FEATURE: The VHS Club: Creating a Cultural Archive for Future Prosperity

FEATURE:

The VHS Club

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Hollis Brown Thornton

Creating a Cultural Archive for Future Prosperity

___________

THIS feature is sort of motivated…  

PHOTO CREDIT: @tjump/Unsplash

by the increased uncertainty around COVID-19 and whether things are going to get better soon. It is a scary time, and a lot of people are frustrated that things seem to be going backwards. I have mentioned how it would be great to have every episode of Top of the Pops available on some sort of channel or hub but, as we live in a time when there is so much T.V. and streaming options, it would be great to see a channel or site where we could bring together a lot of the best music! T.V. and culture from the 1980s onward. It might be too unwieldly to have every advert, music T.V. show and interesting bit of pop culture on a channel, and it would be difficult to organise it. One of the saddest things about reminiscing and being nostalgic is that these memories exist only in our mind, and I think it is a shame that we cannot have something implanted into our brain that unearths every memory from our childhood. It is brilliant that we can see music documentaries, quirky adverts from back in the day alongside Top of the Pops and other music shows. Not only are these useful and uplifting for those of us who were alive in the 1980s and 1990s, but it is giving a lot of enjoyment and information to the younger generation. Rather than it being a mere nostalgia trip, I think there should be some archive that definitely splices some cool adverts that make us smile; a sort of MTV/VH1 portal where all the great videos from the time are shown, in addition to documentaries and specials that shine a light on wonderful albums.

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Aly Jones

At the moment, there is nothing really like that, and one has to sort of navigate through YouTube and various channels so they can get all of this information. We can stay abreast of everything current in terms of culture because of social media and how many channels we have to put this stuff. Back decades ago, there weren’t those options so, when it comes to archiving, it is a bit more of a mess! I am not sure whether this new sensation, which I have called The VHS Club, will take place online or on T.V., but I think it would be easier having a channel where one could visit. I feel the focus should be on music but, when it comes to adverts, they would sort of act as an old-skool break between shows. This is not just me fantasising and trying to have a big chunk of my past on the screen: other people have been digging episodes of Top of the Pops, features and radio shows that look back at classic albums, and other assorted trips back that remind us of those days. It would be a little tough to go back before the 1980s, but one has two decades of music history to look back on. I think it would be more than a memory trip for so many of us. At a moment where things are quite dark, it would be a big boost in terms of mental-health wellness, and I think there are so many channels and very little in the way of quality.

Also, on streaming services, there are so many programmes that one can be overwhelmed and you never know which are worth watching and whether the recommended shows are worth dipping into. If you love your music, this would be the station to go to, and there would be daily schedules mixing in music T.V. shows like Classic Albums and Top of the Pops, together with music-related shows, documentaries and bits from MTV and other stations. Anyone could save various programmes and create a Favourites compilation, and one would not have to skip the adverts - as they would be pretty awesome, if obsolete. I would like nothing more than, as I said earlier, to have home videos of every moment of my childhood. It would be impractical and impossible, but I’d love to have those memories on hand just so that it can give me a boost now and I could keep a hold of a treasured time. There are fascinating articles that explain how music from the past informs the future, and I feel having this awesome music and culture from the 1980s and 1990s on a T.V. channel would help inspire artists now and absorb into modern culture. One can say that this happens at the moment, but everything is so fragmented and widespread. There are old videos here and there and one sort of happens upon these discoveries. Just a personal thing, but I love some of the T.V. shows of the 1980s and 1990s like Fun House, which can provide a little bit of a distraction from the music.

I just feel that there is a current mood of uncertainty and anxiety that is leading people to look back to the past and embrace music in new ways. Rather than provide an escape and something that is purely for nostalgia, having various T.V. shows, radio shows, documentaries and adverts from two great decades would give a lot of people guidance, strength and focus. We cannot help but live in the present and be aware of what is around us; The VHS Club would offer something we can balance that out with. Maybe (the channel) would allow one to compile their own mixtapes and order them to cassette; some dedicated Top of the Pops channel or option, or there might be a section dedicated to major events from musical history. However it would look, it is a case of combining the archives rather than making new shows, and although it would take a bit of time to get everything together, I feel it would be a winner. I do think that all of us, whether we lived through the 1980s and 1990s or not, appreciates the value of music and memory; how the two are linked and how music has shaped us all. For those of us like me who feels that many memories are slipping away, I would like that fire restoked and burning again, if only so I can look ahead and find some new strength. Education and informative as it is entertaining and healing, I think a new platform that combines two decades of music culture together would inspire a lot of people. Although things are quite hectic and unsure at the moment, T.V. channels and streaming platforms have…

PHOTO CREDIT: @glenncarstenspeters/Unsplash

THE space and time to make it happen.  

FEATURE: Second Spin: Shakespears Sister - Hormonally Yours

FEATURE:

Second Spin

Shakespears Sister - Hormonally Yours

___________

THERE are some albums that are defined by one song…

and I think people do not look beyond the hit single. I have said this before, but you get these great albums that had a very obvious and successful smash, and the other songs are not quite held in the same regard. To be fair to Shakespears Sister, Stay is a song impossible to ignore or dislike! It was released as the second single from Hormonally Yours on 13th January, 1992, and it was a smash around the world. The combination of Marcella Detroit’s higher-pitched soprano vocals and Siobhan Fahey deeper tones give the song that beautiful blend of emotions and shades – something I had not heard much until that point. Hormonally Yours peaked at number-three on the album charts and was certificated double -platinum by the BPI, where it spent fifty-five weeks on the charts! Of course, Stay was a massive song that aided by an incredible video from Sophie Muller – the video depicts (inspired as it was by the film, Cat-Women of the Moon) Detroit and Fahey fighting over a comatose man (played by Dave Evans). I listen to the song and watch the video now, and there is this immense power that comes from it! Such an unconventional song, I imagine there was scepticism as to whether it would be successful and it was indicative of Shakespears Sister’s sound.

Before moving on, it is worth noting that Shakespears Sister reformed last year after twenty-five years or so since Detroit and Fahey parted ways. They released a new single, All the Queen's Horses, last year and toured - and let’s hope they will release another album soon. There is a new package, Our History, out later this year that is described as follows:

“Shakespears Sister present ‘Our History’ - a deluxe boxset encompassing the complete London Records collection.
The box includes remastered vinyl and 3CD set of both ‘Sacred Heart’ and 'Hormonally Yours', a hard backed photographic book of classic and rare imagery including a foreword from Siobhan. The complete Brighton Dome gig from 2019 and all videos on DVD, a new ‘You Made Me Come To This' 10 inch and Ride Again Ep on vinyl. Plus exclusive merch- a postcard set, 12” print and fabric patch. All housed in a wibalin box with gold embossing”.

I would also recommend people go and buy the E.P. from last year, Ride Again, which includes some new great material All great signs that we will get more from Shakespears Sister down the road. Anyway. After Hormonally Yours, two more albums were released under the Shakespears Sister name - #3 in 2004, and Songs from the Red Room in 2009. It I wonder why Siobhan Fahey continued on under the duo’s moniker and didn’t just release solo albums. In any case, Hormonally Yours is, to me, the finest Shakespears Sister album, and one that boasts so many great tracks. The title of Hormonally Yours, incidentally, derived from both members being pregnant whilst making the album – which might have accounted for some increased tensions, and why the already-precarious relationship suffered severe damage. I love the pairing of Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit, and they work sublimely through the album! Fahey wanted to embark on music that was darker and had more edge than her work with Bananarama, and the Irish-born Fahey and American Detroit’s very different voices compliment each other wonderfully. There are obvious gothic touches and theatrics that was a cut above the Pop of 1992. I remember Hormonally Yours coming out, and it was one of those albums that scored some very memorable and happy days! Whilst singles Stay, and Goodbye Cruel World were big on the radio, I think I Don’t Care was the song that stood out most to me – and it is still my favourite from the album.

Whilst I normally include albums in Second Spin that are underrated, the reason for putting Hormonally Yours here is because it got a lot of focus in the 1990s, but it is not an album many people mention now. I feel it is one of the strongest albums of the 1990s, and there are so many great songs away from the singles – including Emotional Thing, and Let Me Entertain You. I will bring in a review of the album soon, but there is a fascinating feature from Pop Matters that was published in 2017. They remark how the band’s second album (after Sacred Heart, which boasted the marvellous single, You’re History) was a very different sound and style to what fans might have been expecting:

“Hormonally Yours, released in February of 1992, was an utterly unexpected reinvention of the band’s sound. Originally conceived as a concept album written as a sort of soundtrack to a schlocky '50s-era B-film by Arthur Hilton called Cat-Women of the Moon, many of the songs’ lyrical content were derived from the film’s storyline. The band initially sought to secure the rights to the film in order to expand on the album’s concept with planned music videos built directly on actual footage from the film. The idea was shot down by the record company. The influences from the film that do remain on the album have given it a fey, moonlit quality that suggests a host of love songs beamed in from the galaxies of sci-fi.

I do love that Detroit and Fahey had these brilliant images that were so captivating and cool. Again, Shakespears Sister differed so much to what was around them. Pop Matters nod to the way Fahey and Detroit were cast, and some of the challenges with Stay:

In true rock ‘n’roll fashion, Detroit and Fahey played their respective roles in the band up to the hilt, each woman embodying a dressed-up, glitzed-over soubrette of vociferous demeanour. Hormonally Yours presented Detroit as a sleek, coifed Art Nouveau mistress, awakened from her post-mortem sleep, and Fahey as an unruly (and still dead) gothic scapegrace, with coiled black tresses and pancaked white makeup, her eyes racooned with the black of Victorian death. Like their name suggested, it was high Shakespearean drama, a strange detour into a pop music hinterland that owed much to dramaturgy as it did punk-rock.

In a bid to push a hit song, London Records, the band’s parent label, insisted on “Stay”, reportedly intended as the first single off the album but a suggestion adamantly shot down by Fahey, who felt strongly that the song wasn’t representative of the band as a whole. The label won out this time and “Stay” was released to a gobsmacking reception that led the single to the number one position on the UK Charts (and later a top five spot in the US and Canada).

Unlike the other tracks on Hormonally Yours, “Stay” featured Detroit, primarily the secondary vocalist of the band, on lead. Playing the angelic songbird to Fahey’s Faustian demon, Detroit’s whistle register sirens over the shimmering layers of gospel-tinged dirge-pop. Her vocal is dramatically circumvented by the Elizabethan horror of Fahey’s green-oceaned tremor: a lustful, throaty croon transmitting from another universe. It was precisely this clashing of extremes that appealed to an audience that wasn’t exactly sure what they were hearing.

I do think that some see Hormonally Yours as a one-single album, or that there is not a lot else on there that is worth listening to. Maybe in 1992, there was this bid to get the singles heard, but reviewers were keen to observe the depths of the album and how many terrific tracks there are on it. Now, in 2020, one does not really hear Hormonally Yours talked about a huge amount, and I have not heard many of the album tracks played on the radio lately – one might hear Stay every now and then. The final passage from Pop Matters I want to source mentions my favourite song from Hormonally Yours, I Don’t Care:

The most affecting numbers, however, remain the ones which focus on the storms of conflict. Released as a third single, “I Don’t Care” (a UK Top 10) was another betrayal of the band’s contentious personal affairs, a back and forth of bickering and reasoning that resulted in an even stronger delineation between the two women’s personalities (“Mark the spot you hate with an ‘X’, then shoot your bow and arrow / Do your worst, get it all off your chest...”). Pitched somewhere between the jaunty pop-irony of The Cure and the sultry clamour of Throwing Muses, “I Don’t Care” is a pop marvel of seductive iridescence, a danceable gait flowing with lush harmonies beneath the diamond-encrusted textures of the goth-rock glamour. Shoe-horned into its middle section is Fahey’s deadpanned reading of Dame Edith Sitwell’s “Hornpipe”, a poem delivered, somewhat anomalously, like a sardonic aside in a Commedia dell'arte show. Such creative shifts like these on the album are employed diplomatically yet with stylish irreverence; precisely the kind of exploits which distinguished the band from their considerably anodyne contemporaries at the time”.

I would urge people to listen to Hormonally Yours, as it is an album that has been revived with a lot of affection, yet it is not discussed and revisited all too often. In their review of 2009, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“In keeping with the album's title, inspired by the pregnant state of the duo, Shakespear's Sister's second album is prone to mood swings and a flair for the dramatic. It's a vibe that benefits from the contrast between the throaty vocals of Siobahn Fahey and the falsetto flutter of Marcella Detroit. Hormonally Yours is a wonderful, charming album marred only by a few weak lyrics. Still, there is hardly a song that isn't engaging from the first listen. "Goodbye Cruel World" is infectious alternative pop. "I Don't Care" is bouncy and resilient, and "Let Me Entertain You" has a new wave feel and sardonic lyrics. "Catwoman" has a T. Rex swagger to it and "Hello (Turn Your Radio On)" is a stellar glam-tinged ballad with a dreamy chorus. They edge closer to dance on the disco ball funk of "Are We in Love Yet?" and the sultry, R&B-laced "Emotional Thing." Everything was lost in the wake of the lovely, dramatic "Stay," a global smash. It all adds up to make Hormonally Yours a beautifully quirky, emotionally rich, and nearly flawless pop record”.

You may be aware of Shakespears Sister, and you will definitely have heard of Stay. If you think that track lacks pop and punch, then Hormonally Yours offers diversity and relief in that sense. There is a great breadth of sounds through the album, and Fahey and Detroit sound committed and transfixing throughout – even if it would be very soon until they split. Do yourself a favour and give the supreme Hormonally Yours…

A second spin!

FEATURE: Warm and Soothing: Dipping Into the Kate Bush Archive

FEATURE:

 

Warm and Soothing

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for The Sensual World in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Dipping Into the Kate Bush Archive

___________

THIS feature is more than a…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during filming for The Line, The Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

general recommendation of Kate Bush. I know I have sort of covered this before but, as we are still technically in lockdown and things are not back to normal, one of the most soothing things one can do is to take a trawl through the Kate Bush archives! Not only is her music there for all to enjoy, but there are so many great interviews and clips that have not really been shown or people are aware of. This sort of all comes back to my question as to whether a new documentary should be released. I have campaigned quite a bit because, as Bush’s music continues to find new fans and is beloved now as it was years ago, there are going to be people who want something completer and more comprehensive than has been released already. I know there have been a few documentaries through the years but, as I have been looking for distraction and something to ease anxieties, I have been looking online, and there are so many wonderful interviews and archive material relating to Kate Bush. I think, in other documentaries, this aspect has not been mined a lot. Even the most ardent and committed Kate Bush fan might not be aware of what is out there. Whether it is a simply sensational performance of James and the Cold Gun during 1979’s The Tour of Life, or Bush discussing her excellent track, Hammer Horror, on Australian T.V. in 1978, there is so much wonderful audio and video that deserves to be seen more widely!

I think it is the manner in which Bush conducts herself and that calming speaking voice…one can get lost in a wormhole of Bush-related goodness! I think it is great that her exists on streaming sites and online, but it is hard to discover it all and find these treats. A lot of people might just search for Bush’s music, and they would be unaware of just what is on offer. I do love the videos themselves, but I am fascinated when Bush discusses her songs and gives us that sense of revelation and explanation. In this video, for example, she is asked about her song, Breathing, from 1980’s Never for Ever and whether it’s anti-war messages are something she genuinely believes in and is passionate about, or whether it was more of a cynical commercial move. This is a clip I had not discovered until last week, and I have not seen it in any documentary. Not only is one awed by the way Bush speaks and how she can address quite a big question with grace and intelligence…there is some great information that fans would love to see in a larger piece. Sadly, a lot of great video through the year has been lost through the years, and there is audio of interviews that was on YouTube last year that has since disappeared. This year, as I repeatedly say, is one where three of her albums celebrate big anniversaries – Never for Ever, and Hounds of Love (September), and Aerial (November).

I think, now more than at any time, Bush’s music is giving people strength and warmth at a moment in history that is very precarious and unpredictable. Let’s hope that, when we are through the worst of this, there are concerted efforts to produce a more authoritative and wider-ranging series relating to Kate Bush. Some might say that sticking to the essentials are all that people want to see – a bit about all her albums and a few interviews with choice guests etc. Having looked at a pretty good documentary (part two is here) that is on YouTube, there is definite scope to accumulate this with as much other great material that is out there. Of course, there are so many videos and clips that it would be impossible to put them all into a documentary, but treats like this Dutch interview, and Bush appearing on Razzamatazz in the 1980s is a real joy! Circling back to my feature’s headline and the point of all of this: spending some time searching from the online archives and watching these great interviews and performances can really be a tonic. One need not necessarily be a massive Kate Bush fan in order to feel the real benefits. I know there is a great news website that keeps you abreast of all the latest happenings relating to Kate Bush, and the podcast digs deep into various aspects of her career.

Like Radiohead, I wonder whether there will be a website soon that collates all the video and audio out there into a library. At the moment, one can get a lot of good information from a few different websites, but one has to spend a long time trawling and navigating so many search results to find information. A more comprehensive archive would be easy enough to start, and there is a treasure trove of data, articles, videos, and audio that would be a delight for fans. I am aware I have slightly gone off-piste concerning the start of this feature, but I have been discovering so much I was not conscious of before, and it amazes me that this has not been incorporated into some form of show or radio programmes. Also, as I said, dragging everything into a website that was easy to navigate would be a terrific idea. Maybe people are working on those ideas, but I wanted to write about the power Kate Bush’s music and words have. Whether you are listening to an album or listening to her speak, she exudes this beauty and tone that can ease personal turbulence and, if one is stressed or in need of calm, then I would urge you to dig as much Kate Bush as possible. This is pretty brief for me, but I wanted to put out a few videos and bits that people might not have seen which, in turn, might encourage people to keep going and discover more treats. Over a particularly hard week, I have been lifted and lightened by various videos and bits of audio – there has almost been this therapeutic effect! Through her music, videos, interviews and performances, Kate Bush gives so much to us all and, truly, this is…

WHY one cannot help but love her.

