FEATURE: Spotlight: Bay Swag

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Bay Swag

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THIS has been a busy…

PHOTO CREDIT: Joshua Holmes

and standout year for Bay Swag. New York-born Lloyd McKenzie Jr. released his debut album, Ahead of My Time, last year. He released Damaged Thoughts earlier in the year. And he also put out the E.P., Swiggity. An artist who weaves his love of R&B into Sexy Drill, he has just been named as one of Vevo DSCVR Artists to Watch for 2026. It is confirmation that this artist is someone that you need to put on your radar:

“Mika Sunga, Director of Programming: “We’re excited to welcome Queens-born drill rapper Bay Swag to our DSCVR ATW 2026 class. He’s helping define the Sexy Drill movement, which blends the hard-hitting beats of drill with the smooth, soulful feel of R&B.

“His debut album really stood out to me because it’s raw, introspective, and gives a real glimpse into his world. You can tell he’s got that star quality and drive to take things to the next level. “

Bay Swag: “Being named one of Vevo’s Artists to Watch 2026 means everything to me. It’s more than recognition — it’s reassurance that all the long nights and sacrifices are paying off. I don’t take this moment for granted; it just fuels me to go even harder and keep proving why I’m here”.

I will move to some interviews from this year with the amazing Bay Swag. I must admit that I am quite new to his music, so I have been catching up and listening back. Damaged Thoughts is one of this year’s albums that will not get the same acclaim and buzz as the most commercial and successful, though it is one that needs to be heard. Even if you know nothing about Sexy Drill or do not think it is your sin, you will definitely be able to connect with Damaged Goods.

I will move to a new interview from XXL Mag. One of the hardest-working artists out there, there are personal reasons why he is pushing so hard. With his father incarcerated and his mother having just beaten cancer, there is this motivation and challenge set of circumstances that means Bay Swag is putting his everything into the music:

“The Queens native, who proudly reps the New York City borough with QGTM (initials for Queens Get The Money) tattooed across his neck, has been preparing for moments like this ever since he started grinding 10 years ago. “You just gotta wait your turn and be patient,” Bay insists. He did just that when “Fisherrr,” a flirty, sexy drill track he collaborated on with Cash Cobain last February, took off in the Big Apple and beyond.

Over 40 million Spotify streams later, a remix with Ice Spice helping bring in 17 million YouTube views, and his lyrics soundtracking social media posts for plenty of baddies across platforms have allowed Bay Swag’s slick-talking lifestyle raps and sticky melodies to fall on more ears. The rising rhymer is part of a rap renaissance in New York City that pushes positivity rather than popping off.

Before he was outside bringing his music to the masses, Bay Swag, born Lloyd McKenzie Jr., was a fun-loving kid who was really outside back in Jamaica, Queens, running around, playing tag and Manhunt with his friends on the block. Music was always heard in his household, where he lived as an only child with his mom, who worked at Geico selling insurance for over 20 years. At 5, thanks to car rides with his dad, little Lloyd was listening to Jay-Z’s hustler mentality through his rhymes. As Bay got older, Juelz Santana and Dipset’s swag drew him into the Harlem rap scene. He also latched onto Trey Songz’s R&B melodies.

By 12, Bay was witnessing the rap lifestyle unfold right before his eyes. His uncle, Windsor “Slow” Lubin, who launched the popular New York clothing line SlowBucks, had a warehouse in Queens for the brand, where rappers, actors and athletes often came through. “They all loved me ’cause I was just ahead of my time,” Bay recalls. “I was fly. So, I’m like, you know what, why not just start making music? I’m around it, so why not take advantage of it?”

He made his first song in a friend’s basement studio. With the help of his father, Lloyd “Bay Lloyd” McKenzie, a former party promoter who worked with artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Junior started hitting the studio consistently. At first, his dad would have the beat and songs already written. “Everything was already ready for me,” shares Bay, who graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo High School. “All I had to do was show up. So, now when he goes to jail, I don’t have that no more. So, I’m kind of like lost a little bit, you know?” Bay began writing his own bars out of necessity.

For the next few years, the self-described “young OG” was putting in work. In 2017, his father was convicted for allegedly ordering the 2012 hit on law student Brandon Woodward, who was moonlighting as a drug courier. McKenzie Sr. was sentenced to 85 years to life for second-degree murder and operating as a drug trafficker. Bay Swag put his pain into his music. “Daddy got locked ’cause my daddy was trappin’/They tried to say he killed a ni**a in Manhattan/Jury believed the ni**a that was rattin’/I’ma get you out, Pops, swear I ain’t cappin’,” he raps on the 2017 track “Saucin.” “Music is my therapy,” he explains.

By that point, he was locked in on his career. There were local performances, connecting with Diddy’s son King Combs as part of the CYN collective in 2015, Bay’s track “Rumors” getting him some early buzz online in 2016, and his mixtape, Leader of the New School, the same year, earning him a short-lived Interscope Records publishing deal, which all increased his potential. He continued dropping more loosies and connecting with the right people, like rapper-producer Cash Cobain, in 2020. After Bay released his Ahead of My Time project in 2022, a mix of different sounds to see what would stick, the Auto-Tune-drenched “Quagen” did the job. “That brought me back to life,” Bay admits.

Tracks like the emotionally-driven “Therapy” in 2023, and the gold-certified hit “Fisherrr” followed a year later. “Not only is it positive, but we bringing everybody together,” he tells of the latter song’s success. “Good feelings and positive vibes.” To capitalize on the track’s impact, Bay joined Cash as the opening act on Ice Spice’s Y2K! World Tour in the U.S. last summer.

It’s clear Bay Swag has never stopped working—rapping is the only job he’s ever had. There’s a deeper meaning to his motivation. “My dad being incarcerated, and also my mother just beat cancer,” he reveals. “How can I give up? I got people depending on me.” His work ethic is what Deon Douglas, cofounder of Standard Records, noticed when he signed the rapper in 2024. “He sticks to what he’s doing,” says Douglas, who’s also the cofounder of 11AM management, where he helps guide the careers of artists like Lil Tjay. “[Bay Swag] does the work. He keeps getting better, he keeps learning. You always meet him in the studio or a video shoot, at an interview. So immediately, that’s what I appreciated about him”.

I am going to move to Rolling Stone and their interview from earlier in the year around the release of Damaged Thoughts. This incredible talent that is going to be an icon of the future, he spoke about “his friendships with rap legends, and the influence of his incarcerated father on his work”. There are a couple of future U.S. dates booked for Bay Swag. I do wonder if he has plans to come to the U.K. and play soon. Maybe better known in his native U.S., there is a growing fanbase here that would love to see him perform:

“The album’s title track is the most personal, as he raps about his mom’s cancer diagnosis (he tells us that she’s since “beat it”) and rhymes, “Sometimes I be lost in my thoughts with my friends/But it’s not my fault, ‘cause I don’t talk about my problems” over a heartfelt vocal sample. The line is true to life, he admits, telling me, ”Music is therapy. I don’t talk with people [about hard times], so I just rap about it.”

The result is a holistic project that marks him as an artist willing to dig deep. There’s a scene in the upcoming Spike Lee film Highest II Lowest where Denzel Washington, playing a record executive, demands that a posturing artist shed his swagger and be vulnerable. The moment speaks to the throng of rappers who are quick to rap about violence or be braggadocious but won’t always admit the trauma that such bravado conceals. Damaged Thoughts shows Swag never needed that memo. When I ask him how he manages to have the fun he has on the album while going through some of the turmoil he rhymes about, he smiles and says, “I don’t know,” while shaking his head. “A day at a time,” Maria Gracia, a senior marketing director at his label, adds.

He’s wearing a white hockey jersey and designer jeans, though he might be changing for the video shoot in Teaneck, New Jersey, that he’s headed to after our holistic interview. Swaying back and forth in his roller chair, he makes consistent eye contact, and after expressing himself sometimes asks, “You get what I’m tryna say?” in a way that doesn’t feel like a knee-jerk punctuation, but a genuine desire to have a two-way conversation.

Even without his lineage, Bay probably would have won over many of the artists in his vast network. Damaged Thoughts boasts appearances from 42 Dugg, Sheff G, Meek Mill, Quavo, Kyle Ricch, and Young Thug. Bay Swag recorded “Lil Jasmine” with the latter artist before the YSL indictment, and says they have since recorded another song alongside Ty Dolla $ign. He counts Thug as a friend who once offered to pay for his father’s lawyer.

And, of course Bay, Swag gets slizzy alongside Cash Cobain on the smooth “Don’t Care No More” and bouncy “Caicos,” which has a similar island vibe to Cash’s bubbling “Feeeeeeeeel” single. When I ask Bay Swag about the first rap song he fell in love with, he mentions Nas and AZ’s “How Ya Livin’,” saying he loved their back-and-forth rhymes and enjoys emulating that format alongside Cash.

Many were first introduced to Bay Swag’s music when he featured on Cash’s “Fisherrr,” a silky track that helped set off last summer. Bay Swag says he thinks people love the sexy drill movement because people “feel good” listening to it, and it’s danceable without being violent. As I wrote in 2022, it’s an offshoot of drill where listeners can have fun shimmying and mimicking the slithery cadences without worrying about lyrics dissing dead people or other borderline themes. Bay Swag is a notable figure in that shift, entrenching his name in the fabric of New York culture in the same way his father did years ago.

He shows me a promotional clip for the album where he notes, “If [my father] would’ve never went through that, went to jail, had life in prison, I would’ve never had that hustle. I would’ve never had that drive. That made me become the man of the house, at a young age too.” New York City, like so much of America, is plagued by the justice system’s systematic thrusting of parents from homes, sparking changes of fortune that only sometimes lead to triumphs like Bay Swag’s. Hopefully, we can reach a world where more artists can find their greatness without having to prove their resilience amid tumult. But in this one, Bay Swag is yet another example that it’s possible”.

I want to take things back to the start of this year, as Bay Swag was coming off the back of a breakthrough and successful 2024. He spoke with Billboard about the Sexy Drill movement, addressing the violent lyrics associated with Drill, working alongside Ice Spice and Cash Cobain:

“What was it like to see “Fisherrr” all over social media and blow up on TikTok?

We knew it was a fire song, but we didn’t know it was going to be the way it is. I feel like you never know. The songs you think is a hit don’t do nothing, but the songs you least expect [end up being] the one. It’s a blessing seeing all the kids, dancers and influencers dancing to it and having a good time. It really started a whole new dance. Shoutout Reemo. He started that s–t. It’s a whole new wave of music. It’s a whole new energy.

How did the feature with Ice Spice happen? Was it intentional to have a female rapper on the remix?

It just made sense. She’s the Queen of New York. I was super excited. I wanted to hear how she would come on it because that’s not the typical music she be dropping. She did her thing. Shout out Ice Spice.

Over the last year, you’ve been consistently releasing singles and helping spur this sexy drill wave. How are you putting your signature spin on this sound?

I call it being myself — and that’s a problem, too. A lot of people will try to do sexy drill and try to sound like someone, when you can just be yourself and that’ll make a difference. That’s why people will say it all sounds alike.

You’ve also mentioned in past interviews that New York artists are more united. How is it making music in this era of New York?

It’s good vibes. Especially right now, sexy drill is good energy. Even when we’re recording the music, it’s good energy. We’re dancing and we’re just having fun together.

In the past, drill has been criticized for its violent lyrics. How are you, Cash and Chow helping to rewrite that narrative?

We’re talking to the women. We’re telling them how pretty they are and how sexy they are. It’s a big difference. It’s fun. It makes you want to dance. We got the kids, elders, and the women, of course. We are trying to separate ourselves from that. We don’t want violence. We just want good vibes, good energy and good parties”.

Apologies that the timeline and chronology is sort of back-to-front when it comes to interviews! I wanted to lead with the most recent one, as it caught my eye, though there will be a lot more interviews and features next year. One of Vevo’s hot tips for next year, I know that we are going to be talking about Bay Swag for years to come. He is this astonishing talent whose clear determination and vision has turned heads. People talking about him as this unmissable talent. Go and check out Damaged Thoughts and Swiggity. Proof that we have this truly amazing artists in our midst. I do wonder just how far Bay Swag can go…

IN 2026.

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Follow Bay Swag

FEATURE: I Can’t Give Everything Away: David Bowie’s Blackstar at Ten

FEATURE:

 

 

I Can’t Give Everything Away

 

David Bowie’s Blackstar at Ten

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THERE is no doubting…

IN THIS PHOTO: The final photos of David Bowie were published on his 69th birthday, 8th January, 2016 (the same day his final album, Blackstar, was released)/PHOTO CREDIT: Jimmy King (via The Hollywood Reporter)

the fact that 2016 is one of the strangest, most eventful and memorable years of this century. Perhaps not for great reasons. In terms of the albums that were produced, some modern classics definitely came about. From Beyoncé’s Lemonade to Frank Ocean’s Blonde to A Tribe Called Quest’s final album, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, and Solange Knowles’s A Seat at the Table, there were so many remarkable albums that still reverberate today. However, 2016 was a year when we lost more than one music great. George Michael left us on Christmas Day. Prince on 21st April. Leonard Cohen on 7th November. Sharon Jones on 18th November. An artist who both released a modern classic and sadly died in 2016 was David Bowie. I am going to write a couple of features marking the tenth anniversary of David Bowie’s death. He died on 10th January, 2016, a mere two days before the release of Blackstar. Nobody knew that Bowie was so close to death when he released his twenty-sixth album. 8th January, 2016 was a double celebration, as it was also David Bowie’s sixty-ninth birthday. Fans had a couple of reasons to be joyful. Blackstar, in retrospect, has so many references to Bowie’s impending death and mortality though, for those hearing it fresh two days before he died, we did not know that. Rather than dwell on his tragic and untimely passing, I am going to focus on Blackstar. Some of what I bring in may reference his death and how we view the album, though there was vast positivity around the album. One of his masterpieces. An artist who had periods of real genius, and others that were less prolific, definitely finished his recording career with one of his greatest albums.

As it turns ten on 8th January, I know that Blackstar will be assessed and reviewed fresh. What it means a decade since it came out. Of course, people will also remember David Bowie on the tenth anniversary of his death. I am going to bring in reviews for a staggering seven-track album. From the extraordinary near-ten minute title track (listed as a black star symbol rather than the word) to the devastating finale, I Can’t Give Everything Away. The final album track released in his lifetime, it is both a beautiful and hugely affecting way to sign off. I think my favourite track off Blackstar is Lazarus. Bowie’s vocal performance is extraordinary! Even so ill living with liver cancer, he gives his everything to the songs on Blackstar. Some of his rawest and most revealing vocals, the composition and the band he plays with are simply incredible. One of his most experimental albums, with Art Rock and Jazz fusing together, Bowie drew inspiration from artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips. The singles, Blackstar and Lazarus were released late in 2015 - so there was this excitement and building anticipation. Both has music videos, though we were not looking for clues or noticing anything that suggested Bowie was ill and near death. These two videos especially are so moving to watch now, knowing what we know. However, they are both incredibly power and these amazing visuals that make us remember what an icon and innovator Bowie was! It is no surprise that Blackstar hit the top of the album chart in pretty much every country is was released in. This massive commercial and critical success, there were so many five-star reviews.

Not attacking those who scored it lower, but I wonder why they did not award it five stars! Objectively, Blackstar is a remarkable and unforgettable album without a weak track or moment. Critics did not know about David Bowie’s illness, if they were reviewing it before the album release. But you would have though Blackstar would get a perfect score from all. Maybe it will ten years after its release. I want to start with this article from The Guardian that was published on 11th January, 2016. They ask whether Bowie was saying goodbye on Blackstar. Whether it is an album about his death and the afterlife:

“The songs on Bowie’s inspired new album speak of illness, death and heaven – and offer intriguing insights about the man who sang, ‘I’m not a pop star, I’m a Blackstar”

One thing that struck reviewers who were grappling with Blackstar, David Bowie’s final album, was how tricky it was to interpret lyrically. Kitty Empire, writing in the Observer, described it as elliptical, while the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis wrote that the album “seems to offer those attempting to unravel his lyrics a wry ‘best of luck with that’”.

What the critics didn’t know, however, was that the man behind it had been diagnosed with cancer 18 months ago, and that he knew his life was coming to an end. If this had been common knowledge, they would all no doubt have looked at Blackstar in a different light. Was David Bowie saying goodbye on it? And does it seem obvious now that he has died?

I Can’t Give Everything Away, the album’s final track, is perhaps the most potent song to re-examine. “I know something is very wrong,” he begins, then sings: “The blackout hearts, the flowered news / With skull designs upon my shoes.” The sense that Bowie has an unhappy secret he desperately wishes he could share is reaffirmed in the chorus: “I can’t give everything away”.

There is a lot that I want to bring in. However, this feature from Rolling Stone, I can only bring so much in, as it is paywalled, so I cannot include everything. However, it tells the story behind the stunning revelation that was Blackstar. We do get a bit of background and context. I am going to bring in a more comprehensive (and un-paywalled) oral history of Blackstar from NME:

“One Sunday night in the spring of 2014, David Bowie walked into 55 Bar, a 96-year-old jazz joint tucked away on a quiet side street in New York’s West Village. A friend, jazz bandleader Maria Schneider, had suggested he check out the night’s headliner, a quartet led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin. Bowie grabbed a table near the stage and took in a set of exploratory jazz, then left without speaking to the band. “A server was like, ‘Wait, was that David Bowie?'” McCaslin says. “It started dawning on people.”

Ten days later, McCaslin got an email: Bowie wanted him and his drummer Mark Guiliana to join him in the studio. “I thought, ‘This is David Bowie, and he chose me, and he’s sending me an email?'” McCaslin says. “I tried not to think about it too much. I just wanted to stay in the moment and just do the work [he wanted].” That work, initially, was only one song: the trippy, jazz-infused “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),” which Bowie released on his 2014 compilation album, Nothing Has Changed.

Then, last January, Bowie called McCaslin’s entire group to the downtown studio Magic Shop to begin work on his 25th album, ★ (pronounced Blackstar), which is due out on January 8th, Bowie’s 69th birthday. “It did surprise me,” says Guiliana of being asked to play on the album. “But I feel like he’s built a career and artistic identity on surprises. It falls in line with who he is as an artist.”

The seeds of ★ date to mid-2014, when Bowie met with longtime producer Tony Visconti and drummer Zack Alford to cut some demos at Magic Shop. Then Bowie disappeared for five months to work on the new material at his house. “He’s got a little setup there,” says Visconti. “And there was no clear communication from him until December. That’s when he told me he was ready to make the album.”

Two years ago, Bowie released his first album in nearly decade, the relatively traditional (by Bowie standards) rock album The Next Day, which he cut with Visconti and members of his old touring band. For ★, he was determined to do something very different. “We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar,” says Visconti. “We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn’t do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll.”

McCaslin and his bandmates were able to handle whatever Bowie threw at them, from Krautrock to hip-hop to pop to jazz, creating an incredible fusion sound that can’t be pinned to any one genre. “They can play something at the drop of a dime,” says Visconti. “[Keyboardist] Jason [Lindner] was a godsend. We gave him some pretty far-out chords, but he brought a jazz sensibility to re-voice them.” They cut the album on ProTools, though much of the gear was vintage. “Jason’s synthesizer didn’t have a computer with souped-up programs like Omnisphere on it,” Visconti says. “He would just do it with guitar pedals, making all the sounds unique. We’re like old school like that. Also, [bassist] Tim Lefebvre was just phenomenal to work with. He pretty much nailed every take right on the spot”

Moving to an NME feature from 2021. Looking back at Blackstar five years after its release, I am sure that we will get similar retrospectives and examinations on its tenth anniversary. There were recollections from those who worked with him, including Donny McCaslin (tenor saxophone, flute). Produced by David Bowie and his long-term friend and producer, Tony Visconti, it is wonderful that Bowie got to release this stunning album whilst he was still with us. He would have heard some of the reaction to the Blackstar and Lazarus singles, and he would have known how people felt about those. Hopefully it gave him solace and satisfaction:

“Where Bowie often returned to the same group of trusted musicians to join him on his records, ‘Blackstar’ saw him bring in a jazz ensemble to work with him for the first time. Donny McCaslin, leader of New York’s The Donny McCaslin Group, came recommended to him by musician Maria Schneider, who Bowie worked with on the 2014 version of ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’. McCaslin, a part of Schneider’s orchestra, also appeared on the track.

Donny McCaslin: “Bowie’s team had reached out to Maria to do a collaboration on ‘Sue…’ with her orchestra. During that time, she was talking with me about it, and she called and said that David had been trying to describe to her what he heard as the rhythmic underpinning of the song and that it made her think of me and my group. So she played him a record of mine called ‘Casting For Gravity’ and that led to them both coming to hear my band play at a club in New York called The 55 Bar about a week before the first workshop session for the David and Maria version of ‘Sue…’.

“So they come to the show and I didn’t meet him, but I saw him out of the corner of my eye. Then, a week later, I met him for the first time at this session and we’re talking and he asked for my number and email address. The next morning, he sent me an email saying he’d love to do something and sent a home demo of ‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore’ that he had sequenced at home – he played the saxophone on it and had done everything as far as I could tell.”

Once the recording of ‘Sue…’ was complete, Bowie and McCaslin stayed in touch, with Bowie emailing over several demos for the bandleader and his group to get familiar with.

Donny McCaslin: “It was exciting – that’s the first word that comes to mind. There just felt like there were so many possibilities in what he sent. The framework of the songs was in place in these demo versions and they sounded, to my ear, really strong. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him in the studio so I tried to prepare by really immersing myself in every detail of the songs so I would have the flexibility to pivot if need be in the studio.”

‘Blackstar’ bursts into life

Unbeknown to the rest of the world, 2015 began with Bowie hunkering down at New York studio The Magic Shop with McCaslin, pianist Jason Lindner, drummer Mark Giuliana, bassist Tim Lefebvre and his long-time producer Tony Visconti to begin work on ‘Blackstar’. The recording was split into three chunks – a week a month from January to March – and saw Bowie’s collaborative spirit in full flow.

Donny McCaslin: “The first day in the studio was a mixture of excitement, anticipation and hoping that it was all going to go smoothly. I was loving the music he had sent and I had done some work on it on my end with woodwinds and with voicing things that I hadn’t told anybody about, so I was excited to unveil that. When we got going, it just felt seamless and organic – the analogy I would use is that the group was like a basketball team where we were constantly sharing the ball and throwing it back and forth.

“That first day, the spirit of what David told us was, ‘Let’s not worry about what this will be called, let’s just go have fun and anything you’re hearing I want you to go for it’. He didn’t say ‘no inhibitions’, but that was the spirit of what he said. It was great to have that affirmation before we even started and to sense that he trusted us with this music. You couldn’t have asked for it to be a better environment creatively.”

Inspiration strikes

During the second recording session in February, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy joined the group after his work on Arcade Fire’s ‘Reflektor’ inspired Bowie to remix ‘Love Is Lost’ on ‘The Next Day Extra’.

Murphy’s role was meant to be far bigger than it ended up being, with Bowie and Visconti asking him to co-produce the record – as he explained on Radio 1 in 2017:“I played a little percussion. I was supposed to do a lot more but I got overwhelmed. It takes a different kind of person than me to walk into that room and be like, ‘I know exactly… I belong here, I should definitely insert myself in this relationship because they just can’t manage to make a record without me’.” 

Donny McCaslin: “James came into the sessions for the second block of recording. He was great. I remember there was a horn line on a tune that didn’t make the record, but when we recorded that he wanted to do another version where it was messier and not as polished – not even totally in the execution but just in the note twists. I appreciated that and it was fun to work with him on that. It’s hard to know if he had any influence on the sessions even after he’d gone because Ben Monder came in on guitar for the third batch and so there was a different dynamic.”

Even before ‘Blackstar’’s release, the central influence on it was often cited as Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’. Bowie and Visconti had been playing the record on repeat, with the producer saying his friend’s goal was to “avoid rock and roll”.

“He was so full of life and laughing, it was impossible to imagine there was anything wrong with him” – Jonathan Barnbrook

Donny McCaslin: “That record came up as something that he was listening to and checking out. It’s not something that we played in the studio. The one connection I can think of is the song ‘Girl Loves Me’, there’s that sort of a made-up language that’s happening on that song. Some of that was from the language of A Clockwork Orange. But some of it was also very old British slang. It would sound very odd to hear David Bowie rapping in today’s language, right? I think it could be thought of that that was a way that he was looking to find language that would work for him. And that’s the connection that I see, which is brilliant.”

Bowie hits the drawing board

With recording completed in March and overdubs and final additions done by May, it was time to start thinking about the other aspects of the record. Bowie brought back graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, who he’d worked with on all his album art since 2002’s ‘Heathen’.

Jonathan Barnbrook: “It was quite unusual that time because he asked me to go to New York to talk to him about it – normally we do everything by email or Skype. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but he especially just wanted to sit down with me and listen to the album together. It’s quite terrifying with David Bowie sitting next to you, listening to his album and he’s looking at your face to see if it’s good or not! I couldn’t tell he was ill at the time and actually, we didn’t discuss the issues of his health, it was more about the universal idea of mortality that was represented in ‘Blackstar’.

“The idea of the cut out black star was the main idea from the beginning. My feeling was that it should be quite minimal because the music, especially the main track ‘Blackstar’, had such a heavy, dark feeling which…. was very much of the time. It was never the case that it was going to be a nice picture of David and a bit of text saying ‘Blackstar’.”

The first clues arrive

“Look up here, man / I’m in heaven,” Bowie sang on ‘Lazarus’, which featured both on ‘Blackstar’ and in the musical that shared its name with the track. With the power of hindsight, it’s laden with all kinds of clues to the legend’s health issues, but few picked up on them on first listen.

Robert Fox: “I must have heard ‘Lazarus’ for the first time just before rehearsals for the musical started, because it was around then that I went to see the filming of the music video for it. Because I knew what the content of the story that we were telling was, it felt entirely appropriate to the musical. If I hadn’t had the context of the show, it probably would have been quite a different experience. But it completely made sense for the character of Newton to be singing that song in our show. So it was great to hear; it was exciting and felt completely right for what we were doing.

“There’s lots of discussion about to what extent he identified with the character of Newton, to what extent what he was going through in his own life, with illness, and possible death and all of that influenced his work around that time. It was not the first time that he’d had health scares, so I think his own mortality was very much on his mind.”

Mortality is a very big theme of the music video for ‘Lazarus’, which saw Bowie lying in a hospital bed with a bandage over his eyes. It’s ending – which saw him climbing into a wardrobe and closing the door – was later theorised by fans to represent the icon closing a coffin lid”.

Prior to ending with a couple of reviews for Blackstar, there is a 2016 feature from Observer, where Ben Monder (guitar), Tim Lefebvre (bass) and Donny McCaslin (tenor saxophone, flute) shared their experiences and impressions of working on the final masterpiece from David Bowie. Blackstar is an album that everyone needs to seek out. If you do not own a vinyl copy or have not heard it at all, go and find a copy or stream the album. It is such a spellbinding and seismic listening experience. I cannot overstate that! Even if you do not know much about David Bowie and who he was, the gravity of Blackstar and what it means will hit you on the first listen:

“Donny, your sax playing on Blackstar is very reminiscent of Dick Parry from Pink Floyd or even, in certain aspects, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music. Is that what were you aiming for?

McCaslin: Honestly, what I was thinking was more about trying to just immerse myself in these songs. My process was figuring the deeper I got into these songs, the freer I was in the sessions to express myself. So before the sessions, I listened to the demos a lot, and when we were playing I was just trying to play from the spirit of those songs and also reacting to David’s vocals, which were really passionate and really compelling. He was tracked with us live. And so we were already a band and the four of us have played on the road a lot together, but even still he was such a strong and inspiring presence to us in the room. It was so natural.

What was your favorite moment on the album?

Lefebvre: There’s a couple, actually, that still completely blow my mind. Just from how I play the bass, the second two-thirds of “Blackstar,” when it goes from the middle section out, I had fun playing that.

Monder: “Blackstar.” I’m pretty sure that was the first take. I remember David saying, “Well, why don’t you just naturally dissolve it and it will go into this other part,” which we had recorded right after. And that first time we tried to dissolve it, that’s what appears on the record.

‘His vibe was very open and collaborative. I remember him just encouraging us to just go for it…’

McCaslin: In terms of how “Blackstar” was put together, we recorded it in two halves. From what I remember, I think David always knew it was going to be one song, but we recorded it in two different sections. I didn’t know it was going to be sax on the first half and flute on the second. What happened was that flute solo at the end was something I had added on an overdub day when I was there just overdubbing flute parts, so that came a little bit later in the process. It was really cool they included it.

Lefebvre: I also really love the tag outs we did on “Girl Loves Me.” I love that song so much. The end of “Dollar Days” as well, right when things get real colorful. Actually, all of “Dollar Days” blows my mind. You can really feel him in those songs.

It must have been fun to play these songs and to interact with David.

McCaslin: It was tremendous. I felt like just all the tunes to me were really strong, and getting inside them was just thrilling. Yeah, when I had my moments of soloing, it was a great time and always really fun. It’s hard to put into words, it was such an inspiring experience. And I loved the music, and when we were making it, it felt really good. It was emotional and it sounded so great, and it was us.

We had finished tracking in March, and I hadn’t really heard it until recently. It’s neat to hear what David and Tony did and how they put all the pieces together with all the elements that they used. One thing that stands out to me is what we did—me, Tim, Mark and Jason—we do in fact do a lot of improvisation and we always feed off each other. It’s just this constant conversation, and that’s where we try to find the magic with the music we’re playing, be it my tunes or Bowie’s songs. That’s such a part of the whole jazz thing, right? The interaction and the storytelling you create as a band. And then David was right in there doing that, too, and I felt like that was really captured in the finished product, and I think that’s really special.

It’s not like it was this pre-programmed whatever. We were playing live, and we’re playing off each other. You can hear the interaction and you can hear the spirit of the communication in these fantastic songs. And David, he’s singing his tail off, and hearing it all together was really a thrill to me.

Monder: One of my favorite clips of his on YouTube is this acoustic performance of “Dead Man Walking.” It’s just him and Reeves Gabrels on acoustic guitars. And if you’ve heard the original version on Earthling, it’s like this extreme electronica cut. But it sounds so amazing stripped down like that, and the main guitar part was this riff Jimmy Page had taught him in the ’60s. It’s such a beautiful song, and this acoustic version is really striking. I remember hearing it on the radio years ago.

I don’t think it’s ever been recorded, but I think some station like WFUV or something played it on air and I didn’t even know who it was at first. So I decided I needed to learn it, so I was trying to learn it off the YouTube clip, but I wasn’t sure about the tuning of it. So I went to David and said, “Hey David, you gotta show me this,” and I started playing it for him. He got a kick out of that, me wanting to learn this obscure version of the song”.

There are two reviews I want to end with. I am starting out with The Guardian and their detailed and insightful four-star review. I started out by discussing critics who did not give out a full five stars and asked why. I do wonder whether they would change their minds. That one missing star. The black star. Even taking its context out of the equation, Blackstar is one of the defining albums of the 2010s. One that has undoubtably inspired so many artists since 2016:

“More striking still is the synergy between Bowie and the musicians on Blackstar. You can hear it in Bowie’s whoop as McCaslin solos amid the sonic commotion of ’Tis Pity She Was a Whore. He sounds delighted at the racket they’re creating, and understandably so. Simultaneously wilfully synthetic and squirmingly alive, it has the same thrilling sense of exploratory, barely contained chaos found on “Heroes” or Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), or in the tumultuous, wildly distorted version of the Spiders from Mars that rampaged through Panic in Detroit and Cracked Actor. Better still, it doesn’t actually sound anything like those records.

And you can hear it by comparing the album version of Sue (or in the Season of Crime) with the single released in 2014. The earlier version felt like a statement rather than a song; a series of ideas (drum’n’bass-inspired rhythm, Maria Schneider’s high-minded, uncommercial big-band jazz, a fragmentary lyric) thrown together to let the world know that Bowie wasn’t done with being avant-garde yet. It did that job pretty well, but never became a satisfying whole. On Blackstar, however, everything coalesces. The rhythm is sample-based and punchier, the agitated bass riff distorted and driving, the seasick brass and woodwind arrangement is replaced by sprays of echoing feedback, electronic noise and sax. It sounds like a band, rather than Bowie grafting himself on to someone else’s musical vision.

Over the years, rock has frequently reduced experimental jazz to a kind of dilettantish signifier: few things say “I consider myself to be a very important artist unleashing a challenging musical statement, I demand you take me seriously” quite like a burst of skronking free brass dropped in the middle of a track. But Blackstar never feels like that. Nor does it feel like it’s trying too hard, an accusation that could have been leveled at the drum’n’bass puttering of 1997’s Earthling.

Blackstar lacks the kind of killer pop single Bowie would once invariably come up with amid even his most experimental works – a Sound and Vision, a Heroes, a Golden Years – but only Girl Loves Me feels like a slog: lots of Clockwork Orange Nadsat and a smattering of Polari in the incomprehensible lyrics, thuddingly propulsive drums, no tune. Instead, you’re struck by the sense of Bowie at his most commanding, twisting a genre to suit his own ends. Dollar Days might be the most straightforwardly beautiful thing here, a lambent ballad that doesn’t sound jazz influenced at all. But it’s lent a curious, slippery uncertainty at odds with the bullish lyrical pronouncements (“If I never see the English evergreens I’m running to, it’s nothing to me”) by Mark Guiliana’s drumming, the emphasis never quite landing where rock-trained ears might expect it to.

The overall effect is ambiguous and spellbinding, adjectives that apply virtually throughout Blackstar. It’s a rich, deep and strange album that feels like Bowie moving restlessly forward, his eyes fixed ahead: the position in which he’s always made his greatest music”.

