FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Alternative Christmas Songs

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @jonathanborba/Unsplash 

Alternative Christmas Songs

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I have already put out…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @hertwashere/Unsplash

a playlist about traditional/common and new Christmas songs but, as a bit of cheekiness, I want to put out a list of ‘alternative’ Christmas songs; both in terms of untraditional themes and sentiments or sounds that are not especially Christmas-like. There are some funny or surprising songs in here, but there are also tracks that I am fairly new to that have stuck in my head! Christmas Day is three weeks away so, before that special day, I wanted to publish an alternative Christmas playlist that has a little bit of bah humbug and Grinch-like moods - in addition to songs that are beautiful but not synonymous with Christmas. Against all the more sugary and uplifting Christmas songs that are around, I think that this playlist provides…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @jeshoots/Unsplash

A nice balance.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: JAY-Z’s Finest Songs

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

JAY-Z’s Finest Songs

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AS today (4th December) is JAY-Z’s birthday…

I felt it was only fitting to put out a Lockdown Playlist consisting of his (Shawn Corey Carter) best tracks. I know we are out the other end of a lockdown but, as I like the theme, I thought I would keep it going – and there are parts of the world that are locked down still! JAY-Z is one of the most influential artists and producers in Hip-Hop and he has put out some phenomenal albums through his career. From his debut, Reasonable Doubt (which I covered recently), through to 2017’s 4:44, he has excelled and released some brilliant music! To tip my cap, this Lockdown Playlist is dedicated to a musical icon who has…

IN THIS PHOTO: JAY-Z and his wife, Beyoncé, with their GLAAD awards in 2019 - they make music together as THE CARTERS

INSPIRED so many.

FEATURE: Disco 2054: Why We Need Another Turn of Dua Lipa’s Star-Studded Live Stream

FEATURE:

 

 

Disco 2054

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa/PHOTO CREDIT: Hugo Comte 

Why We Need Another Turn of Dua Lipa’s Star-Studded Live Stream

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THERE have been some really positive reviews…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus during her Studio 2054 show/PHOTO CREDIT: Pixie Levinson

for Dua Lipa’s recent Studio 2054 show that was broadcast a few days backl. I have already written about great live-streamed gigs this year and how we might see festivals back in the summer. It is a hard balance of being safe and making sure people are protected but also ensuring that venues and festivals do not crumble. Whilst artists are unable to tour, there has been a whole range of live-streamed and virtual gigs that have entertained fans and used technology in a new way. I am not sure how many streamed gigs there were pre-pandemic, but we have not seen the sheer scope and impressiveness that we are getting now! From artists playing at an empty venue to others streaming from their homes, there has been enough to keep us entertained. Dua Lipa topped a brilliant and successful 2020 by bringing together a host of artists and dancers for a modern-day Studio 54-style bonanza! Here is how The Times summarised the event:

“As unapologetically retro as the disco music on her current album Future Nostalgia, the singer Dua Lipa’s heavily hyped livestreamed concert looked like a nightclub scene in a sleazy 1980s movie.

Filmed live in a warehouse, Studio 2054 promised a night of “music, mayhem, performance, theatre, dance and much more”. In truth, the hour-long concert was more of an extended music video, which will probably have suited Lipa’s paying guests just fine”.

I am going to bring in a review for Studio 2054 as a lot of people tuned in and, when it came to production values and acts, it was a very busy, energetic and fun evening! This year has been one where we have seen a lot of Disco/Disco-related records, and the likes of Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, and Róisín Murphy have released some stunners! I think it is a style of music that should never have died out and, whilst Disco did die back in the early-1980s, I think there are a lot of artists now giving it a new shine and introducing it to fresh and younger demographics! This year has been such a bad and lonely one, so we could do with a lot more fun and engrossing shows like Studio 2054. Variety reviewed the show, and I have selected a couple of passages from it:

“I like it better when we’re intertwined,” Dua Lipa sings in her song “Cool,” maybe speaking for all of us who are doing Thanksgiving weekend and pretty much every other weekend of 2020 unentangled from most human beings. Her performance of that and a host of other songs from her two albums Friday in “Studio 2054,” a pay-per-view event, felt like a happy dispatch from another galaxy, where dancing and dopamine both still occur, and joy is a thing of the present, not past or future nostalgia.

 Not much was revealed about the content of the streamed event ahead of time, other than a growing guest list, some of whom were recent collaborators on remixes or side duets (Miley Cyrus, the Blessed Madonna), some of whom were not (Kylie Minogue, Elton John), and the promise that it would be elaborate. But would it be an FX-filled spectacle, a la the recent state-of-the-art livestream from Billie Eilish that was performed on one tiny set but used high technology to give every number a different, often animated setting?

Lipa was having none of that. Her Black Friday show had exactly zero special effects, other than the ones that were arrived at in-camera, as it were, taking place in a few different connected spaces of the multipurpose Printworks venue in London. If anything, the show tried to throw off a low-tech vibe, especially at the beginning, with a determined initial intent to look like something that could have been done in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s, in keeping with the motifs Lipa goes back to with the sounds of her Grammy-nominated “Future Nostalgia” album.

The guest cameos soon got underway, and the answer to how all these celebs would make their way to London soon became clear: some would, some would not. Lipa went into her elegant-bordello-like “dressing room” and kicked everyone out so that she could watch herself and Miley duet on “Prisoner” on an analog black-and-white TV… with a mutual coziness between the two stars that can only be described as somewhere between slumber-party chic and outrightly non-heteronormative. Next up was a more elaborate collab, “Una Día (One Day),” which had Lipa singing in the flesh but J Balvin, Bad Bunny and Tainy piped in remotely via the groove tube. Finally, thanks no doubt to being a “local” by virtue of her Belgium base, Angèle showed up right in Dua’s faux dressing room for “Fever,” with a level of familiarity just a little less steamy than what Lipa shared with Cyrus.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixie Levinson 

Affirmative exultations and exhalations may have been shared by the audience (which tuned in in waves, as streaming start times were staggered to accommodate fans in time zones around the world). Lipa might not have had to do much besides stand there and sing the bulk of “Future Nostalgia,” which is maybe the most purely enjoyable album of 2020, to make “Studio 5054” worth the relatively economical $11.99 cost of early-bird admission. But, as seen on Lipa’s recent American Music Awards contribution, she and her team have already mastered the jubilance that can come from a long tracking shot that has Lipa and a bare handful of dancers marching toward the camera in time to a four-on-the-floor beat. The creative team (including director Liz Clare, choreographers Charm La’Donna and Alex Clark, and producers Ceremony London) clearly relished the chance to make Lipa the star of something that was undeniably a hairtrigger-tight extravaganza but also felt a little down-home, like a friendly party you could step into without being held back at the velvet rope”.

I am not sure what will happen when live music comes back next year and whether we get any live-streamed gigs. It is impressive that artists like Dua Lipa have adapted and been able to compensate their fans with a live show that, under normal circumstances, would not have happened. It would be sad to think that the Studio 2054 set of last week was a one-off and there will be no more next year.

As much as anything, it was interesting seeing a modern interpretation of Studio 54; a contemporary look and feel but there is blood and essence of the legendary Broadway nightclub. Even when the pandemic has died, it would be pleasing to see more live-streamed gigs like this because, as Sophie Ellis-Bextor proved with her Kitchen Discos this year, there is something intoxicating about watching artist perform in a disco club-type setting. Maybe it is a sense of escape and wanting to return to the 1970s, but the fact so many younger music fans have latched on shows that the appeal and lure of Disco and glitz is universal and evergreen! Given the fact nightclubs are threatened with closure and we are not sure how many will reopen, it might be too much to suggest that we open new clubs like Studio 54 that marry classic and modern Disco. I think Dua Lipa’s live-stream was not only a treat for fans and an impressively produced piece, but I feel it will stoke a fire and compel other artists do the same. It would be tragic to lose live-streamed gigs when things get back to normal and, after some big and interesting Disco-flavoured albums were released this year, many might want another visit to Studio 2054. As I said…maybe it is a romantic to suggest that there could be new Disco clubs opening around the country but, as the genre has definitely not gone away and is being moulded and developed in new and interesting ways, I don’t think we have seen the end of Disco 2054-style streams (let’s hope not anyway). Even though 2020 has been pretty hard and there has been precious little light, there are artists out there determined to get us together and keep us upbeat. For that, we offer…

THANKS to them.

FEATURE: The Black Sheep of the Family: Kate Bush’s Mother Stands for Comfort from Hounds of Love

FEATURE:

 

 

The Black Sheep of the Family

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin 

Kate Bush’s Mother Stands for Comfort from Hounds of Love

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I am mixing things up…

by doing some more general features about Kate Bush and ones that narrow in on various songs. I covered Hounds of Love quite extensively when the album turned thirty-five in September but I have not spotlighted Mother Stands for Comfort. I think every Kate Bush album contains a song that is brilliant and worthy but it gets overlooked because of better-known and more accessible hits. The Kick Inside has the title track; Never for Ever has The Wedding List; The Dreaming has Get Out of My House, Houdini, Pull Out the Pin, and Leave It Open (quite a few!), whereas The Sensual World has Heads We’re Dancing – this is a song that I will focus on very soon. Mother Stands for Comfort is the only song from Hounds of Love’s first half that was not released as a single. Because The Ninth Wave, the second side, is a conceptual suite, releasing songs individually might not have worked. I guess And Dream of Sheep and one or two others could have worked - yet the first side of the album is much more single-ready and radio-friendly. The one song that does not really fit, in that sense, is Mother Stands for Comfort. I like the fact that there is a blend of optimistic and terrifying on the album. The Ninth Wave oscillates between more hopeful tones and something quite defeatist and lost. On the opening half, there is some sense of dread in Hounds of Love; a bit of sadness in Cloudbusting, and a hint of frustration on Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) – The Big Sky is just pure joy!

The polar opposite of The Big Sky might be Mother Stands for Comfort. The Big Sky is Bush simply looking at the clouds and sky and being enraptured by its simple and flexible beauty. There is an innocence that is overturned on the very next track. I think the sequencing on the first half is very good. There are only five songs, yet they are arranged so that the very best experience is enjoyed by the listener! I have said this before, but Bush had to open the album with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God); a song like Cloudbusting ends the first half with some energy and beauty – before the vinyl is flipped over and we get something very different! Hounds of Love needed to be the second track, as I feel its energy is closer to the opening track than The Big Sky. That leaves these two contrasting tracks besides one another. One is quite shocked hearing such emotional and psychological shift between the songs! I hear almost every song on the first half of Hounds of Love, but one hardly hears Mother Stands for Comfort. To me, it is a track that prefaces The Ninth Wave in its slightly edgy tones and heaviness. That side balances light and dark, but one can compare songs like Mother Stands for Comfort alongside Waking the Witch.

 PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

At 3:07, Mother Stands for Comfort is one of the shortest songs on the first half, and the fact that Cloudbusting is the longest track on that half means there is enough time to recover and decompress! I really love Mother Stands for Comfort as it is a song that could have easily featured on Bush’s previous album, The Dreaming. Apart from the Fairlight C.M.I. providing some ghostly and intense sounds, the track is quite bare and simple. There is some percussion and upright bass; just some kick and snare from the drums - which means that this rather naked and anxious sounds is created. It is amazing to witness Bush’s songwriting and production creativity on Hounds of Love; how she could write a song as fulsome as The Big Sky or as rapturous as Jig of Life, but she could then pen Mother Stands for Comfort! I think, if she wrote the song for The Dreaming, she might have put more layers on it and used the Fairlight C.M.I. more. In a better headspace and will more physical space, I think she was thinking clearer and decided that sparseness was most effective regarding getting the most out of the song. It is a wonderful song and, as I keep referring to MOJO and their special on Kate Bush earlier in the year, they ranked Mother Stands for Comfort thirty-eighth in the list of her best fifty songs.

When it comes to the story behind Mother Stands for Comfort, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia have us covered:

“Well, the personality that sings this track is very unfeeling in a way. And the cold qualities of synths and machines were appropriate here. There are many different kinds of love and the track's really talking about the love of a mother, and in this case she's the mother of a murderer, in that she's basically prepared to protect her son against anything. 'Cause in a way it's also suggesting that the son is using the mother, as much as the mother is protecting him. It's a bit of a strange matter, isn't it really? [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums Interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)”.

I do wonder what started the process of Mother Stands for Comfort. Bush was often inspired by film, T.V. and literature, but I do not think there is any particular work that directed this track. It sort of makes me think of Bush writing songs for Hounds of Love and perhaps it was a cloudy day and quite moody. Alone with her thoughts, she came up with the incredible Mother Stands for Comfort! We do not know who the son murdered or really why. The first verse lets us into this impending drama and aftermath: “She knows that I've been doing something wrong/But she won't say anything/She thinks that I was with my friends yesterday/But she won't mind me lying/Because”.

  PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Perhaps there is this implied code of silence and the mother knew that this murder was going to take place. As Bush shows us the events after the killing and does not really fill us in, the listener is left to imagine and reason who was killed and why a boy who, at once innocent, would turn into the black sheep of the family! There are relatively few words in the song. The lines “Mother stands for comfort/Mother will hide the murderer/Mother hides the madman/Mother will stay mum” are repeated at the end, but I do love how there is this mystery, confidentiality and paranoia that stalks the song. The following verse really gets into my head and raises questions: “It breaks the cage, and fear escapes and takes possession/Just like a crowd rioting inside/(Make me do this, make me do that, make me do this, make me do that...)/Am I the cat that takes the bird?/To her the hunted, not the hunter”. Those words are so intriguing, and it is a shame that we never got to see Mother Stands for Comfort in a video. Maybe Bush felt that the song is a bit intense or too dark to be a popular single! I like the idea of classic albums have an overlooked track or song that stands out for an unconventional reason. On an album as varied and stunning as Hounds of Love, Mother Stands for Comfort underlines how Kate Bush is…

 SUCH an immensely talented and varied creator.

FEATURE: In Her Own Write: A Singular, Brilliant Lyricist: Kate Bush’s How to Be Invisible Book at Two

FEATURE:

 

In Her Own Write

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Black Island Studios, London in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

A Singular, Brilliant Lyricist: Kate Bush’s How to Be Invisible Book at Two

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THIS will be the final Kate Bush anniversary feature…

 IMAGE CREDIT: Faber & Faber

I will put out this year because, on 6th December, it is two years since she released her first book of lyrics, How to Be Invisible – there are, annoyingly, several listed publication dates for the book; I think we can take it as gospel that it was 6th December. If you are a fan of Kate Bush and do not own the book then go and buy it, as it is a really tremendous work:

“A landmark publishing event, How to be Invisible is the first ever published collection of Bush’s lyrics, selected by the artist and brought together in a beautiful clothbound gift edition.

Ivor Novello winner Kate Bush has long forged her love of literature with music. From Emily Brontë through to James Joyce, Bush has consistently referenced our literary heritage, combined with her own profound understanding of language and musical form.

How to Be Invisible: Selected Lyrics draws from her superlative, 40-year career in music. Chosen and arranged by Kate Bush herself, this very special, cloth-bound volume will be the first published collection of her work.

Accompanying the collection is an expansive introduction from Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell. ‘For millions around the world Kate is way more than another singer-songwriter: she is a creator of musical companions that travel with you through life,’ he said. ‘One paradox about her is that while her lyrics are avowedly idiosyncratic, those same lyrics evoke emotions and sensations that feel universal’”.

I have talked about Bush as a lyricist before and, whilst it might seem impossible to distil her essence and define her as a songwriting given her varied and long career, there are some beautiful selections on How to Be Invisible. I think many people, still, think of Bush more of a singer and do not highlight her lyrics. I was listening to David Mitchell - who provides a foreword to How to Be Invisible - on Desert Island Discs and he picked Sunset (from 2005’s Aerial) as one of his selections. Nearly thirty years after Bush’s debut album, she was still turning in incredible poetry and summoning these unique visions. Consider these lyrics: “Who knows who wrote that song of summer/That blackbirds sing at dusk?/This is a song of colour/Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust/Then climb into bed and turn to dust”. Although there are a few songs where Bush’s talent and clarity is not at its sharpest – a few songs on The Red Shoes lack a certain depth and spark -, just look through her career and the sort of lyrics she was producing! The Kick Inside is my favourite album and, on an album where Bush was talking about love in a very passionate and sensuous way, she was producing lyrics that were quite oblique and strange. Kite is an example where her unique wordplay really soared: “Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o/My feet are heavy and I'm rooted in my wellios/And I want to get away and go/I want to be/From all these mirror windows/I want to be home/I look at eye level, it isn't good enough/And then I find it out when I take a good look up/There's a hole in the sky with a big eyeball/There's a hole in the, there's a hole in the sky/Calling me”.

I will talk about some tracks and highlights from How to Be Invisible soon but, before then, a couple of reviews highlight the importance of the book. There is no doubt Bush is a poet and there is no doubt that she is among the most accomplished lyricists ever. This review from The Irish Times emphasises Bush’s clear gifts:

“When Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, I was one of those who thought the idea of separating lyrics from music and calling them literature was a little ridiculous. I’m not ashamed to confess my hypocrisy, however, when I relax that rule for Kate Bush, the greatest singer-songwriter of the past 40 years, whose work is complex, ethereal and filled with so many secrets that one can listen to the albums for decades, as I have done, and still discover new delights every time. Unlike so many contemporary songwriters, whose Byzantine lyrics are, upon closer examination, essentially meaningless, there’s not a spare word anywhere in Bush’s work. Everything means something.

Knowing the albums as well as I do, reading these familiar lyrics is to experience the songs I love in an entirely new way. They’re not structured chronologically here, and there’s more focus on the later work than the earlier, but this adds an interesting element, for Bush has clearly chosen each juxtaposition for a reason. Breathing, for example, a song about nuclear war, is placed next to Experiment IV, which recounts a military plot to create “a sound that could kill someone from a distance”, and this is followed by Joanni, a song about Joan of Arc. The entire section is introduced by the classic Army Dreamers and ends with O England My Lionheart, where “the soldiers soften, the war is over, the air raid shelters are blooming clover”. And these five songs are drawn from four different albums. It’s so subtle, but it’s so smart”.