FEATURE: Erotica: Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile’s C.A.L.M.

FEATURE:

 

Erotica

IN THIS PHOTO: Jehnny Beth 

Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile’s C.A.L.M.

___________

I don’t mean to make instant connections…

IN THIS PHOTO: Johnny Hostile with Jehnny Beth

between Madonna, and Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile. The former, as we know, was near the peak of her powers in 1992, and Sex is a 1992 book with photography by Steven Meisel Studio and Fabien Baron. The book features adult content including softcore pornography and simulations of sexual acts including sadomasochism. That book was released just a day after her fifth studio album, Erotica, came out – on 21st October, 1992, the world received this book that would shake some and entice others. It caused quite a lot of furore and, even in 1992, the content was not that shocking. Maybe the fact that it was Madonna and she was being targeted; perhaps the press wanted to drag her down. In any case, the Erotica/Sex release was an early example of a multimedia release that was a different flavour to her Like a Prayer album of 1989. Not only was Madonna providing this bold and exciting project to the world, but I think there was this feeling that society was quite closed-off about sex and things were quite conservative. Now, I think we see Sex as relatively un-shocking, but it remains iconic and an important moment in music history. In the twenty-eight years since, there have not really been too many examples of musicians and artists releasing books and short stories that are as evocative – few that are very memorable at least.

Released in June, Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile’s C.A.L.M. (Crimes Against Love Memories) put me in mind of Madonna’s book:

 “'Because a life lived in fear is equal to no life at all'

This is the uncompromising vision of Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile. Fearless and highly erotic, these stories delight in ideas of sexual transgression and liberation, offering a window onto a world where anything is permitted, and everything is safe. As each of Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile's characters break from the bonds of acceptability and enter a darkness of desire, submission and sex, they discover their own humanity, a place where they can truly be free.

A manifesto in the form of erotic photography, monologues and dialogues, Johnny Hostile's stimulating photography punctuates Jehnny Beth's seductive prose. Collapsing the barriers between sex an art while examining the universal values of human existence and consciousness through uninhibited desire, C.A.L.M. established Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile as two of the bravest and most provocative voices in fiction and erotic art today.

The full collection of Johnny Hostile's photography is featured in a hardcover limited-edition photographic art book of C.A.L.M.”

Although there is some degree of liberation of sexual expression in music now, I was listening back to a lot of songs I grew up on, and I think that things have become stricter and it is rare to hear artists being open about their fantasies and sex life - maybe I have been listening to the wrong music!

I have been thinking about the relationship between art, music and literature, and how there seems to be a lack of projects like C.A.LM. I would urge people to buy the book, as it is fascinating to see another side to an artist and, actually, how their passion and creativity can extend beyond the music. Maybe the release of C.A.L.M. is not as media-provoking and shocking as Madonna’s Sex, but it would be good to see more artists like Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile embark on great works like C.A.L.M. I am a little bit late to the party in that respect, but I wanted to shine a spotlight on a book that will, hopefully, compel other artists. In a recent interview with NME, Jehnny Beth and Johnny Hostile discussed C.A.LM.:

“This is a very C.A.L.M breakfast,” hoots Savages’ vocalist Jehnny Beth as Johnny Hostile, her creative collaborator and long-term partner, wanders into the room peeling a banana. The pair have sat down for (virtual) breakfast in their Paris flat to discuss their new project C.A.L.M. Beth’s quite right; it sets the tone nicely.

Created as a collaboration, the new book Crimes Against Love Memories is a project of two halves. Beth’s collection of lusty short stories explore sex and desire, accompanied by Hostile’s erotic photography (the duo have kindly shared some exclusive images from the NSFW publication with NME).

View this post on Instagram

In this period of sex deprivation (or sex exploration!) why don’t we treat ourselves again to a few minutes of C.A.LM? Join me this Friday 5pm (French time) live on IG for another reading of Crimes Against Love Memories, the book of erotic short stories I have written coming out this summer. This time the story will be extra...graphic! So be prepared! 🥵 AND I’ll be joined by my very special guest @eliotsumner to play the part of the young boy 😉. Thank you to everyone who have been tunning in so far, these sexy appointments have been keeping me strangely sane every week. Let’s convert more people. Spread the word! Until then... Stay safe 😷 | Friday 5pm French time / 4pm UK time / 8am LA time | 18+ only! | photo @johnnyhostilephoto | @the.whiterabbitt |

A post shared by Jehnny Beth (@jehnnybeth) on Apr 14, 2020 at 12:09pm PDT

Her stories are both throughly debauched and artfully surreal, Hostile’s photos drawn from a similarly playful world. The photobook’s most transgressive moments – there are shots showing urination, exhibitionism and various kinks – are interspersed with lighter moments: models decked out in leather harnesses making cups of tea and bare bums poking slightly absurdly through curtains. None of the people pictured in C.A.L.M have modelled before – instead, they’re friends and people that the couple met in Paris and LA.

Do you think some of the images are pornographic?

Jehnny: “Yeah. I mean, there’s female ejaculation, full genitalia. But I don’t think it’s a bad word, just a genre.”

Johnny: “For some people, pornography has a bad definition. I don’t really care. Some of the short stories could be seen as pornographic too; they’re quite graphic. What do you think about that?”

Jehnny: [Laughs] About my pornography? Well, I don’t think of pornography as a bad word. When I use it, I mean it in the good sense – just to describe what a thing is. In the short stories I consciously wanted to flow between genres. I was searching for erotic poetry, years previously to this, when I was writing for Savages. I was on a quest to look for things around [the band’s 2016 album] ‘Adore Life’ – I wanted to know what was out there, and who talks about love and sexuality. I read a lot of gay poetry: it’s so poetic – and then suddenly a throbbing cock!”

Do you each have a favourite photograph from C.A.LM?

Jehnny: “There’s a recurrent theme of buildings with characters naked at the windows: whether it’s in Paris or LA. They’re very distant, and for me it’s a way to see them in a different dimension. I like that change of perspective. I always look up in Paris at the buildings to see if I can see naked people at the window.

Johnny: “The last picture in the whole book is of an ashtray. It has the phrase Act Natural printed on it. We stayed at this place in LA for two months taking photographs, and this ashtray was there all the time – I think it’s a great accident”.

Take an exploration into C.A.L.M., and I hope – as I say – we see more similar works from artists across the board. The new album, TO LOVE IS TO LIVE, provides us an insight into the psyche and heart of Jehnny Beth (and Johnny Hostile), but C.A.L.M. provides us all with…

NEW depth and light.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Moses Boyd

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Moses Boyd

___________

THERE is quite a lot to cover off…  

PHOTO CREDIT: Eddie Otchere for A Nation of Billions

when it comes to Moses Boyd. His latest album, Dark Matter, has been nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize, and we will see how he gets on when the winner is announced on 24th September. He might not be the favourite to win the prize, but I think Boyd has released one of the most enriching, satisfying and pure listens of 2020. Dark Matter is a phenomenal album, and one that has turned me onto one of this country’s brightest talents! Boyd was born and raised in the district of Catford in South London. He attended Sedgehill School, which was where he began learning drums. I will talk more about Boyd and the drums later but, as he is such an interesting and talented artist, I wanted to bring in a few interviews where he has been discussing his music and early life. I love Dark Matter, and I listen to the record and wonder how Moses Boyd started out and when music came into his life. I tend to approach music from an analytical viewpoint, and I am curious about the beginnings and those early experiences. In an interview with Loud and Quiet from earlier this year, we learn more about Moses Boyd’s upbringing, and how he took to the drums:

 “Boyd has got onto this sushi/jazz analogy as a way of explaining a path that has taken him from being a fresh-faced teenager in Catford, south-east London, with no particular interest in playing music – “I was into other stuff, skateboarding, basketball, just normal kid stuff” – to becoming a 28-year-old rising star in one of the most hyped cities on the planet to play jazz, with an album and fistful of EPs and collaborations behind him and a new solo record, Dark Matter, due out this coming Valentine’s Day.

He originally caught the drumming bug aged 14, after first seeing a boy from a couple years above “destroying” a kit in his school music block, and then one of the school’s peripatetic music teachers, an old jazzer with an ear for promise, turning their allocated lesson of half an hour a week into extended masterclasses that allowed Boyd to flourish. There was then the Camden Roundhouse jazz workshops in the mid-noughties hosted by pianist Leon Mitchener that Boyd describes as opening his ears to jazz and other experimental music by the likes of Frank Zappa, followed by a trail of £40 cash-in-hand jam sessions across the capital as a sixth-former, acceptance onto the jazz performance degree at Trinity Laban in Greenwich (at the third time of asking), and finally, after graduating in 2016, integration into the currently thriving London circuit that is causing music fans who may once have been circumspect about British jazz to prick up their ear”.

Although Dark Matter is Moses Boyd’s debut studio album, he has worked on collaborative albums since 2014 – I especially love Displaced Diaspora (with Moses Boyd Exodus) from 2018. Boyd put out his E.P., Absolute Zero, in 2017, and he has worked on a couple of mixtapes. Dark Matter, for that reason, is less of an introduction: it is this first full solo outing, where we get a greater representation of Boyd’s vision and imagination.

On Dark Matter, I like the fact that percussion plays a big role. When we think of a Jazz album, one might feel that horns and brass takes a bigger role, but there is a pleasing blend of Dark Matter where percussion takes a lead and we get a beautiful blend of other instruments, making Dark Matter instantly accessible, but rich and complex at the same time. Boyd is also a producer on the album, and it is clear that he has put his passion and soul into the recording! Boyd is a passionate and positive person and, when he spoke to The Line of Best Fit this year, that aspect comes through. Boyd also discussed his music lessons at school and his bond with artists such as Miles Davis: 

 “When speaking about Grenfell, and the Windrush scandal too, Moses is clear that you can’t be from the UK and not be affected. You can’t be Black and in London and not be affected. Both tragedies, both avoidable, and with hindsight both had a big impact on Dark Matter.

“I’m quite a positive person in general,” he smiles. “But when I think back to writing and recording this, everything that was going on, it all had an effect, personally, and I think my music was just responding to that. Just as an artist, you soak stuff up around you and I think that’s what’s so different about everything else I’ve put out before. Everything else was a bit more structured, whereas Dark Matter was more ‘I’ve got February, let me just pull up a keyboard and a drum machine and see what happens.’"

Much has been made of the new wave of British Jazz in South London, something that’s been incredible to see. But in truth it’s been bubbling away for so long now, that the next generation are already biting at the heels of Moses and his contemporaries, each with their own spin. Chatting about Catford – and specifically his time at Sedge Hill school where he first began to learn drums – Moses is conscious that the extracurricular opportunities he had are perhaps even more rare now for these young musicians than they were in his own youth.

“I was lucky the music lessons were still a thing when I was in school – it’s actually stopped since. That inner city school experience man, it makes you, one way or another. What it did for me was it really cemented the idea of ‘you are this’. Not in a way where you can't change, but more ‘stand on your own two feet and don’t ever be ashamed to be who you are.’”

“I had great teachers. Contextually I’m 13 and listening to Miles Davis and Wiley – that’s weird right? But at no point did I ever feel intimidated to be like that, just because it was a means of survival. It’s not to say I didn’t fit in, but I knew I was different in that respect and people didn't necessarily understand what I was into, in terms of music and spending my time doing it, over lunchtimes at school”.

I am going to wrap things up soon but, before ending this, I want to bring in a further interview, in addition to a great review of Dark Matter. I would urge people to follow Moses Boyd, and check out his music. If you can buy Dark Matter then so much the better, as it is an album that is made to be heard in a physical form! Although Moses Boyd is not exactly new to the scene, I have included him in this feature as I think Dark Matter is his breakthrough, and it is his most accomplished and fully-realised work. I love his work prior to the debut studio album, and I know there are so many upcoming artists out there who will take a lead from Boyd. He is a tremendous musician, songwriter and producer, and I do hope that we get a lot more material in the future from this awesome talent. The last interview I want to bring in is from Afropunk. They went deep with Boyd, but they asked about Dark Matter being called a ‘debut’, and whether he feels that the album is his most representative record:

“People keep calling Dark Matter your debut album even though you did Displaced Diaspora and the Absolute Zero EP. Talk a little bit about how this is more of a proper debut and different from previous records. What is your sense why this is “the first thing”?

So, I would say this is the first album. Absolute Zero, Time and Space were all four-track EPs. That was just an idea, not a long body of work. Displaced Diaspora was a collection of tunes that I had written from something like 17 years old to 24, when I’d recorded “Rye Lane Shuffle.” It was music I had that I wanted to capture and what was going on around me, but I didn’t necessarily think it was a representation of where I was at the time. If you look at the album, Nubya Garcia is on it, Theon Cross is on it, Binker Golding, a lot of the people that are doing amazing things now played on that record — they were easily accessible back then, now they’re all busy and traveling the world.

We recorded that session in 2015, “Rye Lane Shuffle” and “Drum Dance” came out in 2016 and then the rest of that session didn’t come out till 2018. So it was an odd one. I didn’t see it as an album. But I also felt it needed to be out there so people could enjoy it. But there was no big tour, there wasn’t even press. So it’s tough because we’re in this world where, what is an album nowadays? It just has more than six tracks. And I don’t know either. But I can say it wasn’t in terms of a campaign, in terms of energy and in terms of being representative of where I was exactly as it came out, it wasn’t any of that. But I’m still really proud of it.

So in which way do you think that Dark Matter works to be representative, besides the fact that you conceived of it as a whole? Musically speaking, how does Dark Matter represent who you are right now as an artist? And where you are as an artist? represent? It’s not really a jazz album or an electronic album — it’s a groove album. How do you Dark Matter representing who you are, piecemeal or as a whole.

It’s definitely a lot more accurate representation of where I am now. I guess I’m a bit more nuanced now. I don’t necessarily see myself as just the drummer. I’m a producer, I’m a writer, I’m a composer. I’m into jazz, I’m into electronic music, I’m into modular synthesizers. I’m into moody music. Also, Dark Matter more so than anything else I’ve done, soundtracks what was going on around the time I was making it. It was a lot more reactive than my past projects. I started making it sort of towards the end of 2018, so contextually, what was going on in England, there was Brexit, there was the Windrush Scandal, there was Grenfell, there was just a lot going on, and that can’t be in your face 24-7 without having an effect”.

I think I have only really touched the surface when exploring the depths of Moses Boyd’s life and music, so I would recommend people do some more exploration and digging. I think the U.K. Jazz scene is in fine form at the moment, and with varied players like Moses Boyd, Emma-Jean Thackray, and Nubya Garcia laying down some incredible music, I think we will see further development and evolution as the years go on. Dark Matter is such a terrific record because it sounds both classic and modern. Boyd has a deep love of Jazz classics and legends, but he is someone who is looking forward and wants to put his own stamp on the genre. It is no surprise that Dark Matter has been greeted with such acclaim and fondness! This is what The Line of Best Fit said when they approached Dark Matter:

“At its darkest, Dark Matter descends into brooding electro more akin to tech house than hard bop. Electronic drum grooves meld with synth baselines and Theon Cross’ throbbing tuba. It seems Cross’ 808-like sub-harmonic tones have become a ubiquitous part of the London jazz scene. RIP bassists.

However, though the record is by and large a collection of dense, stoic grooves, there is one outlier. The single “Shades of You” featuring vocalist Poppy Ajudha sits strangely bright alongside the rest of the track listing. While the album as a whole evokes images of sweaty dance floors and caustic youth, this poppy, upbeat single jerks the listener out of the reverie. I feel like I’ve been suddenly transported into a third wave coffee shop, where I find myself ordering a $5 latte.

Jazz fusion records (and let’s face it, that’s what this is), have a tendency to lean on zeitgeist-y tropes and production techniques to distance themselves from their stiff-collared traditionalist brethren. What the gated drums and FM synths were to the 80s, the trap hi hats and side chain are to our epoch. Hip today, dated tomorrow. Current trends pop up again here on Dark Matter. This album is not a timeless classic, it is a du jour album that showcases a drummer and producer’s talent at capturing the sound of the times. It should be enjoyed as such: a testament to young musicians blending tradition and modernity in exciting new ways”.

I shall leave things there, but I would once again point people in the direction of the wonderful Moses Boyd. I do hope that his fanbase continues to rise, and I have been hearing cuts from Dark Matter played on various different radio stations. He is connected with so many people, and I have no doubt that we will hear so much more from him. At a time of great uncertainty and division, I think his music has been a remedy to balm the wounds; a source of strength and light, not to mention the fact that one can lose themselves in his magic! I shall end this now, but it has been great covering Moses Boyd and, to leave this feature, I want to throw…

A salute to him!

____________

Follow Moses Boyd 

PHOTO CREDIT: Wunmi Onibudo for The Line of Best Fit

Official:

http://www.mosesboyd.co.uk/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/moses.boyd.7/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Mosesboyd_

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mosesboydexodus/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1otDUlTEBjcyDQg6CkHRaV

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3GeIZz4FJYQv7lR24-PiZw

Bandcamp:

https://mosesboyd.bandcamp.com/album/dark-matter-2

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

FEATURE:

Vinyl Corner

Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

___________

I wanted to cover…  

PHOTO CREDIT: Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters for Vinyl Corner because it is a very recent treat, and not only is it one of this year’s best albums, but it might be one of the most-regarded albums of the past decade! It is an exceptional release, and it followed on from 2012’s The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, frequently abridged as The Idler Wheel... I don’t think there was any expectation as to what Fiona Apple’s fifth studio would sound like. I have been a fan since the 1990s, and I remember when her debut album, Tidal, arrived in 1996. Tracks like Shadowboxer, and Criminal were big when I was in high school, and I have followed her career since then. With remarkable albums like When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right arriving in 1999, and Extraordinary Machine coming along in 2005, there are sizeable gaps between records but, when they do arrive, they are better than anything out there!

