’ Thompson doesn’t just carry rage in her voice, she embodies it with her sharp, ragged, human tones. And when drummer/vocalist Chris Salado jumps to the mic for Homenaje and Un Momento, singing in Spanish, it feels like a cultural reclamation, showing punk’s snarling edge to use their music for a greater good. These tracks are anthemic, if doused in a distorted barrage of punk aggression.

It’s Forgotten Token that cuts deepest. Written in the aftermath of KT’s sister’s death, it’s a gut-punch meditation on grief, commodification, and how people are devalued both in life and in death. Amid the band’s explosive noise, it feels like the record’s bleeding heart.

Ty Segall’s production keeps everything raw, live-to-tape and bristling with danger. Slow Down drips with 1970s Stooges grime, dragging you through sleaze and smoke, before closer Nowhere detonates in one last storm of serrated guitars, which acts as a final, furious fuck-you aimed squarely at a crooked system.

This is punk as it was always meant to be: loud, ugly, righteous and alive. I’m Nice Now isn’t just an album, it’s a survival tactic, a soundtrack to resistance in a country still burning”.

Go and show love and support for Upchuck. Currently performing in the U.K., they head to Europe from 11th November and have a date in Australia and one in New Zealand next year. It must be exhausting being on the road and delivering such incendiary sets. However, the energy they get from the crowds must give them that push! With all they have done this year, they have deserved a rest, and I hope Upchuck get to wrap up the year at home. For anyone who has not discovered the brilliance of Upchuck, go and listen to the five-piece…

AS soon as you can.

____________

Follow Upchuck

FEATURE: The Empty Bullring: Where Do New Discovers of Kate Bush Begin?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Empty Bullring

 

Where Do New Discovers of Kate Bush Begin?

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THIS feature will also double up…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993

as a Christmas gift guide. I have written before how Kate Bush has a generation of new fans. Not only does she have a wave of new young listeners. There are people of all ages that have found her work through the past few years. Given how we might not know whether a new album will arrive next year, there might be a bit of a wait for the next chapter. How she follows 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. In the meantime, how do you engage fans who are finding an artist who has not released new music in fourteen years? I will start out with the gift side of things. Obviously, there is Kate Bush’s Shop on her website, and you can find reissues of her studio albums. If you only know her for a few songs and do not have too much content, then it can be hard to navigate and decide what to buy. In terms of merchandise, you will buy only what you think you need, though the Hounds of Love T-shirts are a good starting point. An item that is popular with fans and concerns her best-known and popular album. When it comes to the remastered albums, that is really down to you. I would say to go and stream her albums. Many might go for Hounds of Love, but I would say a good starting point is her earlier albums. Invest in one of those on vinyl and then you can work from there. Whether that is her debut, 1978’s The Kick Inside, or you jump to 1980’s Never for Ever (her third album), you will get a sense of where she came from. This year has seen big anniversaries for Hounds of Love (forty) and Aerial (twenty). Kate Bush has not given any interviews this year, though she did speak with Emma Barnett late last year and opened up the possibilities of new work. In terms of the choice of interviews and what best to listen to, there is so much out there. I would spend time on YouTube and type in ‘Kate Bush interview’ and work your way through. However, that 2024 interview is wonderful.

A lot of new fans might not have heard Kate Bush speak. Their frame of reference might be 1985 and Hounds of Love. Hearing the modern-day Kate Bush in her sixties provides new context and avenues. How she speaks now and where she is in life. It may be jarring to jump between time periods regarding interviews. Whilst you cannot cover them all, again, go back to her earliest chats. 1978-1980 provides these fascinating glimpse into a young artist who was having to navigate the industry and was facing discrimination, sexism and often mockery. The way she composes herself and how professional she is. Viewing these interviews is free, so you can spend a lot of time doing that. I will return to this later. Continuing the buying guide, I will finish with five books that I feel are essential. You probably won’t be able to afford all of them in one go, so I would say start with Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 book about Hounds of Love is an essential guide and dissection of Kate Bush’s biggest and most successful album. I would also say go and get Tom Doyle’s Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. Both  biographers take different approaches, and you will get a complete portrait of Kate Bush reading both. Also go and get Homeground: The Kate Bush Magazine: Anthology Two: The Red Shoes to 50 Words for Snow. You could also get the first volume but, if you invest in one, maybe bringing things more up to date is best. A photobook that was compiled by her brother, John Carder Bush, KATE: Inside the Rainbow. There are other books I could recommend but, as a stating point, I think this is a good place to start. I have highlighted these books many times, but I stand by that, as they are well worth getting and tell you so much about Kate Bush.

With text, photos and music are your disposal, you can begin your Kate Bush experience. Going beyond Hounds of Love and what most people focus on, you will get a broader understanding of her and her music. However, there are also essential fan sites like Gaffaweb, Kate Bush News and the Kate Bush Encyclopedia. Again, I have highlighted all of this before. I realise that every fan will be different. In terms of what they are looking for and their budget. I would say buying merchandise and books is not the most important thing. Invest in a biography if you want to get a book, and you will get a great overview and impression of Kate Bush. Learning quite a lot. Not every album will appeal to you, so do a bit of research first. Read reviews of her studio albums and listen to a few of the songs from each on YouTube. Then, you will be in a better place to decide what is right. I have said how going back to the start is best, though there is nothing wrong with starting with The Sensual World (1989) or The Red Shoes (1993). There are a lot of resources out there. Archive interviews, features and discussion pieces. Reading as much as this is a great way of getting to the heart of Kate Bush. Utilising a site such as YouTube. Whilst you wait for your book to arrive and maybe have decided which album to buy, check out the archives. You won’t manage everything, but spending a week or so dipping into interviews, live performances and other Kate Bush stuff is a real treat. It can all seem a bit daunting but, if you get into this routine of looking at a few videos a week or so, over time, you get this build. Create playlist on YouTube and add videos to them. If you are on Apple, you can buy songs and albums there, so you can have this digital library too.

Connected to this, I have been thinking about how there are a lot of new Kate Bush fans. There is nothing really that connects them. We are on social media, though you are not seeing or talking to each other. Other artists and bands have fan websites and they have conventions. There will be forums they can go to and interact. Listening parties of their albums. Not much like that for Kate Bush and her fan community. 2026 might be a year when we need to unite existing and new Kate Bush fans. Whether that is a digital fanclub organising a big convention or event where we can all get together, or some album streaming parties, I do think that the time is now. How Kate Bush is writing and planning new music, a perfect moment for the fans to get together. There are also some brilliant Kate Bush tribute acts like An Evening Without Kate Bush that I would suggest seeing, as it is a great night out! Fan websites like Kate Bush News and Kate Bush Community. Also check out the Kate Bush Fan Podcast. If you are on social media, seek out fellow Kate Bush fans and connect with them. Next year is going to be an interesting one. In terms of whether there will be an album anniversary or not. It is a moment when her fanbase is growing so much. I wonder whether we will get any new books or what might be offered up. If you are fresh to Kate Bush and need some guidance and steer, I hope what I have shared is a good starting point. Let’s hope that there is something launched that unites fans and we can all get together. I have pitched an event where people can discuss Kate Bush and there can be talks, interviews and pieces read. A convention where her work is discussed by different people through writing and videos/podcasts. That would be fascinating. It is great to welcome new fans to Kate Bush. It is thew greatest experience with an artist…

YOU will ever have!

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Scene One: Modern Love: Frances Ha (2013)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

 

Scene One: Modern Love: Frances Ha (2013)

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 I am not sure…

whether this new series has legs, though I am really interested in exploring some great film scores and soundtracks. I guess we have to differentiate between the two. The soundtrack is the songs that appear in films. Most films take older songs and combine them, though some do have original tracks. The score is more the non-vocal music, whether it is Classical or another genre. Songs can be diegetic – you hear them played in a scene by a character(s) – or they appear over the top of a scene. When the music is released to buy on vinyl or C.D., normally the score and songs will feature as one, though some films that have a score and soundtrack separate them. I am going to look at some great and classic examples of great scores and or soundtracks. I don’t think there are as many genuinely standout ‘needle drop’ moments in modern cinema (though many would challenge me on that). That is when filmmakers use a pre-existing song to underscore a scene and, more importantly, to emphasise it. I am partly inspired by Mark Kermode’s must-read and excellent book, Mark Kermode's Surround Sound: The Stories of Movie Music:

“How can a film score make you cheer, shiver, cry or punch the air?
How do directors communicate their musical vision to composers?
And when does a soundtrack take on a life of its own?

In Mark Kermode's Surround Sound the award-winning film critic, together with radio producer Jenny Nelson, embarks on a full-throttle trip down the glorious rabbit hole of film composition.

Celebrating the emotional connection that audiences form with film music, exploring the evolution of film scoring from silent films to the present day, and examining how what we hear has an impact on what we see, Mark talks to some of his favourite composers and delves into the movie music he loves”.

Maybe it is subjective, but there is something about a genuinely wonderful film score and soundtrack that stays with you. Some are undeniable classics, whereas others may be less obvious. I am starting out by covering the soundtrack of my all-time favourite film first, as it is notable because of its effective use of music. Frances Ha was premiered in 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it came out in the U.S. and U.K. in 2013. You can watch on Amazon Video, BFI Player or Apple TV+. The film employs some recognisable contemporary songs – well, it does have its heart in the 1970s and 1980s, so they are fairly old I guess -, but there is also this use of lesser-known French Classical music from earlier in the century. Directed by Noah Baumbach and co-written with its star, Greta Gerwig, the film centres around the semi-eponymous heroine, a twenty-seven-year-old dancer in New York, and her navigating life. When her best friend Sophie Levee moves out, Frances is left to fend for herself. She experiences new adventures in the city, where she also finds love and makes a decent living.

I have written about the film before and how it struck me. Almost identifying with Greta Gerwig’s heroine and that quest and struggle to find your feet and place. Maybe not as grown-up or far ahead as you should be. It is such a charming film where you root for Frances and are on her side, though you have to question whether this is someone you should always be rooting for, considering some of her actions and decisions. The chemistry between its leads, Greta Gerwig and Mickey Sumner (who plays Sophie Levee), is incredible. Also in the main cast are Michael Zegen (Benji), Adam Driver (Lev Shapiro), Grace Gummer (Rachel) and Charlotte d'Amboise (Colleen). Shot in black-and-white and filmed on-the-fly and covertly and quickly – owing to a restricted budget and not having permission to film through a lot of New York -, it has this immediacy to it. However, it feels like a film you can sit with and absorb. There is plenty of precision and scenes that took multiple takes to get down. Testament to the direction of Noah Baumbach and the writing of Baumbach and Gerwig that there is a seamless marriage of the loose and honed. I said Greta Gerwig played the semi-eponymous heroine, as the film is named Frances Ha, because her surname is Halladay. I have seen reviews misspell and get her surname wrong for some reason (which makes you wonder if they made it to the end of the film or just have poor eyesight). It is even wrong on Amazon Video!. At the end of the film, when Frances gets her own place and is preparing a strip of paper/card to go in the mail cubby/compartment alongside the other residents, her full name does not fit in the small slot. So she folds the paper and it spells out ‘Frances Ha’.

IMAGE CREDIT: Mondoshop

I will talk about the film more generally in the future. However, its use of popular music and instrumentals/score is wonderful! Perhaps the most notable needle drop moment is a scene where the camera finds and catches up to Frances as she dances and runs through the streets of New York (Chinatown, to be more precise) to David Bowie’s Modern Love (taken from his 1983 album, Let’s Dance). Gerwig revealed how Modern Love fitted into Frances Ha: “Great pop music, when it’s over, you just want to play the song again right away,” says Gerwig. “We talked about wanting the movie to feel like a pop song. When it’s over, there’s a feeling of, “Put it on again”. I would love to get a complete soundtrack and score from this film. There is a selection of songs from the film available on a U.S. website. I am desperate to see this soundtrack expanded and reissued on Neon Pink vinyl and available to buy in the U.K., as the music is one of the big reasons why Frances Ha is such an affecting and mesmeric film! The reason for shooting it in black-and-white, as Noah Baumbach explained, was to make it this instant classic. How there was nostalgia to a film set in modern times. Frances Ha was released to theatres in 2013, though it is a film that seems like it could have been set in the 1960s or 1970s. The soundtrack, I feel, features popular music from this time as I feel that is where its heart is. Also, the use of New Wave compositions by composers like Georges Delerue and Jean Constantin is wonderous. The film does take us to Paris near the end – Frances goes there for only a couple of days or so and really doesn’t do much (she takes sleeping pills and oversleeps, fails to meet up with friends for dinner after they picked up her voice messages late, and the wasted trip lands her in debt) -, but you don’t know that at the start of the film. In some ways you do get this mix of modern-day U.S. cinema and 1960s and 1970s New Wave French cinema.

The loveable-but-flawed Frances and her friendship with Sophie is the core of the film. Sophie moving on and getting engaged/married to Patch (he is a character that Frances never really gels with and wonders why Sophie is with him) and has a publishing job – she briefly moves to Japan with Patch -, whilst Frances is an apprentice at a dance company and is over-dependant on her friend. It is almost like this childhood friendship and, when one of them moves and sees goes away, there is this jealously and anger. However, Frances has a good heart and loves her friend! The music beautifully scores the film and heightens the scenes. The New Wave pieces are simultaneously sweeping, quirky and exciting. I had never heard of these French composers before. The use of Hot Chocolate’s Every 1’s a Winner during the sojourn to Paris is inspired. I wonder why that particular song was selected. Maybe it is irony. How Frances is losing out and failing. That comedic edge that you get through repetition of the chorus! Paul McCartney’s Blue Sway (a song that was not included on his 1980 album, McCartney II for some reason) is a gorgeous deep cut used to brilliant effect in the background in Lev and Benji’s apartment when Frances is there. She is asked to give them a dance move, to which she reluctantly agrees. Chrome Sitar from T. Rex this brilliant needle drop following a funny scene where Dan (France’s boyfriend) tries to get her to move in but she cannot, as she was supposed to renew her lease with Sophie. The scene ends on a comedic note and we cut to Frances entering a party with a bottle of beer as Chrome Sitar plays. Whereas a lot of filmmakers go for bigger and more obvious songs, it is this decision to go with slightly less obvious choices from well-known artists that makes the soundtrack so nuanced and fascinating. Maybe that was a budgetary thing and they could not get permission or afford other tracks. However, Modern Love and its use during that iconic scene is a standout. This quarter-life crisis that Frances is facing. How she seems to wander and can’t seem to commit or find her way. The soundtrack and score could have been too offbeat, jarring, maudlin or quirky. Instead, we get this perfect blend of dynamics and emotions. The music, whilst occasionally diegetic – that scene at the apartment (where Blue Sway plays), the party directly after the breakup, and Frances premiering her own production/performance piece near the end are examples -, is mostly played like a score. It is used over scenes and is never intrusive or misplaced. Everything beautifully selected.

When Frances runs to an ATM to get some cash during a dinner with Lev; a moment when she and Sophie are sharing lunch together and you get a swell of Stanislas et Camille by Hugh Wolff & London Sinfonietta. This feature from 2022 marked ten years of the first collaboration between Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (they are married and have been working together on and off ever since; the most recent time being for 2023’s Barbie). Essentially a series of vignettes, I have highlighted sections of the feature that discusses how the music is used to great effect throughout Frances Ha:

“Both Gerwig and director Noah Baumbach aspired to make the film feel loose and unchoreographed, while having each scene be the opposite – choreographed to the finest detail. Some scenes would need 40 takes before they were finished, with Baumbach suggesting that often their attempt to get “many pages to work in one shot” may have resulted in perfectionism coming into play.

The film’s soundtrack follows her movements too, as she traipses from New York to Paris. In New York, strings and piano accompany Frances’ life, the lightness of the instrumentals perfectly suiting a character living in her own world. While in Paris, Hot Chocolate’s ‘Every 1’s A Winner’ gnaws at her, playing over an extended montage of her making her way through the city and amplifying the dissonance between her perception of the world and reality. The music choices represent a daydream-like fantasy that is on the verge of collapse.

Teased by Sophie for never being able to account for her bruises, Frances is clumsy yet charming.Though in a sense a romcom, the romantic treatment that the film gets does not result in the traditional outcome that audience members expect from the trope. There is no love interest who sweeps her off her feet, nor is there a sudden change in context where she’s met fulfilled dreams. Acknowledging it’s more common to compromise happiness to realise one’s dreams than to compromise dreams to be happy, the film navigates the lens of romance through a discovery of new dreams.

The dialogue alone is reason enough to watch the film. Written with a wispy sense of humour, scenes like Frances offering to shout her friend Lev dinner after receiving an unexpected tax refund are delectable. “I’m so embarrassed, I’m not a real person yet,” Frances tells Lev, after finding out the restaurant they’re at only takes cash or credit – both of which she lacks. She proceeds to run outside the neighbourhood, trying to find an ATM to save face, all the while being accompanied by Jean Constantin’s ‘L’Ecole Buissonnière’ . This song first played in the soundtrack of Les quatre cents coups (1959), a coming of age film that defined the New Wave cinema movement. Deftly borrowed by Baumbach for this sequence, the music pays homage to this era with utmost sincerity.

Homage is further paid to French New Wave through the black and white presentation of the film, as well as the use of soundscapes from older films to echo the melancholy of losing friendships and youth. Contrasting that aspect of the film is the costume design, which largely celebrates and mirrors youth. Sprightly optimism is expressed through white and polka dots, while signs of maturity are donned in darker tones like black jackets and solid-coloured dresses.

The film is polished and pristine, strung in a patchwork of episodeswith the utmost of care. In its style and construction, every beat in every sequence is lined with the spirit of youth and sells moments of joy and connection authentically. Baumbach and co-writer/lead actress Gerwig ended up falling in love with one another on set, which is both a beautiful sentiment in and of itself as well as a testament to the tenderness and affection that eminates from the film.

In an interview with the Criterion Collection, Baumbach stated, “I think intuitively with the black and white and the music, I had this feeling that we would kind of celebrate the kind of romance and the energy and the spirit of New York City and being young, and how good that can feel.” This film paints the human experience in an offbeat fashion and deserves many replays in 2022. Exhibiting the comfort of a ‘wrapped-under-blankets’ movie, Frances Ha is a hopeful story for those who may feel like they’re drifting through life, without an anchor. It’s a reminder to not take things too seriously and that there is charm in the unknown”.

I will wrap in a minute. There is not as much as there should be written about a truly great soundtrack. This feature from 2017 is interesting and insightful. One of the big reason why Frances Ha is my favourite film is because of the music. How it used to heighten scenes, add comedy, romance and pathos. How you get a perfect blend of genres and moods that score emotions and internal monologues. It would be tantalising to think about a follow-up to the film and see where as the characters ended up:

“Music is an integral part of creating her internal fantasy. The twinkling, carefree instrumentals provide the lens with which we experience Frances’s world - or at least a more gilded version of how she envisions herself living in it. In tandem with the film’s precise editing and Greta Gerwig’s tremendous performance, the music choices make her everyday life a daydream that’s headed towards an inevitable collapse.

Haven't we all wanted this version of friendship, this kind of youth? Where even the inconveniences or struggles are charming? It’s an illusion we can be sink into, but never trust as a true depiction of her full reality. When music does exists in Ha’s real world, it’s either unheard (“aren’t these headphones the tits?”) or pale, like the hometown church service.

But that optimism runs out to hilarious effect as Hot Chocolate’s “Every 1’s A Winner” haunts Frances’s misguided trip to Paris. Baumbach would later use the same band to explore the delusion of another Gerwigian New Yorker in Mistress America, but here it's sequence specific. Like the rest of the film’s musical fantasy, this song sounds exactly like what we imagine from a spontaneous jaunt to Paris: glamorous fun in a blur of sexiness. The song stops and starts over the extended montage, as if Frances is listening to it on repeat in some effort to lift her mood.