In their review of How to be Invisible, The Guardian had this to say about a much-anticipated release:

“Trust Kate Bush, never one to explain, to complicate the straightforward lyrics collection. She doesn’t annotate this anthology, unlike Neil Tennant’s recent Faber edition. Instead, subtler direction follows an introduction by author David Mitchell, who wrote the spoken-word parts of Bush’s 2014 Before the Dawn performances. Mitchell intermingles charming fannish detail with close textual analysis that illuminates familiar songs: it is God, he points out, not the devil, who allows the man and woman to exchange their sexual experiences on Running Up That Hill, an act of divinity rather than transgression.

But Mitchell is wrong on one key point. “Kate’s the opposite of a confessional singer-songwriter in the mould of Joni Mitchell during her Blue period,” he asserts. “You don’t learn much about Kate from her songs.” Which begs the question of how we might know a songwriter. It’s true that Bush’s personal life is so opaque that an interview betraying her Netflix habits offered grounding intimacy. Another where she described Theresa May as “the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time” burst a bubble some fans were keen to preserve. More dispiriting than partisan matters was her opinion that “it is great to have a woman in charge of the country”. If Bush’s songwriting tells us anything, it’s that her understanding of gender and power is typically more complex”.

I like the fact that How to Be Invisible is beautifully bound in black and there is the silver lettering on the front. The hardback has this wonderful feel and it looks gorgeous! I will not quote all of the foreword by David Mitchell, but there are a few key observations. Although Mitchell says we do not learn much from Bush through her lyrics – that there is this kind of mask that she wears -, I think that she reveals a lot about who she is and how she thinks through characters and her songs of love. Mitchell dissects The Dreaming (1982) and asks who dies at the end of Pull Out the Pin – “the Vietnamese solider or the big pink hash-smoking American GI; or both? -; What exactly is the ‘gaffa’ in Suspended in Gaffa?”. I do really love how Bush can be very direct and unabashed in many of her songs, but she can weave in words and stories that have mysteries and leave things to the imagination of the listeners. Mitchell noted how Bush recoils against celebrity in her lyrics but, rather than being private and reserved, she gives away secrets on songs like Under the Ivy. Through bold artistic choices Bush, as Mitchell observes, has “never been out of fashion” – because, like so many artists, she was never in fashion or trying to fit into any narrow moulds and expectations.

The title of How to Be Invisible is taken from the song of the same name from Aerial. Bush dedicated the book to her son, Bertie - and Aerial is very much about him or inspired by Bush becoming a mother. The first song that comes is Snowflake. From her 2011 album, 50 Words for Snow, it is a ‘recent’ song and one that shows Bush’s talent right from the first lines – “I was born in a cloud…/Now I am falling/I want you to catch me/Look up and you’ll see me/You know you can hear me”. I do love that the pages are not embellished or illustrated (there is some stylised lettering on some pages), so that one focuses on the songs and the meaning of the lyrics. Maybe illustrations could have added new dynamics, but I think it directs the meaning of songs too much and, by simply having songs’ lyrics printed without distraction, one reads the book like a collection of stories where we can each envisage and wonder. One of the lesser-appreciated songs from The Red Shoes, Top of the City, arrives next and, whilst I said that album contains some weaker songs, Top of the City shows that Bush was still very much firing from all cylinders when she wanted to – “I don’t know if you love me or not/But I don’t think we should/Ever suffer/There’s just one thing we can/Do about this”. Bush does not put the best-known songs at the front of How to Be Invisible, but we do get a run of post-Hounds of Love songs before that album’s title track arrives as the fifth selection.

I will highlight a few other songs, but I think the running order of the selected songs is very clever. The first ten songs include big singles like Hounds of Love, Cloudbusting, The Big Sky, Hounds of Love, together with songs that do not get huge attention – Love and Anger, The Song of Solomon, and Delius (Song of Summer). Like a great piece of album programming, you do not want your best songs to come earliest, but you do need to mix strong songs with less immediate ones! There is a perfect blend of age and themes throughout. Bush selects songs that mean a lot to her - like Bertie - that might not be among the fan favourites, but I am glad there are songs like Between a Man and a Woman (The Sensual World), and You’re the One (The Red Shoes). I think You’re the One is especially important, as it was the last song on The Red Shoes and, in album terms, the last (album) song we would hear from Bush in twelve years. I do like the song because, contrary to what some say about Kate Bush being secretive and not revealing, there is genuine personal emotion and upset in this song – even if she would say it is her playing a character. Bush was in a relationship with Del Palmer at the time of The Red Shoes (they would break up around the time of the album release) – it was a complex relationship, so I am not sure the exact date they split.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Walter/WireImage/Getty Images

Although there is implore and positivity in the song, lines like “Everything I have, I bought with you”, and, when talking about a new love/man, “He can’t make me laugh and cry/At the same time”, you get a sense of Bush’s loss and struggle! In a nice piece of arrangement, You’re the One is followed by All the Love – a song from The Dreaming that is similar in tone but different in terms of its story. Bush, of course, had to omit some songs from the book, and there are a few cuts from The Kick Inside that do not make it. Again, having songs you would not expect to be in there like Experiment IV (from The Whole Story, 1986), In Search of Peter Pan (Lionheart, 1978), and Big Stripey Lie (The Red Shoes) alongside the classics is a great touch. Bush included the entirety of Hounds of Love’s suite, The Ninth Wave, alongside Aerial’s suite, A Sky of Honey. One song that has very strong lyrics but does not get talked about much or played is The Fog from The Sensual World. There are beautiful images of Bush picking up faces in crowds and picking you/the hero up like a radio station but, if she lets him go, then he slips into the fog. We get these wonderful and very raw images - but there is also a sense of the dream-like and distant.

One of my favourite sections from any Kate Bush song comes when she sings “This love was big enough for the both of us/This love of yours/Was big enough to be frightened of/It’s deep and dark like the water was/The day I learned to swim”. I resist a little of David Mitchell’s view that Bush rarely revealed much about herself because, on songs like The Fog, I think she really writes from the heart and sounds completely naked! I think it is a good touch that Bush had songs from 50 Words for Snow bookmarking How to Be Invisible – Lake Tahoe ends things -, but I wanted to finish by quoting from the book’s titular track. I wonder why Bush decided that the book would be called How to Be Invisible? To be fair, we get quite meta with the song’s opening line: “I found a book on how to invisible”. That, at once, gets you guessing. Is the book about literally becoming invisible or is there a metaphor at play? I like the track because, on an album that documents everything from her family to nature through to Elvis Presley (on King of the Mountain), there is something fantastical about How to Be Invisible. Bush sings about “Hem of Anorak” and standing in front of a million doors – “And each one holds a million more”.

She asks: “Is that the wind from the Desert Song?”, and “Is that a Storm in the Swimming Pool?”. On the back cover for the book, there is a quote from David Mitchell that sums up her lyrics: “…her lyrics are proudly idiosyncratic, those same lyrics evoke emotions and sensations that feel universal”. I have selected a few songs that, between them, are personal and meaningful - whilst some allow the imagination to roam. I would urge people to buy How to Be Invisible because, even though it has been out two years, there is something universal, timeless and ageless about Bush’s wise and always astonishing lyrics! Near the start, I quoted from a review in The Irish Times, where Dylan was mentioned because of his Nobel Prize win and how Bush seems like an equal poet. Whilst some regard Dylan as the ultimate wordsmith and poet, I think Kate Bush could be ranked alongside him – even though she has recorded far fewer songs. Dylan won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 and, before her career is done, I wouldn’t bet again…

  IMAGE CREDIT: Faber & Faber

KATE Bush receiving the very same honour!

FEATURE: A Turntable Under the Tree: A Musical Christmas Gift Guide

FEATURE:

 

 

A Turntable Under the Tree

PHOTO CREDIT: @alsyshka/Unsplash 

A Musical Christmas Gift Guide

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I am going to borrow from some other…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @hertwashere/Unsplash

articles for this feature because, as people are still Christmas shopping, they may need some general guides when it comes to all manner of things! In this feature, I will look at some books, music technology, albums/boxsets and assorted sundries that should provide you with some guidance if you are having trouble finding those gifts for the music lover in your life. I will start with some books because, whilst there are some lists out there, it can be hard deciphering which are worth looking at. The Times recommend some great music books from this year - but there are a few I would narrow down on. I am going to slightly repeat a feature I put out a little while ago regarding the best music books of 2020 but, if you need some great gift ideas, I have a few. In some cases, these books might suit people who are fans of a particular artists - but I feel they are just great reads in any case. Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn has won a lot of critical acclaim, and it is a book I would recommend people to buy. One does not need to be steeped in Martyn’s music and life to appreciate Graeme Thomson’s new book. You an buy it here - and it is a book that The Telegraph have highlighted (I shall borrow from them again soon):

“Serious readers will find more to chew on in Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn (Omnibus, £20), Graeme Thompson’s overdue study of a brilliant talent led astray by his own poisonous character defects. The virtuoso guitarist and songwriter whose influence can be detected all the way from U2’s The Edge to Ed Sheeran, died aged 60 in 2009 in a parlous condition after a life of drunkenness and debauchery. Thompson somehow makes you care about this violent, alcoholic misogynist who once impaled himself on a fence and crashed his car into a cow”.

One book you do need to grab is Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time. This is an amazing book I have already bought someone as a Christmas present; it provides a fascinating new slant on the world’s biggest band. This is an essential purchase for any music-lover! The Guardian reviewed the book. I just want to grab a section from that review:

“It’s noticeable in this book how, once they are famous, they become prey to the most outrageous hangers-on. This vulnerability is most evident in John, the prickliest of the four, and also the neediest. He was first seduced by Magic Alex, a Greek conman whom he appointed his guru and electronics expert. Then he and George fell under the spell of the Maharishi.

Finally, and fatefully, came Yoko Ono, who John initially assured his wife Cynthia was “crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her”. Brown reserves a particular scorn for Yoko, not because she “broke up the Beatles” – that was inevitable – but because her narcissism egged Lennon on to painful extremes of silliness and self-importance.

The saddest irony was that the Beatles once did have someone to take care of them. The Hamlet’s Ghost of this book is Brian Epstein, whose story Brown plots in reverse – from the eclipse of his lonely suicide to the bright-eyed overtures as manager and impresario. It makes a poignant epilogue. Of course that story is nothing without the Beatles’ talent, but here is the reminder of how Epstein discovered it, packaged it, and sold it. Had he not taken himself down the steps of the Cavern Club one lunchtime in November 1961, the world might never have heard of the Beatles. As Lennon once admitted: “Brian … made it all seem real. We were in a daydream ’til he came along … We stopped chomping at cheese rolls and jam butties onstage”.

There are a few more books I will highlight; first of all is Annie Nightingale’s Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's First Female DJ. Go and buy the book, as it is a remarkable insight into one of radio’s most influential and iconic figures! It is another terrific read, so this will be a welcomed present for anyone who loves their music and has even the faintest knowledge of Nightingale and her story. Another book that I highlighted recently was David Hepworth’s Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There: How a Few Skinny Brits with Bad Teeth Rocked America. This is a wonderful book and, again, one that can suit the tastes of any music fan! This Waterstones synopsis gives us some guidance:

“'Hepworth's ability to mock subjects he has a clear affection for and cast well-worn anecdotes in a fresh light makes his history of rock'n'roll's special relationship a zippy delight' The Times

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.

The resulting fusion of American can-do and British fuck-you didn't just lead to rock and roll's most resonant music. It ushered in a golden era when a generation of kids born in ration card Britain, who had grown up with their nose pressed against the window of America's plenty, were invited to wallow in their big neighbour's largesse.

It deals with a time when everything that was being done - from the Beatles playing Shea Stadium to the Rolling Stones at Altamont, from the Who performing their rock opera at the Metropolitan Opera House to David Bowie touching down in the USA for the first time with a couple of gowns in his luggage - was being done for the very first time.

Rock and roll would never be quite so exciting again”.

The last music book I will recommend is from The Telegraph and their suggestion, Ready Steady Go! The Weekend Starts Here, by Andy Neill. This is what they have to say:

“…a forensic account of Britain’s first great TV pop show. It is packed with photographs of show favourites such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield, and crammed with intriguing encounters. Its neutral prose, however, leaves you speculating as to what really went on when the likes of David Hockney, Vidal Sassoon and Michael Caine squeezed into the green room to watch Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and the Supremes, before decamping to the Ad Lib club to dance with Christine Keeler and drink with John Lennon. One indication that everything might not be as innocent as it was presented at the time is the way Paul Gadd flits through the book’s pages as a studio warm-up man, later to change his name to Gary Glitter. The rest is infamy”.

You can buy the book here. I would encourage people to do that! Other features like this give some good insight into the best music books of this year but, if you have been stuck regarding presents, I hope the suggestions above help a bit!

IN THIS PHOTO: The Sonos Move

Music tech and kit is quite a broad and extensive field when it comes to making recommendations. There are good features like this that are useful. I think narrowing down to speakers, headphones/earphones and record players is the best way to go! There are other great lists for a more general rundown, but let’s start with speakers. There is some advice and recommendation from Pitchfork when it comes to bookshelf speakers. These might be more for those with deeper pockets, but there is a nice variation and a mix for various budgets. If you are looking for some speaker guidance for a lower budget, then this article is really useful! The Sonos Move seems to be a must-buy:

“Here’s the thing about the Sonos Move – it’s so good, you might want to consider it not only as your on-the-go party station, but also as your main in-the-home wireless speaker too.

With two quality drivers, a solid app that unlocks playback from hundreds of wireless sources, multi-room capabilities and smart audio-tuning tech which tweaks the output based on the speaker's immediate surroundings, the Sonos Move is engineered well beyond your average Bluetooth speaker. It's a versatile speaker, one that stands solidly alongside the built-for-home Sonos speakers that the company made its name on.

It’s not perfect – it’s heavy as a byproduct of its incredible sound, it’s expensive due to its rich feature set, and it sadly can’t be used as rear channels for a home cinema set-up. But if you’ve got the money, it’s hard to fault the Sonos Move when it comes to hunting down the very best Bluetooth speaker in the world”.

If you need some more advice and choice then I can recommend this article too. Let’s have a look at the all-important headphones/earphones.

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Sony WH-1000XM4

This is something that everyone can do with. There is a lot of differing opinions regarding the best headphones and earphones of this year but, in terms of headphones, this is a pretty deep and useful guide. From the list, the Sony WH-1000XM4 is a good/the best buy:

“The Sony WH-1000XM4 deliver excellent noise-cancellation and surprising sound quality all in a lightweight, comfortable design.

While they don't look significantly different from their predecessors, the Sony WH-1000XM3, a number of new features including multipoint pairing, DSEE Extreme upscaling, conversational awareness and auto-play/pause using a built-in sensor all help the WH-1000XM4 claim the title of best headphones in 2020.

By every possible metric, the Sony WH-1000XM4 is a wonderful pair of wireless noise-cancelling headphones. They deliver exactly what they promise and then some thanks to their exceptional noise cancellation and cutting-edge codec support.

On top of the adjustments listed above, the Sony WH-1000XM4 support Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format that enables spatial audio on stereo headphones plus the LDAC codec that can send a bitrate of up to 990 kbps. The unfortunate bit there, though, is that it no longer supports aptX or aptX HD, so your Hi-Res Audio support mileage may vary.

Despite being usurped by the XM4s, the Sony WH-1000XM3s are still well worth considering – and they're likely to be discounted now that the newer model is out”.

IN THIS PHOTO: The SoundMAGIC TWS50 being sported

WIRED have also provided a nice list that addresses the pros and cons of various headphones (here is another, similar article). I will skip to earphones because, as expected, people lump in earphones with headphones when it comes to these things! Refer to the articles I have suggested above but, for more affordable (under £100) earphones, the SoundMAGIC TWS50 are pretty decent:

“In the first ten years or so of its life, SoundMAGIC set about proving its mastery of the affordable in-ear headphone. And having established unarguable credentials on that score, the last four or five have been spent doing the same thing with affordable wireless in-ear headphones. With the TWS50 (£79), it would seem the company’s case is water-tight.

Everything that’s impressive, and everything that’s a bit underwhelming, about the TWS50 must be considered in context of the price. No, neither the earbuds themselves nor the charging case they’re supplied with feel anything special – those plastics are quite hard and shiny. No, the TWS50 aren’t the last word in out-and-out volume. But they have Bluetooth 5.0, so can play hi-res audio files. They have a total of 30 hours’ battery life, which should prove ample. They have touch-controls, compatibility with all popular voice-assistants and an IPX7 rating. They’re comfortable in use. And, most crucially of all, they sound authentically entertaining.

They’re an organised listen, but that’s not at the expense of dynamism or attack. They sound quite spacious, but well-defined. They carry plenty of detail, especially through the midrange, and have plenty of bass texture to make up for a slight lack of outright extension. And they’re a swift, purposeful listen where so many rivals can easily get bogged down.

And, of course, they’re affordable. Much more affordable than the sound they make might suggest”.

That should give you some food for thought if you need to get some headphones or earphones and are not sure which ones are the best – and the best value for money.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @leecampbell/Unsplash

This year has been a strange one for music and, despite some delays, we have seen some remarkable albums! If you want to give the music lover in your life a vinyl subscription, then Wax and Stamp are great; here is another wonderful service - and there are even more options should you need them! For some boxsets and reissues that are not necessarily from this year, this article is pretty helpful; this one from The Sound of Vinyl is specific to this year. I want to highlight a few – again, I might be repeating myself, but it needs to be done! There are five that I want to highlight. This year, we celebrated John Lennon’s eightieth birthday (on 9th October) and, sadly, we will mark forty years since he died (on 8th December). For that reason – and many more -, I think GIMME SOME TRUTH. Limited Edition 4LP Vinyl Box Set is one you should go and get. The Flaming Pie: Collector's Edition Box Set from Paul McCartney is pretty pricey but, as it is a masterful and gorgeous edition from the world’s greatest songwriter, it is worth some pennies:

“A 4LP/5CD/2DVD Collector’s Edition — remastered at Abbey Road Studios and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies issued in a numbered cloth wrapped two-piece collector's box — will feature everything in the Deluxe Edition plus a marbled art print portfolio of six silkscreened Linda McCartney art prints, exclusive vinyl versions of the remastered album cut at half speed across 2LPs in an exclusive gatefold sleeve, an LP of home recordings in a hand-stamped white label sleeve, and “The Ballad of the Skeletons” – Paul's 1996 collaboration with Allen Ginsberg, also featuring Philip Glass and Lenny Kaye – released for the first time on vinyl and cut at 45 RPM with vinyl etching and poster”.