Every Fiona Apple album is an event and something that seems to transcend music itself. In the case of Fetch the Bolt Cutters, that is especially true! It is a remarkable album that is very experimental and uses percussion like never before. Apple uses objects to create various sounds, and I love how bold and original her compositions are. If her earliest music relief on piano and traditional instruments, Fetch the Bolt Cutters makes use of unusual objects and unique sounds to give the songs something truly special and emotional. According to Wikipedia, ”the album explores freedom from oppression; Apple identified its core message as: "Fetch the fucking bolt cutters and get yourself out of the situation you're in". The title, a quote from TV series The Fall, reflects this idea. The album also discusses Apple's complex relationships with other women and other personal experiences, including bullying and sexual assault. It has nevertheless been referred to as Apple's most humorous album”. The album holds a near-perfect score on Metacritic, and it is one of the most beloved albums from recent memory. The vinyl edition brings the incredible sounds and rich vocals fully to life, and I have been listening to songs from the album since its release on 17th April. The fact that it was released early into lockdown was a big move! Apple could have waited until later this year to bring it out, but the fact that she recorded a lot at her house and didn’t feel the need to hold it back provided something staggering whilst we were all quite scared and unsure.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fiona Apple

Now, five months or so down the line, the album still moves the senses, and one discovers new things from various songs. I especially love Shameika, Under the Table, and Newspaper, and there is not a wasted moment or second that is anything less than stunning across the thirteen tracks! It is a world-class album, and it shows that Apple gets better with each release. It makes one wonder just how far she can go and what will come next! I will bring in some reviews in a second, but I recommend that you put an order in for Fetch the Bolt Cutters - and this is what Rough Trade had to say about it:

 “The unhurried artist’s first studio album in eight years is astonishing, intimate and demonstrates a refusal to be silenced. The Apple of 2020 is astonishing; as if she has returned to reinvent sound – the rhythms pleasing, but counter, and unusual. On the title track she half-sings over a makeshift orchestra of kitchen implements, dog bark and cat yowl. The beat on Kick Me Under the Table has a seething back-and-forth pace; the extraordinary For Her beds double Dutch skipping rope rhythms beneath a chorus of female voices.

It’s striking how intimate Apple’s voice sounds here – half-conversational, half-self-mutters, allowing every scuff, breath and feral yelp. She is at her most familiar on Ladies, hollering over a soulful backdrop, chewing her own voice like tobacco, then letting it take sweet, sudden flight.

Fetch The Bolt Cutters is full of visceral, jittery, wonderfully imperfect performances that make the album feel like a dreamlike concert at Largo. It features contributions from Davíd Garza, Sebastian Steinberg, and Amy Aileen Wood”.

If you have not heard Fetch the Bolt Cutters, then I suggest you do, and you will want to grab it on vinyl! As I said, the album has received staggering reviews, and I will end with a couple of them. Apple has provided interviews around the release of the album, and I wanted to source from an interview she gave to NPR in April:

“What do you see as the thing you need to be liberated from?

The ideas that I had about myself — that on some level I'll always have. Just everything from when you're growing up, everything that everybody says to you about you that you believe, and of course for me that branches out into adulthood, with my career. But I really wasn't thinking about my career and how I've been portrayed in the media or anything about that, I was just thinking about things that have been said to me personally in my life that I took to heart that I shouldn't have; the way that I think that I have internalized a lot of the things that were said to me, believed them and then as a result, hidden myself away or shut myself up. As much as I don't think that I'm known for being someone who keeps quiet about things, I have really kept quiet about a lot of things. There's a lot to say, and I've kept quiet about some of it.

I feel like the songs on this album, they're not just about seizing the chance to speak, they're also about wanting people to really hear you. For the past couple years, there's been this more honest conversation in this country about believing women when they do speak up, and I'm wondering if that's also what you're getting at in this album?

Well, I mean, it's hopefully what I'm getting at with everything that I do. The fact is — and it's a fact — if a woman, or a man, goes public with some kind of abuse, they're not doing it for attention. There's no reason that people will lie about that. They know what they're getting into. We know, as much as we've given women more of a space to speak and be believed, there's still all the trolls and all the little bros that come back and beat them down as much as they can. As much as we know that when we speak, more people will be afraid to say "Screw you, you're a liar," people aren't so keen to do that right now; there still is a huge backlash and there's a lot of risk in speaking up. And anybody who would think that a woman would get up and put herself in that position for attention is just insane and I would like to punch them in their head 43 times.

I read this album was almost entirely recorded in your house, and this is a house, as you've mentioned, that you barely left over the past several years. So I was just wondering: Does quarantine life feel all that different from life before?

No, it doesn't. Well actually, it does feel a little bit different because everything is always different when you're told that you can't leave. I was always able to leave before, and I chose not to. And funny enough, right when I'm like "I'm fetching the bolt cutters! I'm gonna leave this house!" It's like "Nope! No you're not!"

PHOTO CREDIT: Fiona Apple

Which goes back to another reason why I did the album in this house — and this is another point where I'm going to sound a little bit nuts. This house is alive to me. The fact is, this house was here when I needed a place to go. When I moved here, I needed a place to go and I needed a place to go so that I could bring my dog, Janet, where she would have some place to run around and I needed a place fast. And this place just opened up like right when I needed it”.

Although a lot of the material on Fetch the Bolt Cutters is upbeat and hopeful, there are these angrier moments that really knock you back. It is such a powerful record, and Apple’s incredible use of language helps imprint the songs in the memory. I will get to some reviews soon but, just now, I want to grab a section from an interview Apple gave to The New York Times, and that sense of anger and directness was brought up:

“Some of the new material was strikingly angry. The cathartic “For Her” builds to Apple hollering, “Good mornin’! Good mornin’ / You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in.” The song had grown out of a recording session the band held shortly after the nomination hearings of the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh; like many women, Apple felt scalded with rage about survivors of sexual violence being disbelieved. The title track came to her later; a meditation on feeling ostracized, it jumps between lucidity and fury. Drumsticks clatter sparely over gentle Mellotron notes as Apple muses, “I’ve been thinking about when I was trying to be your friend / I thought it was, then— / But it wasn’t, it wasn’t genuine.” Then, as she sings, “Fetch the bolt cutters, I’ve been in here too long,” her voice doubles, harmonies turning into a hubbub, and there’s a sudden “meow” sound. In the final moments, dogs bark as Apple mutters, “Whatever happens, whatever happens.”

Partway through, she sings, “I thought that being blacklisted would be grist for the mill.” She improvised the line while recording; she knew that it was good, because it was embarrassing. “It sounds bitter,” she said. The song isn’t entirely despairing, though. The next line makes an impassioned allusion to a song by Kate Bush, one of Apple’s earliest musical heroines: “I need to run up that hill / I will, I will, I will”.

If you still need convincing to get the album, then I want to bring in some typical reviews. There is no doubting that the media has been hit and awed by this missile of an album that is going to be hard to equal anytime soon! When they stepped up to assess Fetch the Bolt Cutters, this is what The Times offered:

“For its musical construction alone Fetch the Bolt Cutters is remarkable. A riot of percussion clatters and rattles against Apple’s multitracked voice as it jumps from sweet harmonies, to playground chants, to syncopated raps, sometimes within the same song. The soulful Ladies starts with a slow, funky breakbeat and Apple’s voice repeating “ladies” as if calling a group of women to order before singing, with rhythmic dexterity: “There’s a dress in the closet, don’t get rid of it, you look good in it, I didn’t fit in it, it was never mine, it belonged to the ex-wife of another ex of mine, she left it behind with a note, one line, it said: ‘I don’t know if I’m coming across, but I’m really trying.’” Concerning “yet another woman to whom I won’t get through”, Ladies is like a novel about female miscommunication in verse.

Clear lines are embedded in songs with unclear meanings. “Good morning! Good morning! You raped me in the same bed your daughter slept in,” Apple sings, in a raucous blues holler, on For Her. Fetch the Bolt Cutters — featuring one Cara Delevingne on backing vocals — has Apple remembering the days when she compared herself with the popular, seemingly more stable girls. “I hadn’t found my own voice yet,” she sings, “so all I could hear was the noise that people make when they don’t know shit . . . but I didn’t know that yet.” Then there is Kick Me Under the Table: “I would beg to disagree, but begging disagrees with me.”

Fetch the Bolt Cutters seems like Apple’s attempt to make sense of early fame, her difficulty in making friends with other women, past love affairs — she said spending a night with her former boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson and his fellow director Quentin Tarantino talking about how great they were was enough to put her off cocaine forever — and depression. Then again, I might be entirely wrong. Not that it matters. This album is deep enough for multiple interpretations while being so authentic to its creator’s vision, you want to unpeel its layers and reveal the core. It is like nothing else you will hear this year”.

I will come back to including slightly older records in Vinyl Corner in future editions, but I have been so mesmerised by Fiona Apple’s fifth studio album, that I was compelled to include it. Both sides of the Atlantic have been blown away by an album of immense potency.

This is what Pitchfork wrote when they awarded the album a perfect ten:

“She calls men out for refusing to show weakness, for treating their wives badly, for needing women to clean up their messes. Where The Idler Wheel explored a form of self-interrogation—“I’m too hard to know,” she crooned—on Fetch the Bolt Cutters, she unapologetically indicts the world around her. And she rejects its oppressive logic in every note. The very sound of Fetch the Bolt Cutters dismantles patriarchal ideas: professionalism, smoothness, competition, perfection—aesthetic standards that are tools of capitalism, used to warp our senses of self. Where someone else might erase a mistake—“Oh fuck it!” she chuckles on “On I Go”—she leaves it in. Where someone might put a bridge, she puts clatter. Where she once sang, “Hunger hurts but starving works,” here, in the devouring chorus of “Heavy Balloon,” she screams: “I spread like strawberries/I climb like peas and beans.” There is nothing top-down about the sound of Fetch the Bolt Cutters. “She wanted to start from the ground,” her guitarist David Garza told The New Yorker. “For her, the ground is rhythm.”

There’s considerable power in how Apple entertains so many of these wild, inexhaustible impulses. “Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you, don’t you shush me!” she chips back on “Under the Table.” She will not be silenced. That’s patently clear from the start of Fetch the Bolt Cutters. In gnarled breaths on its opening song—feet on the ground and mind as her might—Apple articulates exactly what she wants: “Blast the music! Bang it! Bite it! Bruise it!” It’s not pretty. It’s free”.

There are many reasons why you need to own Fetch the Bolt Cutters, but I think the most compelling one is the reactions you will have when listening to the tracks. It is almost like the listener is there alongside Apple as she records the music! Fetch the Bolt Cutters is such a remarkable listen and, in the opinion of many people, it is…

ONE of the greatest albums ever released.

FEATURE: An Architect's Dream: Should There Be an International Kate Bush Day?

FEATURE:

 

An Architect's Dream

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the ‘Redhead’ shoot of 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Should There Be an International Kate Bush Day?

___________

SOME might pick me up on this title…  

IN THIS PHOTO: Some fans during The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever in San Diego, U.S.A. in 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Bush News

and say that, indeed, we already have an International Kate Bush Day. Indeed, we have The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever: it is an event held at locations around the world where participants recreate the music video for Bush's 1978 debut single, Wuthering Heights. The event's inspiration is Shambush's The Ultimate, Ultimate Kate Bush Experience, which took place in 2013 in Brighton, United Kingdom, as part of Brighton Fringe, created by performance collective Shambush!, who attempted to set an unofficial world record for the most people dressed as Kate Bush in one place, with hundreds attending. The event has caught on from there, and it is great to see people of all genders donning a red dress and joining together! In Sydney, the event took place this year, and it is humbling to see how international the trend is. For that day, fans of all ages get together and mark an iconic video. That video where Bush wore the red dress was for the U.S. release of Wuthering Heights – it was felt the U.K. version (where she wears a white dress and is more intense) was a bit too much and strange! I feel it peculiar that The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever started in the U.K. and we mark the U.S. video; I guess that is the one where Bush is outside – in a scene that tries to replicate the Yorkshire moors -, but I suppose guess red dresses are more eye-catching than white.

I think there should be a separate day where people around the world celebrate her music. Bands like The Beatles have their own day (or week) and, whilst Bush’s popularity is not on the same level as The Beatles, I think her influence and popularity cannot be understated. Indeed, now more than ever, her work is being shared, discussed and dissected. As we are celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Never for Ever (her third album), and Hounds of Love’s (her fifth album) thirty-fifth anniversary this month, and Aerial turns fifteen in November, it is a year when Bush’s music is being spotlighted and poured over intensely. If it took until Hounds of Love for the American audiences to fully embrace Kate Bush, I think she is a lot more known and loved now. Around the world, fans and artists identify with Kate Bush, and it would be great to have this special day that marks her entire catalogue and influence. As we mark forty years of Never for Ever on Tuesday (8th September), so many fans will be selecting their favourite songs from the album and showing what Never for Ever means to them. I have asked before why Bush has not been made a Dame - in October 2017, she was nominated for induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018; Bush was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music.

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, Kate: Inside the Rainbow)

I do feel that Bush’s genius and influence warrants another day on the calendar! I will talk about her legacy and explain more why there should be an International Kate Bush Day, but in terms of the days in which it could happen, there are options. In 2023, it will be forty-five years since the release of her debut album, The Kick Inside, but that is a long way off! Because Wuthering Heights was released on 20th January, that seems like a good a date as any. Some might say that steps on the heels (or dress) of The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, but that goes down in July, and I think that debut single is hugely important. Some might say it should be held on Bush’s birthday on 30th July, but that would cause a clash. Hounds of Love was released on 16th September, 1985, so maybe a 16th September event? In any case, I do think that there would be little objection to showcasing Bush’s work across a single day. People might say that a single day sort of comes off as a novelty and that, in fact, every day is Kate Bush Day! I feel radio stations limit the scope of Bush’s work, and we rarely talk about songs that were not released as singles. It is wonderful that we mark Bush’s birthday in such a passionate manner, and her albums are celebrated when they reach big anniversaries.

I would say that Kate Bush’s influence extends beyond music itself. Because her art is so vivid, physical and cinematic, those in the world of film, T.V. and stage are inspired by her. Similarly, authors and writers are moved by her because of her use of language and how her songs are almost like chapters and novellas. Certainly, I am seeing so many new artists cite Bush as an inspiration. It seems that, every year, a crop of a new male and female artists arrive (and non-binary artists) who have a scent of Kate Bush. In an article from The Guardian from 2010, Bush’s continuing and powerful impact is mentioned:

“In recent years, Bush has become one of the most referenced names in music. First, a few boy bands from Sunderland helped make Kate cool again – Field Music, the Week That Was, and most prominently, the Futureheads with their refreshing take on Hounds of Love.

Then a wave of solo female artists followed – from Florence Welch to Fever Ray – all happy to namecheck Bush as an influence. Before Florence and the Futureheads, however, Deborah Withers, guitarist with Bristol's Drunk Granny, began a study of Bush's music, exploring themes that were perhaps obvious to a female fanbase but invisible to some male listeners. We're talking about "the polymorphously perverse Kate, the witchy Kate, the queer Kate, the Kate who moves beyond the mime". Withers develops these ideas in her new book, Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory, published on her own imprint Hammeron Press.

Bush's music seems to have a womb-like function, providing incubation for artists, at least for a while. Björk has spoken of her teenage years spent under the covers listening to Kate Bush, and Bat for Lashes' Natasha Kahn acknowledges her influence on her first album, although she now feels she has found her own voice. "It's important to have visible and creative examples that you can draw inspiration from," says Withers, "otherwise it's really difficult to express yourself. Women found it a lot more difficult to be cultural producers, but Kate Bush changed that."

However, we should resist the temptation to compare all innovative female artists with Kate Bush. Amanda Palmer, of the Dresden Dolls, who shares her theatrical leanings, has said that her own musical mentors were male. Joanna Newsom, perhaps the only artist who comes close to Bush in terms of otherworldliness, has had nothing to say on the matter, nor should she have to.

On the other hand, Alison Goldfrapp is clear about her adoration of Kate Bush, and Florence Welch names her as one of her favourite artists. Karin Dreijer Andersson always mentions Bush's influence, which is apparent in her work with the Knife and Fever Ray. Emerging singer-songwriter Polly Scattergood discovered Kate Bush's LPs in her parents' record collection, and the taboo-breaking themes of The Kick Inside seem to echo and amplify in the fearless self-expression of her self-titled debut”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Bush’s influence does not just encompass music and pushing the boundaries in terms of lyrics and music. In terms of the way Bush dressed and her incredible videos, that opened doors for many artists. Also, Bush’s incredible tour of 1979, The Tour of Life, broke ground, and she inspired a new generation in terms of the limits of the stage and what one could create in a live show. In so many spheres and areas, Bush transformed things and she continues to compel musicians and creatives in different ways. I don’t think an assigned yearly celebration would be insincere or take away from every other day of the year. Rather, it would connect fans around the world; all of her albums could be discussed, and it is a great excuse to celebrate an artist who seems to grow in stature and popularity by the year! I shall leave things here, but I wanted to put that suggestion out there, not that it will lead to anything as such or result in an International Kate Bush Day. In a year where we are marking big anniversaries of three albums and, as people do, wonder if a new album from Bush will arrive, there is that swell and ever-growing army of fans who are deeply passionate about her work – some are discovering her for the first time. Regardless of whether anything comes about, I just wanted to nod to an icon – as I do frequently – whose legacy and influence is almost impossible to calculate and compare! Kate Bush is one of the most loved artist on the planet and, for that reason alone, I feel she warrants…

ANOTHER day in her honour.   

