FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: One-Hit Wonders

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

One-Hit Wonders

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IT is ambiguous to define…  

IN THIS PHOTO: Soft Cell/PHOTO CREDIT: Waring Abbott/Getty Images

what a ‘one-hit wonder’ is. Some say that it is a song from an artist that did really well, which was followed by other singles that did not do too well; others say that a one-hit wonder is the only song we associate with that act – and they really didn’t offer anything else to the world of music. In this Lockdown Playlist, I am putting together songs that are considered to be one-hit wonders; in the sense that they are well-known and were popular, but that artist didn’t reach the same peak with other tracks. For Sunday’s Lockdown Playlist, enjoy some great hits from artists who, whilst they may have released other fairly good songs, never really shone as bright as they did…

IN THIS PHOTO: Chesney Hawkes

ON their best-known song.

FEATURE: In a Sea and Sky of Honey: Kate Bush’s Aerial at Fifteen

FEATURE:

In a Sea and Sky of Honey

PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Kate Bush’s Aerial at Fifteen

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I am a little premature in celebrating…

fifteen years of one of Kate Bush’s finest albums, Aerial. Its anniversary happens on 7th November, and it was a huge event! Aerial arrived twelve years after The Red Shoes, and there was no real indication to suggest that there would definitely be another album. There was always speculation and potential, but after twelve years, even the most ardent Kate Bush fans might have lost a bit of hope! Not only did she come back with an album: Aerial is Kate Bush’s only double album to date. As I have explored in previous features – and I will come onto -, there are similarities between Hounds of Love of 1985 and Aerial, in the sense that both have first sides that are more conventional and are not defined by a theme/narrative, whereas there is a conceptual second side. If anything, Aerial’s second side (or second album, technically) is more ambitious and astonishing. Although Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave has tension and drama throughout, there is something more relaxed and contemplative on Aerial’s A Sky of Honey. By 2005, Bush had pushed further away from the media. Her son, Bertie, was born in 1998, and she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. A lot of Aerial has Bertie running through its blood, and Bush was prioritising motherhood above recording. I guess being a new mum did inspire creative urge and inspiration she might not have otherwise had, but  even though she was still signed to EMI in 2005 – she formed her label Fish People, later, and is now working with EMI in a much lesser capacity -, there was not a huge amount of promotion.

Aerial does not feature Bush on the cover (The Red Shoes only featured her feet), and there are a couple of good interviews around the time, though she was more forthcoming regarding promotion by time she released Director’s Cut, and 50 Words for Snow in 2011. I am going to focus on a few songs from Aerial in future features, but I wanted to do a more general overview and broader sweep this time around. I have always been fascinated by Bush’s development and building sonic palette through the years. On most of her studio albums, Bush employed a variety of musicians and incorporated a number of styles and genres in order to give her albums depth and so much colour. Aerial marries elements of Folk and Flamenco alongside Classic elements; styles and tones that are not overly-present in previous Bush albums. Never one to stand still and repeat herself, she would move more into Jazz territory by the time of 50 Words for Snow. Although one or two sources did not give Aerial a terrific review – NME, and Pitchfork scored it lower than most -, the majority of those who assessed Aerial were blown away. I don’t think it was a case of reacting to the fact that this was Bush’s first album in twelve years, either: the sheer scope and beauty of Aerial was hugely moving in 2005 and it still knocks you back almost fifteen years later. Here is what The Independent wrote in 2005:

“As might be expected of an album which breaks a 12-year silence during which she began to raise a family, there's a core of contented domesticity to Kate Bush's Aerial. It's not just a case of parental bliss - although her affection for "lovely, lovely Bertie" spills over from the courtly song specifically about him, to wash all over the second of this double-album's discs, a song-cycle about creation, art, the natural world and the cycling passage of time.

It's there too in the childhood reminiscence of "A Coral Room", the almost autistic satisfaction of the obsessive-compulsive mathematician fascinated by "Pi" (which affords the opportunity to hear Bush slowly sing vast chunks of the number in question, several dozen digits long - which rather puts singing the telephone directory into the shade), and particularly "Mrs Bartolozzi", a wife, or maybe widow, seeking solace for her absent mate in the dance of their clothes in the washing machine. "I watched them going round and round/ My blouse wrapping itself round your trousers," she observes, slipping into the infantile - "Slooshy sloshy, slooshy sloshy, get that dirty shirty clean" - and alighting periodically upon the zen stillness of the murmured chorus, "washing machine".

The second disc takes us through a relaxing day's stroll in the sunshine, from the sequenced birdsong of the "Prelude", through a pavement artist's attempt to "find the song of the oil and the brush" through serendipity and skill ("That bit there, it was an accident/ But he's so pleased/ It's the best mistake he could make/ And it's my favourite piece"), through the gentle flamenco chamber-jazz "Sunset" and the Laura Veirs-style epiphanic night-time swim in "Nocturn", to her dawn duet with the waking birds that concludes the album with mesmeric waves of synthesiser perked up by brisk banjo runs.

There's a hypnotic undertow running throughout the album, from the gentle reggae lilt of the single "King of the Mountain" and the organ pulses of "Pi" to the minimalist waves of piano and synth in "Prologue". Though oddly, for all its consistency of mood and tone, Aerial is possibly Bush's most musically diverse album, with individual tracks involving, alongside the usual rock-band line-up, such curiosities as bowed viol and spinet, jazz bass, castanets, rhythmic cooing pigeons, and her bizarre attempt to achieve communion with the natural world by aping the dawn chorus. Despite the muttered commentary of Rolf Harris as The Painter, it's a marvellous, complex work which restores Kate Bush to the artistic stature she last possessed around the time of Hounds of Love”.

I recently wrote about Aerial’s single and opening track, King of the Mountain, as it was her first single since 1994, and perhaps the most propulsive and radio-friendly track on the album. Being Kate Bush, even that song did not dip into conventional territory – a song about the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley. I think Aerial is a more arresting and consistent album than The Red Shoes, and it would have been easy for Bush to come back with an album that nods to her past or has a few weak moments. To me, every song on Aerial resonates, and I really like the first disc, A Sea of Honey, that starts with King of the Mountain and then we end with A Coral Room. From the strange and wonderful King of the Mountain, Bush literally recites π on π. She has always been fascinated by the mathematical sequence, and there are no other artists alive that would dedicate a song on such a big album to reciting a series of numbers! Then follows a gorgeous paen to her son, Bertie, and some of her finest songs ever can be found later in that first side. Many have outed π, and Joanni as two of the weaker numbers from Aerial, but I really love both songs. Mrs. Bartolozzi is a song about domestic strife and strange romance; the heroine watches the laundry spin as she scrubs the dirty floor!

Maybe influenced by Bush’s new domestic routine and work-life balance, she manages to make a song about chores and cleaning sound positively erotic! Featuring a heavy and impressive piano, Bush manages to summon so much emotion and visions from her voice. I think it can rank alongside her very best songs, as can How to Be Invisible, and A Coral Room. I especially love A Coral Room, and it brings that first disc to a wonderful close. The lyrics through Aerial are wonderful and truly immersive, but I particularly like to dive into the words of A Coral Room. It’s first verse is striking and stunning: “There's a city, draped in net/Fisherman net/And in the half light, in the half-light/It looks like every tower/Is covered in webs/Moving and glistening and rocking/It's babies in rhythm/As the spider of time is climbing/Over the ruins”. In terms of what inspired the song, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives us an interview snippet where Kate Bush explains more:

“There was a little brown jug actually, yeah. The song is really about the passing of time. I like the idea of coming from this big expansive, outside world of sea and cities into, again, this very small space where, er, it's talking about a memory of my mother and this little brown jug. I always remember hearing years ago this thing about a sort of Zen approach to life, where, you would hold something in your hand, knowing that, at some point, it would break, it would no longer be there. (Front Row, BBC4, 4 November 2005)”.

I am going to explore A Sky of Honey in a separate feature later, but I do love this idea of moving through the course of the day and letting nature and the world come to the fore. It is brilliant to hear nature and birdsong on that side, and those nine short songs – they were re-released as a single piece on the 2010 release -, really bring the listeners in and transport you. Apart from the unfortunate inclusion of Rolf Harris – he appears as ‘The Painter’ (on An Architect's Dream, and The Painter’s Link) and plays didgeridoo on The Painter’s Link; he was removed from every release of Aerial after its initial release -, the whole feel and concept of A Sky of Honey is sublime. I think that side/disc is more defined by sound and texture, whereas lyrics and vocals are more prominent, in my view, on the first disc. You get this contrasting album that has so many fascinating stories and some of the most memorable compositions Bush ever put to record! Songs for Aerial were written between 1996 and 2005, and I can imagine Bush, as a new mum, dividing her time between household demands and rehearsing tracks on the piano – her son always in her sights and always on her mind. It sounds very idyllic, and Bush rightly considers Aerial as one of her best albums (I think it is her personal favourite), as it marks such an important period in her life.

I want to grab from a couple of interview (from 2005) before finishing up. There are some great print and radio interviews, but I can imagine that, with a young son and the fact she was not going to give T.V. interviews and travel, meant that she was better-equipped to accommodate more interviews by 2011 – when her son was a little more grown up. Bush spoke with Tom Doyle in The Guardian, and it was inevitable that the subject of her inactivity since Aerial would form part of the interview:

“Famously, Kate Bush hates interviews - the last was four years ago, the previous one seven years before that. So the prospect of this interrogation, the only one she has agreed to endure in support of Aerial, must fill her with dread. Around us there is evidence of a very regular, family-shaped existence - toys and kiddie books scattered everywhere, a Sony widescreen with a DVD of Shackleton sitting below it. Atop the fireplace hangs a painting called Fishermen by James Southall, a tableau of weather-beaten seadogs wrestling with a rowing boat; it is soon to be familiar as part of the inner artwork of Aerial. Balanced against a wall in the office next door is a replica of the Rosebud sledge burned at the dramatic conclusion of Citizen Kane, as commissioned for the video of Bush's comeback single, King of the Mountain, and brought home as a gift for her seven-year-old son Bertie.

So, do the rumours bug you? That you're some fragile being who's hidden herself away?

"No," she replies. "A lot of the time it doesn't bother me. I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world." Her voice notches up in volume. "Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'."

Bush always took a while to record any album but, since 1993, there would have been this increased pressure to put out another album and give the public something. Bush was asked about the gap between albums and the involvement of EMI prior to Aerial’s release:

“If the outside world was wondering whether Kate Bush would ever finish her long-awaited album, then it was a feeling shared by its creator. "Oh yeah," she sighs. "I mean, there were so many times I thought, I'll have the album finished this year, definitely, we'll get it out this year. Then there were a couple of years where I thought, I'm never gonna do this. If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time ... evaporates."

There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: "Here's what I've been working on," and then produced some cakes from your oven. True? "No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?"

Bush, happily, was asked about A Coral Room, as it is a track that has huge personal significance and would have been quite emotional to put to paper and record:

“The shiver-inducing stand-out track on Aerial, however, comes at the end of the first disc. A Coral Room is a piano-and-vocal ballad that Bush admits she first considered to be too personal for release, dealing as it does with the death of her mother, a matter that she didn't address at the time in any of the songs on The Red Shoes.

"No, no I didn't," she says. "I mean, how would you address it? I think it's a long time before you can go anywhere near it because it hurts too much. I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time".

There are some great reviews and write-ups for Aerial that are worth reading, and I want to end by quoting from NME, who were reacting to an interview Bush gave to John Wilson on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. The subject of her being a recluse was addressed and, whilst she is and never has been a recluse, she explained how important it was to spend valuable time with her son – rather than neglect him a bit in the pursuit of getting the album out quicker:

“Kate Bush will speak in her first broadcast interview for more than 12 years this Friday (November 4).

The singer, who has been absent from the music scene in recent years, will break her silence in a special interview on BBC Radio 4‘s Front Row at 7.15pm.

She talks openly about avoiding the media, her frustration at completing her first album – Aerial – in more than 10 years and motherhood.

Bush tells John Wilson: “I’m very opinionated. I’m horrible to work with; I’m so fussy and picky. What’s good is that I know what I want. It’s when you don’t know what you want that you’re in trouble.

“There were so many times I thought I wasn’t going to have the energy to see it (the album) through. I knew I couldn’t go on any longer or it would have killed me. I was so fed up making it.”

The reclusive artist reveals that she was only able to make a new album, her first since ‘The Red Shoes’ in 1993, because she has a studio at home and it was still a struggle to juggle the demands of music and motherhood.

She added: “I wanted to give as much time as I could to my son. I love being with him, he’s a lovely little boy and he won’t be little for very long. I felt my work could wait whereas his growing up couldn’t.”

On being a recluse she went on: “I am a private person, but I don’t think I’m obsessively so. It’s more that I choose to try and have a normal a life as possible. I don’t like to live in a glare of publicity.

“My creative process was very time consuming and comes from a very quiet place… people seem to find that weird and strange, but its common sense really”.

Ahead of its fifteenth anniversary next month, I wanted to re-explore Aerial, as it is not only one of the most-anticipated and important albums of Kate Bush’s career, but it is one of her very best! If you do not own Aerial on vinyl, then go and get a copy, as it is a wonderful listening experience, and I think the album is perfect for 2020, in the sense that we need something that allows us to escape whilst providing so much personal relevance and beautifully-different songs. It is one of my favourite Kate Bush albums and, fifteen years after its release, I think Aerial remains…

A real masterpiece.

FEATURE: Sister, Do You Know My Name? Looking Ahead to The White Stripes’ Greatest Hits Album

FEATURE:

 

Sister, Do You Know My Name?

Looking Ahead to The White Stripes’ Greatest Hits Album

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MANY people were not expecting…

PHOTO CREDIT: Pieter M van Hattem/NME

The White Stripes to release a greatest hits package this year, but it is actually going to happen! I have been a fan of their music for years, and I discovered them at university in 2001 – their debut, The White Stripes, of 1999 is one of my favourite albums. Their second studio album, De Stijl, turned twenty in the summer, and their sixth and final album, Icky Thump, was released in 2007. Pitchfork provide more details regarding the December-due greatest hits album:

“The White Stripes have announced their first official Greatest Hits collection. It’s out December 4 via Third Man/Columbia. It features 26 of the band’s songs spanning their discography. Accompanying the announcement is a previously unreleased live video of the band performing “Ball and Biscuit”—the only song so far confirmed for the tracklist—live in Tokyo in 2003. Check it out, along with the album cover art, below.

In addition to the standard CD, double LP, and digital editions, a 3xLP edition with colored vinyl will be available as part of Third Man’s Vault Package subscription. The Vault version also features new artwork from the White Stripes’ collaborator Rob Jones, silk-screen prints, and White Stripes-themed magnetic poetry. More special versions, benefitting independent record stores, will be announced later, according to a press release.

The announcements come with news that White and Third Man have signed a new agreement with Sony Music Entertainment covering distribution of most of his career recordings. There’s also a new White Stripes Instagram page”

It is a shame that Jack and Meg White are not playing together, as I think The White Stripes were such an original and consistently innovative act. With guitar, drum, and a few other instruments, they created such a sound and incredible catalogue of songs. Although Jack White wrote the songs, I think Meg White’s drums were the heart of the band – a playful, child-like yet incredibly powerful and original approach was the perfect beat for Jack’s guitar and voice. Through The White Stripes, I was introduced to the Blues and artists like Son House and Robert Johnson. The way the duo fused the music of the 1920s and 1930s with elements of The Stooges, Led Zeppelin and other Rock bands was a heady chemistry and combination. I think they infused to much new energy and personality into a Rock scene that was starting to fade and wane in 1999. Now, we have bands like Foo Fighters and Royal Blood, but I don’t think they have the same chemistry and range as The White Stripes. If 2003’s Elephant was a stripped-back and raw album of Blues and Rock, future records like Get Behind Me Satan (2005) incorporated instruments like the marimba - and there was a wider sonic palette. Earlier this year, Louder Sound produced a feature about the legacy of The White Stripes:

“Jack was a twenty-first-century blues acolyte willing to go way too far in his unhinged pursuit of authenticity. He grinned as he finished making that statement to the NME, faintly recognising the absurdity of his words. But still he continued. “As far as hardships go,” he said of a generation of black Americans who could still be lynched legally in Mississippi, “at least their lives made sense to them. They were playing for money and they were playing to get by. Music was a form of communication.” 

Born John Gillis (he later took his wife Meg’s surname) in Detroit’s Mexicantown and having attended a largely black and Latino school, he was hardly ignorant of race’s musical trip wires. Distaste for hip-hop’s dominance among his 90s classmates had left him a freakishly inverted, archaic figure as a teenager.

As I discovered on trips to Detroit and Nashville researching my biography of him, Jack White: How He Built An Empire From The Blues, he has in fact made a thriving music business materialise around him, through The White Stripes’ campaign of blues evangelism.

This was a march into the heart of the charts so redolent with mystery that it already seems a historic product of an almost pre-internet age, when a woman’s ex-husband could turn her into his sister and the world chose to believe it, falling for a brazen smoke-and-mirrors deception that brought the blues songbook’s incestuous voodoo to life every night that his White Stripes partner Meg faced down Jack’s bitter guitar sallies from behind her drum kit.

And yet in 2020, his label, Third Man Records, has not only been fundamental in the equally archaic vinyl format’s revival, it is also reissuing old blues gold for a new generation, pressing up the complete works of the Mississippi Sheikhs, Blind Willie McTell and the early, Detroit John Lee Hooker, in stylish editions designed to snare generations too young even for The White Stripes.

IN THIS PHOTO: The White Stripes headlining Glastonbury Festival 2002/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Willsher/NME

On Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage in 2003, The White Stripes spent seven and a half minutes excavating all there was to find in Death Letter and Blind Willie Johnson’s Motherless Children.

“Does anyone know the name of the person next to them?” Jack asked, trying to conjure the intimate humanity he heard in this music in the 40,000-strong massed in front of him. More blues, in the form of Boll Weevil and the then unreleased Elephant’s tumultuous, sparking and shrieking guitar centrepiece Ball And Biscuit, crackled through the set.

Did any 15-year-old go home tricked into Son House fandom? The old bluesman was at least being smuggled into mass consciousness for the first time in 30 years. The radical jolt White was applying to the blues’ slumbering carcass was way too much for Eric Clapton, who decried The White Stripes’ version of Death Letter that he watched from the audience at that year’s Grammys.

Looking ahead to December, and I wonder which tracks are going to be included in the greatest hits collection. I love the lesser-known songs like Let’s Shake Hands (their debut single released in 1998), and Hand Springs (which is available on an album of B-sides). I would think there is going to be at least one track from every studio album, and one would expect the big-hitters such as Seven Nation Army, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Fell in Love with a Girl, My Doorbell, and Blue Orchid.