A relatively new collection is the Amy Winehouse 12x7 The Singles Collection: Limited Edition Box Set. This is a sublime collection of music from the sadly-departed singer. Again, I don’t think you need to be a big fan of Winehouse to appreciate her and the stunning music that she left behind! Similarly, who can go without The Studio Albums: Limited Edition Coloured Vinyl Box Set from ABBA?!

“ABBA: The Studio Albums collects together, for the first time on coloured vinyl, and with replica LP artwork, each of those releases: 1973’s Ring Ring (on red vinyl), 1974’s Waterloo (on orange vinyl), 1975’s ABBA (on silver vinyl), 1976’s Arrival (on white vinyl), 1977’s ABBA: The Album (on green vinyl), 1979’s Voulez-Vous, on blue vinyl, 1980’s Super Trouper (on gold vinyl) and 1981’s The Visitors (on yellow vinyl). Taken together, they represent one of the most stunningly creative runs in pop music, setting the bar for those that followed in their wake.

Across eight studio albums released over eight years, ABBA established themselves as one of the greatest pop groups of all time.

Dominating the charts throughout the 70s, and continuing their winning streak into the early 80s, the Swedish four-piece redefined the boundaries of pop music, with each new album charting an astounding artistic progression that remains a fabric of our culture.

Decades after their last release, 1981’s The Visitors, their music has inspired stage shows, cinematic blockbusters and even themed restaurants”.

Another expensive (but excellent) boxset is Sign O’ the Times: Super Deluxe Edition 13LP+DVD Box Set. This is a must-own for any Prince fan. Here are some more details:

“Overflowing with musical ideas and topical lyrics that sound just as relevant today as they did when they were initially released, Prince’s iconic double album Sign O’ The Times captured the artist in a period of complete reinvention. The final 16-track album included just some of the countless songs Prince recorded in the prolific period of 1985-1987, which saw the dissolution of his band The Revolution, the construction of his innovative recording complex, Paisley Park, and the creation (and ultimate abandonment) of the albums Dream Factory, Camille, and Crystal Ball.

This September 25, The Prince Estate, in partnership with Warner Records/Rhino UK, will reissue Sign O’ The Times. The Super Deluxe Edition will feature the classic album remastered for the very first time, 63 previously unreleased tracks, and a previously unreleased 2+ hour video concert performance from Prince’s legendary vault that illuminates his wide-ranging and prolific creativity in this era. Following the successful release of the 1999 Super Deluxe Edition in the fall of 2019, the Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition represents the deepest dive to date into Prince’s vault and includes a total of 92 audio tracks across thirteen LPs”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Rega Planar 3

The last section that I want to talk about in terms of potential Christmas presents is record players. There are great lists like this that weigh up the positives and negatives of each turntable, but the Rega Planar 3/Elys 2 is an essential for those with a larger budget:

“No turntable has dominated its category like the Planar 3, taking on all-comers since its launch the 1970s. So if you want a step-up in performance, we're only too happy to recommend the Rega Planar 3/Elys 2 you see here.

Thanks to a thorough revision and some key component upgrades – notably the tonearm and cartridge – this version keeps the legacy in tact. The Planar 3 remains what it has always been: a simple, beautifully-engineered deck that puts performance first. With an engaging sense of scale and good organisational skills, the Planar 3 ensures that every instrument is well-separated and composed, no matter how complex the track. It exhibits a greater level of transparency than its talented predecessor, too.

In short, this new version is the best RP3 yet – as illustrated by its Product of the Year gong at the 2019 What Hi-Fi? Awards – adding extra servings of clarity, precision and insight to an already musical sound. If you're looking for the best value turntable on the market, this is it”.

PHOTO CREDIT: @leecampbell/Unsplash

If you want to buy from the high street, then there are some great record players at HMV that everyone who likes their vinyl would love to receive! If you want a vintage-looking record player then this one on Amazon is really good; there are others in the price range (or close enough) that gives you some options! If you need some more tips on great record players for under £300 (most of us will!) then this article from LOUDER is a big help. I would look at reviews for many of these record players before you commit, as all of them have their good and bad points – it depends on what you are looking for. In any case, I hope that I have provided some assistance if you need some bigger Christmas presents or some smaller ones for that music fan in your life. It is the start of December, so there is still a little way to go, but go and snap up a great present now! I am going to leave it there but, for those of you who are puzzling when it comes to great vinyl, record players, music books and kit, then I hope that I have…

PHOTO CREDIT: @karishea/Unsplash

HELPED a little.

FEATURE: The Word Is Love: The Beatles’ Rubber Soul at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Word Is Love 

The Beatles’ Rubber Soul at Fifty-Five

___________

I guess the biggest anniversary relating to The Beatles…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken Regan

this year was the fiftieth of Let It Be. There was a planned film/documentary that has been delayed to next year in addition to a book (tied to that project). I sort of wondered whether it was an error delaying the film, The Beatles: Get Back, as we have not had any remastered editions of Let It Be – it is the only album since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band not received a fiftieth anniversary treatment. I think Rubber Soul is an album that requires a new edition/release. Released on 3rd December, 1965, Rubber Soul, to me, is the album where The Beatles hit a peak. They showed plenty of genius on Help! earlier in 1965, but they found a high that they sustained through the rest of their career - in more than one sense. The recording sessions took place in London over a four-week period beginning in October 1965. For the first time in their career, the band were able to record an album free of concert, radio or film commitments. Ahead of its fifty-fifth birthday, I wanted to highlight my favourite Beatles album. As a useful addition, check out Matt Everitt and Rob Manuel talking about the album and giving their feedback. By late-1965, The Beatles were thinking more about being a studio band, as I guess peak Beatlemania was starting to fade; the band at least were enjoying performing less and really needed a break.

The sort of maturity that The Beatles found on Help! was emphasised on Rubber Soul. It might have been confusing for some fans hearing songs that were a bit more grown-up and less reliant on the sort of themes that they explored earlier in their career. They were thinking less about putting out easy singles that were catchy and could be played live, and more about complete and richer songs that were drawing in new influences. From the sitar on Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) – which would play a big part later on -, to the Greek instrumentation of Girl, this was the band starting to experiment more with sound and genre. Every band and undergoes evolution, but for a group as successful and synonymous with these tight and electric singles, the fact that they went deeper and progressed their sound was brave and quite a departure! I think of Rubber Soul as a bridge from their earlier sound of 1962-1964 and the very studio-focused and experimental albums like Revolver (1966) onwards. Percussion comes much more to the fore on Rubber Soul. I love the fact that, on paper, the album was rushed, and the boys did not have as much time to germinate and create as they may have liked. The sheer quality of the album shows that, even when they were polishing up older songs, The Beatles were in a different league! I think 1965 was a very interesting year for The Beatles.

Maybe the stress and exhaustion of touring was starting to influence them more, and you can audibly hear them moving to a different phase. Despite the fact Rubber Soul is a maturation, the first notes of the first track, Drive My Car, is exuberant and thrilling. One of the band’s catchiest songs, you can sort of trace the track to Chicago House – Matt Everitt noted that, maybe, the movement started from this Beatles track. Aside from a weak ending on Run for Your Life, there are no weak spots on Rubber Soul. The Beatles released the single Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out on the same day as the album – 3rd December, 1965 - and it makes me wonder whether one of those tracks could have been included to end the album. I think Day Tripper would have made for a marvellous finale! The Beatles had an air of introspection and cynicism in earlier songs…but listen to McCartney tracks like You Won’t See Me, and I’m Looking Through You. Expressing the strains in his relationship with Jane Asher, it was a move away from the more fan-directed and positive songs. Lennon created a soulful and deeply emotional song in In My Life, whereas George Harrison’s protest and finger pointing can be heard on the Bob Dylan-influenced Think for Yourself. There is a lot of Dylan’s Folk influence through Rubber Soul, and you can hear a bit of other artists through the album.

The Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson named Rubber Soul is his favourite album and it led to this sort of competition where he tried to top Rubber Soul in 1966’s Pet Sounds. I think the biggest shift in terms of lyrics is writing about relationships in a less idealistic and more honest way. There is lust and passion on Girl, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), and If I Needed Someone, but there is also tease, rejection and some accusation. Rubber Soul helped transform Pop in the 1965s and it was hugely transformative. The sophistication and serious artistic statements The Beatles were making through their songs was a revolution; so many other artists changed their sound and were directed by Rubber Soul! You only need to look at the album cover of Rubber Soul – and the fact The Beatles’ name is not on it – to see how serious they were and that they meant business! Although many name Revolver, and Abbey Road as the best Beatles albums, I think Rubber Soul is one of the most important and underrated. Rubber Soul is my favourite Beatles album and I think it was a real transformation and huge statement. The sort of lyrical diversity and experimentation they started on Rubber Soul pushed them forward and outwards - and the sheer consistency and quality of Rubber Soul is amazing considering how much they crammed into 1965! Not only is Ringo Starr’s percussion immense through the album but the vocal performances and harmonies are stunning.

McCartney started recording his bass solo on this album; one must give props to Starr and his drumming quality considering he was not drumming along to McCartney’s bass live! George Martin’s production and guidance is, as always, fabulous, and I can’t imagine the world was quite ready for an album like Rubber Soul on 3rd December, 1965! I will finish off shortly, but I want to bring in a couple of retrospective review for Rubber Soul. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:

“While the Beatles still largely stuck to love songs on Rubber Soul, the lyrics represented a quantum leap in terms of thoughtfulness, maturity, and complex ambiguities. Musically, too, it was a substantial leap forward, with intricate folk-rock arrangements that reflected the increasing influence of Dylan and the Byrds. The group and George Martin were also beginning to expand the conventional instrumental parameters of the rock group, using a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," Greek-like guitar lines on "Michelle" and "Girl," fuzz bass on "Think for Yourself," and a piano made to sound like a harpsichord on the instrumental break of "In My Life." While John and Paul were beginning to carve separate songwriting identities at this point, the album is full of great tunes, from "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" and "Michelle" to "Girl," "I'm Looking Through You," "You Won't See Me," "Drive My Car," and "Nowhere Man" (the last of which was the first Beatle song to move beyond romantic themes entirely). George Harrison was also developing into a fine songwriter with his two contributions, "Think for Yourself" and the Byrds-ish "If I Needed Someone”.

I want to finish with a feature Rolling Stone put out five years ago that, among other thing, assesses how The Beatles portrayed women on Rubber Soul and what the sessions were like. Before then, I want to source from Pitchfork’s review:

“Marijuana's effect on the group is most heavily audible on Rubber Soul. (By the time of their next album, Revolver, three-fourths of the group had been turned on to LSD, and their music was headed somewhere else entirely.) With its patient pace and languid tones, Rubber Soul is an altogether much more mellow record than anything the Beatles had done before, or would do again. It's a fitting product from a quartet just beginning to explore their inner selves on record.

Lennon, in particular, continued his more introspective and often critical songwriting, penning songs of romance gone wrong or personal doubt and taking a major step forward as a lyricist. Besting his self-critical "I'm a Loser" with "Nowhere Man" was an accomplishment, and the faraway, dreamy "Girl" was arguably his most musically mature song to date. Lennon's strides were most evident, however, on "Norwegian Wood", an economical and ambiguous story-song highlighted by Harrison's first dabbling with the Indian sitar, and the mature, almost fatalistic heart-tug of "In My Life", which displayed a remarkably calm and peaceful attitude toward not only one's past and present, but their future and the inevitability of death.

Considering Harrison's contributions and Lennon's sharp growth, McCartney-- fresh from the success of "Yesterday"-- oddly comes off third-string on Rubber Soul. His most lasting contributions-- the Gallic "Michelle" (which began life as a piss-take, and went on to inspire the Teutonic swing and sway of Lennon's "Girl"), the gentle rocker "I'm Looking Through You", and the grinning "Drive My Car" are relatively minor compared to Lennon's masterstrokes. McCartney did join his bandmate in embracing relationship songs about miscommunication, not seeing eye-to-eye, and heartbreak, but it wouldn't be until 1966 that he took his next great artistic leap, doing so as both a storyteller and, even more so, a composer”.

The Summer of Love occurred in 1967 but, even in 1965, there was an air of togetherness and love that was reflected in so much Pop at the time. It must have been surprising for Beatles fans to hear some more negative aspects on songs like Run for Your Life and Think for Yourself. That said, the women illustrated on Rubber Soul are fascinating. Rolling Stone talked about that aspect when they looked back at the album in 2015. They also mentioned the studio dynamics and mood at the time:

“If there’s a theme, it’s curiosity, the most Beatlesque of emotions, and specifically it’s curiosity about women, the most Beatlesque of mysteries to be curious about. Rubber Soul has the coolest girls of any Beatles record. “Girl,” “I’m Looking Through You,” “If I Needed Someone” — these are complex and baffling females, much like the ones the Beatles ended up with in real life. No happy romantic endings here, with the notable exception of “In My Life” — but even when the girls are way ahead of them, the boys spend the album straining to keep up. Baby, you’ve changed.

Did anyone before Rubber Soul sing about female characters like this? No, they didn’t. For one thing, these women have jobs, and this is 1965. The L.A. scenester who hires Paul as her driver, the independent woman too busy with her career to return his phone calls, the Chelsea girl who gets up early for work in the morning, even though she’s got John sleeping in her bathtub. (You’d think she could call in sick for that.) In late 1965, my mom, an eighth-grade public-school teacher in Massachusetts, got fired for getting pregnant (with me), because that’s how things worked back then. The very idea of women having careers was a social controversy. But for the world’s biggest pop stars, it was nothing to get hung about.

The Rubber Soul woman stays up late drinking wine on her rug after midnight, until it’s time for bed. She speaks languages he can’t translate. (“I love you” in French is just “je t’aime.” It’s not that hard.) She’s not impressed by the Beatle charm — when you say she’s looking good, she acts as if it’s understood. She’s cool. She makes the Rubber Soul man feel like a real nowhere boy. Yet even the sad songs here are funny. (Including the self-parodic machismo of “Run for Your Life,” a song Nancy Sinatra turned into a gangsta classic.) I love the moment in “Wait” when Paul’s girl asks point blank if he’s been faithful on the road. “I’ve been good/As good as I can be” — riiiiiight. “Wait” is the song that totally explains why Paul was Bill Clinton’s favorite Beatle.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in Paris in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Jean-Marie Périer 

Given the album’s impact over the past 50 years, it’s startling to note how fast and frantic the sessions were. The Beatles didn’t go into the studio with a mystic crystal vision to express — they went in with a deadline. They had to supply product for the 1965 Christmas season, which meant crunching it out in four frenzied weeks, from October 12th to November 12th. So they holed up in Abbey Road around the clock, pouring out music as fast as they could, holding nothing back. They were willing to try any idea, whether it turned out brilliantly (the sitar, the harmonium) or not (the six-minute R&B instrumental jam, which they wisely axed). They wrote seven of the songs in one week.

You can hear the team spirit behind the album in the studio banter from the late-night “Think For Yourself” sessions of November 8th. John, Paul and George stand around the microphone, rehearsing three-part harmonies, but laughing too hard to get it right. John, holding a guitar, stumbles on the words. “OK, I think I might have it now,” he announces. “I get something in me head, you know, and all the walls of Rome couldn’t stop me!” All three keep up a nonstop stream of chatter. John slips into a mock-preacher voice. “It’s Jesus, our Lord and Savior, who gave his only begotten bread to live and die on!” Paul and George get in his face, yelling “Why such fury? What is this wrath that beholds you?” They gasp with laughter until John mutters, “I can’t go on, I really can’t. Come on, let’s do this bleedin’ record.” They try another take. They don’t get this one right either”.

On Thursday (3rd December), one of The Beatles’ finest and most influential albums turns fifty-five. Maybe we will get an anniversary release on its sixtieth - but do go and get the original album if you do not own it already! Rubber Soul was a pivotal and mature album that not only progressed The Beatles but it reverberated through music and popular culture. It sounds engrossing and captivating after all of these years. From the beautiful harmonies on The Word, through to McCartney’s schoolboy lust on Michelle, and Lennon’s opus, In My Life, there is so much variation and quality right through the album. Rubber Soul, undoubtedly, remains this hugely important masterpiece whose power…

WILL never diminish.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Chloe x Halle

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Chloe x Halle

___________

FOR this week’s Spotlight…

I am focusing on a duo who might not be that well known in the U.K. but are popular in the U.S. I first discovered Chloe x Halle when they released their debut album, The Kids Are Alight, in 2018. Chloe and Halle Bailey hail from Atlanta, Georgia, and their debut received huge reviews and was one of the most acclaimed albums of that year. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews and interviews from this year but, looking back, and the sisters have come a long way. I think their latest album, Ungodly Hour, is slicker and more accomplished than their debut, but they are both in their early-twenties and have accomplished a huge amount in such a short time! Their new album will surely rank alongside the best of the year when people start putting out their lists very soon. If you have not heard their amazing music then I would recommend that you do so. Their vocals are beautiful and sumptuous and they co-write their music - which is impressive to see in such a young act. They are actors too, so I think the sisters bring some of that craft and disciple to the plate. I like the fact that Chloe x Halle do not really share the vocals with anyone on Ungodly Hour. There are a few collaborators on production duties but the sisters’ vocals are the main focus. Most artists bring in other big artists on their songs and I think that does dilute the music to an extent.