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Amazing Progressive Rock

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @davidtoddmccarty/Unsplash

Amazing Progressive Rock

___________

THROUGH the various…  

PHOTO CREDIT: @mehdizadeh/Unsplash

Lockdown Playlists, I have included a lot of different genres into the mix. I have not mentioned Progressive Rock yet and, whilst it might not be to everyone’s taste, there are some all-time classics that one cannot refute! I wonder whether I should call these playlists ‘post-lockdown’, as we are sort of easing out but, whilst there are restrictions still, I will keep things as they are. If you need that extra bit of kick to get you through the weekend, then I hope that this playlist helps out. There are enough golden tracks in the pack to lift the mood, to get the body moving and inspire plenty of motivation. Settle back and enjoy some fine Progressive Rock songs…

PHOTO CREDIT: @dihrosa/Unsplash

FROM some truly incredible artists.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Twenty-One: Phoebe Bridgers

FEATURE:

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenn Five for The Forty-Five

Part Twenty-One: Phoebe Bridgers

___________

I have not done this feature…

for a while now, and the last person I covered for Modern Heroines was Grimes back in February. The reason I am kicking it back up (albeit briefly) is that the headline acts for next year’s Reading and Leeds festival were announced earlier in the week, and there were no women among the six acts! This compelled a wave of condemnation; many people asking why, again, one of the biggest festivals in the world is struggling to include women! Some might ask that, because they have an all-male headline line-up, that means there are no women who can fit the bill and would be popular enough. In terms of names that could headline and provide a stunning set, there are plenty of options. From Billie Eilish and Lizzo, through to Anna Calvi, Little Simz, and Fiona Apple, there would be no shortage! I also think that Phoebe Bridgers is someone who is not only among the most talented and popular artists of today, but she has a gravitas and command of the stage that would lead to an amazing headline set! In this feature, I am going to bring in some interviews and reviews that show just what an immense talent Bridgers is. If you want to follow her on Instagram and Twitter, then you can keep abreast of everything she is doing. I really like what she is putting out into the world and, before I bring in a selection of interviews from the past few months/year, I want to talk about her two solo tudio albums. Phoebe Bridgers is one of those artists who has already achieved so much in her life. Only just twenty-six, the Los Angeles-born musician is also known for her musical collaborations: boygenius (with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus), and Better Oblivion Community Center (with Conor Oberst).

I have said before how we do not really have icons like we did back in the day such as Madonna and David Bowie - those artists with a unique style and changing innovation that seduced people and inspired countless artists and fans. Maybe that is unfair but, as there are so many artists out there and the media has changed a lot through the years, it is harder to find these artists that can rank alongside the greats. Like Jack White, Bridgers is someone who can succeed a solo artist, but she can also step into other groups and add so much. She is part of a duo and a trio, and I wonder whether we might see her also join a quartet – there is a supergroup involving Bridgers I have been thinking about that I would love to see! I am joking, but it is amazing to see how ambitious and passionate Bridgers is. Her debut single, Killer, was released on 28th April, 2015 (she did release a song called Waiting Room in 2014 for the Lost Ark Studio Compilation – Vol. 08), and her incredible debut album, Stranger in the Alps, was released on 22nd September, 2017. Almost three years after its release, I am still listening to it, and I just love the songs! In terms of influence, I know Bridgers is a huge fan of her Better Oblivion Community Center mate, Conor Oberst, but I think Bridgers’ sound and voice is very much her own.

Oberst features on Stranger in the Alps on the track, Would You Rather, and one can hear something very personal across the album. Bridgers co-wrote all but one song on the record - You Missed My Heart is a cover -, and the maturity and wisdom one hears on the album is truly moving – considering Bridgers was only twenty-three when the album was released. I have often wondered whether Stranger in the Alps got as much credit as it deserves. It gathered huge critical acclaim, but I think it should have won a load of awards and further recognition. The albums deals with sorrow and challenges, but there is that sense of hope and beauty that connects with the listener and brings them into the album. The immersive nature of Stranger in the Alps is one big reason why it received such positive feedback. This is what NME said in their review:

“Like Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen? Then get ready to fall head over heels in love with Los Angeles’ Phoebe Bridgers. ‘Strangers In the Alps’ is a less a collection of songs and more a collection of feelings, a luscious but deeply sad debut that sees the 23-year-old singer putting her heart on the line and calling for you to do the same.

It’s not surprise to find she’s heavily influenced by fellow Angelino Elliott Smith, with songs like ‘Funeral’ – about the overdose of a friend – and the haunting ‘Demi Moore’ sharing atmospheric, finger-picked emotion with the late singer-songwriter.

A kind of urban folksiness runs deep through the record, and the strummed softness of ‘Would You Rather’ even features Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. The downbeat vibe is cut through by unmitigated banger ‘Motion Sickness’ but ‘Strangers In The Alps’ is definitely album for the sad times. Get ready to embrace the tears”.

There were some who gave the album a slightly mixed review, and I think many would upgrade their review listening back now. Stranger in the Alps is a truly stunning debut, and I would urge people to go and buy a copy. Between her debut and second albums, Bridgers was involved with two other big releases. The boygenius E.P. was released on 26th October, 2018, and Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus – alongside a select group of musicians – created something wonderful. I hope that boygenius release another E.P. or album soon, as there is something harmonious about them, yet Bridgers, Dacus, and Baker have their own vibe and characteristics that makes the E.P. sound so rich and diverse! I just want to bring in a snippet from the review Paste provided, that shows why the trio worked so well together:

“The Bridgers-backed “Me & My Dog” is the buffed standout at the front of this EP’s trophy case. Loose acoustic guitars build to an inferno, or, rather, a glacier: “I had a fever / “Until I met you / Now you make me cool,” Bridgers sings, swiftly administering the cleverest compliment in rock this year.

Baker takes the wheel on a pair of fortified ballads “Souvenir” and “Stay Down,” The former would fit in snugly on Baker’s 2017 LP, Turn Out the Lights. Baker is very instrumentally savvy, and thumping timpani, focused keys and bear-all songwriting rule on “Stay Down.” It sounds like a song about giving up: “Push me down into the water like a sinner / Hold me under and I’ll never come up again.” But boygenius’ unified voices signal there’s still some hope, even as Baker echoes, singing from her gut, “So I stay down.”

The album ends on an especially magical note. On “Ketchum, ID,” Bridgers, Dacus and Baker assume soprano, alto and tenor and churn up a harmony so handsomely melancholic you’ll find yourself snatching tissues without even knowing why. It’s a fitting epilogue, too, that chronicles the band’s shared experience as touring musicians, and the emotional heaviness following those long nights in unfamiliar places. “I am never anywhere / Anywhere I go,” they sing in unison. “When I’m home I’m never there / Long enough to know.” Those are devastating words, but, at the same time, you get the feeling Bridgers, Baker and Dacus have found some sense of home in one another. Their mutual experiences are what unite them, and that bond bleeds through this music in every buzzing, beautiful bar”.

I think Phoebe Bridgers’ second album is a big step and sounds different to Stranger in the Alps; maybe it is because of the collaborations in-between and the fact that she picked something up from the different artists she worked with. The Better Oblivion Community Center album – I hope her next non-solo album project is not eponymously-named – was released on 24th January, 2019, and Oberst and Bridgers harmonise beautifully throughout. Although boygenius’ E.P. got slightly better reviews than Better Oblivion Community Center, the album is still another sign that Bridgers is among the most accomplished singer-songwriters of this age!

This is what The Line of Best Fit wrote when they reviewed the album:

“Putting the elusive nature of the campaign, which will undoubtedly continue to grab headlines, to one side, the pairing makes perfect sense. Both Oberst and Bridgers are often classed as folk singer-songwriters, but neither resorts to conforming totally to that label. Oberst is just as well known for his influence on emo, as well as his rockier exploits with his band Desaparecidos, whereas Bridgers last year released the highly-acclaimed indie EP, boygenius, alongside Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. They have in fact worked together in the past, most notably on "Would You Rather" off of Bridgers' debut album Stranger In The Alps, the results of which bode well for the new record.

It should come as no surprise then that Better Oblivion Community Center refuses to stick to typical folk-rock, dabbling at times in sounds ranging from alt-rock to synth-pop. “Exception To The Rule” opens with a pulsating, New Romantic-esque refrain before divulging in a beautiful spattering of synths and Bridgers’ and Oberst’s intertwined vocals. Elsewhere, the duo employ a combination of folk and cascading noise on one of the record’s highlights, “My City”. As both musicians temporarily abandon the jovial acoustic refrain underpinning the verses, they gradually build up to a release of distortion and drums for the final chorus, Bridgers' vocals in particular breaking with desperation. Both artists draw on their own well of influences, and the result is a wonderful myriad of styles.

Despite the wide range of aesthetics on the record, however, there are no two ways about it; this thing is bloody gorgeous. Two of the most adept singer-songwriters in haunting, poignant melancholy, the beauty to Better Oblivion Community Center lies exactly where you’d expect. Whether it be the tragic “Service Road” or the vocal duet on “Dylan Thomas”, there are endless moments on this record that prove just why both Oberst and Bridgers are so highly thought of. It’s the fact they’re able to do it together, and with such obvious chemistry, that makes it so much more impressive”.

Go and buy the boygenius E.P., and the Better Oblivion Community Center album, as they demonstrate the breadth and depth of Bridgers’ abilities. I still think there are reservoirs untapped in terms of where her songwriting and voice can go, not only in terms of themes but genres too. I am going to end with some interviews from this/last year, as I think it is important that Bridgers herself reveals some story and insight. Before then, I want to talk about Punisher. In terms of shifts, it is very different to Stranger in the Alps. More varied in terms of sound, it is a little edgier, and Bridgers’ voice is broader and more emotionally-rich.

PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Ockenfels for Vanity Fair

I adore Stranger in the Alps, and I think repeating that album would have been a mistake. One can definitely feel a lot of the debut album in Punisher, but her follow-up is a different beast. This is how Rough Trade sum up Bridgers’ second solo album:

“Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t write love songs as much as songs about the impact love can have on our lives, personalities, and priorities. Punisher, her fourth release and second solo album, is concerned with that subject. To say she writes about heartbreak is to undersell her blue wisdom, to say she writes about pain erases all the strange joy her music emanates. The arrival of Punisher cements Phoebe Bridgers as one of the most clever, tender and prolific songwriters of our era.

Bridgers is the rare artist with enough humor to deconstruct her own meteoric rise. Repeatedly praised by publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, Pitchfork, The Fader, The Los Angeles Times and countless others, Bridgers herself is more interested in discussing topics on Twitter, deadpanning meditations on the humiliating process of being a person, she presents a sweetly funny flipside to the strikingly sad songs she writes. Fittingly, Punisher is fascinated with, and driven by, that kind of impossible tension. Whether it’s writing tweets or songs, Bridgers’s singular talent lies in bringing fierce curiosity to slimy and painful things, interrogating them until they yield up answers that are beautiful and absurd, or faithfully reporting the reality that, sometimes, they are neither.

Bridgers pulls together a formidable crew of guests, including the Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Christian Lee Hutson and Conor Oberst as well as Nathaniel Walcott (of Bright Eyes), Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Jenny Lee Lindberg (of Warpaint), Blake Mills and Jim Keltner as well as her longtime bandmates Marshall Vore (drums), Harrison Whitford (guitar), Emily Retsas (bass) and Nick White (keys). The album was mixed by Mike Mogis, who also mixed Stranger In The Alps.

On the album’s epic, freewheeling closer, I Know The End, Bridgers orchestrates wails and horns, drums and electric guitar into a sumptuous doomsday swirl, culminating in her own final whispered roar. This is Punisher in a nutshell: devastating elegance punctuated by a moment of deeply campy self-awareness”.

Again, Bridgers co-writes on the album – on every song in fact -, and Conor Oberst can be heard on a few numbers, too. Moving from the more Folk and Indie sound of her debut, there is something harder and slightly darker on Punisher. Thematically, Punisher tackles the tension between the inner and outer-self; Bridgers has said how the album addresses numbness and personal loss – Bridgers lost her black pug, Max, in 2019 (she had had him for sixteen years). Though Bridgers tackled loneliness and loss when writing the album, there is plenty of light and redemption throughout the album. Punisher has earned Bridgers the best reviews of her career, and the album ranks alongside the very best of the year.

I think 2020 has been dominated by women, and Bridgers second album proves why she is a modern icon who is more than ready to take on headline slots! The songwriting throughout Punisher is fabulous and so engrossing! This is what SLANT wrote in their review of Punisher:

“Punisher’s best songs are those most adept at bringing all of these themes and sounds together. “Chinese Satellite” starts out wispy and ethereal before building to an apex of lush, cinematic strings, booming drums, and keen electric guitars. Here, Bridgers is in peak form as a lyricist, her moments of devastation shot through with a sardonic smile: “I want to believe,” she declares as a myriad of sounds fades away and we’re left with only those serious, dramatic strings. “Instead I look at the sky and I feel nothing,” is the punchline, and the moment is jarring compared to what initially feels like a real epiphany.

Punisher’s closing track, “I Know the End,” is a travelogue at the end of the world, explicitly illustrating the cloud of uneasiness that hangs over the album. Bridgers sprinkles the song with nods toward an amorphous kind of closure: A tornado comes for her hometown, a siren sounds in the distance, government drones and alien spaceships float off in the sky, and a billboard warns that “the end is near” amid a crescendo of horns and explosive noise. The album ends with blood-curdling screams, until all the sound fades out and Bridgers’s voice is hoarse. The end of the world is a central detail on Punisher, an influence over the uncertainty that falls over these dark but gorgeous songs”.

Since the release of Punisher (go and buy the album when you get time!), Bridgers has done interviews and some live performances (from her home), and I think she is as keen as every other artist to get back to gigs and get out there! Having released an album in lockdown, there is that desire to perform these new songs, and I am sure Bridgers has other songs in her mind that she would love to air. You can visit her homepage for news and updates, but it is clear that Bridgers has a very long and bright future. She is one of the finest artists around, and I think we really learn a lot from interviews. One can glean so much from the music, but I love to hear and read about Bridgers, as she is a fascinating human! I am going to bring in a few interviews that captured my attention to show what I mean. When Bridgers spoke with NME last year, she discussed the progress of her second album and how it differed from Stranger in the Alps:

“Were you working a lot on the record before you took time out for the boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center album?

“Truly. My plans got derailed by those two projects, in the best way. I was planning to go into the studio in the summer of 2018, and then I started two bands! And it was awesome and I’m so glad I did it like that, but we really started [on the new album] after I got off those tours.”

Did being in those bands change how you write songs?

“Yeah, totally. Not even just in recording, but I feel so much more comfortable live. I think the main thing which boygenius and I talk about ad nauseum, is that I feel like I just apologise for myself less. I’m not afraid to have a really weird idea or, you know, take a really bad guitar solo. I’m unafraid of getting made fun of anymore. I feel like both of those projects have made me feel like the boss of my own music in the best way.”

Does that make you feel like a very different person and songwriter to that which wrote ‘Stranger In The Alps’?

“I could talk a big game about how I’m not that person or I’m getting far away from those topics, and then I end up with 10 songs that are about depression. I have no idea. I’ve never really been afraid of how people were going to define me, as long as I didn’t write some cheaper song because people like that I’m depressed.”

How far along is the album? Is it finished?

“I don’t know! Honestly… The last record, I wrote the last two songs literally in the final hour. I don’t like to put time limits on myself as much as possible. I think that’s the worst thing that I could do right now.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Lehrman for Rolling Stone

And what makes the new album different from your debut?

“The production is totally different to my first record. People still kind of think of me as like a folk artist, but on the first record, I truly was deferring to other people to produce me. I basically had these country folk songs. [On the new record] I do a little bit of screaming on what we’ve recorded so far”.

The penultimate interview I want to grab from is from The Ringer back in June, as there is a lot to pour over. I was not overly-familiar with Bridgers’ early life and upbringing, and it was great to learn that side of her:

“Bridgers grew up in Pasadena, California, and was always adjacent to the entertainment industry. Her dad was a carpenter who built sets for film and television, and her mother, Jamie, had a variety of white-collar jobs, from receptionist to house manager for a fine arts complex. (Jamie is currently a stand-up comedian. “She has made jokes about me being a musician, and STDs and stuff. She’s pretty raunchy. It’s great.”)

“This whole COVID situation is reminding me a lot of high school, actually. I’m in bed all day. I eat whatever I want. A lot of the time I don’t have energy to reheat something, so I either go back to sleep or make a toaster waffle,” she says. “I feel like it’s weirdly like exposure therapy to my depressed teen years.”

Her parents divorced when she was 19, and in interviews she has alluded to her father’s substance misuse issues (or as she said in GQ, his “drug thing”) and says they have a strained relationship. But she also credits him for filling their house with music, including plenty of Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell, when she was a child. Later she would also gravitate to the brooding of future collaborators and friends like Oberst and the National. She’s always known she wanted to be a songwriter. “Before I knew how to do it. Before I was making anything good, I wanted it”.

There is a lot of great stuff in that interview, but the subjects of the #MeToo movement caught me. Also, Bridgers used to be in a relationship with Ryan Adams and, when the songwriter was accused of sexual assault by a number of women, naturally, many people came to Bridgers for an interview. Bridgers discussed both #MeToo and Ryan Adams in the interview:

“Alps was released right as the #MeToo movement began kicking into high gear after the exposé of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s numerous incidents of sexual assault and harassment. While doing interviews for Boygenius, Bridgers would comment that sometimes after she would shoot down condescending “women in music”–style questions from male journalists, she could tell a bunch of other questions were being deleted. “I don’t know if it’s better. I mean I think that more places are afraid to send an old white man to go interview a young woman,” she says. “Hopefully, people are just hiring more women, and even if it’s just because they have to or for a look, they’re editing out the questions that they have seen other people get ripped apart for asking. So it seems like everybody’s on their toes a little bit, and the people who should be on their toes are on their toes.”