Except each time it plays it only highlights to increasing distance between her rose-colored glasses and her depressive reality. The title alone is giddy in taunting Frances at her lowest, an added insult that we dance along as her isolation deepens. “Everyone’s a winner, baby, that’s the truth” - except for her. Frances Ha gets labeled as Baumbach’s sweetest film, but this sequence is as acerbic as he’s ever been.

It’s a long way off from how Baumbach employs David Bowie’s “Modern Love”, a disco musing on restless unintended stagnation in its own right:

There’s no sign of life
It’s just the power to charm
I’m lying in the rain
But I never wave bye-bye
But I try, I try

Like Frances’s failures, it should be depressing but its affectation of feeling is too convincing. It’s an exacting song choice because Bowie just wants us to dance along and Frances just wants to dance, literally and metaphorically. Plus, it’s a banger that can’t be denied - you should want to relent to the feeling here, and “Modern Love” demands you to move. That iconography of a twirling, leaping Gerwig hurtling herself through the New York City streets (minus any oncoming traffic) is as pure a distillation of feeling like you can overtake the world as your heart can handle. Of course, the real world crashes the party.

And she tries, she tries. When the song returns over the closing credits, it’s after another brisk bit of montage showing that she’s gotten her shit together. What’s doubly meaningful in the film’s reusing of the same music when Frances goes from mess to stable is how it tells us we don’t have to sacrifice our core self in order to grow up. The Frances that was led solely by the best version of her life can be equally as alive and sunnily disposed by the realest version too. And perhaps it’s more special because the real is much simpler”.

I would urge anyone who has not seen Frances Ha to view it. A million miles away from what Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach would do with the huge-budget Barbie, this 2013-released slice of gold has this modesty and Indie feel. Beautifully written, acted and directed, I think it is topped off with a brilliant soundtrack. For further reading and insight, check out reviews of Frances Ha from The Guardian, Cinema from the Spectrum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Empire, BFI, and The New Republic. I think the soundtrack deserves its own reviews! These wonderful and interesting French New Wave pieces together with some well-placed and selected Pop tracks. One of these lost classics, I hope that a Neon Pink version of this soundtrack is reissued on vinyl. It would be a perfect way to introduce new fans to the glorious music…

FEATURED in Frances Ha.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection

__________

 I was keen to include…

PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Anderson

Joan Armatrading’s Love and Affection in this Groovelines as its author turns seventy-five on 9th December. Appearing on her 1976 eponymous album, I think that this is the song that people associate with Armatrading above all others. The iconic and legendary songwriter has written more than her fair share of timeless songs. However, there is something especially stirring and important about Love and Affection. One of the all-time great songs, in honour of the upcoming seventy-fifth birthday of Joan Armatrading, I want to spend some time with her masterpiece from 1976. There are a couple of interviews/features I want to introduce. However, last year, The Guardian spoke with Joan Armatrading and took questions from their readers. A couple related to Love and Affection:

“What are your memories of your legendary performances on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test? VerulamiumParkRanger

I remember being very nervous – I’m always nervous! – and it would have been one of the first times people would have seen me playing on television. Before that, John Peel would play me and he would come to the sessions, so people had an inkling of me, but you wonder: “What will people think?” I remember meeting [presenter] Bob Harris – his big smiley face hasn’t changed. I introduced Love and Affection by saying “Track four, album three, side one, Joan Armatrading”, because I tend to do stuff like that.

How did Lester Freamon from The Wire (actor Clarke Peters) come to sing the deep baritone vocals on Love and Affection? GaryDonner

His name was Pete Clarke then but he had to change it because in [actors’ union] Equity there was another Pete Clarke. We were both in [rock musical] Hair so I knew him, and when I wrote Love and Affection I wanted a bass voice. Pete wasn’t a session singer but not many people can sing that low, so he also did the bass voice on another song of mine, Opportunity”.

There may be some overlap in terms of information and details about the song. However, I wanted to bring in this PRS for Music interview from back in 2011. Joan Armatrading discussing the recording of and legacy of Love and Affection. A song that I know she has performed a lot live, it has been covered by other artists. Reaching ten on the U.K. chart, this song has been covered by, among others, Sheena Easton, Sly Stone and Martha Davis, Courtney Pine, and Kele le Roc:

“Love and Affection was Joan Armatrading’s first chart success. Released in 1976, it reached number 10 in the UK charts and has since been covered by Sheena Easton, Sly Stone and Martha Davis, Courtney Pine and Kele le Roc.

M spoke to the Ivor and Gold Badge award winner to find out how she wrote her most enduring ballad.

M: Do you remember where and when the song came to you?

Well, it came out in 1976, and I wrote it in 1975. Such a long time ago!

M: What first triggered you to write the song?

So far I’ve never told anyone, but it’s obvious in terms of its opening line, ‘I’m not in love, but I’m open to persuasion’. It’s really a song about love and friendship and about not being fickle. There’s a line in there that says, ‘I’ve got all the friends that I want, I may need more, but I’ll stick to the ones I’ve got’. Sometimes people get caught up thinking that having lots of friends means they’ve got lots of acquaintances, instead of just a handful of people that they are close to. It’s pretty important and special to have close friends, because you know if anything happens, or you are really down on your luck, there are people there to help you. That’s really what the song is about.

M: Was it a lyric, melody or something else that first popped into your head?

It’s actually two songs that I put together. I can’t remember exactly what started it all off because I don’t have a definite way of writing. I don’t write words first, or music first. Sometimes a verse will trigger me off, sometimes it's music and words together. Sometimes everything comes from a guitar I’ve picked up, and sometimes I go to the piano. Love and Affection came from my 12-string guitar. It started and ended with that guitar, it didn’t migrate onto anything else.

How did you develop the song from those two original ideas?

There is one part of Love and Affection that is the dominant bit, but I used a part from another song near the end. If you have something like that and you put things together, you really don’t want to be thinking in terms of two separate songs or it won’t work. For me, it had to quickly become one song. I don’t even remember how much of the second song went now.

M: When and where did you first record it?

I recorded it at Olympic Studios in London. I wrote it in 1975, and when I was touring that year I sang it on stage. I had it all worked out before I recorded it. I had all the parts ready, and knew what I wanted. Glyn Johns was the producer, but even when I have a producer I’m very much involved with what’s going on with the song. I write in a range. I think about what’s going to be in the song and tend to think about the whole of it as opposed to parts.

M: So did you record it all at home first?

Absolutely. I’ve always had a tape recorder at home. I started out with just a cassette, then I got a two-track, followed by a four-track, eight-track, 16-track. Right from the beginning I’ve always demo-ed everything myself and played everything myself. So with Love and Affection it was a case of layering stuff up at home. For my last four albums I’ve recorded and played everything myself; it’s just an extension of what I’ve always done. But instead of doing it on analogue tape I do it on a computer now, with Logic.

M: The song is still really popular today. Why do you think it has resonated with so many people?

Whatever answer I give won’t be the right one! I suppose you have to go and ask all those people what it is. They’ll all come up with something different, but one thing I think they might have in common is a connection to the opening line. People can relate to that. It’s such an opener for people to think about their own situation. If they are in love, at some point they weren’t in love. That can strike a chord. Then I think they like that big voice that comes in and they like the 12-string guitar. It’s got a few things going for it that really work with people”.

Let’s wrap up with Capitol FM and their feature around Love and Affection. This is a song that captivated the world. I hear it played frequently and widely to this day. A song that it is impossible not to be spellbound by, her eponymous album of 1976 is also a masterpiece. One of the greats. Go and listen to if you have not done so before:

“In 1976, Joan Armatrading released one of her most iconic songs, “Love and Affection.” This track, which became a hit worldwide, showcased her unique talent and cemented her place in music history.

Joan Armatrading’s “Love and Affection” remains a timeless global hit with universal appeal.

To understand the success of “Love and Affection,” it’s essential to delve into the song’s composition, its performance on global charts, and Joan Armatrading’s illustrious career before and after its release.

Composition of “Love and Affection”

“Love and Affection” is a soulful ballad that stands out for its heartfelt lyrics, rich melody, and Armatrading’s distinctive vocal delivery.

The song features a blend of folk, jazz, and pop elements, making it a timeless piece that resonates with listeners across generations.

The composition is characterized by its gentle acoustic guitar intro, smooth saxophone solos, and a powerful yet tender vocal performance by Armatrading. The lyrics speak to the complexities of love and the yearning for emotional connection, themes that are universally relatable.

Success in the UK

Upon its release, “Love and Affection” quickly climbed the UK charts, peaking at number 10. This success marked a significant milestone in Armatrading’s career, as it was her first top 10 hit in the UK.

The song’s popularity was bolstered by frequent radio play and television appearances, which helped introduce Armatrading’s music to a broader audience.

The track’s success in the UK was a testament to its wide appeal and the emotional depth of Armatrading’s songwriting.

Impact in the US and Europe

While “Love and Affection” did not achieve the same level of commercial success in the US as it did in the UK, it still managed to capture the attention of American audiences.

The song received considerable airplay on adult contemporary and soft rock radio stations, allowing Armatrading to build a dedicated fan base in the United States.

In Europe, the track was particularly well-received in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, where Armatrading’s blend of musical styles resonated with diverse audiences.

Reception in Asia and Australia

In Asia, “Love and Affection” garnered a niche following, especially in Japan, where Armatrading’s music was appreciated for its lyrical depth and unique sound.

The song also found success in Australia, where it was played on various radio stations, ranging from pop to adult contemporary formats.

The track’s universal themes and Armatrading’s soulful delivery helped it transcend cultural barriers and find an audience in these regions.

Joan Armatrading’s Career Before and After “Love and Affection”

Before the release of “Love and Affection,” Joan Armatrading had already established herself as a talented singer-songwriter with a distinctive voice.

Born in 1950 in Basseterre, Saint Kitts, and raised in Birmingham, England, Armatrading began her musical journey in the early 1970s. Her debut album, “Whatever’s for Us,” released in 1972, showcased her unique blend of folk, jazz, and pop influences.

However, it was her self-titled third album, released in 1976, that featured “Love and Affection” and catapulted her to international fame.

Following the success of “Love and Affection,” Armatrading continued to produce critically acclaimed albums throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. Tracks like “Willow,” “Drop the Pilot,” and “Me Myself I” further solidified her reputation as a versatile and emotive songwriter.

Armatrading’s ability to convey deep emotions through her music earned her a loyal fan base and critical acclaim.

In the decades that followed, Armatrading’s career continued to flourish. She experimented with different musical styles, from rock and blues to jazz and classical, showcasing her versatility and enduring talent.

Her extensive discography and continued relevance in the music industry have made her a respected figure and a trailblazer for female singer-songwriters.

Radio Play and Enduring Appeal

“Love and Affection” remains a staple on various radio formats, including adult contemporary, soft rock, and oldies stations. Its timeless quality and emotional resonance ensure that it continues to be played and appreciated by new generations of listeners. The song’s enduring appeal lies in its beautiful composition, relatable lyrics, and Armatrading’s powerful vocal performance.

In concerts, “Love and Affection” often serves as a highlight, drawing enthusiastic responses from audiences.

Joan Armatrading’s live performances of the song are noted for their emotional intensity and connection with the audience, further cementing the track’s status as a classic”.

I shall end here. Because the phenomenal Joan Armatrading turns seventy-five on 9th December, it provided this opportunity to explore her most popular and played song. Her twenty-first studio album, How Did This Happen and What Does It Now Mean, was released last year. There is no sign of Armatrading slowly any time soon! Just as well, as she is one of our all-time greatest songwriters. A single from her 1976 eponymous album, it has been great spotlighting…

THE extraordinary Love and Affection.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Rianne Downey

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

 

Rianne Downey

__________

 ONE of my favourite artists around…

I wanted to revisit the music of the brilliant Rianne Downey. I spotlighted Downey almost two years ago now, and she has done so much since then. I shall come to her new album, The Consequence of Love. It is her debut, and it has received huge acclaim. Another challenger for album of the year, Downey has also performed with Paul Heaton and she has played some big festivals. A remarkable artist who everyone needs to know about, I am going to end with a glowing review for The Consequence of Love. I will bring in some recent interviews first. Currently on tour, I would advise people to check out where she is playing and get a ticket if you can, as Rianne Downey is a sensational live performer. There are some great album bundles, so go and check them out. As Rianne Downey notes in recent interviews, as someone from Glasgow, it is quite rare to hear a Scottish Country artist. However, as Country has Celtic roots, it is not that unusual. In modern music, most Country artists are from the U.S. We have a fair few in England. However, there is something distinct and powerful about Downey’s sound. Different from American Country. Better and more effecting in my view. I want to come to some recent interviews with Rianne Downey. The Rodeo Mag spoke with Downey about bringing Country back to its Celtic roots:

“Rianne Downey’s debut album The Consequence of Love has been a long time coming. Blending contemporary folk and country with Scottish traditional folk, it’s also highly anticipated – when we chatted a few weeks ago, her tour was already nearly sold out. Recorded last year in May at Bear Creek Studios near Seattle (yes, there was a creek and bears nearby), Rianne has since been busy working and performing with Paul Heaton, wanting to give him all her time and energy before giving all of hers to her own work and for it to be the right time. Although, she did learn that with art, there isn’t ever a right time. “It’s so precious to you, isn’t it? So, you feel like the longer you hold onto it it’s safe, but it comes to a head doesn’t it. You need to show the world so you can move onto the next thing.”

While there might never be the right time in the eyes and ears of the artists to release their work into the wild, seasonally speaking The Consequence of Love has been released at the right time for the listener. There is something very autumnal about this album, it evokes the soft light in the mornings, the changing of the season, the warmth of the sun and chill in the air. Rianne was very pleased to hear that I had picked up on this, especially on the song ‘Sunblind.’ “I actually had sort of autumn mornings in my head, I’m quite an autumnal person so when I was writing, that’s a lot of the things I could see, like the sun setting dead low,” she says with a huge grin.

Alongside Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac are amongst Rianne’s biggest influences. “When you’re young and a teenager and so caught up in the thing of finding yourself, I think they definitely helped me along that path,” Rianne says on the impact Fleetwood Mac has had on her. “Learning about them and the chaos of their lives gave me peace in a way as well.” She cites Stevie Nicks as a particular inspiration in terms of music, fashion and life. “It was Stevie Nicks who introduced me to feminism as well, which I love, so she’s definitely helped me in a lot of ways.”

Other influences include Simon and Garfunkel and, in her songwriting, Townes Van Zandt (“I really do love that sort of really classic, fingerpicking, old country style”), as well as her contemporaries Noah Kahan and Phoebe Bridgers. Not only has the sounds and productions of Noah Kahan played a big role in recent inspirations, but also his huge successes, as it’s made Rianne feel more confident that there is an audience for her.

Rianne shares that this was a big worry for her in 2021 when she released her first EP and there wasn’t quite the resurgence of country and folk as there is now. “I sort of felt like, oh God what if people don’t like country, then that means they don’t like me, and I don’t want to make a gimmick of myself.” Though this fear led her to stray away from country and folk as she experimented with indie and pop, she kept returning to her roots and the music she deep down always wanted to make. “It felt really freeing and refreshing to just decide I’m doing this for me and I’m writing what I want to write.”

Rianne has unfortunately faced some negative comments. “It is quite an unorthodox thing, a Scottish country singer, so I have had trolls online saying like, ‘ugh she’s just another country singer,’ ‘she’s just another karaoke singer,’ ‘you can’t even tell she’s Scottish, why she putting on an accent?’” Anyone who’s referencing Townes Van Zandt is far from a karaoke singer… Luckily, Rianne has a strong sense of self and tries to see the positive in that if she’s getting hate online it means her presence and reach is growing. She’s also not too worried about the “miserable people,” because she’s being true to herself, or to use the country buzzword, she’s authentic. “If I was trying to do something else, then I’d never really know if I was doing it right or wrong, whereas when I’m being me, I don’t really think I can do that wrong.”

It’s also important to remember that a lot of elements in country music come from Celtic folk music. For example, when Dolly Parton sings old bluegrass songs or harmonises with her sisters, you can hear in her voice, the way in which she delivers the notes and stories, her Celtic ancestry. “I guess maybe that is why it feels so natural to me,” smiles Rianne. “I think it is that sort of raw storytelling thing that definitely feels like that’s my sort of Celtic roots.” And so, Rianne being inspired by American mountain music but singing it in her own Scottish accent is like the bringing together of country and folk’s past, present and future”.

Beginning busking in Glasgow aged fifteen, and having been asked to support Paul Heaton after she uploaded a cover of The Beautiful South’s Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) to YouTube, Rianne Downey has also supported Paolo Nutini and Deacon Blue. The Skinny spoke with Downey back in September. There is understandably a lot of focus on this amazing Country artist. Someone who is going to rank alongside the legends of the genre in years to come:

“Some of music's biggest stars like Ed Sheeran, Rod Stewart, Gerry Cinnamon and Dylan John Thomas started their careers as buskers. When did you start singing and was busking always something you wanted to do?

I always loved to sing and would get my mum to print out lyrics to my favourite songs like Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire or June Carter and Carl Smith’s Time’s A Wastin’. I’d do performances in front of her and my grannies. Then when I was ten I asked for my first guitar after I got hooked on Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. But I didn’t think I was cool enough to be a singer-songwriter. I loved performing, and musical theatre seemed like the way for me at first. I got a scholarship to the Royal Conservatoire when I was at school.

I would hang about with people in the busking scene in Glasgow. One of my old pals would encourage me to give it a go but I was so nervous. Then one day when I was 15 I just got up and did a song and got the busking bug. It was very daunting. One guy told me to go and shoot myself in the head. You’d get wolf whistles. As you grow up you look back and think about the condescending men who would come over after your set. At the time you think they were being nice and giving you advice, even though they’ve not sung a note in their life. But busking builds a thick skin and taught me how to win people over. Now though, most of the trolling is online.

The title track of The Consequence of Love is about your Granny Cathy, who has dementia. Why did you decide to write a song about that and has she heard it?

My Granny and the family had been dealing with her decline for a while but it didn’t really hit me until I was leaving the UK to record my debut album in Seattle. She had started to deteriorate really quickly. It was her last days in her own house and she was going into a home and you could just really see she wasn’t the woman that I knew anymore, there was this glaze over her eyes. Even though I’d known my Gran had dementia for years I think I was in denial. I then wrote the song which is about how nothing prepares you to lose the one you love. You can know all the facts, prepare yourself and know it’s coming because it’s part of life, but when you actually see that person deteriorating it’s a pain like no other.

I was in so much pain, but I wouldn’t change anything, because I got to have the life with my Gran and saw the woman she was; I have all these memories. [Writing the song] was my way of dealing with grief. I haven’t played her the song yet but I’ve written some of the lyrics in a notebook she has for the family to write messages to her. She cries a lot now and I don’t want to upset her. But I did write down some of the lyrics including: ‘I would walk a million miles in your shoes to take the load off / And I’d save all my pennies to buy back the time that we used up’, so she has seen it in some way.

As someone who loved country music from a young age why did you choose Seattle rather than Nashville to record your debut album? 

The chance to work with the producer Ryan Hadlock who has worked with Brandi Carlile and Zach Bryan [...] I looked into loads of producers, compiled a playlist of all my favourite songs and my favourite genres growing up until now and what is as close to my sound now and the common denominator was Ryan. I plucked up the courage to ask my label to send me over there and I was lucky they wanted to take a chance on me. His studio Bear Creek is in the forest. It’s called Bear Creek because it’s by a creek and in a forest that has black bears. I heard one while I was in the hot tub. I was terrified. I felt very vulnerable at that point [...] As for Nashville, I’d love to play the Grand Ole Opry. That’s my main goal. After I play the Barras”.

The final interview I am coming to is from Rolling Stone. Speaking with them last month, they declared Rianne Downey as Scotland’s boldest voice in Country music. Someone many might associate more with her work with Paul Heaton, we need to shine a light on her incredible solo music and The Consequence of Love. One of the strongest debut albums of this year. If you have not heard it then go and check it out:

“We’re speaking weeks before the album drops. Excited?

