FEATURE: Sky Fits Heaven: Madonna’s Drowned World Tour at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Sky Fits Heaven

Madonna’s Drowned World Tour at Twenty

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IN 2021…

there are a few Madonna anniversaries to mark. Various singles and albums will/have celebrated big anniversaries. I think that marking various tour anniversaries is important, as it looks back at an important time in her career. The Drowned World Tour/Drowned World Tour 2001 is twenty this year. I think 2001 was a pivotal year in Madonna’s career. After releasing the iconic Ray of Light album in 1998 and following that with the excellent Music of 2000, she was embarking on this new phase in her career. Almost thirty years after her debut single, Everybody, was released, the Queen of Pop was still very much on the throne. I am interested in her tours and the concepts/tracks performed at each. Whilst the Drowned World Tour might not be as memorable and game-changing as The Blond Ambition World Tour (billed as Blond Ambition World Tour 90), it did bring together songs from two of her biggest albums. Although the setlists changed from night to night, a typical setlist shows what lucky crowds might have experienced on one of the nights. I think that the Drowned World Tour is really important. I will drop in a couple of videos to  give a sense of what audiences witnessed during that run. I shall go on to an important date that fell during the tour that could have disrupted it hugely. Before that, some background regarding a hugely popular Madonna tour:

“The Drowned World Tour (billed as Drowned World Tour 2001) was the fifth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna in support of her seventh and eighth studio albums Ray of Light (1998) and Music (2000), respectively. The tour began on June 9, 2001 in Barcelona, Spain and ended in Los Angeles, California on September 15 of the same year. It was her first tour in eight years, following The Girlie Show in 1993. The tour was supposed to start in 1999, but was delayed until 2001 as Madonna gave birth to her son, married Guy Ritchie, was working on Music, and was busy filming The Next Best Thing. When the tour was decided, Madonna appointed Jamie King as choreographer and the tour was planned in a short timespan of three months, including signing up the dancers, musicians and technicians. Designer Jean-Paul Gaultier was the costume designer who designed the costumes in such way that they indicated different phases of Madonna's career. The poster and logo for the tour included references to Kabbalah, which Madonna studied.

The show was divided into five segments, namely Cyber-Punk, Geisha, Cowgirl, Spanish, and Ghetto. The setlist consisted mainly of songs from the last two studio albums released at that point, with 4 songs from previous albums added. The first segment displayed high-energy performances with Madonna wearing a kilt and dominatrix-style costumes. In the geisha segment performances Madonna wore a kimono and later performed airborne martial arts. Acoustic songs were performed in the country segment which featured Madonna in cowboy costumes. The Latin segment featured flamenco dancing and the last segment featured ghetto-themed performances. Drowned World Tour was critically appreciated from contemporary critics who complimented her ability to re-invent continuously.

This article gives you more information regarding a tour that was meant to start in 1999 - The tour was supposed to start in then, but was delayed until 2001 as Madonna gave birth to her son, got married to Guy Ritchie, was working on Music, and was busy filming The Next Best Thing. Whilst Madonna went around the world and received great reviews, the terrorist attacks on 11th September must have come as a huge shock. I think about artists who were touring at that time and how they must have felt. She postponed her 11th September date, though the 13th September date was very emotional:

“On September 13 2001, Madonna resumed the final string of dates on her Drowned World Tour after having postponed the September 11th show due to the terrorist attacks in New York. She donated the proceeds from her second Los Angeles concert on the 13th to benefit children who were orphaned following the tragic attacks that killed thousands of parents.

Several changes were made to soften some of the show’s violent theatrics for the final three shows: at the end of the Geisha segment she was lowered from the stage with her arm around the dancer’s shoulder instead of shooting him; her kilt in the opening section was changed to an American flag design; she did not perform The Funny Song but instead took the opportunity to share some more serious thoughts with the audience.

Madonna told the crowd at the Staples Center:

“Any of you who purchased a ticket to the show tonight will be contributing to a fund that will be for children orphaned by this tragedy, so thank you all. Now on a personal note I think that each and every one of us should look inside our own hearts and examine our own personal acts of terrorism, hatred, intolerance, negativity, the list goes on and on, we’re all responsible. If you are homophobic or racist or hate, you contributed to this disaster. It’s not just Bin Laden, it’s all of us, we’ve all contributed to hatred in the world today. And I would like to have one minute of silence to say a prayer for those who have died; to say a prayer for the friends and families of those who have died; to say a prayer for the rescuers who have worked night and day to rescue people from the rubble. And most of all say a prayer for anyone who thinks that it is right to kill in the name of God. Where there is violence, there is no God. Let’s have a moment of silence. Hold hands with those around you. Or stay still and reflect.”

A minute of silence followed before Madonna launched into Secret, which she prefaced by adding:

“One more thing–if you want to change the world, you must first start with yourself!”.

I will end with a review from one of the nights from The New York Times. It seemed like it was pretty stirring and striking being in the audience and witnessing the Drowned World Tour:

“It has been a long time since Madonna styled herself as a ''boy toy''; now everyone, boy or girl, is her plaything. What comes through her songs is an adamant determination. While her music still seeks to please pop ears, Madonna has long since given up flirting. And if she's narcissistic, her narcissism is backed up by the fact that people have been watching her for all those years.

The concert was a set of angry kiss-offs (''Human Nature''), non- apologies (''Nobody's Perfect''), nightmares (''Mer Girl,'' by far Madonna's strangest song), self-help manifestoes (''Frozen'') and metaphysics (''Ray of Light,'' in which she flies faster than light).

''What It Feels Like for a Girl,'' Madonna's quasi-feminist statement, turned up twice: first as a near-instrumental with Japanese anime cartoons showing a girl pursued, trapped and sexually abused, and later sung in Spanish with a pumping electronic beat.

Madonna has, as always, been diligent. Her voice sounded fuller and smoother than on previous tours, and she confidently exposed it in the ballads ''You'll See'' and ''I Deserve It,'' post-breakup songs that insist she'll recover. She picked up a guitar every so often, playing a punk girl at one point and a country gal (singing a ditty about cannibalism with a put-on Southern drawl) later. And while she danced more sparingly than she has in previous tours, she still made herself an object of authority and desire.

The female dancers and the two female backup singers often came forward to share Madonna's steps. The male dancers, however, followed her slavishly, throwing themselves at her only to be spurned. At one point, they were suspended high overhead by their feet, arduously curling themselves upward only to fall back again.

Through it all, Madonna made a display of arrogance, tossing off profanities, striking tough postures and glaring more often than she smiled. She represents self-love backed by plenty of gym time and a whole troupe of devoted flunkies -- enough to delight an audience she only seems to disdain. ''Music makes the people come together,'' she sang in the finale -- together, that is, if Madonna is in charge”.

I will leave it there. I think it is important to mark big anniversaries concerning iconic artists. Having not seen the Drowned World Tour myself, I have watched videos and seen photos and have got a sense of the atmosphere and drama. Aside from the horror of the terrorist attacks in September – that would have moved Madonna hugely -, it was a huge success. Even though the tour was restricted to North America and Europe (Madonna skipped Canada), all dates of sold out within minutes of going on sale. There were reports that the Drowned World Tour earned $76.8 million from forty-seven summer sold-out shows and eventually played in front of 730,000 people throughout North America and Europe, averaging at $1.6 million ($2.34 million in 2020 dollars per show. Drowned World Tour became the highest-grossing concert tour of 2001 by a solo artist, as well as the fourth highest-grossing among all, behind U2, N Sync and the Backstreet Boys (thanks to Wikipedia for that information). On 9th June, many Madonna fans around the world will mark twenty years…

SINCE one of the most-successful tours ever started.

FEATURE: A Case of You: Joni Mitchell’s Blue at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

A Case of You

Joni Mitchell’s Blue at Fifty

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I will put out a few features…

regarding Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Her iconic and genius album turns fifty on 22nd June. I would urge people to investigate the personnel, background and information regarding the album as it is fascinating. Arriving a year after the phenomenal Ladies of the Canyon, Blue took Mitchell’s work to a new level. I am going to bring in a couple of features/reviews in a bit. First, a little overview regarding a masterful album:

“Blue is the fourth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on June 22, 1971, by Reprise Records. Written and produced entirely by Mitchell, it was recorded in 1971 at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California. Created just after her breakup with Graham Nash, and during an intense relationship with James Taylor, Blue explores various facets of relationships from infatuation on "A Case of You" to insecurity on "This Flight Tonight". The songs feature simple accompaniments on piano, guitar and Appalachian dulcimer. The album peaked at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart, number 9 on the Canadian RPM Albums Chart and number 15 on the Blllboard 200.

Today, Blue is generally regarded by music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time; the way Mitchell's songwriting, compositions and voice all work together are frequent areas of praise. In January 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented "turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music". In 2020, Blue was rated the third greatest album of all time in Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", the highest entry by a female artist. It was also voted number 24 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). In July 2017, Blue was chosen by NPR as the greatest album of all time made by a woman”.

I feel each of the ten tracks are flawless. With their own sound and story, there is a lot of variety on the album. Whilst the acoustic guitar, to me, is the dominant instrument, I think that the compositions are rich and wide-ranging. I have heard some call Blue a simple Folk album. There is something more soulful and eclectic to be found. Perfectly sequenced so we open with the gorgeous All I Want, with the title track in the middle of the pack, and working up to the finale, The Last Time I Saw Richard, everyone has their favourites. I might do a tracks ranking in a future feature. If I had to select three tracks from the album that are my favourite, I would pick Carey, Blue and A Case of You. Before getting to an extensive and interesting review from Rolling Stone, this feature in Americana UK caught my eye. They discuss (among other things) the inspiration behind the tracks:

“The songs on ‘Blue’ were largely inspired by various relationships Mitchell had seen crumble in the years before she laid down said album; Graham Nash – of Crosby & Stills fame – was one such relationship, inspiring ‘My Old Man’ and ‘River’, while her romance with James Taylor saw her writing ‘This Flight Tonight’, ‘All I Want’, and the titular ‘Blue’. The songs ‘Carey’ and ‘California’ came together during Mitchell’s trip through Europe in the spring of 1970, the former of the two based around a holiday romance she had in Greece. The remaining three songs that make up the collection (‘All I Want’, ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’ and ‘Little Green’) were composed a few years earlier but didn’t end up being recorded until 1970 with the rest of the tracks.

One of the beautiful things about the album is how distinct each song feels, their stories unique and captivating; to try and pour over each of these would require something of almost novel length, so instead we’ll stick to a few of the most compelling tracks – even if that’s a very difficult selection to make.

The background on aforementioned ‘Little Green’ is fascinating: Mitchell wrote the song in 1966, expressing the feelings she had upon placing her daughter up for adoption the previous year. She had fallen pregnant at age 20 while attending art college, and with abortion not an option, had decided that to give the child up was the only choice she had left (she concealed her pregnancy as best she could because, as she would later reflect, the shame cast upon young, unmarried and pregnant women was immense: “You have no idea what the stigma was. It was like you murdered somebody,” she said). After the birth, she was kept in the hospital for almost two weeks due to complications, which meant she had time to forge a bond with her daughter, and thus decided to rush into a marriage of convenience to keep her. The marriage (to the man it is largely accepted was the inspiration behind the last track on ‘Blue’, ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’) fell apart within a month and ultimately, Mitchell felt she had no choice but to give up her child. “Born with the moon in Cancer / Choose her a name she will answer to / Call her green and the winters cannot fade her / Call her green for the children who’ve made her / Little green, be a gypsy dancer,” she sings heartbreakingly to the gentle strum of an acoustic guitar of the girl that she named Kelly (hence the reference to green with its kelly hue). The story has a happy ending of sorts in that Mitchell was finally reunited with her daughter in 1997.

The album’s title track features a suitably haunting piano melody to accompany lyrics that touch on the subject of dark depression. “You know I’ve been to sea before / Crown and anchor me / Or let me sail away,” Mitchell begs with depression not to consume her. “Well, there’s so many sinking now / You gotta keep thinking / You can make it through these waves / Acid, booze, and ass / Needles, guns, and grass / Lots of laughs,” she offers with scorn on the bridge, seeing the hollowness of what relief these pursuits offer. “Blue, I love you,” she eventually admits, coming to terms with a sadness that will forever haunt her.

‘River’ is a bonafide classic, having been recorded by other artists some 400 plus times – mostly for Christmas albums and compilations. While the song itself isn’t about the festive season, it does open with the immortal lines, “It’s coming on Christmas / They’re cutting down trees / They’re putting up reindeer / And singing songs of joy and peace,” which, along with the twinkling piano work throughout and its echoes of ‘Jingle Bells’, invokes feelings of the winter solstice. This is no cheery tale however; instead it sees Mitchell wishing to escape the emotional ties of a bad relationship that has recently ended. “I wish I had a river so long / I would teach my feet to fly / Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on / I made my baby cry,” she tells us longingly on the chorus.

While ‘A Case of You’ may not receive as many official recordings by other artists as ‘River’ (or her most re-recorded song ‘Both Sides Now’), it has become a standard for a certain type of singer-songwriter; one who enjoys a picture painted with words in a way few other artists could ever manage. In fact, a better opening chorus surely does not exist: “Just before our love got lost you said / “I am as constant as a northern star” / And I said, “Constantly in the darkness / Where’s that at? / If you want me I’ll be in the bar”,” Mitchell sings with a weary resentment. “On the back of a cartoon coaster,” she continues, “In the blue TV screen light / I drew a map of Canada / Oh, Canada / With your face sketched on it twice.”

While ‘Blue’ may be almost 50 years old, it has a timeless quality, and the influences it has had on some of the greatest singer-songwriters that have emerged this millennium are easy to hear. One such artist is Brandi Carlile, who in October 2019 performed the entirety of ‘Blue’. Before the performance, Carlile summed up the legacy of Mitchell about as perfectly as can be done: “We didn’t live in the time of Shakespeare, Rembrandt or Beethoven,” she said, “but we live in the time of Joni Mitchell”.

There will be a lot of celebration and focus ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of Blue. I am keen to go deep and investigate some of the tracks closely. Mitchell recently gave a rare interview. In my opinion, we will hear new music from her in years to come. I wonder what she thinks of Blue now and whether it is an album that she recalls and cherishes. Whilst a lot of the emotion and rawness of Blue suggests that it was quite a hard album to write and sing, there is so much beauty and grace. Before I wrap up, I wanted to draw in a review from Rolling Stone (from, I think, 1971):

“The last time I saw Joni Mitchell perform was a year and a half ago at Boston's Symphony Hall, in one of her final appearances before she forswore the concert circuit for good. Fragile, giggly and shy, she had the most obvious case of nerves I have ever seen in a professional singer. Her ringing soprano cracked with stage fright and her frightened eyes refused to make contact with the audience. It wasn't until well into the second half of the concert that she settled down and began to enjoy herself; even then it seemed clear that she would have preferred a much smaller audience perhaps a cat by a fireside.

Joni Mitchell's singing, her songwriting, her whole presence give off a feeling of vulnerability that one seldom encounters even in the most arty reaches of the music business. In "For Free," her one song about songwriting, she declared that she sang "for fortune and those velvet curtain calls." But she long ago renounced the curtain calls; and her songs, like James Taylor's, are only incidentally commercial: Her primary purpose is to create something meaningful out of the random moments of pain and pleasure in her life.

IN THIS PHOTO: James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Bernstein 

In the course of Joni's career, her singing style has remained the same but her basically autobiographical approach to lyrics has grown increasingly explicit. The curious mixture of realism and romance that characterized Joni Mitchell and Clouds (with their sort of "instant traditional" style, so reminiscent of Childe ballads) gradually gave way to the more contemporary pop music modern language of Ladies of the Canyon. Gone now was the occasionally excessive feyness of "Rows and rows of angel hair/And ice cream castles in the air"; in their place was an album that contained six very unromanticized accounts of troubled encounters with men.

Like Ladies, Blue is loaded with specific references to the recent past; it is less picturesque and old-fashioned sounding than Joni's first two albums. It is also the most focused album: Blue is not only a mood and a kind of music, it is also Joni's name for her paramour. The fact that half the songs on the album are about him give it a unity which Ladies lacked. In fact, they are the chief source of strength of this very powerful album.

Several of the lesser cuts on Blue give every indication of having sat in Joni's trunk for some time. The folkie melody of "Little Green" recalls "I Don't Know Where I Stand" from her second album. The pretty, "poetic" lyric is dressed up in such cryptic references that it passeth all understanding. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" is a memoir of Joni's "dark cafe days," cluttered with insignificant detail and reminiscent of the least memorable autobiographical songs on Ladies. "River" is an extended mea culpa that reeks of self-pity ("I'm so hard to handle/I'm so selfish and so sad/Now I've lost the best baby/That I ever had"). Joni's ponderous piano accompaniment verges on a parody of Laura Nyro, especially the melodramatic intro, which is "Jingle Bells" in a minor key. The best of this lot is "My Old Man," a lovely, conventional ballad.

These songs have little or nothing to do with the main theme of the album; developed in the remaining songs, which is the chronicle of Joni, a free lance romantic, searching for a permanent love. She announces this theme in the first line of the first cut, "All I Want": "I am on a lonely road and I am traveling/Looking for something to set me free."

The lonely road has taken her through a series of places in the past–from Chelsea to Sisotowbell Lane, from Laurel Canyon to Woodstock–and she had followed it in pursuit of the settled, long term happiness that has always eluded her. "All I Want" is a manifesto for that happiness; Joni has found a new lover and she bombards him with a list of her desires, piling them up in a quick succession of rhymes:

I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you

I want to renew you again and again

Applause, applause–life is our cause

When I think of your kisses, my mind see-saws

The accompaniment–James Taylor and Joni strumming a nervous, Latin-flavored guitar part over a bass heartbeat that throbs throughout the song–perfectly expresses Joni's excitement and anticipation. So does the melody, a dipping, soaring affair which she sings in her sweetest soprano.

"All I Want," though it begins the album, marks the end of the long holiday journey described in "Carey" and "California." Both songs have the syncopated, Latin touch that characterizes the best cuts on the album. "Carey," a calypso about dalliance on Crete, had a definite festival flavor, but with a twist at the end: "The wind is in from Africa/Last night I couldn't sleep/Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here but it's really not my home."

"California" jumps along in short bursts, the lyrics giving snapshots of Joni's European itinerary. Then comes the flowing chorus with its hint of tango, its plaintive pedal steel guitar and its homesick refrain: "Oh, it gets so lonely/When you're walking and the streets are full of strangers." The song is a model of subtle production; James Taylor's twitchy guitar and Russ Kunkel's superb, barely detectable high-hat and bass-pedal work give it just the right amount of propulsion.

In "This Flight Tonight," "A Case of You," and "Blue," Joni comes to terms with the reality that loneliness is not simply the result of prolonged traveling; the basic problem is that her lover will not give her all she wants. In "This Flight Tonight," Joni has walked out on her man, is flying West on a jet, and now regrets the decision. The lyrics, a clumsy attempt at stream of consciousness, are virtually unsingable and Joni's lyric soprano is hopelessly at odds with the rock and roll tune. But the chorus has just the wispiest trace of Bo Diddley and it sticks with you:

Oh Starbright, starbright

You've got the lovin' that I like, all right

Turn this crazy bird around

I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight.

In "A Case of You," James repeats the same dotted guitar riff he played in "California," only the melody here is slow, stately and almost hymnlike. The song is neatly divided in its ambivalence: each verse is about a setback to the affair, followed by a chorus in which Joni affirms: "But you are in my blood like holy wine." In comparing love to communion, Joni defines explicitly the underlying theme of Blue: for her love has become a religious quest, and surrendering to loneliness a sin.

It is only a short step from that to Joni's vow that she will walk through hell-fire to follow her man: "Well everybody's saying/That hell's the hippest way to go/Well I don't think so/But I'm gonna look around it though/Blue I love you." This is "Blue," the last cut on the first side but clearly the album's final statement, the bottom of the slope downward from the euphoria of "All I Want." For all its personal revelation, "All I Want" still sounds like a beautiful pop tune; "Blue," on the other hand, has the secret, ineffably sad feeling of a Billie Holliday song. Joy, after all, can be shared with everybody, but intense pain leads to withdrawal and isolation.

"Blue" is a distillation of pain and is therefore the most private of Joni's private songs. She wrote it for nobody but herself and her lover:

Blue here is a shell for you

Inside you'll hear a sigh

A foggy lullaby

There is your song from me.

The beauty of the mysterious and unresolved melody and the expressiveness of the vocal make this song accessible to a general audience. But "Blue," more than any of the other songs, shows Joni to be twice vulnerable: not only is she in pain as a private person, but her calling as an artist commands her to express her despair musically and reveal to an audience of record-buyers:

And yet, despite the title song. Blue is overall the freest, brightest, most cheerfully rhythmic album Joni has yet released. But the change in mood does not mean that Joni's commitment to her own very personal naturalistic style has diminished. More than ever, Joni risks using details that might be construed as trivial in order to paint a vivid self portrait. She refuses to mask her real face behind imagery, as her fellow autobiographers James Taylor and Cat Stevens sometimes do.

In portraying herself so starkly, she has risked the ridiculous to achieve the sublime. The results though are seldom ridiculous; on Blue she has matched her popular music skills with the purity and honesty of what was once called folk music and through the blend she has given us some of the most beautiful moments in recent popular music. (RS 88)”.

I especially love that review. 1971 was a great year for music. Marvin Gaye released the seismic What’s Going On in May. I feel that and Blue are the finest albums of the year. On Blue, we get something both naked and oblique. I feel Mitchell’s lyrics are at their peak, and I also love her emotional vocal range and how she delivers the songs. I am not sure who said it, but someone said that every song on Blue could be made into a tattoo. Such is the quotability and poetic brilliance of the lyrics, so many lines connect with people around the world! It is amazing how a personal album can be appreciated and understood by so many others. I would advise people to put some money aside and buy Blue on vinyl after its anniversary. As The Quietus reported, Mitchell’s first four studio albums are coming out in a boxset:

“Joni Mitchell's first four albums are to be reissued in a 4xLP box set this June.

The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) features newly remastered versions of Song To A Seagull, Clouds’, Ladies Of The Canyon and Blue, with each album split across two sides of vinyl. A previously unseen self-portrait that Mitchell drew sometime in the period of working on the albums features on the release's cover.

The release coincides with the 50th anniversary of Blue, one of Mitchell's best-loved albums, and it marks the latest instalment in Mitchell's ongoing series of archival releases.

Rhino Records will release The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) on June 25, 2021”.

I have been fascinated with Blue ever since I first heard of it as a child.  I love the album now, and I don’t think it has been matched in terms of its impact and brilliance. I am interested to see how the world reacts to fifty years of Blue and how many people discover it for the first time. If you have not heard the album then make sure…

YOU do so now.

FEATURE: Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums… Never for Ever

FEATURE:

 

 

Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums…

Never for Ever

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I am pretty sure…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the 1980 British Rock and Pop Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

I will cover off The Red Shoes and The Sensual World before wrapping up this series – one where I look at Kate Bush studio albums and rank the tracks on them. I have not done it yet, so I thought it would be a good idea. I love her albums and feel they deserve a complete listen, though I also admire individual tracks and think there are some that shine above others. Bush’s third studio album, Never for Ever, was released in 1980 and came a year (less) after The Tour of Life (where Bush performed around the U.K. and Europe). I would advise people to get the album on vinyl. Before ranking its eleven tracks, here is some information from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:

“Third album by Kate Bush, released by EMI Records on 5 September 1980. The album was produced by Kate Bush and Jon Kelly and recorded between September 1979 and May 1980. All the songs were written and composed by Kate.

Critical reception

The album was favourably received by music critics at the time, save for a curiously critical review in Record Mirror: "...one of the most empty dull packets of poop one could ever hope to avoid". Soundswas equally critical: "This album has been a long time in the making, but I'm not sure that this is always a good thing." Melody Maker was more enthusiastic: "Any doubts that this is the best Bush album yet are finally obliterated by the inspired unorthodoxy of the production. I had to look to see if Steve Lillywhite wasn't at the controls - it's that clean and fresh".

Now, after all this waiting it is here. It's strange when I think back to the first album. I thought it would never feel as new or as special again. This one has proved me wrong. It's been the most exciting. Its name is Never For Ever, and I've called it this because I've tried to make it reflective of all that happens to you and me. Life, love, hate, we are all transient. All things pass, neither good [n]or evil lasts. So we must tell our hearts that it is "never for ever", and be happy that it's like that!