I will finish off with Pitchfork and their opinions on Blackstar. It is certainly one of my favourite David Bowie albums. Different to anything he had done before, but still unmistakably him. I do wonder whether there will be any reissues or anything special planned for the tenth anniversary of Blackstar on 8th January. It deserves to marked somehow:

“Because as much as Blackstar shakes up our idea of what a David Bowie record can sound like, its blend of jazz, codes, brutality, drama, and alienation is not without precedent in his work. Bowie’s first proper instrument was a saxophone, after all, and, as a preteen, he looked up to his older half-brother Terry Burns, who exposed him to John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Beat Generation ideals. The links connecting Bowie, his brother, and jazz feel significant. Burns suffered from schizophrenia throughout his life; he once tried to kill himself by jumping out of a mental hospital window and eventually committed suicide by putting himself in front of a train in 1985.

Perhaps this helps explain why Bowie has often used jazz and his saxophone not for finger-snapping pep but rather to hint at mystery and unease. It’s there in his close collaborations with avant-jazz pianist Mike Garson, from 1973’s “Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)” all the way to 2003’s “Bring Me the Disco King.” It’s in his wild squawks on 1993’s “Jump They Say,” an ode to Burns. But there is no greater example of the pathos that makes Bowie’s saxophone breathe than on "Subterraneans," from 1977’s Low, one of his most dour (and influential) outré moments. That song uncovered a mood of future nostalgia so lasting that it’s difficult to imagine the existence of an act like Boards of Canada without it. Completing the circle, Boards of Canada were reportedly one of Bowie’s inspirations for Blackstar. At this point, it is all but impossible for Bowie to escape himself, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

Thematically, Blackstar pushes on with the world-weary nihilism that has marked much of his work this century. “It’s a head-spinning dichotomy of the lust for life against the finality of everything,” he mused around the release of 2003’s Reality. “It’s those two things raging against each other… that produces these moments that feel like real truth.” Those collisions come hard and strong throughout the album, unpredictable jazz solos and spirited vocals meeting timeless stories of blunt force and destruction. The rollicking “’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” gets its name from a controversial 17th-century play in which a man has sex with his sister only to stab her in the heart in the middle of a kiss. Bowie’s twist involves some canny gender-bending (“she punched me like a dude”), a robbery, and World War I, but the gist is the same—humans will always resort to a language of savagery when necessary, no matter where or when. See also: “Girl Loves Me,” which has Bowie yelping in the slang originated by A Clockwork Orange’s ultraviolent droogs.

Though this mix of jazz, malice, and historical role-play is intoxicating, Blackstar becomes whole with its two-song denouement, which balances out the bruises and blood with a couple of salty tears. These are essentially classic David Bowie ballads, laments in which he lets his mask hang just enough for us to see the creases of skin behind it. “Dollar Days” is the confession of a restless soul who could not spend his golden years in a blissful British countryside even if he wanted to. “I’m dying to push their backs against the grain and fool them all again and again,” he sings, the words doubling as a mantra for Blackstar and much of Bowie’s career. Then, on “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” he once again sounds like a frustrated Lazarus, stymied by a returning pulse. This tortured immortality is no gimmick: Bowie will live on long after the man has died. For now, though, he’s making the most of his latest reawakening, adding to the myth while the myth is his to hold”.

I am going to write about David Bowie’s death for other features. That hugely sad day on 10th January, 2016 when we heard the awful news. However, I wanted to isolate Blackstar and the fact that it turns ten soon. The incredible excitement around its release the impact it made, both critically and commercially. Featuring some of David Bowie’s most ambitious and astonishing songwriting, I think his vocals have never sounded as emotionally moving. Even though he was ill and it must have been a difficult recording process, David Bowie sounds utterly entrancing and incredible! Rather than think about the tenth anniversary of Blackstar as a sad thing, instead, we must be eternally grateful for this final glorious album that David Bowie…

LEFT to the world.

FEATURE: These Three Queens… Celebrating a Triumphant and Memorable Year for The Trouble Club

FEATURE:

 

 

These Three Queens…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Trouble Club’s owner and CEO, Ellie Newton (right), alongside the acclaimed author, podcaster, speaker and journalist, Candice Brathwaite, at St Marylebone Parish Church, London on 2nd October, 2025/PHOTO CREDIT: Iona Marinca

 

Celebrating a Triumphant and Memorable Year for The Trouble Club

__________

I must start out…

IN THIS PHOTO: Margaret Atwood joined her fellow author Elif Shafak on stage for a funny, tender, thought-provoking, fascinating and unforgettable Trouble Club conversation at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls on 14th November, 2025/PHOTO CREDIT: Christopher Wahl/The Guardian

like I always do when writing about The Trouble Club, by giving you the link to their website and Instagram. I am urging everyone to become a member and check out what they do. The title of this piece is Christmas-based – the Christmas carol, We Three Kings of Orient Are, and it could refer to a few of the brilliant women who make The Trouble Club what it is, not least their inspiring and amazing CEO and owner, Ellie Newton, alongside Zea Stuttaford and Jen Needham. Organising these amazing events, venues and marketing, it is a huge feat making sure that the club keeps running and showcasing these amazing guests and events. Not just speakers coming, there are social events (like members’ dinners) and book clubs among the other activities for its members. Rather than look at future events and highlight them, instead, I am going to nod to the year that has been and, cheekily, think about three queens I would love to see speak for The Trouble Club. You can see what events are booked for the remainder of the year - and what is already confirmed for 2026. With an incredible new website and the memory of perhaps their biggest event yet still in the mind and heart, it has been perhaps the most successful and notable year for The Trouble Club. This is, again, credit to those who work tirelessly every day. Ellie Newton and her team, ensuring that the Trouble members have these regular events where they can go, meet and socialise, and come away with these indelible and incredible memories! The big event that I was referring to was on 14th November. Margaret Atwood & Elif Shafak: Words Like Fire took place at Fairfield Halls. It was a packed venue to see this once-in-a-lifetime conversation. I had never seen Margaret Atwood speak. She and Elif Shafak had this incredible bond and mutual respect. This frank, funny and fascinating conversation was a definite highlight of the year! There have been so many moments like this. The Trouble Club goes from strength to strength in terms of the calibre and variety of guests booked. Some wonderful and large venues alongside the more intimate and homely.

IN THIS PHOTO: Actor Jodie Comer is one of my dream guests that I would love to see speak for The Trouble Club in 2026/PHOTO CREDIT: Scandebergs for British GQ

Candice Brathwaite speaking for The Trouble Club on 2nd October was another big highlight! To be fair, there have been loads of really great events. I joined in 2023, and it has been such a wonderful experience being a member of The Trouble Club. Not only because you get to see so many compelling, powerful and amazing women share their work, stories and experiences. The new faces and familiar at each events makes it feel like a family. The Trouble Club family is this community that continues to grow. As we look to 2026, it will be fascinating seeing what is in store for The Trouble Club. I asked this I think when I interviewed Ellie Newton but, in terms of next steps, it will get bigger and grow, though I feel she will take a little bit of a step back at some point. In terms of being the interviewer and attending nearly every event. As owner and CEO, she does so much for The Trouble Club; I am sure that she will probably scale back at some point so that she can focus on other things – and just have some more free time. However, like I do with each feature, I pop in some dream guests. There are so many women I would love to see at The Trouble Club. Emerald Fennell, Gillian Anderson, Michaela Coel, Leah Williamson and Lauren Laverne are among them. However, as a big fan of Jodie Comer, this is someone who I think would be a wonderful guest. The Trouble Club have had actors speaking before, but there have not been too many in recent months. Someone who everybody knows but had this incredible career, she would be someone who would appeal to so many Trouble Club members. Also, Greta Thunberg would be a dream guest. Having been held hostage alongside fellow campaigners and activists protesting Israel’s genocide against Palestine, she was held hostage, though she has thankfully returned home. This is someone who would be among the most popular guests ever. An activist, climate crisis campaigner and environmentalist who has this huge social consciousness, there are so many young people who look up to her.

 IN THIS PHOTO: The national treasure that is Kathy Burke/PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Lake/The Observer

In terms of the final of the three queens I would like to see, well that would be Kathy Burke! Her memoir, A Mind of My Own, was released in November. This is one of our most beloved actors and directors. An in credible woman who is not only an amazing comic actor, but someone who has been in hard-hitting T.V. and stage productions, she is so raw, open and real. Someone who would no doubt be liberal with her language (a few C-bombs would only be right!), it would be a really funny and captivating event. I am not sure whether Burke is on the Trouble radar but, given the press for her memoir, there would be a lot to talk about. Let’s see what is planned for next year! I am keeping this pretty short, as I just want to give a general thanks to Ellie Newton and everyone at The Trouble Club for organising the events and making the club such a success. I know so many new members will come on board next year. This year has been a massive one for them and they can be hugely proud of everything achieved. In terms of next year, maybe some of the biggest guests ever – film directors, politicians, authors and businesswomen alike – and a more regular podcast or new series. I would love to see more written about The Trouble Club; Ellie Newton profiled and interviewed. An entrepreneur and this phenomenal businesswoman and owner under the age of thirty who is achieving so much, she is worthy of some column inches and podcast chats. Even thought his year has been an extraordinary one I, like every Trouble Club member, is excited by…

WHAT comes next.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Sigrid

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDITS: Charlotte Alex

 

Sigrid

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I am returning to an artist…

who I have written about before. The amazing Sigrid (Sigrid Solbakk Raabe) released her latest album, There’s Always More That I Could Say. The third studio album from the extraordinary Norwegian artist, it follows 2022’s How to Let Go. I think that Sigrid’s latest album is among the best of the year. I will end with a positive review of it. I am going to start out with some recent interviews with Sigrid. I am going to start out with an interview from The Independent from July. It was published around the release of Sigrid’s single, Jellyfish.

“Jellyfish” is the first time that Sigrid will be credited as a producer on a song. “It doesn’t really change a thing,” she said of the milestone. “I’ve been co-producing my whole career. It’s just this time I’m being credited for it. That’s the difference.”

Sigrid was 19 years old when she released her debut single, 2017’s “Don’t Kill My Vibe”, kicking off a period in the spotlight that she described as “intense” and “amazing”.

“I’m so thankful for all of it, obviously, but it’s kind of going through a washing machine,” Sigrid continued. “And I think on the second album [How To Let Go] , I really wanted to be taken seriously and I put a lot of heavy pressure on myself to write serious songs.”

Sigrid said she is “having fun again” on “Jellyfish”, adding: “I think you can hear it in the song. I’m not trying to sing perfectly.”

“I take the piss out of myself a bit with the new music as well,” she said. “I’m trying to not take myself too seriously and allow myself to not always be the hero in a situation.”

The jubilant new single will be one of many she performs during her set at Latitude festival, which she first played in 2017.

“I love any festival that has a bit of nature in it,” she said of its bucolic setting in Henham Park, Suffolk. “I remember rowing in a rowboat to get back and forth from backstage.”

Imploring festival-goers to catch her set, Sigrid said: “My humble opinion is that we do deliver. I give my all on stage. It’s my favourite thing to do and to see everyone singing along is super special and makes me feel confident again.

“I’m a bit of a word of mouth artist but when you go to a show of mine, you know you’re going to have a good time”.

Perhaps the first album where Sigrid is in control and can craft something true to her, DORK spoke with Sigrid in the summer. Her boldest and most exciting album yet, I do feel that this is the start of an exciting new phase for one of the greatest modern artists. Twelve years into her career and the incredible Sigrid has taken her music to another level. There’s Always More That I Could Say is without doubt among the very best albums of this year:

“I love this record,” Sigrid states. “This is my favourite album.”

“It’s crafted with so much love and attention to detail. It’s a deadass serious album, but it’s also a funny one. I take the piss out of myself a lot, and some songs sound a bit stupid but are smart at the same time. It’s just a fun record; I just love it so much!”

The sonic details – whether in the form of Peter Bjorn and John-inspired drums on ‘Jellyfish’ (one for all the FIFA 08 fans out there), lo-fi synth-pop on ‘Hush Baby, Hurry Slowly’, or the simply massive pure-pop opening track ‘I’ll Always Be Your Girl’ – are matched by the mechanical elements that help expand on the emotions that thread this album together, most obviously seen through the tracklist.

“I’ve worked really hard on creating this journey sonically and lyrically, but also with placing songs in the right place. It’s explaining how chaotic it is going through a break-up; it’s not straightforward, it’s a lot of turns and twists and one step forward and five steps back, but it’s also a really funny journey too!”

And that’s the real heart of the record: fun. In fact, that’s really been the heart of Sigrid’s career so far. Her breakout single, ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’, was a tongue-in-cheek jab at a producer who tried to dictate her journey, while her other hits, ‘Strangers’, ‘Don’t Feel Like Crying’, and even ‘Head on Fire’ with Griff, all highlight her ability to transform emotionally fraught topics into unadulterated pop classics.

The difficulty that came with even choosing singles for this album cycle, though, shows that Sigrid is only growing stronger.

“I don’t want to sound cocky, but it was really hard to pick singles for this campaign because all the songs are great,” she grins. “I feel like it’s the first album I’ve written where I genuinely feel like there’s no fillers.”

“But ‘Jellyfish’ is one of my favourite songs on the record, if not the favourite, because it’s a song about friendship. I think that it is so important to have a song about friendship on a record that is a lot about love, because who’s there for you when the shit hits the fan?”

“It’s also one where I was having fun recording it and not focusing on singing perfectly – people know I can sing, I know I can sing, I don’t need to prove that to anyone. We recorded in a cosy attic studio about five minutes from here, and it felt like something new, something different. And then having ‘Fort Knox’ next was like boom! This feels like a part of my DNA.”

In case it wasn’t clear already, Sigrid isn’t interested in creating something you’ve heard before, and she’s certainly not interested in playing by someone else’s rules. Part of the joy she found in making this record was discovering new ways to be creative, using every inch of her twelve-year career to dissipate writer’s block and give some old ideas a second chance.

“The worst thing a person can say to me when I walk into the studio is, ‘You should make another ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’,'” she explains. “Because that’s not how it works; I couldn’t write a song like that now because it wouldn’t be authentic – I’m not the same person I was when I wrote that song.”

She continues: “The writing session culture in London, LA, even in Oslo – where you walk into a studio with two new people and the ambition is to have a fully finished produced demo with lyrics, melody, and initial production done – made me the writer I am today, but it got to a point last year where I was really tired from writing in that way.”

“So I put the process on hold for a bit because I was just tired. I just couldn’t see the vision. I had a few songs finished, but it wasn’t until last summer that I properly discovered ‘Jellyfish’ and thought there was something there. I went into the studio with Askjell Solstrand, who I wrote ‘Dynamite’ with ten years ago, and I just felt like I was a kid again. There was no pressure. We didn’t have to finish a song in a day. It just didn’t fucking matter if I made a banger or not. That’s when the album really came together.”

In this way, ‘There’s Always More That I Could Say’ became simply a part of Sigrid’s life instead of a forced project. It was an album born of passion, not productivity. Instead of grinding out tunes in a high-pressure stop-off at a writing camp, songs grew out of everyday experiences and inspirational moments.

“I think I would feel pressure no matter what job I did, because that’s just who I am, but I have to give myself a reality check. I’m so lucky to be doing this job, to have people excited to hear this album. Sometimes I do think, like, what actually is my motivation for doing this? And, honestly, on those days, I think it’s just because I’m good at it. I’m good at writing songs, I’m good at playing live, and I’m good at creating things to create joy.

“But actually, it’s because I love music, and I’m taken aback that, twelve years into my career, music still makes me so emotional. I can’t fake the excitement I have at going on stage, or the stars in my eyes when I think about all the songs that are yet to be written as well – y’know, there’s always more that I could say!”.

Prior to getting to a review of There’s Always More That I Could Say, there is a review from The Pink News that I want to spotlight. Sigrid’s third album was born out of heartbreak, rage and liberation. Fitting in with some of the queens of modern Pop in terms of themes and a slightly messy album, Sigrid is so real and revealing on this album. Not sugar-coating anything, Sigrid has released her most powerful and affecting album. Though there is plenty of fun and pleasure throughout:

“She can be difficult in relationships, and she’s “definitely owning up to it” on the album. “I think people probably think of me as the ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’ girl, which is great,” she stresses, but the track came with the expectation that she would forever be tough but easy-breezy in the face of conflict. “I’m also the type of person that will have all these great comebacks two hours later.”

The reason she’s finally able to put all these thoughts on record, she suggests, is the current state of pop. “There’s a lot of room for being more messy,” she says, reeling off a list of her “favourite pop girlies” – Charli XCX, Zara Larsson, Lola Young, Chappell Roan, Olivia Dean – who are proudly and forthrightly putting their vulnerabilities and contradictions into their music. “I have felt like I can, on a personal level, be more open and funny and satirical and take it to the extreme,” she says. “[There] hasn’t been the space for pop to not be so rigid, but the rule book is [now] thrown out the window. There are no rules anymore for what is pop.”

Since her major breakthrough – she won the BBC Music Sound of 2018 poll, previously won by Adele, Sam Smith, and most recently, Chappell Roan – Sigrid has been whisked out on stage at every summer festival going. “I have the best job in the world,” she urges, but points out: “There is always summer somewhere in the world.” After releasing How To Let Go in 2022, she toured continuously – “I never really stop touring” – and ended up, though she doesn’t use the phrase exactly, probably a little burnout.

Until now, everything has been quite deep for Sigrid. Historically, she has been a self-confessed control freak, shy, and painfully self aware. After starting piano lessons aged seven, she tried to quit, fearing the hobby wasn’t cool enough for her peers’ approval. She first wrote songs after her brother, also a musician, invited her to perform with him, but told her she couldn’t sing the Adele covers she’d grown comfortable with.

In 2022, she told an interviewer that she admired Taylor Swift for her business-like approach to the music industry: “That’s not calculated, it’s just smart. It’s smart to have a plan,” she said. But with There’s Always More That I Could Say, she’s finally learning to let whatever happens, happen.

“You have to be OK that the plan can change. You never know what’s going to happen around the next corner,” she says. Earlier this year, Ed Sheeran was performing in Oslo, and invited her to perform on stage with him. Afterwards, she asked if she could support him on tour. He dutifully agreed, and she’s heading over to the US with him in July. “That’s how the industry is. It can change so quickly.”

Almost ten years into her career, and Sigrid is finally learning to roll with the punches. When she’s not delivering them, that is”.

If some reviewers feel the second half of There’s Always More That I Could Say is weaker than the first and the album does not meet the highs of her earlier work, I would say this is Sigrid’s most confident, unapologetic and personal album. Maybe there are nods to contemporary Pop artists, though there is plenty of individuality and distinction throughout. Sigrid’s latest album needs to be heard. This is what DORK said in their review of There’s Always More That I Could Say:

“Nobody has ever doubted Sigrid’s credentials as a pop star – you don’t get to perform with Bring Me The Horizon or support Ed Sheeran on tour if you don’t have fans in high places. That doesn’t mean, though, that she always gets the praise she deserves for always pushing her own boundaries and working to become the best artist she can.

This third album is still the same Sigrid, an artist full of passion and uncontainable, fizzy enthusiasm, except this time she comes with added self-assuredness. Playing freely with tempo, structure, and genre, ‘There’s Always More That I Could Say’ is a journey that underscores Sigrid’s confidence in what she does best: make pure pop bangers.

Even then, she plays at the fringes of what pop can be. Effortlessly switching from the folk-slash-indiepop of aptly fluid single ‘Jellyfish’ into the piano ballad title track, before sparking back to life with crunchy dance anthem ‘Fort Knox’, the record is elevated to more than simply a pop record. Of course, she still does sunny, shiny pop better than most – most notably in huge opening tune ‘I’ll Always Be Your Girl’ and ‘Do It Again’ – but with enough versatility and tact to keep the whole project fresh and exciting.

All the sugary sweet sonics and high BPM rhythms are balanced out by lyrics that showcase the vulnerability of someone who was in the throes of heartbreak when first writing for the record. ‘Kiss The Sky’ paints a picture of someone tearing their own personality apart, even while trying to present as rock-solid, while ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is a yearning, cathartic cry for better times to present themselves.

Sigrid has never seemed more liberated or more confident. She doesn’t care what you think, and this album is all the better for it”.

An artist I have loved and respected since her 2019 debut, Sucker Punch, I love her new album. I have never seen her live, though she plays London’s Roundhouse on 13th March, and that venue is near where I live, so I will try and come see her play. A modern-day queen that I wanted to salute, make sure you follow and listen to Sigrid and her amazing music. She is one of the best and most interesting Pop artists on the scene. I feel like she has a lot more to say. It will be fascinating discovering…

EXACTLY what that is.

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Follow Sigrid

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Scene Five: Don’t You (Forget About Me): The Breakfast Club (1985)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

 

Scene Five: Don’t You (Forget About Me): The Breakfast Club (1985)

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THIS time around…

I am including one of the most iconic soundtracks of the 1980s. The Breakfast Club soundtrack accompanied the hit John Hughes film. The film was released in February 1985. Hughes sadly died in 2009, though films like this have endured. Responsible for shaping the teen genre in film and creating these coming-of-age classics, I wanted to spend time with the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club. There are some that say the soundtrack is only really good because of Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me), and the rest is disposable. I would strongly disagree. Each song on the album plays its part and is strong. Together, this soundtrack definitely stands the test of time. I would advise people to watch the film before hearing the soundtrack. I want to start out with a feature from Medium and their take on this symphony of teen rebellion. Magical and evocative music that still sounds impactful forty years later:

“In the hallowed halls of ’80s cinema, one film stands out as the quintessential coming-of-age masterpiece — “The Breakfast Club.” While John Hughes’ iconic teen drama captured the essence of high school life, it’s the film’s soundtrack that truly elevated it to legendary status. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and explore why “The Breakfast Club” soundtrack remains a timeless symphony of teen rebellion and musical magic that continues to captivate audiences decades later.

The Power of Simple Minds

The opening strains of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds are etched into the minds of anyone who has ever experienced the tumultuous journey of adolescence. This anthemic track, which plays during the film’s unforgettable closing scene, became synonymous with the film and encapsulates the struggles and triumphs of the teenage experience.

Dancing with Tears in My Eyes

The eclectic mix of genres on the soundtrack mirrors the diverse personalities of the film’s characters. From the upbeat and rebellious “We Are Not Alone” by Karla DeVito to the emotionally charged “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” by Ultravox, each track captures a different facet of teenage emotion, creating a sonic landscape that resonates with viewers on a visceral level.

Iconic Instrumentals

Beyond the vocal tracks, the soundtrack boasts unforgettable instrumentals that enhance the film’s emotional depth. The haunting melody of “Wang Chung” and the synth-driven rhythms of Keith Forsey’s “Love Theme” contribute to the overall atmospheric brilliance of the soundtrack, transporting listeners back to the nostalgic era of big hair, neon lights, and adolescent yearning.

Synthesizing the ’80s Vibe

“The Breakfast Club” soundtrack doesn’t just encapsulate the essence of the film; it encapsulates the spirit of the entire ’80s era. With tracks like “Fire in the Twilight” by Wang Chung and “I’m the Dude” by Keith Forsey, the soundtrack becomes a time capsule, allowing listeners to relive the vibrancy and rebellious energy of the decade.

Impact on Pop Culture

Decades after its release, the “Breakfast Club” soundtrack has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Its songs have been featured in numerous films, TV shows, and commercials, proving that the emotional resonance and cultural relevance of this musical masterpiece are everlasting.

“The Breakfast Club” soundtrack is more than just a collection of songs; it’s a cultural touchstone that continues to define the essence of teenage rebellion and self-discovery. From the anthemic call of Simple Minds to the synth-driven beats of Wang Chung, each track weaves together to create a sonic tapestry that transcends generations. As we revisit the halls of Shermer High School through the music that fueled the iconic film, we rediscover the enduring power of “The Breakfast Club” soundtrack — a musical journey that will forever hold a special place in the hearts of rebels, misfits, and dreamers alike”.

Without doubt one of the best film soundtracks of the '80s, I feel that young audiences and listeners can connect with it. This definitive snapshot of the teen music of the mid-'80s, at a time now when coming-of-age films are rarer and different in tone, I think there is something special and distinct about The Breakfast Club. However, the soundtrack and John Hughes has influenced everyone from M83, The 1975, and Neon Indian. I am moving to this feature that talks about the influence and legacy of The Breakfast Club’s soundtrack:

“As the 1970s came to a close, pop music found itself at a crossroads, Power rock bands like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin had ruled the back end of the decade, inspiring a generation of cartoon-ish imitators that would produce the Hair Metal of the 80s. But meanwhile, the start of a new movement was bubbling under the end of the late 70s, a generation was growing up on the angst and melancholy romanticism of bands like Joy Division and The Cure. This new sound would set the template for what would become the New Wave music of the 80s. This new musical movement would come to envelop and define the youth culture of the era.

It should perhaps then be no surprise that young audiences were rejecting the simplistic archetypes and false emotion of the bubblegum high school movies of the time. This was until John Hughes. Drawing upon inspiration from the pop culture of the time and his own childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, Hughes approached the emotions of adolescence with a sincerity unseen at the time. All the angst, melancholy, and romance that had defined the pop music of the era was brought to the forefront in the films of influential director.

With The Breakfast Club, Hughes made his definitive statement as a filmmaker. The Breakfast Club took the social and film archetypes of the time and thoroughly dismantled them, finding the real human drama and heart that underlined them. The film is a perfect embodiment of the spirit of the New Wave movement, capturing the romance, energy, and instant nostalgia of the music of the era.

Also, while the film’s soundtrack might actually be short on pop music, it still provides one of the most recognizable musical moments in cinema history: the enduring image of Judd Nelson’s alienated rebel raising his fist in air in pure joy at finding romance and human connection as Simple Minds’ soaring synthpop anthem “Don’t You” soundtracks the film’s closing. The song became a defining hit of the New Wave movement and perfectly echoed the spirit of the film.

What few could have predicted, however, is just how enduring The Breakfast Club‘s relationship with music would be. Just as the film was influenced by the music of it’s time, the raw emotions and angst of young adulthood that the film brought to the cultural forefront would continue to inspire music over the next 30 years. Artists like M83, Twin Shadow, The 1975, Neon Indian, and Washed Out have all cited influence from the inseparable relationship between New Wave and the John Hughes films of the era. Albums like M83’s Saturdays = Youth even play out like extended love letters to the Brat Pack films, with their embrace of everything from the themes and music to even the imagery of those films”.

The soundtrack does have its detractors. However, in 2022, Variety ranked The Breakfast Club (alongside a couple of other John Hughes soundtracks) fourth in the list of the quintessential film soundtracks of the 1980s. In 2023, Entertainment Weekly ranked The Breakfast Club Soundtrack thirteenth, when they discussed the best soundtracks of the '80s. This is what they said: “What happens when five students from different cliques get Saturday detention in the suburbs of Chicago in 1985? Just a plethora of catchy songs, quippy dialogue, and layers upon layers of teenage confessionals. In John Hughes' Brat Pack classic The Breakfast Club, Karla Devito's "We Are Not Alone" serves as the killer tune that gets the gang out of their seats for a library dance montage. However, we all know the true crown jewel of this soundtrack, "Don't You (Forget About Me)'' by Simple Minds, which bookends the film and will forever be tied to John Bender's triumphant fist pump in its final frame — and we wouldn't have it any other way”. I am going to finish off with this feature from The Film Experience:

“Like the best high school films, The Breakfast Club exists somewhere between painful reality and gilded fantasy. Its anthem is similarly accessible but hyper-produced, filled with relatable feeling but kind of untouchable in its chilly groove - it’s consumable but truthful product, so naturally we eat it up like the candy it is even as it affects us deeply. The world isn’t real (detention for bringing a gun to school, instant makeovers, etc.) but the emotion is. And when you are this age, the emotion is everything.

The song begins in a burst of bottled rage and has the rhythm of an adolescent tantrum, making it a fitful match to the group therapy session we’re watching. It feels like something written by this group both in response to one another and the social strata that forces them into these prescribed roles. If the unfolding day serves to undermine the hierarchy by revealing their individuality, then the song reminds them that there’s no going back from showing one’s full self or from the seeing. “As you walk on by...” the ghost of what was shared remains.

But does the song’s questioning of the future reveal the closing commeraderie as bullshit or does it play with the tension of the uncertain future of their new bond? The lyrics ruminate on profound but transient connections and the weight of social promises, complicating what still feels dangerously close to a improbably transformative ending. Maybe we’re not led to believe they will all stay besties, but the film certainly dances toward assuredness. Call it youthful optimism or steered by foolish feeling, but this tension is one of the things the film and its song get wholeheartedly right about the high school experience.

However there is something triumphant in the “la-la la-la” chorus as Judd Hirsch throws a first in the air, a certain battle won no matter what happens on Monday. For one brief moment, in this forced oasis away from their outside pressures, they actually were seen”.

If you have not heard the soundtrack for The Breakfast Club, then I have put the soundtrack below. I would urge you to go and watch the 1985 film, as it is a fantastic watch. Even though there are some teen films influenced by it today, you don’t see as many as you would like. Simple Minds, Wang Chung and Joyce Kennedy help make The Breakfast Club’s soundtrack one of the defining moments of the 1980s. Take some time out today and…

GIVE it a play.

FEATURE: An Open Letter to NYC: How New York City’s Mayor-Elect, Zohran Mamdani, Will Inspire Music and Culture Beyond the U.S.

FEATURE:

 

 

An Open Letter to NYC

 

IN THIS IMAGE: A flyer for Indie Rockers for a Better New York/ART CREDIT: Sarah Goldstein

 

How New York City’s Mayor-Elect, Zohran Mamdani, Will Inspire Music and Culture Beyond the U.S.

__________

THERE is this glimmer of hope…

PHOTO CREDIT: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

in America against a political blackness. The president of Donald Trump has set America back generations. In terms of how regressive and dictatorial he is, you do wonder why the country voted him in for a second time – and whether there are any regrets. He is someone who does not care about minorities, women, immigrants, the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, or anyone that he considers to be an outsider or un-American. Someone who very much serves himself, it has been one of the bleakest times in history for the U.S. However, the hugely popular and optimistic election of Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of New York City seems like a turning point. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, he has served as a member of the New York State Assembly for the 36th district since 2021, representing the Queens neighbourhood of Astoria. Even though he and Donald Trump met recently at the White House and it was cordial, you know that Mamdani loathes Trump. He has called him a fascist, and will continue to. This inspiring and loved left-wing politician is going to bring progress and change to New York City. Someone who cares about everyone and is putting the people first, he is almost the angel to Donald Trump’s devil. One hopes that Zohran Mamdani will be President one day, as he is someone who could genuinely bring hope to America. How does this all relate to music? Well, as that is what I am focused on, I wanted to argue that Zohran Mamdani will bring optimism to musicians around the world. I have talked a lot about how I would love to record an album. As a songwriter rather than singer, bringing people together in a New York City studio to record these songs. I have the album and song titles worked out, but I want to call the group/collective Mamdani, as I feel he will create this movement of positivity and hope through music.

Obviously, whether a musician or anyone across the arts, you are going to be influenced and inspired by what is happening on the worldwide stage. Artists have written about America: its landscape, people, politics, history and wonder. Whilst one would like to see more artists tackle and admonish Donald Trump and his dictatorial regime, maybe there is a fear. Creatively and commercially. Huge artists holding back because they fear of big losses and consequences. It is sad. However, I feel many artists are avoiding writing about American politics because of a certain fear or futility. It is a horrible time. However, the election of Zohran Mamdani could be a turning point. It is clear that there are challenges. It is not going to be the case Mamdani will come in and everything will be wonderful in New York City. Donald Trump has too much power and there will be obstacles. However, I do think that there is this feeling that a genuinely good and good-hearted person is in a position of power and is in charge of a huge portion of America. I have resisted going to New York City because Donald Trump is President. However, with Zohran Mamdani as Mayor, there is this lure. How the city and state is very much in safe and caring hands. Not only will more positive narratives come from artists. The romance of New York City revived and affirmed. In a wider sense, this feeling that America could change and we might see a positive change at the very top. Also, as Zohran Mamdani is a supporter of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community and an ally, there is less fear and feeling of isolation. Something that will resonate with L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists beyond New York City. You feel in the U.K. there is this optimism. We look to the U.S. and our hearts weep. However, many artists will feel inspired by Zohran Mamdani and see America in a new light.

It is clear that he is someone who will help preserve and protect American music and culture. Zohran Mamdani was part of the music community. Enjoying a brief Rap career under the moniker of Young Cardamom, it is clear that Zohran Mamdani understands the importance of music and how it is part of the fabric and history of New York City. A time of timidity and fear, he will compel artists and those in music to speak up and fight back. This Pitchfork interview from June highlights five songs that define Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign. Someone who very much has his finger on the pulse of modern Hip-Hop, he will add something to modern Hip-Hop. I feel it has been somewhat apolitical and lacked the urgency and social conscious that groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A. expounded in the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe artists feeling repressed by Donald Trump or reluctant to write about the Republicans being in power. Zohran Mamdani will revitalise and reignite the New York City Hip-Hop scene but, wider afield, I feel we will also create something seismic through music. Even though he played Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ in a spot on social media, and was told by the company that owns Dylan’s catalogue that his songs can’t be used for politics, the songs he has used for his spots and campaigns have been powerful and true to him. Unlike Trump, who just steals songs and annoys artists because he does not ask for permission! Politicians can inspire incredible music but, at a time when there are few political role models, we now have one that cares about music, culture and all people. This can only infuse music and lead to revolution and reflection.

Last month, FADER wrote how “After years of shuttering venues and rising costs of living, these musicians are betting on Mamdani’s vision for the future”. Someone mobilising N.Y.C.’s Indie-Rock community and scene, I think that Zohran Mamdani will give fresh energy, priority and much-needed financing to New York City’s venues and arts. This is not only vital when it comes to the vibrant and fascinating tapestry of the city. It will also give stability and hope to artists coming through. If such a huge city and important part of American music was threatened, diminished and weakened by venues closing, it would affect the entire music world. Another reason why Zohran Mamdani is such a good force for progress and future optimism:

“This was the atmosphere when musicians and friends Rachel Brown of Water From Your Eyes and Charlie Dore-Young of Sweet Baby Jesus started planning the Indie Rockers for a Better New York, a Rallying for Zohran benefit show series. Brown and Dore-Young — who first met at Palisades, a beloved Bushwick venue that closed in 2016, a decade ago — have witnessed profound changes in the city’s art scene. Not only Palisades, but The Glove, Shea Stadium, Silent Barn, Death By Audio, Glasslands, Secret Project Robot, and various other consequential N.Y.C community music venues have closed, while rent and grocery prices skyrocketed. Brown and Dore-Young are among a sizable group of N.Y.C.-based musicians and artists who are seeing Mamdani as someone who will revitalize the scene once more — or at least, are hopeful he’ll make it easier for there to be one.