I’m dead excited but I’m nervous as well. It’s that feeling of when you were younger and it was Christmas Eve and you’re buzzing for Santa to come. It’s how I feel now, giddy but nervous because you never really know what’s going to happen. It’s a really special time.

What does the record say about you as an artist?

I think encapsulates me and my journey. The album is rooted in country and folk, but has these sort of classic Celtic touches which feel unorthodox. It’s quite a unique and quirky and almost wonky album in a way and there is a sort of beauty to the wonkiness and I think that sort of really encapsulates me and my journey, as a person and as a musician, I’ve had quite quite a unique journey.

And you got the proper country experience recording in the US, right?

Yeah I recorded with my producer Ryan Hadlock at a studio in Seattle called Bear Creek and it has that name because, well, there’s bears and there’s a creek surrounding it. It was amazing, I didn’t see a black bear but I did hear one at night one time when I was out in the garden and I was terrified.

It made the full thing feel like dead enchanted. I felt so at one with myself and it was a nice way to shut out the world. Being in that setting where you’re just in the trees, in a barn in the middle of nowhere, it’s just completely about the music and myself really.

Ryan was amazing for production as well. There’s a song on there called ‘Lost in Blue’ which was maybe more acoustic and he turned that into this dreamy Fleetwood Mac style song. What was lovely too is that he could sense what I needed without me having to articulate it and I think that’s the beautiful thing about having the right producer. If you can just feel what each other are thinking then it’s the perfect match.

We know you’ve performed with Paul Heaton at a string of his gigs. What’s he taught you about music?

It’s strange because I’m sort of learning as I’m watching and listening to him, so it’s never like we sat down and he’s said ‘this is what you need to do’. I’ve just learned in the most natural way possible and almost like in a very simple way because that’s who Paul is.

There’s no airs or graces and he’s very down to earth and, he does things in his own way. I think just being around him and watching him be such a lovely person and a good soul and the way that he treats people really brushed off. He knows it’s all about the music and the importance that it doesn’t get compromised, but it’s nice to just see someone doing that while being such a kind person, a gem of a person, but still having that strong will. It definitely helped with my album and allowed me to realise that this is about me and what I do. Everyone’s listening to the album because of me, everyone’s coming to the gigs because of me, so you have to sort of stay true to that”.

Whilst you would have hoped a lot of the bigger music websites – such as NME, The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, The Forty-Five etc. – would have reviewed The Consequence of Love, there are some really positive ones from those who have sat down and reviewed Rianne Downey’s debut album. This is what HIVE said in their review. It is clear that The Consequences of Love came with so much anticipation and expectation. It has more than lived up to expectations! One of this year’s best albums without doubt:

“I can’t think of the last time a debut album had expectations quite like this. Despite this being Rianne Downey’s first album she’s already a household name from her partnership with the legendary Paul Heaton and the multiple tours and festivals she’s done by his side. She’s a name many are familiar with however to the many who may have seen her at Heaton’s side this album may come as a surprise.

Downey made her name through her beautiful country music and her sound is influenced by legends like Dolly Parton just as much as it influenced by the sounds and stories of Scotland. It’s a very distinct take on country and adds a layer of sincerity you won't find elsewhere. Country music is a genre I’ve historically been very critical of, especially modern American country, as I typically tend to find the genre formulaic and insincere but when country artists buck these trends and wear their heart on their sleeves in a manner such as Rianne Downey does here I have to swallow nearly every word I’ve said to disparage the state of the genre as I’m reminded there are still incredible artists out there.

The opening track ‘Good In Goodbye’ is a mesmerising piece of music. Propped up by mandolin and banjo to create this warm, familiar and joyous feeling as we hear Rianne sing a song of love and loss but a song that’s ultimately about acceptance. It’s a song that wrestles with the joy that can come from grief. Releasing yourself from what once was and accepting that sometimes loss is the only way to move forward is a hard reality to grapple with but it’s one we all have to face at one point or another and as this record opens we hear Rianne doing just that. In this case it seems to be a reflection on a past relationship, something that came around at the wrong time and that whilst it was great it was never meant to be. It’s an incredibly evocative song, especially lyrically with such vivid imagery painted by her lyrics. As she sings “We were like the trees, how they can chain and intertwine, but when our branches came to meet the forest set on fire,” we hear this song at its core. Loss and grief and recovery aren’t linear, sometimes something you really want to happen you have to let go but finding the ‘Good In Goodbye’ can bring you more happiness than it ever would have originally.

The album’s second track and in my opinion the best offering on the whole album, ‘The Song Of Old Glencoe’ is a love letter to Scotland and a track that ditches the influence of the sounds of American country music that tint the record throughout. Feeling closer to folk it’s a soft, contemplative and tender effort as she sings a love song to the land. From its stripped back, more grounded feel to the vocalisation of “too-loor-a-lie-o” on the chorus this feels like a definitive track that will be a staple for years to come. It’s so unapologetically Scottish in its misty sounds and it is a beautiful track.

An ever-present theme with the lyrics of this album is duality. The push and pull of love and loss. The harmony they create as they exist with and against each other. You can’t lose without love and this is something Downey explores deeply throughout. Even the title of the album The Consequence Of Love hints towards this and the title track also, unsurprisingly, explores this concept. That song is a beautiful ballad, one that made a huge impact from the first time I heard her sing the chorus “Nobody prepares you to lose the one that you love, Nobody warned you how much losing feels like a loss, And it comes to all of us, A consequence of love.”

Another standout track arrives towards the end of the album in ‘Sunblind’ as we hear Downey seemingly questioning if the feelings that come with the honeymoon phase of a relationship can continue to last. Is this something real or is it a flash in the pan? Is she sabotaging herself to preserve her happiness and ultimately holding herself back from something? This song poses so many interesting questions against the backing of this summery, playful tune that feels like something out of the book of Dolly Parton B-Sides (and I mean that as the biggest compliment I can muster)

As far as debut albums go it’s one of the most driven, confident and incredible debuts I’ve heard in a while. Rianne Downey is marked for big things, she was before the release of this album, but this has cemented her as someone we cannot ignore anymore. An incredible album from your next favourite singer”.

An exceptional artist who everyone needs to know about, Glasgow’s Country queen, Rianne Downey, has put out one of 2025’s finest albums. Downey also appeared on Paul Heaton’s superb 2024 album, The Mighty Several. And you feel like she will feature on his next album. She is touring at the moment, but I think next year will be her biggest. If you have not heard this stunning artist then make sure that you follow her and hear The Consequence of Love. A singular musician with…

MANY years ahead.

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Follow Rianne Downey

FEATURE: Sounds and Visions: The Concept of an Ambitious Album with No A.I. or Huge Technological Input

FEATURE:

 

 

 Sounds and Visions

PHOTO CREDIT: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

 

The Concept of an Ambitious Album with No A.I. or Huge Technological Input

__________

 THIS is me sort of cheekily…

IN THIS PHOTO: New York, NY/PHOTO CREDIT: Nout Gons/Pexels

circling back to an ambition of mine. Not one that can be easily fulfilled, it may be the case of writing songs and designs and let other people doing the performing. I have said in previous features how there is a real absence of influence when it comes to Steely Dan. Meaning the group – formed by Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker – have a lot of fans but that has not translated to their sound being integrated into modern music. Maybe more in terms of attitude and feel, their brilliant and distinct lyrics and their compositional sound is barely heard today. I always wondered why that is and whether it is a case of money and not having time to be in the studio that long. I am returning to this thought now because, more and more, I am fascinating by real and genuine music without a tonne of technology. Photos that are natural and not guided by A.I. I am someone who hates too much A.I. interference. I use it for information generation and helping with research, though when it comes to creating stuff and adding images, it is something that I avoid. I know many musicians are fearful of the potential of A.I. regarding their music and how damaging it could be. In terms of my own musician ambitions, I have said before how I have a title in mind, American Grammar, where the music is influenced by Steely Dan. Including Lou Hayter (a Steely Dan) fan as a vocal collaborator. Actor Rachel Brosnahan as a featured vocal – speech rather than singing – on one track, I’ll Get to New York City One Day Soon. Other tracks and titles in mind. Eastside with Lana Del Rey singing beautifully the ingredients of this Eastside cocktail as the chorus, though the song is about a strange romance and the hidden paradise of a bar in Brooklyn. Another track, For Those in the Back Rows, about gender inequality and misogyny in music and the brilliance of women. Another, Katy’s Switch, about trans rights and transphobia. Hipsterlooza about generational gaps and someone older trying to vibe with modern music and TikTok. Long Shot about trying to approach a barista in a coffee shop in a dismal town and have this sort of awkward flirtation.

IN THIS PHOTO: Rachel Brosnahan/PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Kursel for Interview

Negative Space about the struggles of living with other people and how that can be challenging. Can’t Buy a Thrill (the title is the same as Steely Dan’s 1972 debut album) about the harsh realities of life in the U.S. under President Trump, but also about excess. American Grammar about women’s rights, abortion access and the way the President wants to control women. Other songs look at minor celebrities, misguided love and wonderful characters. The main purpose of the album was to discuss big issues like women’s rights, the stripping of body autonomy and reproductive rights in the U.S., growing violence and divisions. However, there is humour and wit laced in. That is where Steely Dan comes in. Also, utilising session musicians for the songs without breaking the bank. The ideal of capturing everything at Electric Lady in New York City. Having piano, percussion, bass, brass and backing singers, everything as natural as possible and recording in a similar manner to how Steely Dan did. Having everything mixed without too much modern technology. Also, that desire extends to the album cover. I bemoan the lack of inspiring album covers. There are a few good ones from this year, but nothing that ranks with the classics. My idea was a hellish composition and collage of modern America. The title track about abortion rights and that being taken away. A pram in the bottom centre and instead of a baby, it is a sonograph with a red cross drawn across the image as woman either side look down and coo or are happy (they are pro-life and are dressed in 1950s clothing) whilst the expectant mother, played by Imogen Poots, is dressed in blue or like a prisoner, but she has tear-stained eyes. I am a big fan of Poots and want any excuse to include her, including a potential video. I also want Emilia Clarke on the cover. Other images around the modern U.S. and the themes of the songs combine into a cover that I hope can all be shot naturally in a studio and sits alongside the all-time best. Also in the shot includes bygone icons and depiction of politicians and famous figures. Characters in songs and nods to songs like Eastside and Can’t Buy a Thrill.

IN THIS PHOTO: Imogen Poots/PHOTO CREDIT: Victor Demarchelier for Tatler

More than anything, I wanted to launch something that goes back to a different time. Not just inspired by Steely Dan, getting a collection of great musicians recorded to tape. An album cover that seems like a classic. At is a time when musicians have even less money to make albums. All of what I have said seems too ambitious. That you may need to rely on A.I. and technology to save costs. Is that possible if you want to dream big when it comes to musicians and studios?! I do feel, inspired by a group like Steely Dan, that this kind of music, that there should be more of it. Not to say that too much at the forefront is samey or sounds too processed. It is exciting to think if building an album from scratch and having a list of potential collaborators, musicians and ideas for the cover. It may all come in expensive, though there are examples in modern music of artists using the minimum when it comes to recording. Getting that natural warmth and creating ambitious albums. I am fascinated by gaps in music and filling them. As a writer and not a musician, there would have to be a lot of delegation. In terms of A.I., the drawbacks are a lack of authentic emotional depth and originality, jobs and natural musicians being replaced, complex ethical and copyright concerns. You can also get a homogenised musical landscape, and over-reliance on technology which can lead to a decline in traditional skills. It is tantalising to think whether a dream music project could be realised. Bearing in mind costs and the demands of pulling together lots of musicians and being able to afford that without bringing in A.I. or cutting back. So intriguing to see…

WHETHER it could ever be possible.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow at Fourteen: Could She Go in the Same Direction for Her Next Album?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow at Fourteen

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

 

Could She Go in the Same Direction for Her Next Album?

__________

 IT is a  redundant question at the moment…

as Kate Bush has not officially announced that she will release another album. I will drop in an interview that she gave for the Today show late last year, where Emma Barnett asked Kate Bush whether she would release more material. Bush said she has been very busy but is excited to do something new and get into that headspace. We could get an album next year or the year after, though it will not come with tease, build-up or fanfare: Kate Bush will announce it through her website not long before its release and that will be that. As her latest album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, turns fourteen on 21st November, I wanted to look at this album but also cast ahead. One of the most notable shifts when it came to new music from Kate Bush is how different 50 Words for Snow was from 2005’s Aerial. The former is a double album that is impossible to categorise is about motherhood family and a summer’s day. The second disc, A Sky of Honey, is about that twenty-four-hour period. 50 Words for Snow is obviously chillier and different. Aerial has a lot of shorter tracks whilst 50 Words for Snow is seven long tracks. This album has the most words in any Kate Bush album title, whereas Aerial ties for the least (alongside Lionheart). In terms of where she goes next, I wonder if is realistic that Bush can head in the same direction as she did for 50 Words for Snow. It is, stylistically, more Chamber Jazz than anything else. If Aerial was quite lush in places and had many upbeat and energetic moments, 50 Words for Snow is one of her least energised, propulsive and upbeat albums. Not in a bad way!

I think the tonally shift is brilliant. This is an album that unfolds and these songs unfurl, expand and create their own worlds. If many reviews were hugely positive, 50 Words for Snow, since 2011, has been ranked low when it comes to the best Kate Bush albums. In terms of the less enamoured reviews, below is one from SLANT. It is quite positive, though not as effusive as many:

“Just in time for the arrival of winter cold, Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow settles in like a dense, icy fog, delivered in a slow, deliberate style that’s far different from the singer’s usual doe-eyed dynamism. Following up on the more leisurely take on old material that characterized Director’s Cut, the album applies Bush’s usual lyrical palette, purple tales of romance characterized by expressive fantasy elements, to long, glacially progressing tracks.

This means that, despite Bush’s long-term reputation as a purveyor of singularly odd pop songs, the material here isn’t as catchy as it is catatonic. Yet her measured new style works well, reaching an apogee on tracks like “Misty,” which runs to an unbelievable 13-and-a-half minutes on little more than words and piano. It’s mesmerizing enough that it’s easy not to notice the bizarre lyrical focus, which boils down to an erotic interpretation of “Frosty the Snowman.”

At other times the wide-open spaces make it all to evident how silly the material is. Bush’s songs have always had an element of the ridiculous, something that was lost in, or easily forgiven by, how dynamically propulsive and weird they were, full of vocal acrobatics and bizarre effects. With those things stripped away, songs like “Snowed in at Wheeler Street,” a blustery duet with Elton John chronicling a doomed love affair spanning hundreds of years, only point out how much Bush and Anne Rice have in common.

Nothing else here is nearly as bad, despite a litany of odd choices: on “Lake Tahoe” another 10-minute-plus mammoth, Bush pairs up with choral singer Stefan Roberts; on “Snowflake,” her son sings from the snowflake’s point of view; and Stephen Fry shows up on “50 Words for Snow” to recite the titular words as Bush croons over him. As absurd as it sounds, all of this is somehow perfect and eerily charming. 50 Words for Snow is a success not only because it’s so challengingly bold and peculiar, but because it repackages Bush’s usual idiosyncrasies in an entirely new form. It succeeds as a transitional work, but first and foremost as its own singular world—a hushed, magnificent snow globe full of strange stories and characters”.

Similarly, whilst they highlights strengths and merits, NME didn’t seem fully captivated by 50 Words for Snow. Maybe expecting a new album to be socially and thematically warmer or more Pop-driven, it is interesting seeing some of the difference of opinions. Their write-up is quite interesting and insightful, mind. Everyone had their own take on this beguiling and original album that was like nothing Kate Bush released previously:

“Musically, we’re in the same expansive, unhurried territory as 2005’s ‘Aerial’, but this time, it’s winter. In the cool atmosphere of opener ‘Snowflake’, the soft impact of piano and muffled drums conjures the feel of thick fluffy snowfall. Kate’s voice is soft, subtle, seeming barely impelled by breath, while her son Bertie’s is choirboy-pure, cutting silvery and innocent through sparse flurries of Fantasia violins, and ripples of high piano notes. It takes a confident mistress of mood to start an album with a nine-minute song so sparely drawn.

‘Lake Tahoe’, featuring classical singers Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood, is a chilly choral ghost story based around the urban myth of the cold Californian mountain lake, whose bottom is rumoured to be lined with perfectly preserved bodies. The smoky and sparse feel of the piano puts us somewhere between minimal modern classical and Carole King or Laura Nyro.

On ‘Misty’ her voice becomes deeper, minxier, as she husks “give him eyes/Make him smile for me, give him life”. Her growl is bewitching, and despite the utter ludicrousness of her love, you become as snowblind in it as she is. “Melting in my hand”, indeed…

The only yellow spot is the title track, which is, as anyone who remembers ‘Pi’ from ‘Aerial’ will be not at all surprised to learn, a list of wackadoodle alternative descriptions for snow (“deamondi-pavlova… eiderfalls”) recited in Stephen Fry’s matter-of-factly QI-est of tones as Kate counts down the numbers in the background then willdy yells “come on Joe, you got 22 to go” as a chorus.

Sure, it’s an interesting idea. I could make a song by listing all the names of all the UK’s motorway service junctions (“Watford Gap… Fleet… Newport Pagnaaaaallllll”), but it’s doubtful I’d be saying anything to anyone about their lives. But maybe Kate’s just having a laugh, throwing you a sonic snowball. She’s allowed. The long, hungry hiatus before ‘Aerial’ has had the effect of making [a]Kate Bush[/a] criticism an unnecessarily serious-faced pursuit, but her songs have always reveled in the daft and whimsical.

‘Wild Man’ is also, frankly, quite silly on first listen. That faintly Eastern motif, the oddly accented, lurching delivery. At first it seems forced, but repeated listens bring out a real sense of the abominable snowman’s raw loneliness.

The most surprising moment is a duet with one of Kate’s childhood heroes, [a]Elton John[/a]. Not just a drug counselor to international pop stars, our Reg is, it seems, still capable of an arrestingly rich and complex vocal on this high-drama tale of time-travelling lovers repeatedly torn apart and reunited, holed up in front of the fire, keeping the snowstorms, faintly menacing synths and the future at bay. Closer ‘Among Angels’, while less striking, has a spacious, sacred feel. Like the rest of ‘50 Words For Snow’, it makes you crane your head close to listen. [a]Kate Bush[/a] no longer needs to cartwheel through dry ice to get your attention. By following her own strange snowy course without thought to what might be expected, she sets her own agenda. To hope for a ‘Running Up That Hill’ or a ‘Wuthering Heights’ would be to miss the point, and the subtle pleasures – there’s enough people walking the ways Kate cleared 30 years ago. Follow her footprints off the beaten path, and you’ll find some weird winter wonders”.

The Times’ review of 50 Words for Snow was more empathetic and passionate. I guess 50 Words for Snow is a hard album to  fully embrace. It is one that demands attention and focus. No shorter or punchier songs. Given the seven tracks are all long and Wild Man, its sole single, had a radio edit that even then was quite long, meant that it did not get all the attention and airplay it might have. Harder to promote an album that way when the songs are longer. However, I feel Bush is more and more becoming someone who wants her music to be experienced in physical formats and does not want to do a load of promotion and have it geared for radio. That is commendable:

“Her first album of entirely original material since 2005’s sprawling and utterly uncategorisable Aerial, the 65-minute, conceptual 50 Words for Snow follows this year’s Director’s Cut, on which Kate Bush reworked songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. If Aerial raised eyebrows for addressing the unexpected possibilities and mental triggers contained in domestic routine, her new album proves no less befuddling and beguiling — and idiosyncratic. The title track features Stephen Fry intoning a litany of white-stuff descriptions (“Hooded wept”, he purrs; “Faloop’njoompoola”); Elton John duets on the airy, forlorn Snowed in at Wheeler Street; the stunning Lake Tahoe tells the story of a dog reunited with its owner in the afterlife; and Misty sees Bush enjoying a tryst with a snowman, and includes the characteristically lubricious line “I can feel him melting in my hand”. Musically, the album finds Bush at her most spare: several tracks feature no more than voice (thicker now, and even more emotionally resonant), piano, bass and drums. It isn’t entirely successful — there are times when you long for more sonic grandeur and open spaces, and fewer jazz colourings — but then along comes the hushed, compelling, overwhelming Among Angels, and yet again you think, there is nobody who comes close to this extraordinary woman”.