The thing with The White Stripes is that their albums were so rich when it came to strong material. There is so much variety and choice for a greatest hits collection, and the B-sides are incredible and really interesting. I think White Blood Cells, and Elephant are the albums that will be best represented through the greatest hit album, but there are going to be some surprises lobbed into the mix – maybe their live version of Jolene, or a late-career song like Icky Thump. This year has brought us some great boxsets, re-released albums, and greatest hits collections, and it is wonderful that we will get a selection of The White Stripes’ best cuts. For those who are relatively new or unaware of the duo, it might be a great place to start, as it will provide a good overview of their work and development. I also think that the album will inspire some new bands coming through; the songs still sound brilliant now, and it is inevitable that it will resonate and connect with new listeners. I will wrap up now, but I am looking forward to 4th December and seeing what comes out – a nice early Christmas present! Though it is hard to predict which twenty-six tracks will appear on the greatest hits album, I have ended with a playlist of my favourite twenty-six White Stripes songs that demonstrates why, twenty-three years after their formation, their music still…

IN THIS PHOTO: Jack and Meg White enjoy a dance on stage at London’s Alexandra Palace in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Willsher/NME

MOVES you and stirs the senses.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Twenty-Four: Marvin Gaye

FEATURE:

 

A Buyer’s Guide

IN THIS PHOTO: Marvin Gaye recording at Golden West Studios in Los Angeles in 1973/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Britt/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Part Twenty-Four: Marvin Gaye

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NEXT week I am including…

PHOTO CREDIT: Eugene Adebari/REX/Shutterstock

Carole King in this feature, as I am aware that I have included a lot of male artists – and there are some great women of music that I need to cover! In this edition of A Buyer’s Guide, I am focusing on the best albums from Marvin Gaye; an underrated record of his, and a book relating to him. The Motown pioneer died in 1984, but he remains one of the most influential and important artists ever. If you need help navigating his illustrious back catalogue, then I think I can help out. Sit back and enjoy the very best albums from one of the music world’s…

GREATEST voices.

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The Four Essential Albums

Moods of Marvin Gaye

Release Date: 23rd May, 1966

Label: Tamla

Producers: Smokey Robinson/Brian Holland/Lamont Dozier/Clarence Paul

Standout Tracks: Take This Heart of Mine/One More Heartache/Your Unchanging Love

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Moods-Of-Marvin-Gaye/master/260642

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4pfaSNzd1uXEumYj6VAzF0?si=UQl9Z0STT6yZLTXMCyz-sw

Review:

“After Marvin Gaye recorded tributes to Broadway and Nat King Cole in the previous two years, Motown fans may have had their suspicions raised by an LP titled Moods of Marvin Gaye. Yes, there are a few supper-club standards to be found here, but Gaye moves smoothly between good-time soul and adult pop. Most important are his first two R&B number ones, "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Particular," both from 1965 and both produced by Smokey Robinson. Berry Gordy's right-hand man also helmed "Take This Heart of Mine" and "One More Heartache," another pair of big R&B scores, and just as good as the better-known hits. As for the copyrights not owned by Jobete, the chestnut "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" certainly didn't need another reading, but Gaye's take on Willie Nelson's after-hours classic "Night Life" was inspired. Marvin Gaye was improving with every record, gaining in character and strength of performance, and Moods of Marvin Gaye is a radically better record than its predecessors” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Ain’t That Peculiar

What's Going On

Release Date: 21st May, 1971

Label: Tamla

Producer: Marvin Gaye

Standout Tracks: Save the Children/Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)/Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Whats-Going-On/master/66631

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6qX4eoPWGteMdJMqGOwPTs

Review:

“Easily one of the greatest albums of all time, What’s Going On is nothing short of a masterpiece. Like Bob Marley’s Exodus, it mixes gritty social commentary and anguished dissatisfaction with expressions of religious devotion; indeed, the singer once stated that the album had been written by God, with Gaye merely the vehicle selected to deliver its messages. And like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, its non-standard musical arrangements, which heralded a new sound at the time, gives it a chilling edge that ultimately underscores its gravity, with subtle orchestral enhancements offset by percolating congas, expertly layered above James Jamerson’s bubbling bass. For a singer that had built his career on pop records written by others, What’s Going On was a very bold departure, and considering that Motown boss Berry Gordy was flatly against issuing it, Gaye’s determination in seeing the project to fruition is certainly something to be celebrated.

Ten years ago, for the 30th anniversary reissue, Universal unearthed the album’s alternate early mix, done in Detroit, shortly before Marvin and Motown shifted camp to Los Angeles; this less-cluttered mix is highly instructive, allowing listeners to hear the disc from a new vantage point. The 30th set also had a live bonus set, taken from a 1972 performance; but this time around, the collected bonus tracks include original mono mixes of the album’s 45 RPM single releases, plus some unreleased outtakes from the LP, as well as an entire second CD of funk jams Marvin cut with Hamilton Bohannon’s band. Much of this material has never been released before. This time around, the Detroit mix of the album has been relegated to vinyl only (good news for those who prefer that format to compact disc), while the accompanying LP-sized booklet has brief essays by biographers David Ritz and Ben Edmonds, giving a bit of context to the proceedings.

In any form, What’s Going On is an album that everyone should have in their collection; no matter how many times you play it, there is always something else to discover, from the post-Vietnam psychosis of What’s Happening Brother to the pusher’s ode of Flyin’ High; from the terror of Mercy Mercy Me to the hopefulness of Right On and the righteous indignation of Inner City Blues. If you’ve already got both mixes of What’s Going On, the funk jams make this release a welcome package; if you haven’t heard the album for a while, or never got your hands on the Detroit mix, this 40th anniversary edition is a must-have” - BBC

Choice Cut: What’s Going On

Let’s Get It On

Release Date: 28th August, 1973

Label: Tamla

Producers: Marvin Gaye/Ed Townsend

Standout Tracks: Please Don't Stay (Once You Go Away)/Come Get to This/You Sure Love to Ball

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Lets-Get-It-On/master/66602

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6AmnVWOxXYucWxgidEgwhy

Review:

“After brilliantly surveying the social, political, and spiritual landscape with What's Going On, Marvin Gaye turned to more intimate matters with Let's Get It On, a record unparalleled in its sheer sensuality and carnal energy. Always a sexually charged performer, Gaye's passions reach their boiling point on tracks like the magnificent title hit (a number one smash) and "You Sure Love to Ball"; silky and shimmering, the music is seductive in the most literal sense, its fluid grooves so perfectly designed for romance as to border on parody. With each performance laced with innuendo, each lyric a come-on, and each rhythm throbbing with lust, perhaps no other record has ever achieved the kind of sheer erotic force of Let's Get It On, and it remains the blueprint for all of the slow jams to follow decades later -- much copied, but never imitated” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Let’s Get It On

Here, My Dear

Release Date: 15th December, 1978

Label: Tamla

Producer: Marvin Gaye

Standout Tracks: Angel/Is That Enough/Time to Get It Together

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Here-My-Dear/master/66800

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7wkzcu3G3L35OownBenoas

Review:

“After a scene-setting intro—“I guess I’ll have to say this album is dedicated to you”—the story begins in earnest with, fittingly, a doo-wop song. “I Met a Little Girl” boasts all the longing and vocal stacking of Gaye’s beloved ’50s music, but with the perspective flipped—he’s singing not as a green teen but as a man in his late 30s who has tried and failed at love, and is no closer to figuring it out. Gaye exquisitely sings all of the parts himself, creating an echo chamber of hurt. Though the singer spoke out against the women’s liberation movement of the era, there’s a generousness to his voice and sentiments, and a shared blame. “Then time would change you,” he squeals, “as time would really change me.” The song is nearly zen in its wistfulness, with a sumptuous arrangement and languid pace. Later, on a track called “Anger,” Gaye still takes the longview, condemning the soul-destroying properties of rage rather than giving into them. Perhaps the slow crumble of Gaye’s marriage across more than a decade allowed him a certain distance, and a way to make this very personal album feel like much more than one man’s loss.

Like much of Gaye’s ’70s work, Here, My Dear is a groove album. Voices, instruments, and hooks don’t jump out as much as they lay in the cut waiting to be discovered. Though it can sound redundant at first, its unvaried instrumentation and tempo strengthen the thematic bonds within. Three tracks called “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You,” are worked into the suite, all with the same easy sax funk, as if Gaye keeps returning to the question in hopes of a definitive answer. Spacious jazz backgrounds make tracks like “Sparrow” and “Anna’s Song” luxuriate in memories and idylls gone by—even when Gaye breaks character by screaming “An-na!” the vamp barely breaks its stride, acting as something of a calming agent” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: A Funky Space Reincarnation

The Underrated Gem

I Want You 

Release Date: 16th March, 1976

Label: Tamla

Producers: Marvin Gaye/Leon Ware/Arthur ‘T-Boy’ Ross

Standout Tracks: I Want You (Vocal)/Feel All My Love Inside/I Wanna Be Where You Are

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-I-Want-You/master/66739

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0EM4Q0JUVZ8FNqmT5CI2E7

Review:

“But the most astonishing things about I Want You are its intimacy (it was dedicated to and recorded in front of Gaye's future second wife, Jan), silky elegance, and seamless textures. Gaye worked with producer Leon Ware, who wrote all of the original songs on the album and worked with Gaye to revise them, thus lending Gaye a co-writing credit. The title track is a monster two-step groover with hand percussion playing counterpoint to the strings and horns layered in against a spare electric guitar solo, all before Gaye begins to sing on top of the funky backbeat. It's a party anthem to be sure, and one that evokes the vulnerability that a man in love displays when the object of his affection is in plain sight. Art Stewart's engineering rounds off all the edges and makes Gaye's already sweet crooning instrument into the true grain in the voice of seductive need. "Feel All My Love Inside" and "I Want to Be Where You Are" are anthems to sensuality with strings creeping up under Gaye's voice as the guitars move through a series of chunky changes and drums punctuate his every syllable. In all, the original album is a suite to the bedroom, one in which a man tells his woman all of his sexual aspirations because of his love for her. The entire album has been referenced by everyone from Mary J. Blige to D'Angelo to Chico DeBarge and even Todd Rundgren, who performed the title track live regularly. By the time it is over, the listener should be a blissed-out, brimming container for amorous hunger. I Want You and its companion, Ware's Musical Massage, are the pre-eminent early disco concept albums. They are adult albums about intimacy, sensuality, and commitment, and decades later they still reverberate with class, sincerity, grace, intense focus, and astonishingly good taste. I Want You is as necessary as anything Gaye ever recorded” - AllMusic

Choice Cut: Since I Had You

The Final Album

Midnight Love

Release Date: October 1982

Label: Columbia

Producer: Marvin Gaye

Standout Tracks: Midnight Lady/’Til Tomorrow/Joy

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Midnight-Love/master/66820

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3gPlX9Zs3tXZZKNCyoOkSm

Review:

“First off, Marvin Gaye is one of the most expressive singers ever, as far as conveying emotions in a clear, touching way. He also has an absolutely beautiful voice. So him singing anything is a joy. An example of the power of his singing is the Midnight Love ballad "'Til Tomorrow." He starts off with a really silly spoken bit where Gaye speaks to his lover in French. Then he sings, and immediately articulates one hundred times more feelings than the spoken word part even hinted at.

The songs here, with the exception of "Sexual Healing," aren't really as good or as important as some of the fantastic pop songs he recorded over the years. Still, there's some interesting musical turns, like the P-Funkish "Midnight Lady" and the Bob Marley-influenced "Third World Girl," lyrics that suggest a man looking for the joy and healing missing from his life (which, it goes without saying, makes his murder two years later seem even more tragic), and that unmistakable voice. A few of these songs would sound absolutely fabulous in less glitzy arrangements, like "Joy," where he beautifully lists off the joys of life over an overloaded funk track, and "My Love is Waiting," a pretty love tune with some religious overtones.

It's hard to criticize an album for the context it arose from. In the early 1980s, this sort of glossy musical backdrop was dominant in the field of pop music. Midnight Love was Marvin Gaye's attempt at a commercial comeback, and thus fits right into the commercial sound of the time. I personally think that sort of sound got in the way of some excellent songs that would have been better served by different production tactics and arrangements. Still, Midnight Love has some great moments, and has its place both in Marvin Gaye's fine catalog and in the history of R&B” – Pop Matters

Choice Cut: Sexual Healing

The Marvin Gaye Book  

Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye

Author: David Ritz

Publication Date (First Published): 1st March, 1985

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Synopsis:

“Drawing from interviews conducted before Marvin Gaye's death, acclaimed music writer David Ritz has created a full-scale portrait of the brilliant but tormented artist. With a cast of characters that includes Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder, this intimate biography is a definitive and enduring look at the man who embodied the very essence of the word soul” – Goodreads

Order/Listen: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Divided-Soul-Life-Marvin-Gaye/dp/B002SQ41KE/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=marvin+gaye&qid=1602053079&s=books&sr=1-3

FEATURE: Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure: Boston - More Than a Feeling

FEATURE:

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

Boston - More Than a Feeling

___________

THIS is one of these songs…

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

that has appeared in a few lists concerning guilty pleasures. I have seen Boston’s More Than a Feeling appear in lists like this, and this; maybe there is a feeling that some of the Rock from the 1970s was a bit on the cheesy side and didn’t have the same quality and coolness of other music of that time. Some also say that Boston’s eponymous debut album is a guilty pleasure, though some will vehemently take exception to that. More Than a Feeling was released as the lead single from the Boston album, and it was written by Tom Scholz. It was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll and was also ranked at Number-500 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. With incredible lead vocals from Brad Delp – who sadly took his own life in 2007 -, More Than a Feeling is a staple of Classic Rock! I think there are those who feel that Classic Rock was defined by these overwrought and overblown choruses and not a lot of depth. I have seen More Than a Feeling (unfairly) counted as a guilty pleasure; some who admit that the song makes them feel a bit embarrassed, but they sing along to it because it is so infectious! The lyrics express the author's discontent with the present and his yearning for a former love named Marianne, whose memory is strongly evoked by an old familiar song.

The band’s founder, Tom Scholz, has given various interpretations regarding the lyrics and who ‘Marianne’ is – one explanation was that she was a much older cousin that he had; he also said it may be related to an old school love that he had. In terms of feelgood tracks that are impossible to ignore, I think More Than a Feeling comes close to the top. I think that, because Hard Rock/Classic Rock is not really around now, it can make some of the songs from that time seem dated. Whereas Punk and other genres have evolved and are still going in some form, one does not hear that many Classic Rock-inspired bands today. Maybe that is one reason why bands like Boston have been perceived as being a bit pompous or lame. I would disagree with that. Their music is as far from pretentious and pompous as possible; I think there is so much musicianship and skill in their music, and songs like More Than a Feeling should not be seen as a guilty pleasure – it is a classic song in its own right! One might notice some similarities between Boston’s More Than a Feeling of 1976, and Nirvana’s 1991 classic, Smells Like Teen Spirit. Far Out Magazine explains how, if the songs aren’t exactly the same, it is clear that Kurt Cobain was a fan of Boston:

“It’s hard to deny the similarities between a lot of classic songs, with a more than a hint of Pixies too, but confident the tune was original, Cobain and Novoselic pushed on. Once the song found fame, however, the similarities between it and Boston’s fist-pumping seventies charmer, ‘More Than A Feeling’. 

The songs are in a different key and the similarities clearly weren’t strong enough for it to warrant Boston’s Tom Scholz taking offence. “I take it as a major compliment,” Scholz said in 1994, “even if it was completely accidental.” It didn’t spark the need for the singer to get into the band either.

Scholz admitted to Rolling Stone a few years ago that he hadn’t spent much time getting to know Nirvana, “The only times when I’ll hear other music will be at the ice skating rink or the gym,” he said. “It’s been debated whether [Nirvana playing a bit of “More Than a Feeling”] was homage or thumbing their nose. Regardless, Nirvana was, from what I’ve heard, a great band. I was really impressed by the couple of things I heard. Regardless of what the context was, it’s an honour to be heard in the same airspace as Nirvana”.

I think Boston’s debut album is well worth buying, and it is one of those overlooked classics. More Than a Feeling still divides people, but it is a track that has been covered by many different artists; a song that has hit the heart of many people around the world. In an Entertainment Weekly article from 2016, Tom Scholz discussed the creation of More Than a Feeling and the early days of Boston – but we start with a passage regarding the influence and usage of More Than a Feeling in popular culture:

“Over the years, “More Than a Feeling” has been covered by an absurdly diverse collection of acts, from *NSYNC to Nirvana, whose own classic track “Smells Like Teen Spirit” bore a striking, and much-noted, similarity to the Boston tune. The song has also appeared on a host of films and TV shows, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Sopranos, and, most recently The Walking Dead.

If the idea of an unknown — and deliberately anonymous — band having such an impact with its first ever release is incredible, then the way the song was crafted is no less so. In a rare interview, Boston founder, guitarist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz recalls the crazy creation of “More Than a Feeling” in his own words below.

I spent six years submitting dozens of recordings to dozens of record companies and I got nothing but rejections. By this point I was 29 and I decided it was time to get responsible. I was married. We weren’t rolling in cash. This was going to be my last demo — and “More Than a Feeling” was the last one that I completed. Epic Records got that song and a couple of weeks later, Brad Delp and I had an offer to become recording artists.

The song was not written about an actual event. It was written about a fantasy event. But it’s one that almost everybody can identify with, of somebody losing somebody that was important to them, and music taking them back there. There actually was a real Marianne. She was my older first cousin, who I had a crush on when I was 10. I ran into her many many years later and she was very annoyed at me for mentioning that she was my older cousin.

It’s a piece of music that really takes me to someplace else when I listen to it. Which is my criteria for whether a recording I come up with is worthy of going on a Boston album. I shut my eyes and I play it at the end of a long day in the studio. If I still enjoy it, and it takes me some place else, and I forget about all that I had to go through that day, then it’s a winner. “More than a Feeling” did that for me”.

Boston were responsible for shifting American Rock from a more Blues/Metal-based foundation to Power Pop; they mixed precision and fantastic production with a sense of fun and singalong abandon. At this very hard time, songs like More Than a Feeling can provide us with uplift and energy, but I think those who have dismissed the song need to listen back and understand its importance and quality! It is a terrific song that, far from being a guilty pleasure, is actually one of the best Rock songs ever. I was talking about the New Romantic movement the other day, and I stated how it was a shame that that genre/period of music is not around today and seems to have died in the 1980s. Similarly, Classic Rock had its day, and it was replaced by something else. One does not hear too many epic and fist-pumping Rock tracks like More Than a Feeling; things seem more serious and lack that ebullience that is so infectious and important. If you do need a boost and a song that gives you a kick, then go and spin Boston’s…

TERRIFIC debut single.

FEATURE: British Steel: The Iconic Judas Priest at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

British Steel

IN THIS PHOTO: Judas Priest (from left) Scott Travis, Ian Hill, Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner/PHOTO CREDIT: Justin Borucki

The Iconic Judas Priest at Fifty

___________

I’LL start this with a bit…

of information from Wikipedia that gives a sort of potted history of the brilliant Judas Priest: “Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band formed in West Bromwich in 1969. They have sold over 50 million copies of their albums, and are frequently ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Despite an innovative and pioneering body of work in the latter half of the 1970s, the band had struggled with indifferent record production and a lack of major commercial success until 1980, when they rose to commercial success with the album British Steel”. It was that album, British Steel, when Judas Priest came to my attention. I grew up listening to a lot of different genres, but Metal was not a big part. I think Judas Priest helped make Metal more accessible, and I was stunned by their incredible power and the brilliant vocals of Rob Halford. The great man has released his autobiography, Confess, and it is a book I would recommend everyone check out:

“Rob Halford, front man of global iconic metal band Judas Priest, is a true 'Metal God'. Raised in Britain's hard-working heavy industrial heartland he and his music were forged in the Black Country. CONFESS, his full autobiography, is an unforgettable rock 'n' roll story - a journey from a Walsall council estate to musical fame via alcoholism, addiction, police cells, ill-starred sexual trysts and bleak personal tragedy, through to rehab, coming out, redemption... and finding love.

Now, he is telling his gospel truth.