The Zohran Effect is so strong,” Lily says. Though the British native can’t vote in New York, she felt drawn to being involved in some way, if only because she’s experienced how the quality of live music has declined since COVID, she says. “Venues shut down, the cost of living went up, streaming is a nightmare, Spotify is run by the worst guy ever. But then Zohran came along and it was like, Someone has practical, kind ways to make the future not a scary place.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Sweet Baby Jesus performing at an Indie Rockers for a Better New York show/PHOTO CREDIT: Emilio Herce

Mamdani hasn’t detailed specific policy plans or made any promises when it comes to arts funding or nightlife; mostly, he’s made comments about the intrinsic link between economics and art-making, and his belief in the value of arts accessibility. When he was endorsed by musicians union AFM Local 802 in July, he said, “Art can't just be a luxury for the few. That requires a city where artists can actually afford their rent, groceries, childcare and transit.” (Notably, he’s the son of filmmaker Mira Nair, and lived a previous life as a rapper.)

The closest he’s gotten to an official policy statement was at BRIC’s Arts & Culture Mayoral Forum in February, where he said, as mayor, he’s committed to “understanding art beyond simply tourism, beyond the fiscal impacts,” and that he would bring an administration that values art-based community organizations as much as their religious counterparts. But this was enough to gain the faith of artist Salman Toor, model and activist Bethann Hardison, and Zoe Saldaña, who all commented on the post. And Mamdani has since also been endorsed by the Actors’ Equity Association, and called “the Downtown Scene’s pick for New York City Mayor” by ArtNet.

Dore-Young acknowledges that Mamdani’s election won’t bring solutions for all the problems that ail the city’s arts scene, but “I think [his election] is an extremely necessary first step for our survival. For native New Yorkers who have stuck it out here, they're struggling and they think about how they might have to leave. It seems like this guy wants to help us. We might have to fight him, but I'd much rather it be him than literally anyone else.”

At an MJ Lenderman show at Brooklyn Steel in April, Mamdani made an appearance, and, Brown recalls, “I have never heard people clap and scream that loudly for any band. But probably most people at the MJ Lenderman show, at the indie rock benefit shows, at the Fenne Lily show, at Rash Bar last week, etcetera, were likely to vote for Mamdani anyway. What feels different, special, rare, is how his messaging has resonated beyond the local community. This summer alone, Mamdani’s surprised Lucy Dacus’s audience at All Things Go, went to Madison Square Garden for Wu-Tang Clan, pulled up to BAYO Festival at Barclays, and held a Trans Community Town Hall with Ceyenne Doroshow at Ridgewood dance hub Nowadays. There was a Rave 4 Zohran at Market Hotel, a Rock ‘n’ Roll and Rent Control at Xanadu, and a Change Becomes Us benefit at Hyperballad”.

I hope what I have written makes sense and makes a point. The U.S. is a nation who has provide some of the best music ever. New artists in the country making some of the best music around. Artists from around the world dream of playing in the U.S. Donald trump does not care about any of this. Not only are artists perhaps holding back on addressing changes and ills in America because of Trump’s power and lunacy. There is this fear that music venues and the industry will be damaged. Someone who is racist, homophobic, misogynistic and a dictator can do so much damage to music. Even though Zohran Mamdani is not President yet – he will be one day! -, he is Mayor of one of the most influential and populous areas of the U.S. New York City’s joy and togetherness at the moment will create ripples around the U.S. Not powerful enough to drown and overwhelm Donald Trump, there is a brighter future ahead. The protection and preservation of venues and music across New York City is a relief. I know artists will dedicate songs to Zohran Mamdani and look more positively on American because someone who cares and is a decent person has arrived at such a dark and terrifying time. I am going to end on a selfish and self-indulgent note. Randomly, ever since I first saw the 2013 film, Frances Ha – which was last year -, I have had this burning desire to go to New York! However, against this seduction is Donald Trump and his fascism. How it has taken the romance and appeal off. However, Zohran Mamdani has brought pride and strength to New York City and the state. The album I mentioned at the start will (theoretically) end with a song called I’ll Get to New York City One Day Soon. Looking back at the romance and cliches of old New York with some newfound revitalisation and change, the city and its people once more beckons. More importantly, the fact we have someone who cares about the vital and hugely influential music scene of the city will affect artists across the world. Making New York City safer and more affordable will beckon people in. This will, in turn, add vibrancy and new voices to the music scene. After one of the bleakest years in recent history, Zohran Mamdani has given us some reasons to cheer and look forward as we head to the…

END of 2025.

FEATURE: Constellations of Her Heart: Do Kate Bush Deep Cuts Reveal More of Her Artistry and Originality Than the Bigger Hits?

FEATURE:

 

 

Constellations of Her Heart

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

 

Do Kate Bush Deep Cuts Reveal More of Her Artistry and Originality Than the Bigger Hits?

__________

MOST people who are new…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

to Kate Bush associate her with these major songs. Ones that have been released as a single and are well-known. Whether that is Cloudbusting from Hounds of Love (1985), Wuthering Heights from The Kick Inside (1978) or Babooshka from Never for Ever (1980), they are songs that have been explored and played a lot. I guess it depends on what we class as a ‘deep cut’. To me, it is a song that has either not been released as a single or is not that well regarded/known. Others might say it is those absolute rare songs that few know about. Either way, you look through Kate Bush’s ten studio albums and there are plenty of examples. I would say her most recent, 50 Words for Snow, doesn’t have that many. I don’t know why, but the most recent album with deep cuts would be Aerial. Some from the first and second disc of the album. Plenty early in her career. One could say that Hounds of Love’s Mother Stands for Comfort is a deep cut, even though it is from Kate Bush’s most commercially successful and popular album. The one everyone knows. A rare distinction of never been played live or released as a single, Mother Stands for Comfort is an outsider, yet it is one of her most revealing and astonishing songs. I do think that these rare gems tell us more about Kate Bush than a massive hit. That may divide people, though I think it is the underuse of a song that means it seems fresher and less poured-over. This thought process started when I was co-hosting an event with Leah Kardos at Avalon Cafe in Bermondsey on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of Aerial. She was talking about some of her favourite Kate Bush songs or one that she would want played. Kardos mentioned Constellation of the Heart.

It is from 1993’s The Red Shoes. One of my only criticisms of that album is how the final third of the album is a bit weak. The final four songs (of twelve) starts with Constellation of the Heart. However, reinvestigating the song, it is one that warrants praise and inspection! I am not saying that all Kate Bush deep cuts are exceptional, overlooked or deserve new spotlight. I maintain that the remaining three tracks of the final four on The Red Shoes are a mixed bag. However, Constellation of the Heart is a fascinating song. In terms of Bush’s vocal performance and what she is saying in the song, I think it is a really interesting example. Consider these lyrics: “We take all the telescopes/And we turn them inside out/And we point them away from the big sky/Put your eye right up to the glass, now/And here we'll find the constellation of the heart”. It opens up a question whether artists know if a song will be a single and do they write in a certain way that means it will connect with audience commercially. Not to say less insightful or revealing, but perhaps artists are thinking more of accessibility than depth or resonance. Constellation of the Heart is not a single or ever could be, though I feel it is one of Kate Bush’s most compelling songs. How she is writing about love and relationships. Also on The Red Shoes is another terrific deep cut, Top of the City. This is one that was reworked for 2011’s Director’s Cut and was performed live for 2014’s Before the Dawn. It was part of the first act, alongside another The Red Shoes song, Lily. Again, I think that Top of the City reveals more about Kate Bush than singles from The Red Shoes such as Rubberband Girl or even Moments of Pleasure. In terms of its words and the power of the performance, I get more from Top of the City when it comes to delving deeper into Bush’s psyche and soul: “See how that building there is nearly built/There's a big fire over on the north of the city/I see you walking down the street with her/I see your lights going on and off/She's no good for you baby/She's no good for you now/Look I'm here with the ladder”.

It is not only The Red Shoes where Bush’s deeper cuts offered up more depth or personal insight than the singles/more popular songs. Cast your mind back to Never for Ever of 1980. Some stunning and very popular songs from that album, though I would contest All We Ever Look For is one of those deep cuts and lesser-discussed songs that is one of her most extraordinary and hugely compelling. I will perhaps use that word again, as I feel it is very apt. In terms of the inspiration, as she revealed to  Derek Jewell for The Sunday Times, “It’s about family relationships generally. Our parents got beaten physically. We get beaten psychologically. The last line – “All we ever look for – but we never did score”.’ Well, that’s the way it is – you do get faced sometimes with futile situations. But the answer’s not to kill yourself. You have to accept it, you have to cope with it”. Think about all of that. I think many of us can identify with the themes and what Kate Bush is saying. Maybe knowing it would not being a single, even though Babooshka, Breathing and Army Dreamers – the three singles released from the album – let us into Kate Bush’s heart and creative mind, I think that All We Ever Look For offers up more. Some of her most powerful and potent words: “The whims that we’re weeping for/Our parents would be beaten for/Leave the breast/And then the rest/And then regret you ever left”. These songs I have exhibited and exposed are also musically rich. Bush’s voice offering new colours and layers. Perhaps it is the under-familiarity of the songs. Or, knowing they were unlikely singles, Bush felt she could be more vulnerable or open. One could say The Dreaming has no obvious singles and all the songs are deep cuts, yet that is not the case. Even so, there is an example of a track not played a lot that I will add to a playlist at the end: All the Love. I never hear this played and it is not one that I have heard people write about in any depth. Dreams of Orgonon dismissed the song when they wrote about it. Graeme Thomson, in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, was a bit kinder.

In terms of how Bush writes about relationships, mortality, love and friendship, All the Love is one of her most important songs. Even if you think the composition is a little heavy or dirge-like, the sentiment of the song and its extraordinary sounds cannot be ignored. This is what Kate Bush said in her fan club newsletter of 1982:

“I think it’s sad how we forget to tell people we love that we do love them. Often we think about these things when it’s too late or when an extreme situation forces us to show those little things we’re normally too shy or too lazy to reveal. One of the ideas for the song sparked when I came home from the studio late one night. I was using an answering machine to take the day’s messages and it had been going wrong a lot, gradually growing worse with time. It would speed people’s voices up beyond recognition, and I just used to hope they would ring back again one day at normal speed.
This particular night, I started to play back the tape, and the machine had neatly edited half a dozen messages together to leave “Goodbye”, “See you!”, “Cheers”, “See you soon” .. It was a strange thing to sit and listen to your friends ringing up apparently just to say goodbye”.

Such a remarkable deep cut that I feel offers more of Kate Bush than many of the other tracks on The Dreaming. Even though I shot through Mother Stands for Comfort, it is the Hounds of Love deep cut that I think is as memorable and personal as the singles released from the album. I would urge people to read Leah Kardos’s analysis and interpretation of the song in her 33 1/3 Hounds of Love book. This loner or outsider on a classic album, Bush talks about a mother protecting her son, who has murdered someone. Maybe the son is exploiting his mother’s love and unconditional devotion. Psychologically and emotionally, I think it is the most powerful song on Hounds of Love – and yet nobody really talks about this song! The Sensual World and Aerial have songs that are deep cuts that are so extraordinary and should be highlighted. And yet it is the singles and bigger songs people mention when we talk of the album. There are actually a couple of examples on 1989’s The Sensual World.

One is The Fog. Not only does it feature her late father, Robert, providing vocals. It is this masterpiece that is an under-explored treasure. I feel this could have fitted on Hounds of Love, as The Fog, like so many songs on Hounds of Love, connects to water. Its dangers, mystery and romantic nature. As Bush explained to BBC Radio 1’s Roger Scott in a 1989 interview, there were personal inspirations behind the song. One that really goes deep into Kate Bush’s mind. Even though This Woman’s Work, The Sensual World and Love and Anger (the album’s singles) are wonderful, there is something more personal and impactful on The Fog:

“Again, it’s quite a complex song, where it’s very watery. It’s meant to be the idea of a big expanse of water, and being in a relationship now and flashing back to being a child being taught how to swim, and using these two situations as the idea of learning to let go. When I was a child, my father used to take me out into the water, and he’d hold me by my hands and then let go and say “OK, now come on, you swim to me.” As he’d say this, he’d be walking backwards so the gap would be getting bigger and bigger, and then I’d go [Splutters]. I thought that was such an interesting situation where you’re scared because you think you’re going to drown, but you know you won’t because your father won’t let you drown, and the same for him, he’s kind of letting go, he’s letting the child be alone in this situation. Everyone’s learning and hopefully growing and the idea that the relationship is to be in this again, back there swimming and being taught to swim, but not by your father but by your partner, and the idea that it’s OK because you are grown up now so you don’t have to be frightened, because all you have to do is put your feet down and the bottom’s there, the water isn’t so deep that you’ll drown”.

Even though I recently spotlighted Heads We’re Dancing, it is not the other song from The Sensual World that I feel is a gem of a deep cut that we all need to revisit. I think that Bush should have included it on 2011’s Director’s Cut, This is Rocket’s Tail. Speaking again to Roger Scott, this song was a showcase for the Trio Bulgarka. They are a Bulgarian three-piece vocal group who Bush was introduced to by her brother, Paddy (I think around 1985 sort of time). They added something magical to The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Rocket’s Tail is perhaps their most incredible moment. However, I like the subject matter of Rocket’s Tail:

“Rocket is one of my cats, and he was the inspiration for the subject matter for the song, because he’s dead cute [laughs]. And it’s very strange subject matter because the song isn’t exactly about Rocket, it’s kind of inspired by him and for him, but the song, it’s about anything. I guess it’s saying there’s nothing wrong with being right here at this moment, and just enjoying this moment to its absolute fullest, and if that’s it, that’s ok, you know. And it’s kind of using the idea of a rocket that’s so exciting for maybe 3 seconds and then it’s gone, you know that’s it, but so what, it had 3 seconds of absolutely wonderful… [laughs] “.

There is this whimsical and funny throwaway nature. Rocket being one of his cats. I love the names of her pets. Her Weimaraners, Bonnie and Clyde, who feature on the cover of Hounds of Love. Other cats Pyewacket and Zoodle. There is another thread regarding how Bush’s pets made their way into her work. However, what she says about that brief excitement. Whether the first rush or love or something superficial, it is so interesting whether Bush was referring to the brevity of life or the importance of hanging on to moments of joy. Whether the transient and ephemeral nature of passion, happiness or contentment is like a rocket. Regardless of the truth, one cannot deny it is one of the most interesting and deep songs from The Sensual World. Made all the more beautiful – and almost spiritual – by the Trio Bulgarka!

Let’s end with Aerial. A double album, there are a few deep cuts on that album that are not really discussed that much. One single from the album, King of the Mountain, was released, though there is one particular song that I feel gets pushed aside and mocked. I have talked about it before. Other tracks that are deep cuts and offer us a deep window into Kate Bush’s soul include A Coral Room, Somewhere in Between and even How to Be Invisible. The latter is particularly compelling (that word again!). However, Bertie is the song I am referring to. It is an unabashed, unfiltered and unambiguous song of joy for her then-new son, Bertie (Albert). Why it is so important as this is a rare occasion of Bush not adding mystery or any barriers. Her heart exploding and exposed for all to see. Whether you find it cloying or saccharine, one cannot deny the importance of the words she sings! Simple and direct, this is a new mother marking that milestone and achievement by putting it onto the record. It is a song that will never be played and people will not talk about it in fond terms. However, it tells us more about Kate Bush at that moment than almost anything else written for Aerial. One can argue that the hits and popular songs offer plenty of revelation and insight into who Kate Bush is and why she is so special. However, and going back to Constellation of the Heart and how Leah Kardos talked about why tie was special to her, I do think people need to listen to these songs. We can only learn so much from the well-played and big-streamed songs. It is these rare jewels and dustier works of brilliance where I think Bush is less inhibited, more free and more revealing. An artist often seen as oblique or guarded, you only need to play some of these deep album cuts to see plenty from her soul and heart. You will feel and hear that brightly and brilliantly in…

THIS deep cuts blend.

FEATURE: The Best Albums of 2025: The Last Dinner Party – From the Pyre

FEATURE:

 

 

The Best Albums of 2025

 

The Last Dinner Party – From the Pyre

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MAYBE there is no direct connection…

PHOTO CREDIT: Cal McIntyre

though there have been a few examples this year of artists releasing sophomore albums after celebrated debuts. That idea of a second album curse or difficulty. In these cases, the artists surpassing the debut and expanding on them. Maybe albums truer to them. Wet Leg and moisturizer is one example. Another is the extraordinary second album from The Last Dinner Party, From the Pyre. I guess there is this hype and pressure after a remarkable debut album. Artists deciding if they want to follow the same course or do in a different direction for the follow-up. After their exceptional debut, Prelude to Ecstasy of 2024, The Last Dinner Party put out this follow-up quickly. Picking up on the momentum of their debut and the tour that followed, From the Pyre is going to feature highly in the year-end lists of the best albums. It is one of my favourites from this year. Like I do in these features, I am going to end with a review of the album in question. However, I do want to come to some 2025 interviews with The Last Dinner Party. The London-based band is made up of  Abigail Morris, Lizzie Mayland, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies and Aurora Nishevci. Released on 17th October, and preceded by the single, This Is the Killer Speaking, and The Scythe, From the Pyre won rave reviews from pretty much everyone who heard it. At ten tracks running to forty-two minutes, it is a focused-yet-packed album. In terms of how much they include and how much you get from the album. It was a hard task trying to live up to the standard of an instant classic, Prelude to Ecstasy. However, The Last Dinner Party kept their sound but added new dimensions and elements.

A darker album that is perhaps more ambitious than their debut, From the Pyre is an extraordinary listen! The Standard spoke with The Last Dinner Party in September about their new album. Rather than entering a new era, they were evolving and shedding the skin and misconceptions around their debut – and them as a band. Playing O2 Brixton Academy on 7th and 8th December, the quintet head to Australia in January:

“During their come-up, The Last Dinner Party were consistently accused of being “industry plants” — a term used to describe musicians, usually women, who are purposefully moulded for fame by music industry professionals. This was partially due to their very defined aesthetic. “We wanted to come out fully formed,” explains Morris. “We wanted our debut online and on the live scene to feel really professional and we worked really hard to do that.” But this, she says, “got people’s backs up”. “I don’t think it’s that surprising when we all studied arts and literature,” adds Roberts. “Yeah, like we literally just finished our dissertation on Victorian gothic literature,” says Davies.

And if the haters aren’t calling them industry plants, they’re usually calling them posh. This is because Morris attended the private school Bedales, which charges £55,000 a year for students to attend on a boarding basis. “I understand why people bring it up. It isn’t something to be ignored,” Morris says. “It’s a very relevant fact in terms of part of why we’ve been successful, why I’ve had luck. Though we’re not all from the same background.”

In terms of privilege apologies, Morris’s is one of the best you could hope for. “It’s something I have to acknowledge, and it’s a reflection of the state of the country. People are angry with me,” she adds. But she’s not done. Because The Last Dinner Party aren’t about shutting up and taking it. “I think most people who bring it up aren’t bringing it up in order to have a discussion. They’re doing it to hurt us and discredit us.”

For album two, The Last Dinner Party’s corsets are being unlaced. The big, debauched opulence of Prelude to Ecstasy has been replaced with something darker and more mythical. On the album cover, various iterations of the band’s members pose in a field, poster girls for each song. They’re holding lambs, playing chess, wielding swords and straddling motorbikes. Lyrically, the album speaks less of coming-of-age and more of coming undone — by relationships, grief, world events.

In The Scythe, Morris sings simultaneously about the loss of a relationship and the death of her father to form a rallying, life-affirming eulogy. The instrumentation of the album is equally threatening and theatrical, with cultish, sea-shanty drums and swinging country guitars mere tracks apart. Standout track Rifle is sure to produce some unforgettable live moments thanks to its screaming battle cries, heavy drums and incendiary guitar riffs. Roberts’s prowess on the guitar is the gift that keeps on giving, and this album puts her hard work centre stage.

From the Pyre is more of an evolution than a vibe switch. “We’re really opposed to the idea of having these easily definable and marketable eras,” says Morris. “I don’t think that’s conducive to good art.” Her words bring to mind Taylor Swift’s many “eras” and the resulting $2 billion round-up tour, with the American singer-songwriter now inextricably linked to the term. Many musicians are pressured to follow the same pattern of constant reinvention because, simply put, it sells.

The Last Dinner Party aren’t down for that. “We started this band four years ago,” Morris says. “Now we’re all in our mid to late twenties, and that’s when you go through so much change. Naturally, our styles have evolved, and we don’t want to wear the same things we were wearing three years ago. That’s not because we need to draw a line and be like, ‘That was old The Last Dinner Party, this is new.’ It’s not like that. It’s a natural evolution. So there’ll still be some corsets,” she laughs”.

Abigail Morris and Emily Roberts spoke with NME last month following the release of their anticipated second album. They discussed the album life on the road, and the downsides (or realities) of speaking out – and the importance of doing so. If you can see The Last Dinner Party play then please do so as they are a celebrated and scintillating live act:

“She agrees with the observation that there’s been a shift in how artists speak out — one that would have felt taboo not long ago. “I think it has really changed in the last few years”, she considers. “As an artist today, even if your writing isn’t on the nose politically, you can’t help but be a part of the world. You’re still absorbing what’s going on and being a channel for it. With the world the way it is right now, it didn’t make sense for us not to say anything. We’re talking about this in our normal lives, with each other and our friends. Trying to figure out the best way to use our vote in elections, how to do things on the ground, where to donate our money… It makes sense, then, that we also talk about it publicly.”

“A learning curve for us has been figuring out whose opinions to really care about” – Abigail Morris

Alongside the new album, the band have announced headline tours across the UK, Europe and North America that will stretch into 2026. It’s a familiar path – one they followed with their debut album until touring reached a breaking point last year, forcing them to cancel a run of UK and European shows due to “emotional, mental and physical burnout”.

“It was such a hard decision to have to make as we didn’t want to let anyone down,” Roberts reflects now. “But we had to prioritise our health. It’s really hard as a new artist to know your limits until you reach them.”

“At the beginning, we felt like we had to say yes to literally everything that came our way,” she continues. “Obviously, it was good and got us to where we are, but there’s only so much you can do without harming yourself in some way – whether that’s getting overwhelmed, depressed or overworked. We know our limits better now, and because of that, hope we won’t have to cancel anything again. It’s been good seeing other artists like Chappell [Roan] do the same thing as well.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachell Smith

The realities of touring life are woven into the album, too. Especially, as Morris notes, the “Venn diagram of ‘being a woman’ and ‘being an artist’ and within it, the specific fraught experience of being a ‘touring female musician’”.

On ‘Agnus Dei’, the band sing in chorus: “All I can give you is your name in lights forever / And ain’t that so much better than a ring on my finger?” It’s a striking image – the tradeoff between immortalising your lover in song but not being able to give them a stable home life with you. Themes of motherhood and femininity also echo through the record, especially on ‘Woman Is A Tree’ and ‘I Hold Your Anger’.

“We’re in our late twenties, a time when your friendship groups start talking about getting engaged and whether or not to start a family,” Morris shares. “It’s interesting to navigate that as a female artist. Like, what do you choose? The road, the album, the marriage, the baby? All of it? None of it? What sacrifices do you have to make? Can you take control of your artistry and your body?”

Speaking to other female artists about this complex subject is comforting, she adds. “Especially with people like Florence Welch, who I really trust. It’s so good to talk about it, even if no one really has ‘the answer’”.

Before getting to a review of From the Pyre, there is one more interview I want to spotlight. DORK spoke with this incredible band. From the Pyre is them digging “deeper into grief, glamour, fury and friendship”. As DORK note, rather than this being a reinvention, it is the band turned “all the way up”. It is going to be really compelling seeing how The Last Dinner Party build and what they offer next. In the meantime, they will be busy touring and, let’s hope, taking a bit of a break:

“There were times when creating ‘From The Pyre’ that Abi felt like she was simply “banging on about some bullshit drama” and was worried honest songs about the life of a writer were “very self-obsessed”. The reaction to ‘The Scythe’ has calmed those worries. “It’s nice when you write something personal that ends up being far bigger than your own life. We can all think of songs that have found us and then made us feel seen in a way that’s so profound and shocking. To know we’ve written a song that makes other people feel like that is incredibly humbling.”

‘From The Pyre’ was a lot more collaborative than ‘Prelude’, with the band trusting their chemistry and camaraderie even more. Emily wrote about love, betrayal and self-worth on the snotty ‘Second Best’. “I hope that the song captures the pain, anger and despair I felt, but most importantly the defiance and satisfaction I now have in being able to immortalise this person in a song,” she explains.

Elsewhere, ‘Hold Your Anger’ was written by Aurora. Originally a stripped-back slice of piano-driven anxiety, it grew into something that’s part brooding, Nick Cave melancholy, part rock’n’roll swagger. It’s an evolved take on the generational trauma that drove ‘The Feminine Urge’. “It’s about contending with being in your mid-to-late-20s. Asking what it would be like to be a mother, whether it’s something you want, whether you’d be any good at it, and then looking at your own mother and seeing them as their own person,” explains Georgia. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant.”

The anthology that is ‘From The Pyre’ closes with the rumbling ‘Inferno’, which works through The Last Dinner Party’s experiences of being in a band. “It’s us talking about how amazing but horrific it can be to be in the public eye,” says Georgia. “It’s about the internal chaos,” adds Abi, who always visualises the hectic, frenzied breakdown as two burning spirals going in opposite directions. “The fire is only getting bigger, and you can pick which way you want to go but either way, it’s leading somewhere else,” she says, confident the band are never going to stand still. “It’s optimistic and open-ended – it sums up where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

Despite that cheery ending, the biggest difference between ‘Prelude’ and ‘From The Pyre’ is a sense of looming darkness that cuts into the giddy, free-spirited joy. “It’s a record that’s a product of the time in which it was written,” explains Georgia. “The world feels very dark, and that permeates everything you do. It would be bizarre if your art wasn’t influenced by that.”

You’ve never been able to accuse The Last Dinner Party of being uncertain or shy, but ‘From The Pyre’ is a fearlessly confident record from a band who have really embraced every corner of their own mythos and still managed to push things forward. Being part of a cohort of other established guitar bands like Wet Leg and Wolf Alice has helped (“It’s nice to see yourself in them,” offers Georgia), but a lot of it is down to the community they’ve found in each other and from their fanbase.

“Just seeing the way our music has resonated with people, be that online or at a show, is a huge deal,” says Abi. All five members of the band have been told how The Last Dinner Party have inspired others to pick up an instrument, toy with self-expression and feel comfortable in their own skin. “When you feel like you’ve made a positive impact on someone’s life, that’s pretty amazing,” she continues. “It makes you feel hopeful and that you’re doing something that’s causing net good in the world, which is a really good vocation.”

Is being in The Last Dinner Party still as fun as when they first got together and dreamed of selling out The George Tavern, though? Once again, they answer in unison. “Yes, and more”.

I am finishing with a review of From the Pyre from Rolling Stone UK. Awarding it a much-deserved five stars, they shared their opinions of an album that I think will be in most critics’ top ten. If you have not heard this amazing album then do so now. I think that it is one of the best albums of the decade, rather than just this year. The Last Dinner Party are one of our best bands:

“‘Here comes the apocalypse and I can’t get enough of it,” sings The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris over the glorious guitars and keys which underpin the opening track to their second album and reflect the darker edge that’s all too present throughout.

Their 2024 debut Prelude to Ecstasy was a game-changer of a record, one which combined baroque pop with bigger rock sensibilities to deliver a sound that was truly their own. It achieved the UK’s biggest sales in nine years for a debut album in its first week, while sold-out tours and performances at the BRITs cemented the five-piece’s position as one of the UK’s boldest and brightest new bands.

But on From the Pyre, the band sounds even more defined and blessed with the ability to make their point with searing clarity. The album’s first song ‘Agnus Dei’ is a piercing dissection of lovers past and – as Morris told Rolling Stone UK for the band’s cover earlier this year – even interpolates a melody from a song by someone she previously found herself in a situation-ship with, though she reckons it would be impossible to work out who they are.

That’s in part down to the sonic identity at play here, which means that the record never stays in one avenue and sounds all the better for it. That opening track might deliver the baroque grandiosity you’d expect, but ‘This Is the Killer Speaking’ offers their first ever country/pop moment and is enriched by one of the biggest choruses they’ve ever done.

It’s a similar story on ‘Rifle’, a sludgy, stoner rock-flecked song which feels like a companion piece to ‘My Lady of Mercy’ from their debut and sits somewhere between Queens of the Stone Age and Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’. As Morris sings of “boots and rifles stained with red”, it doesn’t take a genius to see that there’s a very modern parallel to be drawn. 

At times, these euphoric moments are simultaneously capable of breaking your heart. That’s certainly true on ‘The Scythe’, a slow-burning rock epic which began life as a break-up song before Morris slowly realised that she had written a thorough rumination on the death of her father. “Don’t cry, we’re bound together / Each life runs its course,” she sings with razor-sharp precision on the song’s euphoric chorus. The result is one of the best rock songs about death and facing mortality in recent memory.

All of these tracks reflect the more sombre themes inherent within the album and indeed its title – the large pile of wood used to burn bodies in traditional funeral ceremonies. It’s ironic, however, that ruminations on death and darkness have allowed this band to sound more alive than ever. The five-piece previously told Rolling Stone UK how producer James Ford – shortly before pulling out of this project due to illness – told them to “have fun, be bold and make a classic record”. All considered, they’ve heeded that advice to the max. It would be a tough ask for them to top their sublime debut, but it feels like they might just have managed it. From the Pyre should cement their place in the biggest of leagues”.

I have a few more albums to cover I think before I wrap this series up. Documenting and expanding on album that are the best of this year. My favourite of this year. One listen of From the Pyre, and it will stay in your mind. This is a stunning album that is…

HARD to forget.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Naomi Scott

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Jérémie Levy

 

Naomi Scott

__________

THERE have been cases of…

PHOTO CREDIT: Horst Diekgerdes

actors singing and playing artists in films that you could compare to a modern artist. If they are playing a Pop artist, you can sort of see where the inspiration is and who they are modelled on. Starring in Smile 2 (2024), Naomi Scott played Skye Riley. In terms of her energy, sound, persona, looks and fashion, one could compare that character to Lady Gaga. Maybe Britney Spears. However, more Gaga. Rather than it being a tribute or caricature, Naomi Scott actually came across as this unique and genuinely talented singer. That may sound condescending, as she released her first songs back in 2014. So she has been in music for over a decade! However, I was not aware she was a musician, so I was genuinely blown away by her performance in Smile 2! There is actually the Smile 2: The Skye Riley EP with five original songs (and a sixth song which is a piano version of Just My Name). I will drop one of the songs in this feature soon. However, this is not about Skye Riley. I have featured actors like Asha Banks and Áine Rose Daly, who are also amazing artists putting out their own stuff. I have tried to manifest a Florence Pugh album but, to this point, we have nothing – though I am hopeful for 2026! Naomi Scott is someone who could launch new music that is pretty much that of Skye Riley. Instead, she has her own voice and a distinct talent. I want to bring in some interviews with someone I know that we will hear even more music from very soon. Singles like Cut Me Loose, Cherry and Rhythm are incredible. The Sweet Nausea single/E.P. is a must-hear. I know that many would associate Naomi Scott with acting but, like so many actors who are artists, you feel music is her true passion. I can’t wait to hear a Naomi Scott album in 2026. I think that Cut Me Loose is among my favourite singles from this year. As I said, I will drop a Skye Riley track below but, as I source interviews, we are going to get to some Naomi Scott tunes.

This incredible British-born actor is someone who can play the most dramatic and nerve-shredding parts, but she also has this incredible gift for comedy and playfulness. An extraordinary range that was channelled into Smile 2, Naomi Scott has this incredible career that I think will see her collect Oscars and so many awards. Such a mega-talented person, her musical side is one that particularly intrigues me. I wanted to bring in some recent interviews where she discusses her music and plans for the future. It does seem like a debut L.P. is coming from Naomi Scott shortly, as she has revealed as much in recent interviews. I wanted to start out with Billboard and their interview with Naomi Scott. She revealed how there will be a U.S. tour next year. A debut album taking shape. Inevitably, many will ask whether Naomi Scott’s debut album will have anything in common with Skye Riley and the music she performed for Smile 2:

“Over two decades in the making, Scott’s debut began to take shape in 2021. She struck gold during a trip to Norway when she DM’d producer Lido — who ended up being just five minutes away — on a whim. A FaceTime chat led to Lido (who’s also worked with Ariana Grande, Halsey and Jaden Smith) eventually becoming the album’s primary producer.

Homecooked meals with Lido’s parents and dips into the nearby fjord filled the gaps during recording breaks. The serenity of the small Norwegian town’s countryside brought a clarity to Scott and her team of collaborators throughout the creative process.

One of the songs that came about from the Norwegian sessions was “Sweet Nausea” — and the self-reflective track, which she describes as a “carousel of regret,” arrived on Friday (Nov. 7). “It could be a really big thing or a really tiny thing, but when that thing gets lodged in my mind that I said or I did, it’s like a scab that you have to keep picking, and you replay it over and over in your mind,” Scott explains of the single that was crafted in about 15 minutes. “Because you think that if you replay it enough times, it will change.”

Scott’s already set the table for the album with a trio of singles this year: “Rhythm,” “Cut Me Loose” and the alt-pop bop “Cherry.” She also made her festival debut with a performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago over the summer.

The multi-hyphenate entertainer will return to the stage on Friday for a show at London’s Moth Club, and then she’ll serve as an opener for Blood Orange, who’s a close friend and collaborator, on Sunday (Nov. 9) for his Alexandra Palace tour stop.

So how did we get here?