I don’t think Kate Bush, if a new album does arrive, will repeat the structure and format of 50 Words for Snow. She makes every album sound new, so sonically, there will be no repeat. However, you cannot rule out a seven-track album that has a different feel. I would not rule that out. However, given that 50 Words for Snow is perhaps one of her least-discussed, explored and played albums, I do think that it is more probably Kate Bush will rejig and release an album that is a sort of middle ground between 50 Words for Snow and Aerial. I don’t think we will have a lot of shorter tracks or a suite. Instead, it is probably going to be a ten/eleven-track album that is more conventional in terms of structure and format. I do feel like 50 Words for Snow is massively underrated. Bush will be conscious of perhaps being more engaging to a social media or TikTok audience. Not that she will compromise entirely but, as she has a new generation of fans on board, she will reflect that with an album that is perhaps a move back to what she was producing in the 1980s. I think a new album will be more Pop. However, this is all speculation. I have written about this recently and theorising what a future album could be like. However, this feature is to mark fourteen years of 50 Words for Snow, but also ask if a new Kate Bush album will be similar in any way. I feel that the biggest similarities we will see relates less to the genre and album length and more to do with tone. By that, I think there will be ethereal and darker elements. 50 Words for Snow seems to be set at night. All the tracks have that feel to them. I think Bush will vary this on for a new album. Where Aerial seems more about the day, a future album will possibly not mirror that.

To me, it feels like that stripped and more bare sound is going to stay. If Bush will gear herself to a new audience, that does not mean more layers. Instead, I feel we will get something perhaps daker in terms of a Pop feel but something that does not comprise of loads of instruments. I feel we will get a couple of contributors too. Maybe not Kate Bush singing everything herself. We definitely need to share 50 Words for Snow more in some way. Perhaps not through radio, perhaps a listening party or doing something with the songs. In another feature, I argued how a short film of the seven tracks could be interesting. I love cuts such as Misty, Lake Tahoe and Among Angels. It is a wonderful album that sort of takes us back to the beginning. Kate Bush and the piano for the most part. Or her taking things back to basics in a sense. A new album might have to change in that respect, though Bush talked warmly about recording 50 Words for Snow and the affection she has for it. Turning fourteen very soon, it would be great of Kate Bush fans talked about this album, as it seems to get forgotten about. Or not held in such high regard. This masterful and truly engrossing album turns fourteen…

ON 21st November.

FEATURE: The Beatles’ Rubber Soul at Sixty: My Five Favourite Songs from the Album

FEATURE:

 

 

The Beatles’ Rubber Soul at Sixty

 

My Five Favourite Songs from the Album

__________

IN the second anniversary feature…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles photographed in Milan in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Archivio Farabola

I will share about The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, I am going to highlight my favourite five tracks from it. The first feature was a more general overdue with some features about reviews. Today, I am honing in on the tracks and I will select my favourite five. Of course, Rubber Soul is an almost perfect album. Aside from the ghastly and misogynistic Run for Your Life (though I am highlighting a couple of tracks below that are not exactly kind to women!) – as I say, the band had Day Tripper at their disposal and chose not to include it and kept this stinker -, everything I feel has a place. Turning sixty on 3rd December, I am curious how the anniversary will be marked. We have not really had outtakes or demos from that album. Rubber Soul takes and some rarities that would be a nice treat. However, there will be new anniversary features and spotlighting of this masterpiece. Recording in a month and at a time when The Beatles had a bit of downtime and were not touring, it is amazing they managed to put Rubber Soul and Help! out within a few months of each other. Their work rate was astonishing! What could be considered a rushed album, instead, was their most mature, accomplished and complete to that point. With a broader sound palette and new elements in their sound – including the sitar and acoustic dynamics were more present -, Rubber Soul was a step forward for the four-piece. The songwriting so incredible through Rubber Soul! It is my favourite Beatles album and one that I think is their best to that point. So rich and deep. In terms of the moods and sounds. It is hard to home in on the best five tracks, though there are those that stick out to me. I will rank there here…

______________

FIVE: You Won’t See Me

Personnel and Players:

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11 November 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, piano
John Lennon: backing vocals
George Harrison: backing vocals, rhythm guitar, tambourine
Ringo Starr: drums
Mal Evans: Hammond organ”.

Inside the Track:

“Written by Paul McCartney about his then-faltering relationship with Jane Asher, ‘You Won’t See Me’ was recorded during The Beatles’ last session for the Rubber Soul album.

It was written at her parents’ house in London’s Wimpole Street, while Asher had temporarily moved away from McCartney to perform in an adaptation of Great Expectations at the Old Vic theatre in Bristol. The song recounts McCartney’s frustration and vulnerability at being unable to contact her.

At 3’23”, ‘You Won’t See Me’ was The Beatles’ longest recording to date. The song was written by McCartney alone, and was inspired by the Tamla Motown sound.

This was written around two little notes, a very slim phrase, a two-note progression that I had very high on the first two strings of the guitar: the E and the B strings. I had it high up on the high E position, and I just let the note on the B string descend a semitone at a time, and kept the top note the same, and against that I was playing a descending chromatic scale. Then I wrote the tune for ‘You Won’t See Me’ against it…

To me it was very Motown-flavoured. It’s got a James Jamerson feel. He was the Motown bass player, he was fabulous, the guy who did all those great melodic bass lines. It was him, me and Brian Wilson who were doing melodic bass lines at that time, all from completely different angles, LA, Detroit and London, all picking up on what each other did.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

In the studio

The Beatles took part in a 13-hour session to finish Rubber Soul, beginning at 6pm on 11 November 1965 and ending at 7am the following morning.

The group recorded two takes of the rhythm track and a number of overdubs for ‘You Won’t See Me’. These included a Hammond organ part played by The Beatles’ assistant Mal Evans, whose contribution was limited to a single note held throughout the final verse – Beatles Bible

Further Reading:

“Rubber Soul was released on 3 December 1965 on EMI’s Parlophone record label. “You Won’t See Me” was sequenced as the third track, between Lennon’s “Norwegian Wood” and “Nowhere Man“. While the album was an immediate commercial success, some reviewers in the UK were unprepared for the artistic progression the Beatles had made in their musical arrangements and as lyricists.

In his review for Record Mirror, Richard Green wrote: “It is possible to say that Lennon and McCartney are the great songwriting team of the day and that Beatles performances are spot-on, but this LP cannot support that statement.” He included “You Won’t See Me” among the tracks that were “dull and ordinary” with “none of the old Beatles excitement and compulsiveness about them”. Melody Maker said that the band’s sound had become “a little subdued” and that songs such as “You Won’t See Me” and “Nowhere Man” “almost get monotonous – an un-Beatle-like feature if ever there was one”. By contrast, Nikki Wine (aka Eden) of KRLA Beat found the album “unbelievably sensational” and described “You Won’t See Me” as “One of the greatest arrangements and blending of melodies by the Beatles … and it has to be one of the best cuts on the disc.”

Among more recent appraisals, Tim Riley says that the song’s “antagonism can’t help being tempered by [McCartney’s] melodic suavity, so he winds up sounding like an innocent victim rather than a co-conspirator in a love affair”; similarly, the arrangement and the position of McCartney’s vocal in the mix ensure that “the texture becomes more engaging than the emotion.” Riley nevertheless admires the complementary aspect of McCartney’s bass and piano contributions, adding of Rubber Soul as a whole: “without ever being intrusive, his bass emerges as an irreplaceable part of the overall texture. Because he virtually breathes melody, his bass lines begin to soar with inventive counterpoint to the band …” Ian MacDonald says the song, like “Nowhere Man”, “needed something to lift it” and rues the group’s use of the “irritating ‘ooh-la-la-la’ backing-vocal formula”. He concludes that, while it is “redeemed” by McCartney’s fluid bass playing, “‘You Won’t See Me’ soon founders under the weight of its own self-pity and expires long before struggling to the end of an unusually protracted fade.” In his song review for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger finds the buoyant melody at odds with the dejected lyrics, but he praises the vocal arrangement, particularly “the brilliant interaction of counterpoint melodies” through the addition of Lennon and Harrison’s harmonies. […]” – The Paul McCarrtney Project

FOUR: Girl

Personnel and Players:

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11 November 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Personnel

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar
Ringo Starr: drums”

Inside the Track:

“The last song recorded for Rubber Soul, ‘Girl’ was mostly written by John Lennon. It explored the notion of the ideal woman, and touched upon Lennon’s feelings towards Christianity.

This was about a dream girl. When Paul and I wrote lyrics in the old days we used to laugh about it like the Tin Pan Alley people would. And it was only later on that we tried to match the lyrics to the tune. I like this one. It was one of my best.

John Lennon

Of the Rubber Soul songs, musically it is most closely related to McCartney’s ‘Michelle’, with its acoustic instrumentation, minor chord changes and skillful vocal harmonies. Part of the music for ‘Girl’ was actually written by McCartney while on a Greek holiday in September 1963.

In the song ‘Girl’ that John wrote, there’s a Zorba-like thing at the end that I wrote which came from that holiday. I was very impressed with another culture’s approach because it was slightly different from what we did. We just did it on acoustic guitars instead of bouzoukis.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

Lyrically, meanwhile, it presented a femme fatale figure, ‘the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry’, whom the song’s protagonist finds himself helplessly drawn towards.

‘Girl’ is real. There is no such thing as the girl; she was a dream, but the words are all right. It wasn’t just a song, and it was about that girl – that turned out to be Yoko, in the end – the one that a lot of us were looking for.

John Lennon
Anthology” – Beatles Bible

Further Reading:

“Bigger than Christ

The song was recorded in November 1965, several months before the infamous interview in which John Lennon compared The Beatles’ popularity to that of Jesus Christ. Lennon was exploring the theme of religion in the lyrics of the song. He later told Rolling Stone magazine, “I was just talking about Christianity in that—a thing like you have to be tortured to attain heaven. I’m only saying that I was talking about pain will lead to pleasure in ‘Girl,’ and that was sort of the Catholic Christian concept—be tortured and then it’ll be all right, which seems to be a bit true, but not in their concept of it. But I didn’t believe in that, that you have to be tortured to attain anything, it just so happens that you were.”

She’s the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there
You feel a fool
When you say she’s looking good
She acts as if it’s understood
She’s cool, ooh, ooh, ooh
Girl, girl, girl

Lennon’s Breathing

The Beatles were always trying to push the envelope by seeing what they could get away with. During Rubber Soul, they had begun smoking marijuana, and it was clear they were interested in peppering in various phrases or words to see what they could get away with. Lennon’s breathing on “Girl” could be interpreted either way. Was it a pot reference or just a person contemplating a situation? Paul McCartney told author Barry Miles, “My main memory is that John wanted to hear the breathing, wanted it to be very intimate, so George Martin put a special compressor on the voice, then John dubbed it. … It was always amusing to see if we could get a naughty word on the record: ‘fish and finger pie,’ ‘pr–k teaser,’ ‘tit tit tit tit.’

“The Beach Boys had a song out where they’d done la la la la, and we loved the innocence of that and wanted to copy it but not use the same phrase. So we were looking around for another phrase, so it was dit dit dit dit, which we decided to change in our waggishness to tit tit tit tit, which is virtually indistinguishable from dit dit dit dit. And it gave us a laugh. It was to get some light relief in the middle of this real big career that we were forging. If we could put in something that was a little bit subversive, then we would. George Martin might say, ‘Was that dit dit or tit tit you were singing?’ ‘Oh, dit dit, George, but it does sound a bit like that, doesn’t it?’ Then we’d get in the car and break down laughing.”

Was she told when she was young
That pain would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back
To earn his day of leisure?
Will she still believe it when he’s dead?

Singer/songwriter Jackson Browne told Rolling Stone magazine, “There was a tremendous intimacy in everything John Lennon did, combined with a formidable intellect. That is what makes him a great singer. In ‘Girl,’ he starts in this steely, high voice, Is there anybody going to listen to my story. It’s so impassioned, like somebody stepping from the shadows in a room. But when he comes to the chorus, you suddenly realize he’s talking directly to her. When I heard this as a young teenager, it hit the nail on the head. It embodied the feelings I was living with every day—completely burning with sexual desire, with almost a regret at being so overpowered” – American Songwriter

THREE: In My Life

Personnel and Players:

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 18, 22 October 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Personnel

John Lennon: vocals, rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals, bass
George Harrison: harmony vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
George Martin: piano, tambourine”

Inside the Track:

“One of the highlights of the Rubber Soul album, ‘In My Life’ was written mostly by John Lennon, and started out as a nostalgic set of memories of Liverpool.

There was a period when I thought I didn’t write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock ‘n’ roll. But of course, when I think of some of my own songs – ‘In My Life’, or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ – I was writing melody with the best of them.

John Lennon, 1980
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Lennon regarded ‘In My Life’ particularly highly, citing it – along with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, ‘I Am The Walrus’, and ‘Help!’ – as among his best.

For ‘In My Life’, I had a complete set of lyrics after struggling with a journalistic vision of a trip from home to downtown on a bus naming every sight. It became ‘In My Life’, which is a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past. Paul helped with the middle eight musically. But all lyrics written, signed, sealed, and delivered. And it was, I think, my first real major piece of work. Up till then it had all been sort of glib and throwaway. And that was the first time I consciously put my literary part of myself into the lyric. Inspired by Kenneth Allsop, the British journalist, and Bob Dylan.

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Early drafts

He first had the idea for the song in 1964, when journalist Kenneth Allsop asked Lennon why his songs were less revealing and challenging than his books. Musing on this, Lennon decided to take a nostalgic look at specific places and memories from his Liverpool past.

I think ‘In My Life’ was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life, and it was sparked by a remark a journalist and writer in England made after In His Own Write came out. I think ‘In My Life’ was after In His Own Write… But he said to me, ‘Why don’t you put some of the way you write in the book, as it were, in the songs? Or why don’t you put something about your childhood into the songs?’ Which came out later as ‘Penny Lane’ from Paul – although it was actually me who lived in Penny Lane – and ‘Strawberry Fields’.

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

In the same interview, Lennon described how the song’s early draft was significantly different from the final version.

‘In My Life’ started out as a bus journey from my house on 250 [sic] Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place I could remember. And it was ridiculous. This is before even ‘Penny Lane’ was written and I had Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Tram Sheds – Tram Sheds are the depot just outside of Penny Lane – and it was the most boring sort of ‘What I Did On My Holidays Bus Trip’ song and it wasn’t working at all. I cannot do this! I cannot do this!

But then I laid back and these lyrics started coming to me about the places I remember. Now Paul helped write the middle-eight melody. The whole lyrics were already written before Paul had even heard it. In ‘In My Life’, his contribution melodically was the harmony and the middle eight itself.

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff” – Beatles Bible

Further Reading:

“When John Lennon wrote Help! in early 1965 (“and now my life has changed in oh so many ways, my independence seems to vanish in the haze”) he was feeling trapped by Beatlemania and the fame he had sought.

As he would always say, it was true what he said in the lyrics, it was cry for help.

And with that one song, more than any other to that point, he began to realise the artist is a valid subject for the art.

It was a position he would increasingly adopt, as he did on In My Life which appeared on the Rubber Soul album of later that same year.

Here Lennon, still only 24 but being reflective about what had been lost in his life, managed to couch memories of friends and lovers, and people and places which went before, into a love song.

It went almost unnoticed that he included “lovers” in there, a very adult description in pop culture at the time when there was still a lot of boy/girl innocence about.

Lennon had written quiet and reflective songs previously. But unlike You've Got Hide Your Love Away (on the Help! album) and Norwegian Wood (also on Rubber Soul), this song bore no trace of Dylan's folk influence.

On paper the words read more like prose than song lyrics where the rhymes are internal or subtle, nowhere near as obvious as “here I stand, head in hand” or “she showed me her room, isn't it good, Norwegian wood”.

Lennon was stretching himself in the song's construction with a conversational tone and long lines where such rhymes as there are, are delayed.

If Rubber Soul was the album which helped them put Beatlemania behind them it was because of songs like this which, not only was mature but had a sophisticated sound. Rather downbeat and wistful, and of course with that unusual and certainly unexpected instrumental break.

It is widely known now that it was George Martin who played the piano and then sped up the tape, but at the time many thought it was the sound of a harpsichord.

Martin tried out a passage on organ first but then moved to electric piano and recorded it at half speed.

The result was an outstanding song which was both personal and inclusive, and had no connection with the band's more familiar upbeat pop style” – Elsewhere

TWO: The Word

Personnel and Players:

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 10 November 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Personnel

John Lennon: vocals, rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, piano
George Harrison: vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, maracas
George Martin: harmonium”

Inside the Track:

“Released in 1965 on Rubber Soul, ‘The Word’ found The Beatles singing for the first time about love as a notional concept. It was a turning point in their writing, marking a transition between early songs such as ‘She Loves You’, and the psychedelic era’s belief that ‘All You Need Is Love’.

It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the Rubber Soul album. My first expression of it was a song called ‘The Word’. The word is ‘love’, in the good and the bad books that I have read, whatever, wherever, the word is ‘love’. It seems like the underlying theme to the universe.

John Lennon
Anthology

The lyrics of ‘The Word’ displayed an almost religious fervour, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney acting as evangelists for their new revelation about love.

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I’ve got it, the word is good…

Now that I know what I feel must be right
I’m here to show everybody the light

‘The Word’ demonstrated The Beatles’ increasing awareness of their power as spokesmen and figureheads. This was developed especially by Lennon, in 1966’s ‘Rain’ (‘Can you hear me?’; ‘I can show you’) and his later political songs.

The song was a collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, and began as an attempt to write a song based around a single note.

We smoked a bit of pot, then we wrote out a multicoloured lyric sheet, the first time we’d ever done that. We normally didn’t smoke when we were working. It got in the way of songwriting because it would just cloud your mind up – ‘Oh, s**t, what are we doing?’ It’s better to be straight. But we did this multicoloured thing.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles” – Beatles Bible

Further Reading:

“Help! showed more signs of their progression, with Dylan-esque tracks like John Lennon’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and Paul McCartney’s classical hybrid “Yesterday.” But 1965 marked the beginning of the Beatles’ transformation with the release of Rubber Soul, a quiet, introspective work that laid the groundwork for Revolver and all subsequent albums. The album contains numerous game-changing songs like “Norwegian Wood” and “Nowhere Man,” but “The Word” stands out for its prophetic lyrics and its subject: love in general, not just romantic love.

In later interviews, Lennon and McCartney claimed they wrote the lyrics while stoned. For the first time, they smoked pot while composing the song by drawing the lyrics in multicolored words on a sheet of paper. According to Barry Miles’ McCartney biography Many Years from Now, McCartney explained that “We normally didn’t smoke when we were working. It got in the way of songwriting because it would just cloud your mind up: ‘Oh, shit, what are we doing?’ It’s better to be straight.” In 1980, Lennon said that while McCartney helped with the lyrics, “it’s mainly mine. You read the words, it’s all about gettin’ smart. It’s the marijuana period. It’s love. It’s a love and peace thing. The word is ‘love,’ right?”