Ungodly Hour is one of the richest and most accomplished albums of 2020, and it is no surprise that it has received so much acclaim. In their review, this is what AllMusic said:

“The harmonizing Bailey sisters took their time -- three years -- in making their first true album. The deliberation paid off when The Kids Are Alright crossed into the Top 20 of Billboard's R&B/hip-hop chart and was singled out with Grammy nominations for Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best New Artist. Their 2020 follow-up might seem rushed in comparison, and its assembly of high-profile producers -- Chloe was the primary producer on the debut -- suggests a conscious attempt to throw their commercial prospects into overdrive. While it evidently came together quicker and was shaped more by outsiders like Sounwave and Jake One, Scott Storch, Disclosure, Mike WiLL Made-It, and Boi-1da, the Baileys' second album is really a refinement of and progression from The Kids Are Alright. Its pop-R&B foundation is a little slicker, still tricked out with the occasional trap-styled production techniques -- probing bass, rattling percussion -- twisted just enough to not sound overdone. The Baileys are unsurprisingly able to adapt to chic throwback soul flavorings and acoustic pop, while on the title track, they slip and slide with finesse over Disclosure's smoothed-out U.K. garage, punctuating it with an impossibly elegant chorus. Sisterhood on nuclear and communal levels is promoted to an unflagging extent by the women, who come across as eager superheroes without a weakness, unless feeling "Overwhelmed" counts, and they might be capable of paralyzing with a single roll of the eyes. They'll catch and reprimand any guy who acts out of line and will make him regret it. The fun peaks on "Tipsy": "I'll hit you where it hurts/If you don't put me first”.

I have been listening to a lot of the album over the past few days and I keep coming back to various songs. I love the way they can combine their vocals seamlessly but retain their individual character. In their positive review. The Line of Best Fit observed the following:

“Whilst their previous record consolidated upon the breezy, summery aesthetics of forebearers such as En Vogue and TLC, the duo’s latest project adopts a different tack, fusing progressive hip-hop soul with moody, late-night rhythm and blues. The end-result is nothing short of a contemporary classic, a document of musical prowess playing in real time. Despite their relative youth, Ungodly Hour is a timely reminder that Chloe and Halle are built for this moment in R&B music.

Take, for example, the angsty “Don’t Make It Harder On Me”, which sounds like a deep-cut by The Supremes turned on its head: “Don’t make it harder on me. / Don’t make it harder on me / I told you not to love me / And now you’re growing on me”. Channelling late '60s doo-wop and contemporary urban pop, the song is as much a kiss-off as it is an unabashed love-song, with the duo sounding off on the ramifications of a potential romance against an edgy, orchestral backdrop. Make no mistake though, the sisterhood draw power from their previous heartaches, crafting anthems across the rest of the album that speak to their self-confidence, such as the empowering “Do It” (“I’m just with the crew / We ain’t out here lookin’ for boo / ‘Cause some nights be better with you…”) and the playful “Forgive Me” (“Movin’ too fast, now you caught in the middle / Try so hard to keep up, now you single / Bettin’ you’ll regret what you did just a little / Ah, ah”).

Elsewhere, the duo channel early-nineties Sade on the jazzy “Busy Boy” before trading off kisses with Swae Lee on the Mike WiLL Made-It-produced “Catch Up”, concluding this one-two punch with the confessional “Overwhelmed”, which sees Chloe and Halle ruminate on the pressures of their newly-found stardom: “Holdin’ my breath ‘til my face turns blue / Head under water / Breathe deeply, they said / I need a weekend again”. At odds with the otherwise up-tempo sound of the record, this moment of vulnerability speaks to the strength drawn by the duo in their togetherness – a theme that emerges most prominently on the album’s title track: “When you decide to love yourself / When you decide you need someone / When you don’t have to think about it / Love me at the ungodly hour”. Acting as both sultry invitation and empowered self-confession, the song is a clarion call for all those who deign to diminish the duo’s talents – talents that blaze through on Ungodly Hour with a full and unrelenting force”.

I would recommend people to go and listen to Chloe x Halle’s previous mixtape and E.P.s, but especially go and listen to The Kids Are Alright, and Ungodly Hour and see how they have progressed in a short period of time. Their latest album was delayed in support of Black Lives matter. I want to introduce an interview in GQ where they were asked about this:

“There's been so much going on this year, from coronavirus to Black Lives Matter. What has it been like releasing Ungodly Hour against that backdrop?

C: It's been interesting, but we're so grateful that, through this chaotic time, we can still try to find the beauty in it. I hope that that's what we did with our album, that we brought some light into people's lives. I feel like everything happens for a reason and this truly is the “ungodly hour”. In an odd way, the time when we put it out, it's exactly when it was supposed to come.

 H: Normally when we release an album or a project, we do the press tour in New York, then we go back home and do the press tour in LA. Then we normally travel all over and go to all the radio stations and do interviews there. Doing it from home has been interesting, but it's been really positive actually too. It's amazing what you can do from home, with the performances and interviews. It's wild. Maybe we've never even needed to actually meet up and stuff. We can just do it through our computer.

You have also always had so much creative control over your work. Entering the industry at such a young age, was it ever a struggle for you to get that freedom?

H: What I think we got really lucky and blessed with is our parents, who have always instilled in us that we can do anything we put our minds to. We've always had a hand in our creativity because we feel like it's our story to tell. We write and produce everything that we touch, because it's so important. I feel like that's never been something that we've had to fight for, because we've just been like, “No, this is it. This is what we're doing.” When we were ten and eight years old, our dad sat us down and taught us the basics of how to write a song. Just knowing that we have the power within has been a theme and lesson that our parents have always instilled in our brains. Collaboration has also always been exciting and interesting for us, because we're used to working with one another. That's our safe space. With my sister, I can be truthful and honest. When you're working with somebody new, you're scared to step on their toes. That's why creativity for us has always been like, “Yes, we're going to do it.”

How does it feel looking back at how far you've come?

C: I think because we're in it, we don't really realise how fast everything happens. About a year and a half ago, our team made a reel that was around ten minutes long, showing all the things we've done. I was like, “Whoa!” It was pretty cool looking from the outside and stepping away from it for a minute. We're just two girls who really love to make music and to be able to have a career where we could do this and make money from it, it's literally a dream come true. This isn't overnight for us, we've been doing this since we were five and seven years old. We've always known that our dreams will come true, we just never knew how and when. To actually see it happen before our eyes is such an overwhelming feeling and we are filled with immense gratitude. I just hope that we can continue to grow and next year look back and be like, “Whoa, this happened too!”

It is interesting to read interviews with Chloe x Balle, as they have had such an interesting past in terms of their music and acting. They are definitely one of the most promising acts around, and I think their profile is growing in Britain. Interviews like the afore-quoted GQ one will bring them to new people.

Before I conclude, I want to bring in a great interview from The Guardian published back in September.

“Whereas their debut album, The Kids Are Alright, focused on the agony and ecstasy of mid-adolescence, Ungodly Hour sees the pair sift through their love lives, calling out cheaters, playboys and prolific booty-callers. But it’s not simply good girls versus bad boys; the album is suffused with a compelling moral ambiguity. Wonder What She Thinks of Me is told from the perspective of the “other woman”, while on the darkly comic Tipsy, the pair fantasise about murdering flaky love interests. (“It is such a shame that they went missing, they can’t find ’em now / Oh, I wonder how I accidentally put them in the ground.”) “We were pissed off writing that song!” insists Halle. “Sometimes when people mess with your heart, you’re like: ‘Dude I gotta do something about it.’” Chloe is keen to clarify that “we never would kill somebody. But I feel like if everything’s so general, the song gets boring.”

The sisters’ songs have also provided comfort in unforeseen ways. The pair postponed the release of Ungodly Hour out of respect for the Black Lives Matter protests – “We couldn’t make this about us” – but didn’t want to delay it for too long. “Music is a healer, and with all this going on even I need a distraction from the world or I’m going to drive myself crazy,” says Chloe.

It is a relatively recent development, but speaking up about injustice is now a prerequisite of pop stardom. Yet Chloe and Halle view their political activism not as an element of their career – let alone their celebrity image – but as an inherent part of their own existence. “The reality is it’s our life: we live a life of being black women and we feel it’s our duty to use this platform we were given,” says Halle. The pair are particularly intent on encouraging their fans to vote. “Our ancestors fought for this right, and got it taken away from them so many times: they would get tested and quizzed, the rules would be bent. So, now we have the chance to say what we want to say, we must use that to honour them,” she continues. Chloe is less equivocal: “If all of us get out and vote, that man won’t be in the office any more”.

Go and follow the sensational Chloe x Halle and listen to their fantastic music! I think they are going to have a very interesting career and they are going to inspire a lot of artists coming through at the moment. I love their blend of Pop and R&B and, whilst many might think their demographic is girls and female teens, I think their music is broad and compelling enough to resonate with pretty much anyone! They are an amazing prospect and I am excited to see were they will go and how big they can be. From their earliest work through to supporting Beyoncé on The Formation World Tour in 2016, to their first two albums, the stunning Chloe x Halle have barely…

DROPPED a beat.

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Follow Chloe x Halle

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Regan for Wonderland. 

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chloexhalle

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/chloexhalle/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0AsThoR4KZSVktALiNcQwW

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chloexhalle/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvu7JgqK7-ZKUKHC33meEw  

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Dreamboats and Petticoats

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

Dreamboats and Petticoats

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IN the last few…

Lockdown Playlists, I have featured quite contemporary music that, in terms of demographics, might be aimed at a slightly younger audience. This time around, I wanted to spotlight the Dreamboats and Petticoats album series. It is a compilation series that has a huge and adoring audience. Music Week reported something interesting earlier in the week:

 “Brian Berg has spoken about the enduring chart-topping success of the Dreamboats & Petticoats compilation brand he created at UMTV.

In the latest issue of Music Week, Berg discusses his new rock compilation series for Xploded TV.

As a consultant for Decca, Berg oversaw this month’s Dreamboats & Petticoats: Music That Lives Forever, featuring Cliff Richard & The Shadows, The Hollies and Dusty Springfield.

The collection of ’50s rock’n’roll and ’60s pop debuted at No.1 in the compilations chart with pure sales of 7,659 (Official Charts Company). Sales held up for a second week at the summit (6,693 units), and the 3CD collection is now battling Les Miserables: The Staged Concert for a third week at No.1.

“The Dreamboats market is 60-plus and 99% physical – there are people out there who will never stream, it’s not in their culture,” said Berg

Since it launched in 2007 with the original compilation (871,192 sales), the series has racked up overall sales of almost five million. Last year’s edition, Dreamboats & Petticoats – Silver Linings, has sales of 107,561.

The series has been extended to artists, with branded releases from Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and The Shadows. Guitarist Bruce Welch promoted The Shadows collection, which was released this month to mark 60 years since their No.1 debut single, Apache.

 The Shadows – First 60 Years (Dreamboats & Petticoats) debuted at No.22 last week with sales of 4,016. It was The Shadows’ first charting album in 15 years, not including collaborations with Cliff Richard.

Last year’s Marty Wilde edition released under the Dreamboats banner peaked at No.7 and has sales of 25,437.

“The brand is still very powerful,” said Berg. “We’re doing a book next year and I’ve been talking with Decca about a lot of other artist-branded Dreamboat albums going forward.”

Wilde is set to headline a UK tour under the Dreamboats & Petticoats banner in 2021. The spin-off musical had three runs in the West End and was seen by nearly two million people.

“We’ve got plans to bring the show back sometime the year after next, when we know we’ve got theatres working properly,” Berg told Music Week.

Berg’s musical production arm Eclipse Live has also teamed with Sony Music and the Roy Orbison Estate on a show about the rock’n’roll icon.

“It’s being written at the moment and that’s going straight into the West End,” he said”.

Because of the growth and continuing pleasures the Dreamboats and Petticoats bring, this Lockdown Playlist features a selection of songs from across the series (if there are problems accessing any songs in the playlist below, you can access it on Spotify here). I am sure that you can agree that, even if you are not a fan of the style and period of music, these songs have the ability to put you…

IN a warmer and more positive mood.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Miles Davis – In a Silent Way

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Miles Davis – In a Silent Way

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THIS is a bit of a different…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Herman Leonard Photography, LLC, courtesy of the Miles Davis Estate

one for me on Vinyl Corner, as I am including a Jazz album composed of two songs! There are so many Miles Davis albums that could have been included but, for me, In a Silent Way deserves spotlighting as one of Davis’ greatest works. It is definitely worth buying the album on vinyl as it is a fantastic and thrilling listen. The fact there are two songs/suites makes it a bit of an unconventional album. Consisting of the Shhh/Peaceful suite on the first side, and the In a Silent Way/It's About That Time suite on the second side, I would encourage Jazz and non-Jazz fans alike to give the album a try! With Davis leading an incredible band - Wayne Shorter – soprano saxophone, John McLaughlin – guitar, Chick Corea – electric piano, Herbie Hancock – electric piano, Joe Zawinul – electric piano, organ, Dave Holland – bass, Tony Williams – drums -, one can easily lose themselves in the blend of soothing sounds and more frenzied moments. Produced by Teo Macero, the album was recorded in one session on 18th February, 1969, at CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City. Marking the beginning of his ‘electric’ period, In a Silent Way has been seen by music writers as Davis' first fusion recording. In a Silent Way saw Davis moving more into Rock territory and, whereas the follow-up, Bitches Brew of 1970, outsold In a Silent Way, one cannot deny the influence and importance of Davis’ 1969 evolution.

I can understand why some critics were a little wary or distant when the album arrived. In a Silent Way was different to what Davis had produced before and, in the same way Dylan was judged by the Folk fraternity when he went electric, there were splits from those in Rock and Jazz when Davis went a similar way. I am not a massive Miles Davis fan, but I have always admired his work and the way he could transform between albums. One cannot easily compare albums like In a Silent Way with Kind of Blue or Sketches of Spain. An endlessly innovative and restless artist, I really like what he did on In a Silent Way. Critics have changed their perspective in the years following In a Silent Way’s release in 1969. I think the fact Davis went even further into Rock and harder territory for Bitches Brew helped when it came to assessing In a Silent Way but, fortunately, the album is seen now as one of Davis’ grandest works. I want to bring in a detailed review from AllMusic, who had this to say:

“Listening to Miles Davis' originally released version of In a Silent Way in light of the complete sessions released by Sony in 2001 (Columbia Legacy 65362) reveals just how strategic and dramatic a studio construction it was. If one listens to Joe Zawinul's original version of "In a Silent Way," it comes across as almost a folk song with a very pronounced melody. The version Miles Davis and Teo Macero assembled from the recording session in July of 1968 is anything but. There is no melody, not even a melodic frame. There are only vamps and solos, grooves layered on top of other grooves spiraling toward space but ending in silence. But even these don't begin until almost ten minutes into the piece. It's Miles and McLaughlin, sparely breathing and wending their way through a series of seemingly disconnected phrases until the groove monster kicks in.

 The solos are extended, digging deep into the heart of the ethereal groove, which was dark, smoky, and ashen. McLaughlin and Hancock are particularly brilliant, but Corea's solo on the Fender Rhodes is one of his most articulate and spiraling on the instrument ever. The A-side of the album, "Shhh/Peaceful," is even more so. With Tony Williams shimmering away on the cymbals in double time, Miles comes out slippery and slowly, playing over the top of the vamp, playing ostinato and moving off into more mysterious territory a moment at a time. With Zawinul's organ in the background offering the occasional swell of darkness and dimension, Miles could continue indefinitely. But McLaughlin is hovering, easing in, moving up against the organ and the trills by Hancock and Corea; Wayne Shorter hesitantly winds in and out of the mix on his soprano, filling space until it's his turn to solo. But John McLaughlin, playing solos and fills throughout (the piece is like one long dreamy solo for the guitarist), is what gives it its open quality, like a piece of music with no borders as he turns in and through the commingling keyboards as Holland paces everything along. When the first round of solos ends, Zawinul and McLaughlin and Williams usher it back in with painterly decoration and illumination from Corea and Hancock. Miles picks up on another riff created by Corea and slips in to bring back the ostinato "theme" of the work. He plays glissando right near the very end, which is the only place where the band swells and the tune moves above a whisper before Zawinul's organ fades it into silence. This disc holds up, and perhaps is even stronger because of the issue of the complete sessions. It is, along with Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew, a signature Miles Davis session from the electric era”.

If you want some background and education regarding In a Silent Way, Pitchfork wrote about The Complete in a Silent Way Sessions in 2001. I don’t feel you need to be steeped in Jazz knowledge to appreciate an album like In a Silent Way as it is simply a gorgeous album that everyone can understand and appreciate. If some were confused or unsure about In a Silent Way in 1969, I think it makes better sense regarding Davis’ cannon and career. Go and get a sensational album on vinyl that has the power to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Miles Davis playing at Fillmore East, N.Y.C. on 18th June, 1970/PHOTO CREDIT: Glen Craig

MOVE you like few other albums can!

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: The Great Escape-Inspired Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

The Great Escape-Inspired Tracks

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FOR this Lockdown Playlist…

I am putting together tracks that relate to escape, breaking free and cutting loose. This is because Blur have released a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of their phenomenal album, The Great Escape. This article from NME provides more details:

“Blur have announced that they will release a limited edition split vinyl of ‘The Great Escape’ to mark the 25th anniversary of the seminal album.

The band’s fourth record arrived in September 1995 to widespread acclaim, featuring tracks such as ‘The Universal’, ‘Charmless Man’ and ‘Country House’.

Announcing the new vinyl release on Twitter today (November 26), the band shared a video of the coloured blue and white vinyl alongside the classic back cover – which sees the band posing as suited city workers.

You can buy your copy here”.

Because the legendary band are bringing this album to vinyl and providing this wonderful treat, these tracks are united by a theme of getting away, escape and freedom. Have a listen to these tracks and I hope that they…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Blur

BRING you energy.