While gigging around L.A., Bridgers caught the attention of Ryan Adams, who released her single “Killer” through his label PAX AM in 2015. As revealed last year in an article in The New York Times by Joe Coscarelli and Melena Ryzik, they began a romantic relationship when she was 20 and he was more than twice her age. The article recounted how, she says, Adams became emotionally abusive, and after she ended the relationship “Adams became evasive about releasing the music they had recorded together and rescinded the offer to open his upcoming concerts.” (Through a lawyer, Adams contested the accounts of Bridgers and many other women.).

A year later, she reflects on how her life has changed since the article’s publication. “I guess I just get to talk about that shit a little bit more than I did before, and I met tons of great people through it. It was definitely worse right before it came out. I was afraid it wasn’t gonna come out, afraid we’re gonna get sued. You still gaslight yourself and it’s like, ‘Did any of this shit happen?’” she says. “And then the day it came out, no matter how many people told me to go fuck off and die on the internet, I met so many amazing people and got so many fucking emails that made me really emotional, being like, ‘I was the barista down the street from the studio,’ or whatever. It just made me feel good”.

I will wrap things up in a second, but I will end by sourcing from an excellent interview from The Forty-Five from earlier in the year. I wanted to select a passage that details how Bridgers’ music has helped fans struggling emotionally – and how her music connects to her fans like nothing else out there:

“Elsewhere on the spectrum, there are the fans who connect to the explicit existential angst of Bridgers’ music, and find themselves talking to her about the emotional issues she’s helped them through. “Sometimes I’m talking to somebody for five hours about suicide,” she says. “It’s a lot of pressure.” Bridgers’ writing style is unflinching, and will often cut to the heart of an ugly emotion by writing vignettes around it. It’s not surprising that her listeners find themselves inside the blue and grey landscapes of her music; she deliberately carves space for them in her writing.

“I can’t write too close to an experience, because I feel like I’ll write a way too sincere, ‘Fuck you for not loving me’ song,” she explains of her oblique, evocative approach to writing lyrics. “But if I’m far enough away from it, I can be like, ‘Oh, it’s way sadder to just describe what’s happening, and not say how you feel about it.’ Almost like JD Salinger or something.”

It is a worrying time for all artists, but Bridgers has not been thinking too much about the future in fearful terms. There is always a sense of hope and light in her music and conversations:

While she’s been reflecting on these fears about what comes next for the music industry, Bridgers admits in an on-brand fashion: “I haven’t been thinking about the future that much.” Just like her music, Bridgers is currently living firmly inside the moment, eating her PB & J sandwiches and making short-term plans for a virtual world tour. In the longer term, she says vaguely, “I would like to write, and record. Those are my hopes. And I hope there’s a vaccine.” While Bridgers makes music for endings, her songs also occasionally glimmer with implicit, trepidatious optimism. On “Garden Song”, she sings, “When I grow up, I’m gonna look up from my phone and see my life.” Even when the future feels impossible, she seems to say, it’s coming. The existence of ‘Punisher’ proves that last time she felt she’d run out of songs forever, she was wrong. Hopefully, she’ll be wrong again”.

Phoebe Bridgers is such a prodigious talent, and a restless artist who loves to work with different people. She has released one of this year’s most remarkable albums in Punisher, and who knows where 2021 will take her. I hope she can do as much touring as possible, and you just feel another album will come around, whether that is a solo record or with boygenius; perhaps she will release a record as part of Better Oblivion Community Center. Who knows. What I do know – and many other share this opinion – is that Phoebe Bridgers is…

AN icon of our times.

FEATURE: Too Good to Be Forgotten: Tracks That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure: Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire

FEATURE:

 

Too Good to Be Forgotten: Tracks That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure

IN THIS PHOTO: Billy Joel boxing in NY in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Timothy White

Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire

___________

THIS is a feature…

IN THIS PHOTO: Billy Joel shot by Eugene Adebari in 1989

where I look at songs that have been overlooked or, for the most part, are seen as a bit of a guilty pleasure! Not only are there no such things in music, but I think a lot of songs were either panned when they were released, or people feel embarrassed about loving them now. There is no denying the genius of Billy Joel, but I have seen him listed as a ‘guilty pleasures artists’, and someone who has a few decent songs in the catalogue and others that are not quite so strong. I like We Didn’t Start the Fire, because Billy Joel manages to cover so much history, and he name-drops so many historical figures. Last year, the Los Angeles Times wrote a feature that asked where all the people mentioned in We Didn’t Start the Fire are. It is clear that the song has made an impact since its release:

“Whatever you think of the concept – and millennial audiences may certainly raise their eyebrows at the Baby Boomer rundown of the Luckiest Generation’s trials and tribulations – there’s no denying that ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ had the cultural impact of a meteor strike.

The rapid-fire vocals are second nature even to people who couldn’t pick their author out of a line up, and it’s hard to pick a stronger contender for the definitive Billy Joel song, despite a career packed with highlights.

Even while covering forty years of world history in a little over four minutes, by offering no commentary (save for whatever you choose to believe the ‘fire’ is – something we don’t find out until the last few frames) Joel manages to keep the song itself remarkably apolitical.

By contrast, the video is a fast-paced run down of the generational evolution of the American family, taking in the burning of flags, bras and draft papers as martial bliss gives way to medicated stress and anger, with Joel himself a be-shaded, background presence throughout”.

I love Billy Joel, but 1989 was not his most successful year. Storm Front was not reviewed that highly, and he followed that in 1993 with River of Dreams – another album that gained some mixed response. Some say that Joel’s last truly great album was 1983’s An Innocent Man, and his albums after that were in decline. His final studio album in 2001, Fantasies & Delusions, was a fitting farewell, but it is a shame that Joel is no longer recording music. I love a lot of Billy Joel’s later albums, and I think songs like We Didn’t Start the Fire are classics. Maybe the production is very 1980s, in the sense that it might not have dated that well, but I think the lyrics are really educational and informative, and Joel’s vocal is very committed!

Rarely talked about in the same breath as classics like Piano Man, and She’s Always a Woman, I think we need to reframe and reinvestigate We Didn’t Start the Fire. I think the fact that the song has been parodied a lot means that some distance themselves from it. This 2014 article from Entertainment Weekly discusses the division the song has created:

“At the time of its release, some found “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to be a poignant statement on the decay of the collective American morale. John McAlley at Rolling Stone, for example, wrote that Joel chronicled “the steady erosion of our national spirit since 1949—incidentally, the year of his birth.”

Of course, not everyone was thrilled with “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” A 1997 story in College Teaching points out that when Joel’s album was released, Columbia Records, in collaboration with Scholastic, Inc., distributed the song to 40,000 junior and senior high school classrooms, along with a taped talk from Joel—a self-professed history buff—titled “History Is a Living Thing.”

Teachers’ reactions were mixed.

Nevertheless, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” would go on to become both a Billboard No. 1 and an honorable mention on at least one list of the Worst Songs Ever, as well as an ever-springing fountain of inspiration for parodists and an occasional classroom resource for history teachers.

In 1994, after a performance at Oxford University, a woman—presumably an Oxford student—asked Joel whether he accidentally or intentionally chronicled the Cold War in “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Thankfully, someone captured the exchange on video; Joel’s sprawling response is a little less than illuminating on that particular subject, but he offers a few marvelously entertaining extra tidbits about the origins and the legacy of the hit song he “didn’t think was really that good to begin with”.

It is a shame that Billy Joel is not overly-fond of We Didn’t Start the Fire, because I think there is a lot of genuine affection for it, and the fact that he was tackling history and putting out this ambitious song in 1989 – a year where we saw so much change and progress – is to be commended. It was a very different track to what the public were used to hearing but, apart from the production, I think We Didn’t Start the Fire resonates still and it is much more than a guilty pleasure! I would rank We Didn’t Start the Fire among Billy Joel’s best, and I especially love the song’s video! One does not hear the song so much on the radio, and that is a real pity. We Didn’t Start the Fire is a lot better and more important than people give it credit for, and I would urge everyone to…

GIVE it a good spin.

FEATURE: Second Spin: The Clash – Combat Rock

FEATURE:

 

Second Spin

The Clash – Combat Rock

___________

I think The Clash…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Clash in Philadelphia in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Gruen

are one of those bands who released some real classics, and a couple of albums that were very short of their best. I guess that is the same with every artist, but there is a real divide between, say, The Clash (1977), London Calling (1979) and Cut the Crap (1985). In fact, actually, I think Cut the Crap was the only bad album they ever released. The band did release a couple of albums that I think divide people. I have seen people argue as to whether Sandinista! (1980) is a great album, and they also debate Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978). The latter followed the band’s exceptional debut and, whilst not as iconic, it is definitely a worthy follow-up. Sandinista! arrived after London Calling and, with such a high standard being set there, the band entered the 1980s with a really good album. It is interesting how there were these critical rises and slight dips. It seemed that straight after a stone-cold classic album, there followed one that was excellent but not imbued with the potency and memorability of its predecessor. This brings us to Combat Rock of 1982. It followed Sandinista!, and I think this is an album that many people feel is in the bottom-two Clash albums. I actually think Combat Rock is one of the strongest albums from The Clash, and it arrived at a time when Punk had lost a lot of its momentum and relevance.

The Clash were never purely a Punk band – they always mixed sounds together -, but the London band were definitely entering a different stage. Their fifth studio album was released on 14th May, 1982, and it charted at number-two, spending twenty-three weeks in the U.K. charts – and it peaked at number-seven in the United States, spending sixty-one weeks on the chart. Combat Rock is the group's best-selling album, being certified double-platinum in the United States. That all sounds like a recipe for success; surely Combat Rock, on that basis, is a classic that cannot be faulted?! This is another case on Second Spin of an album being successful in terms of sales, but a little less sure-footed when it comes to the reviews. Maybe it is a case of critics comparing Combat Rock with bigger Clash albums, or perhaps not feeling that there was a lot of gold beyond the huge singles, Should I Stay or Should I Go, and Rock the Casbah. There is a trippiness that runs through Combat Rock. The impact of the Vietnam War was very important on the band, and one can hear this on songs like Straight to Hell. Even though it had been five years since their debut album, The Clash were still discussing politics and warfare in a way that took you aback and made you think. Tackling U.S. foreign policy and America in decline, there is a lot of depth to Combat Rock.

Know Your Rights, Straight to Hell, and Overpowered by Funk are Clash classics that can rank alongside their best. One of the issues with Combat Rock, I think, it how it is very top-heavy: Know Your Rights, Should I Stay or Should I Go, Rock the Casbah, and Straight to Hell are in the first half, and there are relatively few heavy-hitting songs in the second side. That said, there are plenty of gems to be found, and I think Death Is a Star is a great album closer. For me, I think Should I Stay or Should I Go is that song that defines the album. Whilst not as political and loved as many other Clash songs, it is the one I grew up on and remember very fondly. Rather than Joe Strummer singing lead, this one was tackled by Mick Jones – the two often shared vocal duties, either soloing or together -, and I reckon it is a remarkable number. There is debate as to whether the song is about Jones’ imminent departure from The Clash, or whether it is about a relationship breakdown – in years since, Jones has denied any specific inspiration, explaining that it is just a good Rock song. It is a bit sad that Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon were dismissed from the band by the time Cut the Crap came along, as they were pivotal members, and the band suffered because of their loss.

One cannot really detect any strife or inter-band tension through the album. Strummer and Jones’ Know Your Rights is excellent, whilst Headon, Strummer and Jones co-wrote Rock the Casbah. The reviews vary when it comes to Combat Rock. I shall bring in some positive assessment soon - but I want to quote from AllMusic, who were a little mixed:

“On the surface of things, Combat Rock appears to be a retreat from the sprawling stylistic explorations of London Calling and Sandinista! The pounding arena rock of "Should I Stay or Should I Go" makes the Clash sound like an arena rock band, and much of the album boasts a muscular, heavy sound courtesy of producer Glyn Johns. But things aren't quite that simple. Combat Rock contains heavy flirtations with rap, funk, and reggae, and it even has a cameo by poet Allen Ginsberg -- if this album is, as it has often been claimed, the Clash's sellout effort, it's a very strange way to sell out. Even with the infectious, dance-inflected new wave pop of "Rock the Casbah" leading the way, there aren't many overt attempts at crossover success, mainly because the group is tearing in two separate directions. Mick Jones wants the Clash to inherit the Who's righteous arena rock stance, and Joe Strummer wants to forge ahead into black music. The result is an album that is nearly as inconsistent as Sandinista!, even though its finest moments -- "Should I Stay or Should I Go," "Rock the Casbah," "Straight to Hell" -- illustrate why the Clash were able to reach a larger audience than ever before with the record”.

I think there is plenty to love about Combat Rock. If you do not except it to sound like London Calling, or The Clash, then that is the best approach – I think a lot of people will always judge The Clash’s back catalogue like that. Maybe there are not as many diamonds on Combat Rock as those albums, but there are at least four or five songs that can sit proudly with their best work! When they approached the album in 2005, this is what Sputnik Music wrote:

“It’s clear that this is one of the bands albums that really stands out from the rest in their history, and really captures a new sound that would catch on to the newer Clash generation. This is one of the band’s best works, and defines that no matter what slice of meat they choose out, and how the cook it, it will always somehow to come out being very damn delicious. As the band has a short run after this album, with their live album and Cut The Crap, one of the more poor album on this side of The Clash. Combat Rock whole-fully comes out of it’s womb with something new to offer, and leaving you wanting more. It’s one that no fan should be without, and with an attitude that gets you up and out of your seat, and at the same time pondering how they ever did it. This is an album that the band didn’t disappoint with. Not that they ever did”.

Unlike a lot of albums from the 1980s, I don’t think Combat Rock sounds dated at all. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the album was co-produced by The Clash and Glyn Johns – whose has worked with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, among numerous others! I am going to wrap things up but, before I do, I wanted to quote from an Albumism feature from 2017, as they marked thirty-five years of The Clash’s Combat Rock:

“Combat Rock is so much more than just “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah.” The band were big fans of the movie Apocalypse Now and they had a great fascination with the Vietnam War. As a result, several of the album’s songs are meditations on the war and its impact on society. “Straight to Hell” tells the story of Vietnamese women and their children whose fathers were American soldiers who eventually abandoned them. “Sean Flynn” is another Vietnam-themed tale about the son of actor Errol Flynn who was a photojournalist who disappeared in 1970 while in Vietnam.

“Overpowered By Funk” is a song that illustrates the heavy influence that hip-hop (then referred to as rap) had on the band. Joe Strummer recalled in 2002, “When we came to the U.S., Mick stumbled upon a music shop in Brooklyn that carried the music of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugar Hill Gang…these groups were radically changing music and they changed everything for us.” The song features a rap vocal by legendary graffiti artist Futura 2000. It captured the mood and feel of New York City in 1982 and it gave us a glimpse into Jones’ musical future with his band Big Audio Dynamite. The dark side of New York is on display in “Ghetto Defendant,” a reggae dub track featuring Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. It’s an ominous tale about heroin addiction and despair. Ironically, it was heroin addiction that forced the band to fire drummer Topper Headon after the album’s release.

The various styles of music on Combat Rock were emblematic of the drifting apart of Strummer and Jones. “Know Your Rights” is Joe Strummer personified and one hell of a way to kick off an album. The song exemplified the direction he wanted the band to go. Strummer thought they needed to get back closer to their punk roots. The stylistic tug of war on Combat Rock works with the heavy subject matter. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it was the last great statement from The Clash as we knew them. When the Combat Rock tour ended, Strummer and the band’s manager Bernie Rhodes forced Jones out of the band. Strummer confided in 2002, “I committed one of the greatest mistakes of my life with the sacking of Mick.”

Combat Rock’s legacy lives on years after its initial release, with the most notable example being “Straight to Hell”, which was sampled in M.I.A’s 2007 song “Paper Planes.” Combat Rock may be one of the most misunderstood albums of all time. The band’s hardcore fans wanted more of what London Calling was and The Clash wanted to grow and explore. In the long run, I think we were the better for it”.

If you have never heard Combat Rock before, I would encourage you to do so. And for those who have sort of pushed it aside or only listen to the big singles, then dust it off and give it another spin. It is a great album that has not received the positive press that it warrants – though there has been some fond retrospection. I think it is a brilliant record, and one that should be seen as one of The Clash’s best efforts. Give it a play and…

SEE what I mean.

FEATURE: Dress You Up: Might a Madonna Biopic Finally Hit the Screens?

FEATURE:

 

Dress You Up

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna shot by Helmut Werb in the 1980s

Might a Madonna Biopic Finally Hit the Screens?

___________

DESPITE some T.V. shows and films…  

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna captured in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Francesco Scavullo

resuming filming, there are still guidelines in place regarding what can be filmed. I am going to limit my Madonna features, as I tend to latch onto anything vaguely interesting to do with her but, as she is a Pop icon who continues to turn heads and whip up discussion, there is always going to be interest around her. There is no predicting what Madonna will say and do next, and I like the fact that she still sort of does what she wants and is not scared of what the record label will think! This all stems back to her earliest days, and the fact Madonna has always been bold and individual. Because of that, I have asked whether we will ever see a biopic on the screens. I mention it frequently because, over the past few years, a lot of great artists have had their stories brought to life. I can understand why there is an appetite to see an artist’s life translated for the screen, as it can introduce them to new fans and it is a chance for people to see that artist away from the music – to learn more about their life and story. There have been rumours that a Madonna biopic is taking shape, and, as The Independent report, a star might have been found:

“A rumoured Madonna biopic may have found its star, after the Queen of Pop began following Ozark actor Julia Garner on Instagram.