I’ve been making music for 15 years and kind of exploring and figuring things out. But that was at 27 — which, again, I think so many people go through a bit of an identity crisis [at that age]. Which sounds very dramatic, but it’s some sort of shift. It was kind of going back to basics. So before that point, I had been, you know, I was in L.A., I was working, I was in the studio. I was in kind of different pop rooms in that ecosystem. And I think it was very clear to me that I had to go back to basics. And to me, that is getting on a piano and writing like you’re 15 years old.

I started to build out what I felt like was subconsciously a bit of a theme in terms of the things that I was writing into. And so I basically wrote a bunch of demos, and I was like, “Oh, this feels cohesive in terms of what I’m tapping into.” Which is like an exploration into different versions of myself — not what we were talking about — which allowed me to kind of dip into something that felt intimate and have proximity to me, but also have a bit of world building aspect to it, and a little bit surreal. It’s a sweet spot.

The backdrop of this album sonically is things that I was listening to on my dad’s Windows Media Player growing up. It’s the music that brings me joy. I grew up in church. I grew up in gospel music, like pop gospel music. So you know, Mary Mary, Kirk Franklin, Kim Burrell, those voices. [Michael Jackson] and Janet [Jackson] are probably the biggest sonic influences. A little Phil Collins — Kate Bush, to me, represents an artist who remains in such a childlike [state of] play, even in terms of what she writes about.

When did the album start to take shape?

I started writing into this concept, subconsciously, probably in 2021. I can’t say it was like, “I’m gonna do this, and it’s gonna be this.” It was very much like, “Oh, I’m beginning to find that this process for me in writing is feeling more successful to me.” I like this seed, or the idea of it always being from me first — whether it’s a demo, whether it’s a fully written song on the piano, whether it’s just a chorus. So, for example, when I’d done a couple of these demos, I got seeds of ideas, and then I had a session with two people who would become my main collaborators on the project, Daphne Gale and Goldwash… I came in with the chorus for “Losing You.” I came in with like, the first two lines of the verse and the sounds about a long-distance relationship — but also just the idea of the inevitability of feeling like something is slipping through your fingers and there’s nothing you can do about it. And we wrote that song, and I was just a bit like, “Oh, this feels like a cornerstone sound of something that doesn’t feel derivative, that doesn’t feel like I’m just kind of painting by numbers.” I think that’s what really excites me.

Was there anything you took from playing Skye Riley in Smile 2 for your own album?

So I’ve been working on the album for so long that it was probably the opposite way around. I mean, Smile happened. It came about so quickly, and I think I kind of purposefully ran in the other direction in terms of creating that character, and going, “Let me put on a voice and sing in an American accent.” I also think it’s because the things that I poured into Skye Riley that I would take with me were things that I already had before — because it was just me — and the things that I left behind are things that I wouldn’t”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Swales for Vogue Hong Kong

It is not new news that Naomi Scott has an album coming out. A treat for next year, when speaking with Vogue Hong Kong at the start of this year, we learn even more about what I think will be among the best albums of next year. I am excited to see what a Naomi Scott debut album offers:

“Did you always want to be in entertainment growing up?

I actually wanted to be an archeologist. I used to go into the garden and bury things, and then pretend to discover them again. I just thought it was the coolest thing. Maybe it all comes back to acting, because I was going into the garden and pretending to have made this incredible discovery, although I was all by myself.

Tell me more about your album coming out this year.
I just love writing and making music so much. To make music with people that I think are incredible is such a privilege. I wanted to create a soundscape, as opposed to just writing songs with just a guitar and a voice. It’s a little bit more of a world building which came from the music I grew up listening to, and the things that are nostalgic to me. I started this project three and a half years ago. I was around 27 years old and had a bit of a quarter life crisis. Mine was around this idea of getting married very young. There wasn’t anything intrinsically wrong in my life. It was more that life had just happened, and I hadn’t mourned the other versions of where my life could have gone.

I was watching “Master of None”, and the character started reading Sylvia Plath. It’s about a fig tree and how all of these different figs represent different versions of her life and how her life could have gone. She’s so fearful of making a choice that she starves to death. I just thought it was such a poignant and very apt description of our generation and decision paralysis. There’s just so many things we want to do and so many potential versions of ourselves that we find it hard to be content with our life. That’s what I started to write into. And then I met a few of my collaborators and was able to actually build out the sound that I wanted. And my executive producer, Lido, is incredible. I just love him.

Sound-wise, it’s what I listened to on my dad’s Windows Media Player growing up. There’s a kind of soulful ‘80s vibe, and then you’ve got everything from a little bit of Phil Collins, Kate Bush, Whitney, MJ and so many others. It’s definitely nostalgic, but it’s soulful, spooky and a little bit ethereal. I haven’t actually spoken about it yet, but I’m very excited about it, and I just can’t wait to start sharing”.

As a fan of Kate Bush, it adds weight to my theory that all the best, coolest, most talented and interesting Pop artists can be traced back to Bush in some way. I wonder which Bush albums Naomi Scott loves especially. I am going to end things with an interview from Rolling Stone UK from last month. I do think that, alongside some terrific acting roles, we are going to see Naomi Scott touring and playing festivals around the world. So many eyes will be on her debut album:

“Inspired by the pop, R&B and soul music that raised her – artists like Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush – Scott’s debut album finds her shaping the language of love and relationships into sumptuous, ‘90s-inspired melodies that transport you back to the nostalgic days of landline phone calls, dimly-lit disco dance floors and drizzly windowpane yearning.

Outlining those thematic intentions with passionate hand gestures that occupy her entire Zoom frame, Scott says she related to the symbolism in Sylvia Plath’s seminal novel The Bell Jar, in which a fig tree represents individual life paths not chosen. “This idea of being a woman and choice, it’s a lot,” she says with an exasperated sigh. “I found myself realising that making a big decision at a very young age, being in a relationship from a very young age, [it was] almost like I hadn’t mourned other figs and other versions of my life.”

It was those thought-provoking contemplations that inspired her to inhabit different versions of herself on these songs. “This album is not autobiographical, but it very much stems from a personal place,” she shares. Granting herself permission to step outside her reality, she blurs the lines between her own diaristic revelations and high-concept pop. There’s the flirty, summer-drunk grooves of the Janet Jackson-indebted ‘Cherry’ and the caressing beats of ‘Rhythm’, which simmer alongside the restless thoughts of ‘Cut Me Loose’ and slow-jam beats of ‘Sweet Nausea’, all slipping breezily in and out of character.

The process of making the album was much like bringing a movie to life, where finding the right collaborators to honour Scott’s vision was key. That team included Norwegian producer Lido, who’s worked with the likes of Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande, complete with some special touches from Scott’s musical hero Dev Hynes, AKA the multi-hyphenate Blood Orange, who she’ll be supporting at Alexandra Palace in November. “I am a Blood Orange superfan,” she shares with a giddy laugh. “He’s the most generous collaborator. He is pure in his music process, and he’s so fantastic in protecting his creative space.”

The process of making the album was much like bringing a movie to life, where finding the right collaborators to honour Scott’s vision was key. That team included Norwegian producer Lido, who’s worked with the likes of Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande, complete with some special touches from Scott’s musical hero Dev Hynes, AKA the multi-hyphenate Blood Orange, who she’ll be supporting at Alexandra Palace in November. “I am a Blood Orange superfan,” she shares with a giddy laugh. “He’s the most generous collaborator. He is pure in his music process, and he’s so fantastic in protecting his creative space”.

If you only know Naomi Scott as an actor, then go and check out her music. This is someone who is going to have a very long and varied music career ahead. I have asked whether an actor adds something extra to music because of the disciplines and skills that they pick up. If they can naturally step into music because they are performers and inhabit roles. Naomi Scott is an incredible and unique artist who has released so much stunning music this year. Next year will be an even bigger and better one. Someone who every music fan…

NEEDS to investigate and embrace.

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Follow Naomi Scott

FEATURE: Spotlight: Audrey Hobert

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Kyle Berger for W Magazine

 

Audrey Hobert

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AN artist that…

PHOTO CREDIT: Shervin Lainez for The Line of Best Fit

I had overlooked and have just caught onto, I admit that I am late to the wonder of Audrey Hobert. It is exciting that she plays at a venue local to me, O2 Forum Kentish Town, London in March. I will try and get to see her there. Her debut album, Who’s the Clown?, is phenomenal. Songs that embed in your head! I think Bowling Alley might be my favourite from the album, though each of the twelve tracks are wonderful. I am going to come to a review of Who’s the Clown? I will start out with some interviews. Get a sense of who Audrey Hobert is and why you should follow her. As the album title might suggest, Hobert is someone who can tell a joke. A witty and funny songwriter, maybe the title suggests doubt, self-deprecation or something more cutting. Like some artists I have spotlighted recently, Audrey Hobert used to write for other artists before stepping out on her own. Hobert has written for Gracie Abrams. Abrams is one of the most acclaimed and talented modern Pop artists. I want to start with a Wonderland Magazine interview from August. Chatting with Gen Z’s sharpest and newest funny girl, this is an artist you need to know more about:

“But when the punchlines hit – jagged, off-kilter, sharply funny – her kind of pop starts to feel like chart-topping stand-up: stitched together with self-deprecating one-liners you can shake a leg to.

“I just tell it like it is, and sometimes that gets me into a bit of trouble, doesn’t it luv?” she says, deadpan, peeking out from under a mop of strawberry-blonde hair. “But I also trust my filter – she’s as powerful as my way with words.”

It’s as if Sofia Coppola’s dreamy angst and Lena Dunham’s TMI candour had a lovechild who overshares for a living and writes a killer chorus. So even when she’s clowning around – cool in the way cool is supposed to be (i.e., just being yourself, as she tells you on “Chateau”) – she’s blunt, mischievous, and scarily introspective.

It’s a formula that’s already proven magnetic. Audrey’s breakout track – the viral, screw-you breakup ballad “Sue Me” (delivered with a self-directed video seen over 700,000 times), released in May – has racked up nearly 23 million streams on Spotify. Follow-ups “Bowling Alley” (declared song of the summer by Ethel Cain) and “Wet Hair” sit comfortably in the millions. Her instantly sold-out live shows across New York, Los Angeles and London – messy and joyous – are obsessively clipped and reposted by fans on TikTok. There’s a sense of real-time myth-making here, like watching a cult artist form in front of your eyes.

Before all this, there was pop powerhouse Gracie Abrams – Audrey’s childhood best friend, whom she met in a bathroom at their fifth-grade graduation. Audrey co-wrote several of Gracie’s best tracks (“That’s So True,” “I Love You I’m Sorry” – whose music videos she also self-directed – and “Risk”) before quitting her plans to conquer TV writing (she studied screenwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and did a stint at Nickelodeon), instead going solo as an artist in 2024.

Now, Who’s the Clown? – out today via Columbia Records – becomes the first collection of songs she’s ever written for herself, a semi-fictional self-portrait across 12 tracks, casting her as one of pop’s most singular new storytellers. Made alongside producer Ricky Gourmet (“We discovered our undying work ethic through this,” she says), it’s a hook-laden, sugar-rush debut that’s as tender as it is ticklish. Highlights like “Sex and the City,” “Don’t Go Back to His Ass,” and “Phoebe” unravel like a looped VHS tape – grainy and poetic, full of yearning, vulnerability, and giddy flashes of self-awareness. There’s a cathartic honesty here that turns pain into punchlines, and private thoughts into shared mantras.

“I just hope people who have loved my first releases love everything else, and understand my never-ending depth,” she tells us of how she hopes the album is received. “My big dream is for people to feel seen by me and inspired to be themselves,” she continues. “Success to me is a rich personal life…and to always have fun”.

How does the songwriting process feel different when it’s you, your writing for?

AH: It’s easy to write for myself because my slant on life is iron clad. When I’m just writing by myself for myself I can take as long as I want to figure out one line, sometimes it’s hours.

Stepping out on your own, were you hesitant about how people would perceive you as a singer?

AH: Not at all. Perceive me all you want, try and box me in, give it a whirl. I know who I am and I like being me.

The title Who’s the Clown? feels loaded – who were you speaking to when you named it?

AH: I was thinking about how as a new artist I’d have to grab peoples attention and I thought a nice way to do that would be to have scary imagery on the album cover. My hope would be that someone might see the album cover out of context and go, ‘What does this music sound like?’ and then it’s pop. The album cover and title go together, I thought it was funny.

What was the first image or idea that unlocked the world of the album for you?

AH: The album cover came to me at 6am. I woke up with it in my head the night after I finished writing my song, “Sex and the city.”

Your lyrics appear so diaristic. How much of the album feels autobiographical versus imagined character study or broader commentary?

AH: I don’t feel like I’m transcribing my diary as much as I am crafting a story. A lot of it is genuinely fictitious but all based on feelings I’ve felt my whole life or in the 8 months I spent writing the album.

And in terms of honesty, have you always had the confidence to tell your truth? With this record, how do you walk the line between protecting your private self and giving people something raw enough to matter?

AH: The luxury of protecting my “private self” didn’t feel super prevalent as I am essentially a nobody. As for the confidence to tell my truth, yes I’ve always felt that. I am a secure person for the most part and trust that when I speak it comes from a kind and funny place, so I just speak. Sue me”.

I might drop in two more interviews before closing with a review of Who’s the Clown? I am a new fan of Audrey Hobert, but I am instantly seduced. In July, The Line of Best Fit spent some time with Hobert. It is good that U.K. sites and sources are connected with this American artist. Someone who has been taken to heart here. The Line of Best Fit highlighted a sharp and funny songwriter who is also profound and sincere. Such a powerful blend that makes Audrey Hobert’s music more long-lasting and interesting:

“If Audrey Hobert the solo artist has a brand, it’s confidence. She’s got that kitschy early-2000s chic feel, like a play on Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and, yes, Hannah Montana. But it’s also not really a facade, either. “Authenticity” has become a soulless buzzword, one that feels too contrived and pick-me these days for what Hobert has going on. The best way to put it is that she’s singular and self-assured, telling girlish stories the way Greta Gerwig or Sofia Coppola might. She’s exactly the type of person who you’d meet growing up and want to be their best friend. Like, yeah, of course the cover art for her first singles have her elegantly handcuffed to a clown that could have been generated on Kid Pix.

“The funny thing is Ricky doesn’t listen to pop music,” Hobert admits. “But I live and bleed for pop music, and I think that’s why I’m so proud of the way all the songs sound, because it’s just an amalgamation of our tastes. He has impeccable taste, and I’ve got the structure and feeling of a pop song ingrained in my heart and soul.”

The first song she released was “Sue Me,” an anthemic cut that sees Hobert unabashedly hit on an ex at a party. It went big on the Internet, the kind of song you can belt with your friends on a night out or a night in or after a breakup or before a one-night stand. But, she emphasizes, that’s not even her biggest party trick. “I didn’t put out ‘Sue Me’ knowing it was the big hit... I’ve got lots more to show and give, and that’s why I’m just truly counting down the days. I just want it out,” Hobert says.

“Since I was a kid, all I ever wanted to do was say something that makes people go: ‘That’s me! She just said that in a way that I’d never thought of before! That makes me feel seen! It makes me feel like I can be myself! I don’t need my crush to like me back or this friend group to accept me – I can accept myself completely!’” Hobert says.

“I just want to inspire the youth,” she adds with a cheeky drawl and smiles. That, I assure her, she will  certainly do”.

I am going to get to one more interview before rounding off with a review. This August interview from RUSSH has some interesting exchanges. They home in on the humour of the album. I do think a lot of modern Pop artists, especially women, are bringing humour into their music more. Few have the same impact as Audrey Hobert. I think that she is someone who is going to be around for many years to come. You know that she will not drop a beat or step her entire career:

“I feel like you have such a fun sense of humour. And even listening to the album, it came across in your songs – especially tracks like Sex and the City. It got me thinking about how, in a lot of ways, writing funny lyrics can sometimes be more vulnerable than writing sad lyrics. Like, I think there's something so terrifying about a joke not landing or people misunderstanding you – I think that's why stand up seems so scary to people. Do you ever worry about whether people will get a joke when you're writing one, especially in a song format?

Oh my gosh – I've been itching to talk about this! It was something that I actively understood. While I was writing these songs, I would sometimes have a thought for a line, the line would immediately make me laugh, and then, sort of immediately after, I would wonder, not if the joke was going to land, but if people were going to follow. And so, pretty early on, I decided that I was going to stop asking myself that. Because I think where songs and lyrics fall flat and become bad is when you wonder if they're going to get it. That is just something I talked about a lot in school and with my friends who are also writers.

I'm always writing up to whoever the listener is. I think you're doing yourself and your listener a disservice by assuming that they don't get it or are not following – because people are very smart. And you know, if it makes me laugh and it makes me excited, then I just assume that's what how the listener is gonna feel.

I know you've co–written songs now for your brother and your best friend, but how do you know when a song feels like it's for you?

Well, all of my album is written entirely by me. I don't really see a world in which I ever write with someone else for me, just because I'm too much of a control freak and I have way too much fun on my own. But, I enjoy collaboration so much – especially if I'm writing with two people as smart and as good as Gracie and Malcolm.

Your shift into music began with those songs that you started writing with Gracie. What was that initial conversation like? Who initiated the idea of collaborating?

There was no conversation. We were living together at the time, and we very naturally started writing a song together. I had never written music, and she had this incredible career and all of this experience writing music. So, I felt just very lucky that she was including me, and it really was just – and I still feel with her – like a fun activity for us.

I love that. How did you decide which songs from your album would be singles?

Well, Sue Me – when I made it – I knew it would be the first song I put out. It was early on in the process, but I just had such a feeling about that one. I remember finishing it and going "without a doubt, this will be the first song I put out". Bowling Alley was more of a... it wasn't a fight, but I just knew that it was, aside from it being entirely me, very dissimilar to Sue Me. I feel like Bowling Alley on the album is such a concise, sharp representation of who I am as a person. I figured, I may as well throw that one out second and see who globs on because... that's me. I'm not looking for a viral moment with putting the song out second. I just wanted to introduce myself as the writer that I am.

Bowling Alley does feel like this perfect entry point to the rest of the album. And you have such a filmic background, did you approach writing, Who's The Clown? with a story arc or a mood?

You know what? Actually, not at all in the track listing. There's no through line in terms of story, mostly because I feel like all of these songs, – like quite a few of these songs – are completely fictitious. Like Bowling Alley and Sex and the City are two songs that never happened to me. But, as I would finish songs, I would just sort of throw them in randomly. I can't explain why the track list is the way it is, but it just made complete sense to me. Also, it was a visual thing to see the titles all next to each other, on top of each other in that way – it just made sense.

You've used this motif of a clown, both in the title, but also in some of the videos. Could you explain that a little more? What does that represent to you, and why was it important to include?

Well, yeah, I mean, so Sex and the City was a very early song I wrote, and it was the first song that I worked really hard on. I wrote that song for a week and a half straight, and when I finished it, the night I finished it, the morning after I woke up, I was like, awoken at six in the morning, and I was like, "The album is called Who's The Clown? and the cover is me smiling at the camera, and then behind me a window, and then behind the window a clown staring at me". I just had that in my head, and I didn't know where it came from.

I sort of related it to knowing that I was going to be a new artist and that, as a new artist, you have to sort of grab people's attention. I  thought, what better way to do that than to scare people? [Laughs.] So I knew I wanted the clown on the album cover to be in prosthetics and scary – just because I didn't think there'd be anything interesting about me, posing semi-sexually and looking really good. I just think that there's a lot of that out there, and we don't need more of that. So I wanted to scare people. And the clown, it being called, Who's The Clown?, I just thought it was funny like that, there's a clown in the photo, and then there's me, and then I ask, "Who is the clown?" I feel like it's just sort of clownish to write an entire album.

No, that's perfect. And I love that whoever sticks around after being scared will be the right kind of audience as well.

Exactly!

So what do you hope people feel once they listen to this album for the first time? And... is there an ideal setting for a first listen?

Oh, good question! Um, what I hope people feel? I think two things: I think, firstly, my greatest hope for this album, and me promoting it and performing it and putting it out there, is that people feel inspired to be themselves, and that everywhere they go on this planet, they feel entirely comfortable in their own skin. That's all I want. And then, I also hope people feel impressed by the writing. [Laughs.] As for an ideal place for a first listen? I've had so many different first listening experiences that are like, with friends or in the car or wearing headphones alone. I sort of always liked it in headphones alone, or in headphones with your friend who loves music as much as you do”.

Let’s finish off with a positive review for Who’s the Clown? An exceptional debut that you all need to hear, I will bring in CLASH and their take on Who’s the Clown? This is one of the most impressive and finest debuts of the year. I feel 2025 has been a remarkably strong year for debut albums. Audrey Hobert is definitely ready for the spotlight:

“It’s always exciting when new voices start to gain traction in the music industry. These days, they tend to arrive at the mainstream sphere by either blowing up on TikTok or with the strength of having previous connections under their belt. Or maybe because they actually do stand out on their own and have something not necessarily  new to say, but rather an interesting way of saying it. Audrey Hobert checks all the boxes above. Up until the start of this year, the 26 year-old singer and songwriter was mostly known as Gracie Abrams’ best friend from childhood and co-writer, having credits on more than seven songs on Abrams’ sophomore record, ‘The Secret Of Us’. That is until things took a turn, and what was once a fun experience became a full on fledged career.

Being on the passenger seat while co-creating that project was so inspiring that it led to Hobert never wanting to let go of songwriting. In addition to having experience as a screenwriter for a Nickelodeon show, she had previously signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group, and was tasked to write songs with musicians and producers and create “hits”. She soon realised that writing from her own point of view was what truly made all of it worth it. The singer released her debut single, ‘Sue Me’, last May, taking the internet by storm even before the song was officially out – the hinting and snippet-promoting was greatly received by popstar-starving fans. With a catchy melody and sing-out-loud lyrics all around, the songwriter captured the attention of a huge audience by showing off an “open book” type of personality.

Hobert’s path to the release of her debut album, ‘Who’s The Clown?‘, was cemented by the release of two more singles – the funny insecure anthem, ‘Bowling Alley’, which tells a fictional tale of coming to a party and dreading being (or secretly hoping to be) the centre of attention, and the diaristic storytelling instalment that came to be ‘Wet Hair’, which plays as shameless confessions of a person that likes to pose as confident. Apart from making the listener feel like a close friend of Audrey’s, the rollout leads us to believe that everything about this project, from the art itself to the promotion cycle, is intentional.

Through her own spin on diaristic storytelling – “So it went like this”, the opening line to ‘Bowling Alley’, being an ethos of her work so far –, Audrey conveys great security in feeling relatable. Some of the standout songs, like ‘Thirst Trap’ and ‘Sex And The City’, paint a picture of the lengths young girls can (and usually) go to catch someone’s attention and to romanticize their every action, trying to find meaning in the almost unnoticeable.

The production in songs like ‘Drive’, with its charming bass line, and ‘Silver Jubilee’, with its flirtation with 2016-electropop, are nice surprises, but overall the record can get a little repetitive with its themes and melodies. It seems like Audrey benefits from sharing her process with someone, and the lack of clear references and perspective could be settled with the addition of one more producer/co-writer. But her comedic and very specific style does shine through either way, and performing these songs for a crowd will probably add to the depth of future projects. As previously stated, she has been ready for the spotlight. And if things continue to be this way, pop music is in good hands”.

I am going to wrap up. It has been incredible learning more about Audrey Hobert. Someone who I am new to but am keen to spread to other people, this is an artist who is going to be around for a very long time. With a debut as impressive as Who’s the Clown?, you can see her enjoying this incredible career. Whilst there are so many stale, samey and indistinct artists around at the moment, Audrey Hobert offers something genuinely different and wonderful. There should be more artists…

LIKE her.

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Follow Audrey Hobert

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Something Like a Song: Heads We’re Dancing (The Sensual World)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Something Like a Song

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

 

Heads We’re Dancing (The Sensual World)

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I have not spotlighted this song…

IN THIS PHOTO: Charli xcx attends the 2025 Met Gala/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

for a while, as I thought it was overdue an outing. A track from her 1989 album, The Sensual world, Heads We’re Dancing has a fascinating story and angle. Charli xcx mentioned in an interview how her favourite Kate Bush album, the one that defined her, is The Sensual World. Her favourite song from the album is the beguiling Heads We’re Dancing. I don’t know if this is still the case, though I thought it was interesting and cool that a modern Pop great spoke about a Kate Bush deep cut. Rather than go for an obvious song and album, she helped give light to a song especially not well known or played. It is one of many diamonds on Kate Bush’s sixth studio album. Maybe I have written about Heads We’re Dancing as a deep cut. However, I want to elevate it and show that it is one of the highlights from The Sensual World. The Charli xcx-approved gem could only have been written by Kate Bush. So out-there and unexpected is its inspiration. I am going to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia, as they have some interview archive where Kate Bush discusses the inspiration behind Heads We’re Dancing:

“That’s a very dark song, not funny at all! (…) I wrote the song two years ago, and in lots of ways I wouldn’t write a song like it now. I’d really hate it if people were offended by this…But it was all started by a family friend, years ago, who’d been to dinner and sat next to this guy who was really fascinating, so charming. They sat all night chatting and joking. And next day he found out it was Oppenheimer. And this friend was horrified because he really despised what the guy stood for. I understood the reaction, but I felt a bit sorry for Oppenheimer. He tried to live with what he’d done, and actually, I think, committed suicide. But I was so intrigued by this idea of my friend being so taken by this person until they knew who they were, and then it completely changing their attitude. So I was thinking, what if you met the Devil? The Ultimate One: charming, elegant, well spoken. Then it turned into this whole idea of a girl being at a dance and this guy coming up, cocky and charming, and she dances with him. Then a couple of days later she sees in the paper that it was Hitler. Complete horror: she was that close, perhaps could’ve changed history. Hitler was very attractive to women because he was such a powerful figure, yet such an evil guy. I’d hate to feel I was glorifying the situation, but I do know that whereas in a piece of film it would be quite acceptable, in a song it’s a little bit sensitive.

Len Brown, ‘In the Realm of the Senses’. NME (UK), 7 October 1989

It’s a very dark idea, but it’s the idea of this girl who goes to a big ball; very expensive, romantic, exciting, and it’s 1939, before the war starts. And this guy, very charming, very sweet-spoken, comes up and asks her to dance but he does it by throwing a coin and he says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” Even that’s a very attractive ‘come on’, isn’t it? And the idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror. What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening. And I think Hitler is a person who fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And I don’t think you can blame those people for being fooled, and maybe it’s these very charming people… maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to be.

Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1, 14 October 1989”.

All the lyrics are terrific, though I love how she leads in. Right from the first few lines, we are drawn into this dark and compelling introduction: “You talked me into the game of chance/It was ’39, before the music started/When you walked up to me and you said/“Hey, heads we dance.”/Well, I didn’t know who you were/Until I saw the morning paper/There was a picture of you/A picture of you ‘cross the front page./It looked just like you, just like you in every way/But it couldn’t be true/It couldn’t be true/You stepped out of a stranger”. There is this beauty and sense of the orchestra about Heads We’re Dancing. Nigel Kennedy on the viola (he would also be one of the musicians to the follow-up of The Sensual World, 1993’s The Red Shoes). Alan Murphy on guitar. I think Del Palmer plays percussion in addition to rhythm guitar. Jonathan Williams on the cello. Orchestration by the late great Michael Kamen. One reason why Del Palmer does not play bass on the track is because we get this wonderful performance by Mick Karn. Unorthodox and uncommercial, Bush praised his performance in an interview from 1989: “He’s very distinctive – so many people admire him because he stays in that unorthodox area, he doesn’t come into the commercial world – he just does his thing”.

There is not a lot written about Heads We’re Dancing. However, there are one or two features. Unlike other Kate Bush songs that are not really known and have nothing written them, perhaps the stranger story and inspiration means that people are compelled to share their thoughts. I really love the fact Charli xcx has name-checked the song. I think the last time I wrote about Head’s We Dancing was in 2020. I want to explore it once more. Before quoting form a feature about the song, I want to highlight critical reviews of The Sensual World where Heads We’re Dancing is mentioned. When Pitchfork reviewed The Sensual World in 2019, they said this about Heads We’re Dancing: “Even its most surreal songs are rooted in self-examination. “Heads We’re Dancing” seems like a dark joke—a young girl is charmed on to the dancefloor by a man she later learns is Adolf Hitler—but poses a troubling question: What does it say about you, if you couldn’t see through the devil’s disguise? Its discordant, skronky rhythms make it feel like a formal ball taking place in a fever dream, and Bush’s voice grows increasingly panicky as she realizes how badly she’s been duped. As far-fetched as its premise was, its inspiration lay close to home: A family friend had told Bush how shaken they’d been after they’d taken a shine to a dashing stranger at a dinner party, only to find out they’d been chatting to Robert Oppenheimer.Bottom of Form It’s more fanciful than most of The Sensual World’s little secrets. To hear someone recall formative childhood truths (the lush grandeur of “Reaching Out”) and lingering romantic pipedreams (the longing of “Never Be Mine”) is like being given a reel of their memory tapes and discovering what makes them tick”. The BBC gave it a brief mention when they reviewed The Sensual World in 2009: "Heads We’re Dancing", which sounds the most 80s of anything here (think electronic power drum beats and synthy-guitars) is a complete contrast, telling the tale of a woman dancing all night with a stranger who turns out to be Hitler”.

Maybe this is another Kate Bush song that could not be made today (see also Never for Ever’s The Infant Kiss). In 2023, Far Out Magazine reacted to a song where there is a romanticism of Adolf Hitler. Those Bush would never glorify something so horrific or a person like him, it shows her bravery and boldness as an artist. Nobody else in 1989 writing songs like this! How would any of us react if we are in the situation of dancing with the worst person in the world?! Unless we are unfortunate enough to be invited to The White House, it is a slim possibility! However, I am endlessly fascinated by Heads We’re Dancing. A song from The Sensual World nobody talks about (see also Between a Man and a Woman and The Fog). It is one of the clear highlights:

“However, the idea that someone could become drawn to a person until they knew who they were only intrigued her further, and soon she asked herself, “What if you met the Devil? The Ultimate One: charming, elegant, well spoken. Then it turned into this whole idea of a girl being at a dance and this guy coming up, cocky and charming, and she dances with him.”

Who would be the ultimate figure when it comes to envisioning the most evil person to ever exist? One that says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” in a softly-spoken voice, with no indication whatsoever that he might be harbouring some big, dark secret? For Bush, Adolf Hitler was the only person to fit the role. “The idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror,” she sad. “What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening.”

However, perhaps most importantly, Bush is in no way condoning attraction to criminality; instead, it’s an exploration of how our judgement can be clouded when someone appears nothing but friendly on the surface. She explained this, adding: “I think Hitler is a person who fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And I don’t think you can blame those people for being fooled, and maybe it’s these very charming people… maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to be.”

Although Bush understands that ‘Heads We’re Dancing’ could be seen as “glorifying the situation” and recognises the fact that she wouldn’t ever make a song like this now, it still begs the all-important question about human nature: would we know it if evil was staring us in the face?”.

In 2020, Joe Corr, for Medium, shared more words about Heads We’re Dancing than every other human being in history. A detailed and deep exploration of a song that has political connotations and parallels today, it is a great article. I have chosen parts of it that are particularly interesting, attitude and worthy. A feature that emphasises why more people need to hear this song:

“The whole album deals with the trajectory of growing and manoeuvring through a world of sensual experiences. It charts the highs as well as the lows, where the joyous imagining of Molly Bloom entering our three-dimensional world is contrasted against tales of dangerous obsession (A Deeper Understanding) and of desires being snuffed out by reality and leading to heartbreak (Never be Mine). A lyric on the latter, a confession of “I want you as the dream, not the reality’’, reflects an important component of The Sensual World’s vantage point on sensuality — that of recognising the barrier between fantasy and fact, of desires and realities, that takes on a new relevance when applied to Heads We’re Dancing. The song embodies that horrifying moment where pleasures become pain — perhaps where we recognise that our habits are dangerous, our vices degenerative, and that now it is too late to change and the damage is done. Here it is presented with extremity — being seduced by a fascist dictator, on the eve of a world war — but it can be easily scaled down to represent any person, thing or idea that enters into your life and seduces you into acting with careless abandon. As Bush states above, Hitler stands in as a perfect metaphor for destructive behaviours or obsessions because he was so seductive to the German public, and this was so intrinsically tied to his villainy — 1939 was both the year Hitler threatened the extermination of ‘the Jewish race in Europe’ in the Reichstag, and the year he was voted Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

What’s more, the timing of the tale suggests that our protagonist is a victim of either their own self-delusion, or perhaps their own ignorance — after all, Hitler was a known figure worldwide before 1939. Which loops us back into one of The Sensual World’s other dominant themes, that of growing up. Of course, sensuality and maturity are intrinsically linked — it is through making our mistakes and exploring the pleasures of the flesh that we emerge into functioning adults. Head’s We’re Dancing is not only a warning, but something of a recognition — a recognition of the mistakes we must make in order to learn and become better people. Regret is a powerful and formative emotion, as expressed on the albums biggest hit This Woman’s Work: “I should be hoping, but I can’t stop thinking — of the things we should’ve said that we never said, of all the things we should’ve done though we never did”.

Heads We’re Dancing may in fact stand as her last overtly political parable, and it retains all of the bite of its predecessors. In many ways Heads We’re Dancing serves as a watermark in Bush’s career, much like its parent album. Rarely again would Bush return to such an aggressive tone in her songs (The Big Lie on The Red Shoes being one exception), and though she continued to pen some outlandish lyrics going forward, Heads We’re Dancing was the last time she truly went off the wall and dabbled with controversy. As such, it remains one of her most undervalued and underappreciated songs, resigned to be a quirky deep-cut on a record overflowing with some of her most lush and romantic recordings. I hope that here I have made a case for it as one of her crowning achievements, a piece of art that unifies all of the things that make Bush such a landmark talent”.

There is a lot to love and discuss about Heads We’re Dancing. I actually think an artist could release a track like this today. However, we would be talking about someone like Donald Trump. A flip of a coin and this game of chance. Kate Bush (or the heroine) being talked into a dance with the most evil man in history. Even for Kate Bush, this was such a brilliantly unusual source of inspiration. Nothing quite like it on The Sensual World. Showing how you could never predict what she would do next! Overlooked and ignored, Heads We’re Dancing is simply…

A phenomenal song.