FEATURE: From the Starman to Steely Dan: The Artists Who Have Influenced Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

 

From the Starman to Steely Dan

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Claude Vanheye 

The Artists Who Have Influenced Kate Bush

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NO artist is a blank slate…

IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie has been cited by Kate Bush as a hugely influential artist

when it comes to their music and influence. I mean, every musician who has recorded anything draws influence from another or some other sphere. Even the most original and hard-to-categorise artists have taken some form of guidance from others. When it comes to those artists that are in a league of their own, many people will think about Kate Bush. Whilst she did not particular draw too much inspiration from female artists through her career – she did not want to be too guided in that sense – there are some terrific artists who, in a way, ran through Bush’s veins. Prince is someone she worked with a couple of times (including on her 1993 album, The Red Shoes) and she was a huge fan of his. I think their working relationship was really affectionate and, though they were of a very similar age, I do think that Bush was inspired by Prince’s sense of ambition and reinvention – he, in turn, would have provided an admiring nod to Bush. I think two artists who have particularly resonated with Bush are David Bowie and Elton John. The latter is a good friend of Bush’s, and she has named-checked John in interviews through her career. Both artists are synonymous with the piano and, whilst their music is quite different, Bush cleared loved Elton John from a very young age! I am going to spend more time on both of these artists as their sense of image, eclectic musicianship and sheer gravitas was incredibly power to Bush.

I first want to bring in a recent article from Far Our Magazine - they talked about the role Bowie and John have played in Bush’s life:

“It was a point of reference that nobody thought possible for a girl of such a young age. But the truth was, as well as having a literary and musical upbringing, Bush had been inspired by one of the most adventurous lyricists the world has ever known — David Bowie.

The Starman can be rightly attributed with inspiring countless artists that followed him on to the stage. As well as his expert performances, which prompted Bush to connect with his movement instructor Kindsay Kemp, Bowie’s songwriting captivated Bush and showed her that songs did not have to follow any real structure if she didn’t want them to. As well as lyrically encouraging Bush to pen her thoughts as wildly as they arrived at her, Bowie’s costuming was also a key piece of inspiration.

“David Bowie had everything,” Bush recalled upon the news of his death in 2016. “He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.” Bush was known to have been a fan of Bowie during his heady Ziggy days and so the art of performance ranked as high for her as the songs themselves.

Bush wouldn’t be as prolific a performer as Bowie, in fact, she has only ever toured twice. But the reason she stopped performing is that she felt if she couldn’t maintain the vision she had for the show and her songs then there was no point in doing it at all. It’s the kind of uncompromising artistry that was resolutely taught in the school of Bowie.

Another huge influence on the career of Kate Bush is from another bespangled and glittered genius songwriter from the seventies. While David Bowie was able to show Bush how to follow her creative drive and artistic nuances, one star showed her how to apply it to pop music, that person was Elton John. Bernie Taupin may have been the man behind Elton John’s lyrics, however, the glittering performance from Elton absolutely enraptured a young Bush.

“I couldn’t stop playing it — I loved it so much,” said Bush when speaking to NME about the recently unearthed video of her cover of ‘Rocketman’. “Most artists in the mid-seventies played guitar but Elton played piano and I dreamed of being able to play like him.” Of course, Bush would get the chance to play a little like him and include Elton’s song ‘Rocketman’ as one of the very few covers she has ever produced.

Bush later asked Elton to be a part of her own record, something the star was more than happy to be a part of. “I did a duet with Kate Bush on this track for her last album,” Elton recalled in 2013. “That session with her was hard, because she doesn’t write easy songs. She’s a complex songwriter and this is a weird song, but I love it so much. I’m so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. She was groundbreaking — a bit like a female equivalent of Freddie Mercury.”

Utterly unique and completely one of a kind, Kate Bush has become a piece of British culture that is resolutely celebrated across the globe. Her style and guile has seen her become one of the most adored singers on the planet and it is down to the values instilled in her during her formative years by two of the greatest showmen to have graced the stage. Simply put, without David Bowie and Elton John we wouldn’t have got Kate Bush”.

I do love how these iconic artists helped to shape Kate Bush and how, so many years down the line, Bush and Elton John are friends! I want to quote one more article regarding Bush’s love of Bowie, but the relationship between Bush and one of her idols, Elton John, is interesting. Not only was Bush inspired by his live performances – she cites 17-11-70 as one of her favourite albums -, but his aura and incredibly powerful personality could not have helped but to stir and motivate her; not only as a recording artist but a live performer. Bush duetted with John on her 2011 album, 50 Words for Snow, and she also covered two of his songs: Candle in the Wind, and Rocket Man (she recorded a cover version of Candle in the Wind for the B-side of her 1991 single, Rocket Man). Let’s hope there is more collaboration between Bush and John before both of their careers are through.

I think the Bowie influence is particularly clear. For someone who grew up in an artistic and vibrant household - but one that was, at the same time, quite mannered too-, the sheer passion and allure of David Bowie and his multiple personas must have been hugely fascinating for Bush! In an article in MOJO in 2007, Kate Bush described her love for David Bowie's music, the concert she attended - the final live performance by Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on 3rd July, 1973 - and the first occasion when she met the star. One can hear little Bowie nods and inflections in some of her work – listen to many of the songs on The Dreaming -, and I think she was channelling Bowie. Seeing Bowie in concert and delivering such an astonishing, theatrical and original live performance, I feel, was instrumental when it came to Bush conceiving her The Tour of Life of 1979. I will move on to another selection of artists soon, but I want to quote from an article on the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia which finds Bush discussing her first taste of Bowie:

“I was sitting in my bath, submerged in bubbles, listening to Radio Luxembourg when I heard David Bowie for the first time. "There's a starman waiting in the sky." I thought it was such an interesting song and that he had a really unusual voice. Soon I was to hear that track everywhere, and Bowie's music became a part of my life.

Was it Bo-Wie, Bowie or B'wee? Everything about him was intriguing. When I saw him on Top Of The Pops he was almost insect-like, his clothing was theatrical and bizarre; was that a dress? No one was sure, but my conclusion was that he was quite beautiful. His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the scared space reserved solely for my greatest love - Elton John.

A fantastic songwriter with a voice to match, Bowie had everything. He was just the right amount of weird, obviously intelligent and, of course, very sexy. Ziggy played guitar. And I was there to see his last show as Ziggy Stardust with The Spiders From Mars. The atmosphere was just so charged that at the end, when he cried, we all cried with him.

Working at Abbey Road studios some years later, I popped in to see a friend on another session....I was stopped in my tracks. Standing elegantly poised behind the console was David Bowie. He was lit from above and smoking a cigarette. He said, "Hello Kate." I froze on the spot and said, "Er...Hello," and then left the room, caught my breath outside the door and didn't dare to go back in again. We've met many times since then and I don't have to leave the room any more....or do I?

He's made all the right moves, each album exploring a new sound, a new way of looking at things, experimental and brave. Starring in The Man Who Fell To Earth made him a successful actor as well. His introduction to The Snowman animation, although brief, made the film more poignant, as if the whole thing somehow belonged to him. I just loved his hilarious Extras cameo, and the quirky Tesla in The Prestige. He is the quintessential artist, always different and ever surprising, an inspiration for us all. (Kate Bush, Foreword, Mojo Classic: 60 years of Bowie, 2007)”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Tyne Tees studios in 1981

The influence of Elton John and David Bowie is one that runs through her work, but there are other great artists that one might not expect Bush to be influenced by. In her household, she was listening to a lot of Irish and English folk; her brothers were introducing her to different sounds and sides of the art world…so it isn’t a shock that Bush embraced a whole range of artists and genres. This interesting article provides a list of Bush’s favourite-ten albums of 1980. Just looking at the list, and you can see the way various artists influenced albums like Never for Ever and her first two of 1978,The Kick Inside, and Lionheart:

“As Told to Smash Hits Magazine for the November 27 - December 10, 1980 issue via Like Punk Never Happened

Kate made this list a few months after her third album Never For Ever was released.

1.Frank Zappa: Overnite Sensation -"Montana" was the first Zappa track I ever heard and it's stuck as a firm favourite.

2. A.L. Lloyd and Eran MacColl : Blow Boys Blow - I was brought up with this album.

3. The Eagles: One of These Nights - I played it to death when studying with Lindsay Kemp and it reminds me of him.

4. David Bowie Young Americans - It reminds me of 1976, the drought summer and open windows.

5. The Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Because it's an album of excellent songs.

6. Eberhard Weber Fluid Rustle - It's like having your brain massaged.

7. Captain Beefheart Blue Jeans and Moonbeams - This is the Beefheart album where he writes love songs like nobody else.

8. Stevie Wonder The Secret Life of Plants - Because it's a modern symphony with a  high emotional content.

9. Pink Floyd The Wall - Because it reminds me of last Christmas and open fires and I wish I'd written it.

10. The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra Treasures of the Baroque Era - Because it allows my mind to sit down and go "aah". I listen to it when doing paperwork. In fact while writing this list!”.

I will discuss The Beatles and Pink Floyd later (alongside Steely Dan and others), but it is illuminating seeing her name-check Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart! The unconventional nature of both of these artists – not just how they tackled love, but their sonic essence -, was starting to work into Bush’s work at this point (one can sense a bit of both in Hammer Horror, and Full House from Lionheart; maybe elements of Breathing, and Violin (from Never for Ever) vibe from these artists). Albums like Eberhard Weber’s Fluid Rustle, I feel, were in Bush’s mind when she wrote some of the more ethereal and heavenly tracks from Never for Ever. It is fascinating considering an artist as unique as Bush and her favourite artists/albums.

The Beatles are probably not much of a surprise when it comes to inspiration. Bush, in some ways, can be compared to them in the way her work evolved and she went from this slightly lighter and softer sound to bigger, bolder and more experimental. Bush’s real change occurred on 1982’s The Dreaming and, for that reason, I am not surprised to see her name-check Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Bush actually covered The Beatles on more than one occasion. She performed She's Leaving Home (from that album), The Long and Winding Road, and Let It Be (both from Let It Be) during a promotional visit to Japan; she also performed Come Together (from Abbey Road) when she played with the KT Bush Band in 1977. The fact that The Beatles pushed the boundaries of the studio and had stopped being a touring band resonated with Bush. She would not play live in a huge way after 1979 and before 2014 - and she was embracing new technology and sounds on every album. On The Dreaming, she fully embraced the studio and its possibilities; experimenting a lot more and, in a way, channelling The Beatles. Steely Dan could not have passed Bush by. Although they were not big in the U.K. through the 1970s, I can imagine Bush discovering their debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill, in 1972 and being intrigued.

IN THIS PHOTO: Walter Becker (right) and Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan) captured while making their album, The Royal Scam, at The Village Recorder studio on 23rd November, 1975 in Los Angeles, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Caraeff

Perhaps it is their albums Katy Lied (1975), The Royal Scam (1976), and Aja (1977) that made a big mark when it came to the musical complexity and melodic accessibility. Steely Dan’s combination of the perfectionist and simple can be applied to Bush; in the way she sought the ‘right sound’ as a producer and how her songs matched the lush and melodic with the sophisticated and unconventional. This article quotes a couple of times where Bush mentioned Steely Dan:

“I think they're very underestimated. They're the most incredible musicians. This is it. They are here -- a musician's band. I mean, all the musicians in this country just rave about them technically, and as songwriters. But you know, they're not really played on the radio, but they're just incredible. (Paul Gambaccini, BBC Radio 1, 31 December 1980)

For me, each album got better, and I wish they hadn't split up. (Kate Bush Club, issue 16)”.

Not only was Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour important in Kate Bush’s life – he put up money so she could record professionally and helped to get her music to the masses -, but the band themselves can be heard in Bush’s music. From The Saxophone Song on The Kick Inside and its spacey, jazzy outro through to so many elements and sounds of Hounds of Love, one can also envisage Bush growing up a lot with Pink Floyd’s music and taken some guidance from their music. There have been a lot of articles regarding Bush’s impact on other artists and how she has helped transform music, but I was curious to look at the other end of the spectrum and some of the albums and artists who have inspired Bush. Perhaps, without them, we would not have Kate Bush as a musician or, at the very least, her own music would be very different! From David Bowie, Elton John, The Beatles, Captain Beefheart, and Steely Dan, a range of incredible artists have compelled and influenced Kate Bush. This all being said – and has been said many times – she herself remains…

A unique genius.

FEATURE: The Sound of the Crowd: How Rapid Testing Could See a Return for Festivals and Live Music Soon

FEATURE:

 

 

The Sound of the Crowd

PHOTO CREDIT: @kristsll/Unsplash 

How Rapid Testing Could See a Return for Festivals and Live Music Soon

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IT was not long ago…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @tonyphamvn/Unsplash

that I wrote an article about the pandemic and how festivals are going to return. It is a very strange time when we see light at the end of the tunnel but cannot resume normal activities for months. The fact that mass testing is smoother and becoming more prevalent has boosted hopes that festivals will return fairly soon. This article from NME explains more:

“The future of music festivals has been given a boost after the first rapid testing programme was officially announced.

Designed specifically for the events industry in conjunction with Swallow Events, the rapid 15-minute turn around test is the first to be approved by Public Health England.

Oli Thomas, founder and managing director of Swallow Events said: “The events industry has been forgotten and devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are very proud to announce we are the first events company in the UK to offer an on-site rapid testing service for COVID-19 in as little as 15 minutes, which, we believe, is a complete game-changer.

“Our rapid testing kits – a market leader (which meets MHRA target product profile with sensitivity: 96,52% & specificity: 99,68%) used in conjunction with track and trace data-collection and other Covid secure protocols such as touch point and temperature checks will help event organisers in all sectors from large scale festivals, concerts, stadia, business conferences and trade shows through to agricultural shows and small boutique festivals.

“It will kick start a £39.1 billion contributing sector to the UK’s economy whilst helping to protect over 570,000 full-time jobs which are rapidly disappearing.”

PHOTO CREDIT: @aaronpaulos/Unsplash

It comes after Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis previously said that “massive testing arrangements” could be put in place at next year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Eavis’ comments on mass testing echoed those made recently by Reading & Leeds boss Melvin Benn, who told NME that he was confident that, in regards to R&L 2021, “we don’t need a vaccination because we can work through the problem with a really good testing regime”.

Venues will be especially cheered by the good news, and I think it would be easy enough to apply mass testing so that smaller venues can open. At the moment many are looking to reopen in the spring and they will want to assure gig-goers that their venues are safe and there is little chance of catching COVID-19. I see no reason why mass testing cannot be done the day of a gig or the day before - if there is a fifteen-minute turnaround, that would be wonderful (though it has yet to be implemented). Maybe patrons would have to provide a negative test when they arrive at the venue and I think that could be workable. Festivals provide greater challenges due to the sheer number of people who attend! It seems daunting to go from where we are now to the sort of scenes that we saw at music festivals last year! There is this hope that festivals can resume next year and there will be no further delays. Organisers will want to put out their line-ups early next year, and this safety net of mass testing will give them cheer.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @paullywooten/Unsplash

I am not sure how expensive and viable it would be to have a system whereby people turn up to Glastonbury and they are tested before they enter the field. They then have to wait until a test comes back negative and, if everyone is fine, then the festival can go ahead. The trouble arises with the reliability of the testing system and how just a few false-negatives can result in massive infections! Nobody really wants to take anything for granted, so the Government needs to ensure that their testing system is adequate and can accommodate the demands of the live scene. Of course, there is a hope that vaccines can be rolled out in the next month or so, which might mean that infection numbers are very low come March and April. If most of the U.K. population was to be immunised, that would ease a lot of the stress for festivals and venues. It is a nervy time where we hope a vaccine can get us back to normal by the spring and we do not have to miss too much live music! I am hopeful that we will be in a much better place in a few months or so because, after such a dark and quiet year, the demand for live music is greater than ever. Many feared festivals might not happen in 2021 but, with news of mass testing and a possible way back, hopefully many will be getting together and enjoying live music very soon. I think mass testing and a vaccine will come just in time to ensure that many festivals and venues…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @covertnine/Unsplash

SURVIVE and can continue.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: One-Shot Videos

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Feist

One-Shot Videos

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FOR this Lockdown Playlist…

IN THIS PHOTO: OK Go/PHOTO CREDIT: Art Streiber

I am featuring songs whose videos were one-take. In other words, there were no edits or cut and what we see on screen is a single take! It is amazing thing and, as you listen to the songs, go to see the videos too as it is a phenomenon I am really interested in – the patience and skill needed to pull those videos off! As with all my playlists, there might be some songs that are greyed out in the display below, but if you search Spotify for ‘The Lockdown Playlist: One-Shot Videos’, then you should get all the songs with no issues. This has been a fun one to put together so, for this Lockdown Playlist, here are songs whose videos were all completed…

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift/PHOTO CREDIT: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images

IN a single, continuous take.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential December Releases

FEATURE:

 

One for the Record Collection!

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

Essential December Releases

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ALTHOUGH there are fewer big albums out in December…

IN THIS PHOTO: Yungblud/PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Pallant

there are a few coming out just before Christmas that would make for great gifts! There is one particular that has been delayed a week but, arriving just in time to order and arrive for Christmas, it is one of this year’s most-anticipated releases. There are some great albums due on 4th December. I was not aware until recently that Arctic Monkeys had a live album in the vault but, with Arctic Monkeys – Live at the Royal Albert Hall, here is an album you will definitely want to order. If you are not aware of the Sheffield band’s performance, here is some more information:

“Arctic Monkeys and War Child UK are proud to announce the release of ‘Arctic Monkeys - Live At The Royal Albert Hall’ on December 4th 2020.   All proceeds from the album will go to War Child UK to help fill what could be up to a £2 million deficit they are facing in 2021, caused by the devastating impact of Covid-19 on their fundraising.  These funds are urgently needed to support those who are worst hit by the virus.