The album cover has been beautifully created by Nick Price (you may remember that he designed the front of the Tour programme). On the cover of Never For Ever Nick takes us on an intricate journey of our emotions: inside gets outside, as we flood people and things with our desires and problems. These black and white thoughts, these bats and doves, freeze-framed in flight, swoop into the album and out of your hi-fis. Then it's for you to bring them to life. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)”.

_____________

11. Violin

“The studio version is the only officially released version. However, a demo version of 'Violin' has also surfaced. It appears on the bootleg 7" single 'Cathy Demos Volume Three' and various bootleg CD's.

Performances

'Violin' was premiered during the Tour of Life, when it was performed as the eighth song of the first act. At the end of 1979, Kate performed 'Violin' during the Christmas Special, after which she never performed the song again.

Kate about 'Violin'

'Violin' is for all the mad fiddlers from 'Paganini' to 'Old Nick' himself. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia 

10. Egypt

“Song written by Kate Bush. She described the song as 'an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country'. The song was premiered during the Christmas Special in 1979 and released on the album Never For Ever in 1980.

'Egypt' is an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)

 The song is very much about someone who has not gone there thinking about Egypt, going: "Oh, Egypt! It's so romantic... the pyramids!" Then in the breaks, there's meant to be the reality of Egypt, the conflict. It's meant to be how blindly we see some things - "Oh, what a beautiful world", you know, when there's shit and sewers all around you. (Kris Needs, Fire in the Bush. Zigzag (UK), 1980)

Drums, percussion: Preston Heyman

Electric bass: Del Palmer

Fender Rhodes, Minimoog: Max Middleton

Strumento de Porco, Backing vocals: Paddy Bush

Prophet 5: Mike Moran” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

9. Night Scented Stock

“Song written by Kate Bush. Not to be confused with the flower of the same name, 'Night Scented Stock' is an instrumental song consisting entirely of layered vocals. On the album Never For Ever, it leads into the next song, Army Dreamers.

Cover versions

'Night Scented Stock' was covered by Göteborgs Symfoniker and Marie Haddad. It was also sampled in the track 'Les Enfants du Paradis' by Loopzone” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

8. Blow Away (For Bill)

“Song written by Kate Bush. It was dedicated to Bill Duffield. The phrase 'Put out the Light, then put out the light' comes from Shakespeare's Othello, in the scene just before Othello kills Desdemona. The song mentions the names of deceased musicians, in the following order: Minnie Riperton, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious, Buddy Holly and Sandy Denny.

'Blow Away' is a comfort for the fear of dying and for those of us who believe that music is perhaps an exception to the 'Never For Ever' rule. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)

 So there's comfort for the guy in my band, as when he dies, he'll go "Hi, Jimi!" It's very tongue-in-cheek, but it's a great thought that if a musician dies, his soul will join all the other musicians and a poet will join all the Dylan Thomases and all that.

 None of those people [who have had near-death experiences] are frightened by death anymore. It's almost something they're looking forward to. All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear. I like to think I'm coming to terms with it, and other people are too. The song was really written after someone very special died.

Although the song had been formulating before and had to be written as a comfort to those people who are afraid of dying, there was also this idea of the music, energies in us that aren't physical: art, the love in people. It can't die, because where does it go? It seems really that music could carry on in radio form, radio waves... There are people who swear they can pick up symphonies from Chopin, Schubert. We're really transient, everything to do with us is transient, except for these non-physical things that we don't even control... (Kris Needs, 'Lassie'. Zigzag (UK), November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. The Infant Kiss

“Song written by Kate Bush. It was inspired by the gothic horror movie The Innocents, which in turn was inspired by Henry James' novel 'The Turn Of The Screw'. The story is about a governess who believes the ghost of her predecessor's dead lover is trying to possess the bodies of the children she is looking after. The song was released on the album Never For Ever.

Versions

There are two versions of this song: the original album version and a French version, entitled Un Baiser d'Enfant, released two years later.

'The Infant Kiss' is about a governess. She is torn between the love of an adult man and child who are within the same body. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. All We Ever Look For

“Song written by Kate Bush. The Fairlight is used on this track to great effect, with many sound samples being played back. At one point, a group of Hare Krishna followers is singing the 'Maha Mantra', with Kate using a tiny part of a line from this mantra: "(Hare) Krishna, Hare Krishna, (Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare)", presumably to represent the chorus immediately following the sound clips: "a God", followed by birdsong ("A Drug") and then finally applause ("A Hug"). The song was released on the album Never For Ever.

'All We Ever Look For' is about how we seek something but in the wrong way or at wrong times so it is never found. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)

 One of my new songs, 'All We Ever Look For', it's not about me. It's about family relationships generally. Our parents got beaten physically. We get beaten psychologically. The last line - "All we ever look for - but we never did score".' Well, that's the way it is - you do get faced sometimes with futile situations. But the answer's not to kill yourself. You have to accept it, you have to cope with it. (Derek Jewell, 'How To Write Songs And Influence People'. Sunday Times (UK), 5 October 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. Delius (Song of Summer)

“Song written by Kate Bush as a tribute to the English composer Frederick Delius. The song was inspired by Ken Russell's film Song of Summer, made for the BBC's programme Omnibus, which Kate had watched when she was ten years old. In his twenties, Delius contracted syphilis. When he became wheelchair bound as he became older, a young English admirer Eric Fenby volunteered his services as unpaid amanuensis. Between 1928 and 1933 he took down his compositions from dictation, and helping him revise earlier works.The song was released on the album Never For Ever and as the B-side of the single Army Dreamers.

Music video

A music video for 'Delius' exists, which was shown on television at least twice: during a Dr. Hook television special on 7 April 1980 and during the Russell Harty Show on 25 November 1980. The setting is a quiet, lazy English riverbank filled with reeds and grass. By the bank is a wheelchair-ridden old man, his body covered by a throw-rug, his head obscured by a large yellow disk resembling a sun. This figure presents an image of Delius much like the one which was depicted in the BBC television film  by Ken Russell. Gliding along on the river is a young swan-girl, represented by Kate in a gossamer white gown with wings” – Kate Bush Encyclopedialike

4. Army Dreamers

“Song written by Kate Bush. The song is about the effects of war and about a mother who grieves for her young adult son, who was killed on military manoeuvres. Saddened by his unnecessary death, she wrestles with her guilt over what she could have done to prevent it. The song was originally released on the album Never For Ever, and as a single soon thereafter.

The song was blacklisted during the Gulf War in 1991 – joining a list of 67 songs simultaneously banned from BBC airplay, including The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, ABBA and Queen

It's the first song I've ever written in the studio. It's not specifically about Ireland, it's just putting the case of a mother in these circumstances, how incredibly sad it is for her. How she feels she should have been able to prevent it. If she'd bought him a guitar when he asked for one. (Colin Irwin, 'Paranoia And Passion Of The Kate Inside'. Melody Maker (UK), 10 October 1980)

 The song is about a mother who lost her son overseas. It doesn't matter how he died, but he didn't die in action - it was an accident. I wanted the mother to be a very simple woman who's obviously got a lot of work to do. She's full of remorse, but he has to carry on, living in a dream. Most of us live in a dream. (Week-long diary, Flexipop, 1980)

 No, it's not personal. It's just a mother grieving and observing the waste. A boy with no O-levels, say, who might have [??? Line missing!] whatever. But he's nothing to do, no way to express himself. So he joins the army. He's trapped. So many die, often in accidents. I'm not slagging off the army, because it's good for certain people. But there are a lot of people in it who shouldn't be. (Derek Jewell, 'How To Write Songs And Influence People'. Sunday Times (UK), 5 October 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Breathing

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released as the lead single from Kate's third album Never For Ever. The lyrics of the song are about a foetus, very much aware of what is going on outside the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, which implies that the song is set either during a nuclear war scare or a post-apocalyptic birth. The lyrics also refer to the foetus absorbing nicotine from the mother's smoking. In an interview that year Bush described the song as her "little symphony", adding that she considered it her best work to date. Bush stated that the information within the song mostly came from a documentary she had seen about the effects of nuclear war, while the tone of the song was inspired by Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. The song was recorded over three days in early 1980.

It's about a baby still in the mother's womb at the time of a nuclear fallout, but it's more of a spiritual being. It has all its senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing, and it knows what is going on outside the mother's womb, and yet it wants desperately to carry on living, as we all do of course. Nuclear fallout is something we're all aware of, and worried about happening in our lives, and it's something we should all take time to think about. We're all innocent, none of us deserve to be blown up. (Deanne Pearson, 'The Me Inside'. Smash Hits (UK), May 1980)

 When I wrote the song, it was from such a personal viewpoint. It was just through having heard a thing for years without it ever having got through to me. 'Til the moment it hit me, I hadn't really been moved. Then I suddenly realised the whole devastation and disgusting arrogance of it all. Trying to destroy something that we've not created - the earth. The only thing we are is a breathing mechanism: everything is breathing. Without it we're just nothing. All we've got is our lives, and I was worried that when people heard it they were going to think, 'She's exploiting commercially this terribly real thing.' I was very worried that people weren't going to take me from my emotional standpoint rather than the commercial one. But they did, which is great. I was worried that people wouldn't want to worry about it because it's so real. I was also worried that it was too negative, but I do feel that there is hope in the whole thing, just for the fact that it's a message from the future. It's not from now, it's from a spirit that may exist in the future, a non-existent spiritual embryo who sees all and who's been round time and time again so they know what the world's all about. This time they don't want to come out, because they know they're not going to live. It's almost like the mother's stomach is a big window that's like a cinema screen, and they're seeing all this terrible chaos. (Kris Needs, 'Fire In The Bush'. Zigzag (UK), 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. The Wedding List

“Song written by Kate Bush. The song was inspired by a François Truffaut's film called The Bride Wore Black ('La Mariée était en noir'). It tells of a groom who is accidentally murdered on the day of his wedding by a group of five people who shoot at him from a window. The bride succeeds in tracking down each one of the five and kills them in a row, including the last one who happens to be in jail.

The song was premiered during the Christmas Special in 1979. The studio recording was released on Kate's third album, Never For Ever, a little over eight months later.

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

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

1. Babooshka

“Kate performed 'Babooshka' in various European programmes, including Collaro (France), Countdown (Netherlands) and Rock Pop (Germany). Her performance of the song in a Dr. Hook television special remains the first, and is memorable for the costume she is wearing: on her the right side she resembles a staid Victorian lady in mourning dress; on the left side a glittering, liberated young woman in a silvery jumpsuit, with bright lightning-streaks painted down the left side of her face. Her figure is lit so that only the "repressed" side of her costume is visible during the verses of the song, and mainly the "free" side during the choruses.

Apparently it is grandmother, it's also a headdress that people wear. But when I wrote the song it was just a name that literally came into my mind, I've presumed I've got it from a fairy story I'd read when I was a child. And after having written the song a series of incredible coincidences happened where I'd turned on the television and there was Donald Swan singing about Babooshka. So I thought, "Well, there's got to be someone who's actually called Babooshka." So I was looking through Radio Times and there, another coincidence, there was an opera called Babooshka. Apparently she was the lady that the three kings went to see because the star stopped over her house and they thought "Jesus is in there".' So they went in and he wasn't. And they wouldn't let her come with them to find the baby and she spent the rest of her life looking for him and she never found him. And also a friend of mine had a cat called Babooshka. So these really extraordinary things that kept coming up when in fact it was just a name that came into my head at the time purely because it fitted. (Peter Powell interview, Radio 1 (UK), 11 October 1980)

I love the melody line of the bass guitar on this song. We got through a lot of boxes of broken crockery to get the right sound at the end - the canteen ladies were not impressed.

It was really a theme that has fascinated me for some time. It's based on a theme that is often used in folk songs, which is where the wife of the husband begins to feel that perhaps he's not faithful. And there's no real strength in her feelings, it's just more or less paranoia suspicions, and so she starts thinking that she's going to test him, just to see if he's faithful. So what she does is she gets herself a pseudonym, which happens to be Babooshka, and she sends him a letter. And he responds very well to the letter, because as he reads it, he recognises the wife that he had a couple of years ago, who was happy, in the letter. And so he likes it, and she decides to take it even further and get a meeting together to see how he reacts to this Babooshka lady instead of her. When he meets her, again because she is so similar to his wife, the one that he loves, he's very attracted to her. Of course she is very annoyed and the break in the song is just throwing the restaurant at him...  (...) The whole idea of the song is really the futility and the stupidness of humans and how by our own thinking, spinning around in our own ideas we come up with completely paranoid facts. So in her situation she was in fact suspicious of a man who was doing nothing wrong, he loved her very much indeed. Through her own suspicions and evil thoughts she's really ruining the relationship. (Countdown Australia, 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

FEATURE: No Expectations: Belle and Sebastian’s Tigermilk at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

No Expectations

Belle and Sebastian’s Tigermilk at Twenty-Five

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A lot of great albums from 1996…

are celebrating twenty-five years in 2021. I have already covered the Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go (which was twenty-five on 20th May). Today, I want to look ahead to the anniversary of Belle and Sebastian’s Tigermilk on 6th June. Led by the incredible Stuart Murdoch and with some brilliant instrumentation (especially superb cello from Isobel Campbell), Tigermilk is an album that I heard when it came out in 1996, but I have connected with quite hard recently. I want to bring in a couple of reviews for an album that I would advise people to get. Before coming to the reviews, Stereogum ran an anniversary feature in 2016 to mark twenty years. The story behind the album and the way the band released Tigermilk is fascinating:

“Belle And Sebastian released Tigermilk, their first album, 20 years ago today, but I didn’t hear it then. Neither did you. Neither did practically anyone. The band self-released the album, limiting it 1,000 copies. This wasn’t because they figured only 1,000 people would want to hear these songs. Even as modest as they may have been, Stuart Murdoch and his co-conspirators must’ve known they had something here. Tigermilk isn’t some basement four-track recording; it’s a set of lush, orchestrated, fully realized old-school pop songs, all recorded in full and lovely clarity. Rather, Tigermilk, at least on some level, was part of Murdoch’s grand plan. It could’ve been a happy accident — a bunch of Murdoch’s songs, recorded with a group of near-strangers, for a music-business class. But Murdoch liked how bands like the Smiths always had some mysterious unheard records haunting collectors’ shelves. He was into the idea that a band could have some vast shadow history lingering somewhere. So he went about manufacturing one for himself. That’s Tigermilk. Murdoch didn’t want anyone to hear the thing — at least, not immediately. He wanted it to be out there as some impossible-to-find curio, one that might exist only in fourth-generation dubs passed around fan communities. At this point, Murdoch was in the business of world-building. Tigermilk was background material.

But if you did happen to be one of those weird lucky randoms who got to hear Tigermilk before it turned into an object of cultish covetousness, you got to hear something special. Even from the beginning, Murdoch was as gifted at writing songs as he was at developing his own mystique, which is really saying something. This band was only a few months away from hitting on something like perfection and releasing the absolutely deathless If You’re Feeling Sinister. But they were already just about fully formed, capable of putting together these lush and layered songs on what I have to imagine was a shoestring budget. While scrappy immediacy was still basic indie rock currency, Murdoch and his friends were working with synths and trumpets and strings and expertly reverbed oldies-radio guitars. “The State I’m In” remains one of the band’s most perfect songs, and they must’ve known that, since they recycled it on the Dog On Wheels EP a year later. And plenty of other Tigermilk tracks belong on that list: “Expectations,” “I Don’t Love Anyone,” “My Wandering Days Are Over.”

There was some context for what Belle And Sebastian were doing on this album. The band’s native Glasgow, after all, was the site of a miserablist underground scene that was only just starting to take shape. And it was also home to twee pioneers like the Pastels and the Vaselines, both of whom, you’d have to imagine, were key influences. The Smiths clearly loomed large for Murdoch, as did the first couple of Nick Drake albums. But nobody else was putting these influences together in the same way that Belle And Sebastian were early on, and Tigermilk must’ve sounded absolutely alien to anyone who heard it cold. Here we had a classically gifted songwriter cranking out these hooky, bittersweet odes to misfits, all wispily sung and precisely worded and made to sound like they were recorded at Abbey Road, with a full orchestra on deck. How does a group of total unknowns record an album like this? And how do they put it out to only a thousand people in the world? Frankly, I’m still at a bit of a loss to figure it out.

The band hadn’t quite locked down their aesthetic on Tigermilk. There are a few moments that aren’t quite fully realized yet, like the watery synthpop of “Electronic Renaissance” or the ever-so-slight garage-rock bite of “You’re Just A Baby.” But this is still an example of something rare and mysterious: a band figuring out its craft and its sound in the shadows, and still coming close to perfection. They’d come even closer with Sinister, the album that ended up exploding skulls on both sides of the Atlantic. But taken on its own merits, Tigermilk remains a minor miracle, a piece of precise beauty that, if you hear it at the right time in your life, sounds like it was made completely for you personally”.

With such an incredibly quick recording turnaround, one might think Tigermilk is an album that could come off as slight and lacking in nuance. Instead, the debut album from the Scottish band is incredibly deep, layered and memorable. Their tenth studio album, Days of the Bagnold Summer, was released in 2019 and it is a real corker. I love that their debut, as it started on such modest ground and has grown into this classic. In their review, Pitchfork offered the following:

“Tigermilk also leaves room for a bit of self-mythologizing. Murdoch wrote “My Wandering Days Are Over” after meeting Campbell, and the lyrics contain direct references to Campbell’s job serving drinks to tired businessmen at a piano bar, as well as “the story of Sebastian and Belle the singer.” The moment when Murdoch sings, “I said, ‘My one-man band is over/I hit the drum for the final time and I walked away,’” it’s as if Belle and Sebastian becomes no longer his solo project but a true unit.

After two days of mixing, all that was left to decide was an album title and artwork. Murdoch settled on a photo he had taken of a then-girlfriend, Joanne Kenney, naked in a bathtub pretending to nurse a stuffed tiger. Claiming inspiration from venerable jazz label Blue Note but more often compared to their melancholic UK poet-laureate predecessors the Smiths, Murdoch presented the image in monochrome, a tradition that, with a few exceptions, has carried across Belle and Sebastian’s discography. With its mix of sensuality and childlike whimsy, the shot could hardly have been more strikingly appropriate, and the title, Tigermilk, naturally followed.

Electric Honey manufactured only 1,000 vinyl copies. At Tigermilk’s release party, attendees threw the records like Frisbees. At least one was spotted at a shop the next day. Murdoch continued his job at the church; Campbell’s bartending days weren’t over. The album received just a single review on its initial release, with Scottish arts magazine The List favorably opining, “Let’s hope Belle and Sebastian reach the size of audience they have the potential to seduce.”

But the students at the music business course remembered to send the record to BBC DJs John Peel and Mark Radcliffe, who began to champion the group. The mystique of Tigermilk spread when Belle and Sebastian released their masterpiece If You’re Feeling Sinister later in 1996 via London indie Jeepster, with U.S. distribution via now-defunct imprint The Enclave. They dropped three more EPs, including the demo with the original “The State I Am In,” and a third album, The Boy With the Arab Strap, which brought Campbell and Jackson to the fore on vocals for the first time, before Tigermilk finally received its first widespread release, in 1999. By then, copies of the original vinyl were selling for as much as £850; cassette dubs circulated, but few people could’ve heard the album.

From the beginning, in January 1996, Murdoch had written in response to an offer from Jeepster of his desire to “draw in my audience, instead of bombasting them.” Because the band was averse to interviews, traditional publicity photos, or touring, it’s appealing to think that fans had to find out about Belle and Sebastian for themselves, through word of mouth, hearing them on the radio, or in my case, downloading “The State I Am In” in my first week of college after hearing a classmate name-check them as her favorite band. No music exists in a vacuum, of course—purposefully mysterious 21st-century acts from Burial to Jungle can attest how a lack of information can sometimes be a media angle in its own right—but Belle and Sebastian left space for the already-formidable songs on Tigermilk to grow into listeners’ lives.

When it was made, the album was a pointedly melodic, anti-machismo rejoinder to Britpop’s increasingly lunkheaded swagger and the post-grunge bluster of American alt-rock radio. “There’s no sex in your violence,” Gavin Rossdale grunted on Bush’s “Everything Zen”; “There must be a reason for all the looks we gave/And all the things we never said before,” Murdoch chirps atop a hand-clappy T. Rex stomp on “You’re Just a Baby.” Tigermilk was also a worthy successor to the “oppose all rock’n’roll” ethos of early UK punks Subway Sect, the droll yearning of Glasgow indie pioneers Orange Juice, and the confrontational tenderness of Kurt Cobain’s beloved K Records. By the time of Tigermilk’s 1999 re-release, critics either sneered or swooned accordingly. “Do you want to know how much I hate them? Even their name raises my blood pressure,” a mid-tier Scottish pop singer told The Guardian, amid juvenile complaints about “wussiness.” In those lad-mag, anti-“P.C.” years, it was still acceptable for an otherwise-approving Rolling Stone review to use the disparaging slang term “swish” (Pitchfork’s gonzo original assessment was also positive).

These days, Tigermilk’s radicalism may be harder to perceive, but it’s no less essential. In recent decades, as Belle and Sebastian have became reluctant elder statesmen of a twee movement in music and film, the early caricatures of them have also spread—a 2015 review on this website cast them as “the most sensitive band in indie rock, patron saints for daydreaming boys and girls”—but to buy into that overlooks the depth in these songs. As keyboardist Chris Geddes felt forced to complain to the NME as far back as 1997, “We’re human beings, not sensitivity machines.” And while the notion of male un-macho-ness has been hijacked by a basket of deplorables I’d rather not talk about here, you need look no further than the White House to know what type of man is still truly in power in 2020. Tigermilk might not preach revolution; with its low-key insistence on the notion of art as a source of personal epiphany, it feels revolutionary nevertheless”.

Go and listen to Tigermilk if you have not heard it before. I am sure we will hear songs shared from it ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary. In a year where there were a lot of big and hyped albums put into the world, Belle and Sebastian’s introduction was completely lacking in festival and commercialism. I think that the album is such a tremendous and moving listen. The fact we are talking about it all these years later shows that it doesn’t matter how many copies you press and how much promotion you do – the quality of the material will shine through and survive. When they assessed Tigermilk, AllMusic observed the following:

“Recorded quickly and cheaply as the first album from Electric Honey, the in-house record label from Glasgow's Stow College's music business program, Belle and Sebastian's 1996 debut, Tigermilk, is a rare record in many respects. Initially, it was simply scarce, limited to a run of 1,000 and not re-released until 1999, by which time Belle and Sebastian were established as one of the great indie pop sensations of the late '90s. It is also rare in the sense that not many indie records are made with assistance from a university, but Tigermilk is rarest in how it captures a band that seems simultaneously fledgling and fully formed. Certainly, Tigermilk bears its share of rough edges -- the subjects linger in adolescence, the compositions aren't as sophisticated as what would arrive just a short time later, "Electronic Renaissance" is the kind of lo-fi synth pastiche bands need to get out of their system in their first year -- but they're splinters on a distinctive aesthetic forged by singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch. His wry delivery and plummy voice, along with his predilection for delicate folk, disguises his toughness. Tigermilk may be gentle on the surface, but Murdoch's strength is evident in his sardonic storytelling and sturdy craftsmanship, the very things that wound up being the foundation of Belle and Sebastian's career. They're in full flower on Tigermilk, surfacing on tunes throughout the album, but crystallizing on the skipping "She's Losing It," rushed "Expectations," '60s throwback "I Could Be Dreaming," and, especially, "The State I Am In," a masterful melodrama that points toward the richness of If You're Feeling Sinister, which arrived just a few months later. Those are the moments when Belle and Sebastian feel preternaturally gifted, seeming to know precisely who they were right out of the gate”.

I shall leave it there. I wanted to mark twenty-five years of Tigermilk before 6th June. The incredible Belle and Sebastian are still going strong. Whilst their sound has grown and their fanbase has swelled, I think that their debut album ranks alongside their best work. In a huge year for music, one could have been forgiven for overlooking Tigermilk. It has earned such a reputation and legacy that many might not have expected twenty-five years ago. It is a phenomenal album that is…

HARD to ignore.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Fifty-Six: Sparks

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Fifty-Six: Sparks

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IT is quite a challenge…

distilling the work of Sparks down to a few albums! They have released so much brilliance, inevitably, there are a few terrific albums that will have to be left aside. Before bringing in some biography, an upcoming documentary from Edgar Wright is well worth catching. This Pitchfork feature from a few weeks ago reveals a new trailer that has been released ahead of the documentary’s release:

“Following its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Edgar Wright’s Sparks documentary is getting a wide release in just a few weeks. The Sparks Brothers is out June 18. A new trailer for the project includes commentary from Beck, Jason Schwartzmann, Jack Antonoff, Todd Rundgren, Giorgio Moroder, Flea, the Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin, and more. Watch The Sparks Brothers’ trailer, and find its poster, below.