Told with Halford's trademark self-deprecating, deadpan Black Country humour, CONFESS is the story of an extraordinary five decades in the music industry. It is also the tale of unlikely encounters with everybody from Superman to Andy Warhol, Madonna, Jack Nicholson and the Queen. More than anything else, it's a celebration of the fire and power of heavy metal”.

It is an exciting year in the Judas Priest camp, even though they cannot tour. They have been together five decades, and they must surely rank alongside the most-popular and influential Metal bands of all time. Certainty, in terms of their firepower and character, the band are well above many of their peers. I am going to end the feature with a Judas Priest playlist but, if you are a fan of the band, you might be interested to know that a huge photobook is coming out in December. Ultimate Classic Rock provide some more details about what we can expect:

“Judas Priest are commemorating their history with a 648-page coffee table book called Judas Priest -- 50 Heavy Metal Years.

Arriving in early December, it's the first authorized book about the band, with contributions from all current members of the group, as well as journalist Mark Blake. 50 Heavy Metal Years also contains hundreds of photographs from Ross Halfin, Neil Zlozower, Mark Weiss, Fin Costello, Oliver Halfin and others. Mark Wilkinson, who created the artwork for six Judas Priest albums, designed the cover.

View this post on Instagram

Judas Priest Celebrate their career with their first official book titled - 50 HEAVY METAL YEARS PRE-ORDER DETAILS Judas Priest - 50 HEAVY METAL YEARS can be exclusively pre-ordered at www.rufuspublications.com The pre-order starts on September 11th 2020 at 3pm UK time on a first come first served basis Special priced bundle editions will also be available to pre-order and a 10% pre-order discount can be used at the online checkout with the code PRIEST50 JUDAS PRIEST and Rufus Publications are pleased to announce the publication of the first ever official Judas Priest book documenting the bands extensive history over the last 50 years - titled JUDAS PRIEST - 50 HEAVY METAL YEARS the book has been put together by David Silver, Ross Halfin and Jayne Andrews. “I've photographed Judas Priest from 1978 until now and of all the bands I’ve worked with they are one of the most enjoyable to me - you have to love the mighty Priest,” Ross Halfin, August 2020 This huge, 648 page coffee table book chronicles the history of the world’s foremost heavy metal band using hundreds of unseen, unpublished photographs from Rock’s greatest photographers including Ross Halfin, Neil Zlozower, Mark Weiss, Fin Costello, Oliver Halfin and many more. With a linking text by renowned journalist Mark Blake the book explores the bands exciting history on stage and off in a unique photo documentary designed to excite fans and devotees of true heavy metal the world over. Current band members have all contributed to the book with written pieces detailing their love and passion for the band, making this an extraordinary artefact for their legions of followers. The book features an exclusive cover by Mark Wilkinson who has worked with the band for many years now. Glenn Tipton comments “We spear-headed the visual image of metal - breathing new life into it and it has been captured forever in the pages of this book”. See all the details at http://bit.ly/JP50Book

A post shared by Judas Priest (@judaspriest) on Sep 7, 2020 at 2:30am PDT

“We spearheaded the visual image of metal - breathing new life into it and it has been captured forever in the pages of this book,” guitarist Glenn Tipton said in a press release.

“I've photographed Judas Priest from 1978 until now and of all the bands I’ve worked with they are one of the most enjoyable to me," photographer Ross Halfin, who helped compile the book, added. "You have to love the mighty Priest.”

There will be four versions of 50 Heavy Metal Years. The Standard Edition (pictured above) comes in a cloth slipcase with red foil, while the Deluxe Edition, limited to 500 numbered copies, is bound in black leather with gold foil and a lenticular image on the front, and also contains a fold-out poster.

Only 100 copies will be made of the Glenn Tipton Parkinson’s Foundation Charity Edition, which contains a blue cover and is housed in a cloth slipcase with blue foil. All proceeds go to the Glenn Tipton Parkinson’s Foundation, created in 2018 after the guitarist revealed that he was diagnosed with the condition. These three editions measure 12"x12".

Finally, there is the Epic Leather and Metal Edition, which is 16"x16" and comes in die cut black metal slipcase. The book, restricted to 100 copies, is bound in padded black leather with gold foil and a lenticular image, with a poster included. All but the Standard Edition are personally signed by Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill, Richie Faulkner and Scott Travis”.

The band’s eighteenth studio album, Firepower, was released in 2018 and is aptly-named! It features Rob Halford – vocals, Glenn Tipton – guitars, Richie Faulkner – guitars, Ian Hill – bass guitars, and Scott Travis – drums; a solid and incredible band who sound as potent and good now – the core of the original band – as they did back at the beginning! It seems like there is no stopping Judas Priest (and who would want to?!), and I am glad they are marking fifty years together – some bands feel uncomfortable and do not necessarily want to look back at all. Although the line-up has gone through some shifts through the years – there was a revolving cast of drummers in the 1970s and Rob Halford departed in 1992. The American singer Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens replaced Halford in 1996 and recorded two albums with Judas Priest, before Halford returned to the band in 2003 -, I think Halford’s leadership and the band’s consistently-brilliant recordings will stand the test of time and are influencing young bands today. Also, the fact that Rob Halford is openly gay will give strength and guidance to members of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community and artists who might feel hesitant about coming out – there is still a long way to go in terms of equality, openness and acceptance. I want to quote from a couple of interviews before finishing things off. Rob Halford spoke with REVOLVER in 2018, where he talked about Judas Priest’s legacy.

I want to source quotes from Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton, who speak with affection towards the band and Halford:

 “The Priest audience, built over decades, also accepted the younger player, without excessive angst. "I really felt like there was a healthy skepticism because they care so much, but after 30 seconds of a live set, they were with me," says Faulkner, who, at 38, was born the year British Steel was released. "They knew it was going to be OK and the band was going to be OK."

For the longtime survivors within Judas Priest, being back at a peak moment of urgency and creativity is especially welcome as they get further down the road. "You never know what's around the corner. It's been a bad couple of years, really. People have been dropping like flies," says Tipton, who lost a good friend with the 2015 death of Lemmy Kilmister. At least the future of Priest still looks loud and open-ended. "Rob's vocals are unbelievable. I mean, he's getting on like we all are and his voice hasn't suffered at all," Tipton says. "He can still hit those high notes. His vocal abilities are second to none".

2018 was when we saw an album from the band, and I feel there will be more recordings ahead. It seems like the band are all still very much on the same page and connected, so who knows how long Judas Priest can keep going for! I want to bring in an interview from Bandwagon of 2018, as Halford discussed what it was like still being acclaimed and respected after all these years – and what he feels the band’s legacy is:

“Earlier this year, you released Firepower, one of the band’s best records. How does it feel to see the music you release get such love from critics and fans alike after having spent so long in the industry?

It's a mixture of emotions. We're definitely very humbled, extremely grateful, thrilled, motivated, it's just an incredibly uplifting time for Judas Priest and I think it also reemphasizes the fact that music kind of takes a life of its own when you release to your fans around the world. It connects the metal family, the Judas Priest family and in Singapore. Those are the emotions that pop into my head almost immediately: Just a lot of gratefulness.

How does it feel to be constantly referred to and immortalized as one of the greatest bands of all time?

It's a beautiful thing. We never expected these kind of accolades and awards. It's absolutely fabulous and it feels good, it makes us feel like our efforts and sacrifices have paid off. It also makes you more determined to do the best job you can do so we welcome that type of claims. It comes from the industry and more importantly, the fans and so it's encouraging. We're very grateful to receive it.

The band has been around for close to 50 years. When all is said and done, and Judas Priest calls it a day, what is the legacy you wish to leave behind?

I think it would be the legacy of a band that worked really hard for decades. It's a band that tried to be innovative and tried to break the rules and boundaries of what music can be or do. We've experimented with many types of metal because we're always trying to give fans a complete experience with Judas Priest.

We've given millions of our fans a great time, wether they're just listening to us at home or even at a concert. All of those things, all of those metal memories will be cherished and I'm sure that we'll making great memories one more time when we return to Singapore this December with BABYMETAL”.

I wanted to give a salute to the legendary Judas Priest, and offer congratulations on fifty years of them changing and bettering the music world! I am going to check out their photobook when it comes out, and Halford’s autobiography is going to be well worth a read! To end, I am have put together some Judas Priest classics that demonstrate why they…

ARE so beloved.

FEATURE: Hostage to Fortune: Rather Than Retrain… Why We Need a Strong Music Industry Now More Than Ever

FEATURE:

Hostage to Fortune

PHOTO CREDIT: @john_matychuk/Unsplash

Rather Than Retrain… Why We Need a Strong Music Industry Now More Than Ever

___________

TODAY is World Mental Health Day…

PHOTO CREDIT: @ericjamesward/Unsplash

and, in a year where this day seems more important than ever, I think that music plays a huge role in mental rejuvenation and improvement. Not only are millions around the world suffering with worsening mental-health, but musicians are also seeing their livelihoods threatened. Whilst music is still being made and that has not stopped, gigs are not really happening - and this is a valuable part of many people’s well-being. Also, venues are a vital part of the economy, and the music industry itself is such a huge part of the economy! Between gigs, sales and streams, artists put so much into the pot, yet they are being ignored. Most venues are closed right now, and so many musicians – who normally would be touring – are unsure what the future holds. Artists do have access to emergency funds, but the bailout the Government offered the arts earlier this year has either not been distributed to those in need or it will not last. Chancellor’s Rishi Sunak’s announced this week that artists and those in the industry might need to retrain and look for other careers, as unemployment is to be expected; not everyone can be protected. As you can imagine, many across the world of music had something to say! NME takes up the story:

 “Sunak told ITV News that people “in all walks of life” will have to consider changing the jobs they do in certain industries.

“I can’t pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that they were doing at the beginning of this crisis,” he said.

“That’s why we’ve put a lot of resource into trying to create new opportunities.” 

So the dopes in gov telling musicians and people in arts to retrain and get another job what and become massive cunts like you nah yer alright c’mon you know LG x

— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) October 6, 2020

Responding to his comments, Liam Gallagher wrote: “So the dopes in gov telling musicians and people in arts to retrain and get another job what and become massive c**ts like you nah yer alright c’mon you know LG x”.

Johnny Marr also hit back at Sunak on Twitter adding: “This is someone running the country. How about you not have your movies, TV shows, Netflix etc during lockdown? All the music, paintings, art in the culture since time began. Moron.”

Badly Drawn Boy also criticised Sunak’s comments. He said: “How about a government that thinks positively and works closely with people in the creative industries (and others) to find solutions to keep them in the important work they are already trained in”.

The only reason that the music industry has thrived for so long and has changed the course of the world is that musicians and those in the sector have been allowed to perform and they have been able to do what they love. I know that the life of a musician, for example, has never been smooth: it is that career people talk you out of as it seems to be risky and a ‘dream’ that has flaws and can end in disaster. Whilst many have dreamt of being a Rock star or going on international tours, the music industry is much more than the artists themselves – from venues and crew through to those in offices, the industry is complex, huge and vital!

IN THIS PHOTO: Chancellor Rishi Sunak/PHOTO CREDIT: Press Association

Maybe a lot of the massive artists will be able to ride this current storm, but there are thousands of promising young artists who are, essentially, being asked if they wouldn’t mind abandoning their careers and dreams and retraining in case there is no way forward for them! Venue staff and those right across the industry are not being given necessary reassurance that the Government will provide financial support until things start returning to some form of normality. Being in the music industry is much more than a dream. It is a thriving and wonderful industry where everyone works hard and are fuelled by passion. I shudder to think where I’d be as a person if COVID-19 has come along in the 1980s and 1990s and the music industry had been rocked then. Would we have most of the great artists we grew up listening to?! If they all fell and were unable to continue, would we have most of the musicians today?! Venues would have closed, and I think there would be a very reduced and scarred industry. Right now, I think new music is at its strongest in terms of its promise and the talent we have. There is so much diversity, so much powerful music, and so many incredible future stars that have had to put their plans on hold. It is not as simple as artists taking other jobs and making ends meet that way. Will these people come back to music, and will there be an industry for them to return to?!

IN THIS PHOTO: Tim Burgess

It might seem unreasonable for the Government to pledge billions more to the music industry, but I do think there needs to be as much action and guidance as they can so that we can retain as many people as possible. Venues across the U.K. are struggling, and so many of those who work in music are going to be heading towards Christmas without a solid job or any clue as to what 2021 will bring. I want to bring in article from The Guardian, where Tim Burgess wrote down his thoughts and provided this passionate defence of why the music industry is so valuable and cannot be treated with such a cavalier and ignorant approach:

 “We totally understand that everyone is facing hardship at the moment, but there was something offhand in Sunak’s words – people felt dismissed and undervalued. What Sunak didn’t seem to take into account was that musicians and actors have been working other jobs for years – as baristas, chefs, roadies, graphic designers or bartenders, and in so many roles in the ironically named “gig” economy – to fill the time between, well, gigs. When I tweeted that many musicians and artists already had second jobs, the writer and journalist Ravi Somaiya nailed it with his reply: “Nobody remembers Renaissance accountants.”

It’s said that in certain parts of Shoreditch, in London, or Manchester’s Northern Quarter, you’re never more than 12 feet from a singer in a band. But it’s a long time since the heady days when you could write a song, release an album and live off the income from royalties and record sales – nowadays you’d need well over a thousand streams just to be able to buy a coffee (unless of course you’re working as a barista, in which case you can probably just make yourself one); and increasingly music is being offered for free to an audience who get their music from streaming platforms. Even before the pandemic, it wasn’t looking good for any artists who were just starting out.

PHOTO CREDIT: @wansan_99/Unsplash

The worry is that the next generation of performers will come only from certain sections of society. It felt as if the chancellor was rebranding the arts sector as some sort of luxurious, decadent hobby, and now it was time for everyone to get their hands dirty – perhaps literally, as we are very short of people to pick fruit. Is that part of his masterplan: to plug the gaps left by the exodus of migrant workers with people from bands? We could divide them according to skillsets – drummers keeping a steady beat as they scoop up armfuls of berries, bass players keeping locked in with them and working to a rhythm, while the singers wander around randomly picking selective items of fruit when the mood takes them.

Acting, creating art and playing music have buoyed up the UK’s economy for decades. In 2018 alone, the music industry contributed more than £5bn to the UK economy, and the Conservative’s own figures show that in the same year 296,000 people were working in music, performing and the visual arts. The government has even been happy to persuade tourists to head to our shores via pictures of the Beatles, Florence Welch, Shakespeare, Stormzy, beautiful theatres and aerial photos of fun being had on an industrial scale at Glastonbury. Has all this been forgotten?”

IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Welch

The reason the music industry is so broad and exciting is because it picks its talent from all walks of lives and corners of the globe. Every gender, genre and sound is accommodated for and represented, and there is greater choice and more hungry and talented artists coming through now than we have ever seen! If we have an industry where only the elite and best-of will survive, then that will be a disaster. It would lead to hundreds of venues closing, businesses closing and, worse, a very unsure future for music as a whole! On a day when we are supporting good mental-health and raising awareness, there are countless people in the music industry who are tackling serious mental-health struggles because of what is happening. We have already seen so many music publications and venues close or be threatened; this will only intensify as the Government distances itself from the responsibility of protecting and preserving an industry that not only contributes so much to the U.K. economy, but enriches the lives of so many people. The music industry in the U.K. is one of the strongest in the world, and it would be a tragedy and unimaginable curse to…

PHOTO CREDIT: @iamarnold/Unsplash

LET it die.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Beastie Boys – To the 5 Boroughs

FEATURE:

Second Spin

Beastie Boys – To the 5 Boroughs

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THE last few albums from the Beastie Boys…  

are really interesting, as they vary in quality. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two was released in 2011, and that was followed, rather sadly, by the death of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch in 2012. I think it is a fitting and strong final album from the legendary Hip-Hop trio, and it is a shame that there can be no other albums from them. Before that came 2007’s The Mix-Up, and that was an album of instrumentals. It has some great moments, but I think it is the group’s weakest album. 1998’s Hello Nasty was an album I really fell for when it came out and, between that album and The Mix-Up we have the fantastic To the 5 Boroughs of 2004. The sixth album from the Beastie Boys, it debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200, and it has since been certified platinum. Maybe one would not rank the album in the best three/five of their albums, but I think To the 5 Boroughs is a great album that won some mixed reviews when it came out. Ch-Check It Out, and An Open Letter to NYC is classic Beastie Boys, whereas Right Right Now Now is a brilliant track. Of the fifteen tracks, there are a few weaker numbers, but I think the Beastie Boys put out a great album that moved their music on whilst retaining their distinct tone and style. I think some that dismissed the album felt that, naturally, there was plenty of fun to be found but the guys were not bringing anything new to the plate.

It was their first studio album for six years, and the boys had entered a new century. Hip-Hop had changed since the late-‘90s, and I guess the Beastie Boys’ were at their peak between 1989 and 1994. That said, their music sounds incredible today, and I don’t feel that it is defined by a certain time or moment. I really like To the 5 Boroughs, as there are so many great tracks, and Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz sound like they are having a great time throughout! The chemistry between them is as electric and brotherly as ever, and I think the album deserves re-evaluation and reassessment. I want to highlight a review from The Guardian, who were not completely sold by To the 5 Boroughs:

“In January, anyone with $10,000 to spare could have bid for what was once the world's hippest record label: The Beastie Boys' Grand Royal, bankrupt and up for internet auction.

The label's 2001 closure brought the curtain down on the New York trio's decade-long reign as global avatars of cool, and their first album in six years retreats from the cutting-edge into comfortingly familiar territory: the 1980s hip-hop that first brought them mainstream success.

The beats bounce along happily enough, particularly on the dubby Crawlspace and Dead Boys-sampling An Open Letter to NYC, but the stripped-down sound focuses attention on the anti-Bush lyrics, and that proves to be the album's undoing.

Not even the most hysterical Beastie Boys fan would claim them as great wordsmiths, and political conviction doesn't appear to have sharpened their skills. "George W's got nothing on we," suggests a typical line from That's It That's All. "We got to take the power from he." Indeed us do, but this is a strangely underwhelming way to go about it”.

As a big Beastie Boys fans, maybe I am a little subjective when it comes to their albums, but I feel To the 5 Boroughs is a really complete and interesting album where the group’s sharp pens and rhymes are right at the fore, and the production throughout is brilliant – To the 5 Boroughs was solely produced by the Beastie Boys. In a more positive review, AllMusic offered the following:

“For the Beasties, this means heavy doses of old school rap spiked with a bit of punk, which admittedly isn't all that different from the blueprints for Check Your Head, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty, but the attack here is clean and focused, far removed from the sprawling, kaleidoscopic mosaics of their '90s records. In contrast, To the 5 Boroughs is sleek and streamlined, with all the loose ends neatly clipped and tied; even the punk influences are transformed into hip-hop, as when the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" provides the fuel for "An Open Letter to NYC." Given the emphasis on hip-hop, it may be tempting to label Boroughs as an old-school homage, but that isn't accurate, since nothing here sounds like a lost side from the Sugarhill Records stable. Still, old-school rhyme schemes and grooves do power the album, yet they're filtered through the Beasties' signature blend of absurdity, in-jokes, and pop culture, all served up in a dense, layered production so thick that it seems to boast more samples than it does.

