FEATURE: Bookends: National Album Day: The Best Opening and Closing Album Tracks Ever

FEATURE:

 

 

Bookends

PHOTO CREDIT: @anniespratt/Unsplash
 

National Album Day: The Best Opening and Closing Album Tracks Ever

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CONTINUING the National Album Day-inspired train rolling…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @adigold1/Unsplash

it gets me thinking about those all-important bookends: the epic opener and scintillating closer. Few albums manage to have ‘perfect’ opening/closing tracks although, as this list shows, it is not impossible! You want to grab the listener from the off so it is vital going in strong and creating something wonderful – you do not want to sap too much energy or have your best track at the top, mind! That said; you should think about putting your best track last as that ends things on a high – if the material before is a bit so-so then are people going to be invested enough to make it that far?! It is a tough act to master but I think the opening and closing songs are the most crucial parts of any album. If you can hook the listener from the first notes then you have them: if you create a masterful finale then they are going to be primed for the next album! In that spirit, I have been flicking through those albums that have brilliant openers and closers and separating them into two lists. See if you agree with these selections but here are, in my view, the best opening and closing album tracks…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @matteopaga/Unsplash

THERE have ever been.

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

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THE BEST OPENING TRACKS EVER

 PHOTO CREDIT: @priscilladupreez/Unsplash

The Strokes - Is This It

Album: Is This It

Release Date: 30th July, 2001

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Album: Let It Bleed

Release Date: 5th December, 1969

PJ Harvey - Rid of Me

Album: Rid of Me

Release Date: 4th May, 1993

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit            

Album: Nevermind

Release Date: 24th September, 1991

The Clash - London Calling

Album: London Calling

Release Date: 14th December, 1979

Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin’ Something

Album: Thriller

Release Date: 30th November, 1982

LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean

Album: This Is Happening

Release Date: 17th May, 2010

David Bowie - Five Years

Album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Release Date: 16th June, 1972

The Velvet Underground - Sunday Morning

Album: The Velvet Underground & Nico

Release Date: 12th March, 1967

Björk – Human Behaviour

Album: Debut

Release Date: 5th July, 1993

Rage Against the Machine - Bombtrack

Album: Rage Against the Machine

Release Date: 3rd November, 1992

Prince - Let’s Go Crazy

Album: Purple Rain

Release Date: 25th June, 1984

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Album: Back to Black

Release Date: 27th October, 2006

Madonna - Music

Album: Music

Release Date: 18th September, 2000

Pulp - Mis-Shapes

Album: Different Class

Release Date: 30th October, 1995

Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times

Album: Led Zeppelin

Release Date: 12th January, 1969

Tori Amos - Crucify           

Album: Little Earthquakes

Release Date: 6th June, 1992

The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There

Album: Please Please Me

Release Date: 22nd March, 1963

The Streets - Turn the Page

Album: Original Pirate Material

Release Date: 25th March, 2002

Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle

Album: Appetite for Destruction

Release Date: 21st July, 1987

Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

Album: Highway 61 Revisited

Release Date: 30th August, 1965

Beyoncé (ft. Jay-Z) - Crazy in Love

Album: Dangerously in Love

Release Date: 23rd June, 2003

The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Album: Pet Sounds

Release Date: 16th May, 1966

Radiohead - Everything in Its Right Place

Album: Kid A

Release Date: 2nd October, 2000

Paul Simon - The Boy in the Bubble

Album: Graceland

Release Date: 25th August, 1986

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

Album: Elephant

Release Date: 1st April, 2003

Iggy and the Stooges - Search and Destroy

Album: Raw Power

Release Date: 7th February, 1973

Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)

Album: Hounds of Love

Release Date: 16th September, 1985

THE BEST CLOSING TRACKS EVER

 PHOTO CREDIT: @dmitrybayer/Unsplash

Oasis - Champagne Supernova

Album: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?

Release Date: 2nd October, 1995

Nine Inch Nails - Hurt

Album: The Downward Spiral

Release Date: 8th March, 1994

The Beatles - A Day in the Life

Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Release Date: 26th May, 1967

Muse - Knights of Cydonia

Album: Black Holes and Revelations

Release Date: 3rd July, 2006

Prince - Purple Rain

Album: Purple Rain

Release Date: 25th June, 1984

Television - Torn Curtain

Album: Marquee Moon

Release Date: 8th February, 1977

Childish Gambino - That Power

Album: Camp

Release Date: 15th November, 2011

LCD Soundsystem - New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

Album: Sound of Silver

Release Date: 12th March, 2007

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

Album: (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)

Release Date: 13th August, 1973

The Doors - The End

Album: The Doors

Release Date: 4th January, 1967

Elliott Smith - Say Yes

Album: Either/Or

Release Date: 25th February, 1997

Kanye West - Who Will Survive in America?

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Release Date: 22nd November, 2010

David Bowie - Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide

Album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Release Date: 16th June, 1972

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows

Album: Revolver

Release Date: 5th August, 1966

Bruce Springsteen - Jungleland

Album: Born to Run

Release Date: 25th August, 1975

Kate Bush - Walk Straight Down the Middle

Album: The Sensual World

Release Date: 16th October, 1989

M.I.A. - Galang

Album: Arular

Release Date: 22nd March, 2005

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Album: Electric Ladyland

Release Date: 16th October, 1968 (U.S.)

Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Album: The Bends

Release Date: 13th March, 1995

The Chemical Brothers - The Private Psychedelic Reel

Album: Dig Your Own Hole

Release Date: 7th April, 1997

Nick Drake - Saturday Sun

Album: Five Leaves Left

Release Date: 3rd July, 1969

Nirvana - All Apologies

Album: In Utero

Release Date: 21st September, 1993

Pink Floyd - Eclipse

Album: The Dark Side of the Moon

Release Date: 1st March, 1973

FEATURE: Visible Touch: National Album Day: Why the Tactile Nature of Music Is Ever-Important and Cannot Be Undone by Digital Methods

FEATURE:

 

 

Visible Touch

IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images 

National Album Day: Why the Tactile Nature of Music Is Ever-Important and Cannot Be Undone by Digital Methods

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MAYBE that heading is a mouthful…

 IMAGE CREDIT: National Album Day/BBC Music/Getty Images

but my latest National Album Day-related piece – I will not post too many more before Saturday; maybe a couple more – looks at one of the most important reasons for celebrating the day: studying albums in their physical form and bring present with others who love the physicality of musical tradition. One cannot engage in a National Album Day and solely look at digital methods and what is being played on the Internet. Of course, we all rely on the Internet and many of us get our music that way but that is not to say Saturday’s album celebration is a retro thing that harks back to past times – a nostalgia trip that we engage in and will be forced to shell money over to afford vinyl and albums on hardware. It is a non-committal day where we can mark the album as a format that is crucial and, in this digital age, been reduced and overlooked somewhat. This, like my last article, is something I have addressed before but one reason why people will always long for the album and love what it is about is the tactility and physical side. I have just been sent an album for review on cassette and it may provoke laughter and snorts. Cassettes are still a big thing and, as Mixmag highlighted earlier this year; we still have a definite hunger and love for the humble cassette:

“According to Official Charts, cassette sales account for a minuscule 1% of music sales in the UK, with just 22,000 copies sold in 2017. This low number is staggering when one thinks how cassettes were the leading format for audio 27 years ago. While that is far from the case today, in recent years, there has been a strong resurgence, with sales close to or more than doubling each year since 2015. Now in 2018 there looks to be an even stronger increase with 18,500 copies sold in just six months. At this time last year, only 9,753 copies had been sold. So it looks like another big comeback year is in store for cassettes, right?

IMAGE CREDIT: Music Week 

“The reason for this huge jump in sales in 2018 is due to a large amount of mainstream releases that appeal to the larger market of listeners and collectors. The leading cassette sold this year so far is Kylie Minogue's new album 'Golden' with 2,847, that was released as a limited edition glitter-gold clear cassette around the time she played at Berghain. Next up is the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2soundtrack followed by Snow Patrol's new album 'Wildness' and the 30 Seconds to Mars album 'America'.

Similar to the current vinyl resurgence, it's the new mainstream releases that are yielding the resurgence rather than the culty, underground cassettes released by labels like Opal Tapes, 100% Silk, Awesome Tapes From Africa, Whities, Pale Master and Handmade Birds among others. That being said, the overall appeal of cassettes is attracting listeners and collectors”.

A lot of the sales can be explained by a nostalgic lust but, in a lot of cases, artists want something they can hold and actually give to people directly. Independent labels are among the biggest market for cassettes and it seems the public love the tactile nature of cassettes and what they offer. I remember experiencing them as a child and, although they were a pain in the arse at times – they would unspool and get jammed in the player – it was great to have something in my hand that I could swap with a friend and it felt like an actual purchase. If I went to a record shop and bought a cassette; it would excite me and I miss that rush and nourishment you get with a physical product. More and more, record shops are holding cassette days and there is an annual cassette day that is only a few days away!

 IMAGE CREDIT: Lion Coffee & Records

It is surprising so many people are ordering cassettes and they have made such a comeback. I can understand it personally but the limitations of the format – having to rewind and forward the tape to exact points; having no way of jumping to a particular track; the fragility and capriciousness of tapes – but it is wonderful, as I say, having something physical to hold and swap. Maybe C.D.s are that awkward middle-ground between vinyl and tape – compact enough but there is not the same awe and cool as vinyl or the same appeal as a cassette. Vinyl is that consistent format that has endured and, in 2018, is as popular as ever. They will never overtake streaming services but we still have that desire to buy and hold records. There are many reasons why modern artists love albums and will not let them die. You get to tell a story and have a chance to flourish and expand – whereas singles and digital outlets are very brief and about being a bit unengaged – and there is the opportunity to properly engage with people. I feel the physical aspect of vinyl and cassettes are why we have that love of albums as a complete work. Think about the trouble artists go to when putting their music on vinyl: you have the sleeve notes and the album art itself!

 IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

Look back through time and we will all have our views regarding the best album covers ever. There are polls that narrow down the best album covers but even today artists are spending time getting the images right. Artists need images for thumbnails and streaming sites but I am hearing so many musicians talk about releasing their music on vinyl and why that is vital to them. It is not about nostalgia and doing something quirky. They have the same passion as artists did decades ago and love to see something full and illustrative on the shelves. You cannot beat the pleasure of skimming through records, looking at cassettes or having a C.D. with you. So many of us spend our time skipping through tracks and not really engaged with music on a physical level. We all can appreciate music on a sonic front but many are ignoring physical formats and why they are so important. Cost is an issue but I think the time needed to go and buy something and take it home puts some off! That seems extraordinarily lazy but I can understand how we have got comfortable and resigned. It is not only vinyl and the actual records themselves that should be preserved and celebrated. Many artists have their own merchandise and stalls at gigs.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

They can make their own T-shirts, keyrings and other products and it means they get to engage with their fans. From the other side of the table; it is great having that unique product in your palms and getting to show your love of a particular artist. I know merchandise and posters are all part of the necessary promotional cycle but artists could rely on the Internet and market themselves digitally. The reason why a lot of them do not is because they want to directly reach fans and love the actual process of putting something together. I feel National Album Day doubters should change their views and understand why the album, and its physical gooey glory, is something that will never die. This article from The Guardian irked me when it came out. There were some good points in the article but its opening words, rather weird at that, caught my eye:

“Humour me. Imagine you were a greengrocer, and that your most popular item was strawberries. Your preferred way to package them is by the punnet. Your stall has a beautiful display of punnets of strawberries, each one fully labelled with provenance, type of fruit, date of picking, sell-by dates, and so on. A couple of times a year you do a special promotion – call it Fruit Store Day – on which you sell people special punnets of rare strawberries. You sing the virtues of punnets of strawberries all day, every day. But when the punters come to your stall, what they do is hand over a few pence and walk away with an individual strawberry from a big basket at the side of the counter. They like the punnets well enough. They just don’t want a whole one, regardless of the efforts you put into selling them.

That is, roughly, the situation the music industry finds itself in with the album. Almost everyone in the conventional music business – let’s call it Mainstream Music, or MSM, for convenience – fetishises the album”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: ukehaley/Unsplash

First of all; I do not think the album is dying in any way! Maybe sales are tapering a bit but there is always going to be that desire for a complete album – whether people are buying them in a shop or streaming them online. I think it is the effort artists put into their music and physical promotions that mean we want to conserve albums and are still curious. Unsigned and mainstream artists alike are releasing their music on hardware formats and expending huge energy regarding merchandise, artwork and something the consumer can actually hold. I am seeing so many acts release cassettes, vinyl and use their imagination concerning the physical. For them, it seems more of an achievement having something in their hands and the fans, in turn, get that same buzz. I agree with the assumption that music sounds clearer and more pleasurable when played on physical forms – there is something a little vapid and empty. It may seem tangential but cinematic releases are a way of keeping the visual side of music alive. A Star Is Born is out and features Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. Whilst it is not directly related to physical formats; it is another way of viewing music in a more physical, visual and social way. That interaction with other music fans and cinema lovers (in this case) is vital. National Album Day is not about sitting behind screens and sharing your stories; it is about getting to record shops and actually engaging with albums in their physical form.

IN THIS IMAGE: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images/Unknown

I have talked about the best albums ever – and will explore albums from different angles – but the tactile aspect of albums is something that cannot be downplayed. Musicians and fans alike treasure music that is fulsome and tells a tale; a complete work that engages us and provides something extraordinary. It can provoke you when you hear it online but I feel music hits deeper and has more resonance when we have that physical product and marry artwork/visuals alongside the music playing. It is a more sense-inspiring experience and artists realise this. Spotify and other sites might be convenient and inexpensive but how much pleasure and memorability do you get when you listen to music that way? I get a real rush and hum when I have a cassettes or record and, strangely, I remember the music longer because of that. Maybe it is the artwork and inserts you get or the fact you have a more physical and tangible connection with the music itself.  In any case; when National Album Day arrives (on 13th October), do not only think about your favourite albums but get them out and play them – or go out and buy that album. Many claim albums are dying and digital platforms are the only way to experience music but, from what I am reading and seeing, albums are still vitally important and the physical side of them is…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @annietheby/Unsplash

ESSENTIAL for so many artists!

FEATURE: Band from the Mainstream: Is Music Reserved for the Solo Artist?

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Band from the Mainstream

PHOTO CREDIT: @jmvillejo/Unsplash

 Is Music Reserved for the Solo Artist?

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THIS is something I have looked at…

 IN THIS PHOTO: IDLES/PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana for DIY

from slightly different angles and in different guises. I am impressed by all the great new bands coming through right now but I look at the mainstream and most of the best albums around are being created by solo artists! Aside from some bold offerings from Parquet Courts, Arctic Monkeys; IDLES, Young Fathers and Shame…it seems most of the best music being made is from solo artists. Of course, you can toss other bands into the mix: Wolf Alice have just won the Mercury Prize and Hookworms are one of the best bands in the country. Throw in Superorganism and a few others and, well, there are enough there! The thing is, even if you take all those bands into mind…that still leaves the question: Why is there such an imbalance between solo artists and bands?! If you drew up a list of the top-twenty albums of 2018 so far I can bet you anything the majority of the records on that list would be from solo artists. I know much solo musicians have bands behind them but what has become of the four/five-piece that, even fairly recently, used to rule music?! I remember growing up in the 1990s and seeing nothing but groups on the radio. From Oasis and Pulp to Destiny’s Child and The Bluetones – the list could go on and on! There is a real disparity between the underground and the mainstream.

I get requests for interviews at the rate of knots and, whilst there is a gap in terms of the number of requests from solo acts and bands, the gulf is a lot narrower than it is in the mainstream! It seems like, on the boundaries, there are loads of bands ready to attack and campaign but there seems to be some sort of barrier. The last time I addressed this topic it was shocking to see how few great bands were ruling high in the market. I think the market has become more pronounced and, aside from your IDLES and Wolf Alice; can you really name a whole list of great bands who are making an impact?! It is not their fault at all but I wonder whether there is a barrier that is stopping newcomers getting their props – maybe there is that desire for the flexibility and focus of a solo artist?! Pop and Indie-Rock are, I feel, the most popular genres when it comes to the mainstream and the latter especially is moving from a once-band-dominated sea to one populated by solo artists. This is not a new development: two years ago, Consequence of Sound dedicated an article that aimed to answer the question…

“So, what happened? Glance through the arguments listed above, and you’ll find reasons that include everything from sales to style to sheer boredom. But there’s one underlying reason not too many people seem to be talking about: The downfall of the band as the centralized unit in rock music.

IN THIS PHOTO: Mitski/PHOTO CREDIT: Ebru Yildiz  

“Just look at the most prominent and critically acclaimed artists releasing music in the genre today. What do Mitski, Angel Olsen, Bon Iver, and Car Seat Headrest all have in common? Aside from the fact that they’ve all released very strong indie rock albums in 2016, they’re all predominantly viewed as solo artists. This would seem to indicate a new trend. A growing number of artists in their 20s and 30s have opted to either strike out on their own or front “bands” in which the other members are less collaborators and more backing musicians. This is a far cry from what was going on during indie rock’s glory days of the mid-aughts, when full-fledged bands like Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, and The National were releasing albums hailed as modern classics”.

You might be confused by my concern: Who cares about the music so long as it is good and interesting, right?! From a consumer’s-eye-view; there is no real worry in the market right now but I, as a journalist, am acutely aware of all the great bands plugging away that are not getting their dues – struggling to break into the market that is heavily dominated by solo acts. This Guardian article, reacting to the BBC naming their ‘Sound of…’ list in 2014, looked at why so many award shows and newcomer lists are dominated by the solo artist:

“…Interestingly, 12 of the 15 shortlisted are solo artists, while the other three are duos. There are as many Brit School graduates as there are actual bands: one apiece. And even then that one band – Royal Blood – are a two-piece. Of course, duos can be bands, but the BBC news themselves have been swift to report that "bands are out of fashion".

 IN THIS IMAGE: The longlist for the BBC ‘Sound of…2018’/IMAGE CREDIT: BBC

Maybe the awakening and prevalence of eager and deep-hitting bands such as IDLES are making a mark and maybe that is the answer – bands need to evolve with the times and not repeat what has come before. There are exceptions to the rules but a lot of the most-popular bands of the moment are mixing gritty and exciting compositions with lyrics that are much more intriguing and intelligent than you’d imagine. Maybe the best bands have always been smart and captivating but I find, in order to shine today, bands need to up their game and deliver something with real potency, substance and memorability. Alongside that comes the sound. Once was the time when Indie-Rock and Pop bands ruled the land. I have mentioned my upbringing and who I heard played but maybe a sense of boredom and predictability has come through. Punk, Rock and Alternative are still burning but there are opportunities out there. I believe there is a documentary/album reissue coming regarding the Traveling Wilburys. The details are a bit sketchy at the moment but the supergroup – Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Rob Orbison – define what a ‘supergroup’ is all about. I love their music and how accessible it is; how there were no egos in the ranks and, were it not for the untimely death of Orbison before they recorded a second album, how long they could have lasted.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Traveling Wilburys/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Press

There are some great solo musicians out there, old and new, and I wonder whether the idea of a supergroup has died? I would love to see some big names get together and see what they can come up with. The last true supergroup I saw out there was Them Crooked Vultures – Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones – but they have not released any material since their debut album, Them Crooked Vultures, back in 2009! One might argue there isn’t the talent alive today to constitute a genuinely great supergroup but I disagree. I want to end the piece by looking at considerations such as sound malleability, political and social factors in addition to current trends – which can explain why bands are struggling to find the same appreciation as solo artists. Whilst Wolf Alice’s Mercury win is good to see, it is an aberration that is not been mirrored at music award ceremonies, ‘best of the year’ lists and polls like that of the BBC. Whilst politically and socially-aware bands like IDLES and Shame are striking; raw, inventive and engaging groups elsewhere are claiming glory; it seems like one other once-popular core is missing from the band market: the girl group. Maybe that term seems somewhat reductive, sexist or archaic given the times in which we live. However you would label these groups – taking gender out of it would prove unwise – my point is that these bands/groups/coalitions/etc.

Perhaps, again, it is a sign of the times. To me, girl groups represented the very finest, most exciting and sassy music around. I followed groups like Bananarama and The Bangles in the 1980s and, during the 1990s peak, we had Destiny’s Child (who reigned into the 2000s), En Vogue; the Spice Girls and TLC among those owning the charts and delivering incredibly powerful music. At a time when feminism and sexism are on everyone’s minds; it appears now is a great year to welcome in a new breed of girl groups. Are those words restricting movement in the market – not sure whether they will be reduced to gender or diminished in some way?! I think there are a few girl groups around like Little Mix and Four of Diamonds but, again, genre comes through. Most of those groups I just mentioned played in the R&B/Pop realm. Perhaps the Pop group seems like a naff and unappealing proposition given the fact most of the best bands around are performing in other genres. I used to love listening to a new album by Destiny’s Child or En Vogue and was captivated by the harmonies, incredible strength of the songs and how catchy they were. There was that argument regarding the Spice Girls and All Saints – who was best and the finest of the Brits – and we can all name some true anthems by those iconic girl groups. Look back even further and you have Gladys Knight & the Pips and Diana Ross and the Supremes who can be seen as the godmothers of the genre. So, then…where have all the girl groups gone?! I have found a few articles that ask the same question and have their theories. This one, from 2014, takes up the baton:

“In this new age where technology dominates and artists become stars courtesy of Vine, Instagram and YouTube, it’s hard to miss that there are no reigning girl groups around. The industry has become saturated with solo artists all producing the same sound and looking the exact same, and the industry is also littered with failed reunion attempt after failed reunion attempt from folks who still can’t seem to get along. What’s changed?