The Sparks Brothers is the first music documentary from Wright, whose other credits include Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Baby Driver. The band’s most recent album—their 24th—was last year’s A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip”.

I will not bring in a full biography, though AllMusic provide fascinating detail regarding the incredible the impact of Ron and Russell Mael:

“One of pop's best-loved and most influential cult bands, Sparks grew out of the minds of brothers Ron and Russell Mael. The combination of Russell's formidable vocal range, Ron's impressive keyboard skills, and their vividly witty songwriting defined their music as it changed over the years -- which it did often. When they emerged in the early '70s, their theatricality fit in with the glam rock scene, with albums like 1972's A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing and 1974's Kimono My House earning them a strong following in the U.K. Just a year later, Sparks were at the forefront of the power pop movement with 1975's Indiscreet; by the end of the decade, they were electronic pop pioneers, working with Giorgio Moroder on 1979's No. 1 in Heaven.

The synth pop and new wave leanings of albums like that one and 1983's In Outer Space -- which featured "Cool Places," a duet with the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin that became one of the band's biggest hits -- evolved into the house and techno leanings of 1994's Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, which felt timely and true to Sparks' inventive history. The Maels only grew more adventurous in the 2000s, reworking classical music in their own image on 2002's Lil' Beethoven and delivering their first musical with 2009's The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman. When they returned to pop music, they held on to that innovative spirit as they collaborated with Franz Ferdinand on 2015's FFS and commented on the issues of the day on 2020's A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. For a band that often felt like a well-kept secret, Sparks appeared on the charts fairly frequently, with "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" (1974), "The Number One Song in Heaven" (1979), and "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" (1994) among their most popular songs. A better measure of Sparks' success, however, is the wide range of artists they inspired: Pet Shop Boys, Nirvana, Björk, and the Smiths are among the many acts who put their own spin on the Maels' boundlessly creative approach to pop music and culture.

Brothers Ron and Russell Mael grew up in Los Angeles. In the late '60s, they attended UCLA, with Russell studying theater and filmmaking and Ron studying cinema and graphic design. Musically, they were self-described Anglophiles, preferring the Who, the Kinks, the Move, and Pink Floyd to the folk-rock scene popular on the West Coast. The Maels started making their own music in January 1967 as Urban Renewal Project, recording four songs at Hollywood's Fidelity Recording Studios with their friends Fred and Ronna Frank (one of those songs, "Computer Girl," later appeared on the 2019 collection Past Tense: The Best of Sparks).

In 1968, the Maels formed the band Halfnelson. Featuring songwriter Ron on keyboards and Russell as lead vocalist, the lineup was rounded out by another pair of brothers, guitarist Earle and bassist Jim Mankey, and drummer Harley Feinstein. Halfnelson soon came to the attention of Todd Rundgren, who helped land the group a contract with Bearsville Records and produced their self-titled 1971 debut. Their quirky, tongue-in-cheek art pop failed to find an audience, however, and their manager convinced the Maels to change the group's name. After becoming Sparks and re-releasing their debut album in 1972, they almost reached the Hot 100 with the single "Wonder Girl." For the following year's sublimely bizarre A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing, Sparks worked with Rundgren's engineer (and former Electric Prunes singer) Thaddeus Lames Lowe. Featuring the single "Girl from Germany" -- another near-hit for the band -- the album cemented the band's cult status.

While touring the U.K. in support of the album, Sparks won an avid following. Ultimately, the Mael brothers relocated to London and signed to Island, leaving the rest of the group behind. Earle Mankey subsequently became a noted producer, while Jim later joined Concrete Blonde. In need of a new backing band, the Maels placed an advertisement in Melody Maker. With guitarist Adrian Fisher, bassist Martin Gordon, and drummer Norman "Dinky" Diamond firmly in place, they recorded May 1974's glam-bubblegum opus Kimono My House with producer Muff Winwood. Thanks to its more accessible version of Sparks' sound, the album reached the Top Five of the U.K. album charts and spawned the British hits "Amateur Hour" and "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us," a startling song that reached number two on the U.K. Singles chart. Working once again with Winwood alongside guitarist Trevor White and bassist Ian Hampton, Sparks returned that November with the power pop-tinged Propaganda. Peaking at number nine on the U.K. Albums chart, it scored with the Top 20 U.K. hits "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth" and "Something for the Girl with Everything." Propaganda also hit number 63 on the Billboard 200, marking their highest chart position in the U.S.”.

Many might disagree with my selection…but here are four essential Sparks albums, an underrated gem, their latest studio album, in addition to an accompanying book that is worth reading. If you need a guide to the best of Sparks, then have a look…

AT the suggestions below.

_______________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Kimono My House

Release Date: 1st May, 1974

Label: Island

Producer: Muff Winwood

Standout Tracks: Amateur Hour/Hasta Mañana, Monsieur/Talent Is an Asset

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/327543

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7HfC3Cd8qSkGKqbOZi4Nbz?si=sDhTxm4WT4yHE0nr0hu_CA

Review:

“Arguably one of Sparks' best albums, 1974's Kimono My House finds the brothers Mael (Ron wrote most the songs and played keyboards, while Russell was the singing frontman) ingeniously playing their guitar- and keyboard-heavy pop mix on 12 consistently fine tracks. Adding a touch of bubblegum, and even some of Zappa's own song-centric experimentalism to the menu, the Maels spruce up a sleazy Sunset Strip with a bevy of Broadway-worthy performances here: as the band expertly revs up the glam rock-meets-Andrew Lloyd Webber backdrops, Russell sends things into space with his operatic vocals and ever-clever lyrics. And besides two of their breakthrough hits (the English chart-toppers "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" and "Amateur Hour"), the album features one of their often-overlooked stunners, "Here in Heaven." Essential”- AllMusic

Choice Cut: This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us

Indiscreet

Release Date: October 1975

Label: Island

Producer: Tony Visconti  

Standout Tracks: Without Using Hands/Pineapple/Looks, Looks, Looks

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=87057&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dgrdhuTNbswEBBRSY5iH9?si=t6_KCBaTSv-miyHBp6cPWQ

Review:

“It followed the behemoth shadow of Kimono and Propaganda and was doomed to be overshadowed by both and fall into relative obscurity. No matter how hard it tried it wouldn’t have been as well received because the two previous albums were just way to good that they had nowhere to go but down. When the bar is set so high, there’s no way to pass it. That’s what happened with Indiscreet. They continued to improve their sound and sense of humour and created something that was even more alienating than Propaganda, which obviously turned people off to it. In retrospect, it holds up and is truly a Sparks masterpiece. Here they try their hand at so many different styles and themes and ideas and manage to make it flow super well. It’s not super showy and over the top and Sparks takes a much more mellow mood compared to to their previous efforts which just creates such an atmosphere throughout the album that most f their other albums would not be able to recreate. The opener Hospitality on Parade sets the mood up perfectly of what’s to be expected and stands as one of their greatest songs, remaining simplistic but eerily layered. We bust into a classic Sparks sounding song with Happy Hunting Grounds, that takes from the page of Propaganda and then follow up with Without Using Hands, that is funnily enough more literal than expected. Three songs in, three different styles and it doesn’t stop there as we go through Get in the Swing, Under the Table with Her and How Are You Getting Home? All different and yet somehow it all works so perfectly together. (Let’s not forget the ever hilarious Tits and one of my personal favourites In The Future which is just a high energy song that predicts some of their future sounds they would work with). Sparks were trying a lot of new things with this album and they managed to put it altogether in a cohesive sounding album that in retrospect deserves way more credit and praise than it has. It might be a bit of an acquired taste, but so is good wine and like wine it has aged fantastically” – Bosco’s Modern Life

Choice Cut: Get in the Swing

Nº 1 in Heaven

Release Date: March 1979

Labels: Elektra (U.S.)/Virgin (U.K.)

Producer: Giorgio Moroder

Standout Tracks: Tryouts for the Human Race/La Dolce Vita/The Number One Song in Heaven

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=87067&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1WwkwSVwh9clBkan9ElU0e?si=ImhGTuUXRmKnU8ah2T0Stw

Review:

“Prior to No. 1 in Heaven, bands were generally four or more individuals, although there were more stripped down bare-bones power trios doing the rounds as well. It was almost never less than three though, as even duos had backing bands, a la The Carpenters. Unless you were Suicide. Or The Silver Apples. It was Sparks that popularised the duo as band format. Suddenly a band could be just a vocalist and a keyboard player, and the template for the synth-pop duos that would become so popular over the next decade was formed. Be they Soft Cell, Yazoo, The Communards, or even the mighty Pet Shop Boys, they all owe Sparks a tip of the hat for pretty single handedly creating the line up format of their bands. Not only that, but with Moroder’s help Sparks reinvented synth-pop from the over-serious detached self-importance of the likes of Kraftwerk, Tubeway Army, and Jean-Micheal Jarre, to something considerably more personable and playful. No.1 in Heaven is an album which has a joyous feeling running all the way through it, something which is particularly difficult to achieve when using the cold and unyielding sounds of the synthesiser, but something which Sparks never had a problem with, especially with the help of the production smarts of Moroder.

Clocking in at under an economical 35 minutes, No.1 in Heaven is heaving with hit single potential, which given Moroder’s involvement is no surprise. Four of No.1 in Heaven’s six tracks were released as singles, with “No.1 Song in Heaven” seeing Sparks crack the top 20 for the first time in years, and the irresistible “Beat the Clock” going one better and hitting the top 10. Another single, album opener “Tryouts for the Human Race”, deserved to be a bigger hit, but given that the album had been out a few months by then, most music fans with an enthusiasm for the new Sparks sound would probably already have it in their collection. With half a dozen tracks over the course of the whole album, Moroder and Sparks made sure there was more than enough room for the cutting edge electronica soundscape to make an impression. “No.1 Song in Heaven” sounds particularly thrilling in its album format, giving the much loved single version an extended introduction which enhances rather than detracts from the hit version.

With the exception of “La Dolce Vita”, all the songs from No.1 in Heaven that were released as singles had alternative extended mixes or single versions, some of which are featured on the second disc of this recent reissue. These are accompanied by a couple of uniquely amusing promos for the album featuring comedian Peter Cook, who evidently had great fun throwing in pop culture references. Such are the effectiveness of these promos, you have to ask why such an approach wasn’t used more often. Another thing of note is that the original album and the bonus material are given two separate discs in CD format, despite all the material fitting neatly on a single CD. This maintains the original integrity of the album, without the listener having to stop the CD if they just wanted to hear No.1 in Heaven as originally intended. Perhaps if the reissue was not done via The Mael Brothers own Lil’ Beethoven imprint, such care might not have been taken, so it’s a nice touch.

40 years after its release, No.1 in Heaven continues to stand up to scrutiny as one of the key albums by Sparks. Sure, Giorgio Moroder’s involvement took the music on the album to another level, but credit should go to the Mael Brothers for knowing who they needed on production duties to reinvigorate their career. It was a hugely influential album at the time, and remains a life-affirming electropop classic that proved that, even outside of Disco, synthesiser music didn’t always have to equate to self-important and dour young men” – Backseat Mafia

Choice Cut: Beat the Clock

Hippopotamus

Release Date: 8th September, 2017

Labels: BMG/The End

Producers: Ron Mael/Russell Mael

Standout Tracks: What the Hell Is It This Time?/Hippopotamus/So Tell Me Mrs. Lincoln Aside from That How Was the Play?

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1234306&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1S6CN2iacm5MXUBqrHCzyS?si=OxBjwNyoSuuq-lm313n5Lg

Review:

“In their 45-year career,  have pulled off everything from  operatic glam rock to Giorgio Moroder-produced electronic disco (the wonderful ) to the  with Franz Ferdinand. The band’s 23rd studio album surprisingly echoes their stomping guitar/drums heyday, when Russell’s gale-force falsetto and keyboard player  to the Top of the Pops camera caused small children to peer from behind the sofa. However, while Missionary Position sounds like retooled classic Sparks, the Los Angeles brothers are still forging into new areas. For all their trademark arch, witty and , there is a new emotional heft to songs such as the lovely Probably Nothing, which delicately tackles the difficult subject of age-related memory loss. I Wish You Were Fun is one of the simplest, sweetest-sounding songs of their career. For anyone yet to experience the Maels’s unique charms, their best album in decades is as good as any place to start” – The Guardian

Choice Cut: Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)

The Underrated Gem

 

Hello Young Lovers

Release Date: 6th February, 2006

Labels: In The Red Recordings (U.S.)/Gut (U.K.)

Producers: Ron Mael/Russell Mael

Standout Tracks: Perfume/(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country/Waterproof

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=87055&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7LmBhM0HCIc5AFvmoM0H1P?si=0Up0AKxoSoa5LdQkh8QVBA

Review:

“As with last album Lil' Beethoven, Ron and Russell Mael's new opus presents you with pop music that bears hardly any relation to anything else. A strange amalgam of keyboard-led, semi-operatic sturm und drang with added metal (courtesy of Dean Menta of Faith No More) this builds on ...Beethoven's template of repetition and wit, adding a coherent concept: Modern love and all its pitfalls. Hello Young Lovers addresses its effect on your career (''Dick Around''); your self-esteem (''Here Kitty''); its monotony (''The Very Next Fight''); even its socio-politically euphemistic aspects (''(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?'').

The killer punch however has to be ''Perfume'' - a list of girls and their chosen scents, all topped off with a twist on the Proustian effect of smell. In other words it's cynical, intelligent and very, very funny. For a band celebrating over 30 years of active service this is still extremely bold, new stuff. Screw the past, indeed…” – BBC

Choice Cut: Dick Around

The Latest Album

 

A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip

Release Date: 15th May, 2020

Label: BMG

Producers: Ron Mael/Russell Mael

Standout Tracks: I'm Toast/Sainthood Is Not in Your Future/Self-Effacing

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1764622&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/43DZQacT84CN8EYfKcmeSL?si=sapYsJ2nSPGUShcpn6jPRA

Review:

“All that we’ve done / We’ve lost / We’ve won,” sings Russell Mael on the opening track on the twenty-fourth Sparks album, ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’. ‘All That’ sets a bold, mature tone to the record , one that suggests this will be a record that you’d expect from a duo that’s been active since 1967. It is a song that betrays a sense of coming to terms with their legacy, of looking back fondly over the last 53 years.

Fortunately, Sparks are not ready to go all schmaltzy and sentimental just yet. By the second track, we’re reassuringly back in the absurdist place that Ron and Russell Mael call home: ‘I’m Toast’ is, on on one level, a song about a relationship ending, not just badly, but almost certainly catastrophically. It’s also a song about toasted bread. Like, actual toast. Who else but Sparks could pull that off?

And so it brilliantly goes. Here we find songs that might be about actors slipping messily from grace or might be asking you to take a good, long look at your own morality (‘Sainthood’s Not In Your Future’); Uniqlo winter coats (‘Left Out In The Cold’) ; a song which creates an intricately-crafted character out of phonetic imitation (‘Ono mata Pia’) ; a dose of extreme paranoia (‘Existential Threat’); and, finally, a plaintive, emotional call to look after one another (‘Please Don’t Fuck Up My World’). These are classic Sparks moments, full of comedy, clever wordplay, deft explorations of all the myriad issues of the world, with arrangements that sound as current and fresh as a dew-soaked spring daisy.

‘Lawnmower’ is the album’s highlight, a song that has pulled this writer out of self-isolation moroseness on countless occasions over the past few months, taking the improbable form of an infectious electronic pop song about a chap with a major over-attachment problem toward his grass-cutting equipment. The song has a simple, almost nursery rhyme innocence, bouncing along quite cheerily with Russell sing ing about manicuring an award-winning lawn that will be the envy of the protagonist’s neighbours. The fact that his obsession is highly likely to cost him his relationship with a girlfriend from Andover who drives a Range Rover – the rhymes on this song are utter, utter genius – doesn’t get in the way o f ‘Lawnmower’ raising a much-needed smile” - CLASH

Choice Cut: One for the Ages

The Sparks Book

 

In the Words of Sparks...Selected Lyrics

Authors: Ron Mael (Editor)/Russell Mael (Editor)/Morrissey (Introduction)

Publication Date: 5th January, 2014

Publisher: Tam Tam Books

Reviews:

“Sparks--the long-running duo of Ron and Russell Mael--are among the most respected songwriters of their generation, their songs ranking alongside those of Ray Davies (The Kinks having been a formative influence), George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim. Formed in Los Angeles in 1971, Sparks have issued over 20 albums and scored chart hits with songs such as "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us," "Cool Places" and "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth." While their musical style has changed dramatically over the course of 40 years--embracing the British Invasion sound of the 60s, glam rock, disco (they teamed up with Giorgio Moroder for 1979's "No. 1 in Heaven") and even techno--their work has consistently stretched the boundaries of pop music and the song form. Sparks continue to break new ground: they are currently working on a project with filmmaker Guy Maddin and are soon to embark on a world tour. Now, for the first time, the Mael brothers have chosen their favorite Sparks lyrics (to some 75 songs), editing and correcting them for presentation in In the Words of Sparks. As James Greer--novelist and former member of Guided by Voices--comments, "Sparks-level wordplay is a gift, and more than that, an inspiration." This book also includes a substantial introduction by fellow Los Angeles resident and longtime fan, Morrissey" – Amazon.co.uk

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Words-Sparks-Selected-Lyrics/dp/0985272406

FEATURE: Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are More Than a Guilty Pleasure: Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply

FEATURE:

 

 

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

Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply

___________

WHILST I vowed to stay away from the ‘90s…

when it comes to songs I include in this feature, I am drawn back to the decade. I don’t think any song is a guilty pleasure, though many have labelled the Australian duo, Savage Garden, as a guilty pleasure group. Consisting of Darren Hayes on vocals and Daniel Jones on instruments, they split in 2001. I think that Savage Garden’s eponymous debut is a great album with some really strong songs. Many feel that their biggest hit, Truly Madly Deeply, is slushy and a guilty pleasure. Maybe it is a bit syrupy, though I think that it has a tenderness and appeal that might have been missed by some in 1997. Produced by Charles Fisher and Mike Pela (there was an original Australian Version; there is also an International Version) and written by Hayes and Jones, I really like Truly Madly Deeply. It sits on the debut album alongside other big songs like To the Moon and Back and I Want You. There was a lot of great music released in 1997. I think Savage Garden were a group/dup who split people and maybe appealed more to young women/a narrow fanbase. In terms of background information and details regarding Truly Madly Deeply, this Wikipedia article explains more:

“Truly Madly Deeply" is a song by Australian pop duo Savage Garden, released as the third single from their self-titled debut album in March 1997 by Columbia Records, Roadshow Music and Sony Records. It won the 1997 ARIA Music Award for Single of the Year and Highest Selling Single and was nominated for Song of the Year. Written by bandmates Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones, the song is a reworking of a song called "Magical Kisses" that the pair wrote together during the recording of their debut album.

The song reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Two music videos were filmed for the track: one for its original Australian release and another for the international market shot in Paris. In November 2019, the song was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's selection of recordings. The songs added to the list provide a snapshot of Australian life and have "cultural, historical and aesthetic significance and relevance".

Larry Flick from Billboard wrote that "this is the single that should help affirm that Savage Garden is more than a one-hit wonder." He described the song as a "percussive ballad" and complimented it for revealing "vocal skills and charisma not previously displayed". He noted further that "with its romantic lyrics and plush, guitar-etched instrumentation, this song "truly madly deeply" deserves as much airplay as top 40 programmers can heap upon it." Insider described it as "a truly sweet song, written out of homesickness, this love ballad has total staying power and is still played over 20 years later." Music & Media stated that "this Australian duo possess a fine knack for writing excellent mainstream pop with top flight radio appeal." They added that "this track, taken from their eponymous debut album, is no exception—as proven by its recent two-week stay at the top of Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart." In 2018, Stacker placed the song at number 21 in their list of "Best pop songs of the last 25 years", noting it as "a quintessential '90s pop song". In 2019, they ranked it at number 9 in their list of "Best 90s pop songs".

It is a shame that Savage Garden had a very brief run. Their second and final album, Affirmation, was released in 1999. It is a strong album but did not receive the same sort of reviews as Savage Garden. Maybe a song like Truly Madly Deeply is a very 1990s song and one wouldn’t really hear anything like it today. That said, it is a track that has received some stick; many feel it is a bit too sickly and it is a guilty pleasure. I am going to wrap up in a bit. Before I come to the end, I want to bring in an article from Smooth Radio. They provide us with a bit more information regarding the recording of the song and the different videos shot for Truly Madly Deeply:

“Jones were sent to Sydney for eight months to record songs for a debut album.

For Hayes, this was the first time in his life that he was away from his family and his native Brisbane.

This longing for his family and his then-wife, inspired him to write a song that would express his feelings.

The chorus of the song didn't occur until the very last moment before recording. Jones had doubts over the chorus they had written, as he felt it did not fit with the rest of the song or Savage Garden's other tracks.

The night before, Hayes had dinner at the Bayswater Brasserie on Bayswater Road, Kings Cross. Here, he came up with the new chorus of "I want to stand with you on a mountain, I want to bathe with you in the sea, I want to lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me."

The next day, they performed the new chorus for producer Charles Fisher, and recorded it as a trial run. Fisher loved it, and it was later released as a single.

The song actually started life as a song called 'Magical Kisses', that the pair wrote together long before they began recording their debut album.

Two music videos were made for the song.

The original Australian video, which sees Hayes with long hair, features the duo in a white room with other people. Hayes appears on a red sofa singing the song while Daniel performs on the piano.

However, the video used for Europe sees Hayes with short hair, and was filmed in Paris.

This video was directed by Adolfo Doring, and depicts the story of two lovers, a young man and a woman, who have been separated. The woman arrives in Paris in search of her lover, who is also waiting for her.

He is seen in various places within the Montmartre area, including the Soleil de la Butte restaurant. Hayes is also seen walking around Paris, in locations such as the Place de la Concorde and the Jardin des Tuileries”.

Some people have avoided Savage Garden and side-lined them. I would urge people to give them another taste and spin Truly Madly Deeply. Despite some cliché imagery (“I wanna stand with you on a mountain/I wanna bathe with you in the sea”), the lyrics are really strong and poetic. The chorus is powerful and it will draw you in soon enough! I was not a big fan of the song in 1997. In the years since, I have got behind it and embraced it. As a teen when it came out, perhaps I did not see it as cool. Having dispensed with that kind of attitude, I have changed my tune. Even though not everyone will love the song and appreciate it, I think it is unfair to label Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply…

AS a guilty pleasure.

FEATURE: Oh! You Pretty Things: Ten of the Best Albums from 1971

FEATURE:

 

 

Oh! You Pretty Things

IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Ward

Ten of the Best Albums from 1971

___________

I am returning to the year 1971…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell

for a couple of reasons. For one, there is a new Apple docuseries, 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, that I will get to soon. One titanic and hugely important album from 1971, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, has just turned fifty. Another, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, is fifty on 22nd June. Some would argue 1971 is the finest year ever for music. Whilst I think that honour goes to 1994, one marvels at the variety of genius albums released in 1971 and how important and timeless they are! So busy and eclectic, it must have been thrilling for music lovers in 1971. Not to be reductive, but I want to highlight ten terrific albums from 1971 that adds to the argument that it is one of the greatest years for music. I am looking forward to Joni Mitchell’s Blue turning fifty. There are many other rich and hugely popular albums that hit that anniversary later in the year. Before coming to a top-ten, The Guardian published a feature recently regarding the new Apple docuseries. They highlight the joys of the series and a few of the albums under the microscope:

“Volume is paramount on the new Apple docuseries 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, both in the play-it-loud sense as well as the sheer-quantity sense. The watershed social and artistic moment explored across the eight episodes contained a staggering amount of genius, to the point that an interview quickly dissolves into the same awed name-cataloguing one might expect to hear around a college radio station or independent record shop.

“It’s a predictable answer,” executive producer James Gay-Rees tells the Guardian, “but my favorite is What’s Going On, really one of the greatest songs of all time.”

“We bought all the discussed records on vinyl, listened to them fully through as cohesive works, and at different times, different ones became my favorite,” explains episode director James Rogan. “I had a phase with Hunky Dory, one with Bill Withers’ Just As I Am. As single songs go, What’s Going On was massive for me as well.”