Fans spotted that Madonna and her long-time manager Guy Oseary both followed Garner last week (28 August). The actor’s striking resemblance to a young Madonna sparked speculation that they have their eyes on her for a rumoured biopic.

IN THIS PHOTO: Julia Garner

While a Madonna biopic has yet to be officially confirmed, the pop star has posted a series of videos to her Instagram this month in which she appears to be co-writing the story of her life with Oscar winner Diablo Cody.

Cody wrote the screenplays for films including Juno, Jennifer’s Body and Young Adult, as well as the book for the Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill. The show, which premiered in 2019, uses the musician’s songs as the backdrop to a story of a family struggling through personal woes in Nineties suburbia.

“When you’re stuck in a house with multiple injuries what do you do?” Madonna wrote on her Instagram on 8 August. “Write a screenplay with Diablo Cody about..............?”

View this post on Instagram

Teenage Quarantine.............. #baycity #backyard

A post shared by Madonna (@madonna) on Apr 29, 2020 at 2:38pm PDT

In her Instagram Stories, Madonna has also posted various photographs of old diaries dated to the early 1980s, suggesting the possible biopic may only chronicle her early rise to fame.

In 2017, Madonna condemned plans for an unauthorised film biopic about her life. Titled Blonde Ambition, and put into development by Universal Pictures, the script was written by Elyse Hollander and explored the star’s early days and the making of her first album.

“Nobody knows what I know and what I have seen,” Madonna wrote on Instagram at the time. “Only I can tell my story. Anyone else who tries is a charlatan and a fool looking for instant gratification without doing the work. This is a disease in our society”.

It would be great if the rumours were true, as there have been attempts to make a biopic and they have come to nothing. I get why Madonna would want to be protective and not allow something onto the screen she is not happy with. As it seems like Madonna herself is closely involved with the project and script, I wonder whether it will be something factual, or there will be some fantasy in there. In terms of biopics, a Madonna film is a pretty big one! Although her career has spanned five decades, I do think that her early years is the most exciting and interesting.

View this post on Instagram

#screenplay #diablo #davidbanda

A post shared by Madonna (@madonna) on Sep 2, 2020 at 4:42pm PDT

From her first movements in 1982 to, say, 1990’s Blond Ambition World Tour, that period was a whirlwind and a real time of transformation. From the somewhat innocent Pop artist of her eponymous 1983 debut album to the more mature and boundary-pushing woman who released Like a Prayer in 1989, that was a really interesting and memorable time in music! There are many artists today who would like to learn Madonna’s story and how she managed to arrive in New York with next to nothing and succeed. I don’t think a lot of people know about Madonna’s years before her debut single, Everybody, was released in 1982. Maybe a film will focus on 1978-1982 – or spend the opening half hour or so around that time. This article from i-D explains more about Madonna’s earliest years around New York:

“According to pop legend, Madonna Louise Ciccone arrived in New York City in 1978 with $35 in her pocket, and told a taxi driver: "Take me to the centre of everything." He dropped her off in Times Square, where she worked for a while at Dunkin' Donuts before being fired, so the story goes, for squirting jelly in a customer's face. Right from the start, this college dropout from the Detroit 'burbs was a true rebel heart.

Madonna would eventually cut her creative teeth in edgier neighbourhoods like Manhattan's then-rundown Lower East Side and Corona in Queens, home to a large Hispanic and Latino population. Recalling her first impressions of the Big Apple nearly four decades later, she said: "I felt like I plugged my finger into an electric socket."

Madonna wouldn't score her first really big hit, Holiday, until 1983, but her pre-fame years running around NYC’s scuzzy underground are key to understanding who she is as a person and as a pop star. She didn't study at stage school like Lady Gaga, or hone her craft on a TV show like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. She learned on the street, figuring out who Madonna was and what sort of artist she wanted to be. She had room to grow and space to make mistakes because she didn’t become super-famous until she was 26 or 27.

She worked as a waitress at the Russian Tea Room and posed for nude photos to make extra cash. After she became famous, these pictures reappeared with depressing inevitability in Penthouse and Playboy magazines, but Madonna refused to be slut-shamed. "I was expected to feel ashamed when these photos came out, and I was not. And this puzzled people," she recalled during her 2016 Billboard Woman of the Year acceptance speech.

She also earned money as a dancer, and played drums in a band called The Breakfast Club before leaving to form her own group Emmy and the Emmys. She hung out at Studio 54, where her best friend Martin Burgoyne was a bartender, and played her first solo show at another iconic nightclub, Danceteria.

"It wasn’t until I really decided to switch into being a musician and a songwriter, and I moved to the Lower East Side, that I started meeting artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol," she explained in a 2015 Noisey interview. "While I felt we all fed off each other’s energy and we were all inspired by each other and jealous of each other, collaborating with each other, I had no idea then what their place in the world would be now. But not my own, either. So we were just artists having fun, happy that anyone was interested in our work."

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images

It was an intensely inspiring period for Madonna, but at the same time, we shouldn't romanticise it too much. "It wasn’t safe to be gay; it wasn’t cool to be associated with the gay community," she recalled in her Billboard speech. "It was 1979 and New York was a very scary place. In the first year I was held at gunpoint, raped on a rooftop with a knife digging into my throat. And I had my apartment broken into and robbed so many times I just stopped locking the door. In the years that followed, I lost almost every friend I had to AIDS or drugs or gunshots”.

Although it was not a perfect time, Madonna did learn a lot in her first years in New York. From her 1983 debut album to today, she has battled against sexism, and she has faced more than her share of critics and doubters! From the epic tours, big films, flop films, and those albums that reinvented her, there is a lot to focus on. Many would want to see Madonna’s 1992, where she released Erotica and her Sex book more or less at the same time and, from then, she faced backlash and criticism – even though the album is terrific and the book is tame by today’s standards. For all the glamour and eventfulness that encapsulated so much of Madonna’s career, I think bringing it back to the earliest days would be best; maybe a look from 1978 through to 1983 (her debut), or 1984 – when Like a Virgin was released and her popularity was heightened and sealed. Whatever is planned and whatever might come about, I am glad that there seems to be some substance in the biopic rumours – something fans have been waiting for for years now! When (or if) the biopic does arrive, it will definitely…

GIVE inspiration to so many artists coming through.

FEATURE: Love Spreads: The HELP Album at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

Love Spreads

The HELP Album at Twenty-Five

___________

WITH most album anniversaries…

IMAGE CREDIT: War Child

we celebrate the artist involved and how the songs have resonated through the years. I do love to mark the anniversary of classic albums, as it is a good opportunity to revisit a wonderful moment of time. In the case of the HELP album, its twenty-fifth anniversary on Wednesday (9th September) is important for a couple of reasons. HELP is a 1995 charity album to raise funds for the War Child charity, which provided aid to war-stricken areas, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. All the songs were recorded in a single day. The album features British and Irish artists including Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, and the Manic Street Preachers. Like Live Aid, artists came together over a common cause that they felt very passionate about. Whereas the original Live Aid concert of 1985 was established to raise awareness and funds to combat the ongoing Ethiopian famine, HELP was different. Maybe the Live Aid concert was the inspiration for HELP, as that concert was unique in the way that it united huge artists from around the world. HELP was followed by 1 Love (2002), Hope (2003), Help!: A Day in the Life (2005), and War Child Presents Heroes (2009). If you are new to HELP and need to know a bit more information, then War Child – the album was recorded to raise funds for the charity – explain more here:

“The support from the artists was incredible. Taking time out from their busy schedules, they recorded the entire record in just 24 hours. In a pre-digital time when the only conflict the UK music industry cared about was Blur versus Oasis, even they were willing to come together to support some of the world's most vulnerable children.

IN THIS PHOTO: Sinéad O'Connor appeared on the HELP album in 1995

What is HELP?

HELP is a charity album launched in response to the Bosnian War. In 1995 the inter-ethnic conflict had taken the lives of 250,000 people and displaced a further two million. Those fleeing the bloodshed - ordinary men, women and children - were left with nothing, and little hope their lives would ever return to normal.

Tony Crean, International Marketing Manager at Go! Discs, along with music industry experts Anton Brookes, Terri Hall and Rob Partridge wante to do something to support families - and fast. They put their heads and contacts together to create the groundbreaking HELP album, in aid of War Child.

"We'll put aside our differences for the cause - and it's the only time you'll see the two of us agreeing on anything" - Noel Gallagher said in an interview.

To celebrate the album's 25th anniversary, we're so excited to announce that HELP will be re-issued on limited edition vinyl, and made available on digital and streaming platforms for the first time ever! Pre-order a record today.

The iconic album, originally launched in 1995, features tracks from Oasis and Friends, The Boo Radleys, The Stone Roses, Radiohead, Orbital, Portishead, Massive Attack, Suede, The Charlatans vs. The Chemical Brothers, Stereo MCs, Sinéad O'Connor, the Levellers, Manic Street Preachers, Terrovision, The One World Orchestra, Planet 4 Folk Quartet, Terry Hall and Salad, Neneh Cherry and Trout, Blur and The Smokin' Mojo Filters (Paul McCartney, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher).

The names that were united for this album boggles the mind! I realise the cause and intention is more important than the calibre of the artists involved, but it shows that, when it came to a huge issue that could not be ignored, there was no ego at all! I will talk more about my experiences of music in 1995, but at a time when Britpop was at a high and people could have overlooked HELP, the album was a massive success:

With such a legendary line-up, how could it not be? In a time before The Cloud, iPhones and email, HELP raised over £1.25 million to transform the lives of children caught up in the Bosnian War.

A quarter of a century after its original release, we're relaunching the HELP album to raise vital funds for War Child's lifesaving work responding to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Want to know more about how the album came about? Hear about its history in the podcast Help - the Story of the War Child Album, narrated by Matt Everitt, told through recollection from the artists involved and the people that made the record. Listen here from 9th September.

To mark twenty-five years of such a landmark and vital album, one can download it. I would suggest you buy the vinyl edition, as the sound quality is richer, and one can keep the album for years to come as, in decades to come, it will still be hugely important:

Where can I buy HELP?

The HELP album will officially launch on 9th September - exactly 25 years after its original release.

For the first time ever, you'll be able to download or stream HELP on digital platforms.

Or you can buy one of our limited edition, 180g double vinyl LPs, by pre-ordering now. With only 2,020 copies available, you won’t want to miss out!

This reissue includes never-before-seen photos by world renowned photographer Lawrence Watson of the recording session with Paul McCartney, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher at Abbey Road in September 1995”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt narrates the podcast, Help - the Story of the War Child Album, that looks back at the 1995 album and brings in artists involved (available to stream from 9th September)

At a time when refugees are risking their lives to come to this country, the importance of HELP seems even more defined and timely! I wonder, given the current COVID-19 crisis, the refugee struggles, and other issues around the world (including racism and political tension), a new album should be made to raise funds and awareness. I do think that we live in a time when we can look back to 1995 and how so many popular artists lent their voices because they were passionate about a cause that meant a lot to so many people. The tracklisting of the original album is immense:

1.    Oasis and Friends – Fade Away

2.    The Boo Radleys – Oh Brother

3.    The Stone Roses – Love Spreads

4.    Radiohead – Lucky

5.    Orbital – Adnan

6.    Portishead – Mourning Air

7.    Massive Attack – Fake the Aroma (alternate version of Karmacoma)

8.    Suede – Shipbuilding

9.    The Charlatans vs. The Chemical Brothers – Time For Livin'

10. Stereo MC’s – Sweetest Truth (Show No Fear)

11. Sinéad O'Connor – Ode to Billie Joe

12. The Levellers – Searchlights

13. Manic Street Preachers – Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head

14. Terrorvision – Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt

15. The One World Orchestra featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards (aka The KLF) – The Magnificent

16. Planet 4 Folk Quartet – Message to Crommie

17. Terry Hall and Salad – Dream a Little Dream of Me

18. Neneh Cherry and Trout – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

19. Blur – Eine kleine Lift Musik

20. The Smokin' Mojo Filters – Come Together

At he date of publication (5th September), there are still vinyl copies of HELP available, so make sure you are quick and get your copy! If you miss out, one can stream it from 9th September, and make sure you tune into the podcast presented by Matt Everitt, as it will be illuminating and something you will not want to miss! 1995 was a marvellous year for music and life in general. I was only eleven when the year started, but I was obsessed with music and what was coming out. As I said, Britpop was at its peak and it was not long before Oasis and Blur would go toe-to-toe in the chart battle that saw Blur’s Country House defeat Oasis’ Roll with It. There was so much to love, and, from a cultural viewpoint, there were so many classic T.V. shows and films about. In this rather sweet bubble of bliss, I was not really expecting something as monumental and important as HELP. I was only two when Live Aid was on the T.V., and there hadn’t really been anything since then that sort of brought artists together because of something utterly horrifying happening in the world – correct me if I am wrong on that point! To see war-stricken areas on the news and see children displaced must have affected the artists on the HELP album in a profound way. I remember when the album came out and the news attention that it got. From a musical standpoint, seeing this compilation featuring so many of my favourite artists was great; the fact that there were some rare and unusual songs in the mix was another point of fascination! The album's sleeve notes included a contribution from the former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, as well as brilliant artwork by John Squire and Massive Attack's 3-D. HELP (or The Help Album) reached number-one in the U.K. albums compilation charts, but it was not eligible for the standard charts as it was a compilation. The album raised more than £1.25 million for War Child, and it remains one of the most important albums ever released. Go and buy a copy, stream it (on 9th September) if they are sold-out, and make sure you listen to the podcast, as it will be a rare opportunity to hear artists involved in the album recall such a…

IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead, whose song, Lucky, appeared on the HELP album - two years before it was featured on their iconic album, OK Computer

SIGNIFICANT moment of modern history.

FEATURE: “He Swooned in Warm Maroon” Never for Ever at Forty: Kate Bush’s The Wedding List

FEATURE:

“He Swooned in Warm Maroon”

Never for Ever at Forty: Kate Bush’s The Wedding List

___________

THERE is debate…

as to when Kate Bush’s Never for Ever turns forty. I have seen some sources say that it is 7th September (some say 5th September), but it seems to be the case that, in fact, 8th September (which would have been a Monday - albums usually were released on Mondays back then in the U.K.) is the anniversary – and that is the one that I am going with (even if some of my earlier features have said it was on the 7th…my bad). It is frustrating that it can be difficult trying to find a release date for an album but, on 8th September, 1980, Kate Bush released her third album, Never for Ever. This was Bush’s first number-one album (but not her last). It was also the first ever album by a British female solo artist to top the U.K. album chart, as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number-one - quite the record-breaking gem! I still maintain that this album is underrated and, forty years later, there are people who place it way above many of her other albums. I can see how it does not quite reach the same heights as Hounds of Love – which turns thirty-five on 16th September -, but it is an album that contains massively impressive singles in Babooshka, Army Dreamers, and Breathing - and the remaining eight tracks are awesome! The album came just after a year from Bush’s The Tour of Life, and this was the first album where Bush co-produced (alongside Jon Kelly, who was the engineer on her first two albums). With the personal discovery of the Fairlight CMI (via her friend, Peter Gabriel), Bush had this new access to sounds that fed into her work, and I think Never for Ever is a broader album in terms of themes and compositions when one compares it to The Kick Inside, and Lionheart (both from 1978). I hope that Never for Ever gets a lot of acclaim and new attention when it turns forty, and that it is not overshadowed by Hounds of Love’s impending anniversary.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Virgin Records in Eldon Square, Newcastle in September 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix

Maybe there are a couple of tracks that divide people, and I would say that Egypt, and Violin are those two. The former ends the first side of the album, whereas Violin is the second track from the second side. Sitting between those tracks – and the song that people hear when they flip the vinyl and lay down the needle – is The Wedding List. I have paid special attention to a few tracks from Never for Ever, but the last one that I want to expose is The Wedding List. If some feel that Violin is one of Bush’s weaker rockers, and Egypt does not quite ignite, then one cannot deny that The Wedding List is a more interesting and emotionally-rich song that tells a fascinating story. I can appreciate that Bush did not want to release too many singles from Never for Ever. Although not all of its singles were released in the U.K., on The Dreaming (1982), Hounds of Love (1985), and The Red Shoes (1993), Bush did put out more than she did on Never for Ever. I respect how she did not want to put out too many singles when the albums were there; she was always about looking forward and doing something new, but there was an opportunity, I feel, to release a fourth single from Never for Ever. In terms of competition, one could cite All We Ever Look For, and The Infant Kiss as songs that would make popular singles, but I feel The Wedding List would have bested them both!