Apart from an explicit anti-Dubya political bent on some lyrics, there's nothing surprising or new here, and the cohesive, concise nature of To the 5 Boroughs only emphasizes the familiarity of the music. Familiarity can be comforting, though, particularly in troubled times, and there's a certain pleasure simply hearing the trio again after six long years of silence, particularly since the Beasties are in good form here, crafting appealing productions and spitting out more rhymes than they have since Paul's Boutique. If there are no classics here, there's no duds, either, and given that the Beasties' pop culture aesthetic once seemed to be the territory of young men, it's rather impressive that they're maturing gracefully, turning into expert craftsmen that can deliver a satisfying listen like this. That's a subtle achievement, something that will likely not please those listeners looking for the shock of the new from a Beastie Boys record, but judged on its own musical merits, To the 5 Boroughs is a satisfying listen, and convincing evidence that the trio will be able to weather middle age well”.

Maybe it was hard to reinvent the wheel in terms of what Beastie Boys could offer, but I think they do venture into new ground on To the 5 Boroughs. Many wondered whether the Beastie Boys would release any other albums after Hello Nasty, and the fact that they came back with such a gem was a real relief! I would encourage people to listen to the album. Many Beastie Boys fans do not rank it that high, and non-fans might not even be aware of its existence. To the 5 Boroughs is a fantastic album from Hip-Hop legends. Some critics feel that To the 5 Boroughs is a slightly weaker Beastie Boys effort but, to me, it is just…

BUSINESS as usual.   

FEATURE: MOJO: The Collectors’ Series: Kate Bush: Challenging the Traditional Songwriter, Remaining Private and Blowing Minds

FEATURE:

 

MOJO: The Collectors’ Series: Kate Bush

IMAGE CREDIT: MOJO

Challenging the Traditional Songwriter, Remaining Private and Blowing Minds

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I am sliding an extra Kate Bush feature in…  

this weekend, as I took delivery of a great magazine. MOJO have a Collectors Series, which means they dedicate an entire magazine to a particular artist. If you want to order the one on Kate Bush that has just come out, then this is what you can expect:

“MOJO The Collectors’ Series: KATE BUSH DIRECTOR’S CUT 1958-2020

MOJO is delighted to present its finest writing on Kate Bush in a collectable single deluxe volume.

As one of the most original and extraordinary figures in music, Kate Bush deserves to be saluted in style – and that’s exactly what this sumptuous 132-page magazine does. Drawing on MOJO’s many exclusive interviews with the singer down the years, plus a wealth of archive features and rare and iconic images, DIRECTOR’S CUT 1958-2020 traces Kate’s remarkable story from her pre-fame days recording demos with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and breakthrough success with Wuthering Heights and The Kick Inside album, right through to the creation of the mid-’80s masterpiece Hounds Of Love and on to her millennial return to live performance with 2014’s breathtaking Before The Dawn shows.

Among the other wow-some treasures you’ll find within its covers are an unguarded 1980 Sounds interview conducted by writer Phil Sutcliffe, Tom Doyle’s epic four-hour encounter with the singer after she returned from a decade’s hiatus with 2005’s Aerial album, a run-down of Kate’s 50 greatest songs and guide to all her key albums. Plus much more besides. Unbelievable indeed!”.

It is a wonderful magazine, and it covers all of her career; going into detail regarding specific albums; showing us some interviews Bush conducted with MOJO, and giving us so many great photos. It is something I would recommend to everyone and, whilst I know much of the facts and stories that are laid out through the magazine, there were sections and snippets that compelled me to write this. This is going to be a fairly general piece but, having read through the magazine a few times, it amazes me how Bush transformed the way we approach a female singer-songwriter, and that influence and ripple is still being felt now!

Not only that, but the blend of the private and musically bold – which I have covered in a previous feature – really comes to the fore. In interviews, Bush talks about being shy and quiet, yet we have a body of work from an artist who exuded so much confident and inhabited so many different guises through the years. I am going to quote a few snippets from the magazine, as we get this detailed impression of a songwriter who, since 1978 (and actually before that), has left jaws hanging and created some of the most interesting and incredible music ever! Going from the earliest pages that caught my eye and, when MOJO talk about Bush’s early T.V. appearances, it made me feel sorry for her. Throughout Bush’s career, she has always been seen as a sex-symbol, and her beauty and sexuality has always been on the minds of interviewers. I am going to bring in that side of things – Bush and her approach to sex and its liberation – in a feature next week but, as this otherworldly and very excited young artist coming onto the scene in 1978, it must have been daunting and, at times, a bit angering having to navigate (mainly) male interviewers, who were either focusing on her looks or were asking quite clumsy questions. I think the way Bush navigated this minefield, with grace and composure, is one reason why people have so much respect for her – other artists might have shot back or had a go at the interviewers!

When The Kick Inside was released in 1978, Bush appeared on Saturday Night at the Mill and, as Mark Blake writes for MOJO, she must have seemed “absurdly out of place” as she played Them Heavy People and name-checks philosophers and spirituality – they wouldn’t have seen her like on the show before! Hosted by Bob Langley, the T.V. show was quite a formal and stuffy thing, so Bush’s presence and unusual music might have taken people by surprise. Langley was quite the old schoolmaster when speaking with Bush, and she answered all his questions “but looks like she might be silently telling him to piss off”. Bush wanted to overhaul the cliché expectations of female songwriters and make music that was quite intrusive and physical. The Kick Inside – and subsequent albums – deals with sex and love in a very open and raw way, and her vocals are far more arresting and imaginative than that of many of her peers of the time. Just looking back on some of those very early T.V. appearances, and one can only imagine how a young Kate Bush would have felt. She was excited to get her music out there, but one feels that the business of being interviewed was something she never truly enjoyed. As Blake writes, Bush’s music had “one foot in the BBC studio” with its piano and gorgeous strings, but songs (on The Kick Inside) that looked at incest, suicide, and orgasms were the kind to raise a few of the more conservative eyebrows!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Italy in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Angelo Deligio/Mandadori via Getty Images

That is the one thing that I love about Bush’s music above all else: the subject matter was always fearless and tackled themes that were not often discussed in music. Not only were the lyrics and vocals produced by a singular artist, but the compositions, even on The Kick Inside, nodded back to Progressive Rock. Kate’s early boyfriend, the future D.J. Steve Blacknell, recalls that he took her on dates to see Camel, and the Incredible String Band – “you can hear elements of these and more on The Kick Inside”, as MOJO (rightly) observe. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bush was attracted to the psychedelic and progressive, as her music was brought to the attention of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. In 1973, when Bush was at St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School, her brother Paddy passed a simple demo tape to his friend, Ricky Hopper, who was playing with Unicorn (a Folk Rock band), whose producer was Gilmour – he heard potential on that tape and was intrigued. It is clear that the music world was witnessing a true and unique star come forward in 1978. Gilmour oversaw recordings at Bush’s family home and at his studio in Essex. He was pitching Bush to EMI, who he saw as “cloth-eared record company folk”; they were probably expecting something very conventional, commercial and unchallenging. Gilmour fronted the money to bring Bush to AIR studios in 1975, and she recorded three tracks – including The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Producer Andrew Powell was there, and it must have been remarkable for Powell, Gilmour, and those musicians in the sessions that were hearing a then-sixteen-year-old Bush deliver these sublime-yet-unusual songs!

When EMI’s Bob Mercer was given the demo tape of Bush by Gilmour, he signed her on an “apprenticeship deal”, and she was given £3,000 to write some songs and gig – Bush left school, moved out of the family home and embarked on, in her words, “the beginning of my life”. One very obvious thing I gleaned from reading the earliest pages of the MOJO special is that Bush dreamed of putting out an album long before she encountered David Gilmour. I have discussed Bush’s childhood influences and exposure to music, and Bush herself said: “Since I was 14, my only ambition was to get 10 songs on a piece of plastic”. There was an urgency and desire that one can hear through The Kick Inside, and producer Andrew Powell almost had to forewarn the musicians that the songs were not your usual fare, and that they should not judge them/her. It didn’t take long before these experienced male musicians had their jaws opened by an artist whose extreme musical beauty and extraordinary talent was like nothing they had ever witnessed! Bush’s lyrics have always astonished me. She has said how many take time to formulate, whilst others “just come out like … like … diarrhoea”. Why, as MOJO ask, would Bush start singing a Sanskrit mantra – “om mani padme hum” - in the middle of a track (Strange Phenomena) that covers the celestial power of the moon, coincidence and menstruation?! It is that sort of un-linera and unpredictable sense of narration. I guess Bush faced a lot of judgement regarding her age.

How could someone who, when her debut album was released was only nineteen, be aware of the complexities of love and the challenges of life?! She explained how she, like many teenagers, had gone through some heavy times and the best way to channel these experiences and emotions was through music. If so many artists of the late-1970s were using their music as a platform to express anger and rebellion, Bush’s music (on The Kick Inside) was always positive and beautiful. I want to move on from 1978, as I am really interested in how Bush was already fully-formed and this stunning artist right from the get-go. In hindsight, I wonder whether record men and bosses like Bob Mercer regretted not listening to Kate Bush more closely. Many at EMI did not know what to do with her, and when Mercer suggested James and the Cold Gun as the first single, Bush resolutely knew it had to be Wuthering Heights; at which juncture there was quite a heated moment between them where, depending on who you believe, Bush broke down in tears because she knew that she was right – Bush denies that she cried, but it was clear that she had this determination, stubbornness and sense of her own music that many others did not see at that time.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the Plaza Hotel, Copenhagen in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Jorgen Angel

Moving forward a bit, and there was, in many magazine and newspaper pieces, this clash of Kate Bush the musician and Kate Bush the public figure. In teen magazine, Look-in, Bush’s rise to attention was described thus: “To every young girl working hard at dance classes and learning music, the story of Kate Bush’s rise to fame must seem like the ultimate fairy story. Few may look as striking as Kate, and it is unlikely that many have her incredible vocal range, but her rise to acclaim gives us all a model to aspire to – showing just how much sheer hard work is involved in reaching the top”. When Never for Ever arrived in 1980, many had heard Bush’s previous singles and albums (Lionheart arrived in 1978; Never for Ever was her third album), and there has been a bit of a change from the higher-voiced artist who was ripe (rudely) for parody in 1978, to a growing artist who was discovering the joys of technology – she used the Fairlight C.M.I. for the first time on Never for Ever -, and was changing all the time. That said, and reading an interview she conducted with Sounds in 1980, and there was still these tags she could not shake off! When that piece/quote from Look-in was read to Bush in the Sounds interview, there was this exasperation – she would have left school and worked at Woolworth, as that sense of pressure scared the hell out of her! Like many artists, Bush was subject to misquotes and the lure and grubbiness of the tabloids. She told Sounds how she saw an early interview that was entirely made up. Sounds themselves ranked Bush at number-two in their list of Sex Object(s) (Female). Today, there would be an outcry and social media backlash if a magazine was ranking female artists in terms of their sex appeal, but it must have been galling and unwanted (rather than flattering) to be seen as a sex-symbol and reduced like this, whereas her music was so majestic, worthy and passionate! Even two years after her debut album, Bush was still being handled and addressed as this slight young girl by many.

She explained how many male interviews were flirty and try-too-hard in the flesh, whereas they would tear her apart in print. She sort of knew that came with the territory, but how could she be anyone but herself?! Maybe people expected Bush to be akin to her sword-wielding, sexy character in the Babooshka video (from Never for Ever) in person, rather than who she really was: quite shy, private and nice. By 1980, Bush’s lyrics were turning slightly more to the political but, even when her attentions were pure, she was still finding interference from record bosses who thought she was putting sex into the mix. Take the anti-war song, Breathing, which Bush saw as her symphony and one of her best moments – she was worried some would feel she was exploiting nuclear war, but her song, told from the perspective of a foetus whilst nuclear war was in the air, was a very honest and serious thing. There is a line, “Breathing, in-out”, which was construed by someone from EMI as being pornographic. He felt the ‘in-out’ was Bush being saucy, which shows that she was not being taken as a serious artist, even in 1980 – as she was progressing and putting out this heavy song, the men from the record company were almost acting like fathers who were dissuading their daughter from meeting boys and talking about sex! It is clear that, in every album and movement, Bush was not only changing the role and view of a young female songwriter, but she was having to battle interfering record bodies and this never-ending perception about her! I do think the media can do more damage than good when it comes to how the public perceive an artist. It was a while until the narrative shifted from Bush being this sex object and ingénue, slightly star-gazing songwriter to a young woman who was crafting some of the greatest music of her time and, unbeknownst to everyone, she was also inspiring artists years down the track!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing on Peter's Pop Show on 30th November, 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: ZIK Images/United Archives via Getty Images

Skip through to Hounds of Love – the MOJO magazine does not really talk about 1982’s The Dreaming -, and we see Bush embark on her most confident transformation. On The Dreaming, Bush was viewed by many in the media as being too experimental and releasing these singles that were too uncommercial to be taken seriously and played – The Dreaming, and There Goes a Tenner charted very low, and there were doubts from EMI that Bush should produce Hounds of Love (after she produced solo for the first time on The Dreaming). I think Bush’s most successful and happiest work (in the sense that she felt happier and less exhausted) arrived when she was in the producer’s chair alone. The Dreaming was a hard transition and album where Bush was pushing technology, the studio and herself to the limits, but Hounds of Love was a much more pleasurable experience for Bush. By 1985, the media had (in a large part) changed their view of her and there was more talk of her as a successful and accomplished artist, and less reliance on her sex appeal and young age. As singles like Hounds of Love, and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) charted higher than her efforts from The Dreaming, she was afforded new respect and focus – although The Dreaming did well in the U.S., Hounds of Love was a bigger breakthrough. One interesting change that occurred after The Dreaming was the relationship between musicians and Kate Bush. Stuart Elliott, who played on every Bush album up to Aerial (2005), remarks how Bush started using one musician at a time and, as she told MOJO’s Phil Sutcliffe, “Now the chemistry is between the individual musician and the track he is playing on”. MOJO’s special on Kate Bush notes how, even though technology was a big part of Hounds of Love, the physical performance and the importance of nature and the water was elemental.

Bush has always been interested in the power of people – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is about a man and woman trading places so they can better understand one another -, and the beauty and wilderness of nature (The Big Sky is Bush embracing clouds and the child-like wonder they provoke, whereas The Ninth Wave, is about a woman stuck at sea and at the mercy of the darkness and unpredictability of what lies below). One thing that is not talked about enough – and was covered well by MOJO – is how Kate Bush not only blew away musicians and the media with her music and extraordinary abilities, but of her courtesy, hospitality and down-to-Earth aspect. Musicians playing on Hounds of Love noted how tea and snacks would be prepared for them at the farm kitchen before they headed to record in the barn (it sounds primative, but Bush installed a nice studio in there!). “Brian Tench, who oversaw the album’s final mix (barring the title track and Mother Stands for Comfort), was similarly impressed. “You couldn’t see her doing her vocals” Tench tells MOJO. “She enjoyed being in there and getting into her own world. Then she’d come out and say, (quiet voice) ‘How was that?’ and we’d all be sat there with our mouths wide open”. Hopping to her next album, and there is a quote that she provided that seems to relate to the making of that album: “In music you have to break your back before you even start to speak the emotion”. One of the biggest observations from Bush’s work post-1980 is that albums were taking longer to record and release. As I have said many times before, Bush could write songs pretty quickly, but the actual finalisation became lengthier as each new album came out about. By 1989’s The Sensual World, there were notable gaps. Bush said the actual album took about two-and-a-half years to make, but there were gaps and stops. “There’s tremendous self-doubt involved”, as she admitted.

Bush also noted how she started working on the album soon after Hounds of Love; perhaps trying to capitalise on the momentum created, she was tasked with making another album but, as The Sensual World was very different to Hounds of Love, I can understand why it was four years between album releases. Bush came to resist and hate going from one album to another, and she needed a wall so she could shut off and recharge – that might explain why Aerial arrived twelve years after The Red Shoes! I think one reason why Bush was able to continue recording after The Dreaming and was able to keep writing is because she took some time out to detach and relax. She took up gardening and spent more time with her family – something that would become hugely important before Aerial’s release as her son, Bertie, was born in 1998. I have covered Bush’s early career and that media perception and sense of judgement; taking it through to the breakthrough of Hounds of Love and how different life was for Bush then (Bush’s mother, Hannah, died on 14th February, 1992, and whilst many of the songs on 1993’s The Red Shoes were written before that even, the emotional impact of her passing was another reason why that album took four years to follow on from The Sensual World). The grounded and domestic aspect of Kate Bush came to the fore when she was conducting interviews in 2005. MOJO were lucky enough to be invited into her home, and it is amazing to think about Bush in 1978 and her life then compared to the mother of 2005 who was more interested in spending time at home rather than putting music out – she was keen to release Aerial but she was not going to be rushed or intruded upon! Tom Doyle spoke to Bush in 2005 and, in the years between albums, there was the usual media speculation: Had she had a breakdown or retired? Was there ever going to be another album? Was something more sinister behind her inactivity? If the media perceived Bush as a recluse and someone who was very illusive and strange, the Bush that greeted Doyle in 2005 was a forty-seven-year-old mum who was dressed in brown shirt top, jeans, and as welcoming (if nervous) as ever.

“Around us, there is evidence of a very regular, family-shaped existence – toys and kiddie books scattered everywhere, a Sony widescreen with a DVD of Shackleton sitting below it”. It is, as Doyle writes, a “disarming environment in which to meet such a daunting figure”. One thing that many people do not realise about Bush is how normal she is. I feel there is this vision of her living in a Gothic mansion with jewels around her; this sense of her being otherworldly and superhuman. In the run-up to Aerial’s release, Bush and her guitarist partner, Danny McIntosh, found themselves shattered (after Bertie’s birth in 1998) and moving to a new house – they then spent months doing it up. Being Kate Bush, she was not going to hire a nanny or help, so she was attending to her motherly duties and demands of the house whilst slowly fermenting and constructing songs. Bush was having to adapt from a fourteen-hour working day that she would have undergone in years previous, to being in the studio far less frequently. If pre-2005 albums took a while to come along because of the time she spent in the studio getting songs right, it is understandable how time would have flown by when she had to juggle so many things after giving birth and moving home! Bush herself wondered whether an album would come out and if she could make it happen and, if one fabled story about EMI visiting her home – who came down and, when asked what she had produced, Bush took some cakes from the oven and presented them – is not true, there must have been some nervousness from the label about their huge star and her eighth studio album. Bush is rare as an artist, as she never took a penny in advances, and she did not play the label her works-in-progress before an album came out – one can imagine artists now having to present their music in a very different way now!