In this new scope of music, it seems like the outlook is pretty grim. Can there be another TLC? Can there be another girl group with an impact thanks to songs that detail a little bit of everything, including the struggle of battling depression, calls for unity and even safe sex? With plenty of social injustices in the world, there is certainly a void for women to fill”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @dchuck/Unsplash

Forbes looked at the issue a couple of years ago and explored geographical aspects:

“The last time there were girl groups on the charts with any consistency was around ten years ago, when the Pussycat Dolls and Danity Kane both made it big and were able to secure several top ten hits and albums. Sadly, the members of these collectives haven’t been able to make it on their own, with lead Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger being the best-known of the bunch, even though most of her solo musical output has flopped here in the States…

While the U.S. has experienced a dearth of vocal groups fronted by women as of late, other parts of the world have been doing just fine, so perhaps this is just an American problem. The U.K., in particular, has always had an affinity girl groups, and while there aren’t as many that are active at the moment as in the past, there are, at all times, enough to keep fans of the style interested”.

There are some powerful and inspiring female artists out there but, by and large, they are solo acts. There are enough male bands out there so it is a bit confusing. Do we consider any band that consists of women as ‘girl groups’? There are bands with women in them but you cannot call them girl groups – that term projects a certain mood, genre and sensation. There are parts of the world where girl bands are surviving and growing – Asia, especially – but the U.S. and U.K. charts have a severe surfeit.

FADER, in a more up-to-date article, have brought the million-dollar questions back:

“Over the past 20 years, girl power has subsided in favor of a more individualistic pop feminism. The posse has lost its power, and the female executive has risen in its place. Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In philosophy informs mainstream imaginings of the woman in a man's world; Wonder Woman only becomes a superhero once she leaves her Sapphic utopia to fight alongside men; and immensely powerful female singers command historic numbers on the Billboard charts, if sporadically.

Whether there is room for the girl group in the contemporary neoliberal imagination remains to be seen. Non-male bands command attention in more niche genres such as indie rock, where groups like Camp Cope and Cayetana challenge the patriarchal vision of the rock stage as a male domain. The sound of female camaraderie remains a powerful one for certain audiences, yet it remains a challenge for groups of women to attain mainstream sway. If girl groups are to see a resurgence, they’ll have to prove to the market what we already know to be true: female friendship is worth looking at”.

I, for one, would like to see more girl groups around and feel there is a definite appetite and gap. Whether political and social boundaries mean that type of group is sexist and outdated has yet to be established. I feel, given the political state of the world and how much sexism still exists, we could foster some great girl groups who could deliver some big messages. I love the fact we have empowered and exceptional solo female artists but I do long for those heady days when we sang along to the great girl groups and had that diversity.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Oasis/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Whereas social class is not such a huge issue when it comes to solo artists and girl groups; traditional bands, before, were usually working-class. That may be overly-simplistic but the big boys/girls of the 1990s and early-2000s were definitely coming from a more humble and working-class background. Noel Gallagher, back in 2015, looked around music and noticed how few working-class bands there were. NME reported it at the time:

“He’s now calling on labels to provide more support to new bands.

Speaking during an appearance on BBC Four’s ‘What Ever Happened To Rock ‘N’ Roll?’, which airs this evening (July 23), he says: ”In theory the internet and YouTube should be helping new bands get off the ground but it hasn’t – it’s got worse. The record labels just aren’t interested in working-class bands any more.

”[Rock’n’roll is not dead] as long as I’m still going, it’s fucking not. It’s there but it’s certainly lacking the re-generation process.

”Since the Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Razorlight and The Libertines there has been nothing. You name me one band since them. So that’s 10 years ago. So the evidence is that it is kind of in hibernation”.

Again…in the same way the 1990s produced these world-class girl groups; there were these big working-class bands who were delivering anthems that united the world and have, as such, survived the decades. I have mentioned a few bands already but look at most of the groups out there and how many can you claim is working-class?! A lot of the bands I get requests from are working-class but I find they are struggling to get the same focus as middle-class bands and solo artists. Is the music industry interested in the working-class and have they turned their backs on bands altogether?! There is a clear problem and one can argue a lack of quality means solo artists are taking a lead – I do not feel bands lack ambition but times have changed and we need to start opening the market up.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kacey Musgraves (who has produced one of this year’s best albums, Golden Hour)/PHOTO CREDIT: Billboard

I admit that there is a wealth of great solo talent and some truly remarkable albums have been produced this year. I am not suggesting we limit their role and voice but it seems the music industry is much more accommodating towards solo artists. Maybe the closing of so many venues means bands have nowhere to cut their teeth – there are a lot of smaller venues around that can cater a solo act or duo – but it is an interesting argument. I feel, so long as music is good and evolving, then we should not be alarmed but I would hate to think that, decades from now, all the best bands that come to mind are those from way back. How many new bands from the last decade can you rank alongside those we grew up with and idolised?! Maybe I am just growing old and need to shift with the times but I feel the industry needs to hold its hands up (in blame) and we should ask why few great bands are being heralded in the mainstream. Maybe politics, class and genre plays a part but quality might be lacking; perhaps we are a bit bored of bands and solo artists have great opportunity to fuse genres, resonate on a personal level and have more artistic freedom. Whatever the reason behind this years-long trend – that seems more emphatic and worrying now – discussion and productive investigation needs to happen to reverse the endangerment. The few wonderful bands that are showing their might do not have great backing and, when it comes to music awards and the artists being tipped, there is that favouring of solo acts. I do not want to live through times when bands are seen as obsolete and inferior – that is not true and I know plenty of unsigned groups who have the promise and potential to last for years. I feel everything should be done so these great groups - whether they are Pop, Rock or Folk-based – get more focus and are not seen as a product…

OF the past.

FEATURE: It’s About the Whole Package, Not Just Looks: National Album Day: The Best Albums of 2018 (So Far)

FEATURE:

 

 

It’s About the Whole Package, Not Just Looks

PHOTO CREDIT: @duck58cth/Unsplash 

National Album Day: The Best Albums of 2018 (So Far)

__________

I have just written a piece about the best debut albums ever…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @trommelkopf/Unsplash

that is inspired by National Album Day. There are another few days to go until that celebration comes but it is a good opportunity to look at albums and actually celebrate them in full – rather than concentrate on singles and the material side of music. I am excited, on 13th October, to celebrate National Album Day and, given the tremendous L.P.s that have arrived this year; I had to compile the best of the year so far and urge people to give them a good listen! There are still a couple of months to go until the year is through but there have been some tremendous albums released already. I present the very finest of 2018 so far that provide the album is very much…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @danidums/Unsplash

ALIVE and kicking.

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

____________

Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer

Release Date: 27th April, 2018

Labels: Wondaland; Bad Boy; Atlantic

Review:

“She’s got The Purple One’s punk, mad-scientist approach but creates a world all of her own. Throwing in rap, soul, pop, R&B, space-rock and whatever the hell she wants with her fearless message, Janelle Monáe doesn’t believe in walls or limits: this is a fluid celebration of freedom, raging and raving against the oppressors. In fact, only one label sticks – icon”
 NME

Standout Cut: Django Jane

Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Release Date: 11th May, 2018

Label: Domino

Review:

“Perhaps the great mystery of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is not its knotty themes or cryptic lyrics but what’s motivating Turner. With the keys to the most lucrative and well-oiled indie-rock band around, he’s regenerated Arctic Monkeys in service of a delirious and artful satire directed at the foundations of modern society. This is not an act of protest: Implicated in its sprawl are gentrification, consumerism, and media consumption, but rather than address these meaty topics, he strafes around them, admiring their transformation in the laboratory of his word tricks. In the end, his helpless struggle for meaning is what makes him relatable. For all this record’s hubris, the long-touted “generational voice” that is Alex Turner has never sounded more real, or more himself” - Pitchfork  

Standout Cut: Four Out of Five

Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour

Release Date: 30th March, 2018

Label: MCA Nashville

Review:

“Everything clicks perfectly, but the writing has an effortless air; it never sounds as if it’s trying too hard to make a commercial impact, it never cloys, and the influences never swallow the character of the artist who made it. In recent years, there have been plenty of artists who’ve clumsily tried to graft the sound of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours on to their own. On Lonely Weekend, possibly the best track here, Musgraves succeeds in capturing some of that album’s dreamy atmosphere without giving the impression that she’s striving to sound like Fleetwood Mac. It’s an album that imagines a world in which its author is the mainstream, rather than an influential outlier. It says something about its quality that, by the time it’s finished, that doesn’t seem a fanciful notion at all” - The Guardian  

Standout Cut: Space Cowboy

IDLES – Joy as an Act of Resistance

Release Date: 31st August  

Label: Partisan Records

Review:

“Across its 40-odd minutes, ‘Joy As An Act of Resistance’ makes you want to laugh and cry and roar into the wind and cradle your nearest and dearest. It is a beautiful slice of humanity delivered by a group of men whose vulnerability and heart has become a guiding light in the fog for an increasing community of fans who don’t just want, but need this. No hyperbole needed; IDLES are the most important band we have right now” – DIY  

Standout Cut: Television

Sophie – Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides

Release Date: 15th June, 2018

Labels: MSMSMSM; Future Classic; Transgressive

Review:

“Often I tune out the first and get annoyed with the second. But the rest of the album is all laughs and thrills in which sweet clarity defies a panoply of beaty techno sound effects at different junctures every time you listen. For me the most reliable comes as a reward right after "Pretending": "Immaterial," where she has the generosity to grant one of technodancepop's most generic and cheerful riffs the Sophie version of eternal life” - Noisey    

Standout Cut: Immaterial

Jon Hopkins – Singularity

Release Date: 4th May, 2018

Label: Domino

Review:

“Much like Immunity before it, Jon Hopkins plays with light and dark to exhilirating effect and with Singularity it feels like he’s levelled up the melding of two worlds: ambient and techno. Hopkins’ signature deep tissue massage bass is stitched together throughout, with unreal moments of musical beauty making Singularity a simply stunning album of emotional highs and lows” - The Skinny    

Standout Cut: Emerald Rush

Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy

Release Date: 5th April, 2018   

Label: Atlantic

Review:

“And yet there is a political, even feminist element to all this. One look at the tastemaking Spotify playlist Rap Caviar will show you how overwhelmingly male the scene still is, and in their tracks, women are often reduced to mere “beasts” and “bad girls”, seduced into infidelity less for sexual pleasure than as a way to cuckold their partners in a war of masculinity. The common use of “thot” – an acronym for “that ho over there” – shows how depersonalised women often are. Like Lil Kim, Foxy Brown and Nicki Minaj before her, Cardi’s genius is to take the sexually available “thot” image and rehumanise it, reminding boorish men of women’s agency, wit and emotional reality” – The Guardian       

Standout Cut: Bodack Yellow

Leon Bridges – Good Thing

Release Date: 4th May, 2018

Label: Columbia

Review:

“While the record embodies Bridges’ Sam Cooke-influenced vocals, he doesn’t just find himself attached to Sixties soul: he finds himself transcending time with the sparkling, disco “If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be)” and the Eighties synth-influenced “Forgive You”. “Sometimes I wonder what we’re holding on for/Then you climb on top of me and I remember”, Bridges sings on the sexy, lovesick “Mrs”. Bridges has matured, and that is absolutely a good thing”- The Independent     

Standout Cut: Bad Bad News

Eleanor Friedberger - Rebound

Release Date: 4th May, 2018 

Label: Frenchkiss Records

Review:

“Rebound, on the other hand and despite its evident connections to a specific type of 1980s music, is an album written very much in the present: a work of emotional maturity where the dizzying memories of youth, the infatuated giddiness of new love, or the safety of domesticity have been dealt with and overcome. All the baggage left in some Aegean shore. Hence, in Rebound, Friedberger meets mementos of happier times and opportunities for immediate joy with identical ease. And that is the promise, making her latest album an intriguing open door from an artist who continues to grow in all possible ways” - TinyMixTapes

Standout Cut: In Between Stars

Nils Frahm – All Melody

Release Date: 26th January, 2018 

Label: Erased Tapes Records

Review:

“It’s a wonderfully imaginative process. ‘Human Range’ uses wind instruments like the horn to give it this kind of airy quality, while the notation is more stuttered, bringing in also that premier wind instrument – the voice. ‘All Melody’ is a masterpiece of texture. Incessant overlapping rhythms which swoop down from on high, peeling off into the subsequent track ‘#2’ which just wallops you with rhythm.

It’s continuously changing, perfectly timed, evenly spaced - an impeccable album” – Drowned in Sound

Standout Cut: My Friend the Forest

Mitski – Be the Cowboy

Release Date: 17th August, 2018    

Label: Dead Oceans

Review:

“Mitski’s songwriting trademarks are strong enough to transcend the stylistic revamp – arrangements that are rich without being precious (Pink in the Night), plus her terrifically mordant worldview. “Nobody butters me up like you,” she sings on twisted country song Lonesome Love. “And nobody fucks me like me.” It is hard to sing at a remove and maintain emotional directness – Mitski is famously private – but like St Vincent or even David Lynch, she specialises in the bait-and-switch of delight and obfuscation” – The Guardian   

Standout Cut: Why Didn’t You Stop Me?

Hookworms – Microshift

Release Date: 2nd February, 2018  

Label: Domino Recording Company

Review:

“Groove-based krautrock is visited on the epic nine minutes of "Opener". The use of electronic loops and monotonous guitar lines results in something trancelike, hypnotic and accompanied by the most impassioned vocal on the album ("I can’t last the distance / It’s hard to find a better world / Where we can countercall the shortcomings, oppress them til they're hidden from the world /or just let it all out"). Again, on paper it might read kinda twee, but its delivered with such steely conviction, the message of it totally being OK to not be OK proves to be one which is deeply profound.

It's the beginning of the 2018 and talk of albums of the year right now is obviously churlish, but on Microshift we're hearing a band hitting their sweet spot with such an effortless swagger that we're sure this is a contender” – The Line of Best Fit  

Standout Cut: Negative Spaces

Christine and the Queens – Chris

Release Date: 21st September    

Label: Because Music 

Review:

“Maintaining every ounce of the sheen of ‘Chaleur Humaine’, while pushing forward the idea of Christine & The Queens as the most subversive, game-changing pop star we have, ‘Chris’ is a second album that thrives in the realm of the uncertain, throws perceptions on gender, sexuality and expression comprehensively out of the window, and cements the status of Héloïse Letissier as a true star” - DIY   

Standout Cut: 5 dollars

Gaz Coombes – World’s Strongest Man

Release Date: 4th May, 2018  

Label: Caroline International

Review:

“So here’s an album by a male songwriter who feels deeply affected by the conversations happening around men and masculinity right now in light of #MeToo, Time’s Up and gender inequality in all its forms. Gaz Coombes isn’t congratulating himself on having these thoughts, he’s just trying to be more like the man he wants himself and other men to be. There’s room for a lot more of those” - NME  

Standout Cut: Walk the Walk

Gwenno – Le Kov

Release Date: 2nd March, 2018  

Label: Heavenly Records

Review:

“While the diverse musical settings she and Edwards cook up for each song are impressive, Gwenno's vocals are a dream throughout. It's clear that she feels strongly about the words she is singing, and she inhabits every song fully. The music, words, and voice come together on Le Kov like fragments of the past put back together and made into a satisfying new whole that works as a lovely tribute to Cornish culture, while also solidifying Gwenno's place as an important artist” - AllMusic  

Standout Cut: Herdhya

Anna Calvi – Hunter

Release Date: 31st August, 2018   

Label: Domino Recording Company

Review:

“The legacy of female-led British punk comes through, with essences of Lene Lovich in Calvi’s vocals on ‘Indies Or Paradise’, a track that kicks off with a hint of X-Ray Spex’s ‘Germfree Adolescence’. After the edgy, melodramatic intensity of the first two-thirds of Hunter, a break comes in the emotional detachment of ‘Away’. With its acoustic, gentle melody, it’s a bittersweet song of release, but the softness steadily gives in to a melancholic ache of loss. The jewel of the album, though, is ‘Don’t Beat The Girl Out of My Boy’, in all of its ethereal Cocteau Twins-esque gothic rock. Calvi howls up a storm as she defies the gendering that society imposes from an early age, imploring “let us be us”. Hunter is a tempestuous album full of haunting, unsettling vocals; it resonates with evocative power” – The Quietus  

Standout Cut: Hunter

Shame - Songs of Praise

Release Date: 12th January, 2018   

Label: Dead Oceans

Review:

“It would be wrong to paint Shame as class clowns, though; lyrically and musically this cuts deeper than most, with the band’s political beliefs worn firmly on their sleeves. There’s a sense throughout of upending the norm, a group of young people shunted to the sidelines who yearn – if only briefly – to seize control of the stage, to rip down the curtains and show things as they really are.

‘Friction’ is one of the album’s most resolute achievements, and it asks one of Shame’s most daring questions: “In a time of such injustice how can you not want to be heard?”

In context and execution, ‘Songs Of Praise’ is one of the most daring, scorching, seethingly intelligent, and at times downright funny British guitar albums to come our way in years” – CLASH    

Standout Cut: Tasteless

Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel

Release Date: 18th May, 2018   

Label: Milk! Records

Review:

“They’re the most Nirvana-esque moments on this modest masterpiece of an album, made by an avowed fan who shows a kindred underdog solidarity. Kicking against the pricks, including the ones in her own head, Barnett encourages us to do the same, with an impressive generosity of spirit. “Take your broken heart/Turn it into art,” she counsels at the LP’s outset. “Your vulnerability is stronger than it seems.” As Tell Me How You Really Feel amply demonstrates, so is hers” – Rolling Stone   

Standout Cut: Nameless, Faceless

FEATURE: She Plays the Cello Like a Violin: National Album Day: The Best Debut Albums Ever

FEATURE:

 

 

She Plays the Cello Like a Violin

PHOTO CREDIT: @samueldixon/Unsplash

National Album Day: The Best Debut Albums Ever

__________

IT is coming up to National Album Day (13th October)…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @lagianolik/Unsplash

and I have seen various radio stations and websites cover the album from different angles. Whether it is the best album opening track or the best record of this year – there is a lot of interest in the album itself and how important it is. I might well cover both of those considerations in future pieces but, to me, when you think of the album and the most interesting topic around it…can you get any more interesting than deciding the best debut album?! Naming the best album full-stop would be exhaustive and contentious but I think it is easy to limit the choice of best debut album down to a select few. In fact, I have assembled fifteen records that, I feel, can be considered the very best opening statements ever. You might have your own interpretation and champion but there seems to be a sense of consensus regarding the assembled list. What makes the ‘best debut album’ is the fact people, when they were released, would have judged them on the strength of the whole rather than the singles – how often do we do that on a regular basis?! These albums are special, not only because they are complete and thrill you from the first to the last, but because it is the first album we heard from those artists – those who made a bold and brilliant push right from the get-go! Have a listen and look through the shortlisted best debut album nominations and see which one you would plump for – maybe you have a different view and think one has been omitted! As we near National Album Day, I excited to pull apart, celebrate and commemorate the album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@iammrcup

ANY way I can.