“We can’t get into a chat without the words Sly Stone,” pipes in full-series director Asif Kapadia, an Oscar-winner for his 2015 bio-doc on Amy Winehouse. “Curtis Mayfield, too. Isaac Hayes, with the theme from Shaft.”

“Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man.”

“Aretha Franklin’s recording of Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

“Tapestry, by Carole King.”

It’s easy to imagine them continuing this for several hours, probably with a case of beers and a good set of speakers.

But for all their open-hearted admiration, the brilliance of their new project lies in the discipline with which they channel that spirit of fandom into a more studied form of cultural anthropology. The vast purview of their chosen year – John Lennon moving to New York, the Stones shacking up in the south of France, the Concert for Bangladesh, Joni Mitchell releasing Blue, the list of key events seems to go on forever – forced them to consider more thoughtful, creative methods of organizing the material. Though they worked from the basis of David Hepworth’s book Never a Dull Moment, the creative team wanted to move away from his straightforward chronology toward a structure shaped by overarching themes.

IN THIS PHOTO: Marvin Gaye 

The series eschews the usual talking-head interview segments, instead jam-packing every episode with archival filmstrips from front to back. Snippets of disembodied voiceover blur the line between the excavated audio from the period and the soundbites the directors harvested themselves in the present day. As Kapadia would have it, the cohering effect was intentional. “We’ve been making archive-driven films for a while now, and the whole idea is to make everything feel like part of the same universe,” he says. “You shouldn’t be able to mark them, ‘Oh, that’s a period sample, and oh, that’s a contemporary one.’ The whole thing should be in the moment, 1971 as the present. We don’t cut from people now, older, to their younger beautiful selves. The whole thing is about being there, walking down the street in 1971”.

Others may have their own opinions as to the ten best albums of 1971. It is so tough to narrow it down, though I think the albums below are among the very finest. They are tremendously important and engaging albums that I think will survive for decades and move people very many years from now. Despite the fact that I truly believe 1994 was the best year for music/albums, exploring the very best of 1971 has given me…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Led Zeppelin/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archive

PAUSE for thought.

_______________

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Release Date: 17th December

Label: RCA

Producers: Ken Scott/David Bowie

Standout Tracks: Oh! You Pretty Things/Life on Mars?/Kooks

Review:

“The theme of shifting sexual identity became the core of Bowie's next album, 1971's scattered but splendid Hunky Dory: "Gotta make way for the Homo Superior," he squeals on the gay-bar singalong "Oh! You Pretty Things", simultaneously nodding to Nietzsche and to X-Men. He'd also made huge leaps as a songwriter, and his new songs demonstrated the breadth of his power: the epic Jacques Brel-gone-Dada torch song "Life on Mars?" is immediately followed by "Kooks", an adorable lullaby for his infant son. The band (with Trevor Bolder replacing Visconti on bass) mostly keeps its power in check—"Changes" is effectively Bowie explaining his aesthetic to fans of the Carpenters. Still, they cut loose on the album's most brilliant jewel, "Queen Bitch", a furiously rocking theatrical miniature (Bowie-the-character-actor has rarely chewed the scenery harder) that out-Velvet Undergrounds the Velvet Underground” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: Changes

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

Release Date: 21st May

Label: Tamla

Producer: Marvin Gaye

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

Review:

“Conceived as a statement from the viewpoint of a Vietnam veteran (Gaye's brother Frankie had returned from a three-year hitch in 1967), What's Going On isn't just the question of a baffled soldier returning home to a strange place, but a promise that listeners would be informed by what they heard (that missing question mark in the title certainly wasn't a typo). Instead of releasing listeners from their troubles, as so many of his singles had in the past, Gaye used the album to reflect on the climate of the early '70s, rife with civil unrest, drug abuse, abandoned children, and the spectre of riots in the near past. Alternately depressed and hopeful, angry and jubilant, Gaye saved the most sublime, deeply inspired performances of his career for "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," and "Save the Children." The songs and performances, however, furnished only half of a revolution; little could've been accomplished with the Motown sound of previous Marvin Gaye hits like "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "Hitch Hike" or even "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." What's Going On, as he conceived and produced it, was like no other record heard before it: languid, dark, and jazzy, a series of relaxed grooves with a heavy bottom, filled by thick basslines along with bongos, conga, and other percussion. Fortunately, this aesthetic fit in perfectly with the style of longtime Motown session men like bassist James Jamerson and guitarist Joe Messina. When the Funk Brothers were, for once, allowed the opportunity to work in relaxed, open proceedings, they produced the best work of their careers (and indeed, they recognized its importance before any of the Motown executives). Bob Babbitt's playing on "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" functions as the low-end foundation but also its melodic hook, while an improvisatory jam by Eli Fountain on alto sax furnished the album's opening flourish. (Much credit goes to Gaye himself for seizing on these often tossed-off lines as precious; indeed, he spent more time down in the Snakepit than he did in the control room.) Just as he'd hoped it would be, What's Going On was Marvin Gaye's masterwork, the most perfect expression of an artist's hope, anger, and concern ever recorded” – AllMusic

Key Cut: What’s Going On

Joni Mitchell - Blue

Release Date: 22nd June

Label: Reprise

Producer: Joni Mitchell

Standout Tracks: Blue/California/A Case of You

Review:

“All I Want," though it begins the album, marks the end of the long holiday journey described in "Carey" and "California." Both songs have the syncopated, Latin touch that characterizes the best cuts on the album. "Carey," a calypso about dalliance on Crete, had a definite festival flavor, but with a twist at the end: "The wind is in from Africa/Last night I couldn't sleep/Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here but it's really not my home."

"California" jumps along in short bursts, the lyrics giving snapshots of Joni's European itinerary. Then comes the flowing chorus with its hint of tango, its plaintive pedal steel guitar and its homesick refrain: "Oh, it gets so lonely/When you're walking and the streets are full of strangers." The song is a model of subtle production; James Taylor's twitchy guitar and Russ Kunkel's superb, barely detectable high-hat and bass-pedal work give it just the right amount of propulsion.

In "This Flight Tonight," "A Case of You," and "Blue," Joni comes to terms with the reality that loneliness is not simply the result of prolonged traveling; the basic problem is that her lover will not give her all she wants. In "This Flight Tonight," Joni has walked out on her man, is flying West on a jet, and now regrets the decision. The lyrics, a clumsy attempt at stream of consciousness, are virtually unsingable and Joni's lyric soprano is hopelessly at odds with the rock and roll tune. But the chorus has just the wispiest trace of Bo Diddley and it sticks with you:

Oh Starbright, starbright

You've got the lovin' that I like, all right

Turn this crazy bird around

I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight.

In "A Case of You," James repeats the same dotted guitar riff he played in "California," only the melody here is slow, stately and almost hymnlike. The song is neatly divided in its ambivalence: each verse is about a setback to the affair, followed by a chorus in which Joni affirms: "But you are in my blood like holy wine." In comparing love to communion, Joni defines explicitly the underlying theme of Blue: for her love has become a religious quest, and surrendering to loneliness a sin.

It is only a short step from that to Joni's vow that she will walk through hell-fire to follow her man: "Well everybody's saying/That hell's the hippest way to go/Well I don't think so/But I'm gonna look around it though/Blue I love you." This is "Blue," the last cut on the first side but clearly the album's final statement, the bottom of the slope downward from the euphoria of "All I Want." For all its personal revelation, "All I Want" still sounds like a beautiful pop tune; "Blue," on the other hand, has the secret, ineffably sad feeling of a Billie Holliday song. Joy, after all, can be shared with everybody, but intense pain leads to withdrawal and isolation.

"Blue" is a distillation of pain and is therefore the most private of Joni's private songs. She wrote it for nobody but herself and her lover:

Blue here is a shell for you

Inside you'll hear a sigh

A foggy lullaby

There is your song from me.

The beauty of the mysterious and unresolved melody and the expressiveness of the vocal make this song accessible to a general audience. But "Blue," more than any of the other songs, shows Joni to be twice vulnerable: not only is she in pain as a private person, but her calling as an artist commands her to express her despair musically and reveal to an audience of record-buyers:

And yet, despite the title song. Blue is overall the freest, brightest, most cheerfully rhythmic album Joni has yet released. But the change in mood does not mean that Joni's commitment to her own very personal naturalistic style has diminished. More than ever, Joni risks using details that might be construed as trivial in order to paint a vivid self portrait. She refuses to mask her real face behind imagery, as her fellow autobiographers James Taylor and Cat Stevens sometimes do.

In portraying herself so starkly, she has risked the ridiculous to achieve the sublime. The results though are seldom ridiculous; on Blue she has matched her popular music skills with the purity and honesty of what was once called folk music and through the blend she has given us some of the most beautiful moments in recent popular music. (RS 88)” – Rolling Stone

Key Cut: Carey

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

Release Date: 23rd April

Label: Polydor

Producer: Jimmy Miller

Standout Tracks: Wild Horses/Can't You Hear Me Knocking/Sister Morphine

Review:

“In the topsy-turvy world of success they’d had more than their share of recent ups and downs. Sticky Fingers was destined to be the triumphant first release from their self-owned label but this success was leavened by the fact that they’d signed over their back catalogue to previous manager Allen Klein and had to give him the royalties from Brown Sugar and Sway to boot. The incessant touring meant that the band were now world citizens, but they still moved closer to their American roots. Using the usual support cast of Bobby Keys, Ry Cooder and Nicky Hopkins they turned their experiences into ten tracks of narcotic misery and sexual frustration. All wrapped in a very louche Andy Warhol sleeve.

Narcotics are a major theme, of course, but also loss, frustration and incredible world-weariness. Reviews at the time complained that Sticky Fingers lacked the bite of previous releases like Let It Bleed or Beggars Banquet, but it’s this very quality that makes the album special. Like Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, the sense of a wake creeps through tracks like Dead Flowers and Sister Morphine.

Elsewhere, the Delta serves as a touchstone for some of Jagger’s most heartfelt wailing as on I Got the Blues and You’ve Gotta Move, while he’s never bettered his letchery on Brown Sugar. Taylor’s arrival is keenly felt on Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?, with its Santana-esque coda. Sway and Bitch are hard-bitten rockers that couldn’t exist without Charlie’s taut snare.

Eventually the whole thing collapses in on itself with Moonlight Mile. A coked-out, somnambulant drift through an era’s last days, and a beautiful end to a beautiful journey. While many hold their next album, Exile On Main St., as their zenith, Sticky Fingers, balancing on the knife edge between the 60s and 70s, remains their most coherent statement” – BBC

Key Cut: Brown Sugar

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

Release Date: 8th November

Label: Atlantic

Producer: Jimmy Page

Standout Tracks: Black Dog/Rock and Roll/When the Levee Breaks

Review:

“One of the ways in which this is demonstrated is the sheer variety of the album: out of eight cuts, there isn’t one that steps on another’s toes, that tries to do too much all at once. There are Olde Englishe ballads (“The Battle of Evermore” with a lovely performance by Sandy Denny), a kind of pseudo-blues just to keep in touch (“Four Sticks”), a pair of authentic Zeppelinania (“Black Dog” and “Misty Mountain Hop”), some stuff that I might actually call shy and poetic if it didn’t carry itself off so well (“Stairway to Heaven” and “Going To California”) …

… and a couple of songs that when all is said and done, will probably be right up there in the gold-starred hierarchy of put ’em on and play ’em again. The first, coyly titled “Rock And Roll,” is the Zeppelin’s slightly-late attempt at tribute to the mother of us all, but here it’s definitely a case of better late than never. This sonuvabitch moves, with Plant musing vocally on how “It’s been a long, lonely lonely time” since last he rock & rolled, the rhythm section soaring underneath. Page strides up to take a nice lead during the break, one of the all-too-few times he flashes his guitar prowess during the record, and its note-for-note simplicity says a lot for the ways in which he’s come of age over the past couple of years.

The end of the album is saved for “When The Levee Breaks,” strangely credited to all the members of the band plus Memphis Minnie, and it’s a dazzler. Basing themselves around one honey of a chord progression, the group constructs an air of tunnel-long depth, full of stunning resolves and a majesty that sets up as a perfect climax. Led Zep have had a lot of imitators over the past few years, but it takes cuts like this to show that most of them have only picked up the style, lacking any real knowledge of the meat underneath.

Uh huh, they got it down all right. And since the latest issue of Cashbox noted that this ‘un was a gold disc on its first day of release, I guess they’re about to nicely keep it up. Not bad for a pack of Limey lemon squeezers” – Rolling Stone

Key Cut: Stairway to Heaven

Carole King – Tapestry

Release Date: 10th February

Labels: Ode/A&M

Producer: Lou Adler

Standout Tracks: I Feel the Earth Move/Will You Love Me Tomorrow?/(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

Review:

“She was 19 when “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” first came out; she wrote the music, arranged the strings using a book on orchestration borrowed from the public library, and played piano on the recording. The lyric was a kind of response to the Shirelles’ previous hit, “Tonight’s the Night,” but turned “sideways and upside down,” King has said. For 1960, it was rather radical: the voice of a clear-eyed young woman accepting the possibility of a one-night stand—“Can I believe the magic in your sighs?”—despite her longing for true love, resigned but not fooled. It became the first No. 1 hit of the girl group era. King and Goffin were so proud of the song that they engineered the doorbell of their home in suburban New Jersey to play its lovelorn hook every time a visitor arrived. But perhaps it was a cautionary tale for their own doomed marriage. On Tapestry, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” was a raw emblem of King’s own complex teenage years, and she sang it in careful measures, as if savoring the memory in each note.

King and Goffin wrote their monumental Aretha single after Atlantic exec Jerry Wexler pulled up to them while walking on Broadway, rolled down the window of his limo, and asked them to craft a hit for her with the title “Natural Woman.” They drove home to New Jersey, listened to R&B and gospel on the Black-programmed WNJR, and poured out a piece of history: “When my soul was in the lost and found/You came along to claim it.” Of course King’s “Natural Woman” does not summon the heavens with the same earth-shattering force as the Queen of Soul’s version, released in 1967. When King performed it live on tour with Taylor three years later, she would ask the audience to please imagine it as it once was—a demo for Aretha, and part of her life story. But the grasping of King’s “you make me”s and the fluttering of her “feel”s are charged with the force of a person attempting to turn herself inside out. In the voice of Aretha, “Natural Woman” is glory. In the voice of King, it is, like all of Tapestry, an act of pure conviction.

Though barely promoted by King herself, Tapestry spent 15 weeks as the No. 1 album in the U.S. upon its release, and stayed on the charts for five years. King won four Grammys for Tapestry in 1972, more than anyone had ever received at once, and it was the first time that the New York award ceremony was broadcast live on television. But King didn’t attend to collect the awards herself. She chose to remain in California with her newborn third child, Molly, instead.

It’s telling: There’s an unmistakable maternal energy to Tapestry. Throughout King’s career, she has recalled moments when her responsibilities merged, in which she’d have her baby in the playpen at the studio or be breastfeeding in between takes. Toni Stern has said that, while writing for Tapestry, King would be “playing the bass with her left hand and diapering a baby with her right.” King herself said that having kids kept her “grounded in reality,” which is audible in every loosely calibrated note of Tapestry. Her next artistic achievement was a collection of children’s music, 1975’s Really Rosie, in collaboration with author Maurice Sendak. A reworking of “Where You Lead”—rewritten, King has said, to sound less submissive—became the theme song to the mother-daughter sitcom “Gilmore Girls,” sung by King and her daughter Louise” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: It’s Too Late

T. Rex – Electric Warrior

Release Date: 24th September

Labels: Fly (U.K.)/Reprise (U.S.)

Producer: Tony Visconti

Standout Tracks: Cosmic Dancer/Jeepster/Life’s a Gas

Review:

“The album that essentially kick-started the U.K. glam rock craze, Electric Warrior completes T. Rex's transformation from hippie folk-rockers into flamboyant avatars of trashy rock & roll. There are a few vestiges of those early days remaining in the acoustic-driven ballads, but Electric Warrior spends most of its time in a swinging, hip-shaking groove powered by Marc Bolan's warm electric guitar. The music recalls not just the catchy simplicity of early rock & roll, but also the implicit sexuality -- except that here, Bolan gleefully hauls it to the surface, singing out loud what was once only communicated through the shimmying beat. He takes obvious delight in turning teenage bubblegum rock into campy sleaze, not to mention filling it with pseudo-psychedelic hippie poetry. In fact, Bolan sounds just as obsessed with the heavens as he does with sex, whether he's singing about spiritual mysticism or begging a flying saucer to take him away. It's all done with the same theatrical flair, but Tony Visconti's spacious, echoing production makes it surprisingly convincing. Still, the real reason Electric Warrior stands the test of time so well -- despite its intended disposability -- is that it revels so freely in its own absurdity and willful lack of substance. Not taking himself at all seriously, Bolan is free to pursue whatever silly wordplay, cosmic fantasies, or non sequitur imagery he feels like; his abandonment of any pretense to art becomes, ironically, a statement in itself. Bolan's lack of pomposity, back-to-basics songwriting, and elaborate theatrics went on to influence everything from hard rock to punk to new wave. But in the end, it's that sense of playfulness, combined with a raft of irresistible hooks, that keeps Electric Warrior such an infectious, invigorating listen today” – AllMusic

Key Cut: Get It On

Paul and Linda McCartney – Ram

Release Date: 17th May

Label: Apple

Producers: Paul McCartney/Linda McCartney

Standout Tracks: Too Many People/Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey/Heart of the Country

Review:

“Despite reaching No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US, Ram received harsh reviews, with Paul perceived as the bread-head who broke up the group. Yet decades on, as is so often the way, the music has triumphed, the antipathy set aside. Now, the cool thing to say is that the 1971 album – McCartney’s second post-Fabs, his last before Wings, and the only one co-billed with Linda – is one of his best.

Its stylistic grab-bag makes a highly entertaining spree, punctuated with bursts of true genius. There’s little coherence – it leaps restlessly from grandiose to silly, as is Macca’s way – but the best moments are breathtaking.

The UK single The Back Seat of My Car stalled, astonishingly, at number 39, but it’s a textbook example of why it’s impossible to sneer at this master craftsman for long. Romantic, surging, loaded with melodic twists and dynamic swoops which rip your heart out while smiling innocently, it’s a career pinnacle from a golden, competitive era.

Mr and Mrs McCartney sketched the songs while on a "get away from it all" holiday in the Mull of Kintyre, and then recorded in New York and L.A. with swiftly recruited musicians. Linda serves as backing vocalist (though she comes to the fore on Long Haired Lady).

Paul’s voice throughout shows uncanny range: although the whole vibe tries to say not-trying-too-hard, he proved a few points to Lennon. There are a couple of R&B plodders (Smile Away, Monkberry Moon Delight), but Heart of the Country is all rustic charm and the brilliant centre-piece (and US single) Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey is Abbey Road in microcosm.

Ripe for another re-evaluation, this reissue also offers rare/unreleased tracks, Paul’s orchestral version of the album, Thrillington, and that exquisite jewel, Another Day. Slaughtered at birth, Ram has lived on to fight” – BBC (Review of the Deluxe Version)

Key Cut: The Back Seat of My Car

John Lennon - Imagine

Release Date: 9th September

Label: Apple

Producers: John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Phil Spector

Standout Tracks: Imagine/Gimme Some Truth/Oh My Love

Review:

“A personal statement in the form of an honest and heartfelt apology and asking for forgiveness, “Jealous Guy” is a pleasant song. Spector’s presence is obvious, with the trademark strings building behind the fine ballad. Spector-ization of this album is a double edged sword – the simple, honest themes are probably best in their stripped down version, but Spector’s production does add a bit of richness and commercial appeal

Despite the strength of “Imagine” and “Jealous Guy,” The first side of the album is bogged down with much filler and is ultimately much weaker and less interesting than side two, where the action is. From the simple love song, “Oh My Love” to the deep, introspective “How?”, which includes perhaps the best lyric on the album-

“How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?”

The second side also includes a very personal dig at Lennon’s former bandmate and songwriting partner. Earlier in 1971, Paul McCartney had released his second solo album Ram, which contained the opening song “Too Many People” that had some harsh lyrics directed at John and his wife, Yoko Ono. “John had been doing a lot of preaching”, McCartney admitted in 1984. “I wrote, ‘Too many people preaching practices,’ that was a little dig at John and Yoko”. “How Do You Sleep?” was a direct response, with even less veiled criticism that directly took on McCartney with clear references and double-entendres.

“Gimme Some Truth” is the best song on this album. It is a rant expressing John’s frustration with the general bullshit of life and society. It features scathing lyrics delivered in a syncopated rhythm against a background heavy with bass and drums –

“I’m sick to death of seeing things from tight-lipped, condescending, mama’s little chauvinists All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth now I’ve had enough of watching scenes of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas”

It is a precise statement about politicians lying and propagandizing – cut the crap and just tell the truth.

Although the album features Beatles band mate George Harrison as lead guitarist, he does not shine too brightly at any one moment. Pianist Nicky Hopkins, however, provides some great virtuoso and memorable playing, especially on “Crippled Inside”, “Jealous Guy”, and the upbeat pop song, “Oh Yoko!”. Alan White takes over for Ringo on drums and there are many guest musicians, including several members of the band Badfinger.

On Imagine, John Lennon slides from themes of love, life, political idealism, to raw emotion. Honesty is an ongoing theme in his lyrics, especially after he descends from the polyanic vision of the theme song. It settles on the more realistic theme of life is not perfect, but if one lives honestly, loves fully and rises above the conflicts, it’s pretty close” – Classic Rock

Key Cut: Jealous Guy

Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On

Release Date: 1st November

Label: Epic

Producer: Sly Stone

Standout Tracks: Just Like a Baby/Runnin' Away/Thank You for Talkin' to Me Africa

Review:

“It's easy to write off There's a Riot Goin' On as one of two things -- Sly Stone's disgusted social commentary or the beginning of his slow descent into addiction. It's both of these things, of course, but pigeonholing it as either winds up dismissing the album as a whole, since it is so bloody hard to categorize. What's certain is that Riot is unlike any of Sly & the Family Stone's other albums, stripped of the effervescence that flowed through even such politically aware records as Stand! This is idealism soured, as hope is slowly replaced by cynicism, joy by skepticism, enthusiasm by weariness, sex by pornography, thrills by narcotics. Joy isn't entirely gone -- it creeps through the cracks every once and awhile and, more disturbing, Sly revels in his stoned decadence. What makes Riot so remarkable is that it's hard not to get drawn in with him, as you're seduced by the narcotic grooves, seductive vocals slurs, leering electric pianos, and crawling guitars. As the themes surface, it's hard not to nod in agreement, but it's a junkie nod, induced by the comforting coma of the music. And damn if this music isn't funk at its deepest and most impenetrable -- this is dense music, nearly impenetrable, but not from its deep grooves, but its utter weariness. Sly's songwriting remains remarkably sharp, but only when he wants to write -- the foreboding opener "Luv N' Haight," the scarily resigned "Family Affair," the cracked cynical blues "Time," and "(You Caught Me) Smilin'." Ultimately, the music is the message, and while it's dark music, it's not alienating -- it's seductive despair, and that's the scariest thing about it” – AllMusic

Key Cut: Family Affair

FEATURE: You and Whose Army? Radiohead's Fantastic and Underrated Amnesiac at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

You and Whose Army?

Radiohead's Fantastic and Underrated Amnesiac at Twenty

___________

THERE are a few Radiohead albums…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

that have revived mixed reviews. I think their debut, Pablo Honey (1993), is one. Hail to the Thief (2003) is another. Amnesiac is twenty on 4th June, and it is an album that got some positive reviews alongside others that were less glowing. I will bring in a couple. Some would argue Amnesiac is a celebrated album and critics were behind it. There are plenty who have pulled certain songs apart. Others have not really got on board with a terrific album. Arriving a year after the huge sonic shift that was Kid A, Amnesiac was not a return to the sounds we heard on The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997). Released on 5th June in the U.S., the album was recorded with producer Nigel Godrich in the same sessions as Kid A. The band felt that a double album would be too dense and much. They split it into two. That said, it is hard to compare them both. I think that Amnesiac is a lot different to Kid A. It is clear that Radiohead (especially Thom Yorke) was experimenting more with Electronic textures. Perhaps bored of guitar music or feeling that he was in a rut as a songwriter, it is great to hear Radiohead embracing new directions and not standing still. There are so many different styles and sounds portrayed through Amnesiac. I love the slow and haunting piano of Pyramid Song. Contrast that to the boozy, woozy brass of Life in a Glasshouse, and Amnesiac is a rich and diverse album. It debuted at number-one on the album chart in the U.K. It peaked at number-two on the US Billboard 200.