Bush was asked what it was like playing EMI the album for the first time: “Well, the first time they listened in the studio. I just think they were relieved that it wasn’t complete crap. So they’re thinking, ‘Phew, thank God for that’”. EMI’s chairman, Tony Wadsworth, was blown away when he heard the album and relieved that it was finished. One passage from that interview seems to epitomise the contrast between Kate Bush the artist and her as a normal person. MOJO observe how the music remains beguiling, unique and this balance of the mundane and ordinary (Bush is always interested in the everyday when it comes to her lyrics) and the simply magical. One domestic conversation between Kate Bush and Danny McIntosh caught my eye. “A clock somewhere strikes two, and the chipper, ever-attentive Danny McIntosh arrives with tea, pizza, avocado drizzled with balsamic vinegar and cream cake for afters, only to be fully admonished by his partner, who protests, “I can’t eat all that shit!”. Digging through the MOJO special and reading interviews like that from 2005 makes you wonder what she is doing now and what her daily life is like – even at a time like now, I can imagine it is a house filled with humour and great moments! I am going to end by taking from an interview from 2016 but, sticking with the interview from 2005, and there are a couple of things I want to quote before moving along. MOJO comment how Bush stares into the late-afternoon light one moment, before bursting into life as she presents Bertie’s favourite toy of the time: a disembodied hand (“like Thing from The Addams Family”) that “creeps its way across the carpet”. That seems to perfectly articulate the two sides to Kate Bush: the dreamer and always-thoughtful person who loves the simplicity of nature and the outside world, but someone who is intrigued by technology, new inventions and other people. Before moving on from this interview – and skipping ahead to 2011 -, and there was a question that I knew the answer to but it made me smile reading it in print…

It relates to Bush meeting the Queen for the first time – Bush was awarded a CBE in 2013, and it seemed to be a smoother meeting than the first time. When she was attended a music industry reception at Buckingham Palace, some say that she asked the Queen for an autograph. Bush grinned and confirmed: “Yes, I did!”. “I made a complete arsehole of myself. I’m ashamed to say that when I told Bertie that I was going to meet the Queen, he said, ‘Mummy, no, you’re not, you’ve got it wrong’, and I said, But I am So rather stupidly I thought I’d get her to sign my programme. She was very sweet…”. In terms of personal development and big shifts in Bush’s life, there were not any major changes between Aerial in 2005 and Director’s Cut arriving in 2011 – Bertie was older, and I am sure one or two big events had gone down in the Bush household! In musical terms, I guess one cannot easily compare the two albums. Director’s Cut was Bush reworking and rerecording songs from The Sensual World, and The Red Shoes – albums where she felt there were issues with production or many of the songs needed room to breathe and required some stripping down. I just want source from a MOJO interview from Keith Cameron, and highlight some interesting parts. At 8:35 a.m. – on the day of the interview – Bush rang and wondered whether it was a good time to conduct the second part of the interview. It was not, as Cameron explained, and he asked if they could re-arrange it for 9:15 a.m. Five minutes later, whilst Cameron was driving through South London, he was caught in a scrape with another vehicle and, moments before, pondered whether it was wise to delay Kate Bush – showing that she could literally drive men to distraction after all these years! Bush conducted that first interview in six years by phone – she did invite a couple of people into her home to interview then (including Mark Radcliffe and John Wilson for the BBC).

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional shot for Director’s Cut in 2011/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)

Bush did call MOJO back at 9:15 a.m. and she explained how, in the start of her career, she didn’t realise that she could say ‘no’. I think her enthusiasm and eagerness to promote her music and do as much as possible tipped the balance and, years later, she was resolved to promoting less and recording more: “And then suddenly I was being asked to do all this stuff, so I thought, Right I’d better do it! What I didn’t like was spending all my time promoting the thing and a very small amount of time being set aside for the creative process. That wasn’t me. I just put the balance back the way I wanted it”. MOJO were impressed that, whilst Bush was engaging in one aspect of music that she has never fully enjoyed, she was a fifty-two-year-old being a mother and trying to lead a normal life as possible. The humour of Bush showed. Cameron was asked whether he had heard the new album and, when he said he had, he confessed that the new version of Moments of Pleasure made him shed a tear – “Oh God, it’s not that bad is it?” was Bush’s retort. In the interview, Bush was asked everything from whether the death of her mother affected The Red Shoes (she said the songs had been written but “it was devastating, for all of us as a family”), to whether that album was originally conceived as being more stripped-back and she intended to tour it (“Yes, you’re right. And… it kind of just went away”). There is one more interview I want to briefly grab from but, in the Director’s Cut interview, Bush was asked whether she still worked with Del Palmer – her former long-term boyfriend, trusted and varied player, and her engineer since the Hounds of Love days. She confirmed she was working with him (and he also engineered the follow up, 50 Words for Snow), and she was asked whether he was sick of her by now: “Oh, I think so! It’s wonderful, because I’m working with someone I know so well and I’m very relaxed when I’m in those very early stages of the creative process”. 

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional shot for 50 Words for Snow in 2011/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)

She explained how she is shy and feels very relaxed with Palmer – “in some ways, in the nicest possible way, it’s almost like he’s not there”. Del Palmer was there for 50 Words for Snow (his credit is ‘Recorded by Del Palmer’), and, actually, I wanted to go past that album and to the last big event involving Kate Bush: her 2014 Before the Dawn residency in Hammersmith. She spoke with Jim Irvin of MOJO about the release of the live album of that show in 2016. Irvin noted how Bush had refused face-to-face meetings and interviews since Aerial arrived – they were speaking with one another by phone. That is not entirely true. Bush invited to her home Ken Bruce, Mark Radcliffe and John Wilson (both for Director’s Cut, and 50 Words for Snow - you can hear her speak to Wilson about Director’s Cut here, and 50 Words for Snow here; I am not sure what happened to the Mark Radcliffe interviews. She spoke to him, in her home, about Aerial in 2005 and, strangely, there is a 2011 interview Bush conducted with BBC Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum that has also disappeared online!); so it was a rare event but she had opened her doors to people – she also spoke to Matt Everitt in the flesh for BBC Radio 6 Music in 2016 to similarly promote the live album. In the final passages, it sort of takes us back to the beginning and how, whilst Bush has released remarkable albums through her career and been consistently brilliant, her life had changed a lot since 1978. She was asked whether she knew things would get crazy after her debut album arrived: “No. You deal with stuff as it comes in, don’t you? It was such an intense time. But it was very exciting that it was being responded to in such an incredibly positive way”. I am going to complete my selective dig through the MOJO magazine special on Kate Bush in a minute but, before completing, there is an interesting couple of sections from that 2016 interview relating to the live album. Bush was asked what the audiences were like: “Every night they were fantastic. You couldn’t have wished for more appreciative audiences. There was a different energy coming off them every night, but they were all so receptive”. The reception Bush was afforded on the various nights shows how much people adore her and that her months of hard work (around about eighteen months or so from start to finish) paid off!

It was lucky that Bush made it to the stage at all! The Ninth Wave is performed in full during Before the Dawn, and part of it sees her immersed in water. She was filmed singing and floating in a twenty-foot water tank; she co-directed for hours at Shepperton Studios. The challenge was to create waves in the tank – as Bush played a woman lost at sea and it needed to look realistic – but not damage the vocal microphone in the process. Bush grew increasingly irritable, and there was quite a tense exchange between Bush and the technicians: “But it doesn’t look right, we need bigger waves”. “You can’t fucking have bigger fucking waves!” was Bush’s response, clearly aggravated about the increasing cold and uncomfortableness (she developed flu-like symptoms that night and was told by her doctor she had mild hypothermia and only to be in the water two hours the next day – Bush, as always, suffering for her art and dedication!). Bush remarked noted, in the show’s notes, that she truly questioned her sanity! The gamble and suffering paid off, and she made a triumphant return to the stage – the first big production since 1979’s The Tour of Life. That was in 2014 and, just over six years since that residency ended, we await her next move. I was really struck by the MOJO Collectors’ Series print of Kate Bush, as I learned new things and, more importantly, had affirmed my appreciation of her talent and how hard she has worked to get where she is! She is seen as a goddess-like figure and sex-symbol; others remark on her spectacular songs that still sound like nothing else, and others see her as a recluse and someone who hides away. I wanted to highlight both her openness and normality; the way she has tirelessly worked through the years and, despite all her success, she remains rooted and dedicated to home and family – if, at the start, it was to her parents and two brothers, Paddy and John, now it is her son and Danny McIntosh.

Although Bush’s second recording experience was with the KT Bush Band – the band she performed in pubs with prior to recording most of the album; in April 1977, they were invited to De Wolf Studios to record some demos (they did not appear on The Kick Inside; instead, musicians from established, more professional bands like Pilot were used instead) -, her first was in 1975 at the age of sixteen. Instead of sitting mock O-Levels, she was instead recording what was to be the final version of The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Bush recalls how gutsy it was of her to sit in that studio and realise that she had achieved a long-held dream. Her parents would have wanted her to take her O-Levels and focus more on school but, as the MOJO feature quotes “I wanted to make music. When I look back at it, they (her parents) were really great about it. Because they probably saw I so driven that it was what I was going to do anyway”. Forty-five years after that fateful (if nerve-wracking!) first experience of a professional studio, and Kate Bush has become an icon and one of the most beloved artists ever! I would urge people to buy that MOJO edition, even if they have a passing interest in Kate Bush, as it is illuminating, informative and very revealing. One gets a bigger and better sense of an artist who, through the decades, has negotiated early critical dubiousness and misrepresentation, the demands of album releases, the addictive lure of technology, and the revelation of motherhood. From the first notes on The Kick Inside’s opening song, Moving, to the final notes (on Among Angels) of her most-recent studio album, 50 Words for Snow, she has beguiled and moved the world; inspired so many people and made an indelible mark on the fabric of music! Let’s hope that 50 Words for Snow was not the final chapter, as I don’t think the whole story has been told. The thing about Kate Bush is that she could release two albums in a year (as she did in 1978 and 2011), or she could suddenly announces that she is coming back to the stage (as she did in 2014). The surprise and unpredictability is why so many people love her so, and let’s hope that the enigmatic, ordinary, spellbinding and hugely important Kate Bush…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Victor Spinetti, Phil Lynott and Leo Nocentelli, circa 1979

NEVER changes.

FEATURE: The October Playlist: Vol. 2: Maybe a Shot in the Dark, But Show Them the Way

FEATURE:

 

The October Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Stevie Nicks

Vol. 2: Maybe a Shot in the Dark, But Show Them the Way

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ALTHOUGH there are fewer bigger songs…

out this week than previous ones, there are still some great tracks in the pack! There is brilliant new music from Stevie Nicks, Lykke Li, AC/DC, Anderson .Paak, Little Mix, John Cale, and Yola (ft. Natalie Hemby, The Highwomen, and Sheryl Crow). Alongside them are Steps, Lauran Hibberd, Katy J Pearson, Travis, cupcakKe, Girlhood, Celeste, and The Lathums. It is a busy week, and one with a lot of variation of brilliant new acts – mixing it up alongside a few legends! It is a bit of a chilly week, and I think these songs provide plenty of heat, energy, and motivation. If you need a boost and some kick to get the weekend swinging along, then take a listen to the best of this week’s new releases, and I am sure that they will be able to send you…

IN THIS PHOTO: Anderson .Paak

ON your way.

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Stevie Nicks - Show Them the Way

Lykke Li – BRON

AC/DC - Shot in the Dark

Girlhood – It Might Take a Woman

Little Mix – Not a Pop Song

Anderson .Paak - JEWELZ

John Cale - Lazy Day 

IN THIS PHOTO: John Grant

Lost Horizons (ft. John Grant) – Cordelia

PHOTO CREDIT: Alysse Gafkjen

Yola (ft. Natalie Hemby, The Highwomen, Sheryl Crow) – Hold On

Katy J Pearson – Something Real

Steps – Under My Skin

cupcakKe – Elephant

Lauran Hibberd – Boy Bye

Izzy Bizu (ft. Dom McAllister) - MG 

Bicep – Apricots

Travis – Waving at the Window

Low Island – Don’t Let the Light In

Megan O’Neill – Head Under Water

Jetta – Taste

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins

Celeste – Hear My Voice

The Lathums – I See Your Ghost

Sasha Sloan – Hypochondriac

Bea Miller – wisdom teeth

Sharna Bass – Murda

Future Islands – Born in a War

Martha Skye Murphy – Yours Truly

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophia Burnell

Ward Thomas – Don’t Be a Stranger

Bleached - Stupid Boys

Fia Moon – Let This Go

MICHELLE – UNBOUND

Eve Belle – Bluff

Kassi Ashton – Black Motorcycle

Emma McGrath – Mad About It

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Best of the ‘80s

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Janet Jackson

Best of the ‘80s

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I have done a 1980s playlist before…  

IN THIS PHOTO: The Smiths/PHOTO CREDIT: Camera Press

but, as it is National Album Day and the theme for this year is the music of the 1980s, I wanted to do a Lockdown Playlist that fuses the best sounds of the decade. I still think it remains an underrated decade, and many people sort of overlook it or define it rather simplistically. I think it is a remarkable time for music, and so many terrific albums and artists came out of that decade. To honour National Album Day and nod to the brilliant music of the 1980s, this Lockdown Playlist is all about one simply…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna/PHOTO CREDIT: Gary Heery

WONDERFUL period of music.

FEATURE: National Album Day 2020: The Eighties: The Album of the Decade That I Will Be Playing: Traveling Wilburys - The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

FEATURE:

National Album Day 2020: The Eighties

The Album of the Decade That I Will Be Playing: Traveling Wilburys - The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

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EVERY year…  

I always look forward to National Album Day. It is a bit strange this year, in so much as everything feels a bit odd! There is a theme with each National Album Day and, for today (10th October), it is about the music of the Eighties. Here are some more details:

“On Saturday 10th October the entire British music community are coming together to celebrate the third National Album Day.

There’s going to be a week-long build-up of activities across the country celebrating the album as a format involving amazing talent which spans artists, songwriters, producers, labels, retailers, sleeve designers and the great British public too!

We've enjoyed over 70 years of albums; classic, life-changing, first, influential and even the ones we couldn't live without. Albums mean different things to different people – but there is no denying the huge impact they’ve not only had on our lives but on British pop-culture as we know it.

There are lots of ways for to celebrate National Album Day, from hosting album listening parties, going record shopping with friends, attending live album playbacks or just rejoicing in your record collection and telling us all about the albums you cherish and love. Check out our Get Involved page for more ideas and to submit information about your event.

The Eighties is our theme for 2020, exploring the long voted UK’s favourite music decade that has inspired future generations. It's hard to believe the era began 40 years ago!”.

Of course, it is a chance to embrace all music of the Eighties, but I am going to put together a playlist of great music from that decade but, when it comes to focusing my time on a single album from that decade, it is going to be The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. There were other albums I was considering – including Janet Jackson’s Control, Paul Simon’s Graceland, and De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising -, but I think the one album of the decade that has given me some joy recently is The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. I grew up listening to a lot of the great artists of the 1980s. Madonna and Michael Jackson were a big part of my childhood, and Bad by Michael Jackson was an album that meant a lot to me. It still is a massive album to me, but I was not too sure how people would react if I selected that album – what with the fact Jackson is not really played now amid controversy and an ongoing feeling of unease. Putting that aside, and the debut album from the Traveling Wilburys is one of my all-time favourites. I have written about this album before, and it is one that I experienced not long after its release. There are many reasons why The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is the album of the Eighties that I am going to be enjoying today.

My experience of the album started when I was a small child and the family and I would have Sunday morning trips up to see my grandparents. They lived close by, and the day would see us drive towards their house, stop for a McDonald's not too far away, before driving up to their house – on the way back, me and my sister would be allowed to buy some sweets at a newsagents near our house on the way back (in the days when there were penny sweets and there was this pleasure about being allowed to choose 50p of sweets and enjoying them on the Sunday!). I listened to a lot of music in the family car when I was young, and I think I may have first heard The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 as early as 1989 – though it may have been a bit later. In terms of music from the Eighties, it was mainly Pop that I was listening to. I was getting into Hip-Hop and artists who crossed Hip-Hop and Pop, but I did not stray too far away from those genres in those early days. The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 took me by surprise, as it was very different to anything else, and I was not initially aware about the pedigree of the musicians in the band.

I could detect Bob Dylan and George Harrison in there, but I hadn’t heard too much music from Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty; it was only in later years that I understood what a supergroup was and why The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 could have been a gamble. The musicians were friends, but having five huge names perform together does not necessarily translate into natural and instant results. In other supergroups, egos can clash and the songwriting can seem a bit muddled and unfocused. With the Traveling Wilburys, there was this respect between the members, and you get this carefree vibe throughout the album. The sheer simplicity and catchiness of the songs affected me as a child, and I liked the fact that there were different lead vocals and there was so much range throughout The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. Petty, Orbison, Harrison, Dylan, and Lynne were in different stages of their careers by the time they got into the studio. This review from AllMusic talks about how The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 helped re-inspire the group - and the result was one of the finest albums of the Eighties:

“The Traveling Wilburys built upon Harrison's comeback with Cloud Nine and helped revitalize everybody else's career, setting the stage for Dylan's 1989 comeback with Oh Mercy, Petty's first solo album, Full Moon Fever, produced by Lynne (sounding and feeling strikingly similar to this lark), and Orbison's Mystery Girl, which was released posthumously. Given the success of this record and how it boosted the creativity of the rest of the five, it's somewhat a shock that the second effort falls a little flat. In retrospect, Vol. 3 plays a little bit better than it did at the time -- it's the kind of thing to appreciate more in retrospect, since you'll never get another album like it -- but it still labors mightily to recapture what came so effortlessly the first time around, a problem that can't merely be chalked up to the absence of Orbison (who after all, didn't write much on the first and only took lead on one song).

Where the humor flowed naturally and absurdly throughout the debut, it feels strained on Vol. 3 -- nowhere more so than on "Wilbury Twist," where Petty implores you to put your underwear on your head and get up and dance, the epitome of forced hilarity -- and the production is too polished and punchy to give it a joie de vivre similar to the debut. That polish is an indication that Lynne and Petty dominate this record, which only makes sense because they made it between Full Moon Fever and Into the Great Wide Open, but it's striking that this sounds like more like their work, even when Dylan takes the lead on "Inside Out" or the doo wop-styled "7 Deadly Sins." Both of these are quite good songs and they have a few other companions here, like the quite wonderful country stomp "Poor House," but they're songs more notable for their craft than their impact -- nothing is as memorable as the throwaways on the debut -- and when combined with the precise production, it takes a bit for them to sink in. But give the record some time, and these subtle pleasures are discernible, even if they surely pale compared to the open-hearted fun of the debut. But when paired with the debut on this set, it's a worthy companion and helps support the notion that the Traveling Wilburys were a band that possesses a unique, almost innocent, charm that isn't diminished after all this time”.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is not necessarily a ‘typical Eighties album’, but in such a varied decade, I don’t think we can easily define and limit the music of the time. The originality and timelessness of the music is a reason why The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 hit me when I was young, and it is the album I will diving into today.

At ten songs, the album is very tight and focused. It starts and ends with two brilliant Harrison-led songs (Handle with Care, and End of the Line), and it ensures that we kick off with an awesome track and finish on one of the very best. Last Night is a wonderful song combining Tom Petty and Roy Orbison, and Orbison can be heard on all five tracks from the first side – he goes solo on Not Alone Any More. There is a lack of his incredible instrument on the second half (aside from the final track, End of the Line), but it is nice that we get to hear him so much in the first half! I love the Dylan-led Tweeter and the Monkey Man, as it is an epic song and has nods to Bruce Springsteen; Heading for the Light is a huge highlight, and every track on the album sounds polished, but there is definitely punch and depth – Jeff Lynne and George Harrison produced. The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is a great nostalgic trip, and one of the first albums from the Eighties that made a very big impression. I return to it a lot now, as it is impossible to listen to the album and not be cheered and lifted. If you have not heard The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, then I would encourage people to listen to it now but, on National Album Day, everyone will be playing some great music from the Eighties that means a lot to them. I am going to listen to other music from the decade, but I wanted to focus on an album from the Eighties that means a great deal to me. It is an important record from my childhood, and one that keeps revealing new pleasures and highlights…

OVER thirty years since its release.