FEATURE: The Best Albums of 2025: Antony Szmerek - Service Station at the End of the Universe

FEATURE:

 

 

The Best Albums of 2025

 

Antony Szmerek - Service Station at the End of the Universe

__________

ONE of my absolute favourite albums…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Miles for DIY

of this year arrived from Antony Szmerek. His debut album, Service Station at the End of the Universe, was released in February. I have been a fan for a little while now and I love the way he mixes slice-of-life observations that are poetic, humorous and have his voice at the front – and yet so many can relate. A blend of Hip-Hop and Spoken Word, his lyrics and delivering are hypnotic and arresting. I am going to end with a positive review for the divine Service Station at the End of the Universe. I feel like the album should have got a Mercury Prize nod. It was a competitive and great year, though Antony Szmerek was worthy of inclusion in the shortlist. I am going to start off with an interview from DIY. Speaking with an artist who was this evocative and witty new voice whose debut takes us beyond the cosmos, there is something universal about his debut. And yet Antony Szmerek produces distinctly British stories:

“Having first cut his teeth via spoken word and open mic nights around his home city while balancing a day job as a teacher, it was only in 2022 that he first garnered attention via intimately whipsmart early single ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy’ – a track that would throw open the doors to his witty observations on the everyday thrum of life. Since then, he’s been thrust into a whirlwind of change: performing on Later… with Jools Holland; being named one of BBC 6 Music’s Artists of the Year in 2023; releasing two EPs, ‘Poems To Dance To’ and ‘Seasoning’; and leaving his previous vocation behind to concentrate on music full-time.

“A year ago! One year ago,” Antony reflects today, thinking back to December 2023 when he hung up his teaching cap. “That whole year when I was still teaching – I did Jools Holland in that time, I did Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds for the first time – that was hard, that was when I really started to lose my mind. I was teaching at a college in Salford, doing four days a week. The last day I went in, I didn’t even realise it was my last day! I was fully split, living a double life.”

Even now, officially twelve months in, you can tell it still hasn’t quite sunk in. “It is a real album!” he quips at one point on his impending full-length. “That’s a hard thing for me to… It’s hard releasing something when you know it’s going to have an audience. Watching publications saying ‘these are the records coming out at the start of the year’, and mine’s one of them – and it’s got as good a chance as any of them of being held by people, which is just mad. It doesn’t quite feel real; maybe that’ll happen when I’m 80!”

While the backdrop to the record is, as its title offers, an intergalactic service station dotted with the kind of evocative details that would give The Jetsons a run for their money (take the self-titled opener’s “mid life crisis convertible star cruiser” or the kid riding a “coin operated meteorite”), the album’s heart is still very much about its cast. Built from his idea of the record “being an anthology, with these characters coming in and out”, each track acts as a detailed but universal vignette of life and love, doubt and loss, that just happens to take place in a galaxy far, far away.

“I think you don’t want it to be elitist,” Antony notes, on his candid approach to lyricism, that comes partly inspired by his own musical heroes – and fellow Northerners – Jarvis Cocker and Alex Turner. “I’ve got out of the habit of wanting to say clever words and trying to make it all seem grandiose, or that I’m dead smart because I know all these big words and everything. You’re trying to distil huge concepts that are probably quite wanky, but in a way where everyone can get on board. That’s teaching, I guess,” he nods. “I think I wouldn’t have been immune to doing that if I’d done this earlier on. [When you’re younger] you’re slightly more insecure, and a bit like, ‘this song needs to be clever or it needs to feel like I’m well-read’,” he adds, nodding to the positives of being in your mid-30s. “I think if you step away from that, you’re gonna make better stuff. I’m not averse to throwing in a huge word every now and again, but I’ll still talk about Twixes.”

An album that runs the gamut of human emotion – from the minutiae to the mammoth – if ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’ achieves anything, it’s to remind us that life is fleeting, and we might never understand what others are going through. But if its mission statement was, indeed, to kick into ‘sincerity overdrive’, then it’s only because of the vulnerability and openness of its author that it actually hits the mark.

“I’m a bit worried about it,” Antony says candidly, on the idea of performing the pair of more autobiographical tracks live in his upcoming live shows. “We’re gonna finish [the set] triumphantly with a big tune, and then I think I’ll come back on my own [for the encore], and I’ll probably destroy my fucking self. I think doing [those songs] at home, in front of all my friends, my family and my mum, that’s gonna be super difficult,” he says honestly, before a familiar glint appears in his eye. “But then, what’s the point in doing it if you’re not giving everything? That’s the point of the show, it’s the missing piece. I couldn’t do ‘sincerity overdrive’ without pushing myself to the limit there! I’ll cry on stage,” he nods, before catching himself, “but probably not even at that bit – probably during ‘Yoga Teacher’ for no reason. Too horny, started crying!”.

I want to highlight an interview from PRS for Music from April. They were doing a series focusing on artists on the road and their experiences. Antony Szmerek discussed the importance of PRS, but he also revealed what it was like playing the prestigious SXSW. Something that is a dream and goal for so many artists:

“With influences that range from ‘00s hip-hop to pop and British indie greats, Antony’s wide-ranging approach bleeds into his stage presence, which is filled with generosity and spirit. Back in March he flew out to SXSW in Austin, Texas to make his US live debut — funded by a grant from BBC Introducing and PRS Foundation — before returning to the UK to embark on a run of headline shows, including a sold-out night at his hometown’s Albert Hall.

With his tour now extending into Europe and a summer filled with festival appearances, M caught up with Antony for the inaugural edition of our new On The Road series to hear, in his own words, what it's like to grow and thrive as a live act in 2025.

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‘Travelling to Austin and performing at SXSW was life-changing. I think there was a weird sense of anticipation on the plane there [from London], as many of us artists who had received funding wound up sitting together. I would find myself peeking over seats and thinking, “What’s corto.alto watching on the TV there?”, or I’d turn around and spot Jasmine.4.t, and we’d wave at each other.

‘I’d never been to the US before heading to SXSW, nor had my band. None of us! It was pretty mad knowing that the music I made at home — so much of which is specific to a time or location — was going to be performed live all the way out in Texas. There was definitely a sense of all of us artists feeling the excitement and thinking to ourselves, “How did we get here?”

‘We played to nearly entirely American crowds. They were all amazing. I think before performing in the States, you can get stuck in your head and your own perceptions; I was trying not to mention line dancing whenever it came to crowd participation. We played at this dive bar one night, which was great — it felt like being in a film. I think I was worried about some of the niche references in my music: for instance, I thought that singing about the Stockport Pyramid would be lost on some people!

‘I think people have different ideas about what SXSW is going to be. Some artists, for example, will aim to get a US agent or radio plugger while they are out there. But I think as an artist, the most important thing is to remain in charge of what your shows look like, and make sure that everyone [in the crowd] has a good time each night you play. If you do that, then all of those other things will come naturally.

‘I met so many fellow British artists while I was out there, which was incredibly special. We were hopping between bars and sharing instruments, or borrowing each other’s equipment when things went wrong. I left the festival with this real sense of community, which energised me ahead of the UK tour that I set out on the following week. It made me realise that this is why I make music. In Austin, I watched a lot of shows — including [bands like] Maruja and Big Special — and came away having had some of the best experiences of live music that I have ever had. I felt incredibly inspired. It was a transformative trip in so many ways.

‘Crucially, we wouldn’t have been able to go to SXSW without the grant that we received from PRS Foundation. I wanted to make sure I had my album out before playing the festival, so I knew that I wasn’t ready for SXSW in 2024. At the start of this year, however, we got the funds we needed to head over to Austin, and as a result of playing out there, we are probably a million miles better and stronger as a live act. Obviously there's now a million things in my [iPhone] Notes about what we saw along the way: there was a blood moon eclipse, and we also experienced a thunderstorm while travelling back!”.

DORK chatted with Antony Szmierek in February. Going from being a teacher – I am not sure if he still teaches now and then – to an Indie-Dance/Hip-Hop hero who is making this striking music, it is always revealing reading interviews. An artist who can make the mundane so important and almost spiritual, there have been a lot of comparisons with The Streets’ Mike Skinner. How he could deliver these scintillating, witty and relatable songs but back them with incredible compositions. Making them epic and swelling. That fusion of the ordinary and extraordinary. Something that Antony Szmierek does throughout the sublime Service Station at the End of The Universe:

“‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’ transforms a motorway services on Antony’s fantasy motorway, Andromeda Southbound, from a place where dreams go to die into a study of social complexity, following the lives of the different characters that pass through on their way to a yoga class, a wedding, or back home to the one they love.

Introducing characters that in part represent Antony’s beloved North West upbringing, such as “the Patron Saint of Withington” in ‘Rafters’, but also illuminate parts of Antony’s own personality and questions that he himself deals with on a daily basis. Whether it’s accusations of being a class traitor in ‘Yoga Teacher’ or trying to cope with overthinking and existentialism in ‘The Great Pyramid of Stockport’, Antony’s whole self is poured into every aspect of the record, making it as genuine and believable as it could be.

Drawing on his eternal love for ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’, one that ignited Antony’s passion for language, as well as local landmarks that have become key pillars of his life thus far, every picture is painted with nuance, style, and an observational accuracy that even the most experienced novelists struggle to recreate.

Pulling different literary ideas to the edges of their existence and rewinding threads to fit his huge new universe allowed Antony to create more lyrical layers than is possible on singles and EPs and underscores his immense writing talent.

“I guess in a way writing it was a lot like teaching,” Antony posits, “there’s something for the five kids in the class who really want to listen and pick up hidden meaning, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t also something for people who just want really fun tunes with a good hook. I sort of take on this role of almost an omniscient narrator but also become the characters, it all winds together in the end.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

This ethos is at the heart of almost every track on the record, taking a seemingly everyday object or idea and elevating it into something with a profound and often existential meaning. The most obvious example of that comes from single ‘The Great Pyramid of Stockport’, which sees Antony take a local landmark and draw threads to the Pyramids of Giza, using two structures built centuries apart to explore legacy in a world that values speed and innovation.

“I was really surprised that nobody had written a song about it before; I was certain that Blossoms were gonna mention it on their album! On the surface, it just sounds like a song about this insurance company’s office in Stockport, but there’s a lot on there about getting older and time never stopping. There’s also a line about me cancelling plans because nothing feels real and I’m in tears in my bedroom, which sounds mad to have in a song about a big blue pyramid. I basically use observations as a way of projecting quite a complex idea, so the Stockport Pyramid actually ends up representing the question: ‘What’s the point in any of this?’”

Taking his cues from goth giants The Cure, Antony tried to be as sneaky as possible with his introspection, peppering super vulnerable lines into songs that you can only pick up on after a few listens. In this way, the album is able to bring together complex trauma responses and deep-rooted existential anxiety without ever getting weighed down by heavy topics. 

“I definitely consider the album to have a Side A and Side B, and it is a spiral; everyone’s meeting at this service station before they go off and do whatever it is they do to make this meaningless existence worthwhile, like falling in love or going to a yoga lesson, and then it’s like ‘fuck, what if none of this means anything?’”

This hitman-like style of hiding his vulnerabilities comes to a head in ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’, a stream of consciousness that acts as the end of the album’s spiral, representing rock bottom before the album bounces back to peace, love, and joy. It’s fair to say that it’s the song on the album that is likely to become a fan favourite thanks to its brave open-heartedness, but also the one that Antony struggles with the most.

“I just worry it’s a bit much,” Antony states, “I’m proud of it, and I’m glad it’s on the record, but it’s the only one where I didn’t hide any lyrics, and it’s a bit scary. We’ve had to play it back to management, and the label and stuff, and people seem to like it, but I have to cover my ears and look away. I’m dreading playing it live the first time because I can’t get through it without crying at the moment.”

He continues: “I still wanted the record to be optimism bottled, though, and that’s why it ends on ‘Angie’s Wedding’. I guess it’s an allegory for heaven, it’s not elitist, everyone can go, it’s a celebration. I just needed to resolve it and say, ‘It’s all going to be ok in the end’, instead of ending on ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’ or ‘Crashing Up’, which is about getting older and having eczema; what a nightmare life is!”

Sonically, the record is as rooted in Antony’s personal and local past as the lyrical subject matter, clearly marked by Forton Service Station’s Pennine Tower adorning the album cover. Initially, though, re-establishing these close ties to the historically well-documented Manchester music scene was something that Antony pushed back against.

“I looked away from Manchester at first because I was trying to subvert my own expectations and second-guess what might come later, but it reached a point where I was like, ‘Nobody knows who you are yet; you’ve got to stick to who you are and what you do’”.

I will end with a review. Providing a five-star glowing assessment of one of this year’s most dazzling and distinct debut album, DIY took us back to Antony Szmierek’s earliest work. To show how he has progressed and where he has come from. He has some live dates booked for next year, so do go ands catch him if you can. I am really thrilled at all the attention has got and the fact his music has connected with so many people. I have heard that his live shows are the stuff of legends. I shall have to see Szmierek play if he comes to London:

“To understand Antony Szmierek look no further than the title of his 2023 EP, ‘Poems To Dance To’, an apt depiction of the ex-English teacher’s rising blend of rhythmic spoken word and dancefloor ready production laying the backdrop for musings ranging from personal relationships to obscure places, and a poignant balance of fantasy and heavy realism. The sci-fi inspired title, a nod to Antony’s childhood favourite ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy’ that also spurned his breakthrough track, lays the path for references to home city landmarks, from the looming Stockport pyramid to the North West’s right-of-passage pub crawl, the Didsbury Dozen. It’s indicative of his outlook on his surroundings, an ever-blurred line between the tangible and the intangible, and one that will draw inevitable and not unjustified comparisons to the work of Mike Skinner. It’s prominent in the interlude’s respite found in the service station, a transient place that provides much needed consistency to the protagonist. His understanding of place grounds the otherwise lofty musings, not least the stunning stream of consciousness rising out of highlight ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’. It’s this stark contrast between the emotive and the physical that underpins much of his writing, mirrored further in the record’s pairing of poetry and inherently British genres ranging from acid house to garage and beyond. ‘Service Station…’ glides through this constant push and pull, a timeless portrayal of both the physical and emotional connection to people and place; fundamentally British yet beautifully universal”.

One of my absolute favourite albums of this year, Antony Szmierek’s Service Station at the End of the Universe is endlessly listenable. You will come back time and time again. In terms of highlights, I think Yoga Teacher and Angie’s Wedding. All twelve tracks are jewels. Anyone who has not heard this album or knows about Service Station at the End of the Universe should correct that, as Antony Szmierek is someone you will be…

HEARING a lot more from.

FEATURE: Groovelines: John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

__________

A big reason…

IN THIS PHOTO: John Lennon and Yoko Ono with the Harlem Community Choir at Record Plant Studios, N.Y.C. in 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Iain Macmillan

as to why I am featuring this Christmas classic in Groovelines is because it is one of the best ever. Perhaps not ranked alongside the best Christmas songs ever, perhaps people think the political nature or sense of protest maybe takes something away. That we need all joy and escape rather than something that is a bit more important and deep. Some have criticised the song because its messages are wrapped up in novelty and there is really not this appropriate blend. That the song misfires somewhat. However, I do feel that Happy Xmas (War Is Over) is a fantastic song. Its B-side is Listen, the Snow is Falling. Even though the song has a black mark because it was co-produced by Phil Spector, this magical and tireless – and, sadly, always-relevant – Christmas gem is credited to John Lennon and Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. Written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, I shall end with a few features that rank Christmas songs, so we can see what they say about Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Rather than write a Christmas song that is all about thinking of ourselves and the cliché images, Lennon and Ono penned this plea for pacifism and an end to war. However, as we are in 2025 and there is bloodshed around the world, you wonder whether those messages and wishes will ever go fulfilled. I am going to get to some features about this incredible and moving son. Before that, let’s discover more about the reception for and popularity of Happy Christmas (War Is Over):

“On its US single debut in 1971, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" did not meet with much success. This was due to the single's late release, which resulted in limited airplay before Christmas, and a lack of promotion. The single peaked at number 36 on the Cash Box Top 100 Singles and number 28 on the Record World Singles Chart, and number 3 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart. The single subsequently re-appeared on the Billboard Christmas charts in 1972, 1983, 1984, and 1985. The song appeared at number 32 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart for the week ending 6 January 1996. The song's most recent chart entry, and highest position, on the Billboard Hot 100 chart was in 2022, where it peaked at #38 for the week ending 31 December 2022.

"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" enjoyed immediate success in Britain when issued there in November 1972. The song peaked at number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and number 10 on the listings compiled by Melody Maker. Since then, it has re-entered the UK Singles Chart nine more times. The most notable of these instances occurred immediately following Lennon's death on 8 December 1980. The single peaked at number 2 – behind another reissued Lennon single, "Imagine" – and remained on the chart for nine weeks”.

Another reason for me choosing this song to highlight is a sad one. On 8th December, 1980, John Lennon was killed. He was shot. It somehow gives Happy Xmas (War Is Over) a new dimension. When Lennon wrote the song with Ono, he was genuinely asking for peace. The fact he had his love taken by violence makes the song more powerful and urgent. Forty-five years after his death, I don’t think any songwriter like Lennon has come along. There have been covers of Happy Xmas (War Is Over), including those by Miley Cyrus, and Celine Dion. American Songwriter explored the song in a feature from last year. Noting how it is rare to get a festive song that is about peace and ending war, we have not heard many Christmas songs with the same intent and messages. Maybe there should be:

“After the success of Lennon’s 1971 hit, “Imagine,” he had a personal realization that, in part, led to his holiday song. Lennon said, “Now I understand what you have to do: Put your political message across with a little honey.”

From 1963 to 1969, the Beatles had issued special recordings around Christmas directly to members of their fan club. After the group broke up in 1970, Lennon was the first former Mop Top to release an original Christmas tune. Later George Harrison released, “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” in 1974, and Paul McCartney released “Wonderful Christmastime” in 1979. Ringo Starr released his album, I Wanna Be Santa Claus, in 1999.

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” began in October 1971 with a simple demo that Lennon recorded in his suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, where he and Ono lived. Ono received songwriting credit but she does not appear on the original demo. A second demo of the song was made later that month when Lennon and Ono moved to another NYC apartment in Greenwich Village.

To record the track, as he’d done for prior songs, Lennon called in producer Phil Spector. According to legend, when Lennon played the first line, So this is Christmas… Spector told Lennon it was rhythmically the same as the 1961 single Spector produced by the Paris Sisters, “I Love How You Love Me.” In the studio, Lennon wanted mandolin-style riffs as he heard in the 1971 Spector-and Harrison-produced single, “Try Some, Buy Some.”

The Beatles’ Apple Records released “Happy Xmas (War Is Over”) as one side of a 7″ with the Plastic Ono Band track and “Listen, the Snow Is Falling” on the other side, in 1971. It came out on transparent green vinyl. A dispute between Lennon and a music publisher delayed the release in the United Kingdom until late November 1972.

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” first appeared on an album when it was released on the LP, Shaved Fish, which was the only compilation of the former Mop Top’s solo recordings released while he was alive. It came out in 1975. Later, a rough mix from the original recording session in October 1971 was released in 1998 on the compilation, John Lennon Anthology”.

Far Out Magazine discussed the story behind Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Wirth beautiful chorus singing from the Harlem Community Choir, this is a song that has this beauty and sobering nature. A blend of the optimistic and solemn. Whilst most Christmas songs seem empty but joyful, John Lennon wanted to create something more meaningful. Disrupt, very briefly, the stereotypical Christmas narrative:

“By 1971, Lennon had tried everything: taking to the streets, attending rallies, and even staying in bed. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that the best thing he could do to get his message across was to use his “bigger than Jesus” global influence to his advantage. This led him to release ‘Happy Xmas (War is Over) on November 24th, 1971, precisely a month before Christmas Eve.

Though Lennon would later claim that he wrote ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ because he was tired of hearing ‘White Christmas’, the song wasn’t a purely commercial gesture. It arrived after more than two years of peace activism, which began with those two ‘bed-ins’ in March and May 1969. Lennon realised that systemic change would only be possible with the cooperation of ordinary, working people. “The people are unaware,” he said. “It’s like they’re not educated to realise that they have power.”

With this in mind, John and Yoko set about devising a campaign to allow their radical message entry into the homes of everyday Americans. Their idea was to make peace unignorable. Renting billboard spaces in 12 major cities around the world, they erected black and white posters reading: “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It – Happy Christmas from John & Yoko”, a slogan that had already appeared in Phil Ochs anti-war anthem ‘The War Is Over’ and The Doors’ ‘The Unknown Solider’ – both released in 1968.

Riffing on themes of social unity, personal accountability and peace, Lennon recorded a rough acoustic demo of ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ in October 1971 in his and Yoko’s room at the St Regis Hotel in New York. He then brought it to producer Phil Spector, who noted that the song’s opening line, “And so this is Christmas,” was rhythmically identical to his 1961 Paris Sisters single ‘I Love How You Love Me’.

Spector oversaw the recording session, allowing Lennon and Ono to record private Christmas messages to their children, Kyoko and Julian. After handing the session guitarists mandolins and asking them to play a riff similar to the one heard in Ronnie Spector and George Harrison’s ‘Try Some, Buy Some’, Lennon and Ono recorded vocals with 30 children from the Harlem Community Choir, heightening the track’s cut-through appeal.

Strangely, ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over) wasn’t a hit in the US. Its late release meant that it had limited airplay before Christmas. A publishing dispute also delayed the song’s release in the UK until November 1972, when it rose to number four in the charts. After Lennon died in 1980, it reached number two and has remained a Christmas classic ever since.

Written out of a desire to change the world, ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ reminds us that the best Christmas songs are coincidentally festive. Lennon’s desire was to craft an enduring message for peace. Though Paul McCartney would later criticise this commercialised approach to peace activism, one that he regarded as wilfully ignorant, the optimism at the heart of ‘Happy Xmas’ remains essential”.

Released on 24th November, 1971 in the U.K. and 1st December, 1971 in the U.S., there are a couple of other features I want to come to. The Beatles Bible provide the details about personnel and recording dates of Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Nearly fifty-five years after its release, you do wonder whether its messages will connect with the wider world. I think that John Lennon and Ono oinspired a lot artists with this song. Think of the other three Beatles, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and how they have all campaigned for peace and bring thatg into their music. Or have done. During such a turbulent time in the late-1960s and early-1970s, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) seemed like something Lennon and Ono simply had to write:

“Although ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ was ostensibly about the Vietnam war, it proved a universal message understood worldwide. Lennon had experimented with anthemic messages in songs such as ‘Give Peace A Chance’ and ‘Power To The People’, and again produced a simple lyrical refrain which he hoped anyone could understand.

‘Happy Xmas’ Yoko and I wrote together. It says, ‘War is over if you want it.’ It was still that same message – the idea that we’re just as responsible as the man who pushes the button. As long as people imagine that somebody’s doing it to them, and that they have no control, then they have no control.

John Lennon, 1980
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Lennon recorded a home demo of ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ in early October 1971. Few of the words were in place, but the melody and structure was mostly complete. Lennon evidently had trouble singing the high notes of the middle section, as sung by Ono in the final version.

Both Lennon and Phil Spector claimed the song’s melody was based on The Paris Sisters’ 1961 hit ‘I Love How You Love Me’, which Spector produced. However, the verses are more closely related to Peter, Paul and Mary’s version of the American folk song ‘Stewball’.

A rough mix of the song, titled simply ‘Happy Xmas’, was included on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology. 

In the studio

The basic track for ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ was recorded at the Record Plant East in New York City on 28 October 1971. The balance engineer was studio owner Roy Cicala, and Phil Spector was the producer. Spector, of course, had previously recorded the classic 1963 album A Christmas Gift For You.

The backing track was recorded in seven takes, with take six selected as the best. Takes 2, 3, and 4 were incomplete, and take 5 was a false start.

John Lennon had wanted Klaus Voormann to play bass guitar on the recording, but his flight from Germany to New York was delayed. The bass part was initially recorded by one of the guitarists recruited for the session, but was later replaced.

The 16-track master tape had Hugh McCracken’s acoustic guitar on tracks 1 and 2, and Chris Osborne’s on tracks 3 and 4. Other acoustic guitars, played by Lennon, Teddy Irwin, and Stuart Scharf, were recorded to tracks 11, 6, and 12 respectively.

Voormann’s bass guitar was on track 5, and Jim Keltner overdubbed a sleigh bell onto track 13.

Nicky Hopkins’ piano was on track 7, and he also added glockenspiel and chimes to the same track during a reduction mix. More piano by Hopkins was added to track 9, along with vocals by Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Tracks 8 and 10 were used by Spector as echo tracks. The remaining three tracks, 13-14, were used for Jim Keltner’s drums.

On 29 October the single’s b-side, ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’, was recorded. The composition, written by Ono in 1968, featured the same musicians as on ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’, minus the acoustic guitarists and children.

On 30 October Voormann recorded his bass guitar part for ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’. That session also saw the recording of strings and the Harlem Community Choir, and the whispered introduction for Lennon and Ono’s children: “Happy Christmas Kyoko”; “Happy Christmas Julian”. The sleeve photography for the single was also taken during this session by Iain Macmillan”.

Prior to round off, this blog post from 2021 argued why Happy Xmas (War Is Over) should have been a number one. Even though Phil Spector criticised John Lennon, as he thought his vocal was weak and he was being outsung by Yoko Ono, the delivery and whole is incredibly effective and incredible. One of the most underrated Christmas songs ever in my view:

“In 1972, it made #4 fair and square, behind the likes of T. Rex and Little Jimmy Osmond. But in 1980, re-released in the wake of Lennon’s death, it also made #4 for Christmas, while the delights of St. Winifred’s School Choir wafted down from top-spot.

Back in those pre-computer days, when everyone at the chart-keeping company was on Christmas holiday, the post-Xmas chart was usually a copy-paste of the previous week’s. St. Winifred’s remained top, John and Yoko at #4. The week after, though, it rose to #2, behind the also re-released ‘Imagine’. I wonder… If the sales of the ‘Happy Xmas’ – which was presumably selling very well in the days leading up to Christmas – were counted, and the chart hadn’t simply been repeated… Could it have been a number one? I guess we’ll never know.

Though it never made #1, ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ makes the chart every year now thanks to festive streaming. It’s currently perched at #34 in the charts, and will presumably rise even higher next week. With that, I’d like to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas, and a happy new year… Let’s hope it’s a good one… wherever this holiday season finds you. (I’d also like to wish for war to be over, but I think I may be overreaching…)”.

In this feature form November, Time Out ranked Happy Xmas (War Is Over) thirty-second in the list of the best fifty Christmas songs. It is a shame that some see it is a slight or inferior Christmas song: “John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s definitive festive peace-on-earth song is an inescapable feature of every Christmas, transcending  its original anti-Vietnam War purpose to become a one-size-fits-all Christmas banger. Sure, bits of it make you cringe. But that’s all part of the season, eh?”. Ranking it thirty-eighth out of forty, Stylist said this about the underrated song: “Look, I get that this song has a beautiful underlying meaning – but John doesn’t really sound like he hopes I’ll have fun. He seems to be hinting at the fact that I’ve achieved very little over the past 12 months and I need to get my act together if I want to put an end to war. And that’s a lot of pressure, John. All I want to do right now is eat cheese, read terrible cracker jokes, hug my loved ones and forget about the drudgery of reality for a little while. Is that so much to ask?”. I am ending with these quotes form John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Taken from the official John Lennon website, it makes me feel that people needed to show more love for Happy Xmas (War Is Over):

“John: ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ we wrote together. Nothing more to say on that. It says it: ‘War is over if you want it.’ Because it was still that same message, the idea that somebody is either going to give us power or [has] taken our power or has made us go to war or not made you go to war or the president did this to us.
We are just as responsible as the man who presses the button. It’s that idea of God in the sky is a separate thing, you know? It’s all that separation. It’s all the same thing: nationalities, religions, authority. It’s all the same garbage. As long as we or as long as people imagine that it’s something people are doing to them, they have no control, then. They have no control.

Yoko: It was July 1971 in New York City. We were having our morning coffee in a hotel room facing the park. Then, still in the middle of our breakfast, we got this idea to write an Xmas song. We were fast workers, so the song was born by the time we fi nished our last morning coffee. That made John feel better. ‘This is going to be bigger than “White Christmas”, you’ll see.’ He wiggled his nose again, this time with satisfaction.

In November, John remembered the song and called the manager to release it as a single for Christmas. ‘John, it’s too late…printing the cover…advertising.’ ‘Well, try.’ The single was out, but the manager was right: it was too late for anything and it bombed. ‘Happy Xmas’ only became big after John’s passing in 1980”.

Without doubt one of my favourite Christmas songs, we will be hearing it a lot at the moment. However, given that there is war and genocide in the world, will people understanding the importance of Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and this is what John Lennon and Yoko Ono were talking about. How we need to heed their messages and do something. Fifty-four years after its release, this Christmas masterpiece…

IS as important now as it ever was.

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Pretty Wild

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

The Pretty Wild

__________

I am going to come…

to a review of zero.point.genesis. That is the debut album from the amazing The Pretty Wild. The duo is made up of Jyl and Jules Wylde. Originating from Las Vegas, Nevada, The Pretty Wild are known for their Metalcore sound, often described as Y'allternative. Before getting to a review for their album, there are a few interviews that I want to source. The first is from Hard Beat. They chatted with the Wilde sisters about their musical development, and what comes next for them:

“You’ve already brought up ‘Button Eyes’, that’s one of my favourite visuals. Are you thinking about visuals and the music videos while you’re writing?

Jyl: I feel like it’s because Julia comes from this theatrical world, especially like, everything with us, it’s like we don’t just sit down for song, we see a whole landscape with it. We see a whole world we’re building, like from the fashion to, you know, the set that we want to bring so you really get pulled into the space artistically that we’re trying to energetically have when they listen and you know, that that’s kind of hard within a commercial box sometimes. But we find our ways, and I think especially in this next era, you’re going to see a lot more of that world building come to life.

You both sing and scream within the songs, how do you structure the songs and discuss who does what within them?

Jules: Well, that’s a funny question because actually, Jyl taught me how to scream in the studio, actually. And the first time I’m really, truly screaming on a song was for ‘Sleepwalker’. So now when I go back and listen to ‘Sleepwalker’, I’m like “oh my God, I could have done so much better now.” But, it was kind of interesting. And now I think between the two of us, when it comes to harsh vocals, a lot of times it sounds kind of similar, but the way to tell it like a cheat almost is that I tend to scream a lot of the lower parts, and Jyl’s a lot more of this cool high, like gritty, parts of the song.

Jyl: I feel like so much of the artistic messaging is that duality of women holding this rage, but also this sweetness at the same time. So the music definitely had to have both parts. And people are like, you know, it’s really hard to do melodic cleans, and we’re like, “fuck it”, we’ll figure it out, you know what I mean?

You bring up fashion and styling when talking about the music. Does that kind of all coincide with the visuals and what you want to deliver as a package within the femininity?

Jules: Yeah, it’s funny you mention that because we’re going to dive so much deeper into the fashion elements, because art for us goes much deeper than, than just music. Like we have like Jyls kind of talked about this whole ethos and world that we’re building. And a lot of that comes through creative decisions like videos and fashion, and even hair and makeup and what time periods sometimes we’re starting to channel, and whether there’s baroque elements, and songs or some more classical elements mixed with nu metal, which is kind of a funny juxtaposition.

Jyl: Even the gymnastics tricking stuff that I do. That’s art. I don’t go to the gym normal! Finding a cool way that really takes these authentic elements that you and I both have and like creating that bigger message together, is something you’re definitely going to see with this album.

And just in these upcoming live shows, we’re just really, really excited for it all to come together and have that message hit right.

I did a deep dive on your previous singles and what you’ve released in the last couple years. You’ve developed a lot musically. You experimented with country before diving into metalcore!

Jyl: We did. In a really short space of time! I think it really does come back to, you are only allowed to be so many things as a woman like, straight up, and growing up, you’re trying to find your place.

We were doing really creepy country at first. Most people don’t know. And then we got interested in the industry and then it got super watered down and at the end of the day, when we started working with Andrew, we just started peeling back those layers, song by song. And like that’s kind of where it just emerged, like it really came from layer peeling, the conditioning
undoing the conditioning, you know? I feel like you can tell, you can feel the comfortability in what we’re doing and how we’re here.

And you can’t you can’t fake that process. It’s just like there weren’t a lot of role models for that personally I found when I was younger. So that’s why it’s so fucking crazy.

Where do you foresee The Pretty Wild going? This year’s been massive growth with your debut album. Next year, what are you thinking?

Jyl: Crank up the chaos, baby.

Believe it or not, we held back. In a lot of ways, we did. I think you hold back because you’re not confident yet. You know what I mean? So I think when you have real confidence and you’re ready to commit to these things, I think you’re going to see a whole new level of execution with what we’re doing. And I’m really excited.

Jules: We always tell people expect the unexpected. We are constantly, just seems like, creative machines, we have these outputs of enthusiasm and energy and ideas, and like that never turns off for us.

So we’re just we’re excited to really show everybody what’s in our brains and how we can actually make that come to life and illustrate this whole world that we have fallen in love with, and be able to portray that to everybody.

Jyl: And honestly, really help inspire others, especially females in general. Thinking differently can work and valuing their emotions, and realizing their emotions are where they have a lot of power, a lot of creative power. That’s really important for us.

And showing that and demonstrating that and making that a reality”.

I am going to move to great intervbiew from New Noise Magazine. The Pretty Wild have had a busy year. 2026 will see them touring and taking their music to audiences far and wide. I think that zero.point.genesis is among the best albums of the year. It is great that they are coming to the U.K. in February. Playing the O2 Forum Kentish Town on 12th February (among other dates in the U.K.), I might try and catch them. A sensational live act, go and see them if you can:

“Following the release of their inaugural LP, The Pretty Wild don’t plan on hitting the brakes any time soon, as next year will find the sisters hitting the road to support Sleep Theory on a 2026 European tour throughout February and March. And after making their festival debuts at Welcome To Rockville and Inkcarceration this year, 2026 will also find The Pretty Wild tearing up the stages at Sonic Temple, Download, and Vainstream Rockfest.