Even though Amnesiac does not get the same accolades as Kid A, I think the twentieth anniversary warrants respect and focus. I also think the album contains some of Radiohead’s best work. Pyramid Song, You and Whose Army?, I Might Be Wrong, Knives Out, and Life in a Glasshouse are classics. I also really like some of the lesser-highlighted songs such as Dollars and Cents. Before finish up, it is worth bringing together a couple of reviews. There are many hugely positive reviews for Amnesiac, though I feel some are a little unfair or do not give the album the love it deserves. Whilst not entirely positive, AllMusic admire the consistency and quality of Radiohead:

“Faced with a deliberately difficult deviation into "experimentation," Radiohead and their record label promoted Kid A as just that -- a brave experiment, and that the next album, which was just around the corner, really, would be the "real" record, the one to satiate fans looking for the next OK Computer, or at least guitars. At the time, people bought the myth, especially since live favorites like "Knives Out" and "You and Whose Army?" were nowhere to be seen on Kid A. That, however, ignores a salient point -- Amnesiac, as the album came to be known, consists of recordings made during the Kid A sessions, so it essentially sounds the same. Since Radiohead designed Kid A as a self-consciously epochal, genre-shattering record, the songs that didn't make the cut were a little simpler, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Amnesiac plays like a streamlined version of Kid A, complete with blatant electronica moves and production that sacrifices songs for atmosphere.

This, inevitably, will disappoint the legions awaiting another guitar-based record (that is, after all, what they were explicitly promised), but what were they expecting? This is an album recorded at the same time and Radiohead have a certain reputation to uphold. It would be easier to accept this if the record was better than it is. Where Kid A had shock on its side, along with an admirably dogged desire to not be conventional, Amnesiac often plays as a hodgepodge. True, it's a hodgepodge with amazing moments: the hypnotic sway of "Pyramid Song" and "You and Whose Army?," the swirling "I Might Be Wrong," "Knives Out," and the spectacular closer "Life in a Glasshouse," complete with a drunkenly swooning brass band. But, these are not moments that are markedly different than Kid A, which itself lost momentum as it sputtered to a close. And this is the main problem -- though it's nice for an artist to be generous and release two albums, these two records clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws, which clearly would have been corrected if they had been consolidated into one record. Instead of revealing why the two records were separated, the appearance of Amnesiac makes the separation seem arbitrary -- there's no shift in tone, no shift in approach, and the division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning, proof positive that Radiohead are one of the best bands of their time”.

I also like Pitchfork’s review of Amnesiac. There are a few tracks that they are not keen on. Never ones to give too much praise, they do give the album some applause.

“Similarly disappointing is "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." Powered by a gritty industrial beat, the song's intentional abstractness, for the first time ever, seems forced and caricatured. Thom's MacinYorke vocal treatments never seemed terribly groundbreaking, and here, the gimmick has gone utterly limp. Yorke's lyrical content is also at its most unchallenging, as he educates us on the many varieties of doors that exist, over oafish, programmed beats worthy of a Cleopatra Records sampler. Elsewhere, "Hunting Bears" is a two-minute instrumental clip of aimless guitar noodling that shoots for Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack but comes off as a cutrate Wish You Were Here outtake. A track like this is meant to segue into a related piece of music; instead, we're flung headfirst into the completely dissimilar "Like Spinning Plates."

If nothing else, Radiohead have always realized the emotional impact of a stunning album closer, and Amnesiac offers two. Sitting side by side, "Like Spinning Plates" and "Life in a Glasshouse" are so vastly superior to the album's other tracks that the album's few misteps are easily forgiven. "Spinning Plates," while a much better fit for Kid A, is nonetheless one of Radiohead's most affecting tracks to date. It opens with a digitally simulated "spinning" sound, disorienting reversed keyboard, and subtle keyboard pings. The song hits its peak when Yorke's indecipherable backwards vocals unexpectedly revert to traditional forward singing during the mournful climax, "And this just feels like/ Spinning plates/ My body's floating down a muddy river."

But if "Like Spinning Plates" would have been a fitting apex for Kid A, "Life in a Glasshouse" is entirely suited to the eclectic Amnesiac. Rather than creating a unique, Frankensteinian amalgamation from fragments of other genres, Radiohead instead target a style of music that hasn't been touched for decades: Edison-era big band. In the process of adapting the archaic jazz sound to polyrhythmic piano chords and rock lyricism, Radiohead touch upon an incredibly unique sound that could potentially inspire an entirely new genre.

"Glasshouse" is most easily (and most often) likened to a New Orleans funeral dirge-- probably because it's not far off the mark. Largely inspired by Louis Armstrong's "St James Infirmary," this track is the least like the others on Amnesiac, and easily the record's winning moment. When, amidst rueful trombone, tumbling clarinet, and the crushingly emotive trumpet of longtime BBC session musician Humphrey Lyttelton, Yorke insists, "Of course I'd like to sit around and chat/ Of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat," and follows it with a minute of wailing "only, only, only... there's someone listening in," the intensity is indescribable”.

I definitely feel Amnesiac warrants new focus and investigation. It is an album that would have shocked fans and those expecting Radiohead to produce something more Rock-orientated in 2001. With some brilliant minor cuts and some truly awesome and phenomenal songs, Amnesiac is an album that unfolds and unfurls after a few listens. A happy twentieth anniversary to the fifth studio album from the…

ALWAYS remarkable and innovative Radiohead.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Fifty-One: Jessica Pratt

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Porter for Loud and Quiet 

Part Fifty-One: Jessica Pratt

___________

IN the playlist at the end…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Guillaume Belvez

I am going to collate songs from all three of Jessica Pratt’s studio albums. I am going to focus on her current album, Quiet Signs, when it comes to interviews and reviews. Before that, it is worth knowing more about Pratt. For that, some biography from Wikipedia:

“Jessica Pratt (born 24 April 1987) is an American musician and singer-songwriter, based in Los Angeles, California. Her self-titled debut album was released in 2011 via Birth Records, a record label founded by Darker My Love and White Fence songwriter Tim Presley to release Pratt's music. She is often associated with the freak folk movement

Pratt was raised by her mother, who exposed her to a broad range of artists, including Tim Buckley, X, and the Gun Club. She learned to play the guitar around the age of 15, after her older brother gave up playing his Stratocaster. She took his guitar and started practising with the T. Rex album, Electric Warrior. She was soon able to play the guitar parts of the whole record. She eventually began recording songs at the age of 16, using her mother's Fender guitar amp and microphone”.

There are a lot of interesting interviews with Jessica Pratt around the release of Quiet Signs. I wonder whether we will receive any new music from the hugely impressive and engaging Pratt. I think she is an artist who will release more albums and, before long, be seen as a icon – or someone, at least, who is going to inspire and influence a lot of other songwriters.

It is worth going ahead with interviews and discovering more about Pratt and the recording of Quiet Signs. I think that album was one of 2019’s best. Before coming to reviews for Quiet Signs, I want to source from an interview Pratt conducted with Loud and Quiet in 2019. It is fascinating learning more about the incredible songwriter:

“Redding, California – where I’m from – is heavily Christian”

It’s a smallish city, but the greater area… there’s a lot of farmland and stuff. It’s kind of fallen on hard times in the last 15 years or so. It’s a land of misfortune in many ways. It’s the kind of place you either leave or stay and succumb to nothing good. There was a brief wave of a music scene that I was lucky enough to be around when I was coming of age. I moved out of Redding when I was 17 and moved to San Francisco in 2007. I worked day jobs, played music on my own, and when I played (once in a while) it was because my friends forced it upon me. I’d play maybe two shows a year. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in having a career in music, it just didn’t cross my mind that that would even be a possibility.

“There is that frustration when you read the reviews that call you Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell”

It’s funny because I haven’t done an interview in a while, my last record came out, you know, a bit ago [2015’s ‘On Your Own Again’]. That frustration seems like a very old one. But I think that’s the reality of making music that is any way consumed by the public. It will be condensed in a way that you won’t think fully reflects the picture. They’re important figures. But then I have a flute, you know.

]

“It felt wrong for the new album to be a summer record”

There was a period before ‘Quiet Signs’ was done when it was supposed to come out in the summer and I felt weird about that. It felt wrong. Not that I make music in any way intended to be listened to at only one time, but it felt wrong and I’m happy that didn’t happen. I suppose maybe sometimes that might pose a threat. I don’t know how many times you can plan it that way and have it work out. But I need these darker seasons. Especially living in LA, which is a season-less place. It’s like in the ’80s right now, which is very hot. The autumn and winter are introspective times and maybe more connected to a perceived mysticism than bright, hot summertime.

“This new record feels bare”

I don’t want to say that word, but I have. That isn’t a description of it musically, but it’s more emotionally on the cuff than the last record, which is maybe a bit more gauzy. Emotionally it’s a bit half-in, half-out of reality. On the last record I didn’t have a label until it was done. There wasn’t a label waiting, it was just me making music because I thought that would be a good thing to do. I had a work-orientated work in mind this time. It was a project I had to complete, and that motivated me after a while of not doing anything. I think because I knew it was going to be one big piece in the end I approached it and considered that”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Cabitt for RollingStone.com

Not only is there a different sound between her second album (2015’s On Your Own Love Again) and Quiet Signs. It appears, as we learn from this interview from Under the Radar Mag the recording method was quite different too:

“My first record was basically a collection of songs that I had recorded at different times that I didn’t intend to put out. And then half of the songs on the last record were things I just made when I felt like making music.”

The method of making Quiet Signs is a major break in tradition for the Los Angeles singer/songwriter, a change brought about in part by the significant amount of time that has passed since 2015’s On Your Own Love Again. That album’s release precipitated a 12-month global marathon tour, something Pratt now admits she would never do again.

“I was a bit mentally and physically exhausted,” she says. “I was also going through some personal things and they had worsened during that period of touring. There was a bit of convalescence that had to happen when I got back home. In 2016, I spent more time living my life than I had anticipated.”

The end product is her most beautiful and affecting music to date, a nine-song dream suite that emanates an intangible warmth that defies explanation. But after her self-imposed break, finding her rhythm didn’t necessarily come naturally. “I really did fall out of practice,” admits Pratt. “There were times when I thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, what the fuck is this.’ I don’t think it will ever be as pressured as that again. On some level I was aware of a level of expectation, so that was an aspect of it too.”

Quiet Signs also marks Pratt’s first major foray into a professional recording atmosphere. “I was a little paranoid going into something with that much intention, worrying about how it would affect the spontaneous, mystical energy that happens when you play music.”

Received wisdom may suggest that the switch from home recording to studio would require some sacrifice in the intimacy that the former allows, something Pratt was adamant to avoid. “I was very wary of the typical evolution and the loss of warmth or magic that can happen when it’s a clinical atmosphere. I was very dogged about maintaining the warmth.” She goes as far as to admit that she now occasionally finds songs from her last album a little harsh, such is the tender richness of the atmosphere on Quiet Signs.

Her process of writing songs at home in Los Angeles and flying to Gary’s Electric studio in Brooklyn to record introduced an element of discipline, as well as a sense of collaboration, with both engineer/co-producer Al Carlson and mutli-instrumentalist (and Pratt’s romantic partner) Matt McDermott playing several parts on the album. “It was kind of a relief to collaborate for the first time and have it feel successful, because it was something I had been a little wary of,” she says. “Any new experience can be scary, but it ended up working wonderfully.”

When asked whether this is the now the formula she’ll stick to in the future, Pratt says she’s been asking herself the same question. “I certainly enjoy the ease of recording in a studio. It might be that I go back and forth between the two methods, and maybe another method too.”

She speaks of how she enjoyed taking advantage of the opportunities to explore different instrumentation that a professional studio allows for, with specific reference to the organ and flute parts that Carlson ended up playing. “It’s a bit of a toy store,” she says, both relieved and enthusiastic that nothing of her essence has been lost in the transition.

Like her previous albums, Quiet Signs is noteworthy too for its brevity, an increasingly rare and heroic gesture in an age where the infinite capacity of streaming services has been taken by many as a green light to forego self-editing. “The length of my records isn’t a statement, but I do think it’s a bit of a thing to make super long records these days,” she says. “My aim is to only include the music that I think is essential.”

The album is such a unified, trance-like whole that it is easy to float away with it, unobstructed by Pratt’s lyrics. Indeed her voice is such that her words have become somewhat well known for being difficult to decipher. It doesn’t overly concern Pratt, who admits, “I didn’t quite realize that it was a struggle for people until the last record. But even if someone’s singing in another language, the emotional impact is there and it doesn’t seem to hinder people.

“It’s always a balance for me between words that have deep meaning and suit the song but also that serve a phonetic and melodic purpose, and sometimes it’s a mind-bending task. I never want to distract anyone, that’s a real consideration for me. I want the song to be one gelled piece that you can swallow instantly and dissect later”.

I am going to end with a career-spanning list of songs from Jessica Pratt. Quiet Signs is her at her very best. I am excited to see what comes next and whether, during the pandemic, she has been formulating any new tracks – and if so, what form might they assume? The last interview I want to bring in is from Pitchfork:

“Were you focused on any specific thematic ideas while writing?

I honestly think that I didn't know until the very end. I've always gone into songwriting without really thinking about any major statement. I have notions of things that are important to me and they're generally fairly abstract, but the thematic element is something that arises after the fact, or is only there on some unconscious level as I'm writing. I'm sort of envious of people who can set out a framework for what they want to say and then fill it in—that seems like it would be an interesting way to work. I find that any time I edge towards doing that, it subtracts something really vital from the songs. They usually come out of some spontaneous birth of melody and words, this inarguable process that I sometimes feel like I don't even have much to do with. I've always kept a dream journal, and just based on whatever you were going through at the time, you can look back and see these points of focus that you were processing. I think songwriting is similar. These things bubble up, you know—words just come out from your brain!

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Porter for Loud and Quiet  

Quiet Signs is the first album of yours that was recorded in a studio, but it doesn't lose one bit of your usual intimacy. How you were able to create intimacy in that kind of space, versus your home recordings?

The nature of my music is really quiet and subtle, and that's not something I try to engineer—it just is that way. You have to have that same intimacy in a recorded or live setting, otherwise the vibrations can only travel so far. I was very doubtful as to whether the studio situation would work out, but I tried it because I didn't have any immediate options that made sense to me. I was very nervous. There have been instances where I've tried to record something in a small studio in L.A. and it feels like the song is only half there, and there's sort of a clinical nature to it. I think the key was having a really good engineer who listened and understood what I wanted. Even though I'm very sensitive to my environment when it comes to playing music, I have always been pretty good at blocking things off and just channeling the thing that is necessary. That really came in handy.

You wrote these songs in L.A. and recorded them in New York. Can you discuss the push and pull of energy that exists between the two cities, and how that might have influenced your work?

I've always been very excited by New York but maybe a bit intimidated by it because it's such a psychically wearing place. There's a lot of compressed hardcore energy here. You know, it's like on a really cold day, you're on the subway and people just look beaten down. I know that's a cliché about New York, but it's very true. L.A. can be deceptively dark because it's this very sunny place, but it does have a strange and dark history at times. I used to work in Hollywood and I saw all these mysterious strains running through the city. There's a lot of desperation, too. I think I prefer to live in a city with dynamic energies like that, instead of like a safe, tranquil place”.

It is worth introducing a couple of reviews. There was a lot of critical praise for Quiet Signs. In their review, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“Throughout her catalog, singer/songwriter Jessica Pratt's music all but vanishes into its own shadow, the presence of her murmuring vocals and airy nylon-string guitar so faint that songs melt into each other or simply turn to mist. While vaporous, Pratt's songs are anything but slight, as her songwriting is so focused that she can control a mood or shift the color of her compositions from behind a curtain of spare notes and hanging thickets of reverb. On her first two albums, Pratt subtly shifted the light and temperature of her songs as the albums trickled by, both captured through hissy home-recorded means. Third album Quiet Signs is her first one recorded in a proper studio, but somehow her elfin vocals sound stranger and more obscured, floating out from behind waterfalls of reverb or humming at alien frequencies as on "As the World Turns." Rather than sacrifice some of the intimacy of home recording for more sterile production, Pratt chooses to retain that hushed glow and augment it with ulterior arrangements. "Poly Blue" is a spring-like jaunt that finds Pratt's vocal harmonies playfully dancing around center stage. Deep in the mix, threads of synthesizer, piano, organ, and even bubbly flute wind around the more audible elements. Likewise, "This Time Around" and "Here My Love" both read as stripped-down solo tunes, but barely there synth strings and piano chords appear briefly and recede without a trace. Even when a breeze of flute unexpectedly drifts through the middle of "Fare Thee Well," the album's expanded arrangements never distract but only support the distant magic of Pratt's songs. The running time of Quiet Signs is just under 28 minutes, all but demanding listeners to play it on repeat to catch the nuanced details stitched into the songs. Though earlier albums saw her crafting a strange otherworld, the perpetual sunset hinted at before is painted here in new dimensions, making this set of songs her best and easiest to revisit”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: James Emmerman for Interview Magazine

To round off, I want to quote from a glowing review Pitchfork gave to a truly incredible album. They had a lot of compelling things to say about the record:

“The nine songs here follow their own innate paths, often beginning with a simple acoustic arrangement before blossoming into vivid daydreams. On “Fare Thee Well,” Pratt’s gentle strumming and a piping organ give way to a whimsical flute solo—like a bird just freed from captivity, the sprightly woodwind soars higher and higher until it dissolves into the distance. Meanwhile, Pratt’s voice winds its own course, her varied intonations imbuing each song with its own character. Memories of “stolen city sighs” on “Here My Love” swell with the lingering euphoria of infatuation. On “Silent Song” she harmonizes tenderly with herself, imparting the idea that she is never truly alone. When she sings of existential restlessness on “As the World Turns,” her vowels are so round you can trace their full orbit.

Within these acrobatics, insight into Pratt’s poetic musings remains elusive. She warps the typically direct, observational role of a singer-songwriter into something altogether more mystifying. She wraps her words in tightly woven melodies and gauzy reverb, often rendering them incomprehensible. Pratt’s obscuration sometimes sound like a means of emotional protection, as if she is draping her vulnerabilities behind a veil. Motifs that do emerge from Pratt’s cosmos swirl around notions of uncertainty, loss, disenchantment, and, on the bright side, budding romance. When a lyrical impression emerges, it floats to the surface just enough to announce its presence, but rarely offers clarity. Pratt’s method of abstraction is especially affecting because it embodies the ambiguities of the everyday: how words are not always enough.

The clearest moments on Quiet Signs are the centerpieces “Poly Blue” and “This Time Around.” “Poly Blue” is all Laurel Canyon sunshine, as Pratt observes a lover’s mystique. “He’s the undiscovered night,” she murmurs, as flutes flutter around her chords. “This Time Around,” on the other hand, captures a moment of hopelessness, of a profound uncertainty that faith might fail. As the song opens with spare strums, she keeps these fears close to the chest, but they soon begin to spill out. Suddenly, her voice deepens for a startlingly straightforward confession: “It makes me want to cry.” It’s a rare moment of perceptible pain, one that lingers on after the song has ended.

From there, Quiet Signs begins to fold into itself like a daylily facing the moonlight. While “Silent Song” exudes sentimentality, “Crossing” is private to the point of impenetrability, its curlicuing shape suggesting the mysteries of introspection. Both tracks largely do away with ornate embellishments, allowing Pratt’s meticulous plucking to shine. It’s as if she could needle away on her guitar for the rest of eternity, slowly unraveling the biggest questions, one by one”.

I shall leave it there. I have only recently discovered Jessica Pratt, though I love her music and have been making up for a bit of lost time. There are going to be many people primed to hear more music from her. After such a difficult year, an album from her would be a welcomed gift. The Californian-born Pratt is…

A truly amazing songwriter.

FEATURE: Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums… The Kick Inside

FEATURE:

 

 

Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums…

The Kick Inside

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FOR the fourth…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

edition of this Kate Bush feature, I am ranking the songs from my favourite album ever: The Kick Inside. The debut album from Bush, I think that it still fairly underrated. I love all the songs, though I have charged myself with ordering the tracks in order of quality. I would urge people to get The Kick Inside on vinyl as it is a beautiful and hugely evocative listen. Before ordering its thirteen songs, here is some album information the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:

“The Kick Inside' is Kate Bush's debut album, released by EMI Records on 17 February 1978. The album was produced by David Gilmour's friend and associate, Andrew Powell and features 13 tracks. The album was recorded between June 1975 and August 1977, with all the songs written and composed by Kate.

At the time of release, the lead single Wuthering Heights had reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The second single from the album was The Man With The Child In His Eyes. Further singles from the album were Them Heavy People (released in Japan), Moving (released in Japan) and Strange Phenomena (released in Brazil).

As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band, supported by her brother Paddy and close friends. However, for the album she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her bandmates back on board. Paddy Bush was the only member of the KT Bush Band to play on 'The Kick Inside'.

There are thirteen tracks on this album. When we were getting it together, one of the most important things that was on all our mind was, that because there were so many, we wanted to try and get as much variation as we could. To a certain extent, the actual songs allowed this because of the tempo changes, but there were certain songs that had to have a funky rhythm and there were others that had to be very subtle. I was very greatly helped by my producer and arranger Andrew Powell, who really is quite incredible at tuning in to my songs. We made sure that there was one of the tracks, just me and the piano, to, again, give the variation. We've got a rock 'n' roll number in there, which again was important. And all the others there are just really the moods of the songs set with instruments, which for me is the most important thing, because you can so often get a beautiful song, but the arrangements can completely spoil it - they have to really work together. (Self Portrait, 1978)

As far as I know, it was mainly Andrew Powell who chose the musicians, he'd worked with them before and they were all sort of tied in with Alan Parsons. There was Stuart Elliot on drums, Ian Bairnson on guitar, David Paton on bass, and Duncan Mackay on electric keyboards. And, on that first album, I had no say, so I was very lucky really to be given such good musicians to start with. And they were lovely, 'cause they were all very concerned about what I thought of the treatment of each of the songs. And if I was unhappy with anything, they were more than willing to re-do their parts. So they were very concerned about what I thought, which was very nice. And they were really nice guys, eager to know what the songs were about and all that sort of thing. I don't honestly see how anyone can play with feeling unless you know what the song is about. You know, you might be feeling this really positive vibe, yet the song might be something weird and heavy and sad. So I think that's always been very important for me, to sit down and tell the musicians what the song is about. (Musician, 1985)”.

_____________

13. Room for the Life

“Song written by Kate Bush, first released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The lyrics are presumed to reflect Kate's views on womanhood. According to this view, women have a much stronger survival unit then men since they can bear children, and thus should use their advantage to help men rather then play games with them.

Performances

'Room For The Life' was included on the setlist for the Tour of Life. The song wasn't included in the official video Live at Hammersmith Odeon, but there is still a filmed performance in a television documentary called 'Kate Bush In Concert', broadcast in Germany and the Netherlands.

Credits

Drums, percussion: Stuart Elliott

Bass: David Paton

Guitars: Ian Bairnson

Boo-bams: Morris Pert

Beer bottles: Andrew Powell, Ian Bairnson” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

12. James and the Cold Gun

“Song written by Kate Bush in the first half of the Seventies and it became one of the songs performed by the KT Bush Band during their performances in the pub circuit in 1977. Brian Bath, member of the band, recalled later: " Rob got a dry ice machine from somewhere. We used that on stage for 'James And The Cold Gun' and it looked great. We had a bit of a show going! Kate did a costume change, she'd put on a bloomin' Western cowgirl dress for the second set! The theatrical thing was starting to get there." Del Palmer recalled: "She was just brilliant, she used to wear this big long white robe with coloured ribbons on or a long black dress with big flowers in her hair. She did the whole thing with the gun and [the audience] just loved it. She'd go around shooting people."

The song was recorded in the studio in 1977 and released on her debut album The Kick Inside. When she embarked on the Tour of Life in 1979, the live performance of 'James And The Cold Gun' used and enhanced elements of those original performances from 1977” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

11. Kite

“There are two officially released versions of 'Kite': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

Performances

“'Kite' was performed on television once. Kate performed the song live on Bio's Bahnhof, recorded in Germany on February 9, 1978, which was Kate's television debut. The song was also included in the setlist for the Tour of Life shows.