“On June 7, 2018 we played a very special show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.  All the proceeds from that memorable night were donated to War Child UK in support of the vital work they do protecting, educating and rehabilitating children who have experienced the trauma of conflict and the horror of war. The situation that was bad in 2018 is now desperate and those children and their families need our help more than ever. To enable War Child UK to reduce their funding deficit and continue their valuable work, we are happy to be able to release a live album, recorded that evening at The Royal Albert Hall. All proceeds will go direct to the charity. We thank all our fans in advance for their support of this release and in turn for their support of War Child UK” - Arctic Monkeys.

Recorded at the start of the band’s ‘Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino’ tour, ‘Arctic Monkeys -Live At The Royal Albert Hall’, features 20 of the band’s finest moments to date”.

That is an album that is going to be fascinating to hear and own. The second of four albums from 4th December that you will want to grab is Sigur Rós’ Odin's Raven Magic. The Icelandic band always create very original and beautiful music – their forthcoming album is no exception! You can pre-order it here, but it is a very interesting album with a pretty cool background. Sigur Rós’ Bandcamp page gives us some more information:

“Composed in the 14th or 15th century Odin’s Raven Magic is an Icelandic poem in the ancient Edda tradition (Edda - a term that describes two Icelandic manuscripts which together are the main sources of Norse mythology and Skáldic poetry) its anonymous author clearly had an intimate knowledge of the Edda literature and mythology which alludes to a number of pagan motifs which are now lost. The poem recounts a great banquet held by the gods in Valhalla while they were absorbed in their feasting, ominous signs appeared that could foretell the end of the worlds of the gods and men.

The album 'Odin’s Raven Magic' is an orchestral collaboration between Sigur Rós, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Steindór Andersen and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir which premiered 18 years ago at the Barbican Centre in London and is now finally almost two decades later being released. The performance honours the poem, dramatic and beautiful, classical and contemporary. A stone marimba was built especially for the performance by Páll Guðmundsson.

Odin’s Raven Magic - the poem - had been relegated from mainstream ancient literature ever since 1867, when Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge claimed it was a 17th century fabrication. This theory has since been toppled with literary and linguistic arguments and new research has concluded that Odin’s Raven Magic was indeed authentic and has finally been reintroduced to the Edda”.

Yungblud’s Weird! is available to pre-order. It follows his 2018 debut album, 21st Century Liability. This new album is shaping up to be a more complete, ambitious and accomplished work from one of the music’s world’s brightest rising artists. Rough Trade provide us with some information:

“Weird! is Yungblud’s most emotionally complex body of work to date. He recorded it at studios in London and Los Angeles with Cervini, Greatti and another frequent collaborator, Matt Schwartz (Cold War Kids, Bullet For My Valentine, Massive Attack). True to Yungblud’s fierce refusal to box himself in, Weird! embodies a wildly eclectic collage of sound: Queen-inspired harmonies, Beatles-esque chord progressions, elements of dance-punk and glam-rock and hip-hop and metal. Weird! is like an episode of Skins in album form”.

I guess, to an extent, people might have preconceptions about Yungblud from hearing his interviews or seeing publicity photos. I think his songwriting has really come on in the past couple of years and he is able to mix these very confident and electric songs with gentler moments.

Weird! is shaping up to be one of this year’s better releases. I want to bring in a recent interview from The Guardian - where we learn about his hard upbringing and how it has inspired one of the album’s songs:

“Growing up in Doncaster was both “great and fucking awful”. He was bullied remorselessly, even by his teachers who would single him out for his sartorial choices in front of the class. “I had a lot of friends but in a room full of people I would feel totally alone,” he says. “I had my first suicidal thoughts at 13.” His family – whom he describes as “The Waltons meets Peaky Blinders” – were supportive. “My mum used to dye my hair when I was five and my dad was a guitar dealer so he’d seen it all.” It was a household full of music; his grandad (“a fucking nutcase”) performed with T Rex in the 60s, while his maternal grandmother loved Rod Stewart so much she told Harrison he was her boyfriend. “I was kind of in that sensibility of rock’n’roll my whole life,” he smiles.

One of Weird!’s prettier moments, Love Song, touches on the domestic violence he witnessed growing up. “My parents used to fight a lot and it was dark,” he says slowly. “They’d fight and then be friends an hour later. So my idea of love was so skewed.” Escape came via a primal urge to perform. “It was, like, if I don’t belong in this real world I’m going to build a world to belong in. Because I found Gaga, I found [Marilyn] Manson, I found Oasis. That’s all I wanted. I wanted a culture to belong in. I would watch Vivienne Westwood and I would watch the [Sex] Pistols and I would watch fucking Kate Moss, and I would be, like: ‘I need to go to London.’ I needed to get out”.

I will move on to the last album you will want to own on 4th December. I have seen a few U.K. sites say that they will not get this album in stock until 12th February. The album is The White Stripes’ Greatest Hits. You can get it from the Third Man Records store from 4th December, and there are options to ship internationally. With shipping, the vinyl comes in at $50 (£37). You may want to wait until February until it is in stock in the U.K. but, if you are a huge fan like me, you’ll pay a little extra for a real treat! The Third Man site provides some information about the iconic duo’s first greatest hits release:

“In 1997 a brother and sister climbed into the third floor attic of their Southwest Detroit family homestead and bashed out a primitive cover of David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream.” In an alternate reality, it’s all they ever do musically. The brother leads a spartan life as a dutiful upholsterer and the sister finishes culinary school and continues to make heartwarming food.

But that doesn’t happen. Something sparks in both of them. They take their simple guitar-drums-voice approach to a local open mic night on Bastille Day. The performance was just good enough to keep them going. In what feels like a whirlwind, they record and release two 7-inch singles for a local indie label. A not-so-local indie offers to put out a full length album.

They start touring. Another album. More touring. Another album. Folks REALLY start to pay attention. CRAZY touring. More albums, accolades, wildest dream after wildest dream coming true. “World-renowned” becomes an appropriate descriptor as does “long-building overnight sensation.”

It is with extreme reverence that we present to you The White Stripes Greatest Hits.

The first-ever official anthology of recordings from the iconic rock duo, Jack and Meg White, is an essential career-spanning collection highlighting 26 previously released songs. From late Nineties flashes of brilliance through early 2000s underground anthems, masterful MTV Moon Man moments, Grammy-grabbing greatness, and worldwide stadium chants, the songs here are as wide-ranging as you can imagine. In an era of streaming where the idea of a “Greatest Hits” album may seem irrelevant – that an act’s most streamed songs are considered their de facto “hits” – we wholeheartedly believe that great bands deserve “Greatest Hits” and that a large part of Third Man Records’ and The White Stripes’ successes have been built on zigging when the rest of the music business is zagging. Thus, for a great band with great fans, a greatest hits compilation for The White Stripes is not only appropriate, but absolutely necessary”.

That sort of takes care of the albums available from 4th December. It is a bit of a quiet week and, whilst there are a few albums available after 11th December, this is the last week of 2020 where there are quite a few big releases. There are three that I want to recommend people investigate.

Belle and Sebastian’s What to Look for in Summer is available to pre-order - and it is a release that intrigues me:

“Belle and Sebastian present twenty-two live performances featuring songs from across their 25 year career. The recordings showcase the Scottish septet at the height of their power during their 2019 tour, including tracks performed on the band's own Mediterranean cruise, The Boaty Weekender”.

I guess, what with it being the end of the year, we are going to get more live albums and compilations - as there are going to be few studio albums recorded. Actually, I will add in another compilation following on from The White Stirpes’. It is interesting that The White Stripes’ Jack White and The Kills’ Alison Mosshart are bandmates in The Dead Weather; they are both putting out compilation albums in the same month! Unlike The White Stripes’ compilation, one can buy Little Bastards from a U.K. site from 11th December. If you want a bit more detail, Domino have you covered:

“The Kills have compiled an extraordinary career-spanning B-sides and rarities album titled Little Bastards, to be released on Domino on December 11, 2020. The songs date back from the band’s first 7-inch singles in 2002 through to 2009. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2 x LP, CD, and digital—marking the first ever vinyl pressing for some of these tracks.

The compilation includes the unreleased and never-before-heard demo “Raise Me” from the 2008-2009 Midnight Boom era. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince produced and directed a striking new video for the recently excavated song.

Often raw, intimate and zero-budget spontaneous, the album’s title is a wry comment on these excellent recordings’ neglectful fate: in many cases birthed on the fly to fill bonus-track space on CD singles, they’d effectively vanished together with the release format that necessitated their creation. Also: Little Bastard was the affectionate nickname that the pair gave to the drum machine which enabled their initial existence as a band of only two members for the first half of their career. “It was a Roland 880,” says Jamie, “which isn’t strictly a drum machine – it's a sequencer, and an eight-track recorder, with its own drum machine built in, and that’s what we’d record all our beats on.”

Little Bastards is available digitally, and on CD and LP. The deluxe double LP comes on neon yellow vinyl and is housed in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves. Pre-order the album below.

Other LP highlights include “I Call It Art” from the Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited covers compilation, the brilliant Midnight Boom digital bonus track “Night Train,” a blistering performance of “Love Is A Deserter” from an XFM radio session and a handful of classic American roots songs performed with the kind of bruising delivery they’re famous for: Howlin’ Wolfs’ “Forty Four,” Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell on You” and Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby”.

The penultimate album I will highlight is The Avalanches’ We Will Always Love You. The Australian group took sixteen years to follow their phenomenal debut, Since I Left You, with Wildflower in 2016. Their productivity has gone up as, on 11th December, they release their third album! Do make sure you pre-order the album as The Avalanches are always tremendous! The twenty-five track looks set to be a real bonanza that everyone needs to pick up! Rough Trade give us some background to the album:

“Building on the sample-based approach of their classic albums Since I Left You and Wildflower, but stepping boldly into new terrain, We Will Always Love You is the new full length masterpiece from The Avalanches.

Sampling remains at the core of The Avalanches sound, but alongside all of the sample ghosts, We Will Always Love You features an array of living guests who contribute vocals and lyrics: Blood Orange, Rivers Cuomo, Pink Siifu, Jamie xx, CLYPSO, Denzel Curry, Tricky, Neneh Cherry, Sampa the Great, Sananda Maitreya and Vashti Bunyan and more. The Avalanches’s music has always dripped with melody, but because of this expanded role for guest singers and writers, We Will Always Love You is their most song-oriented album yet.

Take Care In Your Dreaming featuring alt-rapper Denzel Curry, Tricky and Melbourne based Zambian rapper-singer Sampa The Great is a song about unrealised dreams and navigating unexpected journeys through life. “The song is a ‘careful what you wish for’ kind of thing.”

Music Makes Me High is truly an up tempo number, this disco-funk tune has a golden glow that simultaneously casts back to tunes like The Whispers’s And The Beat Goes On and to the filter- house echoes of that era such as Stardust Music Feels Better With You and Gusto’s Disco’s Revenge. “There’s a gospel choir on there, but very softly in the mix, singing over the ‘music makes me high’ sample.”

Sparkling with the treble frequencies that made Since I Left You such a dizzy thrill, We Will Always Love You is dedicated to probing “the vibrational relationship between light, sound and spirit.” But the goal now is elevation rather than intoxication”.

The last album that I want to recommend was due on 11th December but, just recently, it was pushed back to 18th December. Paul McCartney’s McCartney III can be pre-ordered - and I think it is going to be one of this year’s best-received albums! It is going to be a tremendous release and, forty years after McCartney II, the former Beatle completes the tribology! I will finish with an interview from Paul McCartney but, with no single released from the album (as of 25th November), there is a lot of mystery and speculation as to what we might get! Rough Trade provide us with some background:

“A follow-up to his 1970 self-titled solo debut and 1980's McCartney II, the new album features the McCartney playing all the instruments; he wrote and recorded every song.

50 years following the release of his self-titled first solo album McCartney, featuring Paul playing every instrument and writing and recording every song, Paul McCartney will release McCartney III on December 11th. Paul hadn’t planned to release an album in 2020, but in the isolation of Rockdown, he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones. Before long an eclectic collection of spontaneous songs would become McCartney III: a stripped-back, self-produced and, quite literally, solo work marking the opening of a new decade, in the tradition of 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II.

Recorded earlier this year in Sussex (UK), McCartney III is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. McCartney III spans a vast and intimate range of modes and moods, from soul-searching to wistful, from playful to raucous and all points between — captured with some of the same gear from Paul’s Rude Studio used as far back as 1971 Wings sessions. And Paul's array of vintage instruments he played on the new album have an even more storied history, including Bill Black of Elvis Presley's original trio's double bass alongside Paul's own iconic Hofner violin bass, and a mellotron from Abbey Road Studios used on Beatles recordings, to name but a few. Just as McCartney’s 1970 release marked Paul’s return to basics in the wake of the biggest band break-up in musical history, and the 1980 avant-garde masterpiece McCartney II rose from the ashes of Wings, McCartney III finds Paul back on his own, turning unexpected circumstances into a personal snapshot of a timeless artist at a unique point in history”.

It is a shame the album has been held back but, with only a week’s delay, we can still own a huge album before Christmas! I am impressed that nothing has been leaked and there is a lot of secrecy almost regarding the tone of McCartney III. McCartney has been doing quite a few interviews to promote the album but I want to source from Loud and Quiet, where he was asked about what we can expect from McCartney III:

“At what point did you realise that what you were doing was making McCartney III?

Right at the end of it, I’d just been stockpiling tracks, and I thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of this – I guess I’ll hang onto it,’ and then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this is a McCartney record,’ because I’d played everything and done it in the same manner as McCartney I and II. That was a little light bulb going off, and I thought, ‘Well, at least that makes a point of explaining what I’ve been doing, unbeknownst to me.’

It’s been 40 years since McCartney II – has there ever been a point between then and now that you’ve intended to make number III before?

No. Actually, not at all. I did McCartney right after The Beatles in 1970, McCartney II in 1980, and I did other similar projects, like The Firemen, working with Youth – that was a little bit similar because we’d go in the studio and Youth or I would just have a little bit of an idea, and it was a kind of homemade product, but it never occurred to me to do another McCartney album.

As you say, McCartney I and II followed such seismic shifts in your life and career – in that sense, how does the timing of this new record compare?

The common denominator is that I had a lot of time suddenly. After The Beatles broke up, I suddenly had a lot of time and no particular plan in mind. And then when Wings broke up it was a similar thing. And with me, when I’ve got a lot of time, my go-to situation is, ‘Well, write and record, then – that’s something to do when you’ve got some spare time.’ So this was similar, but it was the pandemic that stopped things. We were due to go on a European tour this year, but very early on Italy got the virus, and gradually all of the other gigs, including Glastonbury, which was going to be the culmination of it, got knocked out. So then it was, ‘Ok, well what am I going to do?’ And that’s my fall-back situation – to write and record.

These are the December-due albums that you will want to own, and it will not be long until many people start listing the albums due next year that are worth your pennies. I am not sure whether any really big albums have been announced for next year, but we will start to hear more over the coming weeks/months. If you are in need of a few Christmas gift ideas in the form of albums, then I hope that the suggestions above…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Kills

WILL help out.

FEATURE: A Crushed Lily in My Soul: Kate Bush’s Moving

FEATURE:

 

 

A Crushed Lily in My Soul

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

Kate Bush’s Moving

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I am peppering in…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Moorhouse/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

a few song-specific bits when it comes to Kate Bush, as there are some really great songs of hers that do not really get played or talked about much. It is a return to my favourite album, The Kick Inside, and the extraordinary opening track, Moving. There are a number of reasons why I want to spotlight this one track – I have checked on features I have done before and I do not think I have dedicated one to Moving. A lot of people’s first exposure to Kate Bush in 1978 would have been her debut single, Wuthering Heights, which was released a month before The Kick Inside. I think the success of that song – it got to number-one and remains one of her most-loved tracks -, perhaps, took a little momentum away from the rest of the album. By that, I mean Wuthering Heights was still very much in vogue and being played when The Kick Inside arrived on 17th February. I guess many people would have bought the album purely on the strength of the single and Bush’s performances of the song. Whereas Wuthering Heights is the final song on the first side, the first track people would hear on Bush’s debut album is Moving. Many may not have known about Wuthering Heights prior to buying The Kick Inside so, for them, the beautiful Moving was their introduction. I have talked about how Bush was masterful when it came to opening and closing tracks.

The Kick Inside ends with the title track: a song about incest, suicide and familial tragedy and, whilst that sounds bleak, it is a song beautifully performed and ends the album with a pause and slightly tragic note. Conversely, Moving opens the album up with one of the most positive tracks. There was some critical derision regarding Kate Bush’s image and personality; many felt she was quite hippy-like and not nearly as substantial as many of the artists around in 1978. I think the fact her debut album opens with whale song did little to redress their perceptions! I have discussed the fantastic way The Kick Inside opens and the fact that we get this stunning whale song at the start! The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provide some background regarding Moving’s background:

“The song is a tribute to Lindsay Kemp, who was her mime teacher in the mid-Seventies. She explained in an interview, "He needed a song written to him. He opened up my eyes to the meanings of movement. He makes you feel so good. If you've got two left feet it's 'you dance like an angel darling.' He fills people up, you're an empty glass and glug, glug, glug, he's filled you with champagne".

Kemp sadly died in 2018, but his impact on Kate Bush is very clear. I will look at the lyrics to Moving soon, but the words I use in the title refer to a line in the song: “You crush the lily in my soul”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

That is a reference to Kemp and how he managed to bring out a more confident side to her. That imagery is very beautiful and, when you think about the sort of boldness and brilliance that we hear through The Kick Inside, I think Kemp was quite instrumental regarding shaping Bush as a vocalist – I think her dance and movement training directly affected the way she sang and delivered her songs. I think Moving is the perfect way to open The Kick Inside, as we get this soft-yet-powerful song with some beautiful backing vocals. I love the physicality and dance Bush projects through her vocals and, on an album full of wonderful lyrics, Moving contains some of her best. “Moving liquid/Yes, you are just as water/You flow around all that comes in your way/Don't think it over/It always takes you over/And sets your spirit dancing” is a gorgeous piece of writing that swims in the mind and gets into the heart. Although my favourite two songs on The Kick Inside are Wuthering Heights, and Them Heavy People, Moving would be right up there! Going back to the article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, and they provide information regarding Bush’s performances of Moving:

“Soon after the release of The Kick Inside, Bush performed 'Moving' alongside with 'Them Heavy People' on 25 February 1978 on the BBC TV show Saturday Nights at the Mill. On 12 May, she took part in a Dutch special TV show dedicated to the opening of the Haunted Castle, the new attraction of the amusement park Efteling.