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

____________

Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill

Release Date: 15th November, 1986

Producers: Rick Rubin, Beastie Boys

Review:

“There is a sense of genuine discovery, of creating new music, that remains years later, after countless plays, countless misinterpretations, countless rip-off acts, even countless apologies from the Beasties, who seemed guilty by how intoxicating the sound of it is, how it makes beer-soaked hedonism sound like the apogee of human experience. And maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but in either case, Licensed to Ill reigns tall among the greatest records of its time” - AllMusic (2011)

Standout Cut: No Sleep till Brooklyn

Patti Smith – Horses

Release Date: 13th December, 1975

Producer: John Cale

Review:

“Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." Patti Smith's debut - from that devastating opening line forward - is a unique rock & roll document; its ambitious musical primitivism, anybody-can-do-it-attitude and casual androgyny laid down a blueprint for punk. Twenty-nine years old when the album was released, Smith was a natural, if unlikely, avatar of rock. A published poet and rock critic, she set her beat-tribute "babelogues" to the inspire din of Sixties-style garage rock” - Rolling Stone (1997)

Standout Cut: Gloria (Part I: In Excelsis Deo; Part II: Gloria (Version)

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Release Date: 23rd January, 2006

Producers: Jim Abbiss, Alan Smyth

Review:

“At moments like that, Whatever People Say ... defies you not to join in the general excitement, but it's worth sounding a note of caution. We have been here before, a decade ago: critics and public united behind some cocky, working-class northern lads who seemed to tower effortlessly over their competition. The spectre of Oasis lurks around Arctic Monkeys, proof that even the most promising beginnings can turn into a dreary, reactionary bore. For now, however, they look and sound unstoppable” - The Guardian (2006)

Standout Cut: Fake Tales of San Francisco

a

Jeff Buckley – Grace

Release Date: 23rd August, 1994

Producers: Andy Wallace, Jeff Buckley

Review:

“As the son of Tim Buckley – who also died far too young – Jeff was always going to find it difficult to escape his father’s shadow and establish himself as a singular talent. Grace, though, was a remarkable first step – inconsistent certainly, but blessed with moments of arresting, beguiling beauty. It takes most of its compositional cues from fairly classic rock sources (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd), but Buckley’s vocals – committed, sincere, stop-you-in-your-tracks intense – marked him as an artist to follow intently. What a tragedy that he was never able to develop further the epic potential of this worthy debut” - BBC Music (2011)   

Standout Cut: Hallelujah

The Beatles – Please Please Me

Release Date: 22nd March, 1963

Producer: George Martin

Review:

“This slightly rough and ready debut is as close as we can get to their early live set.The range of their tastes is reflected in their penchant for slightly saccharine ballads, melody already as important to them as the sharp rhythmic groove and tough rock sensibility of the utterly sensational, snotty version of 'Twist And Shout’, which features a fearless lead vocal from Lennon that defined the way British rock singers would approach the mike ever after” - The Telegraph (2009)   

Standout Cut: Twist and Shout

Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction

Release Date: 21st July, 1987 

Producer: Mike Clink

Review:

“It’s a surprising closing sentiment for an album so drenched in fear and loathing. But taken of a piece with the band members’ declarations that despite the hard living they were just five guys out to have a good time, it also shows how Guns N’ Roses’ early outlook was as animated not just by its members’ heady stew of influences. Perhaps all that wanton consumption could lead to a place of contentment that offered more than the comfort offered by the Midwest, more than the neon-lit debauchery of clubs’ back rooms—a wandering through the jungle that would open up into paradise” - Pitchfork (2017)    

Standout Cut: Sweet Child o’ Mine

Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Release Date: 25th August, 1998

Producers: Lauryn Hill (also exec.), Che Guevara and Vada Nobles

Review:

“What’s most remarkable, in retrospect, as the cult of Lauryn Hill grows stronger (sporadic concert appearances becoming the stuff of myth) is how slight some of her songs are on record. For being almost 80 minutes long, Miseducation is a surprisingly easy listen, coasting mostly on Hill’s simple repetition of phrases to emphasize a mood. By album’s end, a cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (with beatboxing) seems obligatory but still a part of what she does best: Like Amy Winehouse, Hill gets at the heart of ’60s soul while slyly turning it into her own postmodern art project. The album’s simple authenticity is one of its strengths, turning backup vocals into rap refrains and stripping bare much of soul music’s bullshit” - SLANT (2015)  

Standout Cut: Doo Wop (That Thing)

Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols

Release Date: 28th October, 1977  

Producers: Chris Thomas, Bill Price

Review:

“In a commercial sense, however, the Sex Pistols will probably destroy no one but themselves, but theirs is a holy or unholy war that isn’t really going to be won or lost by statistics, slick guitar playing or smooth studio work. This band still takes rock & roll personally, as a matter of honor and necessity, and they play with an energy and conviction that is positively transcendent in its madness and fever. Their music isn’t pretty — indeed, it often sounds like two subway trains crashing together under forty feet of mud, victims screaming — but it has an Ahab-versus-Moby Dick power that can shake you like no other music today can. It isn’t particularly accessible either, but, hard to believe and maybe not true, record sales apparently don’t mean much to the Pistols. (They never do when you don’t have any.)” - Rolling Stone (1978)  

Standout Cut: Pretty Vacant

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin

Release Date: 12th January, 1969 

Producer: Jimmy Page

Review:

“Led Zeppelin I is a fantastic glimpse into the time capsule, a standing testament to rock pageantry. If released today, there would still be a place for it in the genre’s decorated history. It set the tone for one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Even if no one knew it yet” - Consequence of Sound (2014)     

Standout Cut: Communication Breakdown

The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

Release Date: 2nd May, 1989 

Producers: Peter Hook, John Leckie

Review:

“Squire's riffs are bright and catchy, recalling the British Invasion while suggesting the future with their phased, echoey effects. The Stone Roses was a two-fold revolution -- it brought dance music to an audience that was previously obsessed with droning guitars, while it revived the concept of classic pop songwriting, and the repercussions of its achievement could be heard throughout the '90s, even if the Stone Roses could never achieve this level of achievement again” - AllMusic (2009)

Standout Cut: I Wanna Be Adored

Ramones – Ramones

Release Date: 23rd April, 1976  

Producers: Craig Leon, Tommy Ramone

Review:

“They don't alter the structure, or the intent, of the song, they simply make it louder and faster. And that's the key to all of the Ramones' music -- it's simple rock & roll, played simply, loud, and very, very fast. None of the songs clock in at any longer than two and half minutes, and most are considerably shorter. In comparison to some of the music the album inspired, The Ramones sounds a little tame -- it's a little too clean, and compared to their insanely fast live albums, it even sounds a little slow -- but there's no denying that it still sounds brilliantly fresh and intoxicatingly fun” - AllMusic (2010)  

Standout Cut: Judy Is a Punk

Oasis – Definitely Maybe

Release Date: 29th August, 1994  

Producers: Oasis, Mark Coyle; Owen Morris and David Batchelor  

Review:

“It's their much-vaunted 'attitude' that has bolstered Oasis with the confidence to make all this work. The only equivocal thing about 'Definitely Maybe' is its title. Everything else screams certainty. So what if all the singles are here” - NME (2000)

Standout Cut: Live Forever

The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico

Release Date: 12th May, 1967  

Producer: Andy Warhol  

Review:

“Offerings as extreme as "The Black Angels Death Song" or "European Son" were always going to be the moments that really remained in the minds of those brave enough to experience this album. Not many did and unbelievably it remained a semi-obscurity long after its release, with only rock scribes and musicians enhancing its reputation by word of mouth. Acceptance as a 'classic' hasn't diminished its awesome power to shock and provoke one jot. If you've never heard it, your life will be changed. If you've already got it, it's still an essential purchase. A monument to the evil that men (and women) do” - BBC Music (2002 – Deluxe Version Review)

Standout Cut: Venus in Furs

Television – Marquee Moon

Release Date: 8th February, 1977  

Producers: Andy Johns, Tom Verlaine

Review:

“Leader Tom Verlaine wrote all the songs, coproduced with Andy Johns, plays lead guitar in a harrowingly mesmerizing stream-of-nightmare style and sings all his verses like an intelligent chicken being strangled: clearly, he dominates this quartet. Television is his vehicle for the portrayal of an arid, despairing sensibility, musically rendered by loud, stark repetitive guitar riffs that build in every one of Marquee Moon‘s eight songs to nearly out-of-control climaxes. The songs often concern concepts or inanimate objects — “Friction,” “Elevation,” “Venus” (de Milo, that is) — and when pressed Verlaine even opts for the mechanical over the natural: in the title song, he doesn’t think that a movie marquee glows like the moon; he feels that the moon resonates with the same evocative force as a movie marquee...

When one can make out the lyrics, they often prove to be only non sequiturs, or phrases that fit metrically but express little, or puffy aphorisms or chants. (The chorus of “Prove It” repeats, to a delightful sprung-reggae beat: “Prove it/Just the facts/The confidential” a few times.)” - Rolling Stone (1977)

Standout Cut: Marquee Moon

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Release Date: 15th June, 1979

Producer: Martin Hannett

Review:

“Ian Curtis synthesizes and purifies every last impulse, his voice shot through with the desire first and foremost to connect, only connect -- as "Candidate" plaintively states, "I tried to get to you/You treat me like this." Pick any song: the nervous death dance of "She's Lost Control"; the harrowing call for release "New Dawn Fades," all four members in perfect sync; the romance in hell of "Shadowplay"; "Insight" and its nervous drive toward some sort of apocalypse. All visceral, all emotional, all theatrical, all perfect -- one of the best albums ever” - AllMusic (2012)    

Standout Cut: She’s Lost Control

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VIII)

FEATURE:

 

 

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Malaika 

An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VIII)

__________

THIS is another sunny day…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jack River

so it is a good time to publish another playlist that keeps hold of the summer but looks at the autumnal chill. The female-led songs I have included here have that great balance of warm and uplifting with the more reflective cool of the autumn. It is a great time for new music and I have uncovered some gems from great female artists – make sure you get involved and have a good listen.

This playlist collates all the best new slices – and older tracks – from great female artists/female-led acts that will get into the head and stay with you for a long time. It is another bumper and busy playlist that I am pleased to present and, with cold weather forecast very soon; it will keep the bliss of summer firm but remind us autumn…

 IN THIS PHOTO: MONOWHALES/PHOTO CREDIT: Francesca Ludikar

IS very much with us.

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

_____________

Cosha – LUV

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Vivaas Kise

Dagny – Landslide

PHOTO CREDIT: @misterchristiaan

Alice Avery – Addicted

Laura Roy – Company

PHOTO CREDIT: @leftoverlight

Frankie Davies – High on Love

Young Thieves – What You Want

PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Rose Humphreys

Moon Panda – Rabbit

PHOTO CREDIT: ellmatik

Amber Mark – High on Your Life

Elley Duhé - WAY DOWN LOW

Tia Gostelow – Phone Me

Sloan Peterson – Our Love

CXLOE – Show You

PHOTO CREDIT: @BrookeWedlockSchaal

Celia Palli – Complicity

PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Sadin

Melanie Baker – Loveblind

PHOTO CREDIT: Sebastian Barros Photography

Babyteeth – Shame

Tancred – Clipping

PHOTO CREDIT: SHOT BY PHOX

Jerry Williams – Left and Right

COVER DESIGN: MMiii Design

Chasing Jonah – Feels So High

Nat Reed – Flow

Malaika – Low Fruit

Betta Lemme – Sea of Silence

PHOTO CREDIT: Kurt Cuffy - Music & Portrait Photography

MONOWHALES – Let It Go 

Emily Kinney – Mortal 

Charlie Says – Witches

PHOTO CREDIT: Xtina Ness

Jade Jackson – Aden

Amy Steele – Long Way Home

Camden Cox – Time

Jack River – So High

FEATURE: Within Without You: How the Stage Can Bring Enormous Confidence from Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

Within Without You

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@billetto  

How the Stage Can Bring Enormous Confidence from Artists

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I often wonder how some artists…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Freddie Mercury/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

who seem rather quiet and conservative in private can suddenly be unleashed from those confines when they hit the stage! I look at artists icons Kate Bush and Freddie Mercury and know, away from the stage, there is a shyness and sense of quiet that makes it more amazing they are so bold and incredible from the stage. Although Mercury is no longer with us; the split between his rather shy private persona and the showman he was on stage is exceptional. It can be hard coming into an industry like music and having to face the pressures of anxiety and stage fright. Maybe artists like Bush and Mercury escaped stage fright – although I know both did have a touch – but there is a magic that comes from the stage that seems to bring the best from the most introverted. To be honest, there are a lot of artists who find it hard taking to the stage but, when they are up there, it can be like they are released and at their very best. Freddie Mercury is not a rare example. Although he was a quiet and softly-spoken man away from the spotlight; his sheer passion and force of nature went into the studio and the stage especially. He was like an animal when he got up there and it seemed to bring something from him. I wonder how genuine artists like that are on stage?! Is it a case of them being hesitant and guarded away from the stage or the stage itself acting as a sanctuary and place where they can truly be themselves?!

 PHOTO CREDIT: @flaviewxvx

It is an interesting question and the reason I bring it up is the interviews I do with rising musicians. I ask how important it is being on stage and it is interesting seeing the responses I get. Many feel like that live setting is where they feel most free and can be at their most expressive! Many musicians do not like being in the studio and it can be quiet limiting recording music and that slightly delayed process. Sure, artists can experiment and put something wonderful into their recorded music but I wonder if it is truly possible to feel natural, connected and unshackled when there is that rather delayed process. You never know how people will react to the music and it can be a frustrating process. So many artists I interview say getting out there is a vital part of what they do and the only reason they are in music. Many feel confined in the studio and love that instant reaction – where they can hear their songs get that reaction and vibe from the energy coming from the people! A few artists lack confidence and the love of the stage and prefer the calm and discipline of the studio. Those who do love performance feel like it is the way music truly resonates and gets into the heart. One stumbling block, more and more, is the shy and anxious artist who yearns to be on the stage but cannot get over that fright.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lady Gaga/PHOTO CREDIT: @ladygaga/Getty Images

Personas and characters are a way of negotiating nerves and being able to deliver music to the people. Artists like David Bowie and Lady Gaga have exaggerated their personalities – David Bowie went even further and played a few different characters – in order to feel more confident on stage. Away from the bright lights, they are different people and it seems that opportunity to step into different shoes and shed your skin on the stage is an answer to nerves and a sense of shyness. Today, more and more, it is harder to remain private and closed-off away from the stage. Artists like Sia (who wears a wig over her face for publicity photos) and Sir Elton John are seen as somewhat moody and enigmatic – when they are on the stage, that all changes and they seem like a different person. I was reading an interesting article from The Economist that investigated the shy artist and why it is hard for them to have a private life:

“In previous generations it was easier to keep a public persona and a private life separate. But today, thanks to the internet, celebrity cultureand social media, the shy artist has less private space to withdraw to. To feed the ever-hungry media beast, there are unprecedented invasions of privacy: topless photos taken using drones and personal photos being downloaded from the cloud. Unwanted attention aside, there is so much “noise” out there that to be heard as an artist, there is a greater need for self-promotion”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Masayoshi Sukita via Morrison Hotel Gallery

Although there are some artists who are themselves on stage (quiet shy) – Bob Dylan is one classic example – getting up in front of people, for many musicians, is a way of gaining new confidence and bringing something out of them they never thought they possessed. Elvis Presley is a famous example of someone who had difficulty getting in front of people and was a bit hesitant when it came to performance. Presley watched others perform and, bit-by-bit, got more confident and, before long, turned into a hip-swivelling god who is regarded as one of the greatest live performers ever. There are modern artists, such as Adele, who get incredible anxieties and do not like touring but others feel like audiences make them feel alive and it is where they feel natural. David Bowie admitted in interviews how he wasn’t a gregarious person so, with personas such as Ziggy Stardust, he was allowed to be someone else and, when up in front of music, he was electrified and renewed. Musicians feel time away from stage is a feast of interviews and awkward communication. Many get caught in promotion and it can be a tiring and unpleasant cycle. The fact so much of today’s promotion and marketing is done online means a lot of artists rarely communicate face-to-face and there is that lack of physicality. Whereas, years ago, interviews were done in the flesh and there were music shows on T.V.; there was more direct contact and less online manoeuvring; now, more and more, musicians are cloistered or buried in a sea of online demands and there is less need to get out there and connect with people.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@mehdibtne

Maybe I am over-simplifying things but I hear from so many artists who struggle with shyness, anxiety and addiction issues. Modern music is more demanding than ever and the nature of forging a successful career is tricky. So much more effort needs to go into things and there is little chance for rest and relaxation. Online promotion and demands mean many artists are exposed to trolling and negative feedback. Online focus also means musicians are staring at screens and are shackled to their laptops. I am seeing artists out there and know how many interviews they have to give and how much promotion is involved. The stage can provide that chance to bring all the introverted hurdles and the stresses together and release them through the power of live music. Artists can feel like the audience give them strength and they can feel safe and secure when they are performing. That sense of safety and the ability to stretch wings means a lot of artists who are shy or tormented away from the stage are provided a pulpit to become someone different or feel less confined. There is no guarantee a shy frontperson is going to be completely natural and different when they are on the stage. This article from The Guardian studied shy artists and how they can be reluctant leads:

“…It’s not just introspective indie names who end up as reluctant frontpeople. You might assume former Distiller Brody Dalle never had a doubt about her chosen career, but as a child she says she was so scarred by being told she had a terrible voice during a school singalong of Waltzing Matilda that it put her off singing for years. “It fucked me up,” she says, adding that she’s shy when not onstage, “so I’m probably not the typical frontperson.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Brody Dalle/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images 

“The thing is, Dalle does seem to be the typical frontperson. Whether it’s Jack Steadman from Bombay Bicycle Club fretting about public speaking or Gerard Way, former singer of My Chemical Romance, being too inhibited to do karaoke with friends when he’s not on stage (“I get too nervous”) an uneasy, hesitant disposition seems to be extremely common in today’s singers. So how, you might ask, do they do it?”.

Gerard Way, the lead of My Chemical Romance, says there is this amazing transformation when he gets onto the stage:

“Way says this “switch” happens the moment someone tells him it’s time to get on stage – “it doesn’t matter what time of day” – and all his nervousness dissipates so that he can transform into his alter ego of Rock Frontman. It can be a physical thing, too. “I was completely out of shape during my time in My Chemical Romance,” he admits. “But the switch happens to your body too – thanks to the adrenaline you’re able to do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

Dalle agrees with the switch theory, claiming it enables her to do things she wouldn’t dream of in every day life. “Maybe my balls grow a little bit bigger,” she says. “I have a friend who is super-super shy, but the minute she gets onstage she’s climbing over security guards, completely manic”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@honeyfangs

There are natural and unavoidable downsides for those leads who are unleashed on the stage. Destructive behaviour can come through and they can take things too far. For band leaders, especially, strains can form on the tour bus and in hotels; being in closed confines and having to spend a lot of time with other musicians…there is that natural tension and it is not all great. I wanted to study the difference between the introverted or shy artists and what the stage can give them. Some do take the confidence they get from the stage and take things too far. Whether that included destroying equipment or courting controversy to get the crowd involved – it is a hard balancing act. In any case, the stage is that attractive and much-loved area where musicians can be transformed and let all the stress out. Tackling anxiety and stage fright is tough so it is not always as easy as being quiet and a bit shy off of the stage and instantly getting up there and everything is okay. So many of the artists I speak to – whether they have stage fright or not – feel like live performance is the finest part of their career and what they live for. I see so many bands/artists speak passionately about the stage and how they live for those gigs! The stage is that forum that can be a challenge and fall-back for many artists but, for decades, it has provided a platform for revelation, explosion and a whole new world. Stage fright and anxiety are huge problems and heart-breaking for many musicians but there are therapies and simple steps to help tackle it and lead to improvement. From modern and unsigned artists to classic artists like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Kate Bush; look at the difference between the person away from the stage and how different they are when delivering music to the masses. More and more, I am hearing from artists who adore being on the stage because they can feel like their true selves and it is a rare chance to physically connect with the people who listen to their music. It can be a cruel mistress but the stage, for more and more artists, is a temple and lifeline that can be a…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@jsharp9066

TRUE revelation.

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VII)

FEATURE:

 

 

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Black

An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VII)

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WHEREAS yesterday was more of a summer’s day…

IN THIS PHOTO: Justine Skye

I feel today is more autumnal and I have been hesitating going out because of the weather! In spite of the dreary rain and the cold, I find it is much more useful and productive settling in with some music and looking at some great female-led sounds. This playlist is designed to highlight the diversity of music made my female artists and why they warrant big acclaim.

I have been looking through the latest releases – and a few slightly older ones – and put together the songs that I feel documents best the spectrum and range that is available. Have a listen to the playlist and I know there will be songs that turn your head and stay in your head! The weather is a bit crap so it is a good excuse to ignore the outside and immerse yourself in…

IN THIS PHOTO: Wet

SOME great music.

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

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Harlea – Beautiful Mess

Hairband – Flying

Fuzzy Sun – Heavy

Emmi – Label on It

Wallace – Pantone Home

Wet – Lately

PHOTO CREDIT: Transluceo Photography for Indie Midlands

Eliza Shaddad – Just Goes to Show

Queen of Hearts – Cold

Hero Fisher – If I Die and Nothing Happens

CAGGIE – Here We Are Again

The Elephant Trees – UNCOMFORTABLE

Gold Baby – What Party?

Caitlyn Smith – East Side Restaurant

Alex Hepburn - If You Stay

Sara Phillips – Here’s to You

PHOTO CREDIT: @rainazafar 

Kiya Lacey – Down

 

Ebhoni – Street Lights

Hazel Iris – Candle

foxgluvv – Fries

Emily Warren – Say It

Billie Black – The Last Time

PHOTO CREDIT: Dean Street Designs 

Chorusgirl – No Goodbye

Sophie Simmons – If I Could

PHOTO CREDIT: @lissyellelaricchia

Anna Wise – Some Mistakes

Kate Stewart – He’s Good

Ojerime – Handle

Justine Skye - Goodlove

FEATURE: The October Playlist: Vol. 1: I’m Not Sure What ‘Has Ended’, Mind…

FEATURE:

 

The October Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Julia Jacklin/PHOTO CREDIT: Nick Mckk

Vol. 1: I’m Not Sure What ‘Has Ended’, Mind…

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THE first Playlist of this month…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Thom Yorke

brings together some pretty big releases! We have a new song from Thom Yorke and there are offerings from Beck, Julia Jacklin and John Grant; some great cuts from Róisín Murphy, Jessie Ware and The Breeders – it is quite a busy week for fantastic music!