In the song, the character starts to feel that he is rooted to the ground, but there is a force pulling him up to the sky. A voice calls out, "Come up and be a kite", and he is drawn up to the sky and takes the form and texture of a kite. Suddenly he's flying "like a feather on the wind", and for a while he enjoys it; but the longing for home and the security of the ground overtake these feelings. (Music Talk, 1978) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

10. The Saxophone Song

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on her debut album The Kick Inside. Originally the song was recorded as a demo produced by David Gilmour in June 1975.

'Saxophone Song' was not released as a single. However, a playable postcard featuring the song was released in Poland.

I wrote 'The Saxophone Song' because, for me, the saxophone is a truly amazing instrument. Its sound is very exciting - rich and mellow. It sounds like a female. (Dreaming: The Kick Inside, 1978)

 The song isn't about David Bowie. I wrote it about the instrument, not the player, at a time when I really loved the sound of the saxophone - I still do. No, I don't know him personally, though I went to his "Farewell to Ziggy Stardust" concert and cried, and so did he. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, November 1979)

Credits

Drums: Barry de Souza

Bass: Bruce Lynch

Guitars: Paul Keogh, Alan Parker

Keyboards: Andrew Powell

Saxophone: Alan Skidmore

Electric guitar: Paul Keogh” – The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

9. L'Amour Looks Something Like You

“Song written by Kate Bush in 1977, released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside.

A "goose moon" or "goose month", mentioned in the song lyric, is a Native American term for the month (late March to late April) when the Canada goose returns from the south. Alternatively, the term refers to the full moon which appears during that period.

Credits (studio version)

Drums: Stuart Elliott

Bass: David Paton

Guitars: Ian Bairnson

Organ: Duncan Mackay” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

8. Feel It

“Song written by Kate Bush. Three voice and piano tracks were recorded on one day for Kate's debut album The Kick Inside, of which only 'Feel It' made it onto the final selection.

Versions

There are two officially released versions of 'Kite': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

A song about a woman who is looking forward to enjoying a relationship with a man she has not yet explored. (Music Talk, 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. Oh to Be in Love

“Song written by Kate Bush, first recorded in the summer of 1976 as a demo, and then included on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside.

Versions

The studio version is the only officially released version. However, a demo version of 'Oh To Be In Love' has also surfaced. It appears on the bootleg 7" single 'Cathy Demos Volume Two' and various bootleg CD's.

Formats

'Oh To Be In Love' was not released as a single. However, it was included in a four track EP called '4 Sucessos', released in Brazil” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. The Kick Inside

“Song written by Kate Bush. First released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The lyrics were inspired by a traditional folk song called "Lucy Wan". According to Paddy Bush, at the time of recording the song there were some experiments where actual sections from "Lucy Wan" were taken and processed and used in a very unusual way.

Performances

Kate performed 'The Kick Inside' during a TV special recorded in the Netherlands at the Efteling amusement park.

The song The Kick Inside, the title track, was inspired by a traditional folk song and it was an area that I wanted to explore because it's one that is really untouched and that is one of incest. There are so many songs about love, but they are always on such an obvious level. This song is about a brother and a sister who are in love, and the sister becomes pregnant by her brother. And because it is so taboo and unheard of, she kills herself in order to preserve her brother's name in the family. The actual song is in fact the suicide note. The sister is saying 'I'm doing it for you' and 'Don't worry, I'll come back to you someday.' (Self Portrait, 1978)

 That's inspired by an old traditional song called 'Lucy Wan.' It's about a young girl and her brother who fall desperately in love. It's an incredibly taboo thing. She becomes pregnant by her brother and it's completely against all morals. She doesn't want him to be hurt, she doesn't want her family to be ashamed or disgusted, so she kills herself. The song is a suicide note. She says to her brother, 'Don't worry. I'm doing it for you.' (Jon Young, Kate Bush gets her kicks. Trouser Press, July 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. Strange Phenomena

'Strange Phenomena' was released as a single (in Brazil only) on a 4 track EP called '4 Succesos' in June 1979, also featuring the songs Wow, Symphony In Blue and Hammer Horror.

Versions

There are two officially released versions of 'L'amour Looks Something Like You': the studio album and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

['Strange Phenomena' is] all about the coincidences that happen to all of us all of the time. Like maybe you're listening to the radio and a certain thing will come up, you go outside and it will happen again. It's just how similar things seem to attract together, like the saying ``birds of a feather flock together'' and how these things do happen to us all the time. Just strange coincidences that we're only occasionally aware of. And maybe you'll think how strange that is, but it happens all the time. (Self Portrait, 1978)

 "Strange Phenomena'' is about how coincidences cluster together. We can all recall instances when we have been thinking about a particular person and then have met a mutual friend who - totally unprompted - will begin talking about that person. That's a very basic way of explaining what I mean, but these ``clusters of coincidence'' occur all the time. We are surrounded by strange phenomena, but very few people are aware of it. Most take it as being part of everyday life. (Music Talk, 1978) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

4. The Man with the Child in His Eyes

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on her debut album The Kick Inside. Bush wrote the song when she was 13 and recorded it at the age of 16. It was recorded at Air Studios, London in June 1975 under the guidance of David Gilmour. She has said that recording with a large orchestra at that age terrified her. The song received the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding British Lyric" in 1979.

In 2010, former radio and television presenter Steve Blacknell offered Kate Bush's original hand-written lyrics for the song for sale through music memorabilia website 991.com.

The inspiration for 'The Man With the Child in His Eyes' was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that's the same with every female. I think it's a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don't think we're all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child. (Self Portrait, 1978)

I just noticed that men retain a capacity to enjoy childish games throughout their lives, and women don't seem to be able to do that. ('Bird In The Bush', Ritz (UK), September 1978)

Oh, well it's something that I feel about men generally. [Looks around at cameramen] Sorry about this folks. [Cameramen laugh] That a lot of men have got a child inside them, you know I think they are more or less just grown up kids. And that it's a... [Cameramen laugh] No, no, it's a very good quality, it's really good, because a lot of women go out and get far too responsible. And it's really nice to keep that delight in wonderful things that children have. And that's what I was trying to say. That this man could communicate with a younger girl, because he's on the same level. (Swap Shop, 1979)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Moving

“Song written by Kate Bush, included on her debut album The Kick Inside. 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."

'Moving' opens with a whale song sampled from 'Songs of the Humpback Whale', an LP including recordings of whale vocalizations made by Dr. Roger S. Payne.

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” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. Them Heavy People

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The song is about religion, and the teachings of Jesus and George Gurdjieff, among others. The song expresses an insistent desire to learn as much as possible, while she is still young.

The idea for 'Heavy People' came when I was just sitting one day in my parents' house. I heard the phrase "Rolling the ball" in my head, and I thought that it would be a good way to start a song, so I ran in to the piano and played it and got the chords down. I then worked on it from there. It has lots of different people and ideas and things like that in it, and they came to me amazingly easily - it was a bit like 'Oh England', because in a way so much of it was what was happening at home at the time. My brother and my father were very much involved in talking about Gurdjieff and whirling Dervishes, and I was really getting into it, too. It was just like plucking out a bit of that and putting it into something that rhymed. And it happened so easily - in a way, too easily. I say that because normally it's difficult to get it all to happen at once, but sometimes it does, and that can seem sort of wrong. Usually you have to work hard for things to happen, but it seems that the better you get at them the more likely you are to do something that is good without any effort. And because of that it's always a surprise when something comes easily. I thought it was important not to be narrow-minded just because we talked about Gurdjieff. I knew that I didn't mean his system was the only way, and that was why it was important to include whirling Dervishes and Jesus, because they are strong, too. Anyway, in the long run, although somebody might be into all of them, it's really you that does it - they're just the vehicle to get you there.

I always felt that 'Heavy People' should be a single, but I just had a feeling that it shouldn't be a second single, although a lot of people wanted that. Maybe that's why I had the feeling - because it was to happen a little later, and in fact I never really liked the album version much because it should be quite loose, you know: it's a very human song. And I think, in fact, every time I do it, it gets even looser. I've danced and sung that song so many times now, but it's still like a hymn to me when I sing it. I do sometimes get bored with the actual words I'm singing, but the meaning I put into them is still a comfort. It's like a prayer, and it reminds me of direction. And it can't help but help me when I'm singing those words. Subconsciously they must go in. (Kate Bush Club newsletter number 3, November 1979)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

1. Wuthering Heights

“Song written by Kate Bush, released as her debut single in January 1978. She wrote the song after seeing the last ten minutes of the 1967 BBC mini-series based on the book ‘Wuthering Heights’, written by Emily Brontë. Reportedly, she wrote the song within the space of just a few hours late at night. The actual date of writing is estimated to be March 5, 1977. 

Lyrically, "Wuthering Heights" uses several quotations from Catherine Earnshaw, most notably in the chorus - "Let me in! I'm so cold!" - as well as in the verses, with Catherine's confession to her servant of "bad dreams in the night." It is sung from Catherine's point of view, as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be allowed in. This romantic scene takes a sinister turn if one has read Chapter 3 of the original book, as Catherine is in fact a ghost, calling lovingly to Heathcliff from beyond the grave. Catherine's "icy" ghost grabs the hand of the Narrator, Mr Lockwood, through the bedroom window, asking him to let her in, so she can be forgiven by her lover Heathcliff, and freed from her own personal purgatory.

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

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

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

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

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

(Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh I sound so intense. Wuthering Heights is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me it was the only one. I had to fight off a few other people's opinions but in the end they agreed with me. I was amazed at the response though, truly overwhelmed. Kate’s Fairy Tale, Record Mirror (UK), February 1978” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Twelve: Beyoncé

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Twelve: Beyoncé

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I have done a few of these features…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Kempin/Getty Images/Thinkstock

where Beyoncé has been in the playlist. With Inspired By…, I focus on an iconic and hugely popular artist and compile a playlist of songs from other artists inspired by that person. Now, I am putting Beyoncé in the spotlight. Before getting to that playlist, here is some biographical information regarding a modern-day superstar:

“Beyoncé, in full Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, (born September 4, 1981, Houston, Texas, U.S.), American singer-songwriter and actress who achieved fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B group Destiny’s Child and then launched a hugely successful solo career.

At age nine Beyoncé formed the singing-rapping girl group Destiny’s Child (originally called Girl’s Tyme) in 1990 with childhood friends. In 1992 the group lost on the Star Search television talent show, and three years later it was dropped from a recording contract before an album had been released. In 1997 Destiny’s Child’s fortunes reversed with a Columbia recording contract and then an eponymous debut album that yielded the hit single “No, No, No Part 2.” Their follow-up album, The Writing’s on the Wall (1999), earned the group two Grammy Awards and sold more than eight million copies in the United States. Survivor (2001), the group’s third album, reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200 chart.

Beyoncé was clearly the leader of the group and wrote hit songs for Destiny’s Child, such as the saucy “Bootylicious.” Eventually, the group parted ways to pursue individual projects. Beyoncé used her songwriting talents to pen her first solo album, Dangerously in Love (2003). The album debuted to rave reviews, and, aided by the exuberant single “Crazy in Love,” which featured rapper Jay-Z, it topped charts around the world. In 2004 Beyoncé won five Grammy Awards, including best contemporary R&B album and best female R&B vocal performance.

In 2006 Beyoncé released her second solo studio album, B’Day, which featured several coproducers, including the hit-making duo the Neptunes. Although much of the album carried echoes of 1970s-style funk, the pop ballad “Irreplaceable” became its most successful single. In 2008 she and Jay-Z married, and the union made them one of the top-earning couples in the entertainment industry. Later that year Beyoncé released the double album I Am…Sasha Fierce. Whereas the first half (I Am) found her in an introspective mood, the second (Sasha Fierce) contained songs better suited to the dance floor. The album as a whole generated several hits, including the assertive “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” and it contributed to Beyoncé’s dominance of the 2010 Grammy Awards. Her six awards, which included those for song of the year, best female pop vocal performance, and best contemporary R&B album, amounted to the most Grammys collected by a female artist in a single night.

Days after a triumphant headlining performance at England’s Glastonbury Festival, Beyoncé released 4 (2011), a genre-bending mix of ballads and dance tracks that evoked influences ranging from Motown-era torch songs to the audio collages of rapper M.I.A. In early 2013 Destiny’s Child reunited for a halftime appearance at the Super Bowl and released a new song, “Nuclear.” Shortly thereafter Beyoncé collected a Grammy for her single “Love on Top.” She returned later in the year with the confidently sensuous and expressive Beyoncé, which boasted brand-name producers and appearances from, among others, the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the singer’s toddler daughter, Blue Ivy. The record, initially offered exclusively on iTunes, was promoted as a “visual album,” with music videos made to accompany each track. The single “Drunk in Love,” which featured Jay-Z, was awarded several Grammys, including best R&B song.

On the expansive and musically variegated Lemonade (2016), Beyoncé focused on themes of betrayal and perseverance. Conceived as another visual album, it debuted as an HBO television special. Lemonade attracted considerable acclaim, and it netted Beyoncé two Grammys, including a best music-video award for the anthemic “Formation.” In 2018 Beyoncé and Jay-Z released a collaborative album, Everything Is Love, credited to the Carters, and it took the Grammy for best urban contemporary album”.

In my playlist below is a selection of tracks from artists who count Beyoncé as an influence. Either they have an element of her in their music or they have said that her music is important to them. I might broaden out and include bands in future pieces but, for now, a nod to Beyoncé and the artists…

THAT she has inspired through the years.

FEATURE: The May Playlist: Vol. 5: I Look in the Mirror and I’m Still Dreaming

FEATURE:

 

 

The May Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: SIgrid

Vol. 5: I Look in the Mirror and I’m Still Dreaming

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THIS week…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tommy Genesis 

there is an assortment of quality from artists around the musical map. Not only is there new music from Sigrid, Lou Hayter, Ladyhawke, Sleater-Kinney, black midi, Griff, Julia Jacklin/RVG, Girl Ray, and k.d. lang. Tommy Genesis, L. Devine, Poppy, and Kings of Convenience also have some great music out. If you require some kick and energy to get you into this weekend, then the songs below should definitely do the trick. It is another big and packed week for new releases. Stick these songs on in the sunshine. I hope that the remainder of 2021 keeps pace with the great music we have heard so far. I am excited to see what comes…

NEXT week.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

__________

Sigrid – Mirror

Lou Hayter – Still Dreaming

Ladyhawke - Mixed Emotions

Sleater-Kinney - High in the Grass

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Topete

black midi – Diamond Stuff

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

IDLES, Gang of Four - Damaged Goods

Griff - One Foot in Front of the Other

Julia Jacklin and RVG - Army of Me

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Cantouris

Girl Ray - Give Me Your Love

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

k.d. lang – Sexuality (DJ Krush Full Mix)

Tommy Genesis – peppermint

L. Devine - Girls Like Sex

Kings of Convenience – Fever

Poppy – Fear of Dying

PHOTO CREDIT: Bridgette Winten

Maple Glider - Baby Tiger

Aya Nakamura - Bobo

Yola – Stand for Myself

Texas – Dark Fire

Squirrel Flower - Flames and Flat Tires

GIRLI – More Than a Friend

Yorke - Window Shopping

Tamera – Wickedest

Hayley Mary – The Drip

Nelly Furtado, Quaterhead  - All Good Things (Come to An End)

PHOTO CREDIT: Lova Nymansson

The Veronicas – Kaleidoscope

PHOTO CREDIT: Jade Wilson

Wye Oak – TNT

Emma Bradley - Perfumed by You

NAYANA IZ – Breaking Point

Sloan Peterson – Parasite

PHOTO CREDIT: Nona Limmen

Chelsea Wolfe - Diana (Dark Nights: Death Metal Soundtrack)

Audrey Mika – Alive

RuthAnne – Safe Place

Half Waif - Sodium & Cigarettes

PHOTO CREDIT: Ingmar Chen

Lightning Bug - Song of the Bell

PHOTO CREDIT: Cameron McCool for Interview Magazine

Alice Longyu Gao, Alice Glass - LEGEND

Runrummer, Brijs – Timeshare

Grace Davies – Testosterone

Zola Courtney, Caeborate - Superstar

Dylan Cartlidge - Hang My Head

Saint Sister – Manchester Air

Njomza - over and done

George Riley - power

Mustafa - The Hearse

PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben Bastienne

 Vanessa Gimenez - Make It Rain

FEATURE: Station to Station: Part Twelve: Arielle Free (BBC Radio 1)

FEATURE:

 

 

Station to Station

Part Twelve: Arielle Free (BBC Radio 1)

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IN this Station to Station feature…

I am highlighting legendary, iconic broadcasters from around the U.K., in addition to younger talent who are shaping up to be broadcasting legends. Last week, I spotlighting BBC Radio 1’s Greg James. Today, I am featuring his station-mate, Arielle Free. On air with the Radio 1 Early Breakfast show, Free is someone who has the job of waking those at an hour most of us aren’t up. I have listened to her show and she is a broadcaster who puts her everything into every show. I think that she will be at BBC Radio 1 for a long time and will move slots in the future – perhaps hosting an afternoon slot or acting as a new music champion like Annie Mac (who is leaving the station soon after seventeen years). Not only is Free a skilled and hugely popular broadcaster, in addition to being a versatile and experienced presenter, there are no end to her talents:

“Scottish TV Presenter and  DJ Arielle Free is a Radio 1 presenter who takes over the Early Morning Breakfast show on the station in January 2021 after having presented the Weekend Early Breakfast Show for 18 months. During her short time on the station she has brought her unbeatable energy and studio dance moves to listeners week in week out.

Arielle’s TV work has seen her present ITV’s ‘Scrambled’ whilst also hosting ITV’s hugely popular Love Island podcast ‘Love Island: The Morning After’. The podcast was nominated for a British Podcast Award in 2020. She co-presented the BBC Sounds popular podcast ‘Worst Dates’ alongside Luke Franks, which saw the duo and guests discuss the most embarrassing dates they have experienced.

Aside from landing on Radio 1 in 2019 Arielle, she also presented the backstage interviews for British Academy Scotland Awards and hosted the BAFTA Children’s Awards.

In 2020 she was the presenter for  BBC Scotland’s brand new singing dating show ‘Love Song’ which saw contestants sing to win a date.

During  2020, Arielle started the Kitchen Rave which saw her host sets for Ted Baker and Mitchum and The Marketing Society.

With her passion for new music and music festivals, Arielle sees most of her summers hot footing it around the UK’s biggest festivals including live hosting at Glastonbury and Bestival, BST, Wireless, Reading and Lovebox.

A trained ballerina, Arielle also has perfect feet and once was a foot model”.

If you want to know more about the incredible Arielle Free, then there are some great interviews out there. Before I wrap things up, I am going to bring one in. I think that Free is going to be huge broadcaster in the future. In the early breakfast slot, she has amassed a dedicated following and has the sort of electricity, enthusiasm and sense of passion that makes one want to wake up that early during the week (Monday to Thursday from 5 a.m.) just to hear her – though one can hear her show on BBC Sounds if you are not up at such an early hour! Hunter Boo spoke with Free last year. In the interview, she (among other things) discusses her DJ career (where she works until 2 a.m.), the variety of her career, her T.V. work and Harry Potter!

“With a schedule that most of us would find gruelling, Arielle sees her six day working week as a luxury. DJ, TV Presenter, Festival Presenter, Podcast Host. 2am finishes and 5am starts - does this Scot ever stop?!

The answer is, no. We get the down low from how to be a greener festival goer to all the 'pinch me' moments throughout Arielle's career...Starred in Harry Potter. Check! Introduced Elton John on stage. Check! Missy Elliot favourites your tweets. Check!

And there's even more... get the inside scoop below.

When you're not waking up the nation each weekend on CITV’s Scrambled - where can we find you?

This year has been a mixed bag of places you can find me popping up! This winter I’ll be returning to the Gfinity Elite series championships, which is like the champions league of video gaming. I host the Rocket League series meaning each Saturday morning I’m live for over five hours helping to anchor and steer the broadcast.

This summer I was given the opportunity to jump behind the desk at Radio 1 and I’ll be back to cover again in November and December.

I have a new podcast project which I’m currently working on and that will be launching in early 2019.

Across December you’ll mostly find me djing the best of the Christmas and New Years Eve parties.

They say “never work with children or animals” – working in children's tv, do you have a funny story to share?

Series two of Scrambled someone thought it would be a good idea to have two pointer dogs appear on the show. They belonged to the location owners. The dogs were beautiful and amazing, but they became terrified when their paws hit the plastic flooring, they couldn't understand why their feet were causing such noisy tapping! They ended up freezing on the spot and shaking. Safe to say we decided to give them a cuddle and let them go back to their happy home.

We've heard you're a trained ballerina, after having started off in dance, how did that develop into being a presenter and DJ?

Dancing, presenting and DJing all stems from my love and obsession with music. I started dancing at around eight years old, just at a Saturday class and it turned out I wasn’t too bad.

I got into a full time Dance school in Scotland and came down to London to further my training. By the time I’d graduated from Uni I’d done everything I wanted to do with dancing. I started to focus on presenting as it gave me the perfect outlet to geek out about my favourite new bands.

I always worshiped the likes Zoe Ball, Zane Lowe, Sara Cox and Annie Mac growing up and I had been doing radio production and presenting courses alongside my dancing. I started DJing properly when I became the drive time presenter of Ministry of Sound Radio. I was already Djing but not to the standard of a club DJ so I got my head down and practised, practised, practised.

I think my sets benefit from my dance background as it all comes down to rhythm and getting people dancing, so I’m grateful for the path my life has taken to get to where I am now. They all support each other. If I could sing or play an instrument I would've been in a band. Unfortunately I wasn’t graced with any singing skills, ha ha!

Is it true you starred in Harry Potter when you were younger?  What was that like?

I crashed the auditions for the Beauxbatons which appear in the fourth film Goblet of Fire. I was a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I got the job and spent eight months filming on it. It was one of the best jobs I've ever done and the one that everyone always wants to ask me about.

The level of British acting you have on that film is unprecedented. It was incredible just to watch the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman acting right in front of your eyes.

When you were a kid, What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to present the breakfast show on Radio 1 like Zoe Ball and Sara Cox. I idolised them when I was younger. I also wanted to be like Shirley Manson and front my own rock bank like Garbage or Blondie.

Who were your childhood heroes?

Gosh there are loads. I used to be obsessed with Fearne Cotton and Lorraine Kelly. But also loved Bowie, The Spice Girls, Prince and all the old faves like the Rolling Stones. It was a mixed bag of broadcasting heroes and bands/artists.

Which females inspire you?

My mum. She was a single parent brought up my brother and I whilst having to juggle a part time job and work her way up through a company where she started as the admin lady. She's just about to retire early having made herself a board member, a kick ass vice president and now plans on travelling to as many places around the world as she can. Talk about inspiring.

What do you love most about your work?

The variety! I tried working in an office and hated every second. I love that I can be Djing until 2am one day, getting up at 5am for a shoot the next and then travelling onto a new location for the next adventure.

So many people asked if I was knackered doing the Love Island podcast as it was six days a week? It was the opposite. I was buzzing that I was getting to work six days a week solidly for two months and was still being able to do my festival gigs on my day off.

It’s such a luxury to be able to work that much in my industry. Also how many people do you now who get paid to be gunged on TV? It’s the best job in the world.

What's been your career highlight so far? (Other than getting to work with Kem Cetinay)

Covering Dance Anthems on Radio 1 in the summer. It was the scariest and most incredible moment for me as that has always been the dream. I’ve loved Radio 1 since before I can remember and to actually make it on air and broadcast live was unforgettable. A proper pinch me moment”.

Go and follow Arielle Free on Instagram and check out her BBC Radio 1 show. She is such a young broadcaster and DJ, so I feel the very best and most successful years are still ahead of her. Having achieved so much already, I think a post-pandemic world will offer her further opportunities across radio and T.V. I am a big fan of her work and I think that she will be…

A legend of the future.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Tinashe – Joyride

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Tinashe – Joyride

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RELEASED in 2018…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Diego Villlarreal for Wonderland Magazine

Joyride is an album that scored less impressive reviews than earlier albums from Tinashe. 2015’s Nightride and 2019’s Songs for You gained wider acclaim. It is odd that critics were not completely sold on Joyride. It is a great album with some fine moments. There are a few collaborations through the album, though not so many that it becomes too packed and lacking in individual identity. Songs such as No Drama and Faded Loved are among the most memorable and compelling of Tinashe’s career. The tracks are arranged so that you get singles dispersed fairly evenly, rather than them all being in the top half. I think Tinashe’s vocals are strong - there is enough to appreciate for those new to her music. Before sourcing from two differing reviews, here is some information regarding the album’s reception and charting:

“Joyride is the third studio album by American singer Tinashe. It was released through RCA Records on April 13, 2018. The album features guest appearances from Offset, Ty Dolla Sign, French Montana, Little Dragon, and Future. The album also features production by Stargate, Dre Moon, Hit-Boy, T-Minus, and others.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, most of whom praised the album's composition and themes, however some criticized it for it not being cohesive like Tinashe's previous studio albums. The album debuted at number 58 on the US Billboard 200, selling 9,800 album-equivalent units, of which 4,710 came from pure sales”.