Indeed, “The Word” gives listeners a preview of what was to come just over a year later. Instead of singing that money can’t buy love or discussing how “I give her all my love; that’s all I do,” the Beatles address love in a much broader sense. “Say the word and you’ll be free; say the word and be like me,” Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney harmonize. They suggest that they have achieved a kind of transcendence by simply uttering the word. “Have you heard? The word is ‘love.’ It’s so fine, it’s sunshine,” they croon, arguing that love is a “new” topic that everyone is talking about. But this is another type of love — one that is abstract, tied to nature, and bigger than all of us.

The next verse finds Lennon proselytizing, acting as a preacher: “Now that I know what I feel must be right; I’m here to show everybody the light.” In this role, he wants to share his discovery with listeners and bask in his newfound joy. He has clearly researched the topic, implied by the lines “everywhere I go I hear it said, in the good and the bad books that I have read.” The word is “just the way,” Lennon sings, and with McCartney and Harrison emphasizes his message’s importance: “Say the word, ‘love,’” they chant before the harmonium takes over.

As the song fades out, one can digest the Beatles’ concluding argument: this word will play a major part in the near future. By submitting to Love with a capital “L,” we too can find this transcendence that others have thus far not achieved. Like Harrison demands in “Think for Yourself,” the group lets us decide whether to follow their lead.

As usual, the Beatles’ recording sessions proved astoundingly fast and efficient, as the track was arranged and recorded in a single evening on November 10, 1965. The basics — guitar bass, and drums — were laid down first, then other instruments like maracas and the harmonium (played by producer George Martin), and finally the tight harmony vocals. Lennon’s voice is double tracked on the song, creating four-part harmony. Mixing commenced a day later, but the stereo mix had to be redone on November 15.

Rubber Soul went on to become one of the Beatles’ most critically acclaimed albums, and represents a huge step in their creative development. In the Anthology documentary, Harrison noted that he always considered Rubber Soul and Revolver “volume one and volume two,” resembling bookends. At the very least, Rubber Soul illustrated their interest in politics and their increasing awareness as spokesmen for their age group.

“The Word” remained a deep album track until 2006, when the Cirque du Soleil show Love included a mashup with “Drive My Car” and “What You’re Doing.” Perhaps inspired by this unique showcase, McCartney resurrected the tune during his 2011 On the Run tour. During his Bologna show on November 26, 2011, he performed “The Word” in a medley with “All You Need Is Love,” a fitting song pairing thematically and chronologically. “The Word” foreshadowed the Summer of Love anthem and signaled an impending change in direction for rock and pop culture” – Something Else!

ONE: Drive My Car

Personnel and Players:

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11 November 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, piano
John Lennon: backing vocals
George Harrison: backing vocals, rhythm guitar, tambourine
Ringo Starr: drums
Mal Evans: Hammond organ”.

Inside the Track:

“Written by Paul McCartney about his then-faltering relationship with Jane Asher, ‘You Won’t See Me’ was recorded during The Beatles’ last session for the Rubber Soul album.

It was written at her parents’ house in London’s Wimpole Street, while Asher had temporarily moved away from McCartney to perform in an adaptation of Great Expectations at the Old Vic theatre in Bristol. The song recounts McCartney’s frustration and vulnerability at being unable to contact her.

At 3’23”, ‘You Won’t See Me’ was The Beatles’ longest recording to date. The song was written by McCartney alone, and was inspired by the Tamla Motown sound.

This was written around two little notes, a very slim phrase, a two-note progression that I had very high on the first two strings of the guitar: the E and the B strings. I had it high up on the high E position, and I just let the note on the B string descend a semitone at a time, and kept the top note the same, and against that I was playing a descending chromatic scale. Then I wrote the tune for ‘You Won’t See Me’ against it…

To me it was very Motown-flavoured. It’s got a James Jamerson feel. He was the Motown bass player, he was fabulous, the guy who did all those great melodic bass lines. It was him, me and Brian Wilson who were doing melodic bass lines at that time, all from completely different angles, LA, Detroit and London, all picking up on what each other did” – The Beatles Bible

Further Reading:

“Drive My Car" was written by Lennon and McCartney at Lennon's home in Weybridge, England. "This is one of the songs where John and I came nearest to having a dry session," McCartney recalled in Many Years From Now. "The lyrics I brought in were something to do with golden rings, which is always fatal. 'Rings' is fatal anyway, 'rings' always rhymes with 'things' and I knew it was a bad idea."

The co-writers dismissed the idea because they had already used the "rings" theme is "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Feel Fine." "We struggled for hours; I think we struggled too long." McCartney said in Anthology. "Then we had a break and suddenly it came: 'Wait a minute: "Drive my car!"' Then we got into the fun of that scenario: 'Oh, you can drive my car.' What is it? What's he doing? Is he offering a job as a chauffeur, or what? And then it became much more ambiguous, which we liked, instead of golden rings, which was a bit poofy. 'Golden rings' became 'beep beep, yeah.' We both came up with that. Suddenly we were in L.A.: cars, chauffeurs, open-top Cadillacs, and it was a whole other thing."

Cars and chauffeurs have been used as a sly sexual reference as far back as 1939 when Billie Holiday sang "Some tell me baby you're built for speed" in "Billie's Blues." Memphis Minnie's 1941 "Me and My Chauffeur" was even more explicit: "Won't you be my chauffeur / I wants him to drive me / I wants him to drive me downtown / Yes he drives so easy / I can't turn him down."

"To me it was L.A. chicks, 'You can be my chauffeur,' and it also meant, 'You can be my lover,'" McCartney explained in Many Years From Now. "'Drive my car' was an old blues euphemism for sex, so in the end all is revealed. Black humor crept in and saved the day. It wrote itself then. I find that very often, once you get the good idea, things write themselves. So that was my idea and John and I wrote the words, so I'd go 70-30 on that to me."

"Paul's song," Lennon told Playboy in 1980. "He got this 'drive my car' thing and the 'beep beep beep' in the studio. I think we just threw it in."

McCartney has pointed out that, like Rubber Soul's "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," there is a surprise twist at the close of "Drive My Car." The woman in the tune admits she doesn't actually have a car "but I've found a driver and that's a start."

"We've written some funny songs — songs with jokes in," McCartney told NME soon after the two tracks were recorded. "We think that comedy numbers are the next thing after protest songs."

Beatles biographers have differed on whether Harrison or McCartney played bass on "Drive My Car." The issue was complicated by Harrison, who said in Anthology, "I played the bassline on 'Drive My Car.'"

But in 1977 Harrison explained in Crawdaddy that McCartney, on bass, mimicked his guitar lines. "What Paul would do, if he had written a song, he'd learn all the parts ... and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He’d never give you the opportunity to come out with something.  But, on 'Drive My Car,' I just played the line, which is really like a lick off 'Respect,' you know, the Otis Redding version — and I played that line on the guitar and Paul laid that with me on bass. We laid the track down like that. We played the lead part later on top of it."

The Redding classic, which featured Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, was released in August 1965, less than two months before the Beatles' session.

"In the early days, they were very influenced by American rhythm and blues," producer George Martin said in Anthology. "I think that the so-called 'Beatles sound' had something to do with Liverpool being a port. Maybe they heard the records before we did. They certainly knew much more about Motown and black music than anybody else did, and that was a tremendous influence on them."

The uptempo "Drive My Car" was chosen to lead off the U.K. release of Rubber Soul. But in the U.S., folk rockers like Bob Dylan and the Byrds were popular when Rubber Soul was released on Dec. 6, 1965. Capitol Records deemed "Drive My Car" too much of a hard rocker for the times. To maintain a softer sound, "Drive My Car" was left off the LP along with "If I Needed Someone," "Nowhere Man" and "What Goes On." The four songs were later included on Yesterday and Today, which was released in the States in June 1966” – Ultimate Classic Rock

FEATURE: Empty Words: Can Independent Journalism Survive in the Long-Term?

FEATURE:

 

 

Empty Words

PHOTO CREDIT: Mizuno K/Pexels

 

Can Independent Journalism Survive in the Long-Term?

__________

THIS is not…

PHOTO CREDIT: Suzy Hazelwood/Pexels

to throw shade at people who follow me on social media. However, as I have been writing and publishing to my blog for almost fourteen years now, there was this expectation that I would have reached a certain audience by now. In terms of who is reading and how many people are sharing my work. I publish a lot of features about Kate Bush and they, by far, are the most popular and discussed. I value that a lot and appreciate everyone who interacts with them. However, the vast majority of my output does not relate to Kate Bush! I have published thousands of features – I am not sure of the exact amount, though it must be close to six or seven-thousand at this point -, and there are so many that do not get anything at all. That can be so disheartening and infuriating. I am not pumping stuff out for the hell of it! Everything I do, I am committed to and want people to read! It is so hard to get an audience for journalism that is perhaps seen as drier or less engaging than those who make podcasts, post videos and do recorded interviews. However, this is the type of journalism that pre-dates all of the modern influence and has a place today. Maybe the bigger music websites who I would not class as truly independent, combined with the big magazines and those who have been around for decades, are those that can get a big audience and share more in terms of videos and more dynamic and ear-catching options. I have seen so many websites either go dormant or close shop, as people are not reading. Making money from them is the main reason people stop doing it, rather than a lack of passion.

PHOTO CREDIT: Marta Klement/Pexels

If you run a website, there is this desire to review gigs and speak with artists. You either have to hope that an artist will give you a ticket and you can see a gig for free to review or they will do a reduced rate. Also, traveling to interview people and the realities of doing that for years does mean people go into the red. Holding down a full-time job, having time to do this and the money too is almost impossible to balance. I very occasionally go to gigs because of a tight budget. I am not in a position to review gigs regularly and pay full ticket price, as much as I would like to. Also, going to visit artists to chat to them is hugely costly. I get all of that. However, there is still enormous worth in journalism where words and research are presented. On the screen without videos or anything audible (apart from songs that are included). I always felt, if a journalist interviewed me and said I could come up with a photo concept for the main image, I would have a black-and-white portrait-sized image with me as a mime artist looking distracted or sad and looking to the side as there are broken plates on the floor. It would be this symbolism of someone who is not being heard or whose voice does not matter. That may seem dramatic, though many journalists feel this way. In terms of money, Taylor Swift has literally earned more than me in the time it takes you to read this line of text than I have made from journalism in fourteen years! It is not about work rate and worth. Massive artists can make a lot of money whilst the rest cannot. For journalists, it is even bleaker. It is no longer viable to rely on making it a paying career and the few fortunate ones that do are not being paid much.

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

I feel, if we are to see independent journalism continue, and it really does need to survive and flourish, then the work needs to be shared and appreciated more. We all have busy lives, so it may not be viable to read everything people like me share. Though, this month alone, I have written so many interesting features that have got nothing. Or view little in terms of interaction. Given the hours dedicated to producing those features and the time sacrificed, it makes me wonder whether independent journalism can ever survive. Unless you are an established brand or you have this growing and willing audience, how pragmatic is for me and few like me to gain a foothold and remain years from now?! The only way I can keep going is by keeping my site free and my costs low. The only think I pay for is website subscription and domain name. I will buy albums now and then, yet gigs are a luxury rather than a necessity. Also, given the fact that I do not have a huge following, I cannot realistically charge people for looking at my stuff. I don’t engage with advertisers as I hate it and it always gambling sites and sh*ts like that I want nothing to do with! I know Substack is good to earn a little money, but once more, how much are you going to earn?! It seems like the chances of making any real money are slim. For me, I want my work shared because, the more people that see it, the more people follow me. Major artists and labels might then read something I do and that provides opportunities. Low engagement and poor metrics is not attractive for artists when you approach them for interviews.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels

Rather than this being a personal gripe and something unique to me, look around and think about the independent websites that have endured for as long as mine (since 2011). The pool is getting smaller and smaller. Unless you can find a revenue stream that earns you enough to be ambitious regarding content and what you share, then most people will have a short lifespan. I want to keep going for decades more, though I would say the vast majority of everything non-Kate Bush-related I publish ever gets no likes/shares/comments or maybe one or two. I have thousands of people following me, so I am bewildered why it so low! A site that offers so much variety and such frequent content, it is almost like people go out of their way to avoid journalism! Again, unless you are an NME, MOJO, The Guardian or one of the big websites, then how viable are long-term ambitions?! Even well-known websites ask for donations and contributions. If people think that artists struggle when it comes to being paid for what they produce, then look at the realities for music journalism. Though I can appreciate artists do this full-time and it is their job, whereas people like me have a job. It is about appreciation and feeling what you do has relevance and value. Being ignored or getting very little engagement (I am aware, ironically, this feature will probably be overlooked by everyone!), having spent hours doing a feature, is galling and avoidable. Independent journalism needs to survive and we need to let people know that it has a future. If only the bigger sites can get traction and survive then that is bleak. People might say they value independent journalism but, unless they discuss it, make sure the work is seen and shared, then it amounts to…

PHOTO CREDIT: Karola G/Pexels

EMPTY words.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

FEATURE:

 

 

Beneath the Sleeve

 

Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

__________

MAYBE Jazz…

is this genre where snobbishness still exists. Not necessarily the only genre, it is still synonymous with a certain attitude I feel. A lot of modern Jazz is more experimental than traditional Jazz. It is such a wide-ranging and evolving genre. Some are happy about this, whereas ‘purists’ feel Jazz should sound a particular way. This takes me to an album that did divide Jazz fans upon its release in December 1965, Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. I am marking sixty years of the album. As Christmas is next month, you might hear songs from this album. Since 1965, there has been a split opinion whether the album is pure or actual Jazz of something less authentic and lighter. Inarguably a classic and such a beautiful album, I will come to some features and reviews around this festive classic. You can buy a vinyl copy of Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas here. The first piece I want to bring in is this. In terms of how the Jazz community views A Charlie Brown Christmas, maybe modern fans are more kind and can see its strengths. That has not always been the case:

“By the end of the 1950s Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip “Peanuts” had become a nationwide sensation with syndications in seven national US newspapers including the creator’s hometown Minneapolis Star, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

With the everyday trials and tribulations of the “loveable loser” Charlie Brown, his iconic dog Snoopy and their ragtag bunch of friends becoming a global hit, TV producer Lee Mendelson hatched an idea for a documentary. While “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” never happened, it set in process one of the most viewed Christmas TV specials and successful yuletide soundtracks ever made.

For the score Mendelson had turned to pianist Vince Guaraldi. Raised in the North Beach area of San Francisco, Guaraldi was the nephew of Joe and Maurice “Muzzy” Marcellino, two prominent bandleaders in the Bay Area. It was through his mom’s two brothers that Vince got the music bug, starting on the piano when he was just seven. He got his break in 1953 when he appeared on The Cal Tjader Trio’s self titled 1953 album for Fantasy that helped introduce Mambo to mainstream America.

By the mid-1950s while still a member of Cal Tjader’s various ensembles, Guaraldi was leading groups of his own, recording albums for Fantasy like “The Modern Music of San Francisco” with his quartet as well his the debut as ”Vince Guaraldi Trio”. When he was invited to write a number for Antonio Carlos Jobim/Luiz Bonfá 1962 album, “Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus” the wind was firmly in his sails.

After the success of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” Fantasy released the live album “In Person” followed by a series of Bossa Nova influenced albums with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. An unexpected turn came when Reverend Charles Gompertz invited Guaraldi to compose a jazz mass for the choir of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, with a subsequent album on Fantasy in September 1965. Both projects would prove pivotal in the story of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

Two years earlier Lee Mendelson was driving over Golden Gate Bridge when he heard “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” on the KSFO radio show hosted by Al “Jazzbo” Collins. The mood of the piece (awarded a Grammy Award Best Original Jazz Composition in 1963) immediately connected with Mendelson who had his ears tuned to possible music for his forthcoming documentary. “It was melodic and open, and came in like a breeze off the bay. And it struck me that this might be the kind of music I was looking for,” he recalled in the book “A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition.”

Introductions were made by music critic Ralph J. Gleason, and Guaraldi penned the first track of a then untitled number. That track would become “Linus And Lucy” from the album “Jazz Impressions Of A Boy Named Charlie Brown” released in 1964 despite the documentary for which it was composed never being made.

While the project was shelved because of lack of sponsorship, Guaraldi had so impressed Mendelson that he would turn to him again when he and Schulz were commissioned by Coca Cola to create the Peanuts animation “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

Recorded by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (with drummer Jerry Granelli and bassist Fred Marshall) “A Charlie Brown Christmas” opened with a version of “O Tannenbaum” chosen as the show was based around Charlie’s search for the perfect Christmas tree.

Elsewhere on “Great Pumpkin Waltz” Guaraldi created one of his many lilting 3/4 time numbers, while “My Little Drum” updated “Menino Pequeno da Bateria” from Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete’s 1964 album “From All Sides”.

Then there was “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” and “Christmas Time Is Here” where the pianist invited back the children from the Eucharist Chorus of San Francisco, for the two beautiful choral numbers that opened and closed the 30 minute animation that first aired on CBS on December 9, 1965.

Of the best known original composition “Linus And Lucy”, revisited for this Peanuts special, Mendelson captured the magic in the music when he recalled in “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano” a book by Derrick Bang from 2012. “It just blew me away. It was so right, and so perfect, for Charlie Brown and the other characters…There was a sense, even before it was put to animation, that there was something very, very special about that music”.

It is worth highlighting the merits and strengths of Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. I was always aware of the music from it, and the Charles M. Schulz T.V. special. Maybe I saw that in the 1990s. However, I can happily listen to the album in isolation, as the music alone is captivating. This is what Rolling Stone noted a decade ago when they celebrated fifty years of a classic soundtrack:

“The legend goes like this: In 1963, producer Lee Mendelson made a documentary about Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, for which he needed music. One night, Mendelson was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, tuned into a San Francisco jazz station. “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” came on the air, a drifting cut where melodies appear and then disappear, and bouncing elation is matched by tiny moments of despair. The track was pianist Vince Guaraldi’s mini-hit that year, and Mendelson was struck by how it sounded simultaneously adult and childlike. The next day, he called up the San Francisco Chronicle‘s jazz critic, Ralph J. Gleason. “Do you have any idea in the world who Vince Guaraldi is?” Mendelson asked. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I’m having lunch with him tomorrow,” Gleason said. Mendelson met Guaraldi a few days later, and they agreed to work together.

The documentary ultimately didn’t sell. But two years later, Coca-Cola, who had seen the doc, called up Mendelson, and asked if he’d ever thought of making a Christmas special. Mendelson said, “Absolutely!” and hung up the phone, then called Mr. Schulz. As Mendelson remembers it: “I said, ‘I think I just sold A Charlie Brown Christmas.’ And Schulz said, ‘What in the world is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s something you’re going to write tomorrow.’ There was a long pause, and he said, ‘Alright. Come on up.'”

The rest, of course, is history. A Charlie Brown Christmas aired 50 years ago, on December 9th, 1965. Over the years, the special has become a perennial classic: the 25-minute story of wistful Charlie Brown and his struggle to find the true meaning of Christmas in the face of holiday-season commercialism. “I almost wish there weren’t a holiday season,” he sighs, at the story’s beginning. “I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?” The genius of A Charlie Brown Christmas was the way it channeled the looming sadness and anxiety that come with the holidays — and the way its timeless, best-selling soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio tapped into that narrative seamlessly, with muted, melancholic jazz.

Indeed, to create such an unabashedly anti-consumerist story with the backing of both Coca-Cola and CBS was a subtly radical accomplishment in 1965, as it would be now.  The executives at CBS were displeased with the finished product: its slow-moving animation, its religious undertone, its jazz soundtrack. They had no choice but to air it, though — they had already advertised it in TV Guide.

“They wanted something corporate, something rousing,” says drummer Jerry Granelli, the lone surviving member of the Guaraldi combo. “They thought the animation was too slow. They really didn’t like that a little kid was going to come out and say what Christmas was all about, which wasn’t about shopping. And then the jazz music, which was improvised — you know, the melodies only take up maybe 30 seconds.” Yet A Charlie Brown Christmas was an immediate, massive success”.