I have collated the best examples from this week and put them into a handy playlist. It is a chance to see the variation, quality and memorability of the songs included. Every week produces some fantastic songs but I feel the past few days have seen so many great songs come through! Set aside some time, have a listen to the rundown and get your weekend off to a flying start!

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

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Thom Yorke – Has Ended

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Austin

Beck – Colors

Julia Jacklin – Body

Róisín Murphy (ft. Ali Love) – Jacuzzi Rollercoaster

Jessie Ware – Overtime

Clean Cut Kid – Slow Progress

PHOTO CREDIT: Marisa Gesualdi

 The Breeders – Spacewoman

Miles Kane – Killing the Joke

Bad Sounds – Wages

St. Vincent – Savior

Halsey – Without Me

Chlöe Howl - Work

Mariah Carey – With You

NAO – Curiosity

Papa Roach – Renegade Music

Sharon Van Etten – Comeback Kid

PHOTO CREDIT: Eliot Lee Hazel

Cat Power – You Get

KT Tunstall – Poison in Your Cup

LANY – If You See Her

Alessia Cara – Trust My Lonely

Charlene Soraia – Tragic Youth

Eve Belle – Til I Fall Asleep

PHOTO CREDIT: akam1k3

Sigrid – Sucker Punch

Roses Gabor – Stuff

PHOTO CREDIT: Simon Becker

Estrons – Strangers

Kurt Vile – One Trick Ponies

Ward Thomas – Never Know

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Alexander Harris

Fickle Friends – The Moment

Ariana and the Rose – Lonely Star

John Grant – Is He Strange

Nick Talos – Home to You

Brooke Williams – High & Bye

Diana Gordon – The Hard Way

Saint Sisters – Corpses

Mavi Phoenix – 7Eleven

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VI)

FEATURE:

 

 

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Chlöe Howl

An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. VI)

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I am never quite sure whether it is autumn or not…

IN THIS PHOTO: Sody

because the weather has been pretty good today! The sun is out and it is pretty damn warm! I am looking around at the new releases (and slightly older songs) and there are some great songs around. In another edition of this female-led playlist; there is a great mixture of sounds and genres that should enlighten and entertain the most fussy of music lovers. Have a look through the selection and there is going to be a lot there to keep you amused and engaged.

This playlist brings together some of the most talented female/female-led artists around and songs that will get into the head and stay there for a very long time! It is a wonderful time for music and it is amazing hearing how many wonderful female artists are shining and standing out. For those who feel female-made music is a genre and does not have the same strength as male-led sounds need to have a listen to this playlist and see what incredible talent…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kassi Ashton

THERE is out there.

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

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 PHOTO CREDIT: Ella Dixon Hood

 Megan Dixon Hood - Drown

Galaxians – How Do U Feel

Jessie Munro – Enough for Me

Kassi Ashton - Taxidermy

Sody – Maybe It Was Me

PHOTO CREDIT: #shayrowanphotography

Natalie McCool (ft. Hattie Pearson) – Backstage Pass #1

Judith Ude – All the Love You Feel

PHOTO CREDIT: Gwenaëlle Trannoy

Tiger Lion – Black Sea

Harlee – GIANT

Megan Lara Mae – Losing to You

PHOTO CREDIT: James Gallant

DIDI – Fickle Friends

Marie Davidson – Day Dreaming

PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Ferrara

Sunflower Thieves – Two Halves

PHOTO CREDIT: Francesca Allen

Roses Gabor – Stuff 

Lily Moore – Do This for Me

GUTTFULL – Tits and Nails

Eve Belle – First Impressions

PHOTO CREDIT: Maxime Imbert

Farao – Marry Me

Chlöe Howl - Work

PHOTO CREDIT: Lissy Laricchia

Madison McFerrin – Shine

Ruby Francis – Rush

AURORA – All Is Soft Inside

Ivy Adara - Currency

 

Barbarella’s Bang Bang – Cowboy Job

PHOTO CREDIT: @thirtydirtybirds_

Kagoule – It’s Not My Day

Corina Corina – Toothbrush

FEATURE: National Album Day: Why the Album Still Means So Much

FEATURE:

 

 

National Album Day

PHOTO CREDIT: @skylarfaithfilm/Unsplash 

Why the Album Still Means So Much

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SOME have poured scorn over the concept…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @florenciaviadana/Unsplash

of a day that celebrates albums and puts them in the spotlight! Some say it is contrived and a day devoted to a format that is not relevant during these times. One of the biggest debates in music is whether the album is still viable and people actually listen to them. Certainty, musicians do not go into the studio to record a few singles and decide to add a few additional numbers to make up an album. There is that feeling we only go after what is played on the radio and do not have the attention spans to fully commit to an album. Maybe that is down to the way music is promoted nowadays: Spotify streaming and singles played on the radio; those big songs highlighted and the album is sort of out there for people to find. I am not one of those people who likes to listen to one or two songs from an album and then let it go there. Artists put their everything into recording albums and I feel we owe it to them to mark that and listen to their work. I will end this piece by highlighting my favourite six albums (or those that have made a huge impression) – records that need to be heard in their fullest and, to me, should give people good reason to open their eyes and ears and concentrate on what artists put out!

 PHOTO CREDIT: @skylarfaithfilm/Unsplash

If album sales have declined and electronic formats make it easier for us to handpick songs and skim at will; there are those who realise that, seventy years since the creation of the L.P., there are those who want that complete and long-playing format. Before I go on; here is a bit of information regarding National Album Day:

“The British Phonographic Industry and the UK Entertainment Retailers Association have announced the inaugural National Album Day, reports Music Week.

Taking place on the 13th October, with help from the team behind Record Store Day as well as broadcast partner BBC Music, National Album Day will include live events, LP playback sessions and online listening parties.

Participating stores, organisations and individuals will be invited to play their favourite album at 3.33 pm sharp, apparently.

“Individual tracks may have stolen the limelight over the past few years, but British music fans love albums as much as ever,” shares Kim Bayley, Chief Executive of the ERA.

According to the BPI, an estimated five billion albums have been sold since 1948 – when a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in e minorby the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York became the first album pressed to vinyl”.

There is that fear that, now we have Spotify playlists, the album as an artform is being put to pasture. This article from The Guardian (from 2017) looked at playlists and how they have affected albums:

“Artists are even starting to pull apart the album format and create evolving playlists in their place. Drake’s much-vaunted “playlist”, More Life, was essentially an album given a zeitgeisty rebrand, but in 2016, David Gray released a “dynamic” greatest hits on Spotify where tracks were switched around depending on how popular they were, while there were industry rumours, subsequently scotched, that Calvin Harris was going to abandon the album entirely and instead release singles and EPs on a rolling basis. Now London rapper Avelino is planning an eight-track “evolving playlist” for the end of September where it will be added to and subtracted from on a regular basis. Playlisting now means the album no longer has to remain a fixed entity”.

PHOTO CREDIT: @mariahashby/Unsplash 

“But while Spotify may be shaping the way music reaches us, ultimately the listener still has choice – and that power is built into the service’s architecture. Spotify watches which tracks get skipped, and those with high skip rates will be unceremoniously binned for stinking up its playlists. The onus therefore remains mostly on artists and labels to whip up momentum”.

Getting a number-one record is still important and a big achievement but I wonder how many of us look at the charts and what is happening. When I was young, I always loved looking at the album charts and seeing who would be at the very top. Now, I feel we are more compelled by which song is the most streamed or which one is trending. Maybe we are aware of the biggest albums from this year but how many of us have sat down and actually listen to them end-to-end?! I feel we only get a limited impression of an artist if we listen to whatever song of theirs is on a playlist or the singles being promoted.

PHOTO CREDIT: @rawpixel

In a lot of cases, the singles might be misleading and not your favourite tracks from that album – we might ignore the album thinking it will stink but are judging everything based on what is released into the charts. In other cases, singles might not be indicative of what an album contains and, in many cases, they are part of a whole story. Think about the best albums of this year – everyone from IDLES and Anna Calvi to Christine and the Queens to Arctic Monkeys – and we have all heard the odd single from these artists this year. They are incredible and instant but you need to listen to the records themselves and see why critics are raving. I have heard the albums from each of those artists and can attest to their brilliance. The singles released from the respective records are strong but, in many cases, not the strongest cuts from the album. A lot of times, labels direct what is released and it often revolves around getting out there something direct, catchy and accessible.

IN THIS ILLUSTRATION: Cardi B/ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Clara Bacou

The finest albums from all-time have a range of textures: songs that are complex and nuanced; others that are direct and catch you straight away. I do not buy the assertion artists are recording albums for the sake of it; that it is all about a few songs and the rest is filler. When the C.D. came out, I know a lot of acts felt they had to cover every second and take advantage of the format – that did mean there were weaker tracks and unnecessary inclusions. Now, they do not need to do that and I think albums now are much more streamlined, quality-controlled and personal. Maybe some of us are impatient and we want to hear a range of artists but are you going to remember any of the songs you streamed in the past week?! How about the artists themselves?! I could listen to a Cardi B track and will be taken aback and it would be in my head for a while. Chances are, soon enough, it would go out and with it Cardi B herself. Listen to her album, Invasion of Privacy, and you hear so much at work. It is filled with pleasure, confidence and wonderful songs. I have listened to the album in its entirety and, as such, Cardi B has been rattling around my mind. It is rewarding listening to a complete record, not skipping a track and getting a complete impression of what the artist is trying to say.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @kobuagency/Unsplash

I feel a lot of an album’s appeal lies in its physicality and tangential nature. You can pick up a vinyl and take out the record itself and then read the notes on the sleeve. Digital options mean there is that lack of touch and connection with the physical side. Saying that; albums are about music and I feel we all need to slow down and take more time listening to music. I feel so many of today’s artists are fighting against the consumer culture: investing their all into record albums and telling a story in its ten (or so) tracks. They want people to spend time listening to their records and what they have spent countless hours crafting in studios. A recent article from The Guardian, reacting to the Mercury Prize nominations, explained how there are plenty in record shops flicking through vinyl – the album is living on and needs to be fostered:

“In the first case, this bump is being fed by artists rededicated to the format. The album remains a powerful artistic statement, so much more than 12 songs shoved together.

There was a time when it seemed the forward-thinking move was to ditch albums. In 2007, the band Ash claimed they were done, saying: “The way people listen to music has changed, and with the advent of the download, the emphasis has reverted from albums to single tracks.” They’ve since released two albums (and a best of), admitting: “We’ve noticed just how much vinyl has come back and we thought this would be the best way of getting our music out there again”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @annietheby/Unsplash

The article goes on to look at the disposability we are seeing this decade and how people are rebelling against it:

“In fact, Jon Tolley of independent store, Banquet Records, says: “The increase in demand [for albums] was customer-led, not industry-driven. I’ve always thought the increase in vinyl sales is an immediate reaction to how disposable everything else is in the 2010s.

“As you have the world of music at your fingertips, the stuff you really love, that you want to have to hold forever, you want to have in a physical form. And some of that is outrageously extravagant.

“Vinyl itself is beautifully cumbersome and unnecessary. And that’s the beauty. Your record collection is an art collection, both aurally and physically.”

Stephen Godfroy, co-owner of Rough Trade, has seen a similar fetishisation in his customers: “The LP is the finest, truest aesthetic and informative representation of a recording artist’s work, given the breadth of ‘canvas’”.

I think we all need to celebrate National Album Day and not see it is a one-off thing that is designed to mark seventy years of the album. Instead, we need to recognise it (National Album Day) is recognition people are not letting albums die and there is this resurgence. Most of us are passionate about music because of the albums we were raised on. If we only heard the odd song from big artists I wonder whether we’d bother listening to them today. Most of my most-precious music memories revolve around listening to tapes, C.D.s and vinyl in their full state and unpicking each track. I loved going down to a record shop and buying the latest big release. Maybe there was the odd duff track on albums but that was all part of the pleasure and experience. So many artists today are, without irony, putting out vinyl and connecting with the colour, joy and physicality of an album. They want to be remembered and people to get something from their music. The album can never die but I do feel there is this ignorance that suggests modern music is about playlists, singles and disposability. Think about your early life and how you discovered music – I bet you have visions of albums and vinyl lying around! That is certainly my recollection and, ahead of National Album Day; here are six records that have made a big impression…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @maltewingen/Unsplash

IN my life.

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The Beatles – Rubber Soul (1965)

 ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

Whilst not considered the best album by The Beatles, it was among many of their albums I was raised on. Rubber Soul is not as experimental and bold as later albums like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but something about the L.P. struck me. Rubber Soul was the moment The Beatles reinvented Pop and pushed it forward; John Lennon and Paul McCartney showing greater confidence as songwriters. I love the rich harmonies on The Word; the playfulness and catchiness of Drive My Car and the revealing, emotional tones of In My Life. Closer Run for Your Life was dismissed by writer John Lennon but it shows, even near their peak, the band were not flawless. I love the simplicity of the recordings and how, even though a lot of the songs are piano/acoustic guitar-led; they are much bolder and developed songs than The Beatles were producing a couple of years previous. Rubber Soul is a complete and astonishing work where The Beatles are pushing their work further than ever and sound completely in-harmony. It is a record I first experienced as a child and has been with me ever since.

Jeff Buckley – Grace (1994)

There is a reason why Grace continues to inspire generations and the new breed of songwriters: every song is a side of Jeff Buckley and is as beautiful as the last. I discovered Buckley as late as 2004 but was struck by his voice and what a compelling songwriter he was. Hallelujah is the song everyone talks about but consider the sweep and heartache of Last Goodbye and the spellbinding Corpus Christi Carol; the attack and power of Grace and the exceptional lyrics of Lover, You Should’ve Come Over. I have watched documentaries of Buckley recording the tracks and how much of himself he put into the sessions. He laboured over songs and never considered Grace would be about a couple of singles and that was it!

Kate Bush – The Kick Inside (1978)

Kate Bush has always been seen as an album artist. She still has so much affection for the album as a format and, right from the off, ensured her albums were chocked with life and quality. The Kick Inside is my favourite album because it is a narrative and exploration of a song artist entering music – full of confidence, ability and that wondrous voice. Singles like Wuthering Heights are stunning but the joy is listening to all of the tracks (on The Kick Inside) and witnessing this fantastic young artist exploring new themes and ideas. No two tracks are alike on The Kick Inside and I love the variation and beauty throughout. Bush was talking about menstruation and incest; discussing love in very mature ways and looking at themes no other artist was talking about. I love all the sounds, lyrics and brilliant moments on The Kick Inside and have to listen to it the whole way through. It is a treasure and masterful record that still brings new revelation to light – despite the fact I have heard it countless times!

The White Stripes – The White Stripes (1999)

The White Stripes would grow more confident as their careers evolved and incorporate more instruments into the mix but the reason I love their debut so much is its rawness and sparse sound. It is a D.I.Y.-sounding record that artists today are inspired by. Most of the songs are quite short and snappy and, because of that, you are more than happy to spend the time listening to the complete album. Like all great records; The White Stripes holds together and tells a story but is broad and varied. Jack and Meg White are completely connected and add so much colour and physicality to each song. It is a wonderful, engrossing album that I have been a huge fan of since 1999. Again, you could not imagine listening to the odd song from the album and leaving things there: such is the power and consistency of the material, you follow it end-to-end and let your senses trip and wander.

Paul Simon – Graceland (1986)

Few albums are more important and loved as Paul Simon’s Graceland. I recall discovering it during the 1990s and connecting with sounds I had never heard before. The African rhythms and voices that came from the speakers brought me into a new world but, oddly, it is the lyrics that stick in the mind! I love how Simon tells tales and the way he employs language. Graceland is filled with lovable characters and personal stories; fascinating visions and unforgettable lines. The record is so full of unbelievable sounds and textures; a rich and endless banquet that needs to be experienced as a whole thing. It is one of my favourite records and I cannot listen to Graceland in pieces: I need to sit there and make sure every track unfolds.

Björk – Debut (1993)

There are few albums, in my mind, that are as diverse and compelling as Debut. It was not the first Björk album I cam across – that would be Post – but it has made the biggest impact. The bellicose and intense opening of Human Behaviour is amazing; the anthemic Venus as a Boy a totally different beast; Big Time Sensuality is a blast of delirium and energy; Violently Happy one of the best things Björk ever recorded. None of the eleven tracks are surplus to requirement and I adore how each song has its place and wrestles for attention. It is another one of those big and busy albums that you need to settle down with and listen to in one go.

FEATURE: With the Beatles: Putting the Fab Four’s Albums in Their Place

FEATURE:

 

 

With the Beatles

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1967/PHOTO CREDIT: David Magnus

Putting the Fab Four’s Albums in Their Place

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THE reason I am bringing up The Beatles…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1963/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Press

is the fact their eponymous album – or ‘The White Album’ – turns fifty on 22nd November and I am building up to a big anniversary. We got excited last year when Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hit fifty and many were talking about its iconic stature and how influential it remains. I feel the boys’ eponymous record is even more important and long-lasting because it is amazing the thing got made at all. It is a rare double-album from The Beatles and is stuffed with gems and songs that reveal their true meanings this long down the line. Four songwriters on different pages – as the band was on the point of self-destruction-; it is a wonderful achievement and, although scattershot and with a few weak moments, remains one of their very best works.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1966/PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Whitaker

I will mark the album closer the time but was thinking, when investigating The Beatles’ back catalogue, just how much they put out in a few years! Their albums are not those you idly put into a top-five/ten and leave it at that. There are the lesser-celebrated works and those that get all the girls; the underdogs and the masterpieces (that rank in different orders depending on which fan you ask). I have been looking at a few select Beatles records and putting them into categories. I have been thinking about importance and impact; the record that we need to appreciate more and the one, to me, that marks their true peak. As we loom towards another fiftieth anniversary of a Beatles masterpiece; here are a selection of their albums that, I feel, fit into…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1970/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Press

THEIR own categories!

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

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The Influencer: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Background: By August of 1966, the band retired from touring and began a three-month holiday. Once they retuned – on a flight back to London – Paul McCartney had an idea of a song involving an Edwardian military band that formed the core of the Sgt. Pepper concept. Starting studio sessions with two youth-inspired records, Strawberry Fields Forever (John Lennon) and Penny Lane (Paul McCartney) – they were not on the album but released as a double A-side – and the band set to work on their most-celebrated and scrutinised work. The title cut was recorded in February 1967 and, after that, McCartney suggested recording an entire album built around this fictional band – giving the band freedom to run riot creatively… 

Date of Release: 26th May, 1967

Previous Album: A Collection of Beatles Oldies (Compilation - 1966)

Next Album: The Beatles (1968)

Its Influence and Explosion: It is an album that saw the world’s most-famous band retreat from touring – because they couldn’t hear themselves sing and perform - and attack the studio like never before! Pushing machinery and conventions to the limits; they set about creating this multi-coloured, multi-genre masterpiece built around Sgt. Pepper and his ringleader, Billy Shears. It does not contain Penny Lane or Strawberry Fields but there are incredible tracks like She’s Leaving Home and the biblical finale, A Day in the Life. Arriving at a time when the Summer of Love wanted us all to get high and together; it is a record that seems to define the times but has an ageless quality – a band taking a risk and abandoning the stage to create what is seen as one of the best albums ever. It is seen as influencing the ‘Album Era’ – artists more interested in longer forms and taking more risks with their music. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band heralded the legitimisation of the album as a creative format/expression and influenced the development of the counterculture of the 1960s. Alter ego personas, were becoming more common during the 1970s with Glam Rock artists especially inspired.

Choice Cut: She’s Leaving Home

The Underdog: Help!

Background: The fifth studio album from The Beatles; Help! was the soundtrack to the film of the same name. Of the fourteen songs on the album, seven of them appear in the film (including the title number and Ticket to Ride). Follow the success of their previous album, Beatles for Sale; the band was in-demand and becoming ever-more-popular with critics. The boys were not new to film and soundtracks! They had already filmed and released A Hard Day’s Night the year before and there was a definite hunger for Beatles-related flicks. Although Help! is not as lauded as much as A Hard Day’s Night; it is seen as an interesting film that showed the band in a new light.

Date of Release: 6th August, 1965

Previous Album: Beatles for Sale (1964)

Next Album: Rubber Soul (1965)

No Cry for Help, Man: Aside from a couple of cover versions, the band were becoming more confident as songwriters and that was to crystallise on Rubber Soul (1965). Rather than relying on covers and reinterpreting them; John Lennon and Paul McCartney were growing as songwriters. Help! does not get the same fuss and exposure as, say, Revolver, but you can hear two geniuses growing and starting to spread their wings. The much-covered Yesterday is a simple beauty and one of the most instant, memorable songs in their cannon. The title-track is an urgent plea from Lennon and one of the most arresting, revealing songs from the band; Another Girl and It’s Only Love underrated and endlessly pleasurable; I Need You sees George Harrison bring a song to the party and, whilst not the best on the album, shows he was becoming more involved in that aspect.