“Joyride debuted at number 58 on the US Billboard 200 for the week of April 28, 2018, selling 9,800 album-equivalent units in its first week, of which 4,710 came from pure sales. She debuted at number 12 on the Digital Album Sales chart that same week, a chart that ranks the top 50 of pure albums sales that week. The album sales are a decrease in what was originally predicted, being originally predicted to sell 15,000–20,000 album-equivalent units, with 5,000–7,000 being pure sales. The album also reached number 29 on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The album debuted at number 55 on the Canadian Albums Chart, becoming the singer's first album to chart on the chart.

The album achieved similar success internationally, reaching number 78 on the UK Albums Chart, making it her first album to chart since 2014's Aquarius, reaching the same peak as Aquarius. In Australia, the album performed similarly, reaching number 76 on the ARIA Charts. On the Dutch Albums chart, the album peaked at number 103, becoming the singer's first album to chart on the chart”.

I guess, looking at the chart positions, one can call Joyride a success. It did well and got some love, though there were a few that were a little less warm. I have a lot of time for an album that, after a few listens, gets into the head. I would urge people to seek it out and give it a good listen.

I want to bring in a review from AllMusic. Whilst there were some positive points in their review, I feel the overall tone is a little mixed:

“There was a point before the release of Joyride when the trajectory of Tinashe's music career appeared to be tracing that of Cassie. Tinashe had the platinum debut single with "2 On," a solid parent album, and waning momentum after relatively minor chart success with the follow-up singles. The situation worsened as the arrival of Joyride was delayed and a tour was consequently scrapped. By the time RCA matched Tinashe with labelmate Chris Brown for a non-album single in 2015 -- the year she planned to release Joyride -- it was evident that the singer and her label weren't on the same page. Two more years passed, during which Tinashe offered the stopgap commercial mixtape Nightride. A third and final version of Joyride was finally completed and released in April 2018. Remarkably, it bears no signs of a tough birth, even with the knowledge that the lead song -- the title track -- had been sold to Rihanna, unbeknown to Tinashe, who eventually bought it back. Sung in a lower register with a slightly devilish lilt, and further distinguished by Hit-Boy's slightly abrasive drums, "Joyride" simultaneously sounds like a fit for Rihanna and a striking way for Tinashe to begin her second proper album. The track ends with strings to neatly segue into the trap-styled "No Drama," where she takes a quick jab at those who have belittled her. It's one of two collaborations with Stargate, the lone full-track production holdovers from Aquarius. The other one, the bounding, bittersweet "Faded Love," features Future. Apart from the presence of those figures and some fleeting sourness, Tinashe keeps it moving with new studio support and another batch of compositions that cover romantic highs and lows. There are some missteps -- a tropical-flavored pop number that sounds a couple years late and easily forgettable, and the usage of grating bed-spring squeaks throughout the otherwise fine "Ooh La La." Nothing here is bound to pass "2 On" in terms of popularity, but the highlights are filled with rich details and seductive hooks, heard at full power on the slow jams "He Don't Want It" and "No Contest." The smoldering, slightly bluesy "Salt" and sweetly aching piano ballad "Fires and Flames" -- two additional highlights -- invalidate all claims that Tinashe is one-dimensional”.

I shall wrap it up in a minute. Before then, there is a review from NME that is more positive. They emphasise the sense of fun and energy Joyride possess.

“Boasting a plethora of famous pals, and a handful of absolute club bops, ‘Joyride’ is brilliantly good fun. Little Dragon collaboration ‘Stuck With Me’ is a tropical delight, and ‘Ain’t Good for Ya’ is the flute jam you never knew you needed. Yes there are lulls: lead single ‘No Drama’, a team-up with nouveau-rap royalty Offset, can clunk along; and the less said about ‘Ooh La La’ – which features the constant grate of bed springs – the better. But where there are lulls, there are also towering highs.

Steamy Future collab ‘Faded Love’ is a club-ready hit, with his braggadocio so brazen it goes past the point of ridicule to being totally convincing (lyrical highlights include the Pulitzer-worthy “Imma find your G-spot like you dropped your location.”) ‘Salt’, too, is sizzling, with Tinashe’s silky vocals hovering over a sultry bass line and sparse whirring electronics. The stripped-back and shimmering ballad ‘Fires and Flames’ soars. Tinashe and her fans were kept waiting a frustratingly long time for ‘Joyride’, but perhaps it was this extra time that gave her the opportunity to craft the album into the sensual, star-ridden offering she’s released”.

If you have not heard Tinashe’s Joyride, then have a listen to the album as it has many rewarding moments and tracks that will stay in the mind. I agree there are one or two tracks that are not overly-great, though most of the album is pretty solid. I believe that the effusive and enjoyable Joyride is worth…

SOME more time.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Stephen Malkmus at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Gehrke 

Stephen Malkmus at Fifty-Five

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FOR this Lockdown Playlist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Gehrke 

I am including tracks from the great Stephen Malkmus. Many might know him as the lead of the U.S. band, Pavement - though he has had a successful career outside of the band. I am going to compile an assortment of Pavement cuts and those recorded away from the band. Before getting to that, here is some informative biography from AllMusic :

“As the leader of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus cut a distinctive figure in the 1990s, capturing a good measure of the decade's slacker zeitgeist. Apart from Pavement, Malkmus retained many of these qualities -- there was no mistaking his California drawl, nor his winding guitar solos -- but he took formal chances with the records he released under his own name, beginning with his eponymous solo debut in 2001. Almost simultaneously he formed a supporting band called the Jicks, an outfit that allowed him to indulge in his jam band fantasies both on-stage and on record. The Jicks were a steady support for Malkmus throughout the 2000s and 2010s, particularly bassist Joanna Bolme and keyboardist/guitarist Mike Clark, who stayed with the band through a series of drummers and such acclaimed albums as 2008's Real Emotional Trash and 2018's Sparkle Hard. The group also provided him with a base from which he could take detours, such as his 2016 soundtrack to the Will Arnett series Flaked, his 2019 electronic album Groove Denied, and its 2020 folk-rock successor Traditional Techniques.

After Pavement announced they were going on hiatus at the end of 1999, the status of one of America's finest indie rock bands was a mystery for the first half of 2000. It became clearer that summer, however, when it was revealed that both singer/songwriter/guitarists Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg were preparing solo albums. Malkmus was particularly busy during that time, performing new songs in Holland with Kim's Bedroom -- a one-off group that also included and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Jim O'Rourke -- and recording them at studios near his hometown of Portland, Oregon. Working with him were the Jicks, aka Portland indie rock veterans drummer/percussionist John Moen and bassist Joanna Bolme. Moen had played with the Fastbacks, the Dharma Bums, and his own group, the Maroons; Bolme played with the Minders and worked as an engineer at Jackpot Studios, where Pavement's Terror Twilight was demo'ed and parts of Malkmus' new project were recorded. Initially, Malkmus intended to release the album on his own or through a local label, but when his old label, Matador, received a copy, they agreed to release it. By the time Malkmus officially confirmed Pavement's breakup in the November 2000 issue of Spin magazine, Matador announced it was releasing the album -- originally titled Swedish Reggae and then changed to Stephen Malkmus -- in winter 2001.

Pig LibThe Jicks made their live debut that January at New York's Bowery Ballroom and spent the rest of the winter and spring touring the U.K. and the U.S., including a gig at South by Southwest with labelmates Mogwai and the reunited Soft Boys. Former Pavement percussionist Bob Nastanovich acted as the Jicks' tour manager, and Elastica leader Justine Frischmann (another friend of Malkmus') joined the band as a guitarist for selected dates. On 2003's darker, trippier Pig Lib, the Jicks shared credit with Malkmus, reflecting the album's more band-like feel. Released in 2005, Face the Truth found Malkmus embracing domesticity with a whimsical feel missing from his work since Wowee Zowee; the album featured Malkmus with and without the Jicks, who also supported him on tour that summer. On 2008's Real Emotional Trash, the Jicks welcomed former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss into their fold, giving the album's psychedelic free-for-alls greater heft. Mirror Traffic followed in 2011, featuring Beck stepping in as producer and Weiss taking her last bow as the Jicks' drummer. Moving to Berlin just before the release of Mirror Traffic in 2011, Malkmus used this uprooting of his family as the catalyst for his sixth album. Returning to the studio in 2013, he enlisted the production skills of former Pavement live engineer Remko Schouten to record 2014's Wig Out at Jagbags. It would be four years before Malkmus and company put out another long-player, but in 2018 the band released Sparkle Hard, their seventh studio album. The LP was produced by Chris Funk of the Decemberists, and it included the lead single "Shiggy," the previously released "Middle America," and the Kim Gordon-featuring "Refute." Just a year later, Malkmus released Groove Denied, a largely electronic solo album. He delivered the album to Matador prior to Sparkle Hard, but the label decided to focus on a new Jicks record first, leading Malkmus to call the 2019 album Groove Denied”.

To mark the fifty-fifth birthday of Stephen Malkmus on Sunday (30th May), this is a collection of some of his very best tracks. Even if you are not familiar with his work, I know that you will find songs in this Lockdown Playlist…

THAT you’ll love.

FEATURE: Spotlight: LoneLady

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Hurst 

LoneLady

___________

WHILST it is important to feature…

a mixture of brand-new artists and those who warrant further attention in Spotlight, I feel it is also key to emphasise artists who are coming back into focus or are launching a new album. The wonderful LoneLady (Julie Campbell) is releasing an album a new album next month. LoneLady is a superb and original artist. The Manchester artist started out being influenced by the Post-Punk era, later integrating Dance and Funk influences. She began making music on a 4-track cassette recorder in her flat in Manchester while completing a Fine Art degree. I will bring in a couple of interviews and a review for her last album, Hinterland (2015). Before then, as The Line of Best Fit report, there will be a third studio album from LoneLady very soon:

“After releasing her first single of the year "(There Is) No Logic" back in March, LoneLady has announced her first album in six years, Former Things, and has shared a second track titled "Fear Colours", which LoneLady describes as "an electroscape of funk, crunch and vocoder-ed fear!"

Former Things is entirely written performed and recorded by LoneLady at Somerset House Studios' Rifle Range, and will follow her 2015 album Hinterland.

LoneLady says of the album, "I was hungry for a change of scene. Born and bred in Manchester, my home city is like walking around a giant living diary, an archeology of myself, layered with memories. Following meetings with Somerset House Studios Director Marie McPartlin, in June 2016 I moved from Manchester to London to become a Studio member. I set up a new studio in The Rifle Range, an 18th-Century Naval shooting gallery. In this long, narrow concrete room I set up my studio to be part art-installation, part nightclub where I could turn the volume up loud and project Cabaret Voltaire super-8 videos and Ingmar Bergman films across the stone walls. I was located at the dramatic heart of it all, not far from Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace - quite a change from my previous studios nestled in the crumbling darklands of Manchester’s outskirts."

Tracklist:

The Catcher

(There Is) No Logic

Former Things

Time Time Time

Threats

Fear Colours

Treasure

Terminal Ground”.

Do can go and pre-order Former Things here. It is good to have a new album from LoneLady. I want to bring in a few interviews. We get to look back at 2015 when she was promoting Hinterland. What is noticeable about the interviews is location and setting. Campbell, in 2015, was based in Manchester, but she then moved to London. She is now back in Manchester – though I think she can see herself being back in London soon. In 2015, The Quietus spoke with LoneLady about Hinterland. There are some interesting passages that grabbed me:

“The tower block where Julie Campbell - aka Lonelady - lives and starts her daily walks from is also where she recorded her excellent new album Hinterland. She hasn’t been idle since her debut LP Nerve Up came out on WARP in 2009. For starters, she’s spent some of the time making Concrete Retreat - her home studio.

It’s no Rockfield though; no Electrical Audio; no Abbey Road, as she’s quick to point out: “I think some people would look at it and laugh that I would even call it a studio. Really it’s just an assembly of odds and scraps that I built up over the years. But really that’s what I make the music with.

“During the writing phase I thought I was just building up information to take to a studio when it was ready but the more I worked on the songs the more I realised they had an atmosphere that came from the tower block. The studio is in the same place as my bed. I get up and it’s there. Everything’s very compact. And that’s how it went for days, weeks, months. I will work at something again and again and again until it’s perfect. I won’t think anything of singing a line thirty times just to get the exactly right little inflection I want there. You can’t do that in a studio really. You don’t have the money and other people don’t have the patience. Working alone like that, I just gradually built up these songs, finessing them more and more and more until it was apparent that they were actually finished.”

When I mention the fact that her tower block overlooks a busy motorway flyover, that leads to nowhere, Julie anticipates what I’m going to say and replies: “J.G. Ballard? It’s a bit too Ballardian because over the road is also a centre for disease research as well. So I think I’m doing pretty well on the J.G.Ballard scale.”

It seems almost redundant to ask her if architecture influences what she does. Looking around the landscape she inhabits, it’s hard to see how it couldn’t. She adds: “Architecture has become a really huge part of what I do. While I was writing in the tower block I started reading Bunker Archeology by the cultural theorist Paul Virilio - a guide to abandoned German command posts, fortifications and pill boxes from World War II. I really related to it because even though the text was about military installations, it felt like he could have been talking about my tower block. One quote said, ‘Here bespeaks incredible pressures’, referring to the thickness of the concrete in the structures. But it could easily have been about a high rise building.

“I can feel all of these cubes replicated above me and all around me and I can feel all of these other people and presences pressing in on me and I think over the years the tower block has unfortunately become an oppressive space. But I’ve tried to work with that and use it to do something creative.”

With typical German etymological efficiency, the word Hinterland means simply the land behind. It has come to mean, territory slightly inland from the coast, the rural area surrounding a town or a port, a remote or undeveloped region, while also figuratively referring to anything that is ill-defined or not fully explored. Used as a title here it also suggests the quest to find a different landscape under the one that’s visible; an attempt to scratch away at the palimpsest of Manchester, to uncover a different truth, just hidden from view.

Julie says: “I love the word hinterland because it seems to encapsulate so many things. To me, Miles Platting, Ancoats and all of these outskirt places that I’m just drawn to day after day are the hinterlands. The city centre doesn’t offer anything to me - it’s corporate and shiny. I’m still drawn to these places that offer free rein to your imagination, the ruined buildings which you can reimagine and repurpose.

“Hinterland is also the landscape of your mind, your inner landscape. When I was writing this album, I was going through very long periods of being very withdrawn actually to a very extreme degree. And it’s very interesting what happens during those periods to be honest when you retreat inside a landscape of your own imaginings. There are at least two songs on the album that deal directly with withdrawing into this interior landscape”.

I think it is worth introducing a review for Hinterland. Those who are new to LoneLady should check out her previous albums. One can make their own mind up about an album like Hinterland. That said, it is an album that resonated with critics heavily. In their review, AllMusic said the following:

“During the five years between Nerve Up and Hinterland, Lonelady's Julie Campbell built a home studio, released the 2011 album Psychic Life with Jah Wobble and Keith Levene, and then withdrew into a period of introspection. After exploring and holing up in Manchester's decaying outskirts, she returns with some of her biggest-sounding and most kinetic music. While Nerve Up was a rough gem full of angular punk-funk and brisk acoustic pop made all the more striking in its juxtapositions, the way Campbell brings these sounds together on Hinterland is just as compelling. It's also more immediate, as though her isolation concentrated her music into even more artfully chiseled melodies, rhythms, and imagery. Propelled by beats ranging from slinky to funky, these songs are even more structurally sound than before: Hinterland's undulating groove and pristine cello sounds like Rufus and Arthur Russell crossing paths, while Campbell's guitar work -- which spans harmonics and riffs that sparkle and slice like a knife's edge -- serves as a reminder that she's as distinctive and formidable a player as St. Vincent.

Meanwhile, "Groove It Out" feels like the culmination of all her projects to date, fusing the irresistible beat of Nerve Up's title track -- which feels like a blueprint for much of Hinterland -- and Psychic Life's taut post-pop as it moves from driven to joyful and reaffirms that dancing and thinking aren't such strange bedfellows. Indeed, there's a remarkable playfulness and sensuality to many of these songs, given the circumstances that inspired them. "I don't want the factual life...take me deeper," Campbell sings on "Into the Cave," an invitation she follows with the literally underground anthem "Bunkerpop," where, beneath the surface, she longs for connection with a mixture of hunger and defiance. On each song, she makes lost and abandoned spaces (physical and otherwise) sound vital and personal, using phrases like "rubble" and "corrugated iron" with the ease and frequency that other artists use "love" and "baby." Whether she's alone but not lonely on "Silvering" or truly isolated on the desolate ballad "Flee!," Hinterland's tough, hard-won beauty reveals Campbell coming into her own”.

Hinterland is a fantastic album! I think that Former Things will inherit shades of that album - though we will see something new and some progressions. There is a lot of excitement in the air following the news that LoneLady is bringing us her third studio album.

Before coming up-to-date with a recent interview, I want to head back to 2018. CLASH spoke with her about new music. In the interview, LoneLady intimated that a new album would be along fairly soon:

“The long-time Manchester resident decided to relocate last year, occupying a studio in Somerset House. Largely left to her own devises, she’s turned this one-time colonial outcrop into a hub for her post-industrial sounds, using lengthy walks, incessant meandering around the capital’s frayed East End environs as a means to progress past the success of her 2015 record ‘Hinterland’.

“I think getting out of Manchester was a personal thing for me,” she tells Clash. “I needed to grow, and to feel like I had found a way forward rather than being surrounded by over-familiarity, really. So being in London has enabled me to do that and explore pastures new. And just psychologically do different things.”

“I wouldn’t describe the new album as a ‘London album’ it’s just the sheer fact of uprooting myself and being in a new space is all part of the process, in a positive way. Wherever I am, I’m Northern.”

It’s a big step, though. For any person, moving to London can be overwhelming, the city’s sheer speed and endless complexities offering a very unusual sense of psych-drama. For an artist, we imagine, it must be doubly so. “I think to be honest it just takes time,” she admits. “I moved into Somerset House and got an arts council grant to improve my studio set up. That was the starting point. I made both albums on a really lo-fi studio set up… which is great. And I’m still a big fan of using minimal tools, but I needed to move on and expand.”

“I got this funding, and basically expanded the set up. Got a proper mixing desk, got a midi analogue sequencer as the heart of the new system, and really just expanded and reconfigured my entire studio set up. And that was the starting point.”

This is just her base, however. Julie has long been a fan of getting away from the studio and simply walking, a kind of post-industrial flaneur meandering through abandoned factories, and buildings marked for demolition. It was a recurring feature of ‘Hinterland’, and she has enjoyed applying this technique to increasingly difficult to find areas of East London.

“I do tend to like the river,” she says. “All the quaysides, wharfs, dockside architecture. I’ve been out round Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs; out East, really, quite a lot. There’s a helluva a lot of new terrain to explore, which I’ve been doing.”

London has its own branch of post-industrial environs, Clash offers.

I’m drawn to the dockside industrial remnants,” she says, before adding with a chuckle: “Unsurprisingly! I love it out there, it’s an alien landscape. I enjoy going out there to explore.”

But we haven’t called her up to compare walking routes. LoneLady is approaching the end of her next album, with work almost – but not quite – complete. “I don’t want to give too much away, but I think the new analogue set up has informed the record,” she says. “Particularly with regards to rhythm. It’s all I really want to give away – it’s very rhythm-oriented. I see songs in colours, and tonalities, and I viewed ‘Hinterland’ as quite a multi-coloured, primary-coloured album”.

Now that we know Former Things is out next month, I bet LoneLady will want venues to reopen and get her music out there. From the two singles we have heard from the album, it is sounding like the most compelling and rich album from her yet. NME caught up with her last week when she released the single, Fear Colours:

“LoneLady has shared new new single ‘Fear Colours’, along with details of new album ‘Former Things’ and an extensive UK and European tour. Check them all out below, along with our interview with Julie Campbell.

Coming in June on Warp Records, the Manchester guitar pioneer and singer-songwriter’s third album has so far been teased with the single ‘(There Is) No Logic‘ and now ‘Fear Colours’, which she described as “an electro-scape of funk, crunch and vocoder-ed fear!” – and a fitting evolution from her previous work.

Speaking to NME over video call from her flat in Manchester, the bleak, industrial landscape which inspired Campbell’s debut ‘Nerve Up’ and follow up, ‘Hinterland’ surround her home: crumbling mills, run-down factories and the juxtaposition of the old and new: 60s tower blocks next to modern, luxury apartments.

Many have noted how Campbell’s work to date has felt like an extension of Manchester itself with so much does the city radiating from her sound. Her first two albums were recorded partly in her home-built studio, partly in an abandoned factory. Recording in the ruins wasn’t ideal, but it worked for practical reasons: studio time was expensive, so too were properties in the city centre. “Manchester really trumpets about its musical history,” Campbell told NME, “but it needs to supports grassroots premises and communities so that there’s going to be great new music tomorrow.”

Her “LoneLady” first persona came about through a love of creating in isolation, but she told us that this time she was desperate for the opposite. “I could just step out into the hustle-and-bustle of London, which was so stimulating and fantastic,” she explained. “I had all these art galleries on my doorstep too. I get just as much inspiration from going to art galleries as I do from listening to other music.”

Campbell explains how ‘Former Things’ started out as a techno record, before she put her Telecaster aside and instead added layers of synthesisers and drum machines until she had an ’80s electro-pop record that sits somewhere between New Order’s ‘Movement’ and Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Drinking Gasoline’. At its poppiest, like on first single ‘(There Is) No Logic’ and latest dancefloor-ready new single ‘Fear Colours’, the album channels the likes of La Roux and Neenah Cherry.

“I’ve always loved early-to-mid 80’s electronic music,” Campbell said. “I love where the technology was up to at that point. I was really leaning into that whole electro world with this new album.”

Explaining how she gathered lots of vintage equipment to help her achieve this sound, including an old Yamaha keyboard she’s had since she was 10-years-old, she said: “It’s probably only worth about £30, but it’s my favourite bit of gear. It’s the sound of my childhood so I’ll always keep it, it will always be there, playing with the big boys – the ARP and the Korg.”

Back in Manchester, Campbell told NME of wanting to return to her London space: “If money wasn’t an object, I’d be quite happy in my bunker in the basement of Somerset House for the future,” she admitted, explaining how she’s trying to find a better balance between what she wants to achieve artistically and what she can achieve practically.

“I’m trying to rein in my romanticism a bit,” she added. “It’s so impractical and I would like to have more albums out than I do. I will happily be the caretaker of an authentic, crumbling industrial mill. It so important to retain a link to the past, to us, to our youth, because that’s the story of us, and…I guess, me”.

I am going to wrap things up there. It is exciting to hear new LoneLady music. Go and pre-order Former Things and check her out on social media. In Julie Campbell, we have an incredibly arresting, inventive and fascinating artist who is among the best out there. I wanted to bring her into my Spotlight feature, both to make people aware of her new album, but to look back and prove why she is such a compelling artist that warrants closer investigation. Former Things is out next moth and it will be truly…

GREAT to hear.

______________

Follow LoneLady

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Hurst 

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/loneladyhq/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LoneLadyHQ

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LoneLady

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaebIpms368RzpAD-D0mN2w

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BwRrZKiv4NIiVcLgONuOh

FEATURE: Back to the Old Ways: Should More Artists Eskew Streaming Platforms and Sell Their Music Direct to Fans?

FEATURE:

 

 

Back to the Old Ways

IMAGE CREDIT: DIY Musician

Should More Artists Eskew Streaming Platforms and Sell Their Music Direct to Fans?