The penultimate feature I want to bring in is actually a review of the 2006 reissue of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Pitchfork were in praise of a truly timeless soundtrack. I think this is one that you can introduce to someone very young and they would not need context. It is a record that continue to amaze and delight six decades after its release. I have been playing it again and marvelling in its beauty and emotion-provoking magic:

“Playing a smooth brand of West Coast jazz comparable to Dave Brubeck or a very snappy Bill Evans, and having scored a modest pop hit with “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” Guaraldi made an easy choice in 1963 for television producer Lee Mendelson as composer for a documentary on Schulz and Peanuts. The doc was made, but never aired; apparently, the networks didn’t want kids hearing any unnecessary “adult” thoughts about Peanuts. So when plans for A Charlie Brown Christmas came to fruition in 1965, Guaraldi’s music—including the classic “Linus and Lucy” theme—got its chance. The rest is history: The special has been rebroadcast every year since its premiere and, though Guaraldi’s death of a heart attack in 1976 (in between sets at a club no less) prevented him from seeing the full extent of his influence on popular culture, it would be hard to name a more recognizable cartoon theme, give or take a Danny Elfman piece.

But then the reissue of Guaraldi’s soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas has a lot more going for it than “Linus and Lucy.” Melancholy covers of “O Tannenbaum,” “What Child Is This?,” “The Christmas Song,” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”—and yes, it has the Peanuts kids singing “loo-loo-loo, l-loo-loo-loo-loo”—make for the perfect dysfunctional holiday music. Certainly, I will make a point this year to get too drunk, thereby spending the week after Christmas listening to this record and regretting telling off my grandma. However, it doesn’t have to be so bad; Guaraldi’s rolling, snow-mystic touches on “What Child Is This?” or his reconstruction of “Little Drummer Boy” as the minimalist bossa “My Little Drum” are hypnotic, faithful mappings of the rhythm of snow falling, or the reflections of people walking by store windows.

And “Linus and Lucy” is here in all its deceptively simple glory. In fact, the motive bass line and a perfect realization of the melody are patterns that should be taught to all beginning piano students as models of efficient finger technique. The closest parallel to this music is Philip Glass, and really, “Linus and Lucy” is a lot more interesting than anything Glass has done in years. Guaraldi’s “Christmas Is Coming” is similarly kinetic, shining with the kind of understated elation you’d expect for any music soundtracking the misadventures of kids always ready to celebrate while perpetually shown the downside of Christmas. If there’s a muted quality to a lot of this music, it’s smiling nonetheless.

The reissue includes alternate takes of several tracks, and great liner notes detailing the history of the project. Even the cover is cool, with an animation still and foldout, faux LP-style jacket. If all of this screams “stocking stuffer,” please don’t let me stop you. Nostalgic though it may be, anything that’s as full of introspection, empathy, disappointment, loneliness, and the perpetual hope of better things around the corner can’t be all bad. Like the strip, Guaraldi’s songs here are small, observant miracles”.

I am going to wrap things up with this feature from 2022. Turning sixty in December, I do hope to see new features written about A Charlie Brown Christmas. A masterpiece from the Vince Guaraldi Trio – you can read about Guaraldi’s other albums here -,  this is one that is going to be passed through the generations. The Christmas special that it scored is also this perennial favourite:

“Apparently, not all jazz aficionados share my exalted opinion of the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which may or may not be the greatest jazz album of all time but is certainly the Sgt. Pepper’s, maybe even the Saint Matthew Passion, of televised cartoon soundtracks. In their Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, Richard Cook and Brian Morton dismiss Guaraldi as “a harmless pop-jazz pianist,” “the lightest of the lightweights.” A few more phrases might suggest their tone: “about as hot-blooded as a game of dominos,” “relentless triviality of the material,” “mild unambitious variations,” and, most damning of all, “If this kind of music appeals…” Well, this kind of music does appeal, and if it makes you (or me) feel any better, Wynton Marsalis and some other heavyweights greatly admire Guaraldi too. I probably wouldn’t understand what Marsalis likes about A Charlie Brown Christmas, but I like the relaxed brushing of the snare drum, the creaking of the fretboard on the upright bass, the ripple-in-water effect of the spreading piano chords, all those things I never hear in rock ‘n roll. Despite the shocking absence of electric guitar solos, the music feels embracing, partly because the songs remain songs, not intimations of A Love Supreme and other things that I will never understand. “O Tannenbaum,” for instance, which leads off the album, is still “O Tannenbaum” even when Guaraldi breaks into a “mild unambitious variation” after a mock solemn introduction.

Whether in the final analysis A Charlie Brown Christmas is anywhere near as good as I think it is hardly matters. There are lots of important and influential jazz records out there; maybe this isn’t one of them. I still don’t like a lot of things about jazz, especially the endless saxophone solos, frequently as pointless and indulgent as their rock and roll equivalents on guitar. Most of all I dislike the priestly solemnity of some of its gatekeepers. But at least A Charlie Brown Christmas gives me a sense of what all the fuss is about. My God, maybe the jazz snobs are right! It is a highly evolved musical form which we owe it to ourselves to experience, even in the unlikely form of a soundtrack album for a children’s cartoon show whose songs are played at Christmastime in every shopping mall and food court in America. Maybe not the least of Guaraldi’s achievements is that he composed a soundtrack almost as memorable as the disturbing story of the depressive ten-year-old with the round head and ethical aspirations too large for the world he so uncomfortably inhabits”.

Maybe it is a little premature to play a Christmas album at this moment, though this is one that is suitable all year round, I feel. It has that sense of wonder about it that I don’t feel it can strictly be reserved to Christmas. Go and investigate this phenomenal album. A Charlie Brown Christmas, sixty years after it came out…

STILL leaves an impression.

FEATURE: Alright, Still? Exploring Lily Allen’s Remarkable and Moving West End Girl

FEATURE:

 

 

Alright, Still?

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Denis

 

Exploring Lily Allen’s Remarkable and Moving West End Girl

__________

SOME might see the title…

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover of Lily Allen’s West End Girl/ART CREDIT: Nieves González

of Lily Allen’s fifth studio album and think of the Classic Pet Shop Boys song, West End Girls, of 1986. However, when listening to Allen’s fifth studio album, you realise that this is perhaps her most powerful, personal and remarkable release. Arriving after 2018’s No Shame, I am going to end with a couple of reviews for West End Girl. It was a bit of a surprise. Without the build-up and endless promotion that artists do for albums, this came pretty quickly and without ceremony. West End Girl is going to win awards and go down as one of the best albums of the year. I think that many have that perception of Lily Allen as being exactly like she was when she on 2006’s Alright, Still. Even though that album deals with relationships in a raw way and has some darker lyrics, the music is lighter and more Ska-influenced. It has this more uplifted, sunny and playful edge. I think many people always have that view of her. However, listen to No Shame and especially West End Girl, and it is clear that Allen is a different artist. The assumption that her new album is all personal and about the breakdown of her marriage (due to the infidelity of David Harbour). That is not explicitly the case. As Stylus explain, it does not matter if each line is gospel truth or there is some fiction. It is this soul and teeth-baring album that should be cherished and heralded:

“The assumption is that the album references Allen’s ex-husband, actor David Harbour, from whom she split in December 2024 after four years of marriage. The musician has been clear that she has taken creative liberties, describing West End Girl as a “mixture of fact and fiction”. But while not every lyric may have been drawn directly from Allen’s real life, what’s refreshing about the record are its straight-talking lyrics and refusal to hide behind metaphor. There are no Easter eggs or guessing games about how Allen feels or what she thinks. The word vulnerability has been so overused in recent years to become almost meaningless, but Allen is genuinely vulnerable in songs such as Ruminating, in which she sings of obsessing over a partner’s other loves: “I can’t shake the image of her naked on top of you and I’m dissociated… I’m not hateful but you make me hate her.”

Too often, women are told to conform, to be stoic, to shrink. From an early age, we’re taught to stay polite, agreeable, contained. All of these pressures are magnified for women in the public eye. And when women express anger or sadness after a breakup, we’re called bitter, unladylike, washed-up. Not only that, women are often made to feel as though it’s undignified to air the truth about how or why a relationship ended. Angelina Jolie and Amber Heard have both been cast as hysterical or vindictive for speaking out about alleged mistreatment and abuse (claims their ex-husbands have denied). Even Princess Diana, the so-called people’s princess, was sometimes painted as vengeful or unstable for daring to speak candidly about her marriage to the then-Prince Charles. 

Men don’t face the same treatment. It might be seen as unmasculine to be cheated on, but generally, when a man speaks about suffering due to infidelity, he is cast as a sympathetic figure. Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me A River video, which suggested Britney Spears had cheated on him, is perhaps the all-time example of this (despite Spears later stating that, actually, Timberlake had been unfaithful to her). The dynamic can be seen in cases of general heartbreak, too. Think of the kneejerk response to Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s divorce, which framed him as the wounded, responsible dad while she was criticised for having too much fun. Or Ben Affleck’s misery in paparazzi shots, and how it became seen as endearing. When men hurt publicly, we reward them for vulnerability; when women do, we call it oversharing. Yet despite knowing the risk of being shamed for her candour, Allen has gone full-throttle in West End Girl.

But it doesn’t matter whether each line in West End Girl is the gospel truth (again, Allen has said this isn’t the case). Her private life is hers to share or fictionalise as she sees fit – although I’m sure many lawyers were involved before the record was released. Instead, what is interesting about the album is its emotional honesty. Allen has always written clearly about her feelings and experiences: satirising them but never sanitising them to fit neatly into a more-marketable box. In a world where too many women still hold back from saying how they really feel, that’s something to be inspired by”.

Before I get to a couple of reviews for West End Girl, there are some new interviews that I want to cover. Allen discussing her album. One, as I say, that will sit alongside the very finest of 2025. I am going to start with a brilliant and in-depth interview from Perfect. For anyone who has not followed Lily Allen and is not perhaps aware of what she has been though in regards to her marriage breakdown and addiction struggles, it is discussed in this interview. West End Girl is this album that talks about her experiences and marriage breakup in a very potent way, though this being Lily Allen, there is still humour and wit running through it:

“West End Girl, the new album from Lily Allen, is a coruscating account of a broken marriage in 14 startling pop songs, alternately angry, despairing and defiant. Each track opens a new chapter in a sad and sometimes sordid story, and each is delivered with Allen’s bravura combination of angelic voice, acid tongue.

A hardcore revenge drama, a pitch-black anti-romcom, a work of bracing autofiction written from the point of view of a woman scorned, betrayed, provoked, Allen’s fifth album is that rare thing in the age of Spotify: a collection of songs conceived as a single work, to be consumed whole, in sequence.

The title nods to the Pet Shop Boys classic (“Too many shadows, whispering voices / Faces on posters, too many choices”) as well as to the singer’s recent successes as an actress on the London stage.

It opens with a title track that functions almost as if it were the opening scene in a stage musical, words spoken as much as sung, snatches of dialogue, crestfallen phone calls. Then it’s away: panicky spiralling (‘Ruminating’), unanswered pleas for honesty (‘Sleepwalking’) and the one-two gut-punch of ‘Tennis’ and ‘Madeline’, an imagined conversation between a wronged wife and the other woman in her husband’s life: ‘I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth / I’m not convinced that he didn’t fuck you in our house.’

The lurid, uncompromising ‘Pussy Palace’ will perhaps receive the most feverish attention from amateur online sleuths: ‘Duane Reade bag with the handles tied / Sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside / Hundreds of Trojans you’re so fucking broken / How did I get caught up in your double life?’

On ‘4Chan Stan’ the cheating husband is dismissed with a sharp barb: ‘You’re not even cute.’ Later songs ‘Nonmonogamummy’; the forlorn ‘Dallas Major’ – explore the disappointments of a 40-year-old woman seeking validation on dating apps. And the drama reaches a vituperative pitch with the heartbroken ‘Beg For Me’.

West End Girl moves through suspicion, paranoia, shock, recrimination and, ultimately, some kind of catharsis: closing number ‘Fruityloop’, in which tentative accommodation is made with what has gone before, in a phrase that calls back to the title of her most successful album, from 2009: ‘And finally I see / It’s not me, it’s you.’

PHOTO CREDIT: Morgan Maher

It is, as they say, a lot. But then much has happened – clearly! – in the seven years since Allen’s last album, 2018’s No Shame.

First, she got sober. Then she met and married the actor David Harbour and moved to a townhouse in Brooklyn. She embarked on a successful new career as a stage actor, starred in a TV sitcom, marketed her own sex toy. She launched a hit podcast with her friend Miquita Oliver. She opened an OnlyFans account to sell images of her feet. To much acclaim she returned to singing live, as a guest of the American pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo at Glastonbury and then at the O2 in London on Rodrigo’s Guts tour.

Everything seemed to be going splendidly, even if there were those, like me, who occasionally wished she’d get back in the studio and make some new music – because for all her many talents, being a pop star is still what she does best.

Then the relationship with Harbour broke down, and they separated.

AB: You haven’t released any new music in seven years. Was there a period where you thought you might permanently retire from pop stardom?

LA: Yeah, there was a lot of time where I felt like that. I was writing pretty consistently throughout the last four years, but I just didn’t think it was any good.

AB: Why not?

LA: I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. To me the value in it is meaningless until it feels like it’s something that you want to release into the world. And I hadn’t gotten to that point until I wrote this collection of songs.

AB: You were blocked?

LA: I was. I hated everything. I guess I have a barometer, which is that if I don’t leave the studio with a bounce of the song to listen to in the car or to send to friends, then I know I’m not emotionally attached to it, I know I don’t really care about it.

AB: What were you writing about at that time?

LA: Observational stuff about the internet and the world. It just all seemed really obvious and crap.

AB: No Shame was made after a turbulent period in your life. Among other things, you’d got divorced from Sam [Cooper, her first husband and father of her daughters]. Do you find it easier to write, and that the work is better, if you have had some personal difficulty that you can channel into the songs?

LA: Yes, but I don’t think that that’s unique in any way. I think everyone does. Even people on the Daily Mail comment section. It’s easier to write funny things that are rooted in darkness or anger or... terminal hatred.

AB: Let’s talk about West End Girl. You’ve been saying to me over the years that you were struggling to come up with songs you liked. And then not so long ago you said you’re going to LA to make a record and it felt like two days later you got back and it was done.

LA: It was 10 days.

AB: Ten days is still astonishingly quick to write and record an album. Tell me how it happened. What was it that provoked this sudden outpouring of really good material?

LA: I wish I could tell you. If I knew the answer to that then I would make it happen all the time. I think with all my records – bar [her third album] Sheezus, which felt a little bit misguided – all of them have felt like… not hard. I mean, it was hard to make this record. It was incredibly manic, and it was emotionally traumatic. But nothing felt forced. It just sort of fell out of me. And I think that’s what happens when you’re writing from a place of truth, and without an agenda. I think when I struggle with writing it’s because I’m worried about how things are going to be perceived or how things are going to be consumed, or where I exist in the market, or whatever. This record was purely for me, and it was a way of processing things that I was going through in my private life.

AB: You made it in LA.

LA: I made it with a friend of mine who was also the musical director on my last tour, Blue May. And he put together a really strong team of different people – writers, producers, players – that would come and go from his studio in LA. There were a few days that we went and worked in this guy called Chrome Sparks’s house, but apart from that it was all done in the same room.

AB: It is a very dark record. It’s the sound of someone in pain. Forgive me for telling you what your own record’s about, but it is the story of a broken marriage and a series of betrayals that has caused the singer to feel really devastated. Is that an accurate description of West End Girl?

LA: Yes. That is an accurate description.

AB: The album paints a very unflattering portrait of the idea of open marriage. People have had open marriages for centuries, of course. But it does seem to have become somehow part of the culture lately, the idea of polyamorous relationships, multiple partners. And it strikes me that women are made to feel sort of uncool or uptight if they don’t go along with it, because it’s the modern way of being.

LA: Do I think that that’s true? Yeah, I do. And it seems to me that younger people find it easier to embrace as a concept. Maybe the 2.4-children-nuclear-family thing has not been rammed down their throats quite as much, so it’s not so much in their wiring. But it’s not something I ever thought about when I was younger or going into either one of my marriages.

AB: Do you find the idea of an open marriage appealing?

LA: No.

AB: Some people would be like, ‘Oh, amazing idea!’ You get to have all the comfort and reassurance of a relationship but you also get to fuck other people.

LA: I guess it’s just my attachment style. I grew up in a really unstable household. Neither of my parents was particularly present. And so what I craved in adulthood from my relationships was to be centred. And I’m not particularly interested in anything else. Right?

AB: Totally. I also would not find the idea of an open marriage appealing. I mean, I’m older than you. When I was younger this was not presented as a serious option. But everything’s changed. I think porn is responsible for a load of this.

LA: I think porn is responsible for a load of it, and I think that Instagram is responsible for a load of it. If you are a 60-year-old man and you’re on social media you’re not being served pictures of women in their forties. You’re being served pictures of women in their mid-twenties. The algorithm is showing you what is desirable”.

I am going to come to an interview with British Vogue. Though they say this is Lily Allen making her musical comeback – a word I hate, as I have said, as Allen went nowhere and it is not a return or comeback! -, West End Girl is “is putting the tumult of her life into her music once more”. It is one of the most remarkable albums of the year. One that many people were not expecting:

“The album certainly appears to tell a story of a marriage coming spectacularly undone; of the all-consuming pain and confusion of betrayal. The upbeat opening track, “West End Girl”, acts as a sunny musical prelude of sorts, setting the scene of a newlywed couple embarking on married life in a Brooklyn brownstone (sounds awfully like the home she and Harbour showed Architectural Digest around in 2023, to internet-breaking effect). Already, though, there are warning signs (“You were pushing this forward / made me feel a bit awkward,” she sings). From there, the album unfolds like a tragic novel, each subsequent song a different chapter charting a relationship’s demise.

Take one of the album’s standout tracks, “Sleepwalking”: “You let me think it was me in my head / and nothing to do with them girls in your bed”. Or “Dallas Major”: “You know I used to be quite famous that was way back in the day / I probably should explain how my marriage has been open since my husband went astray”. Allen’s deadpan, “fuck you” humour is alive and well: “What a sad, sad man, it’s giving 4chan stan” she sings on “4chan”. Running through it all is a narrator desperately trying to understand what the hell happened to the life she thought she had. So here’s the question then: is it her?

Allen sucks on her vape. “There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel,” she says, in the manner of someone who has recently spent an inordinate amount of money on lawyers’ fees. “It is inspired by what went on in the relationship.” What did she feel as she was making it? Cue more displacement activity as she applies a coat of lip balm and replies: “Confusion, sorrow, grief, helplessness.”

Between the end of last year and speaking to her now, Allen has been to “some very, very bleak places” emotionally. It wasn’t always thus: though she has long since scrubbed her Instagram clean of any Harbour-related content, scroll back far enough on his and you can find the blissful photos from their wedding day: her, beaming, in a 1960s-style Dior minidress, being held aloft outside the Graceland Wedding Chapel; the newly marrieds with her children having a celebratory In-N-Out burger.

PHOTO CREDIT: Francesca Allen

Thinking about it, all of her albums “have been informed by big traumatic experiences”, she says. “My first album really was the break-up of my first love. And my second one was – this is going to sound so stupid – but the ‘Trauma of Fame’.” Her third, Sheezus, “was a mess, because I was a pop star who suddenly had two children and didn’t fit into this world. So actually it’s kind of exactly what it should have been,” she says, laughing. “Then my last album was emerging from the detritus of my first marriage.” A beat. “And we’ll see what happens with these songs!” Cue wide eyes and rictus grin.

I wonder if being a mother to now-teenage daughters has altered her outlook at all. Does she worry about them out there in the world?

“I try not to smother them,” she says. “I feel like I can try and shield them and protect them from things, but I don’t think that really works. A big part of what I’m doing at the moment creatively is for them. I need to show them that, yeah, we’ve been through something fucking devastating – twice now – and that I can get us through.” They’ve seen me in the depths of despair this last year and they have listened to my music and they are proud, I think.” (They don’t really understand the lyrical content, she says, “But their TikTok dance is ready!”)