The reason I say this is because Bush performed the song as part of her Christmas Special in 1979 – it would be over eight months until people heard The Wedding List on Never for Ever. It was clear that Bush had a lot of love for this song, and the video/clip of that song being performed is incredible (and one can see where Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill character, The Bride, might have stemmed from!). The song was inspired by a François Truffaut's film called The Bride Wore Black ('La Mariée était en noir'). It tells of a groom who is accidentally murdered on the day of his wedding by a group of five people who shoot at him from a window. The bride succeeds in tracking down each one of the five and kills them in a row, including the last one who happens to be in jail. It is another case of Bush picking from the more obscure end of the inspiration section of the ideas supermarket! I love the fact that she was moved by areas, films and subjects that other songwriters would never consider. There is drama and beauty; some fantastic lyrics and story development, and I think it would make a great companion with Babooshka – which chronicles a wife's desire to test her husband's loyalty. To do so, she takes on the pseudonym of Babooshka and sends notes to her husband in the guise of a younger woman - something which she fears is the opposite of how her husband currently sees her.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at a Never For Ever album signing in 1980

In her bitterness and paranoia, Babooshka arranges to meet her husband, who is attracted to the character who reminds him of his wife in earlier times. The relationship is ruined only because of her own paranoia. Maybe Bush was wary of the songs being compared, but they are very different and I think having The Wedding List as a final single from Never for Ever would have been great! The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives examples where Bush discussed The Wedding List and its inspiration:

“The Wedding List' is about the powerful force of revenge. An unhealthy energy which in this song proves to be a "killer". (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)

Revenge is so powerful and futile in the situation in the song. Instead of just one person being killed, it's three: her husband, the guy who did it - who was right on top of the wedding list with the silver plates - and her, because when she's done it, there's nothing left. All her ambition and purpose has all gone into that one guy. She's dead, there's nothing there. (Kris Needs, 'Fire in the Bush'. Zigzag, 1980)

Revenge is a terrible power, and the idea is to show that it's so strong that even at such a tragic time it's all she can think about. I find the whole aggression of human beings fascinating - how we are suddenly whipped up to such an extent that we can't see anything except that. Did you see the film Deathwish, and the way the audience reacted every time a mugger got shot? Terrible - though I cheered, myself. (Mike Nicholls, 'Among The Bushes'. Record Mirror, 1980)”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at EMI, Manchester Square, London in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Rasic/Getty Image

I love The Wedding List, and it is one of those songs – among many others – that one never hears on the radio! It has a terrific chorus, and Bush’s range and voice throughout is amazing! She puts so much passion into the recording, I could imagine an official video of the song would be very similar to that Christmas performance. Maybe that is a reason why it was not released as a single: having it on T.V. and seen by many sort of does the same job. As we celebrate Never for Ever turning forty, songs such as Babooshka, Breathing, Army Dreamers, and even Delius (Song of Summer) will be discussed, and I think there are some underrated cuts that might not get mentioned as much – The Wedding List is certainly one of them! I wanted to salute the track, as it is one of my favourite Kate Bush compositions, and it is a gem from an album that is absolutely stuffed full of them! I do hope that people get a new sense of appreciation and context when they listen back to Never for Ever, and they look beyond the singles to realise there are many gifts and gems to be discovered. The Wedding List is a magnificent track that always blows me away, and it is further proof (if it were ever needed) that Kate Bush was a songwriter who…

WAS always exploring and improving.

FEATURE: Annie Nightingale: Saluting a Broadcasting Pioneer: Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's First Female DJ

FEATURE:

 

Annie Nightingale: Saluting a Broadcasting Pioneer

IN THIS PHOTO: Anne Nightingale in Brighton promoting the show, That’s for Me (her first T.V. job), in 1964/PHOTO CREDIT: John Pratt/Getty Images

Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's First Female DJ

___________

A few questions come to mind…

PHOTO CREDIT: BBC/David Venni

when I think about the remarkable Annie Nightingale. At eighty years old, she is one of the most influential, long-running broadcasters in the world, so I wonder why she has not been made a Dame. Maybe she would not want such an honour, but I feel there are few more deserving of such a lofty honour than her! I also wonder why Nightingale has not been given a show on BBC Radio 6 Music, as she has the sort of music tastes and eclectic nature that would be perfect for the station! This year, Annie Nightingale celebrates five decades of broadcasting and presenting for the BBC. Annie Nightingale was the first female D.J. on the BBC in 1970, and she holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running radio show on the station. As a D.J. and broadcaster on radio, T.V. and the live music scene, Nightingale has been a hugely important and inspiring force. I will talk about her memoir/new book in a minute, but the fact she is still at BBC Radio 1 after fifty years - where she presents the fabulous Annie Nightingale Presents - is truly inspiring! It is a massive year for a broadcaster who has broken barriers down and inspired a legion of broadcasters/D.J.s around the world. What I love about Annie Nightingale (among other things!) is the fact that she is so relentless cool and curious. There is no slowing her passion for great new music, and she remains one of the most influential and important champions of new music in the world! I heard Nightingale speaking with Gemma Cairney on BBC Radio 6 Music yesterday (3rd September), and she revealed how she admires great young artists like Little Simz and Billie Eilish.

Nightingale is such a fascinating broadcaster and, alongside her BBC Radio 1 colleague, Annie Mac, her guidance and championing is vital. I will move on, but I want to bring in an interview from The Guardian where we learn more about Nightingale’s earliest days, and what it was like joining BBC Radio 1 when there was an all-male line-up:

“Being an only child is fundamental to Nightingale’s personality. She had to reach out to make friends, and she enjoyed being a part of different gangs (which she still does, she says, only now these are pockets of people in different international cities who she’s met through her musical travels).

Her outward-looking nature also went against the experiences of the many suburban women she lived alongside. “They were so competitive with each other, and so isolated – all they had to look forward to was a new washing machine. Very early on, I remember thinking, hang on, this isn’t fantastic.” A small Bakelite wireless bought for Nightingale by her father gave her a glimpse of distant worlds through Radio Luxembourg. By her late teens, she was also partying with jazz-loving beatniks at Eel Pie Island, less than a mile down the road.

She trained as a journalist, and by the mid-1960s had moved to Brighton to work at the local newspaper, the Argus, as a reporter. She covered court reporting, council meetings, and once interviewed a young Sean Connery at a local Wimpy. Here, she also met Ready Steady Go! producer Vicki Wickham, who is still a close friend, backstage at a Dusty Springfield gig.

IN THIS PHOTO: Annie Nightingale in 1970, the year she joined BBC Radio 1 as its first female presenter/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

Wickham recruited her as a presenter for her first stint on TV, in a short-running TV show, That’s For Me. Later, Nightingale had a pop column at the Argus, Spin With Me, through which she got to know bands well, including the Beatles. (She’s still in touch with Paul McCartney, and wrote the essay for his album reissue of Tug of War and Pipes of Peace in 2015. He also called Annie live on air when she was presenting Old Grey Whistle Test the night after John Lennon died, to get her to pass on thanks to their fans on behalf of him, Yoko, George and Ringo.)

When Radio 1 launched in 1967 with its all-male DJ roster, Nightingale was desperate to join the station, but they didn’t actively look for a female presenter for three years. DJs were viewed as husband substitutes for bored housewives; it was only the Beatles’ press officer Derek Taylor vouching for her, she says, that got her the job, despite her “trying to kick the door down myself”.

There is (quite rightly) a lot of focus on Annie Nightingale right now. I think the fact that there are so many great women in radio can be traced to Nightingale. Of course, it is their talent that got them there, but Nightingale’s appointment on BBC Radio 1 was a huge move, and I am sure she faced a lot of sexism in the early days.

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Crowley

There are still big radio stations where there is a majority of male broadcasters, and I do hope that this is redressed at a time when sexism and imbalance continues strong – the recent announcement of the all-male (six of them) headliners for next year’s Reading and Leeds festivals raised more than a few eyebrows! Another very cool thing about Annie Nightingale is the fact that she was a friend of The Beatles, and she was pretty close with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I have included an episode of I Am the Eggpod (a podcast run by Chris Shaw that celebrates Beatles and solo Beatles albums) - where Nightingale talks about Lennon and Ono (and the 1980 album, Double Fantasy) but, in this recent interview, more love is aimed in the direction of a broadcasting legend:

“It’s now 50 years since Nightingale became Radio 1’s first female broadcaster (it took the station another 12 years to hire a second woman). At 80, she is Radio 1’s longest-serving presenter, and also its most cherished (cementing her national treasure status, she was recently a guest on Desert Island Discs). And though she never sought fame, it arrived anyway. With her backcombed hair and oversized shades, Nightingale is a rock star of radio who has tutored the nation in her exquisitely forward-looking music tastes. Unlike many of her early peers, she never catered to her age group or background. It’s testament to her ability to move with the times that most of her listeners are now roughly 60 years her junior.

Nightingale – who this year was awarded a CBE for services to broadcasting – has never lost her love of unearthing new sounds. Despite starting out as a music reviewer, she was always more enthusiast than critic and long ago disregarded the old Lester Bangs edict that writers shouldn’t be friends with musicians. She was famously close to The Beatles, who were wary of the media and yet welcomed her into their inner sanctum at Apple Studios. She knew about John Lennon’s relationship with Yoko Ono long before they went public, but kept shtum”.

This all brings me, semi-neatly, to a book that everybody should own! Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's First Female DJ is an indispensable volume written by a real icon. I have been quoting a lot from other sources, but I feel it is important to learn about Nightingale and hear from her. If you want a true and deep representation of Nightingale, then I suggest you buy the book. This is how Waterstones have described it:

“Hey Hi Hello is a greeting we have all become familiar with, as Annie Nightingale cues up another show on Radio One. Always in tune with the nation's taste, yet effortlessly one step ahead for more than five decades, in this book Annie digs deep into her crate of memories, experiences and encounters to deliver an account of a life lived on the frontiers of pop cultural innovation.

IMAGE CREDIT: White Rabbit

As a dj and broadcaster on radio, tv and the live music scene, Annie has been an invigorating and necessarily disruptive force, working within the establishment but never playing by the rules. She walked in the door at Radio One as a rebel, its first female broadcaster, in 1970. Fifty years later she became the station's first CBE in the New Year's Honours List; still a vital force in British music, a dj and tastemaker who commands the respect of artists, listeners and peers across the world.

Hey Hi Hello tells the story of those early, intimidating days at Radio One, the Ground Zero moment of punk and the epiphanies that arrived in the late 80s with the arrival of acid house and the Second Summer of Love. It includes faithfully reproduced and never before seen encounters with Bob Marley, Marc Bolan, The Beatles and bang-up-to-date interviews with Little Simz and Billie Eilish.

Funny, warm and candid to a fault, Annie Nightingale's memoir is driven by the righteous energy of discovery and passion for music. It is a portrait of an artist without whom the past fifty years of British culture would have looked very different indeed”.

Lots of love to the boundless Annie Nightingale, whose energy and love of music continues untarnished and slowed. I hope that we get to hear her on the airwaves for many years to come, as she remains one of the most important voices around! I can only imagine how hard it was in the late-1960s and early-1970s entering radio and being surrounded by men. Perhaps not all of her colleagues were sexist, but there would have been challenges and, as she has said herself, the earliest shows were not always smooth – the wrong song being played or there being these gaps of silence! It is testament to her talent, popularity, hunger and passion that she helped change radio and, in 2020, I think her example and story should be turned into a film – maybe that is a step too far, but who wouldn’t want to see an Annie Nightingale biopic?! I think it would be really arresting and inspiring. I will leave things there, but I want to send congratulations to Nightingale on hitting that milestone. Nightingale’s fiftieth anniversary at BBC Radio 1 will be marked by two documentaries on BBC T.V., and a series of events on BBC Radio 1. It is a very fitting and deserved tribute to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Annie Nightingale on BBC Radio 1 in 1970/PHOTO CREDIT: Evening Standard/Getty Images

A real colossus of radio and broadcasting!

FEATURE: The September Playlist: Vol. 1: All Together for Black Joy. Black Peace. Black Justice

FEATURE:

 

The September Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Poppy Ajudha/PHOTO CREDIT: Harry McCulloch

Vol. 1: All Together for Black Joy. Black Peace. Black Justice

__________

THIS edition of…

IN THIS PHOTO: SZA/PHOTO CREDIT: Nathaniel Goldberg/GQ

the weekly Playlist features some really good new tracks. There are fresh cuts from Poppy Ajudha, SZA (ft. Ty Dolla $ign), Arab Strap, Father John Misty, Tricky (ft. Marta), ANOHNI, Julia Stone, Hot Chip, Declan McKenna, and The Pale White. It is a typically eclectic and busy week for music, with so many gems in the pack. Alongside the aforementioned artists we have Emmy the Great, Daniel Avery, Saint Saviour, Adrianne Lenker, Temples, and many others. Settle back and investigate this week’s best tracks that are guaranteed to give you the kick and extra motivation…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tricky

TO see you on your way.

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

__________

Poppy Ajudha - Black Joy. Black Peace. Black Justice

PHOTO CREDIT: Campbell Addy

SZA (ft. Ty Dolla $ign)- Hit Different

Arab Strap - The Turning of Our Bones

ANOHNI - R.N.C. 2020

PHOTO CREDIT: Mustafah Abdulaziz

Tricky (ft. Marta) – Like a Stone

AURORA - The Secret Garden

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Jamieson

Father John Misty - Main Man

Anna Straker & Gabrielle Aplin - Good Days Bad Days

The Rolling Stones – All the Rage

PHOTO CREDIT: Brooke Ashley Barone

Julia Stone - Unreal

Daniel Avery - Lone Swordsman

Saint Saviour – Taurus

Hot Chip - Candy Says (Late Night Tales: Hot Chip)

PHOTO CREDIT: Ro Murphy

Foxes - Friends in the Corner

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholas O'Donnell Photography

TV People - Nothing More

PHOTO CREDIT: Phil Sharp

Girlhood – Queendom

Declan McKenna – Rapture

Emmy The Great - A Window/O’Keeffe

PHOTO CREDIT: Fiona Garden

The Pale White - Take Your Time

Fickle Friends – What a Time

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Franco

Actress, Sampha - Walking Flames

Carly Pearce – Next Girl

Dagny - It's Only a Heartbreak

Mabes – Danny

Paloma Faith – Better Than This

The Jaded Hearts Club - Love's Gone Bad

PHOTO CREDIT: Genesis Báez

Adrianne Lenker – anything

Temples – Paraphernalia

Gia Woods – CHAOS

Daniela Andrade – Puddles

FLETCHER – The One

Matilda Mann - Happy Anniversary, Stranger

Laurence Guy – The Spirit

Bow Anderson – Island

Monica, Lil Baby – Trenches

Blithe – If I Ain’t the One

Sølv – Gentle Riot

FEATURE: Fell for the Physical: Will the Recent Surge of Physical Sales Continue?

FEATURE:

Fell for the Physical

PHOTO CREDIT: @joanna_nix/Unsplash

Will the Recent Surge of Physical Sales Continue?

___________

ALTHOUGH there have been some bad points…

PHOTO CREDIT: @burst/Unsplash

and it has been a tough year, there have been some positives that have come from everything. It was scary, when lockdown started earlier in the year, whether record shops would be able to survive and whether people would still be able to buy physical music easily! Not only are record shops open but, as the first drop day of Record Store Day happened on 29th August, that has really shown that people want to get out there and buy music! Whilst we cannot move as freely as before and some people are staying away from record shops, it appears many have missed that community and experience you get from buying from a shop. As NME report, Discogs have reported how online sales have boomed:

“Online music marketplace Discogs says global sales on the platform in the first half of 2020 have increased dramatically during lockdown, with vinyl, CD and cassette sales seeing a surge.

According to their mid-year report released last Friday (August 28), physical sales on the Discogs Marketplace rose 29.69 per cent – 4,228,270 orders – between January and June this year, compared to the same period last year. A dramatic spike in sales can be seen from April, shortly after the coronavirus pandemic forced many record stores to shut their physical shopfronts.

The report attributes the rise in sales partially to a larger number of users as lockdown saw more shoppers turning online, along with “a desire to support small business”. The report also cites independent music retailers making their catalogues available online as a significant contributing factor, prompted by lockdown measures around the world forcing stores to close their physical stores, at least temporarily.

PHOTO CREDIT: @imani_bht/Unsplash

The most substantial year-over-year improvement came via vinyl record sales, which increased 33.72 per cent with over 5.8 million units sold. CD and cassette sales weren’t far behind, demonstrating a 31.03 per cent (1.6 million units sold) and 30.52 per cent (over 137,000 units) increase respectively. Vinyl sales accounted for over 75 per cent of transactions on the platform in the first half of the year.

Overall, more than 7.6million pieces of physical music were sold by independent sellers around the world throughout the first six months of the year – an overall 33.83 per cent increase over the same period last year”.

Vinyl sales have been rising for a while now, and it is good to see people buying physical music online and going out to shops. There is always talk of how digital is taking over, and some feel that vinyl is only bought by a small sector of people. I think that the surge that has been seen will continue into 2021. Of course, if the pandemic situation worsens, record shops might be forced to close, and online sales might also be affected. My feeling is that the surge will continue, but it will level off in the coming weeks. I think a lot of people have been making up for lost time and, at a particularly rough time, there has been a slight shift away from the digital to the physical.

PHOTO CREDIT: @brett_jordan/Unsplash

What has amazed me most is that the sales of C.D.s and cassettes have been pretty healthy. There is talk as to whether the C.D. is dying and, whilst they are not selling as much as they did in their heyday, people are still snapping them up, and I hope we will see a revival and a change at record shops – where there is more room for C.D.s and they are given more focus. It is strange that cassettes are doing well, and their revival has also been documented. As we move forward, I think people are going to keep physical sales healthy, as we have not really been able to go to gigs and support artists like that way, so buying their albums is a good alternative. I think people love that tangible feel of a physical album, and especially so at a time when we cannot get that close to one another. Let’s hope things regarding the pandemic will improve in the coming months, but it is heartening to see record shops do a great trade, and online sales have been really impressive. There is no telling what the future holds in terms of lockdown and virus numbers, but I think the rise of physical sales will continue to climb – maybe less steeply than the past couple of months. It is always nice to highlight some good news in the music industry, and let’s hope that the rude health and success of physical sales…

PHOTO CREDIT: @iampatrickpilz/Unsplash

CARRIES on unabated.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighteen: Elton John

FEATURE:

A Buyer’s Guide

IN THIS PHOTO: Elton John in 1973/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Putland

Part Eighteen: Elton John

___________

THERE are some artists…

who burn brightly for a little while, but then they seem to fade away. There are others who continue to record material for decades, and there seems to be no signs of their career ending. Elton John’s debut album, Empty Sky, arrived in 1969 and his most current album, Wonderful Crazy Night, was released in 2016. He is in the middle of his final tour – which will be delayed until next year -, and the influence of Elton John cannot be underestimated. Together with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, there is nobody quite like him! John feels that the modern Pop charts do not contain real songs so, for that reason, I wanted to highlight his work and show what a master he is. If you need a guide regarding the best work of Elton John, then I think I have…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rex Features

GOT it covered.