FEATURE: Power to the People: John Lennon at Eighty: An Incredible Legacy

FEATURE:

Power to the People

PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Gruen

John Lennon at Eighty: An Incredible Legacy

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IT will be quite an emotional day…

IN THIS PHOTO: John Lennon with The Beatles, circa 1963/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images

today (9th October), as it is John Lennon’s eightieth birthday. Even though Lennon was killed forty years ago, his legacy and influence remains strong and widespread. Whether you discovered his songwriting genius when he was a member of The Beatles, or you were tuned in when he was releasing solo work, it is clear that, between some slightly less-than-incredible albums, he was producing some truly fantastic work. In fact, the last album he released in his lifetime, Double Fantasy (1980), ranks alongside his very best. From the incredible originality and constant reinvention, through to Lennon’s embrace of the Avant Garde and the experimental – that started during his Beatles’ work and continued thereafter -, to his amazing work with his widow, Yoko Ono,  there was nobody like Lennon! In fact, Yoko Ono had a profound impact on Lennon as an artist and man, and her positive influence can be felt in his work - his bed-in for peace in 1969 would not have happened were it not for Ono. Looking at the way Lennon progressed as a songwriter, and one hears something more political and sharper on his work with The Plastic Ono Band and in his solo material compared to what he was producing with The Beatles. One does not have to divide Lennon pre and post-Beatles, but there were definite changes and developments when he stepped away from the band.

It is impossible to talk about John Lennon and his legacy without mentioning The Beatles. He started the band and brought Paul McCartney in; the two formed the finest songwriting partnership that has ever been seen in music. If McCartney was associated with slightly softer music, character songs and there was greater escape and invention, then Lennon’s songs were bolder, bigger, and, perhaps, more emotionally raw - though McCartney was no stranger to bearing his heart and soul! I think Paul McCartney was the best Beatle, but I know Lennon wrote, debatably, three of the best songs the band ever produced. Strawberry Fields Forever, and In My Life are masterpieces, whilst I Am the Walrus is one of my absolute favourites. One can also mention All You Need Is Love, and A Day in the Life – McCartney wrote some of it, but the main thrust and body came from Lennon. There are various events and shows dedicated to John Lennon at eighty. There is a wonderful series by Sean Ono Lennon on BBC Radio 2, where he interviews people inspired by his father. Ono Lennon chats with Paul McCartney, Elton John and his brother, Julian Lennon. In 2010, Richard Williams wrote a piece for The Guardian, and he discussed Lennon’s legacy, and where he might have headed if he had lived:

“Now, too, we can hear him prefacing "(Just Like) Starting Over" with: "This one's for Gene and Eddie and Elvis… and Buddy!" This was Lennon excavating his roots and he might have carried on with that for a while. He would certainly have admired the way some of his contemporaries make new music while retaining the integrity of the sounds that first inspired them. The chances are, however, that – after effectively missing out on punk and the new wave, which happened during his voluntary engagement with house-husbandry while Yoko worked at consolidating their fortune – he would have found a way to engage with more innovative sounds, rather than settling for the kind of traditional AOR textures that were added in the final stages of the production of Double Fantasy.

Not that he was ever a completely dauntless adventurer. For all his endorsement of Yoko's wailing, he cheerfully confessed that he had been unable to get through even the first side of John Coltrane's Ascension, one of the key works of the 60s avant garde. But having enlisted Phil Spector's help in 1969 to turn the reverb-laden sound of Elvis Presley's Sun records into the pared-back starkness of "Cold Turkey", "Instant Karma" and the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, he might have found a way to perform the same trick for a second time at a later stage in his life. There is always an audience for primal, bare-bones rock'n'roll, something for which he had an instinctive feel.

In the Britpop wars, he would probably have preferred Blur's originality to Oasis's revivalism ("So why all this nostalgia? I mean, for the 60s and 70s, you know, looking backwards for inspiration, copying the past. How's that rock'n'roll?"). It's easy to imagine him enthusing over Radiohead and the White Stripes”.

Not only is Lennon’s musical genius affecting artists and resonating so many years later, but his activism definitely connected with people in all walks of life. In 1990, Yoko Ono spoke with Rolling Stone and shared her memories of Lennon and the way he continued to influence people a decade after his death:

“She had struck a similar note during her press conference following the UN ceremony. “I think John’s spirit is alive today,” Yoko answered when she was asked what sort of things Lennon might be doing on this day if he were still alive. “And I think this celebration is a proof of that. I think that his music is still affecting people, affecting the world and encouraging people to make a better world.” She emphasized in particular Lennon’s continuing importance to people who were only children when he was killed. “It seems like [young people] have their own way of being in touch with John’s spirit,” she said.

“I have a teenage son, so I know that that generation seems to be very interested in, not John’s only, but Sixties music.” Of course, Yoko, like everyone else, has her own favorite aspect of the legacy left by her husband. “The exchange of roles,” she said that day in the Dakota, with evident fondness. “John’s awareness about the roles of women and men and how to cope with each other and with a relationship. I think that affected a lot of couples and a lot of couples with children, too.”

She still holds to the brand of personal politics that she and Lennon made a hallmark of all their activism in the Sixties and Seventies. Speaking about what ordinary people can do to help realize the ideals extolled by John and Yoko in their own lives, Yoko articulated a vision that inextricably linked the late Sixties with the early Nineties. “I always get letters from people saying, ‘I’m not famous, I’m not rich, and I’m just an ordinary housewife. What could I do?’ ” Yoko began. “I think this is an age when the issues are so big that, of course, one hero cannot take care of it. All of us have to be heroes in some ways. But we don’t really have to be that much of a hero. What I learned from what we did in the Sixties – maybe we were young, too, but we were always in so much of a hurry. When I wrote the song, ‘Now or Never,’ I thought, ‘Oh, well, with this song, everything is going to be all right by next year’ – I was that naive, you know?

IN THIS PHOTO: John Lennon and Yoko Ono circa 1970s/PHOTO CREDIT: Keystone-France/Gamma/Getty Images

 And when I saw that nothing happened after writing a song or something, it was like ‘Oh, it didn’t work.’ I think a lot of us were like that. We were very idealistic, and we wanted a result now. If we demonstrated, the war was supposed to end tomorrow. That’s how it was”.

John Lennon is still motivating and stirring his Beatles bandmate, Paul McCartney, and I know there are scores of artists performing today who owe a debt to John Lennon! It will be sad looking back on Lennon’s life knowing that he could have made so many changes and contributed so much more brilliant work to the world, but we can also celebrate his legacy and spirit. From the timeless music and his politics through to his work with The Beatles and everything else, we will all come together today to mark the eightieth birthday of a true icon. He really was a one-off who changed music and the world more than he could ever have imagined! Whatever you are doing today, put away some time to remember the life of and celebrate the great music of…

THE masterful John Lennon.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Eddie Van Halen’s Finest Guitar Work

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Natkin/Getty Images

Eddie Van Halen’s Finest Guitar Work

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GIVEN the news that…  

PHOTO CREDIT: Fin Costello/Getty Images

the great Eddie Van Halen died earlier this week (on Tuesday), I had to dedicate a Lockdown Playlist to his incredible guitar genius. I think Van Halen is one of the greatest guitar players ever, and he helped revolutionise and evolve the guitar and bring it to new audiences. He very much had his distinct and intimidate style, and I listen back to the classic hits from Van Halen and they are defined by the stunning guitar notes of Eddie Van Halen. Michael Hann writing for The Guardian explained why Van Halen is such an important player and innovator:

“Think of Eddie Van Halen as a time traveller as much as a guitarist, someone who saw the future and fetched it back into the present. “What Eddie Van Halen did was reinvent the electric guitar,” says Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott. “He took it to the next level. He did what Hendrix did in 1967. He made people start listening again.”

He was far ahead of the times, in fact, that his playing could be used to symbolise something unearthly: it is him playing on the cassette that Marty McFly uses to convince his future father he is an alien in Back to the Future – a burst of Van Halen’s squalling, squealing playing, then the words, “silence, earthling!” In 1985, that was a joke all the watching audience understood. Those other players? Yeah, they shred. But Eddie? He’s one step past that.

That much was evident on the debut album by his band, also called Van Halen, released early in 1978. The songs themselves were revolutionary – hard rock, but with a pop edge; a new, sunny, Californian sound that owed little to the bands who had dominated guitar music earlier in the decade – but it was the second track on the album that proclaimed Eddie Van Halen as the heir to Hendrix.

What set Eddie Van Halen apart from the shredders who followed – Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani and the like – was that he didn’t just play; he could write songs. Huge, glorious, memorable songs. Though he always saw himself as a hard rock player, he also knew how to write pop, and so Van Halen were never just a band for the guitar nerds. Though Van Halen albums always had some showcase for Eddie’s playing – Spanish Fly, Tora! Tora!, the opening of Mean Street, Cathedral – they were usually brief, and his soloing within songs was surprisingly to the point (across the first six VH albums, the ones with David Lee Roth, only three songs last longer than five minutes; this was not a self-indulgent band). His skills were just as often displayed in little flourishes – a guitar equivalent of a drum fill – fitted into the spaces in riffs, or between Roth’s lines. If you can make an impact in a few seconds, why bother wasting more time?”.

To honour the great man – and a hugely sad loss for music -, I have combined some of Eddie Van Helen’s finest work into a playlist that shows why he is so revered and such an influence. It is clear that we will not see anyone like him…

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

WALK the Earth again.

FEATURE: Once in a Lifetime: Talking Heads’ Remain in Light at Forty

FEATURE:

 

Once in a Lifetime

Talking Heads’ Remain in Light at Forty

___________

SOME big album anniversaries…

have already happened this year, but today (8th October) is the fortieth anniversary of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light. It is the fourth studio album from the band, and it was produced by Talking Heads’ long-term collaborator, Brian Eno. Led by the incredible David Byrne, Remain in Light was the first Talking Heads album I came across. I think it was the single, Once in a Lifetime, that hooked me into the band, and I was instantly struck by that song! I think there was a feeling, on previous albums and 1979’s Fear of Music, that the band was a front for David Byrne, whereas Remain in Light was a shift and a more inclusive album; one where the band experimented with Nigerian music and looping grooves. Although David Byrne suffered some writer’s block during Remain in Light’s creation, he adopted a stream-of-consciousness approach to lyrics and was inspired by academic literature on Africa. I do not think I had heard too many African elements in music prior to discovering Remain in Light. I guess Paul Simon’s Graceland (1986) was an album where the sound of Africa was present, but there were not too many albums from my childhood where we had that blend of accessible and conventional sounds with something more unusual. I think the reason why I loved Remain in Light from the start is that it was so original and different from anything around, in the sense that there are so many sounds merged together and we hear these brilliant songs flow effortlessly!

There is plenty of complexity and genius, but the album can be appreciated by all. As a child, I was powerless to resist Talking Heads, and I listen to their music a lot still. Although David Byrne has gone solo and the band’s last album, Naked, was released in 1988, I think they are inspiring artists today and we can look back at albums like Remain in Light as classics. Even though Remain in Light weas released in 1980, I think it is one of the best albums of the decade, and I think it helped bring African rhythms and music more to the forefront. The album peaked at number-nineteen on the U.S. Billboard 200 and number twenty-one on the U.K. Albums Chart. I think the greatest strength of Remain in Light is the variety of sounds and how diverse the album is. With some Art Pop and Dance Rock mixed with that African influence, it sounded like nothing else at the time – and it is still in a league of its own. Remain in Light is an album that sounds great on vinyl - and this is how Rough Trade describe it:

“The musical transition that seemed to have just begun with Fear of Music came to fruition on Talking Heads' fourth album, Remain in Light. "I Zimbra" and "Life During Wartime" from the earlier album served as the blueprints for a disc on which the group explored African polyrhythms on a series of driving groove tracks, over which David Byrne chanted and sang his typically disconnected lyrics. Remain in Light had more words than any previous Heads record, but they counted for less than ever in the sweep of the music. The album's single, "Once in a Lifetime," flopped upon release, but over the years it became an audience favourite due to a striking video, its inclusion in the band's 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, and its second single release (in the live version) because of its use in the 1986 movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills, when it became a minor chart entry.

Byrne sounded typically uncomfortable in the verses ("And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife/And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"), which were undercut by the reassuring chorus ("Letting the days go by"). Even without a single, Remain in Light was a hit, indicating that Talking Heads were connecting with an audience ready to follow their musical evolution, and the album was so inventive and influential, it was no wonder. As it turned out, however, it marked the end of one aspect of the group's development and was their last new music for three years”.

I will wrap up soon, but I want to bring in a couple of reviews. Remain in Light received widespread acclaim on its release in 1980, and it continued to accrue praise and accolades years after its release. In their review of 2012, here is what the BBC had to say:

“Remain in Light wasn’t the first time Talking Heads, helmed by the inimitable David Byrne, had worked with producer Brian Eno. Nor was it the first time they’d incorporated elements of "world" music: debut set Talking Heads: 77’s opener, Uh-oh, Love Comes to Town, features steelpan sounds from the Caribbean. But it was (is!) the indubitable zenith of both the band’s Eno collaborations and their explorations beyond art/post-punk and new wave templates.

Whilst Byrne and bandmates’ intentions from the outset were framed by the desire to experiment, Remain in Light is a perfectly accessible affair, never losing sight of the following Talking Heads had attracted via minor single hits like Psycho Killer and their cover of Al Green’s Take Me to the River.

This mainstream-savvy sensibility is encapsulated by Once in a Lifetime. Far from Remain in Light’s most riveting moment, it’s nevertheless the ideal introduction to this set: Eno’s introduction of Fela Kuti-inspired rhythms lends the track a savant edge, but Byrne’s aspiration-meets-realism lyricism connects with a universal audience. With MTV offering support come the station’s 1981 launch, the track was Talking Heads’ best-known song until it was out-radio-played by 1985’s Road to Nowhere

Road to Nowhere’s parent LP, Little Creatures, can’t match Remain in Light’s bravado, though. This fourth album illustrates how keen ambition could gel with commercial nous, with results that dazzle. Even in its darker turns - closer The Overload the obvious example -these eight tracks continue to fascinate over 30 years after their creation.

In short: same as it ever was, same as it ever was…”

There is no doubt that Remain in Light marked a real turning point and peak for Talking Heads. I think David Byrne’s lyrics especially come to the fore, and he produced his best work with the band on the album. At forty, Remain in Light still has the power to startle and intrigue the senses. I want to source from a Pitchfork review of 2018, where they talk about the album’s strengths and why the album is so important:

“The musical transition that seemed to have just begun with Fear of Music came to fruition on Talking Heads' fourth album, Remain in Light. "I Zimbra" and "Life During Wartime" from the earlier album served as the blueprints for a disc on which the group explored African polyrhythms on a series of driving groove tracks, over which David Byrne chanted and sang his typically disconnected lyrics. Remain in Light had more words than any previous Heads record, but they counted for less than ever in the sweep of the music. The album's single, "Once in a Lifetime," flopped upon release, but over the years it became an audience favorite due to a striking video, its inclusion in the band's 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, and its second single release (in the live version) because of its use in the 1986 movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills, when it became a minor chart entry.

Byrne sounded typically uncomfortable in the verses ("And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife/And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"), which were undercut by the reassuring chorus ("Letting the days go by"). Even without a single, Remain in Light was a hit, indicating that Talking Heads were connecting with an audience ready to follow their musical evolution, and the album was so inventive and influential, it was no wonder. As it turned out, however, it marked the end of one aspect of the group's development and was their last new music for three years.

Although Remain in Light has become an acknowledged classic, it retains a feeling of unfamiliarity. It is tempting to attribute this quality to Byrne’s obtuse lyrics, but the album’s instrumental arrangements also constitute a break with rock’s conventional forms. Weymouth’s bassline on “Crosseyed and Painless” crowds staccato bursts of notes into the first half of each measure, leaving the second half empty in a way that defines the percussion pattern. This technique, essential to funk, diverges from rock’s standard practice of using the bass to keep time. Perhaps the album’s greatest heresy, though, is its total absence of guitar riffs. Like Weymouth, Harrison prefers to use his instrument as a noisemaker. His howling fills on “Listening Wind” lend a foreboding, unpredictable atmosphere to lyrics that are as close as Byrne gets to conventional narrative. These tracks do not hew as strictly to Afrobeat forms as “Once in a Lifetime” or “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On),” but they still manage to introduce a coherent sound that is alien to mainstream rock”.

Remain in Light’s legacy is huge. It was named one of the best albums of 1980 by many publications at the time, and, in 1989, Rolling Stone named Remain in Light as the fourth-best album of the decade. In 1993, it was included at number-eleven in NME's list of The 50 Greatest Albums of the '80s. Many other newspapers, music magazines and sites have listed Remain in Light among the best albums of all-time. I know that Remain in Light will receive a lot of love today, and many will nod to a very important album. I got hooked on it as a child, and I have loved it ever since. Albums as extraordinary as Remain in Light come about….

ONCE in a lifetime.

FEATURE: In My Garden: Home and Hearth: Early Influences on Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

In My Garden

IN THIS PHOTO: A young Kate Bush/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, Cathy)

Home and Hearth: Early Influences on Kate Bush

___________

AS I (and many others) imagine whether we…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, Cathy)

will ever see another Kate Bush photograph book in the world, I have been thinking about John Carder Bush’s Cathy. Here are some more details:

“First published as a run of just 500 copies in 1986, Cathy is a collection of photographs by John Carder Bush of his sister Kate as a young girl, with accompanying text. This new edition—the first printing since the original edition—includes a new introduction by John Carder Bush, illustrated with eight previously unpublished photographs. A beautifully bound hardback with a linen cover, head and tail bands, and a matching linen slipcase, Cathy is comprised of 28 cut out pages featuring the text, with full-page photographs revealed on a separate page beneath. The design matches the original limited run in layout, including the original introduction as well”.

One can buy a copy of that book and, whilst it is expensive, it does provide an intimate and vivid look into the early life of Kate Bush by her brother. I will come on to look at the art, music and inspiration Bush was surrounded by in her childhood home (and school to an extent), as I have not really looked back at Kate Bush pre-The Kick Inside (her debut album of 1978). When it comes to a lot of great artists, we do not really have access to photos of them when they were very young and really falling in love with music and the world around them. I guess it helped having a photographer brother, so we can get a photographic representation of Cathy blossoming into this fantastic artist.

I want to cover a small window of her childhood where she was in a family home and the earliest musical seeds were being planted. There aren’t interviews with Kate Bush really before 1978, so these photographs are invaluable and give us a great impression of a curious and shy girl who was absorbing so much around her and, even as a child, possessed this unnatural ability and prolific intent! I am going to be referring from the 2015 book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow. It is a great book I would urge any Kate Bush fan to own:

“KATE: Inside the Rainbow is a collection of beautiful images from throughout Kate Bush’s career, taken by her brother, the photographer and writer John Carder Bush. It includes outtakes from classic album shoots and never-before-seen photographs from sessions including The Dreaming and Hounds of Love, as well as rare candid studio shots and behind-the-scenes stills from video sets, including ‘Army Dreamers’ and ‘Running Up that Hill’.

These stunning images will be accompanied by two new essays by John Carder Bush: From Cathy to Kate, describing in vibrant detail their shared childhood and the early, whirlwind days of Kate’s career, and Chasing the Shot, which vividly evokes John’s experience of photographing his sister”.

There are interviews where Bush looked back at her upbringing and family home, but I am going to start off by quoting from John Carder Bush’s 2015 update and expansion of the Cathy book. KATE: Inside the Rainbow has over 250 rare photos in black-and-white and colour that were taken between 1964 (when she was five/six) and 2011 – when her current studio album, 50 Words for Snow, was released.