“I feel like I often talk on the podcast about how fucking hard it is to be a mum,” she continues. “And people come to me and say, [she puts on a grouchy voice] ‘Imagine your children reading this.’ And it’s like, yes, I want them to know that so that they don’t do the same thing! You know? I felt totally gaslit by my mum about motherhood.” How so? “Well, she was like, ‘Oh, it’s easy, just throw it over your shoulder and everything’s fine.’”

And what about her personal life now? “Are you on the apps or are you in a relationship?” she fires back to me. “Because when you get to 40, you go into a different category and your selection is suddenly very different,” she says, her voice becoming a squeak.

PHOTO CREDIT: Francesca Allen

But this is moot: dating is not a priority until she has worked some things out. “Listen, I am in a period of self-discovery at the moment and I’m really trying to explore how I’ve got myself into certain situations in the past,” she says. “I need to unpack some things and break some patterns and probably talk to my therapist about my relationship with my dad.” You haven’t done that yet? I baulk. “I think we have some more work to do.”

By all accounts, it is hell out there in the world of modern love and dating. What exactly, in her opinion, has happened to men? “I think the internet happened. And I think the abundance of opportunity that the internet has created and the ease with which things and people are available is what happened.”

With a bit of distance, some rage has subsided. Looking back on her second marriage, she is able to say that “there were lots of good things” about it. “My kids had an amazing experience living in America for five years, and I have a lot of compassion for my ex-husband. I think we all suffer.”

And with that, it is almost time for Allen to get to the theatre, to transform into her role as a “convincingly brittle newlywed” as The Guardian will praise her performance come opening night.

But she is more excited to step back into the role she was born to play: musician. “When I feel like I’ve captured something well and it does something for me, but can also do something for others, I want to play it to people straight away,” she says. “It’s all I want to listen to.”

However difficult the road to making this record has been, she is thankful this is what has come out of it. Finally, she has something that is truly, authentically, her. “It feels like me, unquestionably,” she says, proudly. “It feels like my voice. I listen to it and I go, ‘Yeah, that’s me”.

There are a couple of reviews that I want to get to. The Guardian provided their take on West End Girl. Noting how it contains “these stylistically varied songs have melodies that sparkle”, anyone who has not heard it yet really needs to! This is a year when incredible women in music are releasing these very open, frank and personal records – Florence + The Machine’s Everybody Scream (out on 31st October) is another -, I think West End Girl will compel other artists to bare their scars, soul and experiences in music in a similar way:

“So West End Girl arrives in a very different and more welcoming climate to its predecessor. But although you can hear a Charli xcx influence on the fizzing, trebly synths and Auto-Tune overdose of Ruminating, and a whisper of PinkPantheress about the two-step garage-fuelled Relapse, West End Girl really doesn’t seem like an album made for opportune reasons. It feels more like an act of unstoppable personal exorcism. It appears to pick through the collapse of Allen’s second marriage so unsparingly, with such attention to vivid, grubby detail, that you have to assume the lyrics were reviewed by a lawyer. (She told British Vogue that the album references things “I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel.”)

While you can’t tell where poetic licence has been applied, its narrative arc traces accepting an open marriage along certain guidelines (“He had an arrangement, be discreet and don’t be blatant,” Allen sings on Madeline, “there had to be payment, it had to be with strangers”) only for the relationship to explode when it transpires that the husband isn’t abiding by the rules. There are confrontations with other women, a visit to an apartment where Allen (or her character) believes her husband is practising martial arts but where she finds “sex toys, butt plugs, lube” and “a shoebox full of handwritten letters from brokenhearted women”. There is a brief, unhappy attempt to beat him at his own game – on Dallas Major, she joins a dating app under an assumed name, but keeps repeating the phrase “I hate it”. It reaches a bitterly unhappy denouement: “It is what it is – you’re a mess, I’m a bitch … all your shit’s yours to fix.” It’s simultaneously gripping and shocking. There are moments when you find yourself wondering if airing this much dirty laundry can possibly be a good idea, impeccably written and laced with mordant wit though the lyrics are.

Obviously said lyrics will attract the lion’s share of attention. In an era where every pop song is combed through for inferences about the artist’s private life, Allen has dramatically upped the ante: certainly, Taylor Swift complaining that another star once called her “boring Barbie” seems pretty small beer by comparison. But there’s far more to West End Girl than just cathartic disclosure. The songs skip through a variety of styles: the title track’s orchestrated Latin pop; Beg for Me borrows from Lumidee’s 2003 R&B hit Never Leave You; Nonmonogamummy blends electronics and dancehall-influenced guest vocals by London MC Specialist Moss.

What ties the songs together beyond the story they tell is the striking prettiness of the tunes, which seem, jarringly, more evocative of a romantic fairytale ending than the anger and unhappiness the lyrics convey. And West End Girl seems to reserve its sweetest melodies for its bleakest moments. 4chan Stan is possessed of a wistful loveliness at odds with its internet basement dweller-referencing title; Pussy Palace – the one with the lyric about butt plugs etc – may well be the most musically addictive, hook-laden track here: it’s as if Allen is defying you not to hit rewind even if you don’t want to hear its squalid story more than once.

It’s hard not to wonder whether West End Girl is going to get the reception it deserves for its boldness and the quality of its songwriting: it would be a great pop album regardless of the subject matter. Perhaps some listeners will view it as too personal to countenance. Or perhaps fans who have grown up alongside Allen, now 40, will find something profoundly relatable in the story it has to tell about modern relationships. Underneath all the gory details, it seems to tacitly suggest that open arrangements are easily abused, usually by men, and that believing you’re above outmoded concepts of fidelity – “a modern wife”, as Allen puts it at one point – is no guarantee you won’t get your heart broken. We shall see. What’s for certain is West End Girl is a divorce album like no other”.

It is interesting what The Independent say in their review. How there must have been lawyers, friends and family wondering whether Lily Allen should release this album. West End Girl is not a confessional album at all. Instead, “it’s obliterative; an emotional post-mortem carried out in public, a death-by-a-million-cuts account of a thoroughly modern marriage breakdown”:

“Songs about cheating (“I can’t shake the image of her naked/ On top of you and I’m dissociated”), open relationships (“I don’t wanna f*** with anyone else/ Now that’s all you wanna do”) and sex addiction (“hundreds of Trojans, you’re so f***ing broken”) are best experienced raw, on their own terms. Inevitable comparisons to classic heartbreak pop albums written by thirtysomethings will seem wrong. Beyoncé’s Lemonade, after all, is mediated by marital reconciliation; Kacey Musgraves’s Star-Crossed made measured by the lack of betrayal; Adele’s 30 tempered by a few years of reflection. But the bewildered and wounded Allen wrote West End Girl in 10 days. It shows, in the best way.

This musical of deceit and suffering puts her in the starring role, seizing control of her narrative and holding little back. Those distinctive, creamy vocals sound sad and deflated, as if she’s processing in real time. Seven years since her last album, this intense story-driven format lets her sound sharper, smarter, and more clear-eyed than before.

The show opens with the jaunty title track – an unnervingly sunny bit of scene-setting. Allen’s narrator got her happy ever after, moved to New York for him, hesitated, then conceded when he talked her into a house that was too expensive. But all is not well. In real life, Allen starred in 2:22: A Ghost Story, playing a woman who suspects her new home, bought with her husband, is haunted. The irony is acute: art imitating life, or perhaps life catching up with art. Allen misses nothing, which is part of the problem for her narrator’s marriage.

Allen has said she drew from personal experience to write songs that feel universal, though that relatability only really lands in the final two tracks – and they’re two of her best. On the quietly triumphant“Let You W-in,” she lays out the album’s aim: “I can walk out with my dignity if I lay my truth out on the table.” What’s eerily universal is how easy it is, in love, to drown in someone else’s shame and mistake it for your own. On the bittersweet closing ballad “Fruityloop”, she serves herself a slice of responsibility: “I’m just a little girl/ Looking for her daddy.”

After two albums that defined mid-2000s British pop, Allen lost her grip on the pop star version of herself that once felt effortless. Sheezus and No Shame had the same attitude but lacked focus. The pain of this real-life breakup has given her something solid to attack with all her might, and West End Girl feels like the clarity she’s been writing toward for years. In 2025, Allen sounds newly alive in the contradictions we loved her for: acid-tongued and soft-hearted, ironic and sincere, broken again but alright, still”.

You wonder where Lily Allen will go next in terms of her music. Maybe the next album will see her in a relationship and in a very happy place. Perhaps something different altogether. It is clear how important it was for her to get West End Girl out. Recorded in ten days, this is such an urgent album. One that has received rave reviews and really stunned critics and listeners. I have been a Lily Allen fan for twenty years now. I think that West End Girl is her greatest work. It is clear that West End Girl is going to create ripples and conversation…

FOR a long time to come.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Amy Allen

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan Benavidez for The Times

 

Amy Allen

__________

THIS feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: Joelle Grace Taylor

puts a spotlight on one of the most reputable and greatest living songwriter. Certainly when it comes to Pop music. Amy Allen might not be known to everyone, but I can guarantee you have listened to some of her work! You can follow her on Instagram. I am going to bring in some interviews with her. Among modern-day Pop hits she has had a hand in are Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso and Tate McRae’s greedy. You can find a comprehensive list of her songwriting credits here (I am including a playlist at the bottom of this feature that includes her incredible list of songwriting credits). I am going to start with this feature and introduction from last year from GRAMMY. This is one of the most influential and prolific modern-day songwriters. We often talk about these major mainstream artists, though songwriters who collaborate with them are not often discussed:

“Some artists are lucky enough to have a moment: a song of the summer, a radio hit, or a point at which their song dominates the pop conversation. Before even launching her own singing career, Amy Allen has done just that — multiple times.

In 2022, the Maine native contributed to hit songs from Harry Styles, Lizzo, Charli XCX, and King Princess; at the 2023 GRAMMYs, she was one of the inaugural nominees for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical, and celebrated an Album Of The Year win alongside Styles thanks to her work on Harry's House. And as of press time, two songs she co-wrote with Sabrina Carpenter are in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart: "Espresso" and "Please Please Please," the latter of which hit No. 1.

When you have a resume and catalog as impressive as Allen's, it's hard not to get stuck in a run of highlights — but Allen's writing style is so full of remarkable emotional depth and inevitable hooks that her life and career deserves further exploration. After binging on classic rock and performing in rock and bluegrass bands in her youth, Allen began writing songs for others in the mid 2010s and has only continued to expand her impact on audiences and collaborators alike.

"Amy is a once-in-a-lifetime writer and friend — it all comes to her very naturally and effortlessly," Carpenter recently told Variety. "She's super versatile: She can wear any hat and yet it still feels authentic. I've learned a lot from her and admire what an incredible collaborator she is."

Along the way, Allen has continued honing her skills as an artist in her own right, releasing a handful of EPs and singles since 2015, initially under the name Amy and the Engine. But on Sept. 6, she's ready to fully introduce herself with her debut album — fittingly titled Amy Allen.

Just after Allen celebrated her latest No. 1 and released her newest single, "even forever," GRAMMY.com rounded up the key details you need to know about the singer/songwriter's diverse musical background, from her advocacy for female creators to seeing Harry Styles sing a song she co-wrote to a massive audience.

Her Origin Story Features A Lot Of Car Talk

Allen's early musical growth relied on four-wheeled vehicles to drive the plot forward — in many different forms. Growing up in rural Maine meant long car rides to for school and family outings, which in turn meant a lot of time with the radio.

"My dad is the biggest classic rock fan, so since I was little, I spent hours every day listening to music in the car with him and my sisters," she told Variety earlier this year.

When it came time for one of her sisters to start a band, the elder Allen named it No U-Turn, setting the theme. When the band needed a new bassist, Amy took up the low end at just 8 years old, learning classic songs from the likes of Tom Petty and Rolling Stones. The band started collecting opening spots at a bar in Portland, Maine, and lasted until Allen was in high school and her sisters had left for college. In addition, she started playing in a bluegrass band called Jerks of Grass alongside her high school guitar teacher.

Eventually, Allen thought about moving on and changing course. "I went to nursing school at Boston College for two years, and within a month of getting there I was like, 'I made a big mistake,'" she continued. After moving over to the prestigious Berklee School of Music, Allen started a new project, yet again turning to vehicular terminology: Amy and the Engine, who would go on to open for the likes of Vance Joy and Kacey Musgraves. The project's timeless indie pop charm shone brightly on singles like "Last Forever" and the 2017 EP Get Me Outta Here!, fusing references ranging from the Cranberries to the Cure.

She's A Major Champion For Women In Music

Back in 2021, Allen pondered whether it was time to carve up one of America's most prominent monuments. "Can you imagine tits on Mount Rushmore/ And Ruth Bader Ginsburg from dynamite sticks?" she sang on "A Woman's World," a highlight from her 2021 solo EP AWW!. The song backs off from that explicit ask, but the low-slung waltz of ghostly piano and gentle acoustic guitar still subversively slices at traditional gender roles and power dynamics.

And while the track may focus its first verse on the Notorious RBG, Allen designed it as a more approachable anthem. "I felt very proud of that song. And it's something that I love to play live, because I think that it's nice as a woman to give that moment to other women in the audience where I see them," she told The Line of Best Fit upon the EP's release.

Her solo work sits in a long line of female pop and rock stars looking to lift others up — with Allen's list of influences including everyone from the Carpenters and Pat Benatar to No Doubt, Hole, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. But she's also aware of the shortcomings in the industry when it comes to behind-the-scenes matters, with female songwriters representing a disproportionately small percentage of the industry and often at lower revenue than their male counterparts.

"It's important to have more women writing and performing so that younger girls can be hearing that and really connecting with that and resonating with that, and then being inspired to do that themselves," she continued. "I'm really excited to hear what the next generation of singer songwriters creates, and I want to do my part in making sure that they're able to”.

In February, Amy Allen became the first woman to be named Songwriter of the Year. In fact, she won in the category, Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical. You can see her listed as the winner on GRAMMY’s website. Among the songs listed is Leon Bridges’s Chrome Cowgirl. The Maine-born songwriter (Amy Allen) was nominated for the inaugural Songwriter of the Year award at the 65th GRAMMYs for her work on releases by King Princess, Alexander 23, Lizzo, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Harry Styles. At the same ceremony, she won Album of the Year for her contribution to Harry Styles’s Harry's House (2022). There is a new book out about her that talks about her rise from living in this small town in Maine and becoming this huge songwriter talent. I do wonder if Allen will write a book herself. She is this incredible talent, so it would be interesting to hear her story. I am going to move to an interview from Billboard. For their On the Record podcast, Amy Allen “talks pitch records, songwriting trends and locking in with Carpenter for Man's Best Friend”. I will embed the full interview, through below are some highlights:

“Over the last few years, I’ve been hearing songwriters and publishers complain that pitch records [songs written when the artist isn’t in the room] are becoming increasingly less popular. You’ve said that your first hit, “Back To You” by Selena Gomez, started off as a pitch, so I’m wondering — how could this trend away from pitch songs impact up-and-coming songwriters?

It feels like it will be harder for songwriters to get into the door, because my first two songs that changed my trajectory of my career were pitch records — that Selena Gomez song and a Halsey song called “Without Me” and that changed everything for me. I wouldn’t have gotten to go into the room with those artists at that time in my career, because I didn’t have any track record of writing songs. So, it feels like two arms are being tied behind your back as a new songwriter, where, you know, the pitch game is not as strong as it used to be, and artists are wanting to be in the room and writing with songwriters.

But this trend also leads to really exciting songs now where the artists are using every part of their life in these songs, and that’s really exciting.

I think the other thing that could be seen as a positive is that now big songs are coming from everywhere. Like, when I was coming up in songwriting seven or eight years ago, TikTok wasn’t a thing. People weren’t exploding off of TikTok. Now, there are a lot more ways for songwriters to get into the door of people at early phases in their career. Sometimes artists might find a songwriter on TikTok now. There’s pros and cons.

So TikTok can be a discovery platform for songwriters as well as artists?

Yeah, and I think it just goes to show that amazing songs come from anywhere. It’s not like we’re just being told by the radio programmers who the big artists are today.

What are some career highlights for you?

Writing “Matilda” with Harry [Styles]. I really will always love that song. It means so much to me and getting to make that with him was one of the highlights of my entire career. I also love “Please Please Please” because I love how many boundaries that pushes as a big pop song. When we were writing it, I don’t think anybody in a million years would have been like ‘this is going to be a hit.’ It felt like we were just following some emotion that we all loved, and we were all on the same train, writing it together and not knowing exactly where it was going. And when it was done, we came out with something that felt so new and exciting. To see the public react in the way that they did and make it a pop hit is so cool”.

I am going to move to a recent interview from PAPER. It is interesting what PAPER write in the introduction to the interview, where they say Amy Allen’s love of classic songs and artist melds into modern sensibilities and sounds. It makes for a fascinating blend that is not that common in modern-day Pop: “Timelessness could be the word, an essence that derives from Allen’s ongoing commitment to the fundamentals of songwriting. Or maybe another word is “rooted,” an adjective she frequently invokes in our conversation. Calling in from her sunny home in Venice, she describes her writerly sensibilities as being grounded in the Tom Petty, Dolly Parton and John Prine she’d listen to in long car rides in rural Maine, where she grew up. While her brain has surely been filled with the fizz of contemporary pop since then, it’s those classics that lend her songs a fundamental clarity that is relatively rare in the 2025 pop machine, where art is so often made via committee and informed by algorithms”:

“We talked a lot about being from Maine and how that shaped his artistry, how the transition to LA was a particular culture shock for him, because it’s so opposite in so many ways. Was that your experience as well?

It was for sure. I didn't have a ton of friends out [in Los Angeles] when I first moved here, and the few friends I did make worked in music. It just felt like everything you talked about was music, everything social gathering you went to revolved around music. I first moved to West Hollywood, which is like, so, so industry-centric. Two and a half years in, I moved to Venice, where I live now, and everything changed for me because none of my friends in Venice work in music, and I'm right by the beach, which is how I grew up in Maine. I can walk to everything. I kind of forget that I live in such a major city. I go in every day for sessions to different places, but I feel like I've found my area here, so it's much more doable for me.

I'm from LA for context and a lot of my friends work in music. Part of why I wanted to get away was because everything can feel so industry there. Your writing feels very timeless and removed from that. I'm curious about how you created that space or stay on your own frequency.

I grew up in rural Maine in Wyndham, which is on Tobago Lake. When I was in high school, my parents moved to the ocean, close to the same town where Tucker is from.I had to do such long drives when I was younger. My dad would always play a lot of timeless music that I really associated with being outdoors, like Tom Petty, Dolly Parton, John Prine, and Fleetwood Mac. It was Americana country and folk. It just felt very grounded and earthy to me, and I think especially when I moved to LA, it felt like the opposite of that and the opposite of me in a lot of ways. What's always drawn me to music is this feeling that I'm grounded and rooted in an emotion, or close to home and the people that I love.

Going back to those records has helped me immensely through significant life changes, such as attending college for music or moving to the West and signing a publishing deal. It's helped me keep my world feeling a lot smaller than this big, scary, massive music world that I could easily get lost in. I just continue to come back to the core of what I loved about music and the artists that I loved. That informed a lot of my writing instincts as well.

Pop songwriting is an art and a science. I'm curious how much you think about the math of a pop hit?

Not at all. I don't know much theory at all. In terms of math, I can tell there are certain tricks that songwriters pick up along the way. When you listen to a Max Martin song, there are a lot of strategic moves that are happening so that the chorus feels massive. Every part to it feels like a building block that's moving up the ladder to the big climax. I’m not really a music-mathy gal, but I do know that when I'm writing a pre-chorus or verse, I don't want the notes that I'm hitting in the pre-chorus or the verses to be walking all over the note that the chorus is going to hit. Then the chorus just doesn't feel as euphoric. Or if there's a certain line in the chorus that I really want to stand out … maybe don't want to be reiterating that same thought throughout the verse. You don't want to give too much away.