____________

The Four Essential Albums

Elton John

Release Date: 10th April, 1970

Label: DJM

Producer: Gus Dudgeon

Standout Tracks: Take Me to the Pilot/Border Song/The Greatest Discovery

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Elton-John/master/84203

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0C2grVR8DnJnL8rg7OP6Zm?si=Z0SvhmepT6mkIwCx6CJ6iA

Review:

“Empty Sky was followed by Elton John, a more focused and realized record that deservedly became his first hit. John and Bernie Taupin's songwriting had become more immediate and successful; in particular, John's music had become sharper and more diverse, rescuing Taupin's frequently nebulous lyrics. "Take Me to the Pilot" might not make much sense lyrically, but John had the good sense to ground its willfully cryptic words with a catchy blues-based melody. Next to the increased sense of songcraft, the most noticeable change on Elton John is the addition of Paul Buckmaster's grandiose string arrangements. Buckmaster's orchestrations are never subtle, but they never overwhelm the vocalist, nor do they make the songs schmaltzy. Instead, they fit the ambitions of John and Taupin, as the instant standard "Your Song" illustrates. Even with the strings and choirs that dominate the sound of the album, John manages to rock out on a fair share of the record. Though there are a couple of underdeveloped songs, Elton John remains one of his best records” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Your Song

Honky Château

Release Date: 19th May, 1972

Labels: Uni (U.S.)/DJM (U.K.)

Producer: Gus Dudgeon

Standout Tracks: Honky Cat/I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself/Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Honky-Ch%C3%A2teau/master/85555

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2ei2X6ghPnw7YRwQtAH075?si=1ouhB6PqTYmkolHhbgkXxQ

Review:

“On the other hand, no Elton John album has ever sounded looser; the bogus over-production that marred both of the earlier releases at crucial moments is never in evidence, and the album sounds more intimate and personal than either of its predecessors. John and associates are obvious creatures of the studio and so shy away from nothing in terms of technique — there is plenty of vocal double tracking, but their use of it is more natural than ever before.

“Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” shows how much John can really do in the space of a single cut. Using minimal instrumentation and singing one of Taupin’s most direct lyrics, John effortlessly reveals the myth beneath the myth of “… a rose in Spanish Harlem.” He expresses his involvement with the city, his need for its people, and his final desire to be alone through one of his best tunes, simplest arrangements, and most natural vocal performances.

Honky Château is ultimately a solid work with enough happening to keep someone listening for weeks trying to absorb everything on it. And, as each additional layer is revealed to the listener, he is constantly reminded that this is one of the rare albums released this year worth pursuing at length, for it rewards each additional playing with increased enlightenment and enjoyment” – Rolling Stone

Choice Cut: Rocket Man

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Release Date: 5th October, 1973

Labels: Uni (U.S.)/DJM (U.K.)

Producer: Gus Dudgeon

Standout Tracks: Candle in the Wind/Bernie and the Jets/Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Goodbye-Yellow-Brick-Road/master/30577

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5WupqgR68HfuHt3BMJtgun?si=j4VNGhbDS-CingcoGE37uw

Review:

“Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, Elton John became one of the biggest stars of the glitz n’ glamour fueled ‘70s, racking up seven consecutive number one albums and scoring at least one Top 40 hit every year until 1996. Following his 1972 U.S. breakthrough Honky Chateau, which spawned the hits “Rocketman” and “Honky Cat,” John released two back-to-back albums, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player and the now-classic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which displayed the singer’s talent for crafting infectious pop/rock ditties that evoked a diverse span of genres ranging from mellow piano music to full-out rock n’ roll. The double-album begins with the dirge-like, 11-minute “Funeral For A Friend,” which opens with a foreboding organ that later gives way to swirling prog-rock guitars, piano, and psychedelic keyboards. The complex song is instantly juxtaposed by the album’s second track, the simple “Candle In The Wind,” John and perennial songwriting partner Bernie Taupin’s famously sentimental homage to Marilyn Monroe. (The song would later become the fastest selling single in history after John revised it as an ode to the late Princess Diana in 1997.) Accentuating Goodbye’s impressive diversity is the smooth, lounge-y “Bennie And The Jets,” with John’s high reaching falsetto giving the track a cabaret feel. The album doesn’t shy away from John’s signature subversion either: “All the Girls Love Alice” is a masked sweet ballad that’s really about a teenage lesbian who does “favors” for older women, while the hit “Sweet Painted Lady” is a jaunty song about prostitution: “Getting paid for being laid/Guess that’s the name of the game.” From the catchy title track and the orchestral “I’ve Seen That Movie Too” to songs like “Grey Seal,” with its high-adrenaline rush of pounding piano keys and won’t-leave-the-head-for-days hook, it’s the balance between melancholic ballads (where John’s vocals and strong narratives take center stage) and the pure rock n’ roll tunes that makes the album work as a whole. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is such an epic, varied display of emotional depth and soul it should be classified as some sort of operetta” – SLANT

Choice Cut: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Songs from the West Coast

Release Date: 1st October, 2001

Labels: Rocket/Mercury

Producer: Patrick Leonard

Standout Tracks: The Emperor's New Clothes/Dark Diamond/I Want Love

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Songs-From-The-West-Coast/master/126938

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2TkOhyL6D0hgVsyz31vKWa?si=suV6sxC-Rc6N7fBz9wyYAg

Review:

“In the 1970s, when Elton John had six consecutive American number ones, he and lyricist Bernie Taupin were regarded as major talents. Decades seemingly dedicated to messing about have turned John into a national treasure, but along the way his music has fluttered into the background. Now comes Songs from the West Coast and, almost inconceivably, John is reborn as a serious artist. The album harkens to his golden years, but its quality renders it as timeless as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It's a simple but dramatic affair, performed with a sympathetic band, capable of turning Original Sin and I Want Love into grandstanding but uncluttered epics. Meanwhile, John sings his heart out, and creates soaring keyboard melodies to Taupin's ice-pick-sharp lyrics. Birds and Mansfield are the pick of a splendid bunch. Maybe the coasting days are over” – The Guardian

Choice Cut: Original Sin

The Underrated Gem

 

Tumbleweed Connection

Release Date: 30th October, 1970

Labels: Uni (U.S.)/DJM (U.K.)

Producer: Gus Dudgeon

Standout Tracks: Come Down in Time/My Father’s Gun/Talking Old Soldiers

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Tumbleweed-Connection/master/84216

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/03zfU3IwWmymKoaWnwFNaY?si=NLan04icQGGlqihCGGLDrg

Review:

“It’s the sound of a songwriting team hanging on to their perceived rock credibility, not yet stumbling on the pop chops that sent the Elton brand supernova. Produced by Gus Dudgeon with orchestral arrangements by Paul Buckmaster, this is almost as laden with Americana as Bernie Taupin’s lyrics. Elton sings in a distinctly Yankee twang and the influence of The Band’s Music from Big Pink is evident throughout. Ballad of a Well-Known Gun sets out the album’s stall, a mid-tempo country-rocker gilded by period guitar fills from Caleb Quaye and a backing choir including one Dusty Springfield. Themes flicker here which reoccur between tracks: gunslingers young and ageing, a sepia sense of saloons and one-horse towns. My Father’s Gun and Talking Old Soldiers overtly try to enter the heads of ailing John Waynes.

The best songs are those which transcend Taupin’s Western fantasies. Come Down in Time is an exquisite ballad which remains one of John’s most under-acclaimed tracks. Where to Now St. Peter? allows itself more time to float than the formulaic structures which later became his trademark, and he exhibits a keening falsetto. Amoreena (used over the opening sequences of Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon) bristles with drama, although Lesley Duncan’s Love Song (a rare case of Elton covering a friend’s song) can’t glide past its cheesy lyrics. The climactic Burn Down the Mission – a live showstopper at the time – enjoys a grandstand finish, all bombast and infectious enthusiasm. Relatively (it’s sold a million) overlooked in the canon, Tumbleweed… is a crafted, often impassioned work” – BBC

Choice Cut: Ballad of a Well-Known Gun

The Latest/Final Album

 

Wonderful Crazy Night

Release Date: 5th February, 2016

Labels: Mercury/Virgin EMI/Island

Producers: T Bone Burnett/Elton John

Standout Tracks: Blue Wonderful/A Good Heart/Looking Up

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Elton-John-Wonderful-Crazy-Night/master/953440

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2n7B7svtcYIrYJFtYREauV?si=PP5_X9l-Sy6CYIgliEInpQ

Review:

“Such vivid keyboard detail is a recurring feature, as on the brooding introduction to the driving “In the Name of You” and the vaguely psychedelic “Claw Hammer”. The latter also showcases nicely textured electric and acoustic guitars before the inspired introduction of jazz horns, as Taupin’s evocative lyric describes someone “holed up in your house of wax, just waiting for the fire”.

To have such a consummate piano player showcasing the instrument, as he did on his marvellous introductory run of records, adds considerable heft to the album. At times, as on “I’ve Got 2 Wings”, the sense of Americana in sound and imagery recalls the atmosphere of, say, Madman Across the Water, whereas the bare “Blue Wonderful” evokes the Eighties era of Too Low for Zero.

By the time of “Looking Up”, which introduced the album as a pre-Christmas single, we’re back into killer piano motifs and unswerving optimism. Wonderful Crazy Night is not an album of hit singles, but John knows his game is to sit on the sub’s bench these days. But still to be delivering such carefully and enthusiastically forged handiwork says much about his respect for his legacy and his audience” – The Independent

Choice Cut: Wonderful Crazy Night

The Elton John Book

 

Me

Author: Elton John

Publication Date: 15th October, 2019

Publisher: Macmillan

Review:

“In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, which is also the subject of the upcoming film Rocketman. The result is Me - the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time.

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star.  By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.

In Me, Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend” – A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week

Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/me/sir-elton-john/9781509853311

FEATURE: Irreplaceable: The Lockdown Playlist: Beyoncé’s Very Best Tracks

FEATURE:

 

Irreplaceable

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew White/Parkwood Entertainment and Disney+, via Associated Press

The Lockdown Playlist: Beyoncé’s Very Best Tracks

___________

AS it is the birthday…

PHOTO CREDIT: Parkwood Entertainment

of Beyoncé today (4th September), I thought I would do a special playlist collecting her best songs. I realise I have done a few playlists lately, but I think it is good to mark important occasions and take a break from something a bit more serious. I am still calling these Lockdown Playlists, as things are not back to normal, and there are still restrictions around. For that reason, here is a selection of the best Beyoncé songs from her career. I have also included some of her songs with Destiny’s Child, and some with The Carters as well. Even if you are not a fan of Beyoncé, one cannot deny that her music has so much energy and variation. I hope there are songs in the playlist that make you move and, give you some…

PHOTO CREDIT: Buda Mendes/Getty Images

REAL energy.

FEATURE: Glamour Profession: Bringing Steely Dan to the New Generation

FEATURE:

 

Glamour Profession

IN THIS PHOTO: Steely Dan (Walter Becker (left) and Donald Fagen) in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith

Bringing Steely Dan to the New Generation

___________

I will keep this relatively brief…

IN THIS PHOTO: Steely Dan (L-R: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Denny Dias, Donald Fagen, Jim Hodder, and Walter Becker) pose in Coldwater Canyon on 22nd September, 1972 in Los Angeles, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Caraeff

but I am of the opinion that Steely Dan remain one of the most underrated acts ever. Consisting Walter Becker (guitars, bass and backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards and lead vocals), the duo were the core of the group, and they worked with a cast of different musicians through their career. The blend of eclectic genres and the incredible musicianship, combined with stunning production and memorable songs, are reasons why Steely Dan should be considered one of the greatest groups/duos ever. Blending in humorous and cryptic (and sometimes caustic) lyrics, they were definitely a lot different to other groups of the Seventies. Founded in 1972, they broke up in 1981, but then returned in 1993. They continued to tour extensively, and 2000’s Two Against Nature arrived twenty years after Gaucho. Steely Dan released Everything Must Go in 2003, and they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. With over forty-million album sales to their names, it is amazing to think how many people have not heard of Steely Dan! I guess their lack of glamour and yearning for the spotlight is a reason why some missed the band. Steely Dan stopped touring in 1974 to become a studio-only band, and I don’t think any of their songs were ever turned into a music video! I cannot think of any act like that today. Steely Dan, for so many reasons, are the epitome of cool, in the fact that they never followed their contemporaries in terms of promotion and their sound.

The real reason why I wanted to do this feature is because today (3rd September) marks three years since the world lost Walter Becker from esophageal cancer. Becker would have been seventy this year, and it such a shame that he and Donald Fagen will never tour again (there are some good videos of their previous tours). Fagen has continued to tour under the Steely Dan name, and I hope he does for many years – though the very big hole that Becker has left is noticeable and can never be replaced. Obviously, there will never be another Steely Dan album, so the chance to bring new fans in through fresh material is not an option. In November, it will be forty years since Gaucho’s release, and there have been numerous best ofs/greatest hits packages through the years – the best, The Very Best of Steely Dan: Reelin' In the Years, was released in 1985 and 1987 (there were two compilations with the same name and the exact same cover for some reason!). One does hear Steely Dan on the radio but, for the most part, I think their best-known songs are played. One hears a lot of Dirty Work, Do It Again, and Reelin’ in the Years from their remarkable debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill of 1972; occasionally we might hear My Old School from Countdown to Ecstasy (1973); Rikki Don’t Lose That Number from Pretzel Logic (1974);  Peg, and Josie from Aja (1977), and maybe Hey Nineteen from Gaucho (1980).

Although Steely Dan have not exactly left a huge archive or live performances and B-sides, so much of their material has not been played and is hardly known. I have talked before how there are very few documentaries dedicated to Steely Dan – this excellent Classic Albums documentary about Aja is must-see. Apart from a couple of their studio albums, it is hard to get hold of a decent copy of the remainder of their albums, and one has to ferret on auction sites and Amazon to get copies of their studio albums second-hand – often they can cost you a small fortune! There is an excellent Steely Dan book by Brian Sweet, but that is about it! I know Steely Dan are not as big as some artists from the Seventies, and their music didn’t necessarily have the commercial edge of many of their peers. Instead, we got this group who were committed to feel and providing the best sonic experiment. Rather than throwing out easy choruses and soundalike songs, each Steely Dan album is unique and bursting with life, layers, and nuance! I grew up round Steely Dan’s music, and I was intrigued from the very start. I have sort of gone over this in other Steely Dan features, but I want to reiterate a couple of points regarding their legacy and why there has been a real lack of retrospective examinations and documentaries.

Like me, I know so many young listeners would fall for Steely Dan, and I have argued why we need a new documentary out into the world. I discovered Steely Dan through vinyl copies of their albums and compilation C.D.s, and I know anyone can get all of their albums on streaming services. Being such studio perfectionists, I think the best way to indoctrinate a generation of new listeners is to make their albums readily available on vinyl. I have mused before why there have not been reissues of the records. Three years after the untimely passing of Walter Becker, I thought someone by now would have either re-released the albums on vinyl, or there would have been an effort to at least remaster Can’t Buy a Thrill. Aja is the only album one can easily access, and it is a real bear trying to get an affordable, good-quality copy of the other albums. It is a shame, as I do not think Steely Dan’s music is a remnant of a past time or was cool once and sounds dated now. If anything, their music sounds sharper and more amazing in 2020 than when I was listening to them back in the 1990s. They are one of the few bands/artists in history who put out filler-free albums time and time again.

One cannot really call Steely Dan a singles band, as they are a classic albums band, in the sense that every track is essential, and they were not consciously writing particular songs to get a lot of airplay and fame – maybe there was a bit of that on Can’t Buy a Thrill but, when David Palmer’s (who was their lead singer on that album) blue-eyed Soul voice took the group in the wrong direction, he was surplus to requirements by the second album! Some of their songs have a radio-friendly tone, but I think Steely Dan were much more about the quality of their albums and put out singles as a formality. As so many artists of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties are seeing their albums remastered and are subject to retrospection, that seems to have passed Steely Dan by. It would be a shame if their music were overlooked by young listeners, as I don’t think the group have a particular demographic. Yes, there is some smart and sophisticated songwriting, but Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were never writing for the hipsters or an elite demographic. Similarly, one cannot call them Jazz-Rock or label them easily as, on every album, they were bringing in elements of other styles. I hope there are some tributes to Walter Becker today, as I can scarcely believe it has been three years since he died, but the importance and power of Steely Dan’s music remains. One can get carried away and say there should be a Steely Dan musical (which would be great), or a T.V. show that uses their songs in the story (another good idea). I think a radio documentary is long-overdue, and one would welcome the remastering of all their studio albums, alongside the essential greatest hits package – and live albums for that matter! With news that the long-lost song from Gaucho, The Second Arrangement, has been discovered, I wonder whether that will see the light of day and, in the process, set off a chain of restoration and retrospection – I sure hope so! It is a shame if the years rolled on and Steely Dan’s music was left as it is now and not opened out and reexplored. Even if they are not completely your bag, one cannot deny that they have…

IN THIS PHOTO: Walter Becker and Donald Fagen with their two Grammys for Two Against Nature in 2001/PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Mircovich/Reuters

SUCH an important legacy.