Like any songwriter, those very early years are as influential and formative as any. I think the music and culture we are surrounded by as children moulds and directs us. Carder Bush was involved with his sister (in a creative manner) for twenty years, and, as he puts it in his book, he was “surrounded by a pulsating system of remarkable creativity – it actually felt like I was living life from inside such a phenomenon: from inside a vibrant shimmering rainbow, where reality juxtaposed seamlessly with intense creativity to conjure something enigmatic and intangible that has always embraced my sister and her music”. Although she was born in Bexleyheath in 1958, the Bush family lived in a farmhouse in East Whickham – an urban village in Welling, London (Welling is located in the London Borough of Bexley, although it does share the Kent postcode prefix of DA16). Her father, Robert, was a doctor, and her mother, Hannah, was an Irish staff nurse; daughter of a farmer in County Waterford. Surrounded by a loving family including her older brothers John (or ‘Jay’) and Paddy, Bush came from an artistic background: her mother was an amateur traditional Irish dancer, her father was an amateur pianist Paddy worked as a musical instrument maker, and John was also a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local Folk music scene. Although she wasn’t necessarily a veracious reader, Bush would have been influenced by literature and poetry from a young age. Celtic and Folk music was in her bloodstream very early, and the idyllic surroundings of the farm provided perfect tonic and elixir for someone who was clearly instilled with a love of music and the arts from a very young age.

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

I think one of the reasons Bush’s music is infected by and infused with elements of dance, literature, and cinema is because of her childhood years and the way the arts was introduced into her life very young - and it became such an important element of her daily life. Carder Bush, in KATE: Inside the Rainbow, recounts how he kept journals and can remember how (for his sister) “1973 and 1974 were very intensive creative years, with often a couple of new songs a week”. Bush would have been fifteen by that point, and I am going to go back further a bit later when I reference Graeme Thomson’s biography, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush. Through Kate Bush’s infancy, the house was awash with the Irish singing of her mother. As Hannah Bush grew up in the rural South of Ireland, family holidays were taken in Ireland, and the vivid and colourful landscape was at odds with the somewhat greyer and more modest greenery of rainy England. That experience of holidaying among such evocative countryside had a very direct and powerful impact on young Kate/Cathy. As Carder Bush remarks: “Most of our uncles played an instrument, and our mother’s family all loved dancing, both traditional and ballroom”. Sequestered in a slice of paradise in Welling, although the urban expanse had increased in the 1950s and 1960s, there was something pleasingly traditional about the Bush household.

With the music, dance and words of the Irish connecting to the young Bush through her mother and her side, coupled with the piano and Methodist hymns from her father, it must have been quite strange for Bush to enter quite an orthodox school in England! I want to discuss her brother Paddy and his musical influence, in addition to Bush’s school life and her fascination with poetry. Whilst quite a disparate and eclectic cocktail of English and Irish poetry, music and religion might have been quite confusing and strange for a child, it seemed to provide a warm cocoon for Kate Bush – as John Carder Bush attests to in his book. In conjunction with music and literature came film and T.V. I am not sure how many families had access to T.V. in the 1950s and 1960s – Bush’s family were comfortably middle-class, though she was never spoiled -, but the young Bush was often found sitting in front of the T.V. watching the Saturday night film on BBC 2. I have explored how influential film was to Bush in terms of her songwriting and original tangent, and how many of her songs are rich with images and elements of classic T.V. and film – her debut single, Wuthering Heights, was written after Bush saw a T.V. adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel of the same name. Cathy/Kate was meant to practice violin – something she did but never really enjoyed -, but, instead, she began playing the piano.

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

The piano was in the room where she was meant to play violin, and that piano was given to Bush’s father by his piano teacher. Bush would embrace Irish music and her mother’s side through her career – one can hear elements through many of her albums from 1980’s Never for Ever onwards -, but the violin was a pathway into the piano and, on this instrument, Bush enjoyed her first crush and most passionate relationship. Her brother, Paddy, was also very music (he appeared on many of her albums), and they both had a great and easy aptitude for piano – perhaps more influenced by their father than their mother. So many iconic songwriters started out listening to commercial artists or being influenced by what they heard on the radio; they would go on to develop their own style later and evolve through time. Kate Bush definitely loved more conventional music – from Steely Dan and Captain Beefheart through to Elton John and Roy Harper -, but her earliest songs were provoked by things and events around her; anything that really moved her – from pets and animals through to imaginary love. As a child prodigy became more prolific, none of the family realistically felt that this would lead into a music career but, as John Carder Bush remarks in KATE: Inside the Rainbow: “We all became aware of something unexpected emerging; the flower left to grow in its own safe surroundings was blossoming in an exotic and unique way, like a rare orchid among daffodils”.

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

That is a beautiful and apt description of his sister’s clear talent, and the photos John Carder Bush took in those very early years shows Kate at the piano in her elements, frolicking in the splendour and grace of her family’s garden, or looking thoughtful and pensive beneath a tree. One interesting observation (made by Carder Bush) is that Kate Bush’s generation was the first who were not pressured by their parents or expected to follow in their footsteps. Bush could have become a doctor or a nurse – as she was extremely academic and could have gone to university -, but she was gently encouraged to go into music, as her father especially could see that she possessed unflinching and fascinating ability. Although he was proud of his daughter, there was a fear of future instability: the perception that she would become a wandering musician and pursue creativity and success with very little financial stability and career to fall back on. This sort of fear exists in the minds of parents today, and it wasn’t until Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour heard a demo tape from Bush and took an interest in her that the fear subsided. In 1975, Bush recorded both The Man with the Child in His Eyes, and The Saxophone Song – they would appear on The Kick Inside three years later. Not only was music and art an important factor in the Bush household but, curiously, karate was prevalent!

IMAGE CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Everyone, apart from their mother, practiced karate, and Kate Bush trained with her brother, John, for two years – she took two examinations in the Shotokan style. I think the exposure to karate and this form of movement not only fed into her songwriting later on, but it coupled alongside her attraction to dance. Bush trained with and was a fan of the late Lindsay Kemp – whose incredible production, Flowers, resonated and deeply affected her -, and  the marriage of movement, song and literature – alongside film and T.V. -, all went into Kate Bush’s wild and wonderful musical brew! Karate is about defence and attack and, whilst Bush studied it, she substituted for a form of expression more about beauty and protection; something less offensive and confrontational – which is where mime, dance and Lindsay Kemp played an important role. During a time when music was making its way into every household and car, the young Kate Bush was experiencing so many different sounds that her parents would not have had access to in their youth. Her brother, Paddy, brought her examples of World music and unusual sounds; this continued through her entire career, and I think it is as important to her originality and success as anything. Whilst myriad sounds and musical sources provided direction for Bush, it would have been quite overwhelming too. I often wonder whether Bush’s love of nature and birdsong is intended as an escape from the noise and assault of the media…and the endless stream of music.

Kate Bush, appropriately, arrived in music like a rare and magical bird, pure of song and spirit in a music scene enveloped in noise and generic clatter. That sounds rude to her peers, but Wuthering Heights seems like it arrived from a different world and time period; hardly typical of what was absorbed and popular in 1978! I want to shift from the Bush household to the school environment in a moment but, in KATE: Inside the Rainbow, there is a passage that made me stop dead. As John Carder Bush notes: “When I was sixteen, our father’s father, our English grandfather, told me the story of his adolescence”. Because of his religious convictions, he was designated as a conscientious objector when World War I broke out in 1914. Conscription did not come in until 1916, so there was no choice but to enrol; his grandfather went on the run. He was caught and put before a military tribunal. Alongside eleven other ‘conchies’, they were sentenced to death before a firing quad unless they enlisted to go to war. “Six took the opportunity of saving their lives” whereas the remaining six were sent before the firing squad; they were given the chance (again) to go to war, and three more took that option. Three were left, including Carder Bush’s grandfather, and the riffles were cocked and ready to fire…but it was all a ruse!

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

Rather than execution, he was sent to prison for the rest of the war. That self-belief and determination not to kill another human was an unpopular one at a time when Britain needed to recruit soldiers. Maybe not as dramatic, John Carder Bush equates that story with his sister determined to follow her instincts and enter an industry by herself. Not only was she influenced by her brothers and her parents, but her grandfather too! The inter-generational and multifarious influences all seeped into her bones and soul, and the girl who wrote from a very young age and was playing her creations to family members and friends was now embarking on a very challenging and frightening move into professional music! As Graeme Thomson writes in his excellent book, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, Bush’s background and family home was important regarding her decision to go into music, but there was this niggling that, as she was from a stable home and had not suffered for her art, then that this somewhat invalidated her career choice. I think there is this perception that great art comes from sadness and struggle but, as Bush dispelled in future interviews, one does not need to be unhappy to create great music. Her parents were from “unshowy country stock”, and one cannot accuse Bush of being spoiled. The shift from Catherine to Kate occurred after she left school, but those school years are important – which I shall get to in a second. Bush and her family would holiday in countries like New Zealand (where they would visit members of Bush’s mother’s family), and this infant exposure to different nations and cultures would have been instrumental.

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

Thomson argues that, rather than wealth and opportunity being the most important reason why Bush stepped into music, it was the artistic environment and bohemian atmosphere of her household that was the biggest factor. Indeed, many of Bush’s school friends remarked how her father, Dr. Bush, took surgery in a flowered smock; the family house had a Victorian ghost exorcised when it became too intrusive, and there was this eccentric nature to the home which, inevitably, explains why Bush’s music has always been imbued with a slightly more unusual edge! Whilst the young Bush loved and followed Roxy Music, Marc Bolan, and Simon & Garfunkel (the first album she owned/loved was their Bridge Over Troubled Water album), there was not a lot of traditional Pop music in the house – Bush didn’t get into The Beatles until the Seventies (and later explained how Magical Mystery Tour was her favourite album of theirs). Whilst Paddy played concertina for the English Morris Dancers, and the pure narrative of Irish music was a common sound, those wondering why Bush’s arrival into music was so unconventional-sounding and unorthodox should look at her childhood and upbringing – the Kate Bush we know and love would not exist were it not for her family and the sounds of East Wickham Farm! Through her brothers, Bush was exposed to a lot of English Folk music, which was often gritter than Irish Folk – tales of murder, incest and ghouls ran deep! Bush, as Thomson notes, cannot be categorised as a Folk artist, but its impact “runs deep in her writing”. John Carder Bush, whilst a huge fan of music, became a sort of tutor to his sister and opened her eyes to poetry and deeper ideas.

Jay/John was an accomplished poet, and some of his more illicit and explicit work was shown to his sister. He showed her “how explicit desire was a legitimate artistic endeavour”. Bush wrote her own poetry similar in tone to that of her brother’s and, whist a little sloppy, she would become more refined later. Listen to songs on her debut album, The Kick Inside, where she talks of love and lust in such a direct and bold manner, and one can link that back to her connection with poetry and her brother’s influence. The Bush household was unencumbered and unabashed, and there would have been no taboo when it came to sex and desire. Whilst Paddy Bush brought to his sister so many weird and wonderful recordings that spiked her mind, Jay’s intellectual curiosity and ferocity rubbed off on his sister; she especially loved G.I. Gurdjueff (a Greek-American spiritual leader who died in 1949), and mentioned him on her debut album and in several interviews. Her older brothers’ passions definitely shaped her but, like all great artists, the young Kate Bush pursued her own outside interests. From books – by Kurt Vonnegut to Oscar Wilde -, to Billie Holiday and T.V./film, everything became food for thought. Thomson also notes how there is this misconception that Bush’s music is high-concept and all about philosophy and high-minded ideas where, in actuality, there is silliness, fantasy and humour.

IN THIS PHOTO: A young and mirror-side Kate Bush/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, Cathy)

Track backwards and sideways to Bush’s school years and, whilst it was an unhappy environment (she could not wait to leave), her time at St Joseph’s Convent Preparatory School and St Joseph’s Convent Grammar definitely left their mark. Though her school friends paint her as a shy and extremely nice person, I am intrigued by St Joseph’s and the blend of the ordered and strict. Run by runs – always a horrifying image and sentence! -, everything was kept very beautiful and neat; there was a gardener, and the surroundings were beautiful. It was a school for middle-class children and it prepared these young women for excellence. The nuns, it seems, were proto-feminists and any discipline that took place was self-regulated – there were no canings or anything of that manner! Rather than girls being fearful of a lashing or some form of physical rebuke, there was a sense of disappointment if the pupils did not perform at their highest level. That ethos of performing to your very best standard definitely motivated Bush, and it stuck with her through her career. One can imagine that it was frustrating for Bush to be surrounded by girls with very little male contact, given her fascination with the masculine. Perhaps that stems from her childhood home and the influence of her father and brothers; school was a sharp contrast to life at home.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on holiday in Kent in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)

One of the positive aspects of school was the fact that music was a part of the curriculum. I have already mentioned the prolificacy of music in the Bush household, but every pupil at St Joseph’s had to learn an instrument. I think the importance of school on Bush was less about absorption and obedience and more about a sense of defiance. By that, music was taught rather rigidly and there was little in the way of flexibility and excitement in the curriculum. This was at odds with the freer and thrilling energy of home, so I can understand why Bush did not enjoy school a whole lot. Despite her English classes being too regimented and structured to offer any stimulation or interest, Bush did start to blur the lines between home and school. Friends would come home to the farm, and it was a very different atmosphere to St Joseph’s. A more open and far less disciplined space, there were parties, seances, smoking and singing! Bush was probably the most introverted of her friend circle, and I think being around more extroverted characters was important; the very shy Kate Bush definitely started to come out of herself, though she would remain quite private and shy for much of her young and adult life. If her English classes were quite dull and rigid, many noticed Bush excel as a poet and writer whilst at school.

IN THIS PHOTO: Paddy and Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)

As Graeme Thomson writes: “Between Form I and III she had several poems published in the school magazine”. This magazine was a rare chance for Bush to express herself in a manner she would not have been afforded in English classes. She was just eleven when her first poem was published, and there was a mix of more introspective pieces and poems that related to death and religion – nothing too unusual for a teen in the Seventies (or any time). Thomson describes those early poems as the “first tangible public evidence of the overpowering excess of emotions that, hidden away, characterised her private childhood…”. A lot of her earliest poems had a definite fixation on death, and it is clear that Jay’s influence was there. Even though Bush would strengthen as a poet and writer in years to come, it is evident from her very first works that she had a great grasp on form and language; a definite confidence of voice. One can see a continuation of the themes in her poems in some of the earliest tracks that would appear on The Kick Inside. I am interested in the demos that Bush recorded in 1972 and 1973 – she would have been around fourteen or fifteen when these songs were put to tape. Many of the songs on these demo tapes would have been considered for inclusion on The Kick Inside, but most of the recordings have never been officially released.

I want to bring in an article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia concerning some early demos, and how Bush went from those similar songs to recording her first professional cuts in 1975:

“In 1972 and 1973 Kate recorded several tapes of songs. Reports vary about the amount of songs that were recorded, but there must have been dozens. 20 to 30 of these songs were presented via Kate's brother John Carder Bush's friend Ricky Hopper, first without success to record companies. Ricky Hopper then presented the songs to David Gilmour. Gilmour noticed her talent, but also the bad tape recorder quality. This led to one or more recording sessions with David Gilmour present, but with a better recorder. According to Kate: "Absolutely terrified and trembling like a leaf, I sat down and played for him."

At Gilmour's insistance, another recording session took place in the summer of 1973, at Gilmour's farm with two band members from Unicorn: drummer Peter Perrier and bassist Pat Martin, and Dave Gilmour on electric guitar. According to Gilmour, ca. 10-20 songs were recorded. This tape definitely made it to EMI Records. One of the songs recorded during this session was Passing Through Air, which ended up on the B-side of the single Army Dreamers in 1980.

Then, in June 1975, David Gilmour booked a professional studio (AIR London), brought Andrew Powell to arrange and produce the songs and hired top musicians to back Kate. They recorded The Man With The Child In His Eyes, Saxophone Song and Maybe. This tape finally was Kate's breakthrough at EMI. The first two songs from this session appeared on The Kick Inside. With the three demo songs in hand, a recording deal is much discussed between Kate, her family, Gilmour and EMI. In July 1976 it finally comes together: Kate gets £3000 from EMI Records and a further £500 to finance her for a year of personal en professional development”.

I have talked a lot about how there was positive family influence but, when talking about Bush’s school life, there was a lonelier side. Maybe not overly-impactful when it comes to her music and creative drive, I think it warrants mention though. I want to quote from an article from 2017 relating to an article Bush wrote for a magazine called FlexiPop! It makes for quite sobering reading:

“I was too shy to be a hooligan but inside I had many hooligan instincts,” wrote Ms Bush in Testament of Youth, an article published in 1982 by Flexipop!, a short-lived pop magazine.

Reprinted in a new book detailing the history of the cult magazine, which featured a flexi-disc by a leading pop act on each cover, the Bush article pulls no punches about her troubled childhood.

“I became very shy at school,” wrote Ms Bush, who attended St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School in Bexley, south-east London. “There were people who picked on me and gave me a very hard time. It was a very cruel environment and I was a loner,” said the singer, who would “get hit occasionally.”

“My friends used to play this game whereby they’d ‘send you to Coventry.’ My friends sometimes used to ignore me completely and that would really upset me badly.

“I still tend to be vulnerable, but I’m much better at fighting back if people are nasty to me today.”

The aspiring performer was writing songs at the age of 10 but didn’t tell anyone at school “because I feared it would alienate me even more.”

Describing her life as a teenager as “interesting and difficult”, Ms Bush, then 24, concluded: “I was very lonely. And even after I left school there were times when the loneliness became desperate.”

In her article, Ms Bush said she found the idea of school “exciting” because she “liked the idea of wearing a uniform.” An extrovert as a young girl, she became “very self-conscious” and stopped dancing to music.

“I found it very frustrating being treated like a child when I wasn’t thinking like a child,” said the singer who “felt I was being patronised, right through the until I was 18 or 19. From the age of 10 I felt old.” Her adolescent struggle was “important because it stirred up all sorts of things in me” which shaped her persona as a musician.

One of the reasons why I want to see/hear a new Kate Bush documentary and see her demo recordings released officially is because that pre-debut album period is fascinating and instrumental! I am intrigued by her childhood and the impact her family had on her music - and it is great that we have books like KATE: Inside the Rainbow to provide a literal look at her childhood home and the very young Kate Bush. It is interesting looking back at the pre-teen/teen Kate Bush and those promising beginnings and the music/art she was exposed to. Who would have known, back in the 1960s and early-1970s, that she would grow into the…

PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn

LEGEND that she is today!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Nova Twins

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: @arwimages

Nova Twins

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THIS duo have been around for a while…

but as they released an album back in February and they are getting a lot of love right now, I thought it was a good time to include them in Spotlight. I have known about Nova Twins for a couple of years, and there are few acts like them around. I think there is still a perception that Rock is reserved for white men, and Georgia South and Amy Love are dispelling that; striking back and trying to change things. I want to bring in an article from The Guardian, - from 2016, who highlight this amazing, rising duo:

“Nova Twins are all about that bass: the lurching, grinding, seismically distorted, FX-mangled sound that propels the music of this young London duo: Georgia South, 19, and Amy Love, who is in her early 20s (Tim Nugent, no relation to Ted, adds drums). They call it urban punk but elsewhere their bass-heavy racket with irascible, sharply insinuating vocals has been variously titled hip hop-grime, grime-pop/“grop”, even “grunk”, such is their furious collision of grime and punk. “We are females of colour playing heavy music,” declares Love, who alternately sings (term used advisedly) and raps, with backing squeals from South. “Sometimes we have to shout a little bit louder. We don’t want to be pigeonholed.” Their heroes range from MC5 to Missy Elliott, Skunk Anansie to Skepta, and they get a broad demographic at their increasingly populous gigs, although to date they have attracted more punks and rockers than grime kids.