Choice Cut: Yesterday

The Scattershot Masterpiece: The Beatles

Background: By 1968, the band had achieved commercial and critical success. They had reached a natural peak and they did not need to prove anything to the world. Given the success of their 1967 output; there was that expectation and wonder how they would follow things. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band received enormous kudos and was seen, even at the time, as a cultural touchstone. Rather than sweat blood in the studio and repeat what they already put out, the band wrote most of the songs for The Beatles during a Transcendental Meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India between February and April 1968. The Beatles needed to get away from everything and the retreat provided new inspiration and meditation. Leaders Lennon and McCartney were re-energised and they would meet in each other’s rooms to review their new work and exchange ideas.

Date of Release: 22nd November, 1968

Previous Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Next Album: Yellow Submarine (1969)

A Messy Delight: Many feel the double-album format is a bit ill-advised and can lead to egotism and wasted songs. Although The Beatles has a few stinkers – Piggies and The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill – there is so much variation and brilliance throughout. Tensions ran high in the studio and, whether caused by the persistent presence of Yoko Ono; it meant the band was recording songs separately and there was a lot of unhappiness (the material does not suffer). You hear the thirty songs and cannot compare two of them – everything has its own skin and, often, the band skip through genres and worlds without taking a breath! From Paul McCartney’s Blackbird and Helter Skelter to John Lennon’s Glass Onion and Happiness Is a Warm Gun – not forgetting George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps –; it is a masterful exploration of the band’s minds and creative brilliance!

Choice Cut: Blackbird

My Personal Favourite: Rubber Soul

Background: The majority of the songs for Rubber Soul were composed after The Beatles returned to London after their 1965 U.S. tour. The record, as such, reflects the impact of that month-long tour and new sounds they were picking up. Among the adventures the band had was meeting Bob Dylan and getting to visit Elvis Presley’s home. The popularity was growing, for sure, and the band were becoming more distinct as writers – this was an album with no cover versions and the band, as such, were putting more of themselves onto the page. A lot of African-American sounds made their way into Rubber Soul and, again, America was making more of an impact on their mindset. Harmonies inspired by The Byrds and Stax-tinted songs moved away from the sort of sensation we were hearing on Beatles records.

Date of Release: 3rd December, 1965

Previous Album: Help! (1965)

Next Album: Revolver (1966)

An Awakening and Sonic Shift: I love the album because it is underrated and does not get the credit it warrants. Rubber Soul helped transform music in the 1960s and bring Pop to new realms. The Beatles, in a way, signalled a revolution where albums were bolder and contained no filler tracks – a complete and immersive experience that was not about hit singles and what the radio stations were playing. The popularity and response to Rubber Soul led other artists to do the same and create their own version. Famously, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson dubbed Rubber Soul as one of his favourite and, in a way, it helped aid and enhance his songwriting. The Beatles were exploring new, less commercial themes in their music and were balancing audience-pleasing songs and revelations learned through literature, art and hallucinogenic drugs.

Choice Cut: The Word

The Most Important: Please Please Me

Background: Following the success of singles like Love Me Do and Please Please Me; there was nationwide interest and people wanted a debut Beatles L.P. Parlophone Records urged The Beatles to get into the studio and capitalise on the success of their singles. The two singles and their B-sides – P.S. I Love You (Love Me Do) and Ask Me Why (Please Please Me) – were included by producer Gorge Martin needed ten more songs. The label wondered what the band could record quickly and Martin knew their stage act was the answer. As such – after establishing the Cavern Club was not a suitable space to record – the boys collated a selection of the songs they were playing live and recorded them in a single day of recording! The original plan was to record a morning and afternoon session but an evening session was added. Song by song, and with varying takes, The Beatles worked their way through and it all ended with the throat-shredding Twist and Shout – left until the end because John Lennon, suffering a heavy cold, was trying to keep his voice intact and could, literally, do nothing more after recording the song.

Date of Release: 22nd March, 1963

Previous Album: N/A

Next Album: With the Beatles (1963)

Where It All Began: Many assume Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important work from the band but I feel the debut record is! This is where everything began an a seismic explosion that took the world by storm. Nobody had heard anything as explosive, instant and wonderful as Please Please Me and it announced the arrival of a band that would soon rise to the worldwide stage. Its simplicity and uncomplicated sound would evolve soon enough but listening to it in 2018 and it still sounds immense and otherworldly. Hearing The Beatles capture these songs without too much glitter and technology makes every song seem like you are watching it in the flesh. It is a stunning and crucially important album that started a huge and unstoppable ball rolling!

Choice Cut: Twist and Shout

A Promising-If-Flawed Gem: Magical Mystery Tour

Background: The Beatles completed Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in April 1967 and Paul McCartney, in conceptual mode again, was eager to create a film that captured a psychedelic theme similar to that represented by LSD proponent Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters on the U.S. West Coast. The film itself was intended to be an unscripted adventure where so-called ‘ordinary’ people would travel on a coach and experience ‘magical’ adventures. The boys recorded the song Magical Mystery Tour but the film lay dormant as the band continued to record songs for the animated film, Yellow Submarine.

Date of Release: 27th November, 1967 (U.S. L.P.)/8th December, 1967 (U.K. E.P.)

Previous Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Next Album: The Beatles (1968)

Any Album with Penny Lane DESERVES Big Acclaim: Although the film is seen as a disaster and huge mess; the album is a more successful and cohesive thing. The two masterpieces excluded from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, are there as is the majestic George Harrison offering, Blue Jay Way. I Am the Walrus is John Lennon embracing the LSD theme and creating something trippy, alien and utterly compelling. Hello Goodbye is a classic Beatles number-one and the closer, All You Need Is Love is seen as a signature Beatles staple. Among the finery and epic songs are a few dogged and less-memorable songs. McCartney’s The Fool on the Hill and Your Mother Should Know are not seen as his best whilst many ignore Flying (the instrumental composed by the whole band). Baby, You’re a Rich Man (Lennon) is okay but not really among the best on there. With a few duffers and plenty of gold, Magical Mystery Tour is a Beatles album that deserves a hell of a lot more praise and investigation.

Choice Cut: Penny Lane

Their Finest Hour: Revolver

Background: In December 1965, Rubber Soul was released to huge acclaim. The Beatles had raised music and challenged artists to up their game. Because of that, the band themselves needed to evolve and show a natural step from Rubber Soul. The band was moving from singles to creating albums of immense quality and completion. The group’s manager, Brian Epstein, pitched the band making a promotional film and accompanying album (as they did with A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965) but the boys vetoed this.  It meant the band had a three-month period free – the longest they had experienced since 1962 – and had time to set to work on Revolver. Having to follow the incredible Rubber Soul; it is the first album where The Beatles properly experimented and spending more time in the studio (as opposed touring and filming).

Date of Release: 5th August, 1966

Previous Album: Yesterday and Today (1966 – North American Release)

Next Album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The ‘Fan Favourite’: U.S. critics were muted when it came to Revolver – due, in no small part, down to controversies that occurred when the band were touring. It gained a hell of a lot of retrospective acclaim there but here, in the U.K., journalists went wild, declaring it inventive, controversial and hugely impressive. Although Lennon was comparing The Beatles to God around that time; perhaps he was not far off of the mark. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is seen as the most important and influential album of The Beatles career but Revolver has overtaken that record in terms of quality perception. Revolver has fewer filler tracks and does not rely on a concept. Most fans consider it the best thing the band ever did and the invention on the record – that mixed Western sounds with the East – was a huge breakthrough in 1966. Maybe Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band got to the top spot in most lists prior to 2000; after that, consciousness shifted to Revolver and, to me, they are all right – it is the finest Beatles record.

Choice Cut: Tomorrow Never Knows

The Heartbreaking Reminder: Abbey Road

Background: After the unpleasant recording sessions for the proposed Get Back album (it would become Let It Be); Paul McCartney suggested the band get together, with George Martin, and produce an album like they used to. He wanted none of the conflict of 1968’s The Beatles and there should be no concepts. Martin wanted the band to let him produce the album like he used to and without argument/interference. Only three weeks after the Get Back sessions ended; the recording for Abbey Road started (beginning 22nd February, 1969). The band, in hindsight, agreed it was them returning to a unit and performing like a real band – the first time they had experienced that since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Date of Release: 26th September, 1969

Previous Album: Yellow Submarine (1969)

Next Album: Let It Be (1970)

“And, in the end…”: Compare Abbey Road to the chaos, unhappiness and poor results of Let It Be – the album was recorded before Abbey Road but released after – and it is like two different bands. Abbey Road has that iconic cover – better, to me, than the epic cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – and boasts that second-side suite of songs. Mainly led by McCartney; a series of short numbers concluded in the brilliant The End (unless you include thehidden track, Her Majesty). It is a contrast to the more conventional first-half and shows The Beatles were in ambitious, playful and brilliant mood! Aside from a couple of indulgent tracks (the maligned McCartney number, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (with its endless takes and hours spent perfecting it) and the throwaway Octopus’s Garden) it is a phenomenal album that has Come Together, I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and the George Harrison masterpiece, Something. Alongside the brilliant 1-2 opening on the second-half, Here Comes the Sun (Harrison) and Because; you get the sense The Beatles were throwing it all into the pot – knowing this was the end of the band and they might as well go for broke. It is sad to think what could have happened were it not for the tensions in 1968 and the disaster of Let It Be. Abbey Road is a heartbreaking vision of a band that created a masterful and brilliant farewell – an album that reminds one of their early works; when they were spirited, together and happy to be in the same studio!

Choice Cut: Come Together

The Letdown: Let It Be

Background: By late-1968 – two years after The Beatles gave up touring – McCartney was keen of the group to return to the stage. Given the stress and fall-outs during The Beatles; the band was more divided than ever and that prospect seemed moot. He pitched the band go rehearse and create an album with no studio artifice and return to their roots – recording some of the album during a one-off live concert. The rest of the band was sceptical and, after completing five months’ work on the previous albums; they were not so keen. They disliked the gruelling media circus and the effort of going on tour. Lennon was keener on a back-to-basics studio approach given his dissatisfaction with the excess and experimentation of Revolver. The greater role Yoko Ono was playing in the band – frequently making suggestions and present at recording sessions – coupled with the infamous Twickenham rehearsals made Let It Be a fiasco. Those rehearsals, filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and his crew, saw the band rehearse and, soon, things descended into hostility and icy tension.

Date of Release: 8th May, 1970

Previous Album: Abbey Road (1969)

Next Album: From Then to You (U.K.)/The Beatles Christmas Album (U.S.)

No Beatles Album Can Ever Truly Be Classed ‘Bad’: Let It Be topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K. and Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road were number-one hits. Even though there was a lot of tension in the camp; songs like Let It Be, Get Back and The Long and Winding Road showed the band could still produce magic when called for. The usual levels of brilliance that we expect of such a legendary group were lacking during Let It Be. The songs I have named are, to be fair, the ones we remember. I Me Mine is a wandering and forgettable George Harrison contribution; Two of Us sees Lennon and McCartney duetting but is a throwaway – Dig a Pony and Dig It songs we rarely remember and stand out. One After 909 is another minor track whilst For You Blue (another Harrison cut) proved he was yet to hit the peak we would see on Abbey Road. Critics were not sympathetic and warm when the album arrived. Many felt, if this was their last album, it was a cheap and insignificant record. Many felt the inclusion of Phil Spector as producer – a move that was unwise and they would rue – was a mistake and The Beatles had sold out. McCartney was assuming the role of leader whilst Lennon was more interested being with Yoko Ono. You can detect that lack of focus from Lennon – his songs are weaker than McCartney’s by a long way – and the band, like they were in 1968, were four individuals rather than a tight unit. Many felt the documentary/film and album was the band breaking up and that was the end of things. Let It Be was re-released by McCartney in 2003 as Let It Be… Naked and it gave him the chance to remix the tracks and remove the orchestral overdubs Spector added for Across the Universe and The Long and Winding Road.

Choice Cut: Let It Be

FEATURE: Their Back Pages: Ten Incredible Music Memoirs

FEATURE:

 

 

Their Back Pages

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@beccatapert  

Ten Incredible Music Memoirs

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I am immersed in music-based literature right now…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sir Paul McCartney/PHOTO CREDIT: Mary McCartney

and find myself drawn to non-fiction. I am excited by news that Sir Paul McCartney is releasing an illustrated children’s book, Hey Grandude:

“Paul McCartney announced today (Sept. 27) that he has written his first illustrated children’s book, titled Hey Grandude.

The singer shared his news in a short video on Puffin Books’ YouTube account. McCartney co-wrote the 2005 children’s book High in the Clouds with Philip Ardagh, but Hey Grandude will be the musician’s first solo literary venture...”

“Hey Grandude follows the adventures of a magical man named Grandude and his four grandchildren, who he calls “Chillers.” McCartney originally got the idea for the book after one of his eight grandchildren began to refer to him as “Grandude,” and the nickname stuck. “I wanted to write it for grandparents everywhere, so it gives them something to read to the grandkids at bedtime,” McCartney said”.

There have been some rather tragic, misjudged works of fiction by musicians – including novels by Morrissey – but, when it comes to them writing about what they know best, themselves and their music, there have been some revelatory and fine works. I have selected ten music memoirs that are worth reading that, between them, offer explosive revelations, incredible insight and amazing visions. Have a peak through; grab these great memoirs and I am sure you will uncover some wonderful secrets and insights from brilliant musicians! As we turn, more and more, to electronic devices and distract ourselves with inane apps and news; it is good to kick back with a classic piece of literature from some…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@eliabevces

ICONIC artists.  

ALL BOOK COVER IMAGES: Getty Images

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Bob Dylan – Chronicles: Volume One

Published: 5th October, 2004

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review:

“Chronicles ends with Dylan on the verge of his breakthrough. But this breakthrough will also - we know from the intervening chapters - be a tragic rupture. The pathos of Dylan is that his self was ripped from his grasp at a time when he had barely begun to know it. It's clear that these wounds still smart, that Dylan still reels from the trauma, and that the memory of those early months in New York, those months of discovery, remains precious. "The folk music scene had been like a paradise that I had to leave."

Perhaps I'm swayed by the fact that this book is so much better than I feared it might be (as a fan since the 60s, I've got used to disappointments). But with this rich, intermittently preposterous, often tender work, Bob Dylan has delivered more than many of us dared hope for” – The Guardian

Order: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chronicles-One-Bob-Dylan/dp/0743478649

Mötley Crüe (Mick Mars, Neil Strauss, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil) - The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band

Published: 22nd May, 2001

Publishers: Harper Entertainment (Hardback); ReganBooks (Paperback)

Review:

“The members of Mötley Crüe didn’t invent rock-star decadence, but they perfected it. The Dirt consequently has a vaunted reputation as the gold standard for glitter and jizz-covered super-trashy rock-star tell-alls, the crazed literary orgy to end them all. The swaggering title says it all: This isn’t your typical rock-star book. There would be no valleys, no dips, no dusty middle innings, to borrow Roger Angell’s resonant turn of phrase (via my colleague Scott Tobias). Nope, this will be nothing but the pure, uncut shit. The fucking. The drugs. The booze. The fights. The ego. The money. The good stuff. The dirt. Crüe and Strauss are throwing down the gauntlet with that swaggering title. To its credit and detriment, it lives up to it. But it also tested my tolerance for tales of rock ’n’ roll ribaldry” – The AV Club

Order: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060989156/the-dirt/

Kim Gordon – Girl in a Band: A Memoir

Published: 24th February, 2015

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review:

“So does the book. It doesn’t have a big final scene, not after the angry and sad explanation of the breakup. It’s about survival, both as a person and as an artist. Gordon starts a new band, Body/Head, with her longtime friend Bill Nace. The overall feeling is one of levelheadedness, a little resignation, lots of anger and a permanent love of the power of art. She stays cool because she is cool, even in those rare moments when she’s not” – The New York Times

Order: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Band-Kim-Gordon/dp/0571309356

Keith Richards – Life

Published: 26th October, 2010

Publishers: Weidenfield & Nicolson (U.K.); Little Brown and Company (U.S.)

Review:

“There is also a devastating passage when he describes the cot death of his second son Tara, who died while Richards was on tour. 'It’s as if I deserted my post…it never lets you rest. Tara lives inside me. But I don’t even know where the little bugger is buried, if he’s buried at all.’

It’s a chilling reminder that while Keef survived the ride, there were many others who didn’t. But how good it is that this hugely endearing rock and roll legend, with his wheezing laugh and face like a battered walnut, is still with us, and able to describe his extraordinary life with such honesty and panache” – The Telegraph

Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/life/keith-richards/9780753826614

Patti Smith – Just Kids

Published: 19th January, 2010

Publisher: Ecco

Review:

“At first, wary of boho chic, I resisted Patti Smith's memoir of her New York years with Robert Mapplethorpe, "the artist of my life". How dumb. For this is a modern classic that generations of readers will cherish as a friend. "Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?" asks the writer-musician as she traces the love that – first physical, then (there is no other word) spiritual – bound the skinny ragamuffin aesthete to the Catholic-raised ex-cadet on their adventures in art.

Many stars swing through this low-rent, high-minded firmament, from Factory to Chelsea to CBGBs: Warhol, Reed, Joplin, Hendrix, Burroughs, Ginsberg... Yet the pair's devotion, until his death in 1989, to each other and to their visions lights up every tender, glowing page” – The Independent

Order: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780066211312/just-kids/

Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run

Published: 27th September, 2016

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review:

“He’s honest about his family life, his relationships with the E Street Band, his music (Wrecking Ball, his charged reply to the excesses of Wall Street in 2008, was met with modest fanfare; “I was sure I still had it. I still think I do and did,” he frets). Poignantly, the late E Street sax player Clarence Clemons is a gentle giant with big fighting fists, fending off parking-lot racist abuse from supposed friends with hurt confusion, a rock removed from Springsteen’s life when he goes. The singer has had a life like no other, but his is a story that – like his music – speaks to us all” – The Independent

Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/born-to-run/bruce-springsteen/9781471157820

Neil Young – Waging Heavy Peace

Published: 25th September, 2012

Publishers: Blue Rider Press; Penguin Group

Review:

“For all Young's engagement with serious issues, Waging Heavy Peace is not without its reminders that he achieved his celebrity during an easily satirised time of excessive reward and immoderate self-indulgence. When an aide calls to break the news that his beloved customised tour bus, known as Pocahontas, has caught fire and burnt out, he has its remains conveyed to his ranch and buried in a eucalyptus grove” – The Guardian

Order: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waging-Heavy-Peace-Hippie-Dream/dp/0241962161

Niles Rodgers – Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny

Published: 2011

Publisher: Sphere

Review:

“This is a rich, warm tale of a fascinating life in the golden age of New York – and pop. The only slight detractions are a touch of post-rehab rationalisation, which means episodes of unrivalled debauchery are occasionally relayed with disappointing sobriety. He is also reluctant to dish dirt on his peers, which leaves several protagonists nameless” – The Guardian

Order: http://www.nilerodgers.com/about/projects/le-freak-book

Kristin Hersh – Rat Girl

Published: 31st August, 2010

Publisher: Penguin Books

Review:

“Rat Girl stops just as everything seems to be starting—the album is about to be finished, she gives birth. Hersh will not pander for our sympathy or satisfy our need to hear how things turn out. Her story is about what it’s like to live and to think as a teenage girl, not a book about what happens when she finally grows up” – SLATE

Order: https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Girl-Memoir-Kristin-Hersh/dp/0143117394

Jay-Z – Decoded

Published: 16th November, 2010 (Hardback); 1st November, 2011 (Paperback)

Publisher: Random House

Review:

“Even with large areas of his life roped off, this book is still eye-opening. He does overplay his own cultural significance, but then he’d argue that’s part of a rapper’s job. Both fans and newcomers alike should be left with a deepened appreciation for the verbal dexterity of a conflicted man who knows he’s caused a lot of suffering in his life and is continuing to profit from it…

“There are times,” he says, “when I look around me, at the life I have today, and think I’m getting away with murder” - The Telegraph

Order: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198655/decoded-by-jay-z/9780812981155/

FEATURE: The September Playlist: Vol. 5: No Pressure, Honey

FEATURE:

 

The September Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Robyn 

Vol. 5: No Pressure, Honey

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IT is great to see a new track from Robyn appear…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz

and Honey ranks alongside this week’s very best. Alongside her are new singles/videos from Muse, The Chemical Brothers and Little Simz. There is some John Grant, Jesse Glynne; The Prodigy and Leon Bridges – more than enough to keep you all motivated and satisfied as we head through another well-deserved weekend!

I have been looking through this week’s finest and most appealing cuts and collated them into a handy rundown. Have a flick through the selections and have a good listen to what is around music this week. It is another heady and interesting brew that will keep the energy up and make us all motivated until Monday comes back around!