“I feel like those are going to be some of the first shows that we really unveil what we’ve been working really hard on for the live show stuff,” Jyl says of their upcoming shows with Sleep Theory. “And a lot of that’s still a secret. So we just can’t wait. That’s going to be where everything kind of comes together.”

The duo’s upcoming shows with Sleep Theory will find them performing their debut studio album in its entirety, and they say the reality of such a monumental release still hasn’t set in just yet.

“I don’t think it’s really going to feel real for me and very visceral until I get to hold a copy of the vinyl – then it might finally start to click,” Jules admits.

Jyl adds, “The album really is a culmination of so many things that, even before we sat down to write it, we were working on and embodying in ourselves. So, to see it become something that’s physical in reality is just going to be unreal.”

Fueled by raw vulnerability and divine energy, zero.point.genesis finds The Pretty Wild conveying a newfound maturity and fearlessness. Through unbridled tracks like “PARADOX” and “hALf aLiVE,” the Wylde sisters embrace both haunting mystery and profound self-reflection.

“This album really is a feminine becoming album in a lot of ways,” Jyl says. “It’s just been this awesome evolution to really see us as sisters become more confident with each other, and have and hold that energy and help other women really feel that as well and leave behind toxic feminine ways and really embrace collaborative energy and seeing how we’re just more powerful when we combine our efforts together.”

Regarding the sound of the new record, Jules says, “I think also we grew and pushed ourselves in different ways creatively, and we both were really supportive of that. We tried different things. We tried to go to different places. Not only with instrumentation, but also just vocal parts, and the maturity of the writing and the depth of the writing.”

The album is as authentic a body of work as it is personal, with Jyl and Jules describing the record as a culmination of everything they’ve grown to understand about themselves over the last couple of years. While the project is intentionally multi-layered, learning to embrace and explore your femininity is a defining throughline.

While their sound has evolved, the duo’s signature sense of lyrical poetry and gritty storytelling has always remained the same. And while the music industry’s love of experimentation wasn’t as prominent a few years ago as it is today, Jules says their move away from the y’allternative scene all worked in their favor after leaving their label at the time.

“We were able to get creatively weird with it,” she says. “And then it just started progressing into what it was and is now, which is that heavier tone, which has always been an interest of mine. I’ve always been a big metalhead from the time I was pretty young, whereas Jyl comes from more of a dark, girly, pop realm. That’s why you’ll notice a lot of our songs have these heavy breakdowns and these classical moments, but also these poppy choruses that pull in those dark concepts. It made us who we are today, as hokey as that sounds.”

Now, The Pretty Wild possess an undying musical ethos that strives for unconventionality and going against the grain of society. Unafraid to break the rules —or break down genre barriers, for that matter—Jyl and Jules say it’s their ability to look within that sets them apart from the rest of the metal scene.

“You have to have somewhat of a finger on the pulse of what’s going on,” Jules says. “But for the most part, when we come up with concepts or ideas, or we go to cut music, everything else is kind of external, and we don’t really think about it. Being in the studio is a very private spot where it’s obviously soundproofed, and you don’t think about other people. So you just create what you want to create, and then you’re really proud of it. Then of course you want to show it off, but you really make it for yourself, first and foremost.”

Jyl adds, “You can pay attention to the rules, but then ultimately, we always go by how we feel. Learn the rules. But then if you feel like that’s not what you should do, or you need to mix it up, then let that feeling lead you.”

Ultimately, The Pretty Wild embrace just what their name represents—beauty and anger, light and darkness, intention and fearlessness. Through their first full-length musical effort, the sister duo trusts the unknown, and they encourage listeners to do the same.

“You should listen to your instincts, especially as a female, and embrace your emotions. Because that’s your superpower,” Jyl says. “And I think ultimately this album has been a reclamation of all of those things, and not being afraid to express your emotions. You can be beautiful and rageful in the same sentence, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s healthy.”

The final interview that I want to come to is from v13. They spoke with a duo who were “Raised on theatre, classical music, and a shared fascination with performance”. I am quite new to The Pretty Wild, though it has been fascinating researching them and learning more about their incredible debut album. Go and make sure that you follow them. I think that we will be hearing a lot more from The Pretty Wild in years to come:

“Going back to what you said about the creative differences being the source of your arguments, how quickly did you agree on the vision of how The Pretty Wild should sound?

Jules: “It’s always been very fused. There’s never been a time I think we thought this is too heavy or this isn’t heavy enough. It was really organic and agreed upon. I don’t think there was ever a time when we butt heads on that. Organically, Jyl’s more interested in like hyper pop and these pop elements, and I tend to come from more of the metalcore, heavier side of things. It really is this natural organic fusion. We love the juxtaposition of that from like horses to breakdowns.”

Jyl: “We’ve always been in agreement with classical music. Classical music is our home base, so we had to have that in there. That was a given. I love dark pop. I love dark pop melodies. I love dark pop structure. For me, alt dark pop is totally my vibe, and then Julia definitely is rooted in more of that metal scene. Everything just worked.”

In terms of bands or other artists, you share those ethos with, who were your inspirations?

Jyl: “I love Jack White in general. The Civil Wars were always a big influence for us. Sonically, they just really bring you in with minimal instrumentation. They suck you in. Their energy has a special quality to it that can do that. That’s definitely an inspiration. I listen to everything. I listen to a lot of rap to metal to, Julia was saying hyper-pop to EDM.”

Jules: “An obvious mainstream to point to is that Linkin Park aesthetic with nu metal, where they truly fused different genres and were pioneers of that alongside a few other bands crafting that nu-metalcore scene. Like Jyl said, we’re such an amalgamation of so many different bands and artists for different reasons that it’s hard to really just isolate it.”

You’ve described the album as an album of collapse and resurrection. Where did those themes manifest from, and do you see it as a concept album?

Jyl: “Totally. It’s a total concept album. A lot of it comes from a lot of systematic programming, social programming, and undoing. Realising you don’t realise when you’re programmed just how much was making you sick or miserable because that becomes your normal, you don’t realise until you start to realise, that wasn’t healthy, that wasn’t for me, until you get pulled out of it. There’s a part of it when you come out of it that you have this grief for that old version of you, and a lot of the album explores that. Especially your power as a woman, that’s not really something where, in my opinion, there weren’t a lot of role models for what that looks like, keeping your feminine essence intact.”

Jules: “A lot of it comes from this slightly more archaic but timeless space in literature. There are a lot of tragedies that we will touch on in a lot of the songs, or Greek or Roman mythology. Just these cool, timeless things that have been impactful for us. When it comes to actual concept albums, you mentioned Bring Me The Horizon, that’s an incredible album, Next Gen. We’re big fans of that album, and I think that, when people can take you into this world and suck you in and you feel like you’re there for 12, 14, 15 tracks, it’s really admirable. Our record comes from a few different places of inspiration.”

Just to wrap up, then could you talk us through what the album means overall and to you both as individuals?

Jules: “It’s almost like a big bang moment of this genesis of this intangible thing, essentially that is just coming into the ethos, and it’s the compulsive explosion of creativity that is happening. It’s a whole journey from start to finish, and there are a lot of different places that the album takes you. It’s chaotic and messy, but it is the genesis of the band.

The whole album is about reclaiming the parts of you that you were told to cut off yourself from. That’s why it’s so messy and raw and like screamy, but pretty at the same time, because there’s beauty once you do integrate those things again. I think a lot of people see the darkness and they’re scared of it, but for us, we run headfirst into the darkness because then you don’t become afraid of those things anymore. They lose control over you, and I think that it’s that birthing point of life and a new perceptual lens of operating and carrying yourself into the world”.

I am going to end with a review form Kerrang!. They heralded a sister dup from Las Vegas who need to be heard and seen. Even though they spin a lot of sounds and music directions, it all comes together in this cohesive debut album. In a year that has seen some impressive debut albums, zero.point.genesis definitely stands out. I would urge everyone to hear it. It will leave an impression on you, for sure:

“The Pretty Wild have taken a piece of Halloween into a time of year that’s progressively looking like Christmas. The Las Vegas sisters dance the line between icy dystopia and dark fantasy on this debut, spinning their personal agonies into something otherworldly yet with depth. It gives their own brand of shapeshifting heaviness a touch of theatricality, but in no way do they do style over substance either. In fact, when they want, they can sound all the right kinds of monstrous.

The savagery leaps out first. ‘Tear off my skin, rip it off,’ is a suitably brutal line to open with on first track Paradox, whose hulking riffs and growled raps are sweetened by its big chorus. The title-track channels a cold, digital energy with flourishes of violin for an eerie feel, while Living Ded is a stomping floor-filler made for dancing the dread away. Later, the bludgeoning Priestess strips it all back and hits straight for the jugular with the sort of chainsaw riffs that may have you thinking they’ve been studying Spiritbox’s playbook cover-to-cover. (They’re learning well.)

Even then, as strong as these tracks are, the best is still yet to come. The Trial is a majestic centrepiece revolving around the revenge of – as the title suggests – a witch put on trial, cutting between elegant melodies and lacerating screams. It’s followed by h ALF a LIVE, an almost nu-gaze inflected ballad that gracefully launches into a beautiful chorus while still retaining its grit. There’s a lot that they juggle, yet without over-stretching themselves or sounding scattered.

Even for a debut, The Pretty Wild know exactly who they are, delicately weaving their personality through their ideas to level them up into something that sounds fresh rather than contrived. Don’t underestimate these girls – and if you’re at Download next year, you might want to make space in your itinerary for them.

Verdict: 4/5”.

I am going to leave things here. Go and check out The Pretty Wild. It will be an exciting time seeing them come to the U.K. and how they are received. Going forward, I am sure Jyl and Jules Wylde have plans for more new music and stuff is coming together. I am curious as to what form that takes and when we might get examples of what their second studio album has to offer. In the meantime, we should embrace this extraordinary debut album from a dup who…

NEED to be on your radar.

__________

Follow The Pretty Wild

FEATURE: Spotlight: Jae Stephens

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Jae Stephens

__________

A few incredible…

dates in December complete the last touring commitments of the year for Jae Stephens. Unless she has any surprise gigs coming up! Also, before that, she plays The Lower Third here in London on 24th November, if you can grab a ticket! I wanted to shine a light on the amazing Texas-born artist. It is a shame I will miss her in five days! However, I am sure she will be back here in 2026 (in fact, she will be playing a few songs outside of the O2 tomorrow, if you are in the area. I hope she has a big coat with her!). Jae Stephens’ E.P., SELLOUT II, was released in August. That was followed by an album, TOTAL SELLOUT, on 14th November. It is a remarkable chapter from an artist that everyone should know about. Before doing anything else, it is important we get to know a little more about the extraordinary Jae Stephens. I want to start out with a fascinating interview from CLASH from August. They spent time with someone who an artist with a long career ahead. “The Def Jam nu-gen RnB artist” talked about “intention, duality, and Victorian child summers”. It is a compelling and illuminating interview. I want to source a section where we discover how and why writing gave Jae Stephens a sense of purpose:

“Born in Texas, Stephens has only a handful of lucid memories of the state — Schlotzsky’s sandwiches and Pappadeaux seafood among them — before her family moved to California when she was six. In Pasadena, she grew up steeped in an entertainment-adjacent lifestyle, taking dance, voice and acting lessons as if by rite of passage. “I went to a performing arts high school. It was very much giving Glee — leaving school early to go to auditions. It was just what people did,” she says.

But even amid all the lessons and auditions, she eventually paused to ask herself: What am I doing with this? How do I want to spend my time? “I was doing all of these things, and I was good at them, but it lacked intention and purposeful impact.”

Writing gave her that sense of purpose. Long before she was known as an artist, Stephens was writing songs, short stories and screenplays, a discipline that carried her into songwriting success with Latto, Jennifer Lopez, and UMI. But the more she looked at the artists she was writing for, the more she realised the mirror was pointing back at her. “I realised I have all of these skills and all these years of experience… I’m already doing it. So why don’t I just do it ten times harder… and for myself?”

That’s when the ‘SELLOUT’ era began. After signing to a major label, Stephens felt she owed it to herself to put her best foot forward. “I wanted to keep it light-hearted, sexy, cool and fun, while not losing myself either,” she shares. “It was me dipping my toes in and seeing what I could get away with while working with a new team.”

Two more interviews after the next before closing things up. I am keen to highlight a section of an interview from May from RANGE, after Stephens released the intoxicating and beautiful That’s My Baby. The stunning U.S. artist spoke about the future, and her experience of touring with FLO. There are few artists out there who has the same sound as Jae Stephens. It is clear to see that she has the talent and potential to go so far in music. Maybe these are the earliest days. They are far from the best. The next few years will see her ascend to dizzying heights:

“Her brand new single, “That’s My Baby,” the second single from her forthcoming EP, is one of her silkiest yet. Road-tested on crowds night after night before its official drop, the track became less of a premiere than a quiet claiming of space, its intimacy amplified in rooms full of strangers. “Performing it every night has just made me more excited about releasing it.  I’ve always had dreams about people singing my music and I feel like that’s the one that people sing the most, besides ‘Body Favors,’” she confides, continuing that “every other song on the project is pretty poppy, so I wanted to spotlight [“That’s My Baby”] and give it the moment that I think it deserves.” It’s this strategy that makes an artist like Stephens so compelling: “I want to remind everyone that I’m not a one trick pony here,” she starts. “I’m capable of so many sonics and genres, and I want to express that.”

Stephens’ most recent EP, SELLOUT, marked a major breakthrough—both commercially and creatively. The six-track project signaled a departure from the glossy R&B sound that had defined her earlier work, embracing a more expansive pop sensibility. With influences from ’90s pop, a la Mariah, and early-2000s The Neptunes and Timbaland production, SELLOUT propelled Stephens into a realm of cult-like admiration on social media, largely due to the utterly entrancing single, “Body Favors.” “SELLOUT was my major label debut, and it was sort of me like… ‘I kind of want to try something a bit more pop,’” she reveals. “Now I’m like, bitch… I’m doing it. I am the queen of pop,” she teases. Though clearly joking, I can’t help but reply, “Girl, you will be.”

 

This newfound confidence isn’t just playful banter; it reflects a clear shift in Stephens’ artistic trajectory. “The new EP is definitely more confident, more self-assured, sexier, more intentional,” she promises, detailing that “There was a lot less writing to send to other people. It’s truly just my voice throughout, and I think that you’re going to be able to hear that sonically, melodically, and lyrically.” Despite the deliberate distance she keeps between her day-to-day self and the capital-P Popstar version of Jae Stephens, the lines still blur—especially when vulnerability becomes the hook. “I think a lot of it is playing a character, but then it somehow ends up being true. Even if I think I’m being playful and bullshitting, it always ends up coming from a real place.”

Stephens has only scratched the surface of what 2025 has in store—but the foundation is already shifting beneath her feet. “As soon as I get home I have sessions to finish the next project, and then I have to shoot a video, and hopefully we’re gonna do some more shows before the year wraps to celebrate,” she says. I eagerly take this moment to campaign for her return to Vancouver. “You better tell the crowd to be hype tomorrow,” she requests in response. Fast forward, 24 hours later, @jaephens posts a selfie on her Instagram story, with a caption reading: “Vancouver that was the best crowd so far im not even kidding lol.” My job here is done”.

There is more that I want to cover off. Bringing things a bit more up to date. I will move to Yams Magazine. They championed an artist not fitting into boxes and who is redefining Pop and R&B. This future star whose incredible music is among the very best around. I am very keen to see Jae Stephens live, as I can imagine she is a phenomenal performer that has this real and raw connection with the audience:

“Now, with ‘SELLOUT II’, out today, Stephens has doubled down on her own instincts. “I felt really comfortable with that world I was creating, but some of the songs on the first project were written for others. This time, I went in writing all of the songs just for me.” For Stephens, the emphasis was on ease and flow. “If I’m struggling with a line or melody for too long, I know it means we gotta wrap it up and move on. Nothing is overthought. For me, I know when to stop and move on, and I appreciate that about my own music.”

Transitioning from songwriter to fully-fledged artist has meant an entirely different workload. “As a songwriter, your job is over when you leave the studio with a complete song. As an artist, it feels like that’s when you’re just getting started; listening back twenty times, realising it needs this or that, then thinking about visuals, then getting buy-in from the team. It’s exhausting,” she admits with a laugh. “It really is ten times the work I committed myself to”.

“Now, with the late-August release of her second EP in the SELLOUT series, her recently released single “Boyfriend Forever”, and The Sellout Podcast, Stephens has captured more and more listeners’ attention as an artist staking her claim in her identity.

PHOTO CREDIT: Randija Simmons

Even when speaking with Stephens, you can sense the excitement and joy emanating from her energy during the interview. As she put it, “this moment feels like the culmination of a lot of hard work, which I’m really excited about”.

Stephens, who calls herself the “sexy comedic relief”, has her artistry dating back to viral social media days almost 10 years ago on Tumblr as “beyoncebeytwice”. This era, marked by song covers and her extensive love of Beyoncé, catapulted her to over 200,000 followers on the platform.

The name even speaks to her musical influences, as she was “raised by Beyoncé”. Some of her other musical influences, such as Brandy, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey, are evident throughout her music, as seen in her 2019 solo-produced and written EP, F**k It I’ll Do It Myself. The use of layering, harmonies, writing, and arranging all harken back to the late 1990s to early 2000s hits of Darkchild and the Neptunes, with a more modern feel.

Beyond her own work, she has collaborated with artists such as THEY., VanJess, Khamari, and Xavier Omar, and has written for Jennifer Lopez, Normani, and Sinead Harnett. These collaborations only speak to the quality of the material (in the words of Tiffany “New York” Pollard) and the development of Stephens’s sound and musicality.

This sound, along with a further exploration of Stephens’s artistry, can be felt within her SELLOUT EP series. Blending the worlds of early 2000s pop stardom, R&B-infused sounds, and quotable catchy lyrics, SELLOUT from 2024 and the newly released SELLOUT II show her pulling out all the stops in her rising musical journey.

The EP series name emerged as a way for her to anticipate and address online critiques of her evolving sound after signing with Def Jam and Raedio in 2024, as well as to establish a new identity and persona within the music space.

“I wanted to play this part of this big pop star sellout, and I know the best way was to put on a face a little bit and get ahead of the jokes. It really helped me step into that light and build that world. What was acting a bit in the beginning has become really real to me, and I’m very comfortable and I’m very proud of it now.”

SELLOUT II evokes the feeling of being in a club under blue lights, reminiscent of an early 2000s music video. Thrusting pop blaring from the speakers on songs like “Afterbody” and “SMH”, to slow jam material with “Kiss It” and “That’s My Baby”, the EP is reminiscent of albums like Brandy’s Full Moon and Janet Jackson’s All for You with that heavy pop influence mixed with sounds of R&B and dance.

Obviously, the EP struck a chord with listeners, garnering over 3 million Spotify streams, countless viral video replies under tweets on X, and even an “Afterbody” feature on the most recent season of Love Island Games.

Jae’s newest release, “Boyfriend Forever”, extends the Sellout multiverse into a ‘90s new jack swing sound.

When talking about how “Boyfriend Forever” came about, she said, “It started with me and the producer Dallas, that week he was really obsessed with SWV and I was like, yeah, I want something like that that feels almost kind of innocent and carefree and like you’re flying a little bit.”

The song, which soars through from beginning to end like a classic New Edition, Bobby Brown, or aforementioned SWV song, feels like a blast from the past that still aligns itself within the world Stephens continues to create with the Sellout name.

Through all of her releases, her fans, affectionately known as the JaeBaes, fiercely support her on social media. From finding random tweets to quote-tweeting with the “Afterbody” music video, to having inside jokes within the fandom, her online presence, alongside her music, still rings strong to this day.

This connection fuels both her online presence and the avid fan support she garners online. Not only does she demonstrate how her music resonates with her audience, but also how she connects with them herself.

Looking forward, Stephens is currently hosting her Sellout podcast, which serves as a platform for her to speak and connect with other emerging Black talent in the entertainment world, such as MNEK, Alemeda, and Aliyah’s Interlude. Towards the tail-end of this year, she has shows in London, New York, and Los Angeles, as well as a potential SELLOUT II Deluxe on the horizon”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bradley Meinz for NME

NME featured Jae Stephens on The Cover this month ahead of her upcoming appearance in London. This amazing songwriter has written for other artists and collaborated a bit, but she is now stepping firmly out on her own and  “refocusing her lens on herself in pursuit of playful pop that is sweet yet spicy”. If you do not already know Jae Stephens, then do make sure that you go and follow her now. I was not aware that Stephens lived in London and fell for this country:

“London is where I became a woman,” says Stephens, who upped sticks from her balmy Californian home to the grey skies of Blighty straight out of high school, aged 18. “I was obsessed with it by way of One Direction, I’m not gonna lie to you,” says Stephens, whose fandom fixation garnered her a Tumblr-famous following of over 200,000, for whom she would also post cover songs. “From there, it snowballed into wanting to understand a whole other culture [and] music scene. I just think it was really meant to be.”

It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with British dry wit and offbeat fashion, and the chaos of the Tube, while she also met her management and participated in her first-ever songwriting sessions in the city. “It definitely felt like my coming-of-age movie,” the 27-year-old says of the two years she lived in the UK. “Then I started dating a British guy, and I was living my Wattpad dream!”

Even after moving back to LA, Stephens would return to the UK each year to hone her songwriting chops, writing for herself and others including Bryant Barnes, Sharylen, and Khamari. It wasn’t long before she found herself in the studio with superstar songwriter MNEK, whom she’d first heard on BBC Radio 1 during late-night essay-writing stints. Starstruck, it was one of the first times she felt out of her depth as a young artist in the studio.

Despite being an artist who writes with her tongue in her cheek, Stephens is well aware that Black female artists are subject to a different kind of scrutiny than their white peers when it comes to being sexy. It’s part of the reason why she prefers to lean into humour with her own music, without being too crude. “Black women are so overly sexualised from such a young age, I think that there should be a space for us, especially in music, to be seen as sexy or sexual without it being so brash. I was allowed to listen to songs like ‘Rock The Boat’ by Aaliyah as a young girl, but growing up, I was like, ‘What’s this girl singing about?’ I think that makes for better songwriting when you let people guess a little bit.”

Stephens sees the success of “late bloomer” pop artists like Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan, who are finally getting their flowers, and wants to be in the mix. “I want to be, hashtag, main pop girl,” she says. “I really want now to see some Black girls be a part of that conversation, not only in pop, in every genre.” It’s part of the reason she started the Sellout Podcast, which has seen her celebrate Black talent and interview MNEK, Master Peace and Aliyah’s Interlude. “I want us to see that kind of widespread success.”

Now, with ‘Total Sellout’ complete, Stephens is looking to the future where she is more self-actualised, more confident, and more free as an artist. “We’re going to try more balls to the wall, and it’s going to be fun, fresh, free – whatever I want. I don’t have to hide behind anything, and I don’t have to follow anyone else’s rules or guidelines. It’s gonna be major”.

I was going to end there, though I want to drop in Shatter the Standards and some of their review for SELLOUT II. They salute an artist matching personality and polish. An authentic talent released this compelling, complete and cohesive statement:

“It’s not all sugar and no substance. Stephens marries the frothy pop moments with genuine technical skill and musical sophistication. She’s a self-professed “control freak” in the studio who often spends more time on intricate vocal arrangements and layering than on writing the initial lyrics, and it shows. Throughout the EP, her vocals are stacked in lush harmonies, call-and-response ad-libs, and cleverly arranged background parts that add depth beneath the glossy surface. Nowhere is her technical prowess more evident than on “SMH,” the EP’s energetic centerpiece. On this track, a slinky R&B banger that finds Stephens flexing over a knocking beat, she makes an audacious choice: in the bridge, she executes multiple unexpected key changes in rapid succession—effectively a series of hidden modulations that take the listener by surprise. The effect is thrilling and elevates the song’s final act; as Stephens herself put it, she “wanted the bridge to give a bit of musicality…turn it on its head. I was like, ‘What if we change keys like three times?’ Yes.”

Sellout II moves like a compact character study in two acts, front-half flirt and motion, back-half boundary-setting and self-possession, held together by Jae Stephens’s ear for clean hooks, stacked harmonies, and quick, classy lifts in the bridges. “Afterbody” is pure club confidence—“Body after body… I’m the one he want out of everybody”—but notice how she refuses the arms-race flex and centers presence over spectacle, the chorus tightening each time like a camera zoom. The back stretch does the framing work, starting with “Choosy” that turns pickiness into policy (“Don’t get emotional… I’m too pick-and-choosy, they’re losers”) over a beat that moves briskly enough to dodge self-righteousness, and it’s where her songwriter discipline shows in the ruthless edit of each line and the no-waste pre-chorus. “10/10” closes as self-appraisal and runway strut—“Tyra, top model chick, attitude, ten out of ten… Don’t gotta talk, I walk that shit”—with a gliding hook that sells the boast because the vocal stacks keep softening its edges.

Even as an EP, Sellout II succeeds in showcasing the duality at the core of Stephens’ artistry. On one hand, these songs are immaculately produced, hook-heavy, and pop-star ready—the kind of tracks that sparkle under club lights or in a summer playlist. On the other hand, there’s an intimacy and realness beneath the sheen, rooted in her perspective as a young woman navigating love and self-worth on her own terms. Rather than feeling at odds, those two sides enhance each other. The meticulous polish makes the personal moments hit even harder, and her personal stamp prevents the shiny pop from ever feeling anonymous. After repeated listens, we now have a much clearer picture of who Jae Stephens is. A bold, bilingual (musically speaking) artist fluent in both the language of mainstream pop fun and the dialect of soulful R&B honesty. If Sellout II is any indication, she’s effectively bridged the gap between depth and dance-floor, inviting us to enjoy ourselves and get to know her at the same time”.

I will leave it here. Some artists shine for a bit and fade, and others never really get the attention they deserve. When it comes to Jae Stephens, she is going to be a massive success! Her music, incredible talent and personality, together with her passion and intelligence, will ensure she is a modern legend. There really is…

NOTHING that will stop that!

____________

Follow Jae Stephens

FEATURE: On the Other Side from You: Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Eight

FEATURE:

 

 

On the Other Side from You

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

 

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Eight

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THERE is a lot of excitement…

and anticipation around the release of Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film, Wuthering Heights. Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, it is going to be interesting to see what she does with Emily Brontë’s sole novel. Kate Bush released her incredible debut single, Wuthering Heights, on 20th January, 1978. There are parallels between Emily Brontë and Kate Bush. They were born on 30th July. Bush in 1985; Brontë in 1818. Kate Bush’s full first name is Catherine. Catherine Earnshaw is the heroine of Wuthering Heights. In Wuthering Heights, Bush sings in the chorus: “Heathcliff, it’s me–Cathy/Come home. I’m so cold!”. Almost this autobiographical edge. A teenage Kate Bush imagining herself to be the Cathy of the song. I am going to write more deeply about Bush’s debut single before trying to manifest this viral moment. Let’s get to some background regarding the song (courtesy of the Kate Bush Encyclopedia), in addition to some words from Kate Bush about one of the most important debut singles ever:

“The song was recorded with Andrew Powell producing. According to him, the vocal performance was done in one take, “a complete perfomance” with no overdubs. “There was no compiling,” engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning.” The guitar solo that fades away with the track in the outro was recorded by Edinburgh musician Ian Bairnson, a session guitarist.

Originally, record company EMI’s Bob Mercer had chosen another track, James And The Cold Gun as the lead single, but Kate Bush was determined that ‘Wuthering Heights’ would be her first release.  She won out eventually in a surprising show of determination for a young musician against a major record company, and this would not be the only time she took a stand against them to control her career.

The release date for the single was initially scheduled to be 4 November 1977. However, Bush was unhappy with the picture being used for the single’s cover and insisted it be replaced. Some copies of the single had already been sent out to radio stations, but EMI relented and put back the single’s launch until the New Year. Ultimately, this proved to be a wise choice, as the earlier release would have had to compete with Wings’ latest release, ‘Mull of Kintyre’, which became the biggest-selling single in UK history up to this point in December 1977.

‘Wuthering Heights’ was finally released on 20 January 1978, was immediately playlisted by Capital Radio and entered their chart at no. 39 on 27 January. It crept into the national Top 50 in week ending 11 February at No.42. The following week it rose to No.27 and Bush made her first appearance on Top of the Pops (“It was like watching myself die”, recalls Bush), The song was finally added to Radio One’s playlist the following week and became one of the most played records on radio. When the song reached number 1, it was the first UK number 1 written and performed by a female artist”.

“When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so strong. This young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff. Great subject matter for a song.

I loved writing it. It was a real challenge to precis the whole mood of a book into such a short piece of prose. Also when I was a child I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate to her as a character. It’s so important to put yourself in the role of the person in a song. There’s no half measures. When I sing that song I am Cathy.

(Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh I sound so intense. Wuthering Heights is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me it was the only one. I had to fight off a few other people’s opinions but in the end they agreed with me. I was amazed at the response though, truly overwhelmed.

Kate’s Fairy Tale, Record Mirror (UK), FeBRUARY 1978

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn’t link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it. I was really pleased, because it was the first song I had written for a while, as I’d been busy rehearsing with the KT Band.

I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn’t relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.

It’s funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she didn’t know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct. A similar thing happened with ‘Wuthering Heights’: I put lines in the song that I found in the book when I read it later.

I’ve never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it’s supposed to be.

One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from the song, though I’ve heard that the Bronte Society think it’s a disgrace. A lot of people have read the book because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about it for me. I didn’t know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song helped them. I’m really happy about that.

There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song. When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song. Also, when I was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him. When I came back I had this urge to switch on the TV – it was about one in the morning – because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on. I tuned in to a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, playing channel roulette, until I found it. I came in at the moment Cathy was dying, so that’s all I saw of the film. It was an amazing coincidence.

Kate Bush Club Newsletter, January 1979”.

I started out by mentioning the Emerald Fennell film, as I did think that Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights would be included. I do think that the film will draw attention to Bush’s 1978 single. It is from her 1978 album, The Kick Inside. Perhaps more importantly, new people will read Emily Brontë’s novel. It is a masterpiece. There are a couple of mysteries around Wuthering Heights that intrigue me. One relates to the exact source of inspiration. I have seen some say Bush was watching a 1970 film with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff. I think that it was actually a 1967 T.V. adaptation with Ian McShane as Heathcliff. The late great Angela Scoular as Catherine Earnshaw. I am not sure whether Kate Bush would remember if it was the 1970 or 1967 adaptation that she saw, though I do think it was the 1967 series. The final ten or fifteen minutes, where we get this very powerful moment of the ghostly Cathy reaching through the window and trying to grab Heathcliff. I think she actually lunges for Joseph. Another mystery surround the versions of the video. Two were shot and released. One where Bush is in a white dress in a studio. The second is her in a red dress where she dances on Salisbury Plain. Many did not know when the red dress version was shot. Debate as to which was shot first and what was released first. I am going to get to an article from Kate Bush News. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia provide some timeline clarification:

“In the first verison, directed by Keef, Kate can be seen performing the song in a dark room filled with white mist while wearing a white dress. According to Kate: “the video we made for ‘Wuthering Heights’ was probably amongst the first ever made, certainly here in this country in terms of a video, and I was very influenced at that time still by Lindsay Kemp. So it was very much the dance influence that I was expressing. So it was really working out choreography that would just look interesting, that would kind of create a persona of Cathy. “ (VH-1 interview, January 1990)

The second version, directed by Nicholas Abson, sees Kate dancing on Salisbury Plain while wearing a red dress. It was filmed before the projected November 1977 release date”.

For decades, nobody quite knew when the red dress version was filmed. The most famous version, it is immortalised by the annual The Most Wuthering Heights Day, where people congregate dressed like Bush in that video and dance to Wuthering Heights en masse. The date the red dress version was filmed was 26th October, 1977. In 2018, cameraman Mike Miles recalled shooting the video and provided some fascinating recollections:

“Kate Bush … ‘Wuthering Heights Promo’ … Salisbury Plain… Wednesday 26th October 1977

From around 1976 to 1982 I worked as a freelance Lighting Cameraman, for Nick Abson’s company, ‘Rockflicks’, making pop promo and concert films with Nick . All the productions we made were shot on 16mm film. (no ‘videos’ in those days). From 3rd October to 5th November 1977, I was working with Nick on the first Stiff Records UK tour .. ‘The Live Stiffs Tour’… featuring Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric and Larry Wallis. We were making a Feature length ‘fly on the wall’ film of the tour… ’If It Ain’t Stiff ..It Ain’t Worth a F…’ We travelled around the UK with the band on their coach, driven of course, by Trevor. I won’t elaborate on the antics that we all got up to during the tour, some of which are in the film. Other than to say, that it was the film crew who were thrown out of the infamous Watford Gap ‘Blue Boar’ motorway service station on the M1, for bad behaviour.

During the tour’s progress to the West and Wales we had a free day. To fill the gap, Nick had arranged to shoot a promo while we were travelling to the next Stiff gig. The promo was for an unknown singer called Kate Bush. The track was called ‘Wuthering Heights’. I remember hearing the track for the first time and thinking Kate was a bit squeaky! Because we had to shoot on the way West (the next gig may have been Cardiff, but not sure), Nick had found a grass field with a stand of trees in the middle of Salisbury Plain, which was convenient for continuing our journey after we had finished.

The night before, we stayed in a hotel in Salisbury, where we met Kate Bush and all had dinner together. I also discovered she grew up in Welling, Kent, which was only about 2 miles from where I grew up. It was probably quite daunting for young Kate, her first promo and in a strange hotel surrounded by an admiring bunch of blokes. She sensibly went to bed early and declined our request for her to join us for a drink in the bar.