PHOTO CREDIT: Caity Krone

There are definitely bits that I am very conscious of, but I'm not technically mathy, and it's actually really fun because there's a lot of accounts now that are pretty mathy that will be like, "Oh my God, ‘Without Me’ or ‘Please Please Please,' or 'Espresso,'" did all these things that weren’t necessarily super thought about in the process. A lot of my favorite songwriters just go off of emotion. My favorite artists are the exact same way. They're really governed by how it feels in their body. I've always been that way, so that's where I stand on that. But I'm always in awe of people that are very mathy about music and can make a song that’s technically perfect.

So with something like “Espresso,” which people would say is the perfect, earworm pop, that arrived intuitively in the same way that something longer like “Please Please Please” came about?

It's only the same process in the sense of I trust Sabrina [Carpenter] with my whole heart, soul and guts. She is such a phenomenal songwriter and artist, and I know she trusts me as well as a collaborator. When something feels good, we allow that to take the reins and we can run with it. There are very few people in the world who I'm like, “Let's go,” and we just start moving, and it snowballs into something that we're all really excited about in the room. That takes a lot of trust and rapport to have with somebody to get to that point where you can allow something to come so naturally and it doesn't have to be this robotic thing. It feels very natural.

“Espresso” and “Please Please Please” came together in very different ways, but both were so exciting. They're such different songs, and to get to work with an artist that can put out “Espresso” and live in that world and then do the same with another song like “Please Please Please,” which is very different … I don't know any artist that could live under both of those umbrellas and sell them both so seamlessly and phenomenally. I feel blessed to be able to work with somebody that can do that.

One of the most remarkable things about Sabrina is the sense of humor that comes out on these two records that you worked on. Is that your sense of humor as well, or are you tapping into Sabrina's?

One of the most exciting things for me as a songwriter is getting to learn more about myself with every single artist that I work with — whether it's Sabrina or somebody else. Sabrina is so funny, witty, quick, smart, and so musical, just being within her orbit brings out parts of me that I didn't even know existed or wasn't necessarily brave enough to follow. She is this amazing artist that can encompass light and funny moments, and also immensely vulnerable, serious and heartbreaking moments, and have them all wrapped up in one. Of course, it's a collaboration. She is fully the engine and I just feel grateful to be around it for sure”.

I am going to end with an interview from Music Week. They talked to Amy Allen about the fun and laughter in the studio, her remarkable collaborations and hot streak, and advocating for women “leading the charge” in songwriting. Allen was also asked about the realities of songwriting and how it pays. Artists we know are paid very little and have to tour and rely on merchandise sales and record sales. However, songwriters have different challenges and obstacles:

“This year’s evidence of Allen’s hot streak includes Sabrina Carpenter’s seventh album Man’s Best Friend (on which she wrote on every track, as she did on Short N’ Sweet), which sold 85,305 copies on debut in the UK, at the time the biggest opening week for an album by an international artist in 2025. Man’s Best Friend has 163,316 sales to date, according to the Official Charts Company, while Short N’ Sweet has 816,453. Also in 2025, Allen wrote on Ed Sheeran’s No.1 Play and Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving, one of the most eagerly anticipated albums by a new UK act in recent memory. Meanwhile, Apt by Rosé and Bruno Mars – another recent Allen co-write – has a monstrous 1,519,027 sales.

Yet even the winner of the 2025 Grammy for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical – who has written with a glut of stars also including Harry Styles, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Tate McRae, Selena Gomez and many more – still has pinch-me moments.

“I met Paul McCartney for the first time the other day,” Allen, who hails from Windham, Maine, begins. “He was at the Oasis concert and I was in the same box as him. I introduced myself and it felt like a full out-of-body experience, I didn’t know what to say, I really went into shell shock.”

You might think the former Beatle would have had some words of hitmaking wisdom, only, they didn’t quite get that far.

“I don’t even think I told him I worked in music,” she reveals, breaking into laughter. “There aren’t that many artists where I really am at a loss for words.”

Ed Sheeran’s album hit No.1 here shortly after Man’s Best Friend. What was it like to work with him for the first time?

“It was so amazing because I’ve been a fan of his for so long. I remember going to an Ed Sheeran show when I was a teenager. I don’t even know if I’ve told him this, I might have, but it was in Boston. I’d never even seen somebody use a loop pedal before. Some of his songs are some of the best written pop songs ever, so getting to be a collaborator was incredible. He’s in a place in his life that is really different to a lot of artists that I work with. He has a beautiful family, he’s a father and a husband. I’m not in that stage of my life. I’m not married and I don’t have children, so that was really nice. He can write big up-tempo bangers like Shape Of You, but he also is a really honest, vulnerable man and songwriter. He was ready to have a song [For Always] on the record that felt really heartfelt and was an ode to his loved ones. I had done some harmonies on it in the UK, then when Ed asked me if I wanted to add some more, I was over the moon because to get to do any background vocal with Ed Sheeran is amazing, let alone on a song that I really love.”

You’ve also co-written for Olivia Dean and Inhaler. Are more acts coming to you from the UK and Ireland?

“For sure. I also had a song come out this year with Dua Lipa [Handlebars with Jennie Kim], who I’ve been a fan of for a long time. In terms of Olivia, she is great, 10 out of 10, I absolutely love her. She’s a phenomenally talented artist and songwriter; so genuine, intimate and real and I loved getting to write with her. I’ve also worked with Charli XCX, Niall Horan, one of my dearest friends, and Sam Smith, who I’ve been close with for ages and worked with many times. Even a lot of American artists that I work with have been wanting to write in the UK, so I’ve really got to spend a lot of time here.”

Are you concerned about how AI might impact the craft of songwriting?

“There’s this video of a female news broadcaster, I think it was when the internet was first becoming a thing, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s going to catch on…’ I’ve been like that about AI for years now. And I’m like, ‘I can’t be that woman, I have to embrace this new wave that is coming.’ Somebody just told me a stat the other day that 28% of all songs uploaded to Deezer are AI-generated now, which is really wild. However, I have so much faith in the artists, songwriters and producers of this generation and the next. I will always stand by the idea that humans can offer something that computers can’t. And even if things turn into a big AI world for a bit of time, people are going to crave watching somebody play a live guitar solo, or listening to an artist that is saying a lyric that is so personal and undeniably unique to them as a human, that a computer could not have come up with it. But that’s just me.”

Earlier this year, UK major labels committed to a per diem allowance and expenses for songwriters at their sessions. What is your position on songwriters making a sustainable living?

“Per diems sound great, as long as it’s in addition to what the writer will be getting anyway, in terms of publishing and things like that. When I graduated from college, I worked at Lululemon for a year-and-a-half to save up money to move to New York. I also saved throughout college from playing with my band, I was playing so many shows. I had enough to live in a really tiny apartment in New York for a year and within that time I wrote my first song and ended up signing my first publishing deal, which then gave me a lot more runway in terms of finances and being able to move to LA and become a full-time songwriter, as opposed to working numerous jobs, which I know so many people have to do. That’s why everything with how songwriters are compensated with streaming platforms and so on is heartbreaking because there are so many phenomenally talented songwriters out there that can’t really ever fully get both feet in the door because they are financially struggling. They could be doing six sessions a week, but they’re doing one a month because they have to be working multiple jobs.”

Finally, do you have any dream collaborators?

“For sure. I mean, I’m the biggest fan of Rosalía and I’m a huge fan of SZA. Stevie Nicks would just break my brain if that ever happened. Carole King… I mean, so many!”.

Wrapping up there, for anyone who has not checked out the songwriting and incredible work of Amy Allen, check out her eponymous debut album from last year. Also, listen to artists she has written for and incredible songs that she has helped create. It would be amazing if Amy Allen got to work with artists like Stevie Nicks and Rosalía! One of the greatest songwriters we have ever seen, even though you may not have seen Amy Allen put in the spotlight and heralded as a modern-day songwriting genius, then that definitely needs to change! There is no doubting her…

INCREDIBLE talent and pedigree.

FEATURE: Black History Month 2025: The Remarkable and Vital Black Music Coalition

FEATURE:

 

 

Black History Month 2025

 IMAGE CREDIT: Black Music Coalition

 

The Remarkable and Vital Black Music Coalition

__________

I realise I have not posted…

as much as I should for Black History Month. As October is about celebrating and spotlighting Black heritage and culture, it is perfect to focus that to music. I wanted to use this feature to react to interviews and articles Music Week recently shared regarding the Black Music Coalition. Now in its fourth year, the Black Music Coalition’s Excellence Honourees initiative recognises emerging talent changing the industry. I am going to get to what Music Week published, as on this Black History Month, it is important to spotlight the brilliant work that the Black Music Coalition do. I am going to share a bit of background about them before moving on:

“The Black Music Coalition (BMC) is a Black led organisation created in June 2020, in the wake of #TheShowMustBePaused and the parallel movement in the UK, #TheShowMustBePausedUK, at a time when a spotlight had been cast on anti-Black systemic racism in the world causing Black executives in the UK music industry to look inwards at the industry and to reflect upon their shared experiences of racism and discrimination as Black execs. The commonalities of those experiences informed the creation of our organisation and its goals.

The BMC is dedicated to eradicating racial inequality and establishing equality and equity for Black executives, artists and their communities within the UK Music Industry. The organisation currently consists of an executive committee formed of Black professionals either working in or affiliated to the UK music industry, as well as a wider committee also formed of Black music industry professionals.

On Monday 8th June 2020 an open letter was sent out by the BMC to the music industry community setting out our stance, that “for far too long, the global Black community have faced racial injustice, inequality and disenfranchisement across all aspects of society and [that] here in the UK, [it was] no different”. In that letter we set out our calls to action and made it clear that, we wanted actualise to the shows of support we’d seen from #BlackOutTuesday and to drive forward tangible changes in the industry. We then set about formulating the long-term objectives of the organisation which we set out in our manifesto which released to the industry and all interested parties in September 2020”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Sheryl Nwosu

In the first feature, Black Music Coalition’s Chair, Sheryl Nwosu, introduces this year’s awesome Honourees and reflects on the impact and importance of the project. I am quite new to the work they do and what they are about. That is on me, and I should have discovered them and shared everything I could. Having read about them in the newest edition of Music Week, it has been eye-opening and rewarding learning more about them and their Honourees list:

“As the BMC started looking towards the fourth year of our Excellence Honourees awards, the team and I sat down and reflected that we were also coming up to our fifth birthday as an organisation. It was an opportune pit-stop to take stock of not just who would make the longlist of potential Honourees, but also what we wanted to celebrate by continuing these awards, which have now become a staple in our year.

When we created the BMC, we didn’t know the road that lay ahead. In 2020, at the flashpoint of Blackout Tuesday, we, along with many others, were all resolutely passionate about what would become our overarching cause, namely the eradication of anti-Black racism in the music industry. But for the BMC specifically, it was also about creating a space where Black music executives – and supporting, celebrating and recognising their experiences – would be the primary focus. Through each year since, we’ve remained steadfast in ensuring that Black music, Black creatives and execs remain at the centre of what we do.

This five-year point was also a moment to look at the industry and all the names put forward to us with a bit of a retrospective lens on. Through the nominations, our observations and discussions, the word ‘despite’ continuously came up. As we talked and counted votes, we realised that these execs were excelling despite the difficulties facing various areas of the industry. Their passion remained and, through their work, it shone through.

And so it was with this in mind that this year’s Honourees were selected: these execs were lauded for pressing forward despite obstacles, creating their own spaces and in turn their own successes despite notable downturns, and it is fair to say that our final picks really stood out in this respect.

This year’s Honourees embody excellence, resilience, creativity and transformation, and so it’s with a real sense of pride that we honour them. In my view, they represent the very best of the talent the UK music industry has in its ranks: diverse, dynamic, innovative, sharp and community minded – and those are just a few of their combined qualities. Between them, they are claiming their own professional space while also making ways for diasporic connections, building and adding to the music industry by cultivating and guiding rising music stars or navigating and solidifying the paths of more seasoned artists. They are creating organisations which are unapologetic in their aim to highlight and importantly respect the culture whilst dealing with the commerce, and moving upwards in the corporate space maintaining integrity and authenticity.

Announcing this year’s Honourees during the UK’s Black History Month is a serendipitous happenstance brought largely about by schedule and capacity, but I am personally delighted about it. Despite promises of change it is now undeniably clear that the issues of diversity, equity and inclusion have slipped to all but a footnote on many an agenda. Black History Month therefore provides a moment to reflect loudly on the stories and successes of Black professionals across all industries.

This is why we are passionate about our Honourees, because shining a spotlight on Black executives’ stories is important in building what will be not only their individual legacies, but also the shared legacy of the UK music industry. I’m so pleased to announce this year’s Excellence Honourees as:

Alex Omisesan (founder, Late Bloomer & artist manager, Nemzzz)
Chris Chance (CEO & director, Single Channel Films)
Janay Marie (founder & managing director, Tallawah Agency)
Kara Harris (senior promoter, Live Nation)
Keecia Ellis (founder/director, Rekodi Music)
Nasra Artan (head of international A&R, Sony Music Publishing)
Neicee Oakley (tour manager & co-founder, Blk Kactus)
Nnamdi Okafor (senior manager, global commercial partnerships, AWAL)
Terry Appiasei (CEO, Golden Boy Entertainment/co-founder, Black Pearl Music Group)
Uchenna Ubawuchi (Twnty Four Music)”.

There are a few interviews from Honourees that I want to share. This one is with the brilliant Chris Chance, CEO & Director of Single Channel Films. I am not going to quote and source the whole interview, though I am including most of it. It is laudable and commendable that Chance’s key ambition is to affect the career trajectory of creatives early in their careers. Making a real difference. That is to be applauded:

“How did you first break into the music industry?

“My cousin Aaron Attille was a mentor to me when I first started out and barely knew how a camera worked. My entry point into the music industry was during my time studying post production at Ravensbourne University. I knew local musicians and started to shoot and edit music videos for them to gain experience and improve my knowledge of the craft. After leaving university, I had a respectable portfolio of work on YouTube and a growing profile in the industry as a visual creative. I spent the next few years as a producer and director within corporate spaces working at MTV and Sony Music, during which time I worked alongside creatives such as Neron Power, Mark Tintner and Laurence Warder.”

You launched your own production company after working in-house at bigger companies – what made you take the plunge?

“The experience and industry knowledge I gained from working for those companies is invaluable. I moved on to figure out what I wanted for my own career and, after deep introspection, I decided that I wanted to build my own brand.”

What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far and how did you overcome it?

“Finding a core team of professionals who trust and support my vision for Single Channel Films was something that didn’t come instantly, but having a track record of successful collaborations and leaning into the network that I’d built from previous projects was something that proved useful. Maintaining patience and trusting the process is another key one; I’m Christian so prayer and my faith definitely helps.”

How do you hope the industry changes in the coming years?

“I hope to see more Black and brown change-making personnel in leading positions. As for the individuals who are already in those groundbreaking positions, I’d like to see them continue to pay it forward to the next generation, helping to expand our presence and diversify the ways in which we as innovators and entrepreneurs are able to contribute and benefit from our commitment to the industry.”

What’s your ultimate ambition for your own career?

“To be able to positively affect the career trajectories of creatives at early stages in their professional journeys. I want to do this by maintaining a position where I’m able to build partnerships across the media industry, create opportunities and inspire others”.

I will move to a great interview with Janay Marie, Founder and Managing Director of TALLAWAH Agency. This is an amazing woman. “TALLAWAH Agency is an agency with the commitment to bridging the gap between the amplification of the global majority and the rich cultural tapestry of the Caribbean Diaspora via experimental events, consultancy + community-led initiatives”:

“What does it mean to be named as one of the BMC’s Excellence Honourees for 2025?

“Honestly, it came as such a huge surprise. When I first received the email, I thought it was someone trolling me. This year has been incredibly challenging for so many reasons, so to be recognised as one of the Excellence Honourees was such a lovely and humbling surprise. Tallawah Agency was created out of frustration at seeing how little cultural investment there was within the industries I work in, especially across music and the influencer ecosystem. I really wanted to change that. From the start, our goal has been to show brands what authentic investment in culture looks like and the kind of long-term impact it can have. It’s not just about shaping the industry, it’s about creating lasting change in the lives of the people and communities we serve.”

Is the wider industry doing enough to uplift and platform Black executives?

“I definitely think it’s getting better. I’ve seen a shift within the last few years, and it’s super-refreshing to see collectives such as BMC, Women Connect UK and the like amplify people behind the scenes, and it is not getting quieter either. There are more employee resource groups in companies that work overtime in ensuring that Black executives are thriving and are celebrated, which is so wonderful to see.” 

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about how to make it in music so far?

“The importance of staying grounded and not getting swept up in everything. This industry can sometimes make you feel like you have to prove yourself or fit a certain mould, but I’ve realised that carving your own path is a strength, not a threat. Music is beautiful and rewarding, but life is so much bigger than work. My deepest joy comes from my sisterhood, my pets, my family, my friends, and the moments I treasure outside of it all. Protecting that balance is what keeps me centred and allows me to show up fully when I step into work.”

And what’s the biggest myth about working in the music industry?

“The biggest myth about working in the industry is that it’s easy to break into. I remember being 17, fresh out of the BRIT School, applying for over 100 roles and hearing ‘no’ every single time. It would have been so easy to give up, but I wanted it badly enough to keep going. I enrolled in media programmes, took on weeks of work experience and kept pushing until I finally got my first ‘yes’. It wasn’t overnight, but that persistence paid off, and it taught me that relentless dedication opens doors you might not even see yet”. 

IN THIS PHOTO: Terry Appiasei/PHOTO CREDIT: Calvin Ceile

I am going to end with an interview with Terry Appiasei, CEO of Golden Boy Entertainment/Co-Founder of Black Pearl Music Group. I would suggest people to go and buy Music Week, where you can read more about the Black Music Coalition and their incredible legacy and role. More about this year’s impressive and diverse Honourees. Each of them doing incredible things in their field. A big reason why I wanted to spotlight them for this Black History Month. Celebrating the cultural impact of Black Music Coalition:

“You’re alongside lots of talented people on the Honourees list – how do you feel about the new wave of talent coming through?

“It’s definitely a privilege to be part of such a talented list. There’s loads of great Black talent coming through in the industry, all from different walks of life and with different goals. I think that the key to continued growth is to keep pushing forward and setting amazing examples, which the BMC allows to happen.”

Is the industry doing enough to ensure there is a diverse pool of new acts?

“In the current climate, I do not feel like there is a diverse pool of talent coming through. The Black music scene is not where it was a few years ago. However, there are loads of great artists that are yet to get their chance, and also loads of great artists flying the flag here and internationally. I think the industry could do more to nurture talent. This is definitely a cut-throat industry and sometimes people forget that there are real people from all walks of life behind the artists. Ensuring that artists are exposed to therapists, mental health professionals and even media and social media training could go a long way.”

What is the industry not focusing on enough?

“Mental health is an important one. The industry has so many ups and downs and not everyone can deal with the roller coaster, which in many unfortunate cases can lead to downward spirals.”

You have the keys to the industry for a day – what would you do?

“This seems like a lot of pressure for just one person, but I would put on a global music festival and every country in the world would be able to select an artist to represent them”.

Go and follow Black Music Coalition on Instagram. You can read more about the other amazing Honourees and why they were awarded and included. A body driven to combat systemic racism through the music industry and create equality to provide opportunities and voice for Black executives within in the U.K. music industry. As I say, I am fairly new to them, but it has been enriching and moving learning about their vital role in the music industry. For this Black History Month in the U.K., I wanted to dedicate some time…

TO the remarkable Black Music Coalition.