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

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Robyn – Honey 

IMAGE CREDIT: CarellaFrancesca

Muse – Pressure

The Chemical Brothers – Free Yourself

Weezer - Africa

ARTWORK: Little Simz

Little Simz – Boss

Matt Corby – No Ordinary Life

Laurel – Adored

IMAGE CREDIT: Matthias Hombauer/The Prodigy

The Prodigy - Light Up the Sky

Leon Bridges - If It Feels Good (Then It Must Be)

BADBADNOTGOOD & Little Dragon – Tried

Avril Lavigne – Head Above Water

John Grant – He’s Got His Mother’s Hips

Jess Glynne – 123

Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper - Shallow (A Star Is Born)

Rita Ora – Let You Love Me

PHOTO CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/Getty 

Richard Ashcroft – Born to Be Strangers

JoJo Siwa - Only Getting Better

Kane Brown – Homesick

Kings of Leon – Frontier City

Eves Karydas – Wildest Ones

PHOTO CREDIT: Bríd O'Donovan Photography

Æ MAK – Too Sad to Sing

Four of Diamonds – Stupid Things

Saint Sister – Steady

Methyl Ethel – Scream Whole

OK Button – The Message

Jacob Banks – Love Ain’t Enough

The Japanese House – Lilo

Stereo Honey – Icarus

Sasha Sloan – Faking It

Nile Rodgers, CHIC – I Dance My Dance

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Marsland/WireImage

Cher – Dancing Queen

Amy Baker – The More I See You

PHOTO CREDIT: @micaiahcarter 

Yaeji – One More

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. V)

FEATURE:

 

 

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Francine Belle 

An All-Female, Autumn-Ready Playlist (Vol. V)

__________

I guess we are seeing the final remnants…

 IN THIS PHOTO: ZAND

of summer come to us and provide some warmth and sunshine! It is nice to see a bit of hot weather linger but I know the clement conditions will end soon. Whilst they are hanging around; I have been looking around music from last year and combining it with fresh cuts to provide an autumn-ready playlist that is female-led and ready to get us in the mood for the weekend!

Have a flick through and you might discover something new. Everything from Pop and Indie to Soul and Folk is covered and there is a nice range of artists. As the nights draw in and we are all thinking of those autumnal days; I think we need music to accompany that and ensure we are in the right mood. This rundown of songs is surely going to…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Four of Diamonds

ACHIEVE that.

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images/Artists

_____________

 PHOTO CREDIT: Stella Scott

Phoebe Coco – Silver Lines

Men I Trust – Seven

Francine Belle – Beautiful Heights

Night Flowers – Let Her In

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel McCord

Rose Droll – Hush

ZAND – LUCI

The Japanese House – Lilo 

Yaeji – One More

Diving Station – Drown

Tenille Townes – Somebody’s Daughter

Eves Karydas – Damn Loyal

 

WILDWOOD – Hourglass

Æ MAK – Too Sad to Sing

Larkin Poe – Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues

PHOTO CREDIT: Josue Orozco Brockmann

 L’FREAQ – New Skin

Nikki Hayes – Move

Holly Abraham – Shore

PHOTO CREDIT: Rich Gilligan

Saint Sister – Steady

Pistol Annies – Best Years of My Life

Rita Wilson – Blindsided

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny McShane

Georgia Mae - Fools

Kaylee Bell – One More Shot

CLOVES – California Numb

Iyamah – Silver Over Gold 

Four of Diamonds (ft. Saweetie) – Stupid Things

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Blackham

Hannah Lou Clark – We’re Rich

Holly Macve – All of Its Glory

FEATURE: The Roots Beneath the Stream: Is Spotify’s D.N.A.-Related Playlist a Step Too Far?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Roots Beneath the Stream

IMAGE CREDIT: Nick Veasey/Getty Images

Is Spotify’s D.N.A.-Related Playlist a Step Too Far?

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A few things have been happening…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@dotgrid

that relate to Spotify and its quest to be the biggest player in the market. With SoundCloud and other music-sharing sites available; it is always a challenge keeping ahead and ensuring others do not nip at your heels! Audius is the latest name on the market that hopes to redress what they see as Spotify’s (and SoundCloud) unfair compensation/payment to musicians. Many see these sites as a bit lax when it comes to paying artists and ensuring they get adequate remunireations. This article looks at the new venture and how it differs from Spotify:

“It’s the latter that’s primarily in its eyeline at first, with the project’s website arguing that “Audius is building an audio distribution, attribution, and monetization platform that puts power back into the hands of audio content creators”. It initially secured venture capital backing to the tune of just under $6m, and now it’s confirmed to CoinDesk that it’s pressing on with the next part of its plan.

It’s introduced a white paper, that in turn has revealed the two cryptocurrency tokens that Audius is looking to launch. The one that most people are likely to engage in is the Loud token, that’s going to be used for transactions on the Audius service. Loud tokens are core to the idea, in that through them, the service aims to properly reward those who create material on the platform”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@jbrinkhorst  

“The Audius token itself is the second, and that’s described thus far as a token of governance.

Its white paper explains the difference, saying that “[Audius will be] used by service providers to participate in staking protocols and earn proceeds from the minting of loud tokens … This separates the mechanism for price-stable value transfer (loud) from the mechanism for value capture and accrual (audius), better serving the needs of users of each token”.

Details of the two tokens are also provided at the Audius website, here. The white paper is here .

The first beta release of the Audius streaming platform is scheduled for early next year, with the aim being for a full public launch before 2019 is out”.

I love Spotify and the fact we can get any album (pretty much) and, if you pay a subscription fee, you can have what you want and unfiltered access to a world of music. I have always been a bit conflicted when it comes to the site. It seems reserved, in the most part, for bigger artists – they are most likely to profit – but I wonder how much they actually make when their big hits receive millions of streams. The issue is more pronounced for minor musicians who put their new songs online. Do they ever make much money and are they being paid what they should!? It is hard to say for sure but there is that feeling sites like Spotify and SoundCloud are not spending enough money when it comes to the songs/artists on their sites.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@rachitank

It is tough to keep the site popular and showing a unique edge and, in a bid to move it ahead of its rivals; Spotify is giving the options for artists to upload their material onto the site without having to go through record labels and the usual mechanics. Independent musicians can upload directly without paying a fee and suffering by not being signed by a label. The Verge covered the story:

“Spotify has announced a new beta feature that will allow independent artists to upload their music directly to the platform instead of through a label or digital aggregator. Normally, artists who aren’t signed to a major label (which can directly upload music to Spotify) have to pay a fee to a third-party service like Tunecore to upload their music to Spotify. The upload feature will be contained within the service’s existing Spotify for Artists platform, which, among other things, allows artists to view data about their listeners and directly submit their songs for editorial playlist consideration.

The new upload feature won’t work like SoundCloud, where songs can be instantly available. Instead, Spotify views it as a way for artists to have control over their own music in advance of its release date. Those who are part of the program will be shown an interface where they can upload their music and accompanying artwork, pick a release day, input additional information (like if it’s a single or an album), and then preview how it will look once published. Direct upload is being offered as a free service”.

 IMAGE CREDIT: Spotify/Getty Images

This is the least alarming recent initiative from Spotify but there are good and bad aspects to this scheme. It is good artists do not have to pay to put their music onto the site and it means those who, before, could not afford to pay to have their music on Spotify now have an open route. It means independent artists can have the same freedom and access as those big-label acts and it seems parity is coming in. There is a problem regarding quality control and the fact, now, the floodgates are open. Already, we have all the big releases and usual collection of songs and the choice seems bewildering. Now, with this extra and free option; I worry there is going to be a flood and it will be hard to decipher the genuinely worthy – too much choice and music coming to us and an attempt for Spotify to keep its reputation and name strong in the wake of rivals/other ventures emerging. I still worry, even though independents have a free option and way of getting their music out there; will they be paid anything and is this a misguided measure from Spotify? I understand why they decided to allow this option but I think it will exacerbate the issue of artists/payment; not adequately profiting musicians who do get their music streamed and get a lot of traffic for Spotify. Any measure that allows unsigned artists greater exposure is good but that lack of quality control and ongoing issue regarding royalties/payment is going to be a big problem. The Verge’s article helped to explain that conundrum:

“Regarding payments for the artists who upload directly to Spotify, Kene Anoliefo, senior product lead for Spotify’s creator marketplace, tells The Verge that the company will offer artists 50 percent of Spotify’s net revenue and 100 percent of royalties for the songs they upload. “We created a pretty simple and fair deal for uploading music where artists receive 50 percent of Spotify’s net revenue, and Spotify also accounts to publishers and collection societies for additional royalties related to the musical composition,” Anoliefo said. “Artists will receive automatic monthly royalty checks. They will be able to view all of that information and check all their data within Spotify for Artists”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@kalvisuals

Whilst Spotify have been finding ways of benefiting independent artists/keeping a lot of press; they seem to be keen to mess with our heads and D.N.A. The self-upload news will be welcome to some and it is debatable whether it is a genuine attempt to benefit independent artists or something more cynical. A couple of recent news stories tied to Spotify have worried me. It is not news to say Spotify has been increasing its data analytical capabilities and keen to see what mood we are in. They target us with adverts depending what songs we choose/how we feel; bespoke playlists make us feel loved and like Spotify knows what makes us tick; collating all this data (personal and third-party) to target us with music and advertising. The Guardian recently ran a piece that covered this and how we are being targeted depending on the songs we listen to. I would rather be left alone when it comes to my moods and what adverts I am sent and, if anything, I do not want a service like Spotify giving me adverts at all. I pay a subscription so I do not get bombarded with stuff but I feel the mood-based marketing is a way of lining their pockets and a bit intrusive!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@vheath

One of the biggest flaws of Spotify – I maintain how much I love and use them but there are flaws – is the lack of music-based advertising. By that, they are not using the data we put out and what we listen to in order to open our minds and introduce us to great music. I would be happy for them to monitor what I listen to if they can get their boffins to look through music’s catalogues and uncover gems I am not aware of. I feel music is a very personal thing and, if I listen to a sad song to lift my mood or help me get through; is it rather unsettling this Spotify machine is gauging that and preparing to send tailored adverts me way?! They are, as The Guardian observed, not the only service that does this:

“You see, Spotify is far from the only platform helping brands target people according to their emotions; real-time mood-based marketing is a growing trend and one we all ought to be cognisant of. In 2016, eBay launched a mood marketing tool, for example. And last year, Facebook told advertisers that it could identify when teenagers felt “insecure” and “worthless” or needed “a confidence boost”. This was just a few years after Facebook faced a backlash for running experiments to see if it could manipulate the mood of its users”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@trovatten

Whilst the giants are keen to tie our moods to perceived consumer desire and take the soul away from music; they are now using D.N.A. in order to recommend music to us. Spotify members can input results from the AncestryDNA website; the streaming site will then generate selections based on the results and, as they see it, it’s a chance for people to connect, musically, with their family tree and history. I have my own thoughts regarding this venture but I read an article written by Sarah Zhang that highlighted some flaws:

“Genetic-ancestry tests are having a moment. Look no further than Spotify: On Thursday, the music-streaming service—as in, the service used to fill tedious workdays and DJ parties—launched a collaboration with AncestryDNA. The partnership creates custom playlists for users based on DNA results they input: Oumou Sangaré for Mali, for example, and Ed Sheeran for England.

If this were simply about wearing kilts or liking Ed Sheeran, these ads could be dismissed as, well, ads. They’re just trying to sell stuff, shrug. But marketing campaigns for genetic-ancestry tests also tap into the idea that DNA is deterministic, that genetic differences are meaningful. They trade in the prestige of genomic science, making DNA out to be far more important in our cultural identities than it is, in order to sell more stuff”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@mariusmasalar

The problem with the new scheme is it fails to recognise people’s musical tastes are personal and subjective. So far as I know, my family is English and we do not go much further than Ireland. I do not think there is anything exotic in my family tree and, as such, the music that will be recommended to me will be, what they see as, quintessentially British. There will be a lot of Ed Sheeran and The Kinks; songs that celebrate Britishness and do not, as music always should, encourage me to look at the wider world and uncover musical D.N.A. that is foreign to me. I appreciate genealogy and your heritage is important and it should be a personal and un-musical pursuit. Finding out where you come from and who your ancestors are is a precious and emotional thing. It is a process of discovery and shock; learning where your very roots and marrow descends from – having a streaming service use this semi-sacred inquisition as a means of targeting you with music seems, to me, rather shallow and pointless. Unless the music they are suggesting is from a member of your family – not many of us can say that – then it seems like a rather pointless thing. The same article raised a very good point regarding genetics and how this initiative can emphasise differences:

“The most charged criticism against genetic-ancestry tests is that they emphasize people’s genetic differences, ultimately reifying race as a meaningful category when it is in fact a social construct. A 2014 study found that when people read a newspaper article about genetic-ancestry tests, their beliefs in racial differences increased. And white nationalists have taken to DNA ancestry tests to prove their European heritage”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@leio

I have put ‘my’ playlist below. All I typed in was my nationality and it came up with the results. I did not put in my name and details and it seems, if this is the way it is done, it is quite a vague and generic selection. There is nothing I have not already heard and it does not define me as a person. I feel the playlists are like astrology. Nearly every prediction for star signs can apply to pretty much anyone. There is no science and facts in any of it and people get sucked in something stupid and facile. Among the selections, there was music I have heard and will never listen to again – including Ed Sheeran and The 1975 – and I am not sure they are more British than The Beatles or Nick Drake (music that is more personal to me). It seems the selections are based on popularity and a vague sense of national excellence rather than any actual science and soul-searching. This article, written by Ashley Reese, saw her crunch the data/D.N.A. and discover something unsettling: just how naff the British music selections were!

“When I first received my results in early 2017, my top ethnic region was Senegal. But thanks to Ancestry updating and enhancing their reference samples, I started off my playlist adventure with the realization that Senegal actually represents a mere blip of my ethnic roots. I was admittedly bummed out—Senegal seems cool—but I moved on. As of right now, my top ethnic region is “Cameroon, Congo, and Southern Bantu Peoples” at 26 percent, followed by Mali at 20 percent, Benin/Togo at 18 percent, England/Wales/Northern Europe at 13 percent, and Ireland/Scotland at 11 percent”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@skmuse_  

“…My problem with this entire affair rests in the British Isles portion of the playlist.

Admittedly, I’m an Anglophile who could spend an inordinate amount of time talking about British alt rock of the ’80s, Brit pop of the ’90s, and the British indie/garage rock revival of the ’00s. I am also an expert on the Spice Girls. It’s obnoxious, but I know my shit! I can say, with confidence, that despite bringing a grim, nonconsensual scourge upon my DNA, the English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish do a pretty good job with that whole music thing”.

I would be behind Spotify if they offered something that broadened our musical minds and helped get us away from the overly-commercial and much-hyped. If they genuinely wanted us to connect with the world in a more profound and illustrative way – in a divided and broken time – then it would be a beneficial and impressive move. I feel our D.N.A. and where we are born is not the sum of our personalities and it does not take into consideration measures for musical love: personality and emotional demands; what our parents listened to and other concerns. It is a very limited and overly-simplistic search that, in my view, is more commercial and advertising-based than it is a chance to make the subscribers feel heard and enriched.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

I think it is important services like Spotify keep moving and find new ways to get people invested and stimulated. It can be soulless and boring scrolling through endless playlists or having to listen to the mainstream artists Spotify promote. What they should be doing is fixing issues surrounding artist payment and help subscribers get involved with rich and unexpected musical sources. Spotify is obsessed with the new and trending; the big artists that are all about now – there is so much in their archive that many people are not aware of because they are not being led that way. I feel Spotify are spending too much time manipulating our moods and trends to suit advertisers and make us feel too watched and more like a number. I am interested to see where I come from but I feel Spotify cannot adequately provide a playlist that shows the complexity of a nation and its D.N.A. There is that problem with racial division and the fact most of us do not discover music based on our nationality – it is rather limiting and problematic. I know how hard it is to wrestle and tussle with newcomers in a competitive market but Spotify could do so much more if they just concentrated on music itself and less on advertising/monitoring us. Maybe it is a sad inevitability of the times we live in but I feel, in an attempt to get ahead of the competition, Spotify has taken a step that is unnecessary…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@devindtx

AND far too flawed.  

 

FEATURE: 2011: The Limbs of a Shaking Nation: The Best from a Fantastic Musical Year

FEATURE:

 

 

2011: The Limbs of a Shaking Nation

IN THIS PHOTO: PJ Harvey (photoed in 2011)/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Marcocia 

The Best from a Fantastic Musical Year

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THIS series is designed to celebrate years in music…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead (captured in 2011)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

post-2000 - and the fact this century can rank alongside the last in terms of the best music. There are some who claim music peaked by the end of the 1990s and we have not seen anything as good. I have already focused on a couple of years from the twenty-first century and there are few as strong as 2011. From superb efforts from the likes of Laura Marling and Kate Bush to stunners from James Blake and Beastie Boys; PJ Harvey and Radiohead – quite an exceptional and varied year. You cannot claim 2011 lacks bite and, to my mind, it can rank alongside most years in terms of its sheer brilliance. Have a look at the records below and recall all the wonder we saw seven years ago. 2011 remains one of those years that…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

HAS yet to be touched.

ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

                                                                         ______________

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

Released: 14th February, 2011

Label: Universal Island Records

Genres: Alternative-Rock; Folk-Rock; Folk

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

Released: 18th February, 2011

Label: XL Recordings

Genres: Alternative-Rock; Electronic; Experimental

St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

Released: 12th September, 2011

Label: 4AD

Genres: Indie-Rock; Post-Punk; Art-Pop; Baroque-Pop

Florence + the Machine – Ceremonials

Released: 28th October, 2011

Label: Universal Island Records

Genres: Alternative; Indie; Pop

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Released: 17th June, 2011

Label: 4AD

Genres: Indie-Rock; Folk

Tom Waits – Bad as Me

Released: 21st October, 2011

Label: Anti-

Genres: Rock; Blues

Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow

Released: 21st November, 2011

Label: Fish People

Genres: Art-Pop; Jazz; Chamber-Pop

Beyoncé – 4

Released: 24th June, 2011

Labels: Parkwood, Columbia

Genre: R&B

James Blake – James Blake

Released: 4th February, 2011

Label: Interscope Records

Genres: Dubstep; Soul; Experimental; Electronic

The Black Keys – El Camino

Released: 6th December, 2011

Label: Nonesuch

Genres: Blues; Blues-Rock; Garage-Rock

Lady Gaga – Born This Way

Released: 23rd May, 2011

Labels: Streamline, Kon Live, Interscope

Genre: Dance-Pop

Björk – Biophilia

Released: 5th October, 2011

Label: Universal International

Genres: Electronic; Experimental; Trip-Hop; Glitch

Wild Beasts – Smother

Released: 9th May, 2011

Label: Domino Recording Company

Genres: Indie-Rock; Indie-Pop; Dream-Pop

Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

Released: 27th April, 2011

Label: Capitol Records

Genres: Hip-Hop; Alternative Hip-Hop; Post-Punk

Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

Released: 9th September, 2011

Label: Virgin Records

Genres: Folk; Folk-Rock

FEATURE: The Devil Makes Work for Idol Hands: Is Music Following Hollywood into a Dark Pit?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Devil Makes Work for Idol Hands

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@benwhitephotography  

Is Music Following Hollywood into a Dark Pit?

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A couple of big revelations have come from the world of music…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@melwasser

that have caused shock and called into question how far cases of sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour extend. It is not a shock seeing big names in Hollywood being revealed and exposed when it comes to taking advantage of women and letting their hands wander. Bill Cosby has just been sentenced to between three and ten years in prison and it has shown powerful men are not immune from justice. It makes for grim reading!

“It is time for justice,” said Judge Steven O’Neill, who handed down the sentence on Tuesday at the Montgomery county courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

Cosby was found guilty earlier this year of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004. The sentence caps a precipitous downfall for an actor once known as “America’s Dad,” who starred in the popular Cosby Show in the 1980s and 90s”.

I suspect Cosby’s sentence will be reduced – if he lives long enough to see that happen – but it is another instance of a once-loved figure being revealed as something nobody expected. When we come to music, there have been fewer high-profile cases. Times have changed and women are coming forward; accusing and revealing men who have let power go to their heads and crossing lines.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Judge Steven O'Neill sentenced 81-year-old comedian Bill Cosby for sexually assaulting Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand in 2004/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/AP

Look back at music and you can see how things have changed regarding consent and sex. There once was a time – maybe it still happens – where the ‘groupie’ would hang around and wait for her favourite band/artist to emerge after a gig. That idea of bedding a famous musician and them in turn revelling at the attention of their fans was glamorised and seen as normal. Who knows which of the idolised and celebrated music legends have been privy to having sex with a string of female fans – who knows how many of them were under the age of consent. It is rather seedy and sworded thinking about how those encounters were initiated and whether any of the women/girls were plied with alcohol/drugs beforehand. As I say; there are dungeons and crevices of music where that still happens but, thankfully, the groupie culture died and has taken on a reduced form. A lot of bands scorn groupies and find it embarrassing; a lot of the dangers regarding sexual exploitation and abuse are online – grooming and inappropriate messages/images falling into the hands of young girls/women. We have passed the time when big bands like Led Zeppelin would engage in debauchery and excess; their contemporaries inviting young fans into their tour buses/hotels and, in essence, using them.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@sauvageisland

This article, written by Rae Alexandra last year, examines the history of assaults at gigs and how things have changed since the 1990s:

“Assault at shows is an issue that has been publicly discussed since riot grrrl first shone a light on it in the early 1990s. This reached its peak in 1999 when the chaos of Woodstock resulted in numerous sexual assault reports and a number of rape allegations from audience members. More recently, in 2015, five teenage girls in the U.K. started #GirlsAgainst to highlight the fact that this problem is ongoing. Just last year, 26 women reported being assaulted at the Schlossgrabenfest music festivalin Germany.