She performed six songs in six videos filmed near the castle and across the park. At the beginning of the video for 'Moving', the camera shows a tombstone covered with leaves. Then, the wind blows the leaves and lets appear the name of Kate Bush. She performs the song in front of the castle's door. In June 1978, Bush sang "Moving" at Nippon Budokan during the Tokyo Music Festival. The performance was retransmitted on the Japanese television on 21 June and was followed by a 35 million audience. She won the silver prize alongside with the American R&B band The Emotions. In 1979, Bush included 'Moving' on her first tour, The Tour of Life. Her performance can be seen on the video Live at Hammersmith Odeon”.

Bush did actually release Moving as a single in Japan (with Wuthering Heights as the B-side), and I would have loved to have seen it released in the U.K. I guess she and EMI did not want to put out too many singles but, as only two U.K. singles were released – Wuthering Heights, and The Man with the Child in His Eyes -, there would have been room for Moving. It must have been quite daunting being faced with so many T.V. interviews and performances right at the start of her career. I feel a lot of critics defined her on the strength of Wuthering Heights and its sound. I really love her T.V. appearances, and I really think she stood out from every other songwriter in 1978. Moving is a gem of a song and one of the finest Bush ever recorded. If you have not bought The Kick Inside on vinyl then go and do so, as it is a wonderful album with so many exceptional songs! Opening with the sublime Moving, we are treated to this evocative and immersive song that makes you shiver with its beauty. I will do other song-specific features through the weeks, but I was keen to explore my favourite album’s…

SIMPLY amazing opening track.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Thirty-One: Tegan and Sara

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

 PHOTO CREDIT: Pamela Littky

Part Thirty-One: Tegan and Sara

___________

FOR this outing of A Buyer’s Guide…

I am featuring Tegan and Sara. They are a fantastic Canadian indie pop band formed in 1998, comprised of identical twin sisters, Tegan Rain and Sara Keirsten Quin. The pair have released nine studio albums and numerous E.P.s. I really love their music, so I wanted to highlight it here. Each album is different and interesting so, if you have not heard of them or need a guide to their back catalogue, then I have recommended the four essential albums, an underrated one, their latest studio effort, and an accompanying book. Have a look and listen to the suggestions below because, if you are not familiar and steeped in Tegan and Sara’s music, then I really feel that…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Scott Gries/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

YOU ought to be.

_______________

The Four Essential Album

 

If It Was You

Release Date: 20th August, 2002

Labels: Vapor/Sanctuary

Producers: John Collins/David Carswell

Standout Tracks: Monday Monday Monday/I Hear Noises/Living Room

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-and-Sara-If-It-Was-You/release/2031242

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/03KYia16AlAgoGNUneay0J

Review:

“Three songs on If It Was You stand above the rest, the best examples of the duo's growing songwriting talents and the best combinations of their folk influences and their new, louder direction. The Britpoppy "Want to Be Bad", with its combination of a shuffling drum beat, acoustic guitars, and ethereal electric guitar solo licks with an excellent vocal performance by Tegan (at least, I think it's Tegan . . . they sound so much alike). According to their bio, "Under Water" was inspired by Sara's attempt at writing a children's book, and it possesses a real sing-song quality along with some more 12-string guitar (think The La's), with its very pretty chorus of "All I need is time / Time to love you" and the odd facetious aside ("Your silly love songs / A bird's chorus and such"). Tegan's fun, bluegrass stomp of a song "Living Room" is the album's catchiest tune, as she describes the view through a neighbor's uncomfortably close window and the voyeuristic desire to keep staring: "My windows look into your bathroom / I spend the evening watching you get yourself clean / I wonder why it is they left this bathroom so unclean / So unlike me."

It's good to see that Tegan And Sara know the difference between singing an emotional song well and just trying too hard to get the message across; most singers their age simply beat a song to death with their vocal histrionics, ripping off Alanis Morrissette, et al, but these wisecracking sisters possess a maturity and easygoing feel that's sorely lacking in the Young Female Singer/Songwriter subgenre. If It Was You doesn't break new musical ground, but that doesn't keep it from being one of the more pleasant surprises to surface in recent months” – Popmatters

Choice Cut: Time Running

The Con

Release Date: 24th July, 2007

Labels: Vapor/Sire/London

Producers: Tegan and Sara/Chris Walla

Standout Tracks: Are You Ten Years Ago/Burn Your Life Down/Floorplan

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-And-Sara-The-Con/master/58207

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4QjGIZZqvNrdkgw4LZKLZK?si=0lqdh8kGTXqX7gvQRXR-0g

Review:

“Although identical twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin first appeared in the music scene in the late '90s playing the kind of folk-rock and folk-punk more associated with other Lilith Fair (in which they participated) artists of the time, by the time 2007 rolled around they had moved into much poppier territory. It was a progression, to be sure, from This Business of Art to their fourth Vapor full-length -- one that can be heard in the time spent on production, the louder guitars -- but that still may not prepare listeners for The Con. Produced by Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla, the album is full of quirky, Aqueduct-like keyboards, punchy bass from Weezer's Matt Sharp and AFI's Hunter Burgan, and even some guitar help from Kaki King that stretch and shove their way into the spaces between Tegan and Sara's hook-driven melodies and clean harmonies, more complex than anything they've done before. Though each sister writes and sings lead on seven tracks, it is Sara especially who writes the more intricate pieces ("Relief Next to Me," "Like O, Like H"), showing a more adult songwriter, one who has matured since her first work came out, while Tegan draws more from simpler emo and pop-punk arrangements ("Nineteen," "Hop a Plane"), her songs more straightforward, both compositionally and lyrically, than her sister's. But this isn't to say that there's a kind of disparity or harsh contrast on The Con. Much like the duo's voices, which share a timbre, a clear relationship, even if their actual tonality differs, the songs on the album complement each other, play off the other's strengths, and make the record very much an entity instead of simply a collection of tracks, setting it off as an impressive step forward in their already commendable discography” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: The Con

Sainthood

Release Date: 26th October, 2009

Label: Sire

Producers: Chris Walla/Howard Redekopp

Standout Tracks: Hell/Red Belt/Paperback Head

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-And-Sara-Sainthood/master/203376

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5WEzg0qwsaTxv798ACtVTH

Review:

“The danceable, buzzy, ’80s-influenced pop-rock of Tegan & Sara has become increasingly common of late, thanks in part to fellow travelers like The Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That means the Quin sisters may not get the credit they deserve for the way they construct and deconstruct songs. More than just a throwback act, Tegan & Sara have a lot in common with Spoon in the way they tug at the edges of classic girl-group pop and R&B, emphasizing rhythmic punch while keeping their melodies clean and lyrics memorable. True, there’s something faintly robotic to the approach—more so than ever on the duo’s sixth LP, Sainthood, which is more or less a copy of 2007’s superb The Con—but the songs are so well-tooled that it’s hard to hold their precision against them.

Consider Sainthood’s “Arrow,” which puts a staccato beat under the repeated image of an arrow’s feathers brushing by; the lyrics offer a straightforward expression of unrequited love, contained within a song packed with restless energy. Throughout Sainthood, Tegan & Sara invest small, relatable subjects—the embarrassment of unconscious gestures, the loneliness of sexual yearning—with the urgency of a teenage love-note. And after wallowing in romantic martyrdom for roughly half an hour, the Quins end Sainthood with “Sentimental Tune” and “Someday,” a rousing one-two finale that aspires to real joy. It’s another inside-out move for Tegan & Sara; they’ve pulled apart self-doubt and found the self-regard that lines it” – The A.V. Club

Choice Cut: Alligator

Love You to Death

Release Date: 3rd June, 2016

Labels: Vapor/Warner Bros.

Producer: Greg Kurstin

Standout Tracks: That Girl/Dying to Know/White Knuckles

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-and-Sara-Love-You-To-Death/master/1009307

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0zqoBumDciJGNoOsvfTP5U

Review:

“Indeed, for all Tegan and Sara’s adoption by the queens of teen pop, Love You to Death feels like a distinctly grownup album, unafraid to explore nuanced, mature themes. There’s something unflinching about 100x’s description of a failed relationship, and there’s a disturbing darkness lurking around Dying to Know: if you were the ex addressed in the lyrics, you’d strongly consider applying for a restraining order, or at the very least changing your mobile number.

That Buzzfeed profile also found the duo – who once doubted that gay women could ever make it into the US pop charts at all – wondering how far their newfound success might go, whether they might end up headlining Madison Square Gardens or the O2. Maybe, maybe not; the pop world is pretty fickle, after all. But listening to Love You to Death, it’s certainly not impossible to imagine” – The Guardian

Choice Cut: Boyfriend

The Underrated Gem

 

So Jealous

Release Date: 14th September, 2004

Labels: Vapor/Sanctuary

Producers: Sara Quin/Tegan Quin/John Collins/David Carswell/Howard Redekopp

Standout Tracks: You Wouldn't Like Me/I Know I Know I Know/Fix You Up

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-and-Sara-So-Jealous/master/58198

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2yNhqBKfZPzrxRJqGMbSz9

Review:

“Tegan and Sara's third album, So Jealous, is by far their most ambitious and liveliest record, opening up their punk-folk sound with a heavy dose of new wave sensibility and pop hooks. They started moving in this direction on their previous album, but here they dive headfirst into slick, shiny surfaces, insistent synths, clean guitars, and bright, playful melodies that sound sunny even in minor keys. This musical revamp doesn't betray their nervy emotionalism. Instead, it focuses them, giving their music style and flair that focuses them while making the duo more accessible. And So Jealous is indeed the Tegan and Sara album that could play to a wider audience, but the group remains an acquired taste for one reason: their thin, squeaky voices and close harmonies can be grating to the uninitiated. Nevertheless, for those who have acquired that taste, So Jealous is the most satisfying album Tegan and Sara have yet made” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Walking with a Ghost

The Latest Album

 

Hey, I'm Just Like You

Release Date: 27th September, 2019

Label: Sire

Producer: Alex Hope

Standout Tracks: Hey, I'm Just Like You/Don't Believe the Things They Tell You (They Lie)/We Don't Have Fun When We're Together Anymore

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Tegan-and-Sara-Hey-Im-Just-Like-You/release/14185107

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4tnkPLLedgamtrRCDdpqwX

Review:

“When, on ‘Hello, I’m Free’, a souped-up version of the demo ‘Hello’, Sara Quinn sings a repurposed line such as, “Right now, I wish I was older”, her original snarled cry for connection strikes a slightly different tone. This time you sense that maybe she was singing about a vaguer and more elusive kind of experience, rather than age itself.

But set aside ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’s nifty concept and you’ll see that the record stands up without novelty value. ‘Hold My Breath Until I Die’ is a slightly macabre slab of slinking heartbreak; ‘Keep Them Close Cause They Will Fuck You Too’ glimmers and claws; and on the title track they finally score their first ever explicit song rating. It only took them nine studio albums to drop the F-Bomb – and here, it’s spat with delicious relish.

Some will perhaps hail this record as a return to the duo’s rockier roots, though that’s not necessarily true. Over the course of two decades, it’s been impossible to pin Tegan and Sara to one specific record or sonic direction. Place their snappy 2016 release ‘Love You To Death’ next to the synth-pop curveball ‘Heartthrob’, the punchy indie of ‘The Con’ or the biting ‘If It Was You’, and you’ll see a band that loves shaking things up. Their only truly consistent quality is their ability to cut straight to the emotional core.

Presented as verbatim reproductions, the songs on ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ would function as a pile of dogeared artists sketchbooks  – but picked up again and turned into hefty indie-pop bangers, this serves as an honest, vulnerable, and occasionally brutal reminder of what Tegan and Sara have always been best at” – NME

Choice Cut: I'll Be Back Someday

The Tegan and Sara Book

 

High School

Authors: Tegan Quin/Sara Quin

Publication Date (paperback): 17/11/2020

Publishers: Little/Brown Book Group

Synopsis:

“From iconic musicians Tegan and Sara comes a nostalgic memoir about high school, detailing their first loves and first songs in a compelling look back at their origin story.

'Genius' Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors

'A gift' Ellen Page, actress

'Utterly charming' Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

Before they became international musicians and LGBTQ+ icons, twin sisters Sara and Tegan Quin came of age in 90s Canada. They argued relentlessly, skipped school, dropped acid and fell in and out of love - sometimes with their best friends.

One day they found their stepdad's guitar and their lives changed course forever.

High School is a revelatory joint memoir. It captures two sisters wrestling with their sexual and artistic identities and those breathtaking years when the future seems wondrously possible” – Waterstones

Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/high-school/tegan-quin/sara-quin/9780349011981

FEATURE: Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure: Jennifer Lopez – If You Had My Love

FEATURE:

 

 

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

Jennifer Lopez – If You Had My Love

___________

I did have another song earmarked…

for this feature for today. I was going to include Michael Jackson’s Earth Song but, as there is still wariness about people supporting Jackson’s music, I have kept it aside. I may include it at some point, but I was nervy about throwing it out there. Instead, I am thinking of Jennifer Lopez. She has just put out a single, In the Morning, and its cover is a naked shot of her. It is an amazing photo and, at fifty-one, she looks unbelievable! That shot shows the sort of passion and confidence on the song and, so long after her debut album, On the 6, Jennifer Lopez remains a fantastic and popular artist. Her latest album, A.K.A. of 2014, received mixed reviews, but I hope there is another album coming along as her latest track shows her in fine form! Apart from music, Lopez is also a renowned and skilled actor – her role in Hustlers (2019) gained aplomb and critical congratulations. I promise the next song in this feature will be non-1990s – I might include something from the last couple of decades -, but I was keen to focus on Lopez as I think she is one of those artists who splits people. Many people see her music as a bit of a guilty pleasure because it, perhaps, doesn’t contain as much depth as a lot of her peers’ work. Although Lopez’s albums have divided people through the years, I think her 1999 debut album is a fantastic work.

This is me going back to school days but, when On the 6 arrived on 1st June, many of my friends were aware of Lopez but they were not fans of her music. A Spanish edition of the album was released on 24th November, 1999 (it would have been nice to hear Lopez sing in Spanish more on the non-Spanish release). There are some great songs through On the 6. Lopez worked with producers like Rodney Jerkins, and Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs - so there was so much experience on board to help mould the songs! There was a transformation between Lopez’s 1999 debut and 2001’s J.Lo – that moniker coming into full force on an album that was less immediate and memorable as her debut. I will bring in a review for On the 6 soon, but I think one of its best songs, If You Had My Love, deserves new love. Again, it is a song that only gets played on certain songs and I think some would feel a bit wary of confessing a love of the track! I really like the tone of Lopez’s voice: sultry and warm with plenty of versatility and strength. A lot of R&B/Pop artists in 1999 were known for being a bit processed and generic, but I think you can hear something different and unique about Lopez. She displays plenty of passion and personality through the entire album; If You Had My Love is a gem and song that showcases Lopez’s skills as a vocalist and interpreter.

Many felt that Lopez’s voice was a bit thin, lacked punch and was not that rounded. If You Had My Love was the first single released from the album on 4th May, 1999. It is a slinky, sexy and catchy song that was written by Rodney Jerkins, LaShawn Daniels, and Cory Rooney. The blend of R&B, Latin rhythms and Pop makes the song accessible, but it also sounds a lot broader and more nuanced than a lot of music from that time. If You Had My Love was a big hit for Lopez, and it reached number-one in many nations. Even if the rest of On the 6 did not get a hugely positive reaction from some, If You Had My Love has been highlighted as a standout. It is interesting learning a bit about the passage before her debut single and how Jennifer Lopez came into music. Working on Selena (1997), a biographical film about American singer-songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, that inspired her to launch a music career. Her decision to launch a musical career was seen as a risk as transitioning from film to music was not always smooth and successful. In a Wikipedia article on the song, we learn more about If You Had My Love:

“According to Cory Rooney, one of the song's co-writers, Lopez was almost finished recording On the 6 when Rooney and Jerkins played a CD playlist of songs for Michael Jackson, which included "If You Had My Love." Rooney believed the song was "perfect for Jennifer", and hoped that Jackson would not take it. Rooney recalled: "The music begins and Michael starts moving and shaking to it and he goes, 'Man, I like this one.' My heart sunk. Then he says, 'I don’t like it for me, but I like it. It's gonna be a hit for someone else.'"

 Rooney said that he and LaShawn Daniels wrote "If You Had My Love" later that day. Conversely, journalist Damien Shields stated in 2015 that Rooney had Lopez record the song in 1998, and that it had already been allocated to her when Jackson heard it. Jackson thought it had a "really great groove" and briefly considered recording it. Shields said: "Everyone's like, 'Shit, now we’re going to have to argue with the King of Pop because that's already going to be Jennifer's first song and it's already in motion and is going to radio in two months.' How do you possibly tell Michael Jackson no?" Jackson passed on the song, believing it was better suited for a female singer. "It was the only one of Rodney's songs that he gravitated towards, but he also had the intuition to know that a female should sing it for it realize its best potential," Shields noted.

Lyrically, the song resembles a conversation, in which Lopez confronts her admirer in an "insistent" manner with a number of ground rules before they can begin a relationship. MTV's James Dinh said Lopez "lets her insecurities get the best of her" on the track. Billboard writer Leslie Richin wrote that it "served as a cautionary tale for admirers who might one day have a chance with the budding starlet. Bottom line: liars and cheaters need not apply." In the song's opening lines, Lopez states: "Now if I gave you me, this is how it's got to be / First of all I won't take you cheatin' on me / Tell me who can I trust if I can't trust in you / And I refuse to let you play me for a fool.”