Early the next morning we met up with a Grips who had driven down from London in an old white van, carrying an Elemack Spyder Dolly and a whole load of curved track. Once we found the location we had to get the van into the field. It was Autumn and had been raining. The entrance was very muddy, the van was very heavy. After a number of attempts to drive into the field, the van became completely stuck in the mud. We couldn’t unload it and carry the dolly to the location, it was too far and weighed half a ton. The only solution was to find a local farmer with a tractor and get the van towed out of the mud and down to the location. About 2 or 3 hours later, we had found a friendly farmer with a tractor. It was a dull grey morning and the field, although covered in grass, appeared as though it had once been ploughed. It was very uneven and also on a slope. We set up the track in a large semi-circle, checked that it was level, which was quite a feat and placed the dolly and camera in position. The sound play-back equipment, for the recording Kate would mime to, was all set up and tested. We were sort of ready to go.

I couldn’t really do much to enhance the look of the film. I did use a soft, light, diffusion filter, but had to be careful because of possible flaring from the sky. I couldn’t put graduated filters on the lens to control the sky, which was dull, but brighter than everything else, because of the trees and the fairly continuous tracking and camera framing. I didn’t have a light powerful enough to light Kate’s face from a distance and there was no sun to reflect light into her eyes. I did manage to use a hand held reflector for some of the close-ups. We also had a small smoke machine. Unfortunately it was quite windy, so the smoke blew quickly past Kate’s face. While we were assembling all the equipment, Kate had come over to me and said that she had been told that the Cameraman was the person to ask about how she looked! She had lovely long hair and had an artificial flower pinned into it. She asked me if I thought it was a good idea and if it looked all right. At the time it looked pretty good, she also seemed to want to keep it in if she could. I said it looked lovely and should keep it in her hair. Nick couldn’t wait any longer and we went straight into the filming with little rehearsal. We were already running out of time because of the delayed start. We had to get to the Stiff gig later that afternoon.

Once we started filming, Kate soon got into her dance routine and had obviously been working on it for some time. We covered the whole number as many times as possible, tracking back and forth, with occasional stops, filming different frame sizes from very wide to extreme close-up. Kate’s dance moves became pretty energetic. The flower in her hair slowly worked loose and started to flop around a bit. Her hair sometimes became caught up in it. By now it was too late to stop, remove it and start everything all over again. We just didn’t have time. I was feeling bad about my advice regarding the flower. Kate was also becoming tired after all the dancing on a ploughed grassy field. It was getting cold. After numerous takes we had to stop and pack up. Considering the early morning start, the long hold up with the van getting stuck, the difficult terrain for dancing and the dull, cold weather; Kate couldn’t have been more helpful, patient and friendly to everyone. I had got used to her voice and decided I liked it. However I wasn’t so sure if it would be a hit, or if she would become popular. Shows how much I knew. The crew accompanied Kate to Salisbury station and just as she was about to board the train back to London, she gave me a lovely hug and a kiss on the cheek. We were all in love with her by now. We then set off for the rest of the Stiff tour.

Mike Miles Director of Photography”.

I want to move to an article from Literary Hub that I have sourced before. In terms of the impact of Wuthering Heights as an educational tool. The song and video from Kate Bush. How it is a modern and more accessible way into this track. I am not sure, given the more adult nature of her version, whether Emerald Fennell’s film will be shown to students. However, the power of the Wuthering Heights videos and Bush’s interpretation of the novel is spellbinding:

“But as Bush borrowed from the dialogue, she made a crucial transposition in the point of view. When she sings, “You had a temper, like my jealousy / too hot too greedy,” the my refers to Cathy and the you to Heathcliff, the novel’s brooding protagonist/antagonist/antihero/villain (depending on your point of view). But the novel itself never inhabits Cathy’s consciousness: she is seen and heard, her rages and threats vividly reported, but everything we know about her comes from either Nelly Dean, a longtime housekeeper for the Earnshaw and Linton families, or through Lockwood, a hapless visitor to the Yorkshire moorlands and the principle first-person narrator of the novel (most of the novel consists of Nelly’s quoted speech to Lockwood, who is eager to hear the complete history of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and its neighboring property, Thrushcross Grange). Although the novel spans decades and multiple generations of Earnshaws and Lintons, Kate Bush’s shift into Cathy’s point of view centers the song entirely on Cathy and Heathcliff—which is fittingly how Cathy, in the novel, views the world. She and Heathcliff share one soul, she claims; everyone else, including her husband Edgar, is little more than scenery.

With this choice, Bush gives voice to a female character who—though an electric presence in the novel—is denied the agency of self-narrating, or even of being narrated through a close third person. Nelly may be presented to us by Lockwood as a simple, transparently objective narrator, but the novel is littered with moments where Nelly complicates the lives of those around her by revealing or concealing what she knows. Bush’s musical interpretation of the novel makes visible the questions that surround point of view: who does the telling? What is their agenda? Who can we really trust?”.

Maybe there will be some new features written about Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights given the new film that is coming out. Bush wrote this classic song during a full moon on 5th March, 1977 when she was living at 44 Wickham Road, Brockley. I believe she had a few complaints from neighbours given the noise! I will move to my idea about a viral moment. Before that, earlier in the year, BBC revealed the surprising (in their words) story behind Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights:

“Wuthering Heights, with its lush, sweeping orchestration, its literary sensibilities, and Bush's soaring theatrical delivery, did not strike her record company as an obvious radio hit. EMI instead wanted the rockier sounding James and the Cold Gun, a favourite from her KT Bush Band's pub set, to be the first single from the album. But Bush was adamant that Wuthering Heights should be her debut – and EMI eventually relented.

To accompany its release, two music videos were filmed. One was studio-based and the other was shot outside, with Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, standing in for the novel's windswept Yorkshire moors. For the shoots, Bush used the interpretive dance instruction she had received to mesmerising effect. Both videos feature her gazing intensely at the camera, clad in floaty dresses while performing dramatic and emotive dance movements to express the spectral essence of Cathy. Her dance routine was so distinctive that it became something of a cultural touchstone, inspiring both comedic homages and an annual event called The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, at which Bush devotees recreate her performance from the videos.

The single would prove to be her breakthrough. Within three weeks of being released, it had reached number one, getting a boost from Bush's arresting mime-style performance on the BBC's music chart show, Top of the Pops. It knocked Abba's Take a Chance on Me off the UK singles chart's top spot, and stayed there for a month. It also topped the charts in Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Australia. Her album, The Kick Inside, when it was released the following month, sold more than one million copies. She would go on to collect an Ivor Novello award in 1979 for The Man with The Child in His Eyes, released as her second single from the album.

WATCH: 'I use all kind of props like the makeup, the clothes and especially the piano. That's a really big prop'.

Wuthering Heights marked the start of Bush's innovative, critically acclaimed and shape-shifting musical career. She has now released a total of 10 studio albums, melding diverse influences, complex musical storytelling and new technologies, such as sampling, to spawn hit singles like Hounds of Love and Babooshka. She has also collaborated with artists including Prince and Elton John. Her duet with Peter Gabriel, Don't Give Up, would pick up another Ivor Novello award in 1987”.

I will do a series of features to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Wuthering Heights in 2028. New angles and some deeper diving. However, I wanted to revisit the track as it turns forty-eight on 20th January. One thing I always assumed is that Bush watched the 1967 BBC T.V. adaptation in 1977 and then wrote the song very soon after. Maybe watching it in 1967, reading the novel, and then being inspired years later to write a song. I would love to know whether that was the case. Did Kate Bush watch that adaptation aged nine and then recall it a decade later? As Stranger Things are about to feature again Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), it will bring another wave (smaller this time) of attention to that the track. In terms of viral moments and songs that create this huge reaction, Wuthering Heights is long overdue. It might see streaming numbers bump given the Wuthering Heights film. However, it made me think how we need this place for Kate Bush’s 1978 debut single on the screen. I might have pitched it before. I do think that one of the most loved and popular aspects of Wuthering Heights is its choreography. The dance moves by Kate Bush. Reproduced by a horde of fans each year, it would be amazing to see this song and its dance feature. If Stranger Things’ use of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was epic and was used in this quite stirring and huge scene(s), that is not to say Wuthering Heights would need to be more low-key. I like the idea of a meet-cute where two people across a room/café/bar hear Wuthering Heights play and either mouth the words or they perform the moves (sat down). There could be some form of chaos or disruption in front of them, yet this song by Kate Bush plays. Something that cuts through the tension and noise. Or it plays after a tense or awful moment. I do think that this song has more life in it! More to give. Not that Kate Bush’s songs need viral moments or featured in films. However, I feel Wuthering Heights does deserve a bigger life. Used in a modern film. So that people realise its power and importance. It is great the song gets played on the radio, yet it would be incredible hearing this song on the big screen. Maybe it would be another time Kate Bush could enjoy this chart resurgence. Not only is this single, released on 20th January, 1978, one of Kate Bush’s best singles. It is one of the greatest songs…

IN music history.

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Scene Four: The Bathroom: Psycho (1960)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

 

Scene Four: The Bathroom: Psycho (1960)

__________

BECAUSE one of the…

IN THIS PHOTO: Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh in Psycho – leading up to the infamous shower scene, which had a profound effect on audiences (in 1960) and cinema/PHOTO CREDIT: Alamy

most influential films in cinema history turned sixty-five earlier in the year, I wanted to spend some time with its classic score. In the first three features in this series, I have looked at soundtracks. Films that took us back to 2013, 1997 and 1977. Now, I am jumping back to 1960 and one of the most distinct and terrifying scores in film history. Psycho is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films and most notable works. However, you feel that it would not be viewed in quite as high regard were it not for the score by Bernard Herrmann. The incredible German composer used only a string orchestra because of budget reasons and wanted to create a black-and-white sound to match the film’s aesthetic. I don’t think that we dissect film scores enough. I am bringing in a few articles about the Psycho score, so that we can get a deeper impression of how it came together and why it has the legacy it does. Film Independent put Psycho under the microscope for their Anatomy of Great Film Score series:

“Last week in our Know the Score “Anatomy of a Great Film Score” series, we went to outer space to explore Max Steiner’s iconic music for 1933’s King Kong. In this special Halloween-themed bonus installment, we’re coming back down to earth (and checking into a suspiciously dilapidated family-run motel off the highway) to take a closer listen to one of the most iconic horror scores of all time: that for the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic, Psycho.

The score for Psycho is a study in economy. Underfunded, Hitchcock was thinking in terms of working with less—even shooting the project with the production team from his Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series, rather than a “proper” studio film crew.

The audience, too, is forced to work with less. When we watch the black-and-white film, instead of seeing grisly red blood swirling down Marion Crane’s shower drain, we infer its color from the dark stain in the water. And when we listen to the film score, we hear a pared-down sound with just a string orchestra used as the palette for composition.

Hitchcock thought that the score might use jazz and be-bop as a starting place. Which likely would’ve been more to the studio’s liking, as scoring styles in the 1950s and early ‘60s were indeed moving in that direction. But composer Bernard Hermann—one of Hitchcock’s most steadfast collaborators-rejected this approach. He wanted to use traditional orchestral sounds, which he did so masterfully that his Psycho score later came to define the sound of slasher films for a generation.

The use of just strings is a study in restraint, one that perfectly piques the audience’s sense of suspense. The orchestra’s sound is further reduced by the use of the sordino—or “mutes”—on the strings. This sound of muted strings holds back the emotion that a string orchestra would normally have without mutes.

The quieter sound matches the tension on screen, starting with the prelude over opening credits and continuing through the love tryst scene that opens the film. Here, Hermann used the tension of the muted strings to amplify a sense of fear in the music. The effect is that of a strained voice that wants to scream, but which is held back, frustrated and restrained.

Hitchcock and Hermann had a long working relationship that, by the end of the ‘50s, had become a real partnership based on trust. Hitchcock therefore trusted Hermann enough to cede his initial jazz-focused ideas and listen instead to the music Hermann was creating according to his own creative impulses—the orchestral string score.

The most well known scene from Psycho is its infamous shower scene. The scene stands out in cinema history for a few reasons. The first: this is where our leading lady (Janet Leigh) meets her premature demise. The timing of a leading lady’s death one-third of the way through the film was very unorthodox—both then and now—and makes the shock of the violence even stronger. Also, the scene is partially shot from the vantage point of the killer, forcing the viewer experience the action through the murderer’s eyes.

Hitchcock initially wanted the shower scene to play with no music at all. In another example of trust between collaborators, when Hitchcock finally heard the music Hermann had composed for the sequence, he immediately changed his mind.

This decision made way for one of the most iconic uses of score in cinema history, with Hermann’s strings imitating high-pitched shrieks to match the emotions of the victim being stabbed onscreen—a classic sound so often quoted and echoed in the slasher films that followed. This is the only place in the film where the strings play without mutes, their full power released in a shocking marriage of image and sound.

But in the first part of the scene, as Leigh’s Marion Crane begins to relax in the shower, there is in fact no music. With Marion facing the wall, we see behind her someone enter the bathroom—but still, silence. The tension is already high. Then, the music and the action both ramp up and accelerate beyond expectations, as the knife cuts through the shower curtain and the slicing chords high up on the violins rip into our ears.

Norman Bates’ (Anthony Perkins) voyeurism—at first watching his victim through a peephole in the wall, and later behind her in the bathroom through the shower curtain—is made all the more frightening when the curtain is torn down by the dying hands of our victim as she slumps to the tile floor. The staccato strings in the low register beat out a slowing rhythm. The victim’s heart is slowing down, but we’re also slowly realizing that the film has taken a dreadful turn.

The brutal murder of the leading lady in the first third is a surprising turn that leaves the audience feeling hopelessness. Psycho is a film that owes more than the usual debt to its musical score, more than most other films. And appropriately, although Psycho had a smaller budget than the usual Hitchcock production, Hermann was actually paid twice his usual fee.

As Hitchcock himself said it best: “Thirty-three percent of the effect of Psycho was due to the music”—and probably more, if you ask Bernard Hermann”

Before getting to another featured, I would say to people to read reviews like this of the incredible Psycho score, as you get insight into the different pieces. There are articles like this that theorise that some of the score was not originally written for Psycho. Pieces that were composed years before 1960. I am going to move to NPR and their feature about Bernard Herrmann’s incredible score:

"In the mid '50s, he started working with Alfred Hitchcock on films like "The Trouble With Harry," "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "Vertigo," "North By Northwest," and all of those films came before "Psycho." So by 1960, when "Psycho" was released, the partnership between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann was very, very close. Hitchcock is famous for having planned every detail of his movies to the smallest one, but it was interesting to discover that he actually left the area of music very, very open to Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock knew that he had someone who thought very closely along the same lines as he did, who understood not only what a movie was about, but about the subtext of the film."

"Hitchcock was doing something different. He was doing what was, for him, a low-budget film. And everything in the budget got cut back, including apparently the music budget. So Herrmann was working with a little less. He got his fee, but he didn't quite have the resources that he usually had. And 'Psycho,' of course, is a black-and-white movie. And Benny later said that he wanted to complement the black-and-white photography with a black-and-white score. Well, just as there's tremendous range in black-and-white movies in the photography of them, Herrmann found tremendous range within this limited group of instruments, the string section. He made the strings extremely dry. He put mutes; he loved to have mutes on his strings."

"So it creates a very different sound from what we think of as the usual Hollywood romantic film score that used violins. It's the exact opposite. It's cold, it's chilly, and he uses the strings also for percussive effects, since we don't have the traditional things like timpani and all the sort of devices that film composers use to scare or startle people. He created percussive effects in the strings."

"Psycho" was a black-and-white film made at a time when Hitchcock typically worked in color and when moviegoers typically expected color. As film critic Leonard Maltin says, `This was a film that defied all sorts of expectations.'

"There had never been a film, certainly not from a Hollywood filmmaker or a Hollywood studio, like "Psycho." It was exponentially a hundred times more shocking than it is today. Imagine the unthinkable, killing off a major star in the first portion of the film. No one had ever done that; few have done it since. It's outlandish, it's outrageous. It's, of course, brilliant. So to be sitting in that theater in 1960 and hear the sudden shriek of violins as Anthony Perkins pulls that shower curtain and to witness what happens from that point on, I think people must have been thinking, `Am I really seeing what I'm seeing here? Is Janet Leigh dead? Janet Leigh can't be dead, she's the star of the movie.' It was devastating."

The murder of Marion, Janet Leigh's character, is the most famous and terrifying moment in "Psycho," some would say in all of Hitchcock's films, if not in all cinema. Remarkably, Hitchcock at first didn't want the scene to have music at all.

"He thought that it would be most effective if the audience simply heard Janet Leigh's screams, her struggling, the sounds of the knife and then the water running," Steven Smith says. "+His collaboration with Herrmann was so close, however, that Benny knew, `Well, I have a different idea,' and he wanted to try writing music for that. And he knew that if Hitchcock didn't like it, they didn't have to use it. But Benny went ahead and wrote what has become, I think, the most famous hue in the history of film music for the shower scene. And I think one of the proudest moments of his career as a film composer was when Hitchcock later told him that he, Hitchcock, was disappointed with the way the shower scene was playing; that it did need music. And Benny later said that he told Hitchcock, `Well, I did compose something. Would you like to hear it?' And he played it for Hitchcock, and Hitch said, `Well, absolutely, we'll use that.' And Benny, rubbing it in, said, `But you said no music,' to which Hitchcock replied, `Improper suggestion, my boy. Improper suggestion.'"

"It's interesting to watch that sequence without the music, because it's still a very disturbing sequence, but you're watching it as an outsider. You're watching a terrible thing happen, but you're watching it from the viewpoint of someone outside of it. With Herrmann's cue, you are Janet Leigh. You are feeling the absolute terror and panic and loss of control that she is feeling in trying to fend off this sudden attacker. And that was the thing that Herrmann did again and again, especially in Hitchcock's films, was that he forced the viewer to feel what the characters on screen were feeling. He considered film music, in his phrase, the `communicating link' between the filmmaker and the viewer."

Unlike many composers, Bernard Herrmann got to see Hitchcock's film and write to it scene by scene, which isn't to say that every piece of Herrmann's score came to him as he watched Hitchcock's otherwise finished product. Professor Royal Brown says some pieces in "Psycho" were written by Herrmann more than 25 years earlier.

"I interviewed Herrmann very shortly before he died and insisted to me that he always depended upon the film to be inspired for the music. And yet there's a major cue called "The Swamp" in "Psycho" that is taken out of a 1933 symphonetta for strings that Herrmann wrote. And there are several other points in the "Psycho" score that also come from this. So my impression is that Herrmann was exploring very deep, dark, gloomy areas a long time before he met Hitchcock”.

The final feature I am bringing in is from the BBC from last year. Marking sixty-five years of a classic film and score, they wrote about how the terrifying music through Psycho changed film forever. It no doubt had a huge bearing on Horror scores that followed. Still influencing composers to this day. There are few films that are as suspenseful and tense as Psycho. Its lack of gore and genuine terror is what makes it so disturbing and harrowing:

“Screaming violas that sound like they're coming out of an abattoir. Thumping bass notes, which slowly decrease in speed and seem to imitate a victim's faltering heartbeat. Take away composer Bernard Herrmann's score for director Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which turns 65 this month, and it's fair to say this 1960 horror film wouldn't have the same nerve-shredding impact.

Particularly key is the knives-edge music that plays when blonde bombshell Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), not long after checking in to the Bates Motel, is attacked through a shower curtain by a shadowy killer, who later turns out to be the motel's owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), dressed up as his dead mother. "That music is everything," says Rachel Zeffira, a film composer and one half of art-folk duo Cat's Eyes. "It's the birds, it's the bees, and it's the voices in the back of your head."

The project had seemed ill-starred from the start, with executives at Paramount (who had produced Hitchcock's previous five films) showing little interest, not allowing him to film it on their lot, and only distributing it rather than producing it themselves. But despite a paltry budget, Hitchcock proved everybody wrong, and for that he could partly thank Herrmann and his knack for crafting compositions that lifted scenes to new heights.

"Psycho was certainly not a bad film before it was scored, but it lacked tension," explains Steven C Smith, the author of a new book, Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema. Herrmann proceeded to give the film a much-needed jolt by writing music for an all-string 50-person orchestra that marked a "return to pure ice water", as the composer described it to Sight and Sound.

Before writing film music, Herrmann would always read the novel a movie was based on and study the literature, so his score was more empathetic. Every note Herrmann played had meaning – Rachel Zeffira

In the case of the most famous scene, this resulted in a chorus of psychologically jarring, high-pitched squeals that meant terrified audiences no longer saw the shower as a safe space. "Before the shower scene many of the musical cues have a depressive quality and they're not really that loud," Smith says. "But suddenly with the shower scene, the mutes are off the strings, and they screech animalistically. This creates a clever link with Norman Bates, the taxidermist of birds."

Herrmann forced an initially dismissive Hitchcock to watch the shower sequence both with and without his jump-scare music. "Oh yes, we must use it!" Hitchcock concurred. "But I thought you didn't want my music here?" Herrmann sarcastically replied, before the director scoffed: "My boy, improper suggestion."

It's an anecdote that reflects the pair's fiery partnership. Their creative union consistently resulted in film scores that make the viewer feel like they are caught up in a character's murky inner dialogue, privy to both their most romantic dreams and most hopeless nightmares (see Vertigo). Zeffira describes the music that plays whenever Norman Bates is on screen as being "dejected and anxious", which she says "makes you feel sorrow for a killer. I know before writing film music, Herrmann would always read the novel a movie was based on and study the literature, so his score was more empathetic. Every note Herrmann played had meaning".

The origins of Herrmann's genius

An avid childhood reader, Herrmann (or Benny as he was called by friends) spent most of his downtime passionately debating whether literature or music was the greatest art form. Music ultimately won out, and Herrmann was winning classical competitions by the age of 13. Having studied at New York University under the legendary composer Percy Grainger, one of Herrmann's first professional roles as a studio musician was for CBS Radio.

At CBS he worked with Orson Welles, winning his trust with 1938's radio adaptation of War of the Worlds, which was so realistic that some listeners believed it signalled a real unfolding alien invasion. He then became the obvious choice for scoring Welles' 1941 masterpiece, Citizen Kane. Working on hundreds of radio plays taught Herrmann how to create compositions that conjured up imagery, and also taught him the power of long pauses: he used silence as another instrument to build suspense.

Professionally, Herrmann was known for having a fiery temper and, as his daughter Dorothy told the New York Times, he "didn't suffer fools gladly". Yet Smith is keen to stress that the musician was less moody than his reputation suggests, and tended to go out of his way to recommended younger composers for jobs. "He was misunderstood," Smith says. "Given his reputation for irascibility, I think people would be surprised at how gentle Bernard could be, especially with animals. He was suspicious of arrogant humans, but he gave unconditional love to his cats."

The film's central theme would also go on to be sampled by dozens of other artists. Perhaps the most exhilarating example is rapper Busta Rhymes' 1998 single Gimme Some More. According to the hip hop producer and contemporary classical composer Michael Vincent Waller, Herrmann's Psycho score is beloved by rap artists. "Herrmann knew how to loop these little nihilistic fragments and become this master of repetition. In many ways, the way he was conducting film music was a lot like how rap producers chop up beats."

Waller says that Psycho didn't just change horror, but wider cinematic storytelling: "The Psycho music is a reference whenever you want to build tension and it's clear John Williams was inspired by Psycho for his stalker-ish bass notes for Jaws. Whenever you hear creepy violins in a horror movie, or feel like a film score has become its own character, then that can all be traced back to Psycho."

The creative relationship between Hitchcock and Herrmann ended on 1966's Torn Curtain. The former was incensed that the latter stubbornly refused his orders to make a stripped back pop score, insisting instead on using 12 flutes, 16 horns, nine trombones, two tubas, eight cellos, eight basses and two sets of timpani. Herrmann was fired, but it didn't derail his career, and right until his death from a heart attack in 1975 the composer remained an innovative force”.

I am not sure which score or soundtrack I will look at for the fifth part of this series. Perhaps something from a 1970s or 1980s film. A romantic comedy film or something else. I am not sure. I was eager to focus on Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho, as it is the first score I have talked about and, when we think of the all-time great scores, Psycho springs to mind. Amazing what Bernard Herrmann created with a string orchestra and not a full one. Maybe working with that restriction makes the Psycho score…

SO effective.

FEATURE: The Best Albums of 2025: Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party

FEATURE:

 

 

The Best Albums of 2025

 

Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party

__________

I love everything…

PHOTO CREDIT: Zachary Gray

about Hayley Williams. A phenomenal songwriter and band lead of Paramore, she is someone who is a role model. Williams first uploaded seventeen of Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party’s songs to her website on 28th July, and later released them as standalone tracks onto streaming services on 1st August. Williams self-released the album on 28th August on Post Atlantic, an independent imprint. A couple of additional songs were added to Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party on 24th October and 7th November. In terms of reviews and acclaim, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is up there with the best of the year. An astounding album that has won so many five-star reviews, I will get to some of those reviews to end. There weren’t a tonne of interviews about Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. You would think there would be something extensive from The Guardian or Rolling Stone. However, there are one or two online examples. Hayley Williams spoke with THE FACE in September about her third solo studio album. A top ten album in the U.K., it was not an especially massive success in her native U.S. However, in terms of taking a step forward, I think her latest album is even better than 2021’s FLOWERS for VASES / descansos:

“Twenty years into her career, Hayley Williams is finally an independent artist. When she was scouted by Atlantic Records at the age of 14, Williams was offered the dream of being a solo star. She pushed back, telling the label she’d rather make music with the scrappy emo band she’d started with her friends from school. As we all know, sticking to her guns was a good call.

Paramore went on to define the noughties pop-punk scene and beyond. Their emotionally raw anthems have inspired everyone from PinkPantheress and Olivia Rodrigo to SZA and Lil Uzi Vert, and over the past five years, the group has become bigger than ever (they’re currently in the Top 20 most streamed rock bands of all time on Spotify). But because of the 360 deal Williams signed when she was 15, Atlantic Records got a percentage from every Paramore record, T‑shirt and ticket sold.

“If it wasn’t for being young, ignorant and hard-headed, maybe we would have felt exactly how oppressive a contract like that could be,” Williams says of the band’s early years, sitting cross-legged on a park bench in London’s Primrose Hill. Hers was the first ever 360 contract (in most cases, record labels just profit from record sales and streaming) and the practice has been heavily criticised for taking the power from young artists ever since.

Paramore finished their obligations to Atlantic with the release of 2023’s fiery alt-rock spectacular, This Is Why. ​“I just thought it’d be like a birthday party. Oh, we’re finally done. Freedom. But we don’t really talk that much about the grief that can come with good things,” says Williams. ​“It was a giant change that also left me asking ​‘what am I going to push against now?’”

That sadness lit a fuse, and Williams poured misery, rage, frustration and loneliness into her snarling new solo record Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, which was properly released last week. EDAABP is, according to Williams, a puke bucket of all her influences and everything she needed to say. Glistening pop, new wave, emo and punk all feature, as does tender folk and sweeping electronic music. ​“It’s a lot of chaos,” she grins. ​“If I don’t get the poison out, it’s never going to come out.” Stand-out tracks include Mirtazapine, a scuzzy punk love-letter to anti-depressants, while the twinkling emo of True Believer sees Hayley deconstructing faith and the alt-pop swagger of Ice In My OJ has her calling out the ​“dumb motherfuckers” who she made rich.

Hayley Williams has done solo records before, but not with this much freedom. A handful of crossover collaborations in the 2010s were deliberately billed as Hayley Williams from Paramore, while 2020’s solo album Petals For Armor and its 2021 follow-up Flowers For Vases were both full of experimental, delicate electronic music that could never be billed as Paramore. ​“At the time that felt so liberating and so freeing, but I listen back now and can see how I was being a little restrained.”

This is a hangover from spending most of her career trying to convince people that Paramore are a band, and not a glorified solo project. ​“I was really sensitive to it because it hurt my friends’ feelings,” she says, having also experienced the brunt of pop-punk misogyny, being one of the few women in the scene that had a prominent platform. Thanks to a lot of therapy, ​“those voices just feel so quiet and far away now. It’s nice to be able to laugh at the meatheads on the internet who unfortunately did a lot of damage back in the day,” she grins. You can buy a T‑shirt that says ​‘Hayley Williams Is My Favourite Band’ from her online store, which is just one of the ways she’s reclaiming her own legacy with this solo era.

“In a lot of ways, writing this record gave the 15-year-old version of myself, who felt like she had lost a lot of her power by signing to a major label, a voice. It freed her, so I don’t have to be arrested in that stage of development anymore”.

There are a few reasons why I want to include a lot of this interview from The New York Times. The conversation is really interesting, and Hayley Williams is always such an incredible interviewee. I also love the photos taken by Meghan Marin. Such extraordinary shots that add these captivating and wonderfully rich visuals to the chat! I would urge people to read the entire interview. I am not able to include all the photos here:

“COSCARELLI Is that why it took you so long to make a solo album, that resistance to being singled out? And what changed in 2019, 2020 that allowed you to make that leap?

WILLIAMS I was a huge fan of what Zac was doing with his first solo project, HalfNoise. He had gone away for like seven years from the band and really found himself. I believe he found himself in his 20s in a way that Taylor and I still haven’t.

COSCARELLI Because you didn’t get off the ride.

WILLIAMS Arrested development is a thing. I just thought, “He’s doing it and it’s not a big deal.” It’s feeding the band, if anything. My divorce had been finalized and I really got to process it, and a lot of that stuff needed to come out.

I’m also a fan of bands like Talking Heads or Radiohead — all the members have their own projects. I was just interested in that life, because I still don’t really know how this all shakes out. We’re just gonna keep getting older and I want to be an artist until I die. That’s going to look a thousand ways. So this was kind of the first way that I got to try it out. And those first two albums, now when I look back at it, I’m like, “Man, I still was so cautious.”

CARAMANICA I wonder what the open reception to those albums felt like, especially after being so firmly insistent in the earliest years: “It’s not me, it’s us.”

WILLIAMS I don’t typically like to do the thing that people expect or want me to do. I think that’s probably not always a great thing about me. So I did feel a bit defeatist about finally giving into this thing that I had been resisting, like, my whole life. It was really scary. I think the one thing that sort of got me through that was the fact that we had been around for so long at that point. There was some level of understanding of the context of where I come from.

This project, and the way that people are talking to me about it, I get to feel like a whole person. I don’t have to have this caveat, like, “Well, I’m in this band.” I trust that people know that.

PHOTO CREDIT: Meghan Marin

CARAMANICA It seems like the artist you want to be is one that can reference the Bloodhound Gang (“Discovery Channel”) and then two songs later have a song about the South’s legacy of racial tensions (“True Believer”).

WILLIAMS While I was deconstructing my faith and my religious upbringing from around age 19, I really didn’t realize how much of Paramore for me was a religious experience, a God pillar in my life. Paramore is the backdrop to every conversation. So songs like “Discovery Channel” are really me kind of like roaming the halls of whatever that structure is and just trying to take it apart more.

“True Believer” — I’m never not ready to scream at the top of my lungs about racial issues. I don’t know why that became the thing that gets me the most angry. I think because it’s so intersectional that it overlaps with everything from climate change to L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ issues.

I reference this neighborhood in Franklin, really close to where I grew up called Hard Bargain that this formerly enslaved man bought from his former enslaver. It’s still there, predominantly Black families, and it’s protected now. But of course, Franklin and Nashville are being gentrified all the time.

The reason I was writing about Nashville a lot is that we came home from tour and I thought, “Well, I’m gonna go to L.A. — get me outta here. Trump just got elected again and I don’t wanna be in a red state.”

COSCARELLI There’s a line on the title track, “Ego Death,” where you say, “I’ll be the biggest star / in this racist country singer’s bar.” Do you want to name names?

WILLIAMS I’m always talking about Morgan Wallen. I don’t care.

COSCARELLI I think that relates directly to Paramore and your fan base. There’s been a lot written over the years about its diversity, and Paramore’s Black fans in particular.

WILLIAMS I feel that, too, now more than I did growing up. It definitely shifted around the self-titled record. We started saying yes to a lot more. We were playing “The Voice.” I think a lot more people got introduced to our band during that time — people that maybe weren’t welcome in the scene that we grew up in.

PHOTO CREDIT: Meghan Marin

Songs like “Ain’t It Fun,” when Taylor and I were writing that, we were playing these synth parts and going, “It’s like Stevie Wonder, you know?” I’ll never forget watching “Stop Making Sense” while we were recording “After Laughter” and the camera panning across the crowd, seeing how diverse it was. I just got really teary. And obviously there’s some of the best Black musicians onstage with them and they’re all working together. It just felt like this celebration of humanity. And I was like, “That’s what I want to feel like.”

CARAMANICA Is the scale of the music on the new solo record designed explicitly to avoid the chance of a big hit like Paramore’s “Still Into You” happening?

WILLIAMS This is my chance to emulate the music and the artists that made me want to do this in the first place, none of which were big artists. It’s one of my favorite bands of all time, but I don’t really listen to Paramore — I just love what Paramore is about. I think if a song blew up, who’s gonna complain about that? Writers want that moment more than anything.

CARAMANICA You don’t feel like it would pull you in a direction you don’t want to go right now?

WILLIAMS No, because I’m not impressed by it.

CARAMANICA You’ve been there, you’ve been in those rooms. You’ve gone onstage with Taylor Swift opening on the Eras Tour.

WILLIAMS Yeah, and honestly, I loved that. We got asked to be on the biggest tour in music history. I’m never gonna see photos of myself dressed as Freddie Mercury at Wembley and not be psyched that we did that.

That was like the honor of our [expletive] life and career, but there’s nothing like a Paramore show. All day long, I’d rather be at a Paramore show with the people that have grown up with us. It feels like family.

I’m so honored to get to do it and I’m also very relieved to get to try something new and flex different muscles. You gotta deconstruct this system that you were a part of on multiple levels, gotta tear down Paramore the same way I had to tear down my evangelical upbringing. I have to do it for me to grow up because I don’t wanna be stuck in a traumatized 18-year-old’s headspace for the rest of my life.

I’m 36, it’s not cute anymore, you know?”.

Two reviews of Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party to include before wrapping up. An album that tackles depression, ego, loss and reputation, it could have been a heavy or one-dimensional release. However, as you will see in this review from Kerrang!, that is not the case. In fact, it is a fearless and year-defining release from one of the greatest artists and songwriters of modern times. This enormously varied and explorative album.