It’s not talked about all that often, but the risks facing women and girls who like live music are not limited to fellow audience members. There is a culture of silence in this male-dominated industry that, in my 18 years of journalistic experience on the road and backstage, has shocked me”.

She went on to examine that idea of the groupies and how it is a rather complicated discussion:

“The issues surrounding bands and groupies are complex and frequently rooted in a culture that tells rock musicians that it's their right, and tells young women that their greatest commodity -- their easiest “in” -- is their bodies and their sexuality. Romanticized depictions of groupies in TV and movies (Showtime’s Roadies was a recent offender) continue to perpetuate the idea that groupies are beloved and essential; that women can get in on the excitement of being on the road, if only they’ll give it up. In reality, groupies are often mocked by the band the second they’ve been ushered off the bus”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/carolinehdz

There are articles that seem to skew the idea that being a groupie is negative. This piece features a different take on sex - as a way of making connections and bolstering confidence:

“There’s no stigma around making connections within a music scene through online or non-sexual networking, but there is lots of stigma around using sex to make those connections, and there shouldn’t be. Why not utilise my erotic capital, whether through flirting, dressing a certain way, or having casual sex? This became an almost necessity when I realised how hard it is to get a foothold in a music scene. When we started our night we had practically no contacts; we couldn’t even get through to most venues, never mind convince them to take us seriously when we finally got hold of someone on the phone. If you’re not a DJ, then the received wisdom is, what business have you got starting a club night anyway? No one starts club nights just for the fun of it. Even the DJs who we eventually booked were skeptical. So I felt it necessary in certain situations to deploy the erotic capital I realised I had after gaining confidence after sleeping with a string of musicians”.

The New Yorker  investigated the often-maligned word and wondered whether being a groupie was about sexual expression, independence and the only way women, in music or not, could feel part of the scene:

“Some feminists might wish to decry this kind of live-and-let-live ethos as witless and naïve. There is, of course, a more troubling presumption embedded in these relationships—that, at least in the earliest days of rock and roll, “groupie” was the only viable position open to a woman who wanted to participate, in some way, in the creation and dissemination of the music she loved. The logic goes like this: women became groupies because what else could they possibly do to mediate or amplify the sublime experience of reacting to these songs?

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@skylerorking  

“For me, the most interesting question that “Groupies” raises has less to do with cultural pathways and more to do with old-fashioned carnality and the places within us that it comes from. Perhaps it’s not so much that sex was the only option for these women, but that it was their preferred option. Fandom operates differently than a creative or critical impulse—and it wants for different things, too. People find all sorts of ways to manage the magnificent, sometimes paralyzing feelings a true communion with art incites: as long as there have been humans making beautiful things, there have been other humans who wish to subsume or harness that energy via sexual congress. Sex is a method (and an effective one) for achieving a kind of transcendental closeness to another person and, by inevitable extension, to the work that they make”.

There are other articles such as this; here and this that looks at the way musicians and fans used to connect – or the somewhat lascivious and sexual nature of band-fan relationships. The reason I bring all of this to play is because of the way some artists still think that culture is acceptable. I am someone who is unwilling to accept anything positive or good could come from celebrating casual sex in music and that rather unseemly scene of the past.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew G via Flickr Commons

I am glad to see there is not the same sort of exposure and gaudiness happening today but there have been a couple of big stories coming out that make me wonder whether music is as clean and safe as it should be. Most male artists are respectful to their female fans and the big bands of today – Muse, Coldplay; Foo Fighters and the like – are not inviting lines of women into their tour buses and getting their rocks off. It appears, even though social media is there to unveil and condemn any form of sexual inappropriateness, it still is happening. BØRNS is the latest artist who is making the news for all the wrong reasons. Pitchfork has reported what has happened and the revelations coming forward:

“On September 21, a woman with the Twitter handle @kaliforxniaposted a statement in which she called Borns a “manipulator” and “user.” She said that she met him at a concert in 2015, and struck up a friendship that continued over text and social media. Months later, she alleged that he asked her to “meet him for drinks” in L.A. “I was expecting a bar but ended up at his place,” she wrote. She claimed that she then entered Borns’ home, where he offered her alcoholic drinks. “Suddenly I became drunk and was completely taken advantage of,” she said. She continued, “Once everything happened I went to the bathroom and started bleeding. I was completely shocked from the blood and started to get it together and realized what just happened. I blamed myself for that night because I didn’t say no even though I was intoxicated”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: BØRNS/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

The piece continues and looks at the allegations. It paints Garrett Clark Borns in a very bad light. He came forward and tackled the accusations:

“In a note posted to Instagram today, Borns wrote, “I am both hurt and angered over the disturbing and false allegations that have been spread over the past few days on social media. All of the relationships I have had were legal and consensual. They ended abruptly and that obviously caused hurt feelings, but for anyone to suggest anything beyond that is irresponsible”.

It seems a special account was set up on Twitter in order to collate testimonies and reactions from fans who have experienced similar inappropriateness from the musician:

“The Twitter account @exposing_borns has also been collecting various accounts of alleged misconduct. One claim was allegedly made by a 19-year-old named Mathilda. She allegedly said that she and Borns began corresponding over social media, after she reached out as a fan, but “he never wanted to get to [sic] deep or personal. Only asking for nudes. If I didn’t send any, he ghosted me for days.” She then claimed that he flew her out to Hamburg, where they spent two days together. “I did not like the way he wanted to have sex wit [sic] me. Made me scream for daddy’s cock etc etc. Very uncomfortable”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Moose Blood/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images 

These accusations will have a damaging effect on his career and you wonder why artists feel they can still behave with this sort of disregard and arrogance and expect to get away with things. There is that danger, in a social media age, anyone can out and accuse any musician without evidence and they, in turn, can immediately be removed from Twitter and the ball can roll a lot quicker – being dropped from their label or gig organisers cancelling them from their bills. You can never tell how true the allegations are but it seems like so many young women are coming through and sharing stories. His Twitter account is still active and it seems like he is standing his ground. It is troubling to see this story come to light and I wonder how far it goes – whether there will be more women telling their stories. You always have to ask how many of these allegations have validity and proof but it seems odd to accuse, originally, a musician for no reason. Back in February; Moose Blood were in the news for sharing nude photos from a fan’s phone and spreading them around. NME told the story:

“Moose Blood have responded to allegations that frontman Eddy Brewerton stole nude photos from a woman’s mobile phone.

Last year, Twitter user Zoe Maria spoke out to claim that Brewerton took the images from her phone before spreading them around on the band’s WhatsApp group.

“Just a friendly reminder for those of you not in the know: Moose Blood vocalist stole nudes off my phone and sent them to band’s Whatsapp group,” she wrote. “No I will not shut up about it because it still hasn’t been addressed. I’ll bring it up at every opportunity”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@charissek

After Good Charlotte removed the band from their tour; it signalled a new low for Moose Blood and, just recently, they have announced they are taking a break from music:

“Moose Blood have announced that they’re going to “step away” from music, following a “traumatic year” off the “back of serious false allegations”.

The band removed drummer Glenn Harvey in March 2017 following sexual harassment allegations against him that surfaced online.

This was followed almost a year later by allegations against frontman Eddy Brewerton, when he was accused of stealing nude photos from a woman’s phone and sharing them with other band members. Brewerton denies the accusation”.

The band have come out and staunchly defended their reputation. They claim they are being falsely accused and are not happy with the situation:

"Rumours have escalated beyond belief and it makes us sick to our stomachs that we have been very wrongly labelled with these horrendous, incorrect terms. If certain people actually did their research and knew one ounce of truth about the situation then we would not be in this position. You can’t wrongly label innocent people. Your words have very real effects and consequences. You are part of the problem and the reason why social media can be such a toxic place".

We will have to wait and see what the future holds for Moose Blood but I find it hard to believe a band who have had two unrelated accusations levied at them are innocent. Even if, in one case, they were misunderstood or joking around does not wash – there is no excuse for any of it!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@kj2018

A survey conducted early this year revealed the extent of sexual harassment and abuse in the music industry as a whole:

“The survey was conducted by the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), a non-profit organisation with nearly 9,000 members, who work to protect the interests of professional musicians. Among the respondents, 60% said they had experienced sexual harassment, both from superiors – such as conductors, teachers or established musicians – as well as peers in musical groups.

“I always take a sleeping bag on tour, because often we are sharing sleeping space, and a sleeping bag (that doesn’t zip all the way down), is the most effective way of not being molested while asleep,” one respondent wrote. Another said: “‘I have been propositioned and/or expected to engage in ‘casting couch’ or flirtatious behaviour so many times I have lost count.” Other respondents spoke of musicians exposing themselves, being kissed and touched against their will, and, in 6% of cases, being victims of rape and assault”.

Big artists such as R. Kelly have been accused of sexual assault and, as this list shows, it is not only actors/those in the entertainment industry that are being exposed. I looked at sexual abuse and misconduct in music last year off of the back of reports such as this and revelations from big names who have experienced sexual harassment/assault.

 IN THIS PHOTO: R. Kelly/PHOTO CREDIT: Live Nation

BØRNS and Moose Blood are aberrations and rarities: they are the most-recent cases of sexual assault/misconduct but this has been a problem in music for a long time. It seems the punishment for artists who go too far is severe. This article, from this May, looked at the case of R. Kelly and how Spotify dealt with allegations of sexual abuse:

“Streaming service Spotify will no longer promote R. Kelly’s music, Billboard reported on Thursday. The move comes after Time’s Up called on Spotify and other companies and concert venues to cut ties with the singer, who has faced allegations of sexual abuse for decades.

This is a small step forward, I guess. But as many have noted before, the music industry has yet to face the same kind of #MeToo reckoning that Hollywood and media have. R. Kelly and XXXTentacion are just two of the many men whose careers have, until recently, been largely unaffected by the allegations against them. Earlier today, New York Times pop music reporter Joe Coscarelli tweeted an email he got from XXXTentacion’s lawyer, who listed some of the other musicians accused of sexual assault and domestic violence that Spotify has not yet penalized, including the band Red Hot Chili Peppers, multiple members of which have been accused of battery, the Backstreet Boys, whose member Nick Carter has been accused of rape, and rapper Trey Songz, who was arrested in March on charges of felony domestic violence”.

I do worry how many cases are coming to light and how many are being hidden – women fearing they will not be believed or punished somehow. Whilst names as big as Harvey Weinstein are not being accused in music, I know full well there are numerous cases of sexual abuse happening and the penalties for artists who are accused is not stiff enough. I think more stringent and brutal measures need to be taken. I know everyone is innocent until proven guilty but you cannot really allow any artist to remain on social media and touring until they have been cleared. One does not know for certain how many of the recent stories are 100% true but I am in no position to disprove or cast aspersions on the young women who have come forward. As I said; sexual abuse is not new n music but we continue to see it and I wonder how far the problem extends; whether it can ever be stopped and what more can be done. It is not only female fans who are being subjected to unwanted abuse/attention – those in other areas of music (publicity, for example) report issues with boundaries and how they often find themselves being inappropriately touched or talked to.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@crea_tives

This Noisey article investigated that in more depth; how endemic and widespread the issue is – and how many women are pressured into having sex by those higher up in the industry:

"There's a lot of confusion over what is the boundary and with whom," said Rebecca Haithcoat, a freelance music journalist, who has contributed to Noisey. "If I go out to [a drink meeting] with a publicist or a manager and he sexually harasses me, who do I tell?"

Others I spoke with said the insecure nature of freelancing makes speaking out too great a risk, particularly among younger workers who may rely on such work as an entry point into the industry.

Kate, a former freelance music writer who now works in A&R and asked to use a pseudonym, says the precarious nature of freelance work made her afraid to speak out when a well-known musician pressured her to have sex with him before an interview. She was 21 at the time. Kate says she excused herself to the restroom and left. Though she eventually told the festival publicist who had invited her to the event about what happened, she never told her editor.

“This was my main source of income, and the reason I was able to meet people and get assignments—I didn’t want people to think I was difficult. You can easily feel isolated. I was scared that [the musician] was gonna take some revenge on me, or publicly discount everything that I said in order to save his career”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@rawpixel

Social media makes it easier to identify perpetrators and lead to greater awareness. Whilst some of the waters are muddied – how many true cases and genuine claims are there?! – women (and men) are not afraid to come online and castigate artists who have come too far. Only time will tell as to whether music can turn a corner and we can do much to protect female fans/those in the industry. It is sad to see artists risk their careers and be so stupid. I am not one who feels those accused are as innocent and spotless as they say. I do not believe random attention-seeking or vendettas are at the heart of these claims. More needs to be done to ensure we see fewer cases like we have seen recently. Until then, it is sad to see cases of sexual abuse/inappropriateness emerge. I genuinely hope, sooner rather than later, we can create change and safeguarding so women in music (and fans) can…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@isaiahrustad

TRULY feel safe.

FEATURE: U Got the Look: The Importance and Influence of Art and Visuals

FEATURE:

 

 

U Got the Look

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@timon_k 

The Importance and Influence of Art and Visuals

__________

I have been inspired by a feature/celebration on BBC Radio 6 Music…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@celmono2

where certain shows this week will present from various art schools/colleges around the U.K. (They are looking at the role art institutions have played regarding musicians and great expression). Everyone from Freddie Mercury and Madonna went to art school - this list gives more names - and it seems there is an inherent link between art and music. It is not only art and static imagery that affects music and brings it to mind. Look at music videos and the connection with film and we can see how important visuals are regarding music. Goldsmiths student Jack Barraclough talked to The Guardian about the a divide between music and art:

"I see a gap between music and art," counters Jack Barraclough. "If you look at bands made of art students and bands made of music students there will be a massive difference."

What's that?

"The music students practise."

One of the most famous sons of the London art school world is Jarvis Cocker, who enrolled at Central St Martins in 1988 to take a hiatus from Pulp and study fine art and film. Paradoxically, it was the move that cemented Pulp's success.

"The experience of just being at art school gave me a lot to draw on - Pulp's most famous song [Common People] is about something that happened there - but on a deeper level I was taught to think about things in a non-lateral way. We might be losing that as everything becomes results-based. It's terrible to imagine, but I fear that the years of the alcoholic lecturer who spouts out a few ideas before falling asleep are gone".

 IN THIS PHOTO: M.I.A./PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Press

In terms of musicians; many go to art school to meet like-minded people who they can form bands with. There is that new way of thinking and freedom of thought that you can hear in artists like Florence Welch and Jarvis Cocker; M.I.A. and Lady Gaga. You might say art and music are different disciplines and require separate skills…but there is a clear connection between art and music. The most innovative and free-thinking musicians around think visually and understand the importance of thinking outside the box – putting importance on images and bringing their music to life through visuals and designs. Many say it is less likely we will find a new breed of art school-educated musicians because of tough times and a drop in enrolment. The same piece looks at the figures and the current state of play (the article was written in 2009):

“Being an art school graduate has never been easy but, according to Graham Crowley, it's even worse being an art school lecturer. In October 2008 Crowley, a landscape painter and former lecturer, wrote in a letter to the journal Art Monthly that admin culture is turning art schools into "the educational equivalent of British Leyland", with a lack of resources, staff shortages, and an adoption of the corporate model, in which accountability and success are clearly measured. At the same time, there has been a 23.6% increase in the number of art students at undergraduate level between 1999 and 2007. The art school is still seen as an attractive place to spend your young adulthood”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@picsbylikesoda

Due to the lack of schools who have music on the syllabus as a compulsory course; it is becoming harder and harder to see where the musicians of the future will come from. The problem with studying music is that it can be expensive – going to colleges and universities – and the syllabuses is very particular. It can be hugely beneficial but how often do aspiring musicians get the chance to think about music in visual and artistic terms?! Maybe it is less black-and-white than I imagine but it is interesting looking at artists who have been to art school and how they create. David Bowie went to Bromley Technical High School and it was a very liberal space. He had his love of art and imagery furthered and one could draw a line between his time there and how he projected himself in music. Artists, when at these schools, can compose and paint whilst listening to different music and, naturally, a reverse trend emerges: the art they are creating inspires them musically and that ingrained bond between art and music come out. Not only do art schools and colleges allow aspiring musicians the chance to think in a different way and be set free but there is that lack of convention and rigidity. I feel a lot of people do not place importance on art and visuals when it comes to music.  

  PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@alex_andrews

I was speaking with a musician yesterday and she was saying how much she loves music videos and design. Not only does she love to write music and perform but getting involved with the videos and designing her own logo is paramount! Art schools are one of the few spaces that are not entirely digital and still place importance on the physical and human. It is important, as an artist, there is that tactile and tangible connection with your source and canvas. Whilst we can see how art school and these institutions have impacted some of the best classic and modern musical minds; I wonder whether a module needs to come into music teaching and those who attending music schools. I think art schools/colleges are great creative spaces that can open minds and bring the best out of possible musicians. I am not suggesting the art side is a waste and you only go there to think about music but I feel the way those at art school are taught and the environment they are in is a lot different to a conventional music school. I shall come back to this in the conclusion. One big reason why I raise the issue of imagery in music is the continuing wave of musicians who feel the visual aspect is unimportant. As this article explores, there is an essential need to get your visuals and artwork down:

“Visual content is just that: a visual representation of the music. If you were to present your music without any visuals, it would be harder to get people to listen to your stuff. Imagine uploading a new beat on BeatStars or YouTube and it’s just a black or white square. How do you think this would be perceived in contrast to a thought-out, eye-catching logo or artwork cover? Notice how unassuming the image above is; does it make you want to hear what’s on the CD?”

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for FKA Twigs’ album, LP1/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

“Good graphics and branding can not only impact your streams and sales, but it can also have a ripple effect. Eventually, the graphics may become a part of your marketing material – on t-shirts, posters and the like. Fans will then buy and wear this merch or hang it up in their room or slap a sticker on a telephone pole, thus giving your name (see: brand) more recognition and additional advertising.

So when you are considering your marketing plan and imagining your brand, think about how visual imagery and graphics add to you and your music’s accessibility. Visual designs sell culture and identity”.

So many artists rely upon merchandise for revenue and that can involve everything from T-shirts and posters to keyrings and clothing. Having a brand/logo can really connect you to fans but for those with a more artistic mind; creating different scenes/images for your merchandise catches the eye and will lure more people in. I have not even talked about the visual side of music itself. I have discussed art schools and how literal art can lead to musical art. If you think about the best albums of the year – and of all-time, for that fact! – they are defined by incredible images, lyricism and storytelling. Great and memorable songs are ones where you are dragged inside and taken somewhere special; made to connect and feel something.

 IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for J.Cole’s album, KOD/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

There is a lot to think about for artists but visuals should be need the top. I will end by looking at imagery online and music videos but I wanted to allude to album covers and design. Even getting the right font can be crucial when it comes to catching the eye and attracting people in. Maybe not as important now things are more digital…or are they?! Pigeons and Planes wrote a great piece last year that stated how imagery and album art is crucial right now:

“In 2017, artwork appears as small thumbnails on digital screens far more often than on actual physical album covers. 80 years after a graphic designer at Columbia Records invented album art as a way to help sell vinyl in record stores, its original function is becoming a thing of the past. So, it’s worth asking: Does cover art still matter? Is Lil Yachty the only one who still cares?

“We're in a time right now where our attention spans are really low,” Mihailo Andic (designer of covers for Lil Yachty,Gallant, Fetty Wap, and 6lack) explains. “We process information a lot faster and we process music a lot faster. Making something that's going to catch people's eyes within seconds is important. People only have that amount of time to be instantly attached to what you create. And you have to either grab their attention or you lose them right away”.

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for Charli XCX’s album, Number 1 Angel (noted for its striking and strong image)/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

There is not only the positives of creating great artwork – bad images can have a damaging effect on any artist, as this article explores:

“Some artists have consistently great artwork. Some artists have consistently bad artwork that becomes great via its terrible nature. Some artists opt for the more artistic, and some artists strip their artwork back for a minimalist approach, preferring their music do the convincing. Each of these brands has an appeal, and the more successful are those which manage to make use of the music in some way as well. Artwork should be exciting, should be encouraging, should serve a purpose above just packaging. I think of some of my favorite records and part of what stands out is their artwork. Consider Nirvana's Nevermind and that infamous sleeve, now a piece of pop culture, doing so many things at once - stirring controversy, offering a capitalist commentary, while also just being visually compelling, unusual enough to stand out on a shelf. The Beatles' Abbey Road, Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon- album covers which have gone down in history, partly because of the music, partly because of the artwork”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Unsplash/@ronaldcuyan

It is not only about exploring a collage of colours and making complex pieces. A single colour can, as explained here, make such an impression:

“Furthermore, the use of a single colour, can be enough to trigger a certain feeling or emotion. Nowadays, with such leaps in technology record manufacturers are able to produce a kaleidoscope of vinyls of all colours and patterns. Thus, the physical vinyl itself, becomes part of the artwork and in turn, part of the collective musical experience”. 