In the chorus, she poses the question: "If you had my love / And I gave you all my trust... / Would you lie to me / And call me baby?” Lopez explained in her book True Love (2014) that the lyrics refer to "the beginning of a new relationship and what I expect and what I want," saying that "there's a little bit of fear in there too, and a feeling of, what will you do if I give you my heart?" The verses consist of her "trying to lay down the rules", while the chorus expresses "all of the fear" that she feels. Jocelyn Vena of MTV News noted that "If You Had My Love" marked the beginning of Lopez exploring the topic of love, which she has continued throughout her career”.

If You Had My Love is a fantastic debut single and I am glad that this song was marked as the first from the album. Other singles from On the 6 such as Waiting for Tonight are great, but I have a very soft spot for If You Had My Love. I think there was snobbishness and dubiousness from many when people learned Lopez was an actor coming into music. I think some dismissed the album without really listening to it, but soon Lopez was this major star and appearing in huge films!

Subsequent albums have seen her increase in confidence and explore new styles, but I think she was at her very best on her fantastic debut! I want to bring in a positive review from AllMusic before concluding with my feelings about If You Had My Love:

“Jennifer Lopez's debut album, On the 6, showcases the actress' sultry, versatile voice in a number of settings, including pop ballads, Latin pop, and R&B. Star producers like Sean "Puffy" Combs, Trackmasters, and Emilio Estefan, Jr. lend their talents to the album, making On the 6 a perfectly polished and varied album, which features a musical blend Lopez calls "Latin soul." Smooth ballads such as "Should've Never," "Too Late," "Could This Be Love," and "No Me Ames," a duet with Latin superstar Marc Anthony, dominate the album's first half; while these songs show off the gentler side of Lopez's vocal gifts, they tend to sound too similar. It's on the R&B and Latin-tinged tracks where Lopez really shines. Along with the insistent first single "If You Had My Love," cuts like "Feelin' So Good" and "Let's Get Loud" have a fiery, soulful sound more in keeping with Lopez's public persona. On the 6's second half capitalizes on this spicy, upbeat side, particularly on "Waiting for Tonight" and "Open off My Love," which draws inspiration from rap, R&B, and Latin styles with its sparse arrangement of horns, keyboards, and beats. The tropical remix of "No Me Ames" and "Una Noche Mas," the Spanish version of "Waiting for Tonight," emphasize Lopez's distinctive heritage, which elevates On the 6 from a star's vanity project to an individual but accessible work of pop songcraft by a widely talented performer”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jennifer Lopez at the 2000 GRAMMY Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: AP Images

Few would have predicted Jennifer Lopez would be recording music over twenty years after On the 6 came out in 1999, but it is down to her incredible pull and talent as a performer that she is still very popular and has this enormous fanbase! I think the fact she is a great actor feeds into her music and helps when it comes to her recordings and live performances. At fourteen tracks, there is a lot packed into On the 6 and there is a blend of English and Spanish songs. Maybe there are one or two songs that could have been removed, but I think the songwriting and production is amazing and the tracklisting is spot on. Opening the album with real panache and sultriness, If You Had My Love is a song that deserves more airtime and respect now. I know that some see Jennifer Lopez’s music as a guilty pleasure and many prefer her an actor rather than an artist. I have always had a lot of time for her music and, despite one or two weaker albums, she remains very underrated. On the 6 is a phenomenal album and you can see why If You Had My Love impressed critics! Despite the fact I first heard the song back in 1999 at school, the tremendous If You Had My Love is…

STILL in my head and thoughts.

FEATURE: Pull Out the Pin: Kate Bush, the Producer

FEATURE:

 

 

Pull Out the Pin

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush working hard in the studio in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from his book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow) 

Kate Bush, the Producer

___________

I was looking through all features I have…

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

put out regarding Kate Bush, but I don’t think I have dedicated an entire one to her as a producer. Recently, BBC Radio 6 Music tweeted asking people who their favourite producer was. We can all name people like Sir George Martin, Quincy Jones, Tony Visconti or the well-known producers but, to me, Kate Bush must be seen as one of the greatest and most influential producers ever. I think many people associate her as being a singer and songwriter but, actually, I think her production work is as important as anything! Whilst Bush had a very limited production role on The Kick Inside, and Lionheart – none on the former and a slight role on the latter -, she began to become much more involved with production from her third album, Never for Ever, in 1980. Andrew Powell produced her first two albums wonderfully, but I think there was always a desire from Bush to be more involved putting songs together and calling the shots regarding the other musicians. As the artist, she would be able to give instructions to the musicians but, when it came to takes and getting things to sound like she wanted them then the majority of that would have been done by Powell. Bush has said in interviews how important it was for her to produce her own work and, so many years down the line, the thought or working with a producer would not have been welcomed - the fact that she might not have taken direction well.

I can see what she means regarding someone else moulding her music when, actually, she knows what she wants her songs to sound like – so it seems redundant having someone else leading her. 1979’s The Tour of Life was, in a sense, Bush’s biggest production role to that point, and I think the success and reception the tour received confirmed to her that she should produce - and one can feel her confidence and ambition growing! As I said before, it would not have been possible or reasonable for Bush to produce her debut album alone, as she was still very new to the music industry - and having more experienced hands putting the album together was something EMI would have been insistent about. I can see why Bush was eager to produce right from the start because, although she was in great hands, maybe the vision laid out on her first couple of albums was not as she saw it. From 1980, she was expanding her sound and producing these more experimental, layered and diverse songs. Maybe she was marketed and directed a certain way in the early days but, when she was allowed more reign, she transformed into a stunning producer! Bush did co-produce with Jon Kelly on Never for Ever, but I think a lot of the more original and unusual choices regarding sound and direction were hers. That is definitely true when she solo-produced 1982’s The Dreaming. The fact that the album is so rich and overflowing with texture is testament to her talent; in lesser hands, it could have been a disaster. With so many options and technology around her I think her production work on the album is amazing!

Even though Bush was working at different studios for that album and really did push herself to the physical and emotional limits, I think the fact so many did not know how to view and experience the album when it came out is testament to Bush’s endless fascination with the studio and how to use it o progress her work. Her production style is never too raw or polished and one does not get endless vocal layers and needless sound effects – that would happen a bit in The Red Shoes in 1993 but, for the most part, she strikes a great balance. I think the mark of a top producer is knowing when a track has had enough work done to and, in some cases, how little things can improve a song. I am not sure what the working procedure was like on Bush’s first two albums but, by all account, she was a delight to work with and would only need occasional prodding – a few occasions of Bush smoking weed and not being too focused have been revealed but, I think, that just adds to her coolness! She was definitely focused as a producer and, when working with musicians, she would do as many takes as required to get the sound right. If a particular musician did not give the right performance then she would change it. She was diplomatic and kind, but she was also uncompromising when it came to her vision! When reading about Bush and life in the studio, you get all these different sides.

Whereas a lot of producers would be quite hands-off with musicians and not interact too much, Bush was very communicative and hospitable. Whether it was getting tea and making sure people were fed or working through a song until everything clicked, it must have been a huge pleasure for musicians who got to work with her! Maybe at the start there was the impression from some of the musicians and people around her that she was slightly out of her water but, as she asked more questions and learned more about the process, Bush really stepped into her groove. 1985’s Hounds of Love saw her move from the city to the country and construct her own studio with modern equipment. There was resistance from EMI after The Dreaming’s relatively poor commercial performance - but Bush was determined to produce. The key that unlocked Hounds of Love’s success was changing her environment and really fulfilling a desire to unite home and work. Graeme Thomson notes in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life & Work of Kate Bush, that, as early as Lionheart, Bush wanted to create a recording environment where she was less on the clock and she could have this homely environment where the comfort and lack of stress allowed her to excel as an artist and producer. I think, because things started to blossom from 1983, Bush could throw herself into work more without burning out.

Even though Bush’s musical path was less academic and more self-taught, she worked hard with musicians to explain what she wanted to hear; small kernels would blossom and there was this collaborative environment where magic happened. She added a further percussive layer to Jig of Life, and Charlie Morgan was handed a selection of Irish instruments. I love the fact that Bush was as accomplished and experimental a producer as anyone she worked with. Maybe inspired by her childhood and being surrounded by so much different music, she was using a range of instruments and creating music that was so bold, original and different to anything else! I think albums like Hounds of Love sounds so great is because Bush created this warm and inspiring atmosphere for her musicians and team – and that continued going forward. Even though, by the time of The Red Shoes in 1993, her sound was a little more compressed and not quite as warm as her earlier albums – due to changing technology and the more edgy sound of digital recording -, she was still creating these brilliant albums that sounded like nothing she released before.

Even though other musicians worked on her albums post-1993 she was working at home, and I think Bush was keen to have as few bodies in her studio and to keep things a bit simple. 2005’s Aerial is quite different in terms of the family/home dynamic – Bush became a mother in 1998 and would have to balance motherhood and music; she would record in bursts -; what resulted over the double album is immense. Her partner, Danny McIntosh, would pick up musicians and played guitar, whilst her trusty engineer, Del Palmer, was there setting up and organising the nuts and bolts. I think we underestimate and undervalue Bush’s legacy in terms of her production and how big a part of their success and legacy is down to her being behind the desk! It is amazing to think how much work she put into her albums from Never for Ever onwards in terms of writing, performing and producing! She is an amazingly likeable, intuitive, hard-working and inspirational producer who has influenced a legion of fans and fellow musicians. From her studio methods and eclectic approach to genre and various sounds through to her working methods in the studio, there is no domain where she is not queen! As a producer, I think that Kate Bush must rank as…

ONE of the best ever.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Dolly Parton - Better Day

FEATURE:

 

Second Spin

 Dolly Parton - Better Day

___________

ON 19th January, it will be…

the seventy-fifth birthday of the iconic Dolly Parton. Her latest album, A Holly Dolly Christmas, is her forty-seventh – and it received some positive reviews. It is amazing to think how successful and consistent Parton has been and how long her career has lasted. From Hello, I'm Dolly in 1967 through to now, she has released some truly terrific albums! One of her best, 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs, turned forty earlier this month and, from working with Porter Wagoner through the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s to her solo work, there has been nobody like Dolly Parton. She has been in the news recently, as it was revealed she played an important role when it came to funding a successful COVID-19 vaccine:

“Country star Dolly Parton has said she feels "very honoured and proud" to have given money to research into one of the most promising Covid-19 vaccines.

In April she announced she was giving $1m (£750,000) to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

That was one of the trial sites for the Moderna vaccine, which is nearly 95% effective according to early data.

Speaking on BBC One's The One Show on Tuesday, Parton said she was "so excited" to hear the news.

"I'm sure many millions of dollars from many people went into that," she told co-presenters Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas.

"But I just felt so proud to have been part of that little seed money that will hopefully grow into something great and help to heal this world".

From her music, through to her Imagination Library, there seems to be no end to Parton’s positive sides! Although she is an artist who has remained loved through her career, there has been a few albums that have gained mixed reception. 2011’s Better Day got some love from some, but there were others that were less keen on it. I would encourage people to listen to the album as it is underrated and contains some of her finest songs of the last decade. Better Day debuted at number fifty-one on the Billboard 200 albums chart with first week sales of 17,500. The album also debuted at number-eleven on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. In the U.K., the album was released on 29th August, 2011 and debuted at number-nine on the UK Album Charts - becoming Parton's highest-charting studio album here as well as becoming a number-one on the UK Country Albums Chart. It is clear that the fans love the album, but there have been some who were not so convinced! Parton said in interviews how the songs are thematically linked in terms of hopefulness and inspiration. From warfare and natural disasters to economic strife, Parton was looking around and felt an album with a sunnier heart was what we needed! In this interview with The National Post, she talked about her songwriting:

“I don’t write just to relieve my own anxieties, I write for the people who can’t express themselves,” says Parton, who was encouraged to pursue a career in music after a chance meeting at the Grand Ole Opry with Johnny Cash. “I can’t save the world, but I might be able to save someone today if I can put them in a better mood. The music’s designed to be like a ray of sunshine for all those folks in the dark.”

“I write a little something every day — half a song or a melody or else two or three songs — writing’s the easy part,” she says. “The only difficult part of the matter is seeing everything that you start all the way through. I take my music very seriously, but I’ve never looked at myself that way. I’m only out here to try and make people feel good”.

Better Day is very much a resistance against a lot of tension and strife that was in the world in 2011. I think, in an even tougher year, Better Day seems more appropriate! I want to bring in a couple of reviews soon – one is positive whilst the other is a bit more mixed – but, before then, I want to source from an interview in The Guardian from 2011. I was not too aware of Parton’s background until a few years ago; I did mnot realise what her early life was like. Maybe it is not linked directly to Better Day, but it makes for interesting reading:

“Speaking of those millions, a huge part of Parton's legend is her poverty-stricken backstory and she makes as many references to what she calls her "hillbilly ways" in conversation as she does in her songs. "I'm just a simple silly country girl!" she says more than once. It should perhaps be interjected here that this simple silly country girl owns 15 properties spread out between Tennessee and California. Her management takes great pains to tell me later that Parton prefers to travel by bus than plane when she tours, as though this proves her simplicity. But it transpires that shipping the Dolly buses to Australia for her upcoming tour will cost $1m each. As Parton has said of herself many times, it costs a lot to look that cheap.

Parton was born and raised in the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee, the fourth of 11 surviving children. Her father, a sharecropper, couldn't afford to pay the doctor who delivered her and so gave him a sack of cornmeal, leading to Parton's oft-repeated joke about how she's been "making dough ever since". She began singing on the radio as a child and went to Nashville to start recording and singing songs as soon as she graduated from high school.

"Back in those days people said it was hard for women to get into the business but I always felt being a woman served me well. I had all these brothers and uncles so I understood the nature of men and I didn't go in there feeling all intimidated. I just went in there and said: 'Hey! I have a good product here and we can all make some money here if y'all wanna get involved with it”.

I think songs like Together You and I, and Just Leaving are really strong Parton cuts and there is plenty of gold to be mined across Better Day! It is an album I have been listening to a bit as, because of its optimism and desire to cheer, there is a lot to recommend. In their review of the album, Popmatters had this to offer:

“Musically, the album is more reminiscent of the pop sheen of her '80s albums crossed with the earnestness of her late '90s/early '00s bluegrass albums. The specificity and spunk of her last album, 2008's Backwoods Barbie, have been more or less forsaken for an attempt at intimacy, where the songs all resemble messages between people, whether it's from one lover to another, from one person to their god or from Dolly Parton to all of humankind. Often, a song could be all of these. They seldom seem to be about one specific person or set of events; they’re more purposefully generic, designed to resonate with the most people at once. Think of this as Dolly’s Life Lessons.

 The exceptions, in the general vs. specific balance, are the jokey “Country Is As Country Does”, where Parton (assisted by Mac Davis, in the album’s lone co-write) maintains that she’s inherently country, even when doing rich-people things like eating sushi in a mansion, and “Get Out and Stay Out”, the most devastating of the love songs. It’s devastating because it’s a tale of how love can turn into abuse, and because she sings it delicately, to reveal her character’s frailty, which is more powerful since the song becomes a forceful kiss-off and statement of self-determination. By the end, she’s built up to a fervor, one filled with joy at the expression of independence. On “I Just Might”, she sounds even more fragile, lost; again building with determination -- “I just might make it work / I just might make it after all” – though there’s uncertainty in that “just might” phrase.

These songs leave room for weakness, even as Parton often resembles a motivational speaker. “Shine Like the Sun” captures her essential message well: Don’t give up, we all hurt, but we all can heal and move forward, can always improve. Life is filled with lies and tears, but we should always keep pushing ahead. The same message is turned outward in “Let Love Grow”: Take a chance, be good to people, and great things can happen. “Hindsight’s always out to blind you / Look ahead and not behind you.” The song turns into a joyous singalong: “If I could, I’d ease your doubts for good,” she sings, always the maternal figure, watching out for us all”.

There are constructive points in that review but, to me, I think Better Day has very few flaws and (the album) hits all the right notes! I think Parton’s previous album, Backwoods Barbie, of 2008 was another strong album that deserved more acclaim – I think she was in fine form through these years. In a more positive review, AllMusic remarked the following:

“As she cruises into her mid-sixties, it’s comforting to know that Dolly Parton has lost none of her joy and vitality, and her 41st studio album, Better Day, released on her own Dolly Records imprint, is an energetic, spirited, and hopeful outing that rocks and soars with enough musical sunshine to light up even the grayest day. It simply crackles with joy and hope, and where in lesser hands such boundless good will might seem artificially forced and naïve, Parton pulls it off because, well, she’s Dolly Parton. Lost sometimes in her status as a pop and country icon is the fact that Parton has always written good songs, and she penned all 12 here, and her longtime guitar player Kent Wells, who produced things, has given her a big and bright contemporary country sound that should garner her a good deal of radio time in a fair and equitable world. There are several gems here, including the rocking and soaring opener, “In the Meantime,” the simply lovely “Somebody’s Missing You,” which features background vocals from Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss, and the clever title tune, “Better Day,” which starts off with a spoken intro from Parton before morphing into a blues, and it is easily the most positive and hopeful blues song anyone is ever likely to hear. Parton has stated that there’s enough trouble and bad news in the world these days and that she wanted to record the brightest and most hopeful album she could make, and she’s done that. Better Day has the feel and tone of gospel, the rock and punch of contemporary country-pop, and it stays steadfast in its mission to add something positive to the world. She may be a senior citizen as far as the IRS is concerned, but Parton has never sounded fresher or more spirited, and with “Somebody’s Missing You” in particular, she shows she still knows how to write a timeless song”.

Go and spin Better Day if you can, as it is an album that ranks alongside the best of Parton’s more recent albums – if we look at how many albums she had put out! -; one that has some brilliant music and some incredible performances. This year has seen some positive and fun albums come out, but I feel there is a lot of anxiety and sadness right now. For that reason, an album like Dolly Parton’s Better Day…

MEANS quite a lot right now.