“Because our sound and delivery is so intense, and because we do it all live, without laptops or any programming, some grime people are put off,” explains Love. “But we want it to be more open – we want diversity in our audience ’cos that’s what we are,” she says of their mixed parentage. “We want guys in snapbacks next to guys with mohawks and nose rings. That would be amazing.”

“When we were younger and slightly more vulnerable, someone pissed us off, trying to make us sound less live, reduce the power of the bass and make us sound American,” recalls Love. “He was expecting us to be more pop, thinking, ‘That’s a bit heavy.’ So we walked out, and he walked out. But we’re not making music for the record industry, we’re making it for us.”

“People do stereotype us,” adds South. “We’re both mixed [race] and we play guitars, so straight away we get, ‘Oh, you girls are going to be singing some R&B,’ and it’s like, ‘Oh come on, educate yourself!”

It is still a time when women are vastly under-represented in music, and festival line-ups are especially shocking and skewed in favour of male artists. Nova Twins know this and they are desperate for things to change. Their album, Who Are the Girls?, is one of the finest of this year, and I think Nova Twins will be playing a lot of festivals when things start to get back to normal. At the moment, I would recommend that you buy that album, and witness a fantastic duo primed for big things!

I want to bring in an interview they gave to Louder Sound in February, just before the release of their album - and it is clear that Nova Twins are definitely always evolving and looking ahead:

“Looking into the future, the duo seem interested in progressing their music further and trying out new things in their sound. “We are where we are now,” Love says. “I think album four might end up with a synth, who knows.”

Their new label 333 Wreckords Crew, founded by Fever 333's Jason Butler, is something the duo are sincerely excited to be a part of. Instead of a standard label, it’s defined as an ‘artist-orientated collective’. “You don’t always feel backed because everyone is struggling to get to one place or another, so it’s hard for artists to look out for each other,” says Love. “But Jason’s been like, ‘we have to look out for each other’ and we totally agree with that.”

The duo are aware they're outnumbered in the rock industry – not only are they women, but women of colour – and that the odds are stacked against them in such a male-dominated industry. They experienced it first-hand at some of the festivals they played in 2019. During rock and metal festival Download, for example, the girls noticed they were two of seven women on the line up. “We feel like we need to represent all the women and people of colour [at the festival]” says South. “When we walk around, we cannot see our reflection.”

Instead of seeing it as a downside, the girls see it as a challenge. In the next decade, they want to further promote the movement of a diverse audience at rock shows. “We want to change it up and try and make it more open, so more people can be involved in heavy music.

"Because everyone has an influence on the culture – rock and punk – but it doesn’t necessarily let everyone in. So we’re trying to do that”.

I am going to bring in a couple more pieces that highlight the awesomeness of Nova Twins, as I have been intrigued and bowled over by their music got a very long time. Before their debut album, I heard the tracks they released, but I think one gets a bigger and clearer story with the album regarding who Nova Twins are and what their music represents. I think the next year or two will be crucial when it comes to making changes in the music industry so that those at the top are replaced as we can see discussion, progression and, above all, effective change regarding inequality. Things are not moving forward quickly enough! When Nova Twins spoke with NME, they were asked about the political tones in their album and what can be done to make Rock music less white and male-heavy:

“Hey Nova Twins. What did you feel you had to prove with your debut album?

Amy: “As women and especially as women of colour, you do come against a lot of stereotypes and challenges. This album was us proving a point.

Georgia: “There are no synths, no backing track and no other writers. It’s just us.”

Amy: “So when we do play it live, nobody can say anything ‘cos its going to sound like the record. We can do it all, no matter how much hopscotching we’re doing on the pedals to make it happen.”

Would you say it’s a political album?

Amy: “Being black women doing punk music is political, so yes. ‘Devil’s Face’ touches on Brexit, ‘Bullet’ speaks about sexism, but ‘Athena’ is completely fictional and mythological. We called it ‘Who Are The Girls?’ because we didn’t always feel heard or accepted making the type of music we do, looking the way that we do. It’s definitely challenging and there is a stigma attached to it.”

Georgia: “When we play these festivals, we’re the only people that look like us on these bills and a majority of the audience would never have seen a band like us, so we need to be the best band possible so their whole perception of black women playing rock music is changed. We wanted to be the voices for the unheard.”

What kind of impact did not seeing people of colour in rock music have on you?

Georgia: “You wonder if you can even be in a heavy band because you don’t see anyone else doing it.”

Amy: “It also affects people in ways they don’t even realise. They start trying to dull themselves down to fit in, but when you try and fit into somewhere you will never, ever belong because your existence doesn’t lend itself to that, it becomes really psychologically damaging. You start questioning yourself and that quickly becomes self-hatred. It took me a long time to accept myself.”

Georgia: “We feel this responsibility to make sure no one else feels like that”.

What can be done to make rock music less straight, white and male?

Georgia: “All we’re asking for is the same chances and opportunities. It needs to start from the top, get rid of tokenism and hire more people of colour but the power is with the audience too. If you support a band, buy their merch, go to shows, you’re giving them power. If you keep supporting POC in alternative music, it’ll become undeniable and they’ll have to be heard”.

I will leave things here, but I want to bring in a review for Who Are the Girls? that underlines what an important album it is. It is one of my favourite from 2020, and I think Nova Twins will get bigger and better with each release! This is what CLASH wrote when they reviewed the album:

 “Nova Twins’ pedalboards have also grown exponentially since 2016, when their reputation for grotty, pitch-shifted assaults of distortion earned them the label ‘grime-punk’. It’s not an unfair description. South’s basslines are what supercharge the songs, leading from the bottom with a dirty, street-gutter rumble that attains absolute perfection on lead single ‘Taxi’. When paired with Love’s delivery, the music can resemble the heavier cuts from Skepta and Tempa T, but they just as often deviate into the realms of UK garage, or rave, or even dubstep.

Both ‘Play Fair’ and ‘Bullet’ end with full-on wub-a-dub freakouts that owe a debt to the likes of Caspa and Rusko, while ‘Undertaker’ genuinely sounds like it could have been painstakingly pieced together out of re-pitched Rage Against The Machine tracks by The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett.

While their peers are busy taking on board smooth-edged American influences and trying to become the next Imagine Dragons, Nova Twins’ sound remains 100% homegrown British beefiness. There are many people out there from across the rap-rock spectrum who will despise this album (for reasons both fair and foul), but there are many more who will appreciate the lack of compromise in this rollicking call to arms. You have never heard two women have this much fun with a metric fucktonne of distortion pedals, but if you do in the future, then the way will have been paved by Nova Twins”.

If you have not discovered the amazing Nova Twins, then follow them online and make sure that you keep an eye on them! They are an amazing duo and I think they will be huge names very soon. This year has been pretty bad but, with Nova Twins’ music out there, 2020 has provided us with some…

GOLD and light.

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Follow Nova Twins

Official:

https://www.novatwins.co.uk/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/NovaTwinsMusic/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/NovaTwinsMusic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/novatwinsmusic/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7I95CM75shzCjHuTzrepjM?si=fReo_awKQmOKfxBfOKNk2g

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/novatwinsmusic

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Laura Mvula – The Dreaming Room

FEATURE:

 

Vinyl Corner

Laura Mvula – The Dreaming Room

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I have included some fairly recent albums…

in my Vinyl Corner feature, as there are these recordings that sort of got some attention when they were released but they do not get talked about too much today. I have always loved the work of Laura Mvula and her debut album, Sing to the Moon, of 2013 contained the phenomenal track, Green Garden. With a stunningly powerful voice and a blend of R&B and Neo-Soul, there is a dreaminess and potency that makes her music so long-lasting and interesting. The Dreaming Room is Mvula’s second album, and it was released on 17th June, 2016. There was a positive critical response to Sing to the Moon, and it got inside the top-three in the U.K. album charts. Following that debut release, Mvula worked on various projects; she recorded Little Girl Blue, which was included on the soundtrack for the 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave. At this venture, Mvula began working on her second album. It wasn’t until January 2016 when her first single in three years arrived in the form of Overcome. The song features Nile Rodgers, and it was one of Mvula’s strongest releases. I really love Sing to the Moon, but there was some extra on The Dreaming Room; her sound and confidence was at a new peak and her songwriting finer. I would urge people to buy The Dreaming Room on vinyl, as it is such a deep and stunning album.

Although she wrote songs with others – producer Troy Miller co-writes a few tracks, whilst Steve Brown takes a couple -, it is Mvula’s voice and direction that defines the album. She has a writing credit for every song, and I think she puts her everything into each track! The Dreaming Room is a stunning album that boasts so many standouts. I really love the singles, Phenomenal Woman, and Show Me Love, but non-singles such as Who Am I, and Let Me Fall are sensational. There are, in my opinion, no weak moments, and one can easily listen through The Dreaming Room time and time again, as you’ll pick up new shades and layers that you might not have encountered the first time around! It has been four years since that album, and I wonder whether we might get a new album from Laura Mvula next year, perhaps? It would be fantastic, as the Birmingham-born artist is one of the U.K.’s best singer-songwriters, and her albums are always stuffed with life, meaning and passion. There was a really positive reaction to The Dreaming Room. This is what AllMusic wrote when they reviewed the album:

“The Dreaming Room is somehow more sumptuous and emotive than Sing to the Moon, Laura Mvula's impressive 2013 debut. Written and produced primarily with Troy Miller, who she met while working on the soundtrack for 12 Years a Slave, it's another categorically evasive set that updates and amalgamates traditional forms of blues, jazz, R&B, and orchestral pop. For all its unearthly charm, it nurtures the soul. Mvula's rich voice prances across songs of perseverance, salvation, survival, hope, and pride.

 Everything is transmitted with a contagious form of optimism, even in darker moments like "People," where Mvula mourns "They strip us down and rape our minds, our skin was a terrible thing to live in," then marvels "How glorious, this light in us," her words accentuated with a congruent verse from Wretch 32. The only other guest appearance comes from Nile Rodgers, whose golden and unmistakable rhythm guitar is threaded throughout "Overcome," one of the many highlights of this powerful album”.

Although The Dreaming Room charted lower in the U.K. compared with Sing to the Moon, I think it is a better album, and it deserved more acclaim and sales. Looking back, I think the album is one of the best of 2016. It was a very strong year for music and, if released now, I think the album would go into the top-ten in the U.K. and U.S. There was a lot of love for the album. When they tackled the album, The Guardian offered the following:

“The Dreaming Room is a rich stew. It’s vivid, cramming a lot of information into barely half an hour of music. Even the most commercial tracks are pretty odd – as evidenced by the off-kilter funk and yelped, incomprehensible chorus of the single Phenomenal Woman, Mvula’s interpretation of her grandma’s instruction to “write a song I can lift me spirits, write a song I can jig me foot” – and even the quiet moments prickle with intensity: the ostensibly straightforward piano-and-vocal section in Show Me, recorded in such a way that Mvula appears to be singing directly into your ear, the tranquil piano chords disrupted by the noise of her feet on the pedals. Lyrically, it’s preoccupied with relationship woe and black empowerment.

The artist who declined to attend the Brits in protest at its woeful lack of black nominees is present on People – “our skin was a terrible thing to live in” – while there’s also a lot of raw, often harrowing stuff about Mvula’s divorce, the tracks on which she appears to come to terms with the collapse of her marriage outnumbered by those where she seems inconsolable: “I miss the wonder of a future with somebody,” she sings on Show Me’s hymn-like opening, “Oh God, where are you?”

It should be much harder work than it is. But like Joanna Newsom, Mvula pulls the listener along with her through the most serpentine songs: however winding their routes, the melodies are almost always beautiful; however much the musical scenery shifts, it is always striking. You do wonder what its commercial fate will be. Despite the discrepancy between its advance publicity and its contents, Sing to the Moon went gold, but there are moments here strange enough to make Sing to the Moon sound like the work of the new Adele by comparison. Or perhaps audiences will be seduced by The Dreaming Room’s invention and originality, which would be entirely fitting”.

If you have not played or owned The Dreaming Room, I think it is a good time to discover a real treat. Mvula’s voice is like no other, and her second studio albums offers so much to the listener. It is a wonderful release, and one that I have been revisiting a lot over the past few weeks. Go and get a wonderful album from such…

A huge talent.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Songs of Optimism and Uplift

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @priscilladupreez/Unsplash

Songs of Optimism and Uplift

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I cannot recall whether I have…

PHOTO CREDIT: @adigold1/Unsplash

covered this subject before for a Lockdown Playlist, but I thought I would put out a playlist of unifying, uplifting songs, as things have become pretty tense…and it has been a fraught past week or two especially. With areas of the country locked down and others plain confused, I think we do need some clarity, for sure, but also some spirit that gives us some energy and optimism! Whilst we cannot literally join together and embrace, music is a powerful connective tool, and it has the ability to elevate and bring people closer. I have been looking around for songs that will give us a bit of a spirit and togetherness at a time when we…

PHOTO CREDIT: @belchev/Unsplash

SORELY need it.

FEATURE: Of All the Things I Should Have Said: Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work

FEATURE:

Of All the Things I Should Have Said

Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work

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IN future pieces relating to Kate Bush…

I am going to be more general and explore various aspects of her work. At the moment, I am keen to dive into particular songs, as I think, in a streaming age, how often do we digest entire songs or take them apart? The Sensual World is an album that is not among my most-spun of Bush’s, and I have been coming back to it in recent weeks. A while ago, I argued that The Dreaming’s Get Out of My House might be her finest closing track on any album. That song has such an intensity and physicality that it is impossible to follow it! It is one of Bush’s most-underrated songs and brought a magnificent album to a powerful end. On the opposite end of the scale is The Sensual World’s This Woman’s Work. This is a song that is very dear to Kate Bush fans, and it is a song that could only have ended The Sensual World, such is its weight of emotion and effect on the listener – the C.D. bonus track had Walk Down the Middle ending the album, but This Woman’s Work is the true closer. The song was originally included on the soundtrack of the American film, She's Having a Baby (1988). I have never seen the film, but it was a rare occasion of a Kate Bush song featuring on a film soundtrack – I still think there are many films that could be lifted by including a Bush song on them!

Sourcing from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, here is some more information about This Woman’s Work – including interview quotes where Bush discussed the track:

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on the soundtrack of the movie She's Having A Baby in 1988. A year later, the song was included in Kate's sixth studio album The Sensual World. The lyric is about being forced to confront an unexpected and frightening crisis during the normal event of childbirth. Written for the movie She's Having a Baby, director John Hughes used the song during the film's dramatic climax, when Jake (Kevin Bacon) learns that the lives of his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) and their unborn child are in danger. As the song plays, we see a montage sequence of flashbacks showing the couple in happier times, intercut with shots of him waiting for news of Elizabeth and their baby's condition. Bush wrote the song specifically for the sequence, writing from a man's (Jake's) viewpoint and matching the words to the visuals which had already been filmed.

The song was used in the 21st episode of the third season of Party Of Five. The song was also used in the first episode of the second season of The Handmaid's Tale.

The music video was directed by Bush herself. It starts with Bush, spotlighted in an otherwise black room, playing the introductory notes on a piano. In the next scene, a distraught man (played by Tim McInnerny) is pacing in the waiting room of a hospital. It is then revealed through flashbacks that his wife (played by Bush) has collapsed while they were having dinner. The story blurs into a continuous scene where he carries her to the car, a desperate race to the hospital, and his wife being wheeled away on a stretcher as he races in behind her.

While waiting, the husband is wracked with fear and imagines his wife in happier times, kissing him in the rain, and even imagines the nurse coming to tell him she has died. The nurse then pulls him out of his reverie, as she reassuringly puts her hand on his shoulder and tells him about his wife's situation, the outcome of this is left ambiguous; yet the nurse is seen smiling as she speaks, implying a happy outcome. The final scene of the video returns to Bush as silently closes the piano keyboard.

John Hughes, the American film director, had just made this film called 'She's Having A Baby', and he had a scene in the film that he wanted a song to go with. And the film's very light: it's a lovely comedy. His films are very human, and it's just about this young guy - falls in love with a girl, marries her. He's still very much a kid. She gets pregnant, and it's all still very light and child-like until she's just about to have the baby and the nurse comes up to him and says it's a in a breech position and they don't know what the situation will be. So, while she's in the operating room, he has so sit and wait in the waiting room and it's a very powerful piece of film where he's just sitting, thinking; and this is actually the moment in the film where he has to grow up. He has no choice.

There he is, he's not a kid any more; you can see he's in a very grown-up situation. And he starts, in his head, going back to the times they were together. There are clips of film of them laughing together and doing up their flat and all this kind of thing. And it was such a powerful visual: it's one of the quickest songs I've ever written. It was so easy to write. We had the piece of footage on video, so we plugged it up so that I could actually watch the monitor while I was sitting at the piano and I just wrote the song to these visuals. It was almost a matter of telling the story, and it was a lovely thing to do: I really enjoyed doing it. (Roger Scott Interview, BBC Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989)

That's the sequence I had to write the song about, and it's really very moving, him in the waiting room, having flashbacks of his wife and him going for walks, decorating... It's exploring his sadness and guilt: suddenly it's the point where he has to grow up. He'd been such a wally up to this point. (Len Brown, 'In The Realm Of The Senses'. NME (UK), 7 October 1989)”.

I guess one can interpret the lyrics to This Woman’s Work in different ways. If you see it in the film, you get this idea of what the song is trying to represent but, actually, when listening without visuals, various listeners will have different perspectives. I really love the music video and what Kate Bush did as a director on it, as it is a powerful and moving clip. I am surprised that Bush re-recorded the track for 2011’s Director’s Cut. That album was a reaction to Bush’s view that a collection of her songs from The Sensual World, and The Red Shoes (1993) needed reworking – the originals perhaps sounding too cluttered and needed to be opened and stripped back to an extent. The version of This Woman’s Work that we hear on The Sensual World was edited from the She’s Having a Baby soundtrack; the single version was a different mix, so we have four different versions of the same song – the version on The Sensual World, I feel, is the definitive! I admire the sparse version on Director’s Cut, but there is something more evocative and spine-tingling when listening to the 1989 version.

Although This Woman’s Work only reached number-twenty five in 1989, I think it is one of Bush’s best songs, and it constantly is included in polls of her finest tracks – Louder Sound included it in a top-twenty-five poll in 2018; Far Out feel This Woman’s Work is one of Bush’s essential songs, whilst Consequence of Sound ranked it high in 2016, and The Guardian placed the song at number-three in 2018. This Woman’s Work has been sampled and covered by others, and it was the name given to a compilation boxset released on 22nd October, 1990 – which I shall mark in a future feature. The Sensual World is a phenomenal album, and I have already covered its opening number, the title track, and the opener to the second side, Deeper Understanding. I might cover The Fog, and Love and Anger later in the year, but I have not featured This Woman’s Work, and it is such an important song in her cannon. Over thirty years since its release, This Woman’s Work still has the power to move, and it is one of Kate Bush’s most hard-hitting and emotive songs – even though there is a lot of hope and strength to be found. In a career filled with hugely important and memorable songs, This Woman’s Work holds a very…

SPECIAL place in people’s hearts.