The last points I wanted to raise are regarding visuals and music videos. There are so many artists who do not like making videos – feeling it is a needless step and their music is available on streaming sites. Whilst Spotify is the biggest market and most profitable site for many artists; you cannot discount the need to produce music videos:

“With more music being produced and released than ever before, posting a few good songs or even an album isn’t enough to stand out and catch people’s attention in 2018. Cover art and all the other imagery you associated with your band is a huge opportunity to link your music to a larger and more compelling story than your music alone is going to be able to tell. The word “branding” comes to mind here, which may turn the stomach of a few readers. But rather than branding for the sake of turning a profit, you’ll need to think long and hard about the visual elements of your music in order to catch the attention of listeners and carve out an identity for yourself”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lotus Quadrant/PHOTO CREDIT: Leah Roth Photography 

“To compete in a world chock full of distractions, the visual elements of a band’s music are needed to send a message to listeners that’s both succinct and compelling. Whether you try going it alone or working with a visual artist, you’ll need to have conversations about what your music means and how to present it visually in a compelling way.

If you’ve managed to earn a following, the most devoted section of your fans will want more from you than just your music. Things like music videos, band photos, cover art, and posters are important ways to earn new fans and form a deeper connection with people who already love your music”.

The Internet seems to be about a lack of face and making sure we have everything we need as quickly as we wish! If we start to overlook the visual side of music then that could have a devastating effect. Some great videos from this year show how potent a great video can be. Look at how we can forget about tracks after listening to them – do visuals and a strong brand help keep them in the mind? The article goes into more depth:

“Music on the Internet is consumed and forgotten about daily, if not hourly. So from a record label point of view, an artist needs something bigger than an MP3 to get noticed. They need strong creative visuals to give them a substantial competitive advantage over their peers. Look at FKA Twigs and Tyler The Creator, perfect examples of two musicians who have made their visual impact just as powerful as their music. Music videos form a large part of an artist’s general creative vision and output. When you can stream music anywhere and everywhere a music video is a focal point — it draws your attention, or at least helps to.

Music videos are still an important jumping off point for directors to hone and explore their creativity. They give young talent an opportunity to break into different areas of the film industry — they are still very much a way in. The media still look at music videos for discovering new talent, and those ideas are then applied to so many other things. Take the example of Bonnie Prince Billy’s video Bonnie directed by Harmony Korine, the technique in the video was then applied to a Thornton’s chocolate ad”.

“Many directors cut their teeth in music videos before going on to make films — Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and more recently Daniel Wolfe are poster boys for this. These are visionary filmmakers who, without the existence of music videos, wouldn’t be making the exciting and experimental work they are now. It’s an outlet of inspiration no matter where you’re at in your career — they will always excite people”.

Not only does ‘art’ in music come from the cover of vinyl and streaming sites; there is that consideration when looking at lyrics and the way artists express themselves. As stations like BBC Radio 6 Music look at the association between art and music; I wanted to investigate the way visuals have helped raise and cement careers; how we would not remember some of the very biggest artists were it not for their strong attachment to art and imagery. Music is intangible and electronic these days. More and more, it is becoming about flicking a screen, choosing a song and then immersing yourself in whatever nonsense is happening on your phone. Fewer people are studying album covers and talking about artistic visions in music. As I have shown here; artists cannot ignore the role imagery plays in music – even when streaming is taking over from physical formats. There is something beautiful about great deigns and those musicians who think in a very different and inspirational way. Artists like Beyoncé have created visual albums and ensure live shows are as theatrics, spectacular and visually-arresting as possible. Getting the right set, stage look and visual aspect there is important. Not only can a fantastic and tight set impress people but a well-designed and eye-catching backdrop (lighting and props too) can go a very long way.

 IN THIS IMAGE: David Bowie as ‘Aladdin Sane’/SOURCE CREDIT: Brian Duffy (1933-2010), David Bowie as ‘Aladdin Sane’, 1973. Sold in the British Modern and Contemporary Photography sale in May 2015/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Duffy © Duffy Archive & The David Bowie Archive ™

From art school alumni such as David Bowie to newer acts who are keen to invest in good photography. As this article attests; about 4% of bands/artists feel strong imagery and photos are important tools. I am a journalist who relies on high-resolution photos and cannot stand it when I get sent crappy photos or artists explain they only have a few – not understanding why it is important to have a few great shots in your locker:

“The reality is, almost every promoter that we talk to mentions how important photographs and album covers are in their selections. A great photograph is what immediately separates you from anyone else at first glance. You’ve worked hard to make sure that your music is as good as it can be, so why not invest some time in making sure that first visual hook is just as good?”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Molly Rankin (L) and Kerri MacLellan (R) of Alvvays perform onstage during day two of the 2016 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival Weekend 2 at the Empire Polo Club on April 23, 2016 in Indio, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images North America

Great photography and images helps preserve artists after their careers have ended or when they try to appeal to generations way down the line. How many acts of today are going to be remembered for audio alone? Jessica Brassington, writing in 2015, pitched for the beauty of music photography:

“Music photography is an art form that we rarely hear much discussion about yet we visually see it on a daily basis. The image is extremely powerful within the music industry and we take for granted the photographs we see of singers and bands because it is something we automatically expect to see; whether it’s an album cover, festival highlights or a gig review, photography is always there.

However, it is not very often that we stop consider the artist behind the lens, fighting for that perfect shot, that perfect depiction of the band’s vision. It’s a beautiful art form with a significant and important purpose…”

I feel art and music should be studied more and how important it is to realise music now, as much as it ever was, is a visual medium that need to appeal to the eyes as well as the ears. If artists come into music and overlook things like photography, videos; merchandise designs and a more artistic approach to songwriting then that can have a huge effect on their memorability and legacy. Start putting art back into the forefront and stop thinking it is unimportant. Think about all the music you grew up around and can you honestly say you were not blown away by the album covers and images?! We all were, and so, we need to tell generations to come – and artists out there – art and images are as substantial as…

THE music itself.

FEATURE: Redemption Songs: The Artists Defining a New Wave of Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Redemption Songs

IN THIS IMAGE: Christine and the Queens (Héloïse Letissier)/ALL IMAGES/PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Getty Images 

The Artists Defining a New Wave of Music

__________

IT is not often I sit back and look at music from…

a lyrical perspective and see what changes have come in. It has been a rather sticky and horrible year in terms of politics and the way the world has been going. Music is a great way to alleviate and disguise some of the pain and, if anything, provide great direction and heart. The reason I wanted to take a brief glimpse at this year’s music is because of the extraordinary albums that have come through. Every year produces some great records and revelations but I have been crying out for artists who are digging deeper and providing music that touches on political and social issues. Some of the best albums of the year have focused on love and traditional themes but there have been some fantastic albums that have opened eyes and, as such, scored huge with the critics. If we think about those big political and seismic records (of recent years) then our mind goes to the U.S. and genres like R&B, Rap and Hip-Hop. Christine and the Queens’ new album, Chris, has been gaining glowing reviews and could well be this year’s best. Many critics are giving it five-star reports and going out of their way to say how good the album is. I have listened to it and can agree with everything being said. On 2014’s Chaleur Humaine, we saw Héloïse Letissier with long hair and, whilst it scored big with critics, this year’s follow-up finds the heroine cutting her hair and adopting a more muscular and stern look.

Chris is an album that means business and talks about subjects such as womanhood, gender issues and sexuality. The Guardian talked about the evolution between albums and why we cannot see Chris’ creator as Héloïse Letissier:

“Fast-forward to 2018 and the really rude words are now in Spanish (follarse). And “we are all losing to somebody… we are all losers to somebody” – or so Letissier observes on Feel So Good, a track that apes Michael Jackson in the most successful way. This is an MJ reborn in the body of a 30-year-old Frenchwoman hell-bent on kicking the notion of womanhood around until it’s puree. Letissier has written an album all about these clotted fluid dynamics, set to the squelch of 80s funk; the only thing missing from Chris, her second album, is the grease of street food eaten at unlikely hours of the day after some funky bodily exertion.

To still refer to the French pop creative as “Héloïse Letissier” seems a little futile when there are such pressing updates. Apparently only her parents still call her that now. To recap: Letissier became Christine of Christine and the Queens when, a heartbroken theatre school dropout, she moved to London in search of a reason to keep going and was given succour by drag queens: the backstory of Chaleur Humaine”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jack White/PHOTO CREDIT: Joshua Mellin

Here is an album that tackles big themes and is very open about issues such as sex. A lot of the other best albums of this year – from the likes of Paul McCartney, Jack White; Arctic Monkeys and Natalie Prass – have looked at more conventional ideas and scored big. I am a big fan of balance in music but I feel there has been a surfeit of artists talking about something much more meaningful and pressing than matters of the heart. I will move on to other albums that have defined this year’s shift but, to end, a little word from Christine and the Queens’ lead about her transformation, openness and what Chris represents – as she explained in this interview with The Guardian:

“In France, since I cut my hair they hear the ambivalence [in my lyrics] way more,” she explains. “I’m playing around with the male gaze and confusing heterosexual dudes who say stuff [about how I look] like: ‘I’m excited ... but I’m angry!’ I love the scam of a macho man. I wrote this record because I wanted to address the taboo of a woman being blunt and forward.”

She admits that the promotional tour for this album has been hard, not least in France. “Sometimes I feel like I’m educating people,” she says, anger bubbling up for the first time. “I realise that by addressing female desires I’m getting really strong reactions. But it’s not my job to diffuse that.” Her sexuality has also caused controversy, with some French articles changing her pansexuality to bisexuality. “At one point, they told me I’d invented [pansexuality]! I was like: ‘It’s actually on Wikipedia.’” She looks exasperated. “For some people, it’s impossible to escape binaries. Pansexuality [is] impossible to simplify and I think people hate me in France for that.”

She is cautious about the dialogue around queer identity, too. “If the dominant society uses it to sell shit then we have lost the meaning of it – ‘Ten queer artists to watch out for!’ How can you simplify it like that? Queer is about intense questioning that can’t be made nice and glossy”.

There is one American artist that has made a big statement this year but it seems British/European artists are penning some of this year’s most-charged and stunning albums. Maybe that is a reaction to Brexit and how the politics in this part of the world have been highlighted and singled-out. I am not sure of the reason but it is good to see a bit of a shift from U.S. Hip-Hop/R&B strike to other genres/parts of the world. I will look at IDLES, Janelle Monáe and artists like Sophie – who have managed to mingle thought-provoking themes among more accessible subjects –; but Anna Calvi is another artist who has just released a huge record. Like Christine and the Queens; Calvi has been looking at gender, sexuality and control. The guitar virtuoso has changed her creative tact somewhat and, on her latest record, brought her guitar-playing prowess more to the fore. Calvi, again, is an artist that is looking at sexuality, gender rights and getting her voice heard. The Independent, when reviewing Hunter, made some salient points:

“This was a conscious move for the shy daughter of two psychotherapists. Rebuilding her identity after breaking up with her girlfriend of eight years, she became sick – in her words – of “seeing women depicted as being hunted by men in our culture” and began writing lyrics as an “Alpha” determined to go out into the world and “explore pleasure in all possible ways, free from any shame”.

With a voice she’s finally trusting herself to use with the same confidence that she’s always had in her guitar, Calvi lays yowling, prowling animal claim to both the male and female aspects of herself. She opens the album with a predatory strut of a strum, asking: “If I were a man in all but my body/ Oh would I now understand you completely?”

 IN THIS PHOTO: Anna Calvi/PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel for DIY

In a recent interview; Calvi talked about Hunter and how she felt compelled to talk about gender and the power of being a woman:

“In the years since she emerged as an esteemed art-rock guitarist and singer, alongside winning best breakthrough act at the 2012 BRIT Awards and being twice nominated for the Mercury, she has found herself answering such questions as: “What’s it like playing a phallic instrument?”, and that other favourite: “What’s it like being a woman in music?” “It’s this idea that women are a genre and that you would be compared to really random female artists because you have breasts, but not compared to a male artist”, she says”.

This year – the last couple of months especially – is bringing these angry, emphatic and deeply profound records at a rate I have not seen for a long time. Female artists like Calvi are standing up against stereotyping and, as the interview explores, talking about more than what happens between the sheets and the pages of their diaries – like so many mainstream artists often do:

“As a rebellion against women’s invisibility, gender stereotyping and its limitations on humanity, she made her boldest record yet: Hunter – an album she wanted “to feel visceral and primal and wild and messy and have a rawness to it”. And she put out a statement of intent on her website, laying out her views on its themes. “If I hadn’t gone through that difficult time, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to have been so risk-taking in the music”, she says. “It does feel quite exposing.” On it are songs such as “Alpha” – a term usually used to refer to men, but here she was “interested in the alpha human. This is a human portrait, it’s not a gendered thing” – and “Hunter”. “I’m tired of seeing women hunted by men. This is a female hunter.” She is also tired of the “policing [of] women’s bodies and their sexuality”. “It’s a given that men should experience pleasure. It’s not a given that women should deserve and expect pleasure. And that’s just bullshit. The culture that we see is so male-centric”.

Another British act who have been eschewing easy options and using music as a way of getting us to re-evaluate and think is IDLES. DIY, when delivering a five-star review of the band’s latest album, Joy as an Act of Resistance, seemed to sum up the feeling we all got when listening through the first time:

“Across its 40-odd minutes, ‘Joy As An Act of Resistance’ makes you want to laugh and cry and roar into the wind and cradle your nearest and dearest. It is a beautiful slice of humanity delivered by a group of men whose vulnerability and heart has become a guiding light in the fog for an increasing community of fans who don’t just want, but need this. No hyperbole needed; IDLES are the most important band we have right now”.

IDLES’ debut, Brutalism, in 2017 dealt with the death of Joe Talbot’s (their lead) mother and how he reacted to that. Of course, there was more at play but you can hear the personal exposure and pain that came through on the album. The frontman has suffered new tragedy since then – him and his girlfriend lost a daughter during childbirth – and, as such, vulnerability has come into Joy as an Act of Resistance. DIY talked to Talbot earlier in the year and reflected on vulnerability:

“Vulnerability is a word that comes up constantly during conversation with Joe, tied into every thread of chatter around game-changing second album ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’. It’s a practice that Joe says has helped him become more caring, accepting and understanding. It also often makes him quite misunderstood...

IN THIS PHOTO: IDLES/PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana for DIY 

“A lot of people think it’s sarcasm,” he lays out, talking about the album’s iron-clad centrepiece ‘Love Song’. “I wrote a love song / ‘cause you’re so loveable,” he barks in its first line, before channelling Dirty Dancing’s Baby (and uttering that same word again): “I carried a watermelon / I wanna be vulnerable”.

Bravery, openness (especially in men) and depression make their way into the album. Songs like Samaritans discuss suicide and how men are encouraged and expected to be introverted and suck it all in. If Anna Calvi and Christine and the Queens have examined female roles and empowerment through bellicose and defiant expression; IDLES, in many ways, are defining masculinity and eroding the toxicity that can show itself. In the same interview, Talbot spoke about that issue:

“It’s amazing isn’t it, the trope of masculinity,” Joe ponders, exhaling into a half sigh, half chuckle. “It engulfs our psyche without us knowing. A bunch of unspoken rules that we live by, that are really dangerous a lot of the time.” It’s a point touched upon on ‘Brutalism’ but hammered home throughout album two”.

These three albums (I have mentioned) have been released in the last couple of months and it seems the culmination of all the political horrors out there and the messages advertising/the media are putting out there has led to this musical revolution. Last year saw some potent albums come through but records from Janelle Monáe (Dirty Computer) and Sophie are not to be overlooked. Monáe talked about songs (to The Guardian) such as Django Jane and what she was trying to say:

“She puts down mansplaining with a forceful, deadpan lyric: “Hit the mute button, let the vagina have a monologue.” It’s one of Monáe’s most political songs to date, and also one of her most personal, a revelation for a singer whose critics have called her presence “cerebral”, her music “controlled”, her “constructed” look”.

“Remember when they used to say I looked too mannish,” she sings, in a pointed taunt. This is Monáe 2018: “One of the things I’m trying to learn to do is let go.” She says that letting go has come about in part thanks to therapy, and in part to translating political anger, as she ever more explicitly addresses wrongs against black Americans. Django Jane is “a response to me feeling the sting of the threats being made to my rights as a woman, as a black woman, as a sexually liberated woman, even just as a daughter with parents who have been oppressed for many decades. Black women and those who have been the ‘other’, and the marginalised in society – that’s who I wanted to support, and that was more important than my discomfort about speaking out”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Janelle Monáe

Dirty Computer is Monáe talking about empowerment and women’s rights; about respect and getting people dancing. The record is accessible and you can understand it but, rather than look at basic ideas and copy the mainstream, there are actual messages and inspirational songs throughout. In that Guardian interview, Monáe explained what she is all about:

“Because I’m about women’s empowerment. I’m about agency. I’m about being in control of your narrative and your body. That was personal for me to even talk about: to let people know you don’t own or control me and you will not use my image to defame or denounce other women.”

It’s an ugly phenomenon she has glimpsed on social media. “I see how people try to pit women against each other,” she says. “There are people who have used my image to slut-shame other women: ‘Janelle, we really appreciate that you don’t show your body.’ That’s something I’m not cool with. I have worn a tuxedo, but I have never covered up for respectability politics or to shame other women”.

Drowned in Sound, when reviewing Dirty Computer, raised some interesting points:

“While she had already mentioned her 'non-linear' sexuality in the past, partly from answering questions about her androgynous fashion-sense, her third record comes at the time of her most concise 'coming out' and she has laid the process out for all to see during a time where a more open dialogue about different variations on sexuality and gender is starting to take place. While some fans of her earlier, more challenging, material may be mildly disappointed sonically by such a straight-up pop record, even they must acknowledge what an important album this is both personally to Monae and socially to the current world, and for that, it is a successful and pleasurable work”.

The last album I wanted to bring in is from Sophie (or ‘SOPHIE’). Her album, The Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, tackles everything from materialism, consumerism and social media; transgenderism and sexuality through to imagery. In this interview, she talked about her identity and the interviewer, Rich Juzwiak, looked at what Sophie’s is all about:

“In a plainspoken, efficient manner, SOPHIE’s music explores transhumanism, the notion that technology can enhance our humanity. SOPHIE considers transhumanism and transgender identity to be connected—that she talked about being trans at all shocked me, given her previously expressed allergy to the label in multiple interviews”.

An interesting question came up:

“A lot of discussions about presentation focus on visual aesthetics. I wonder if this album is an opportunity to express your identity in sonic form, essentially tapping into a virtually untouched aesthetic realm. In other words, is the music itself an extension of the way you present your identity to the outside world?

Yeah, I think you touched on something really important there...I don’t know, I mean, I’ve always found expression through music. That’s my chosen method of communication. I can speak through my appearance a bit as well, but the medium I’m more experienced with is music”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sophie/PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Wales

In a separate interview with Billboard; Sophie talked about transness and how important it was to talk about it:

“She continued by saying that control is key when it comes to discussing the nature of transness. “Transness is taking control to bring your body more in line with your soul and spirit so the two aren't fighting against each other and struggling to survive,” she said. “On this earth, it's that you can get closer to how you feel your true essence is without the societal pressures of having to fulfill certain traditional roles based on gender”.

The songwriter talked to i-D discussed how she writes and what feels natural to her:

“I think the only way you can judge things is by what feels good to you, and not forced, and right now it feels natural to me to do this stuff -- to be in the spotlight,”

“I’ve never really been particularly into karaoke-style performance or a drag race style thing. That’s not an influence on me. I’ve always dreamt of creating some sort of community atmosphere, which is queer, fluid, diverse, genderless, dynamic… I guess I felt like a lot of the culture around club nights in London was very macho when I started doing music. I did want to bring something different, to try and open up a different space for people.” Looking around the room last Tuesday, it seems like she’s achieved just that”.

Sophie has produced one of the best albums of the year and, like her contemporaries I have featured, The Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides takes sexuality and other such subjects and puts them to the forefront. It is a bold and brave album that has struck the critical heart. NME gave their opinions on the album:

“More than just proving SOPHIE’s aptitude as a producer (and let’s be real, she’s one of this decade’s leading pioneers), ‘Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides’ digs deeper. Crossing boundaries of pop music and chasing transcendence, SOPHIE achieves the rare feat of making abstract, difficult electronic music that hits you straight in the heart”.

There are ample albums where you can find something familiar and safe but it seems, in 2018, we are seeing certain artists producing incredibly provocative, fascinating and illuminating works. It is wonderful hearing such fantastic and resonant albums. I am not sure what the rest of the year holds but we are seeing this wave of social and political work emerge that is not only enriching and educating listeners but scoring huge with the press. I wonder whether this will continue into 2019 and signals a movement: the best and most affecting albums arrive from those who dispense with predictable relationship songs and write about something that…

IMAGE CREDIT: JMU Breeze  

 CUTS much deeper.