“It’s been a perplexing summer so far for Hayley Williams fans, feeling like a whiplash of violent yellow aesthetics and sorrow-driven songs. The first glimpse of this new era came in July, arriving like sprawled out puzzle pieces on a ’00s-inspired website, which would ultimately become the Paramore vocalist's third full-length, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party. Building the jigsaw, though, was a task awarded to us, and while the vision is near complete, she's already teasing there are two more songs to come.

It’s hard to think what else could be missing from this body of work; the most beastly out of all of Hayley's solo records, EDAABP is somewhat of an enigma given she has remained relatively tight-lipped on the inspirations behind it, and the lack of order disrupting any straight narrative to begin with. The first chunk of the album nails her tactic of making high-impact, fizzing tracks that sound so incredibly alive, as an undercurrent of depression runs beneath if you listen closely enough – while the chorus of Glum ascends heavenly, Hayley quizzes, ‘Do you ever feel so alone / That you could implode / And no one would know?’

In this way, this album harks back to Paramore’s After Laughter. There’s a climbing synth motif on Love Me Different that feels familiar with this in mind, and many tracks feature the recurring theme of water – a metaphor Hayley uses to describe love and her views on relationships that she’s ran with across all of her solo records, but notably on After Laughter’s Pool.

While she excavates even deeper into herself on this release, Hayley also casts her net far and wide lyrically: True Believer, an examination of religious hypocrisy and racism, is bold, brilliant, and quietly scathing. Accompanied by dystopian, spaced-out piano, Hayley draws on how these themes play out across America: ‘They pose in Christmas cards with guns as big as all their children / They say that Jesus is the way / But then they gave him a white face.’

Marking her first release outside of Atlantic Records, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party is the most vast summation of Hayley’s story so far. A musical purge of trauma patterns, depression, love, loss, and of course, ego, the wit and honesty of Hayley’s lyricism is the shining star of this work. It’s an unboundless exploration of a life lived under the scrutiny of misogyny and in the public eye from one of our time’s most creative and fearless artists.

Verdict: 5/5”.

I am aware Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party has different versions, so the reviews might not be talking about the same sequence of songs. However, it is clear that every critic who has heard Hayley Williams’s third studio album has been blown away by its ambition and consistency. Such a sprawling or long album could have contained filler. Everything on Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is a flawless masterpiece. This is what AllMusic write in their review:

“Hayley Williams is sad and dealing with it on her third solo album, 2025's intimately rendered Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. The follow-up to 2020's Petals for Armor and 2021's Flowers for vases/descansos, it also arrives two years after This Is Why, her Grammy-winning sixth album with pop/rock outfit Paramore. In contrast to that album's angular post-punk dissonance and cutting political invective, Ego Death finds Williams in a ruminative mood, coming to terms with her depression, romantic desires, and sometimes difficult relationships with her Paramore bandmates. Produced with Canon Blue songwriter/instrumentalist Daniel James, the album showcases a modicum of sonic exploration, whether it be the fuzzy '90s shoegaze of "Mirtazapine," the childlike vocal processing in the Beck-like "Glum," or the gauzy, Karen Carpenter-esque multi-tracked harmonies of "Dream Girl in Shibuya." Yet these are relaxed, organic productions where the experimentation never gets in the way of the pure emotions at the core of each song. There is a diaristic quality to Ego Death and one could easily assume Williams is writing about specific people in her life. Are Paramore siblings drummer Zac Farro and former guitarist Josh Farro the subjects of "Brotherly Hate?" Probably. Is the bass-heavy "Hard" about the fall-out from her divorce with New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert? Most likely, yes.

Often, there's overlap, as in "Ice in My OJ," where Williams embraces a rapper's swagger, singing "I got ice in my OJ, I'm a cold hard b****/A lot of dumb mutherf***ers that I made rich." That she also repeatedly screams "I'm in a band" on the chorus speaks to the raw, end-of-a-rope emotionality of the album. Yet the answer to whether a rumored romantic relationship with Paramore guitarist Taylor York is at the center of much of Ego Death remains enticingly elusive. Is he the titular subject of "Disappearing Man" with his "wild hair and stare that could melt stone"? Or is he the lover Williams thought was always going to catch her and now has to "watch me fall" in "Parachute?" Regardless, Ego Death certainly feels like a break-up album, both literally in terms of a relationship ending and as a metaphor for Williams' own personal and creative rebirth. On "True Believer" she reckons with her conservative Christian Southern roots, especially as a California-honed rock singer who continues to live in Nashville. There are also hints that even the best relationships can have problems, as in "Love Me Different," where a buoyant synth groove evoking Paramore's "Hard Times" belies romantic troubles. She underscores this sense of emotional bottoming out on the title track, singing "Can only go up from here." Musically, all of this hangs together with the relatable warmth and engaging lyricism that mark the best of Williams' work with and without Paramore. With Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, Williams has crafted an album about letting go and finding a way to move forward honestly, and perhaps most importantly on her own terms”.

I am going to finish up now. Once again, I think the absolute best albums of the year have been made by women. That is not to discount male artists, though you can look at exceptional albums from Lily Allen (West End Girl), ROSALÍA (LUX) and Hayley Williams and they are on this different level. Albums that you listen to and are instantly stunned and moved by. You come back to them and they stay with you. I admire Hayley Williams greatly and am not surprised she has recorded one of the best albums of the year. I am not sure if there will be more music from Paramore but, to be honest, I would rather hear solo stuff. She is on this rarefied level and I feel her next studio album will be as astonishing and acclaimed as Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. This is a truly special album that…

DEMANDS to be heard.

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Scene Three: You Should Be Dancing: Saturday Night Fever (1977)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

 

Scene Three: You Should Be Dancing: Saturday Night Fever (1977)

__________

I think I will…

move onto the score for Psycho for the next instalment of this feature. However, today, I am exploring one of the greatest film soundtracks ever. Saturday Night Fever was released in 1977 and is considered one of the all-time best films. I think that its soundtrack is more memorable and discussed as the film itself. I am going to start out with this feature, that tells the story of how the Bee Gees wrote the songs for the soundtrack in a week.

“Popular music in the '70s had many dividing lines, but none was bigger than disco.

Bee Gees played an undeniable role in this shift, notably with their involvement with the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. Starring John Travolta as Tony Manero, the film was a critical and commercial success, grossing more than $20 million within the first few weeks of its release on Dec. 16, 1977.

Saturday Night Fever may not have invented disco, but it brought it to the forefront of pop culture in a way that was "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant," as the Library of Congress noted in 2010 when the movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Bee Gees would became unshakably tied to the project, even though they never intended to be at the helm of the disco movement or even involved in the film.

In fact, their music had been more rooted in traditional pop, rock, country and R&B than dance-floor music. It hadn't always been easy. Bee Gees had split up and reconvened by the time Saturday Night Fever producer Robert Stigwood approached them, reaching both the top and the bottom of the charts. They were currently back on top thanks to hit songs like "Jive Talkin'" and "You Should Be Dancing."

There was something particularly compelling about Bee Gees to Stigwood, who had been managing the group since 1967. "I loved their composing,” Stigwood told Rolling Stone in 1977. "I also loved their harmony singing. It was unique, the sound they made. I suppose it was a sound only brothers could make."

Stigwood offered little detail about the new project when he called. "We were recording our new album in the north of France," Robin Gibb would later recall, "and we'd written about and recorded about four or five songs for the new album when Stigwood rang from L.A. and said, 'We're putting together this little film, low budget, called Tribal Rites of a Saturday Night. Would you have any songs on hand?' And we said, 'Look, we can't, we haven't any time to sit down and write for a film.' We didn't know what it was about."

"Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" was the title of a 1976 New York magazine story about the disco scene written by British journalist Nik Cohn. The article turned out to be mostly fictional but served as source material for Saturday Night Fever. Meanwhile, the production of the film had already started.

"The Bee Gees weren't even involved in the movie in the beginning," Travolta told Vanity Fair in 2007. "I was dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs." He was also grooving to Bee Gees' aptly titled "You Should Be Dancing," a 1976 No. 1 that Travolta insisted be kept in the movie even though it was not written for it. The Gibb brothers were unaware of any of that. They only knew that Stigwood was looking for songs and that he had faith in the group.

Even though they knew very little about the movie's plot, Bee Gees started working on music for it anyway, writing a handful of songs to show Stigwood. When Stigwood and film-music producer Bill Oakes came by the Chateau d'Herouville in France where the group was working, the film's script was still unseen. "They hadn’t even looked at it," Oakes told Billboard in 2022.

"What Robert did tell them in broad terms is it's about a guy who works in a paint store and blows all his wages on a Saturday night, and he goes to a club and they do the hustle," Oakes added. "Robert's mission was [to] get the Bee Gees to write a disco track that you cannot stop dancing to, with a great melody – and that's how they came up with 'Night Fever,' for instance. These are great melodies that happened to be in the disco mold. That was the breakthrough. It was interesting: they just simply dropped the live album they were mixing and went straight into it."

The songs began to roll in one after another, and Stigwood's initial feedback was simple: "We played him demo tracks of 'If I Can't Have You,' 'Night Fever' and 'More Than a Woman,'" Maurice Gibb told Rolling Stone in 1978. "He asked if we could write it more disco-y." They took that advice to heart when writing the platinum-selling "Stayin' Alive."

Barry Gibb said Stigwood gave them straight-forward instructions for the track: "Give me eight minutes – eight minutes, three moods. I want frenzy at the beginning. Then I want some passion, and then I want some w-i-i-i-ld frenzy!" The song was written in just two hours”.

Whilst we talk about the Bee Gees’ songs on Saturday Night Fever, it is worth remembering that these soundtrack features composed pieces by David Shire, together with songs by popular artists such as Kool & The Gang. On its forty-fifth anniversary in 2022, Albumism explored this iconic film soundtrack. It is an extensive feature, so I am only including a small part of it:

“The balance of the soundtrack album is comprised of original score pieces commissioned by American composer David Shire, in addition to an arsenal of mostly familiar tracks like The Trammps' "Disco Inferno" and Kool and the Gang's "Open Sesame" that were chart hits within the past two years. The artists probably benefited from the additional exposure in the film and on the soundtrack, but it's likely they didn't reap the rewards of the album's explosive sales. "In the annals of history, it could be one of the most profitable records ever created," Galuten insists.  "Because it's a double album, and I don't know how much Robert paid David Shire in royalties, because a lot of the songs like 'Night On Disco Mountain' are just sort of orchestra stuff to fill out the album. I mean, you know, he did a good job and they're all fine and lovely, but they're not pop songs. And songs like KC and the Sunshine Band's 'Boogie Shoes'—it was all in the plan to have a few hits and to have a lot of stuff that was inexpensive. I believe I heard that [Stigwood] has licensed those songs, like the Ralph MacDonald track ['Calypso Breakdown']...for pennies.

I think the only things he was paying full royalties on were the major artists. I don't even know what the deals were like for Tavares or Yvonne Elliman. They didn't have huge hits at the time, so they probably had really low licensing fees. The person that made out like a bandit with that record, besides the Bee Gees because writers' royalties are fixed and they're not negotiable, was Robert and RSO Records."

When asked when he believes he realized that the songs he helped to create for Saturday Night Fever had become much more than just a stack of hit records, Galuten insists he had a hunch from the beginning that they were special. "These songs were so good, and we were all so focused. Because there was nothing else going on in France—we didn't know anybody there, it was out in the middle of the country. We'd get up in the morning and go to the studio and hang out all day long. There was nothing else to do. We knew that these were amazing. There was just the sense that, like, 'oh my God. These are absolute smashes.'

When you hear a phrase like 'Night Fever' and you go 'no-one has ever said the phrase 'Night Fever' before,' or associating the image of 'Stayin' Alive' with the streets of New York and daily life and...it's not about the Vietnam War, you go 'oh my God.' Barry had this knack for—you could call it hyperbole—but this brilliant sort of mapping of these extreme adjectives onto things that might otherwise be mundane. And it gives you perspective to see them as being important."

While the Bee Gees' music was ubiquitous throughout most of 1978, they made few public appearances and scheduled no live dates in support of Saturday Night Fever. In March 1978, right in at the pinnacle of their chart-breaking halcyon, they retreated back into the studio to begin work on what would eventually be the Spirits Having Flown album. When asked if the team was at all nervous to record a commercially successful follow-up to their Fever contributions, Galuten insists they weren't. "I think we were protected by the hubris of youth. When we were working on songs, we weren't wondering 'I wonder if this is a hit?' We would take bets on how many weeks at number one it would get. So to answer your question about us being nervous going back into the studio: no. We were on fire."

Public favor of Saturday Night Fever's music and, by association, the Bee Gees' popularity, has waxed and waned at different points over the years. Although perhaps no rejection of either was as caustic as the "Disco Demolition Night" baseball promotion at Comiskey Park in Chicago in July 1979, during which local radio station WLUP-FM offered 98 cent tickets to a Chicago White Sox-Detroit Tigers double-header in exchange for fans bringing their disco records to the stadium to be destroyed in an on-field explosion. It was nothing short of riotous, leaving many to speculate if the lambaste was really about the music or the cultural and social identities from which the music was appropriated. The Gibbs themselves, frustrated by the backlash they'd residually receive throughout the 1980s, have also dismissed their involvement with Fever at different points. When asked about "Stayin' Alive" by Rolling Stone in 1988, they quipped "we'd like to dress it up in a white suit and set it on fire."

But yet, great music is perennial (and yes, I consider the Bee Gees' contributions to the soundtrack to be indisputably great) and nostalgia seems to be working more for the music of Saturday Night Fever these days than against. Galuten believes the soundtrack and the film still have something profound to offer forty-five years later. "[It's] about how people...the music that influences them is what they listened to in high school and college. And when you're 30, 40, 50, 60, the music from your teenage years has an impact on you viscerally and emotionally that no later music ever has. If you talk to anybody and ask them what their favorite music is, across ages, the similarity itself is not the music. It's the age they were when the music was popular. So all the people that were growing up at this time—this was very important to them.

The thing that makes music really touch lots of people is when it gives some sort of a voice to people who have not had a voice. The Beatles gave a voice to adolescents, and obviously Motown and Stax gave a voice to people who did not have a voice, just like hip-hop did. And so I always wonder 'who did Saturday Night Fever give voice to?' And then I realize it was working-class Americans who had no output and nobody representing them. And here was something saying 'even though my day-to-day life may be mundane, I can go out on Saturday night and I can resonate. This speaks to me’”.

A soundtrack that was top of the charts for twenty-four weeks in 1978, Saturday Night Fever was this sensation! American Songwriter shone a light on some of the wonderful and timeless songs from the 1977 soundtrack. Of course, the Bee Gees’ contributions are the most discussed and most important. I think that Saturday Night Fever might be the best soundtrack ever:

“More Than a Woman” by Tavares, written by Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, and Robin Gibb

Oh, girl, I’ve known you very well
I’ve seen you growing every day
I never really looked before
But now you take my breath away
Suddenly, you’re in my life
Part of everything I do
You got me working day and night
Just tryin’ to keep a hold on you

The Gibb brothers wrote and recorded “More Than a Woman,” but the single released was by Tavares. Both versions appeared on the soundtrack album. Tavares had a successful career before they were involved in Saturday Night Fever. The Tavares version of the song was also included on their album Future Bound, released in April 1978.

“Stayin’ Alive” by Bee Gees, written by Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, and Robin Gibb

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive

Drummer Dennis Bryon had to leave the studio during recording due to the death of his mother. The Gibb brothers had trouble finding a suitable replacement, so they turned to a drum machine. They were unhappy with the results, so producer Albhy Galuten looped a couple of bars from the already recorded “Night Fever.” This resulted in the inside joke with the drummer being credited as Bernard Lupe. After the “song”Stayin’ Alive”‘s success, Lupe became a sought-after drummer until it was discovered he was fictitious.

“If I Can’t Have You” by Yvonne Elliman, written by Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, and Robin Gibb

I can’t write one song that’s not about you
Can’t drink without thinkin’ about you
Is it too late to tell you that
Everything means nothing if I can’t have you

The original plan was to have ballad singer Yvonne Elliman perform “How Deep Is Your Love” for the movie, but Stigwood stepped in and switched the song, giving the disco song to her instead. The song would go to No. 1, knocking “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees out of the top spot”.

Before ending with a feature that is about the legacy and popularity of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, I want to highlight a feature from Pitchfork published in 2020. They argue why the film is much more than its soundtrack. This dark B-side of Disco, it is a gritty, controversial and often tragic film. Something we do not really associate or get from the soundtrack. If one thinks that Disco was all glamour and inclusiveness, Saturday Night Fever projects this more homogeneous and violent (often homophonic and toxic) side:

"But the movie doesn’t coast on the strength of the soundtrack alone. There’s something harrowingly poignant about the story that’s impossible to shake off, as opposed to a more vapid disco film like 1978’s Thank God It’s Friday, starring Donna Summer (for which “Last Dance” was written but deeply underused). In 1994, Cohn admitted that his famed New York piece was largely fiction—there was no disco pupil named Vincent, the basis for Travolta’s Tony. Even with the fabrication, Norman Wexler’s adapted screenplay speaks a lot of truth about disenfranchised Brooklyn youth in the ’70s.

Bottom of Form

Under the groovy undercurrent served by spectacular needle drops, the sinister nature of Saturday Night Fever can be felt early on. When Tony and his friends first arrive at 2001 Odyssey, their homophobic, racist, and misogynistic attitudes are revealed through slur-laden chatter. Even though the club scenes are the film’s most intoxicating, they also reveal the grotesquely white and heterosexual appropriation of dance culture.

The feeling that first drove disco—the sense of escapism provided by the club—remains intact, however. On the floor, Tony is no longer a poor paint-store employee, he is an Adonis. Women are happy to merely wipe sweat off his forehead, which you can almost understand given Travolta’s palpable boyish charisma. Many of the characters in this Bay Ridge crowd, especially Tony, show a desire to graduate to a better life, to eventually cross over to Manhattan and become the ideal New Yorker. Tony finds inspiration in pop-culture warriors like Bruce Lee, Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, and Al Pacino in Serpico, whose photos hang on his bedroom wall alongside a crucifix. But he is simultaneously fettered by the expectations of his very Catholic, working-class family; he feels some pressure lifted when his goody-goody brother Frank leaves the priesthood.

The last few minutes of Saturday Night Fever are the most traumatic. Though Tony often shows a stronger conscience than his jerk friends, he is no less a participant in toxic masculinity. He seems to have a breakthrough toward the end when he realizes his victory at the big dance contest is served by white privilege. But the events immediately following turn even darker, as Tony attempts the reprehensible with Stephanie and allows the despicable to happen to another woman, Annette. Very generously, Saturday Night Fever lets Tony off the hook in its epilogue, thus facilitating an inevitable sequel, 1983’s Stallone-directed Staying Alive. Hope glimmers like a disco ball catching the light, the ending seems to say: 19-year-old Tony has his whole life ahead of him, he can still turn it around—on and off the dancefloor”.

The former President of RSO Records, Bill Oakes, spoke with Billboard ahead of the forty-fifth anniversary of Saturday Night Fever – 15th November, 2022 – and discussed its staggering success and enduring popularity. I have chopped a couple of sections from it, though I think that it gives extra insight and layers to this stunning soundtrack. I must have heard songs from it as a child. I think that it is vital to watch the film first. So you get more context into the song. Seeing how they translate to the screen and fit into this wider picture. However, as a standalone album, there is no denying the genius of Saturday Night Fever:

“Other numbers, such as Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven,” MFSB’s “K-Jee,” Ralph MacDonald’s “Calypso Breakdown” and the Trammps’ “Disco Inferno,” had been released prior to Fever but enjoyed renewed popularity when they were included on the soundtrack. They were augmented with instrumental scores composed by David Shire such as “Manhattan Skyline” and “Night on Disco Mountain.” However, not every artist that Oakes sought for the soundtrack came on board — including Boz Scaggs, whose 1976 hit “Lowdown” was initially used in the film’s dance rehearsal scene involving the characters Tony and Stephanie (played by Karen Lynn Gorney).

“I just thought Irving Azoff, who managed Boz Scaggs, would let me have the track,” Oakes remembers. “Why wouldn’t he? Of course, his response to me after we shot the scene was: ‘Bill, I don’t want my artist in your little disco movie,’ which was a phrase that I was assailed with throughout the production. In those days, music artists didn’t really want to be in movies. Now it’s completely different. Artists actually upfront tout their songs to get into a movie because they know how good it is for their sales.”

As he was wrapping up work on the album, Oakes saw something one day that told him the disco trend was on its last legs. “I was finishing up after listening to the tracks for a straight 14 hours for any defects at the mastering lab. And then I put the masters in my car, which would become the album. I was stuck behind a truck [whose bumper sticker said] ‘Death to disco,’ and it dawned on me. I told Robert, ‘We might have missed this one.’ We didn’t coin the word ‘disco’ — disco was around. What [the soundtrack] did was just when disco seemed to be dying, it gave it a new lease on life. We certainly didn’t create disco–we created a real global, across-the-board demand for it. That’s what Fever did.”

Oakes admits that he is surprised by the soundtrack’s longevity decades after the fly-away collars and bell bottoms became passé. “It’s easy to see how it resonates with people who were young at the time. When you go to a party or a wedding anywhere in the world, they’ll still play ‘More Than a Woman,’ ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Stayin’ Alive.’

“’Stayin’ Alive’ is probably one of the most-played songs ever—I get that. What is interesting to me is how is it that young people today are finding it. I think because it is a classic combination of melody and dance. The Bee Gees combined the tune with the dance record. There is something haunting about their hook lines and choruses, which is unique. That’s really down to their music, it’s down to their combining melody with dance and rhythm. I think that’s the combination that still hasn’t been surpassed”.

I will move to a film score for the next part of this series. Psycho will be under the spotlight. I am a big Disco fan so, alongside the Bee Gees classics, we get these amazing composed pieces (score) and heavyweights like Yvonne Elliman and Kool & The Gang all coming together. A masterpiece film soundtrack, I hope this feature has given you an idea of why it is so seminal and influential. We will be playing and discussing this sensational soundtrack…

FOR decades to come.

FEATURE: Always Judge a Record By Its… The Importance of the GRAMMYS’ Inaugural Best Album Cover Category

FEATURE:

 

 

Always Judge a Record By Its…

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover of Perfume Genius’s 2025 album, Glory

 

The Importance of the GRAMMYS’ Inaugural Best Album Cover Category

__________

EVEN though the…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jorge Fakhouri Filho/Pexels

GRAMMYs has more than enough categories already, I did wonder why the album cover was not represented until now. The nominations are out for next year’s ceremony, are out. Category 78 concerns Best Album Cover. Even though there are only five albums included in the category – one would think they’d be more -, it is good that we finally get to shine a light on the art of albums. Below are the nominees:

“CHROMAKOPIA
Shaun Llewellyn & Luis “Panch” Perez, art directors (Tyler, The Creator)

The Crux
William Wesley II, art director (Djo)

Debí Tirar Más Fotos
Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, art director (Bad Bunny)

Glory
Cody Critcheloe & Andrew J.S., art directors (Perfume Genius)

moisturizer
Hester Chambers, Ellis Durand, Henry Holmes, Matt de Jong, Jamie-James Medina, Joshua Mobaraki & Rhian Teasdale, art directors (Wet Leg)”.

I am going to expand a bit soon and get to a feature that takes us inside the covers. It is surprising it is such a narrow category. Maybe it is indicative of a lack of genuinely great album covers. However, there have been some good ones this year. I think the cover for Lily Allen’s West End Girl is the best. I do think that artists still undervalue a cover. It is the first thing people see when they buy your album, and yet there are still so many lacklustre examples. I have talked about album art and how it is crucial. I don’t think it is a case of it being expensive to make a genuinely striking and standout cover. Even so, there are few that genuinely stand out. Even though I would replace one or two examples the GRAMMYs have selected and add others, I will highlight the cover I think should win. Though I will highlight an article that gives details about all five covers, there is one that stands out for me.

I do think that this award and new category should give impetus for artists to really consider the importance of the album cover. Even though it is not to do with the sound of an album and not as key, it is still an essential part of any album. Its visual identity and cover. It can tell a listener so much about an album and, as physical music is so in demand, it is as important now more than ever that the cover genuinely stands out. Let’s take a look at all the nominated album covers. Starting out with two very different ones:

“Cover art has always been an integral, visual part of experiencing an album. From photoshoots and creative direction to choices of typeface and color, album artwork adds an additional sensory experience to coincide with the music. And now, for the first time in its 68-year history, album covers are also part of the GRAMMYs.

The Crux, the third album by Joe Keery under his musical alias Djo, is bound by a tangible sense of place. Namely, the hotel of its title, which is filled with guests facing various crossroads of one kind or another in their lives.

Shot on the famed Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles, the album's cover — which was overseen by art director William Wesley II — brings the fictional Crux Hotel to life, as it teems with guests appearing in the windows of their rooms and passersby rushing to and fro below the building's old-fashioned neon sign. As a small airplane hauls a banner declaring, "I'M SORRY CINDY AND I LOVE YOU" across the top of the frame, Djo himself hangs precipitously from one of the hotel's second-story windows, clad in a white, '70s-style suit.

In a January appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," Keery revealed some of the inspiration behind the lively, Easter egg-packed cover art. "I've done stuff that's kind of minimalistic before and I just wanted a maximal cover … A theme of the record is 'one of many,' so just having a lot going on and a lot to look at," he said before pointing out the miniscule mouse dressed as the bellman that was included in the shoot "just for me."

Bad Bunny's 2025 album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, is notable for being the lone cover in this year's pack of nominated albums devoid of any human subject. Instead, the three-time GRAMMY winner — who art directed the cover himself — chose an image of two plastic Monobloc chairs in front of a banana tree to represent the love letter to his native Puerto Rico.

The cover of DtMF, which translates in English to I Should Have Taken More Photos, beautifully captures the essence and natural beauty of Bad Bunny's homeland, where he spent the better part of the summer and early fall performing his sold-out residency at San Juan's José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum.

The image is also punctuated by a palpable sense of longing created by the empty chairs in the foreground, which many fans speculated were a veiled reference to the rapper's past relationship to girlfriend Gabriela Berlingeri, with whom he split in 2022. While Bad Bunny has never publicly confirmed any connection between the cover art and his personal life, the back cover of the album includes a heartfelt dedication to his culture and community in his own words: "This project is dedicated to all Puerto Ricans around the world".

Whilst that first album cover is quite busy and there is a lot to draw the eye, the second is barer and sparse. Both are eye-catching and memorable for different reasons. The Crux reminds me of album covers of old, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, where you would get these collage-like compositions. A lot happening in the frame. The Crux look like a film unfolding. A packed scene where the viewer is looking at an action scene come to life. There are so many things to consider when you have such a layered or full cover. Making sure every person and object stands out and has a place. It can be easy to make it too overloaded or distracting. However, William Wesley II has got the balance just right. You look at the cover and assume it is in America somewhere, but not quite sure where. There is more mystery when it comes to Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Two cheap, white plastic chairs in a clearing somewhere. Maybe chairs that were occupied by two lovers who sat there for peace. That possible personal importance for Bad Bunny and Puerto Rica. It is a mix of the exotic with the mundane or even cheap. Although it is not my favourite of the nominated covers, I can understand why it has been selected. Like a busy and bustling album cover, it is very hard to make sure something emptier or less fulsome stands out. Different dynamics. It is less about multiple focuses and a cast of characters. You have a very defined and concentrated centre. Getting the colour palette right. The white chairs against the browns, greens and yellows.

Before getting to the album cover I think will win, there are two strikingly different ones. The first from a terrific U.S. Hip-Hop/Neo-Soul great. Tyler, the Creator has actually released another album since the cover for CHROMAKOPIA was nominated – though DON’T TAP THE GLASS is not quite as memorable. 2017’s Flower Boy is one of those modern greats when it comes to the cover. Floral, fantastical and bright, it definitely stays in the mind. It radiates sunshine and summer. Conversely, CHROMAKOPIA is sepia, it looks like this film icon of the 1940s or 1950s posing. You look at the image and there are so many questions and interpretations:

“With a catalog of striking, often colorful album covers, Tyler, The Creator opted to appear in sepia on the cover of his eighth studio set, CHROMAKOPIA. The stark portrait depicts the two-time GRAMMY-winning rapper wearing a ceramic mask of his own face, his right hand outstretched toward whomever is behind the camera.

The mask plays several purposes on the cover, mainly to introduce fans to St. Chroma, Tyler's latest alter ego (who bears a marked similarity to Chroma the Great from Norton Juster's classic children's book The Phantom Toolbooth), and tap into the album's themes of identity, authenticity and the divide between public persona and inner self.

According to art director Luis "Panch" Perez, Tyler wanted to channel the film noir of the 1930s and '40s, even bringing a screen test from an unnamed Alfred Hitchcock movie to set as inspiration. "He wanted the cover to feel like it came from a film of that era," Perez revealed in a November 2024 interview with ArtNews.

"It changes how you see Tyler, which was obviously very much a reason why he made it the way he made it," the rapper's longtime visual collaborator added of the eerie cover shot. "It makes the viewer really pay attention to what's going on with him. It makes you want to go, 'Wait, what's going on here? I'm unsettled by what I'm seeing”.

It is an unsettling image, for sure. However, it is one that inspires the mind. Thinking about the artist and the music in a way you would not have if there was a different cover. A less engaging one. I do think that CHROMAKOPIA is in with a shout at scooping the GRAMMY. For me, it is the second-best cover, though one that warrants a lot of love and respect. I am never a fan of self-portrait covers and artists including images of themselves, as it is so lazy and lacks creativity. Also, many of them are just straight portraits and there is nothing unusual or interesting going on. When it comes to CHROMAKOPIA, there is so much to dissect and explore.

I liked Wet Leg’s eponymous 2022 debut album, though I am not struck by the cover. It shows core members Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale with their backs to camera and their arms around each other’s backs. However, for their second album, moisturizer, they have stepped it up. I am not keen on the title or the American spelling – though you do wonder why the album was called that -, but the cover has a lot going for it:

“Wet Leg's sophomore album, 2025's moisturizer, marks the band's first studio effort as a quintet with guitarist Joshua Mobraki, bassist Ellis Durand and drummer Henry Holmes joining original duo Rihan Teasdale and Hester Chambers as fully contributing members.

That newly evolved group mentality is also reflected in the British rockers' nomination for moisturizer's feral cover art, with all five members credited as art directors alongside Matt de Jong and Jamie-James Medina.

Teasdale and Chambers take center stage in the artwork, however. The frontwoman stares down the camera with a devilish grin, crouched on all fours, while the lead guitarist's back is to the camera, arms wrapped around herself to show off her pointed nails.

"Not just the album cover, but I think, like, the whole energy of the creative is kind of subversive," Teasdale explained to Variety upon the album's release. "Like, if there's any moments on there that are a bit sexy, it's also a bit disgusting. Juxtaposition is something that we've always done … That's something that is always fun to play with”.

Once more, Hester Chambers has her back to camera. Representing being a mystery or in the background, she has her arms gripped around her body. Whether signifying a struggle, madness or a clinch (how you can pretend you’re kissing someone by wrapping your arms around your back like it is another person doing that), it is this submissive or romantic background set against the more maniacal or distrusted look given by Rhian Teasdale. Even though Wet Leg are a quintet now, it is their original two members who are at the centre here. Also, I am curious about the image and the connection to the title. It is hard to draw comparisons or figure the link. Which sort of makes the cover more intriguing! Also, the use of white and blue for the cover. It is quite calming and soothing, clashed against the intense flame of red hair and red lips at the centre.

Consider iconic covers from the past and contemporary artists and you do wonder how many artists reach these peaks. Whether the album art market is declining or less important. I think that great album covers are so important. The album cover that I feel will win the GRAMMY is from Perfume Genius. In terms of matching the music and lyrics, the cover for Glory is one of the standouts of the year:

“Over the course of his career, Perfume Genius has appeared as a near-statuesque figure on many of his album covers, from the polished portraiture of 2014's Too Bright and shirtless still that graces the cover of 2020's Set My Heart on Fire Immediately to the painterly rendering of 2022's Ugly Season.

In the imagery for 2025's Glory, the art-pop auteur born Mike Hadreas is shown toppled over, sprawled on the floor of a wood-paneled home with his legs askew and midriff bare as a bevy of extension cords run beneath his body. In a conversation with Wallpaper upon Glory's release, Perfume Genius delved into the creative process behind the unnerving suburban scene, which was directed by his longtime collaborators Cody Critcheloe and Andrew J.S.

"I like how it looks: it could be a dance, or it could be that I'm sick, and there's something wrong with me. That was the thing that felt riskiest about that photoshoot, it could go any way," he told the outlet. "When we got the pictures back, it felt like a snapshot, almost like a still from a movie … It feels like the music, in that it's earnest and personal, but with absurdity and dramatics, and performance”.

That image of Perfume Genius (Michael Hadreas) on the floor. It looks like he has tripped. Or is just asleep on the floor. With wires on the floor, there are trip hazards. It looks like two different scenes. The window looks out, though it is a ground floor room and it doesn’t seem to fit with what’s outside. You imagine this house being somewhere remote or in the city, yet the outside seems to be suburban. The mysterious man looking from the outside in. The friend or compatriot of Perfume Genius looking on as he is in this contorted position. Did Perfume Genius fall from the outside in? And, if so, how and why? You look at the cover over and over and try and figure it out. Such an arresting shot and composition, it is an award-winning effort from Cody Critcheloe & Andrew J.S. A rare case of album artwork being as discussion-worthy and brilliant as the music inside. It will be interesting who wins the inguinal Best Album Cover GRAMMY on 1st February. More than anything, I hope the category grows – in terms of nominees – and artists take it as motivation to really put everything into their covers. It is a subjective measure, what makes a great cover, though there are too many faceless and unambitious efforts. The five highlighted above all have their own personality and feel. Each different and remarkable. There have been album covers made in the past five or ten years that can rival the all-time best, yet most of the very best are from decades ago. However, there is nothing to say that very soon we will not get a wave of stunning covers that are…

PHOTO CREDIT: Anastasiya Badun/Pexels

MODERN classic.