___________

THIS year has seen many artists…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Bat for Lashes

sell more vinyl and physical copies of their albums than ever before. I think the pandemic has enforced how precious music is to fans. Streaming sites continue to boom, though there has been little progress regarding pay models and how much artists earn. Despite action and demand from the music industry for change, the Government has been stubborn. I think we will see a move in the next year or two that treats artists more fairly. At the moment, it is really the biggest artists who command millions of streams who can make a realistic living that way. In a time when touring is still not possible – though that might change later in the year -, it must be frustrating for artists to see how little they earn through streaming platforms. An option to get around that is to sell music directly to fans. That way, more money goes to the artist and it seems like a more equitable and less complex method. When songs are streamed, I always feel like the label or management get more than the artist. Whilst that may be the case when it comes to selling vinyl/cassettes/C.D.s, more artists are realising that physical sales are more important and profitable. It is almost like going back in time and bypassing the digital method. Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes) wrote a feature for The Guardian recently where she voiced her anger at how the Government is dragging its heels. Her experience is one common to most artists. During such a tough time, they cannot rely on streaming sites to pay them fairly. Therefore, selling directly to fans is an option that gives them more control of earnings.

“I’ve come to realise that the old models of making music are becoming defunct. I spent 10 years on a major label, and it was sometimes hard: I was signed to EMI by the two guys who originally signed Radiohead and Kate Bush, who were excited that I dabbled in lots of different art forms. However, they left and I was given the man who signed Lily Allen and Kylie, and after that I felt tolerated rather than supported.

I didn’t want to “go pop” or compromise my vision. Many of the artists I loved – David Bowie, Kate Bush, the Beatles – had been associated with EMI, and others such as Björk had also proved that it is possible to have commercial success and be unique and artistic. Had I been working in the 1960s or 70s I would have ridden a wave of avant garde work into the mainstream. I had three Top 10 albums, and Brit, Ivor Novello and Mercury nominations, but the whole time I was on a major label I felt like I was negotiating my art school philosophy of DIY.

I’ve joined Patreon to be able to connect more closely with fans, and for a small subscription fee, fans will be able to access original music, recipes, tarot readings, have creative mentorship or chats or see pictures of my paintings – artists such as MIA have also been doing it. In the past I’ve put postcards, stickers or handwritten letters in limited edition records, but this offers much greater opportunity to curate my own world as one might an art gallery. It’s my own universe, somewhere that can be audio, visual, anything I want. My incentives are to have a more direct connection and be creatively fulfilled.

PHOTO CREDIT: @fhavlik/Unsplash 

For me, the creative spirit is a fragile thing, and when business gets involved it pollutes the river, and sets off on a journey that makes nobody happy. It makes me very sad that artists get interfered with. The three-year album-tour-album cycle means there are bursts of creativity and then long gaps and a lot of creative stuff drops by the wayside. I made my 2019 album Lost Girls with then-independent distributors Awal, and for the first time owned my own record. And from now on, I want to share music when I want, to keep pushing it and for more people to hear it.

I sometimes feel we’re losing sight of how valuable music is. I get messages on Patreon or Instagram from fans telling me how my music got them through a huge depression or losing a child. It was the same for me. When my father left home when I was 11 I’d just pump Nirvana’s Incesticide because it really resonated with that suffering, anger and frustration.

Similarly, I feel we’re affording less value to music, and that our culture is being let down by governments and institutions. I’m sure that if you ask any consumer who loves an artist, they would want that artist to be paid, but it’s not the consumers who decide what Spotify pays artists. The problem is with the middleman, and that’s what needs to change. You don’t go up to an ice cream vendor, ask for six ice creams and walk away without paying, but that’s how the tiny royalties from streaming feel. As we’re moving into a more digital age, it has to become a safe space for professionals to not be taken advantage of. Creativity must be properly rewarded”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Rios/Unsplash

If there are options for artists like Bat for Lashes to have a connection with fans and make more from her music, then it sounds like a really good idea. I think that she is right in saying that many do not value music. Because there has been such a delay in rectifying the issues on streaming platforms, it appears like music is low down the priority list for the Government. I hope that there is much-needed change very soon and that we do not see so many artists struggling. In the case of Bat for Lashes and many other artists, they are using sites like Patreon to offer music and other creative projects for a small fee. It is offering a small glimmer of hope and a much-needed bond with the fanbase. I don’t think every artist should leave streaming sites, as they are valuable in terms of providing exposure. When things are changed and there is equality, then it will be better for everyone. At the moment, there are alternatives out there. I would recommend people stream artists but, if you have a favourite act, see if they have a Patreon site or are on Bandcamp and donate that way. It is almost like going back to times past in regarding to subscription fees and a non-streaming approach. Of course, the Internet is still hugely important - though Bat for Lashes is an example of an artist who is allowing this very transparent and simple way for fans to buy her music and show that many people do value music. Let’s hope that the Government and those streaming platform bosses…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @zarakvg/Unsplash

CHANGE their tune soon.

FEATURE: Spotlight: dodie

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

dodie

___________

I hope that dodie…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas

gets to tour later in the year as her debut album, Build a Problem, was released earlier this month and has received some incredible reviews. I think dodie is an artist who is going to get bigger and more popular. At the moment, she has a huge fanbase behind her. I want to bring in a few interviews soon. First, here is some background information Wikipedia:

“Dorothy Miranda Clark (born 11 April 1995), known mononymously as Dodie (stylized dodie), is an English singer-songwriter, author, and YouTuber from Epping, Essex. Dodie began her career uploading original songs and covers to Youtube. She has over 160 videos, over 1.9M subscribers, and over 340 million views on her main channel (as of February 2020). On her side channel, she has 350+ videos, over 900k subscribers, and over 94 million views. On 9 December 2016, she released the first video on her Vevo channel, dodieVEVO, where she has over 47 million views, her subscriber count is kept private on though. She has collaborated with many other musicians, including Tessa Violet, Julia Nunes, Lauren Aquilina, Orla Gartland, Thomas Sanders, Jacob Collier, Emma Blackery, Pomplamoose, and Flashback. In 2018, Dodie collaborated with singer Tom Walker on "Human", the lead single from her third EP, also titled Human.

Dodie has released three independent EPs—Intertwined (2016), You (2017), and Human (2019)—all of which charted within the top 40 of the official UK Albums Chart. Her debut studio album Build a Problem was released on 7 May 2021”.

Back in 2019, the then-twenty-four-year-old British queer spoke with Flaunt following the release of her E.P., Human, earlier that year. Among the topics discussed was mental-health, being a big YouTube star and promoting positivity:

“How would you describe your sound?

I like to use a lot of harmonies and dramatic chord sequences. I write for strings based off of clarinets. My voice could feel dusty and dark.

How does being from Epping, in the UK, play into your life and career?

It’s quite nice. It’s interesting to have had such a particular childhood — I never ever thought I’d be in LA doing interviews. It’s nice to have had that different side of life.

Talk about being in LA.

I love LA, it’s fun. It’s very different, really interesting. I’ve been here since 2014. The whole US is fascinating to me. It’s so present in media when you grow up in England. Not sure if you know, but everyone in the playground acts in American accents. When they play imaginary games, like “omg! [valley girl accent]” or “that’s so weird!”

We do that here with a British accent too.

Do you? Because every cartoon you watch as a kid, America is everything you see on TV. Yellow school buses, all that stuff. When I came here for the first time, it was like walking into a movie world.

At what point did you realize this music thing was for real?

Probably when people would pick up particular lines. It was a combination of getting first-hand messages and playing at shows where people sing-along. That was very strange to me because I had written the words in this book in my bed and now the crowd was singing them. People knew the words!

Congrats on releasing your Human EP, what’s the significance in the name?

Well in collecting all of these songs together, I realized there was a running theme of a human feeling. There's a forgiveness in saying anything you’re feeling is human and just an experience of life. It’s been really good. Everyone’s so lovely. Everyone can relate to some feeling in it. There’s a lot of shame, love, maybe unhealthy love, anger, but also acceptance.

Talk about linking with Tom Walker on “Human.”

It was kind of a business thing. Our teams got in contact. He came into the studio and was really really lovely. Very kind and good to work with. He sang it beautifully with his wonderful husky voice. He has the ability to belt very loudly and exude so much power. I enjoyed using his softer side of singing.

Why is it important for you to promote positivity and inclusivity?

Positivity is such a helpful tool in carrying on and finding the best in life. If I didn’t enforce that in myself everyday, I’d struggle. Inclusivity is very important because you can feel isolated in your problems. To let people know there are other people just like you is a very powerful thing,

3 things you need in the studio?

Food. I guess I snack a lot. If I’m being technical, I need great levels on my headphones so I can really hear what we’re doing. I need tea, a big cup of tea. It’s a great way to get a break as well. “Okay, we’re gonna go get a fresh cup of tea.” Daylight at some point.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing music?

There are so many avenues of music, different music careers I could do. if I wasn’t working on my own personal project, hopefully I’d be scoring someone else’s. Even studying or playing in a band. If not music entirely, maybe teaching English or drama”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas

I want to bring things more up-to-date now. It must be disappointing for dodie that the pandemic has hit. She would have had plans to launch her debut album and capitalise on the momentum with things behind more open. As it is, the album has gained a lot of acclaim online. I hope that she will be able to tour the world when things get better. The next interview I want to source from is from Dork from  back in March. There are a few sections that caught my eye:

“It took her a long time to warm to the sound she’s curated today. Initially scared off by the idea of drowning her small voice in huge pop production and coming out of sessions hating what she’s made because producers have done exactly that. It wasn’t until she met producer Joe Rubel (known for working with Tom Grennan and Maisie Peters, plus this little unknown indie artist called Ed Sheeran) and started using a video editing software to splice together clips of her singing and playing different instruments that she got used to writing less acoustic tracks.

“It has been interesting to hold on to it for so long because I’ve moved on from who I was when I wrote it, as you do you. You grow. It’s strange to still be talking about these topics and feelings even though they’re always going to be relevant to me because I wrote them and as with any lesson, you take them with you.

“For a while, I battled with what kind of an artist I was. Am I sort of an indie singer-songwriter bedroom artist who writes very small acoustic songs, or am I like this pop queen who’s trying to get on the radio, and I couldn’t pick and, and then suddenly I had the realisation I can do both. I think this album is such a great combination of that.”

Of course, lots of that plays out on ‘Build A Problem’ – the clue is in the title, taken from a track titled ‘Hate Myself’ – as she processes years’ worth of experiences. ‘Rainbow’ is an uplifting dedication to her bi-ness, while ‘Special Girl’ dissects her difficult approach to relationships. Then there’s the middle track ‘Four Tequilas Down’, a story of an illicit affair sandwiched between two instrumentals.

“I remember, I wrote it, and my friend Sammy was like, ‘You really want to put this out? Like, are you sure?’ And I’m like, I think so? I think it’s probably the right thing to do,” she says of the track. “It’s tough, and a lot of people are like, why are you romanticising this thing? And I’m like, not romanticising it, I’m processing it! I’m putting it on display. If other media can explore like feelings that are problematic, then surely music can as well, surely I can? Just because I’m a fucking seemingly sweet angel girl doesn’t mean that I can’t write about this stuff. I’m not an angel. It feels like I almost want to like go against that. Maybe that’s why I did it. So I could like push that boundary.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas 

Although she wants to challenge other peoples’ perceptions of her, it does seem like sometimes it gets a bit too uncomfortable for dodie too.

“It does get tricky when you cross topics that you’re still going through, like you’re still processing like you’re not really sure how you feel about it. There’s a song on there that called ‘Guiltless’, and it’s about a relationship I had with someone I don’t talk to anymore now. I was in a soundcheck, and I was feeling really sad about it, like triggered by something, and I went to have a big cry. And then I heard somebody just whistling it down the corridor, and I was like, that is so fucked up. Like, I can’t believe you were just whistling this that I wrote about this deep, deep trauma that I have.”

It’s different when it comes to fans telling her how these songs have changed their life, or helped them out of a tough situation. dodie says she knows what that’s like and sometimes it’s hard to truly express her gratitude. “It is no small thing when someone says, I relate to this song, I relate to this feeling of something that I’m going through in my life and like, their situation is probably incredibly complex and like, so different to mine in so many ways, but it doesn’t matter. It feels good to know that we all connected”.

There are great and illuminating interviews regarding dodie. She is a fascinating artist and inspiring person. I think that people should check out her music and investigate her YouTube content. When she spoke with The Line of Best Fit earlier in the year, dodie discussed the triumphs and tribulations of the past year:

“Impressively, dodie is able to maintain an online presence that feels intimate and open, despite having millions of followers on every social media platform. Although a casual onlooker might view this content as effortless, it would be disingenuous to ignore her determination considering her already decade-long YouTube presence. This innate drive to create and share music was no clearer than on 8 February 2021, when dodie broke the news that Build a Problem’s release would be delayed. Sharing her tearful reaction to the three-week wait (caused by vinyl manufacturing issues) on her Instagram story, she had clearly waited a long time to present this project to the world. Before this announcement, she described her feelings towards its release: “I think it probably does define the year in which it was written. It’s very relieving, very fulfilling, to go through the process of figuring out all of these feelings and crafting them into something that I’m proud of, and [something] beautiful. It’s been a long time coming because it was pushed back a few months because of Covid. So I’m just ready - more than anything, just so ready to let this go and start something new. I’ve no idea what….”

Will it be difficult to reignite her enthusiasm for those original tracks, following this delay? “The enthusiasm is still there because now and again I’ll just listen to it and be like “Wow! Can’t wait!” I have to listen to it with fresh ears. [A live audience] will definitely amp it up.” dodie acknowledges the disadvantages of writing such autobiographical tracks in this environment. “I’ve obviously lived through that year and made the music and the dust has settled for that part of my life - I’m just about to move on from it and now I have to rehash all those feelings.” Ever the optimist, she concedes: “At least I can return to it as, like, my older, wiser self (by only a year!)”

Mental health issues can be isolating at the best of times, let alone when the law dictates that social distancing and physical isolation is required. In November 2020, dodie published a video () on her YouTube channel doddlevloggle, describing how this lack of contact had affected her. She explained how it not only evoked past traumatic experiences but increased the amount of time she spent “spaced out” - a symptom of living with depersonalisation. Considering the additional stress brought on by the coronavirus outbreak, having friends close by has been invaluable: “I have a few neighbours around. Obviously we’ve had to be very careful but it certainly helps to have at least a bubble of people I can go on walks with.” Rather than spending Christmas with her family, dodie stayed with her friends in London, all of whom happen to be musicians and/or YouTubers. “That was really nice. It’s definitely been a saviour to have these people around, there’s Orla [Gartland], Lauren [Aquilina] and my friend Evan [Edinger] just down the road.”

Although she’s now focusing on music, dodie’s stated that her original career plan was to become an actor. If she were to pursue acting in future, what genre or type of character would she choose? “Anything that has a British accent! I did an audition for a show - it was so random, they reached out and asked if I could send something - and I did it all in an American accent. It was so bad, so bad. I can’t act and, like, change my mouth at the same time. So just any acting role where I have to chat like myself.” These days she’s found a happy medium and embraced these dreams through her music and side projects: “Now I’m older I think, oh, acting is really hard to do! I love acting in my music videos, I’ve also done a bit in my friend’s short films, that kind of stuff.” dodie has performed in a number of her music videos - is she a trained dancer? “Oh my god, no, definitely not. But thank you! I did a few things as a kid, I think everyone did, but I haven’t danced in a wee while. Only every time I have a music video am I like “let’s go [dance]!””

PHOTO CREDIT: Jay Simon Photography 

Labels can be complicated. While one individual may find belonging, validation and empowerment in a label, another person might view it as inflexible, judgemental and lacking nuance. How does dodie approach labels in her own life: does putting a label on her sexuality, mental health, etc. make things more difficult, or does she find comfort in defining it? “I truly think both. Sometimes I worry that, if I were younger, that a label could make [me] fixate on something… but I think people are smarter than that and overall labels are helpful. I know that when I found a name for my condition, Depersonalisation, that was so validating for me and I found a community of people going through it.” Sadly, her journey to reach this point of discovery was long and difficult, worsened by health professionals who didn’t take her seriously. “When I was 18 I went to the doctors because I was feeling really, really, really bad and asked them if I was depressed (which I think I absolutely was)”, she shares. “But the doctors said “Oh no, it’s dangerous to give someone so young a label”. It threw me into a spiral and I didn’t go back to the GP for my mental health for ages. So I think it would’ve been very useful if I had instead been given that [label] and a little bit of kindness.” Despite her doctor’s unempathetic demeanor, dodie is intentionally open about her struggles: “I think there’s something so wonderful about sharing experiences of mental health.”

It is this dichotomy of light and dark that makes dodie so wonderfully real and human. Combined with her likeable, quirky online personality and remarkable talent, it is perhaps this authentic, imperfect reflection of themselves that draws millions of fans to her. Even today’s icebreaker question about her favourite scent receives an endearing answer. “I love the smell of artificial strawberry. I had a lip balm that tasted like strawberry and I’m pretty sure I’ve just eaten the whole thing, it’s so small now....” Another comes to mind: “My flatmate Hazel has a very specific perfume and if she’s away I’ll just go into her room and just smell her clothes!” dodie laughs, imagining the scene. “It would be quite funny if she came in and I was just like “(sniffs) I missed you!” I like the smell of people - specific people, the smell of my friends. It’s enough to make you cry, isn’t it?”.

I will wrap things up in a bit. I want to bring in a couple of reviews for an amazing and hugely engaging debut album. In their review for Build a Problem, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“The debut album from British singer/songwriter Dodie, 2021's Build a Problem balances artful introspection with a wry, pop sensibility. Produced by Joe Rubel (Ed Sheeran, James Blunt), with one production by Pomplamoose in the hooky, kinetic single "Boys Like You," the album finds Dodie further expanding the sound she first displayed on her previous EPs, including 2017's You and 2019's Human. With her delicate voice pushed high in the mix, there's an intimacy to Build a Problem that makes it feel as if Dodie is singing directly to the listener. Weaving together her often-vibrant, multi-tracked vocals with strummed ukulele or acoustic guitar, organic percussion, piano, and deft string or woodwind flourishes, Dodie's music has a chamber pop quality that evokes the classical-influenced art rock of Kate Bush and Tori Amos. Also like those artists, Dodie brings a keen, feminist eye to her songs, detailing her feelings about living in a world of entitled men, just as she probes her own often self-destructive inclinations especially in regards to relationships. It's a style best represented in tracks like "Hate Myself," "I Kissed Someone (It Wasn't You)," and "Special Girl," the latter of which begins with what sounds like two sticks beating out a rhythm against a woody acoustic bassline as Dodie sings about how people often equate being in love with being in pain. She sings, "Sweet, sweet irony/Could not care less if you love me/But hate me first, yeah make me work; that's perfect/Baby I'm a funny thing/I’m walking if it doesn't sting/Heartbreak only means that it was worth it." The minimalism of Dodie's songs gracefully juxtaposes their sophistication, helping to illuminate the many revelatory pop moments that can be heard throughout Build a Problem”.

Just before closing this off, I think it is worth bringing in some words from CLASH. They were clearly compelled and impressed by the debut album from the amazing dodie:

“Always managing to find cruxes in common experiences, tracks like 'I Kissed Someone (It Wasn’t You)', offer a painstakingly realistic view of feeling, a snapshot of an exact point in the heartbreak arch we’ve all felt, mourning in the back of a taxi. In a way that Joni Mitchell’s 'Blue' is essential listening to soundtrack the end of love, 'Build A Problem' feels like it should join the ranks, the kind of album girls everywhere will hold tight to as they go through the emotions.

And it’s a beautifully wrapped package to hold. Opening up with 'Air So Sweet', a melodic prologue built almost entirely from dodie’s signature humming harmonies, the record has a clean-cut path through interludes and into its orchestral finale. Accompanied by a series of narrative lyric videos that capture our 20s in their rawest, 'Build A Problem' is concise in its form to let the explosion of emotion never feel exhausting; a considered decision shown in the second disc appendix of demos which are essential listens to the record. Offering a rougher and readier sound, the demos simultaneously nod to her bedroom recording origin while showing massive growth with 'In The Bed' and 'All My Daughters' standing out. 

It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what makes this album feel so special. Maybe it’s the lack of answers as dodie seems to go through the motions of these feelings with each play and pause, offering no wisdom or lessons, just perfect articulations of exact emotions. With all tracks sharing a sense of immediacy, 'Build A Problem' seems to hold the present emotion of everlasting questions. It asks ‘How do I make them love me?’, ‘Will I ever feel satisfied?’, ‘Do they miss me?’, and find the words to articulate how it feels to yearn for the answers, rather than offering them.

Tinged with vulnerability from start to finish, this album feels like a unique product of a unique path. As a culmination of a decade of sharing her feelings with a crowd of over a million subscribers, dodie has always been releasing music to a captive audience, uploading original songs to a channel populated with people that are interested in her and her life. Following her through her struggles with derealisation disorder and depression, amongst the various ups and downs of relationships, parental divorces and moving towns, dodie fans feel like they know her, and this album makes it seem like she knows you too, letting you be privy to her deepest feelings in the trust that you’ll understand. And we do.

Unmistakably hers, dodie’s debut is wholly realised and polished in its sound. A beautiful vessel for messy emotions, 'Build A Problem' is a tour of the highs and lows of living and loving in your teens, twenties and probably beyond; raw, full of questions and yet celebratory as it revels in its big emotions”.

I think that dodie is one of the most exciting and interesting young artists we have in the U.K. Let’s hope that she will be able to capitalise on the love Build a Problem has accrued. A stunning and memorable album, it is clear that we have a very talented and hugely promising artist in our midst! If 2020 and 2021 has not been ideal, I feel that the post-pandemic world will allow the amazing dodie to…

STRIKE hard.

________________

Follow dodie

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas 

Official:

https://www.dodie.co/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/doddleoddle/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/doddleoddle

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/doddleoddle/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/21TinSsF5ytwsfdyz5VSVS

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/doddleoddle

FEATURE: Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums… Hounds of Love

FEATURE:

 

 

Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums…

Hounds of Love

___________

IN this part…

 PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

of this seven/eight-edition series comes on to 1985’s Hounds of Love. Regarded as Kate Bush’s finest album, I am ranking the tracks from it. There is nothing even slightly weak on the album but, as some are better than others, I am deciding which are the very best. Everyone has their opinions as to which songs on Hounds of Love are superior. I would encourage people to buy the album on vinyl. Before getting to the tracks, here is some information from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Also released as the third single from the album on 24 February 1986. The song is about being afraid to fall in love; in the song this feeling is compared to being chased by a pack of hounds. The intro features a quote from a line spoken in the film Night Of The Demon by Maurice Denham.

['Hounds Of Love'] is really about someone who is afraid of being caught by the hounds that are chasing him. I wonder if everyone is perhaps ruled by fear, and afraid of getting into relationships on some level or another. They can involve pain, confusion and responsibilities, and I think a lot of people are particularly scared of responsibility. Maybe the being involved isn't as horrific as your imagination can build it up to being - perhaps these baying hounds are really friendly. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)

The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case the hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)

When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)”.

_____________

12. Mother Stands for Comfort

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on the album Hounds Of Love in 1985. The track seems to be the most skeletal of the album. A flat drum pattern, just kick and snare, provides the metronomic basis upon which the whole percussion pattern, piano chords and a sinuous upright bass melody are built. Most other sounds are most probably provided by the Fairlight

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)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

11. The Morning Fog

“There is only one studio version of this song.

A live version appears on the album Before The Dawn.

Well, that's really meant to be the rescue of the whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and weight comes light. You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the morning, and it's meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting from the rest of dense, darkness of the previous track. And although it doesn't say so, in my mind this was the song where they were rescued, where they get pulled out of the water. And it's very much a song of seeing perspective, of really, you know, of being so grateful for everything that you have, that you're never grateful of in ordinary life because you just abuse it totally. And it was also meant to be one of those kind of "thank you and goodnight" songs. You know, the little finale where everyone does a little dance and then the bow and then they leave the stage. [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

10. Under Ice

“Well at this point, although they didn't want to go to sleep, of course they do. [Laughs] And this is the dream, and it's really meant to be quite nightmarish. And this was all kinda coming together by itself, I didn't have much to do with this, I just sat down and wrote this little tune on the Fairlight with the cello sound. And it sounded very operatic and I thought "well, great" because it, you know, it conjured up the image of ice and was really simple to record. I mean we did the whole thing in a day, I guess. (...) Again it's very lonely, it's terribly lonely, they're all alone on like this frozen lake. And at the end of it, it's the idea of seeing themselves under the ice in the river, so I mean we're talking real nightmare stuff here. And at this point, when they say, you know, "my god, it's me," you know, "it's me under the ice. Ahhhh" [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia 

9. Jig of Life

“In 2014, Kate performed 'Jig Of Life' live during all the shows of Before The Dawn. During the performance, a video of John Carder Bush appears on a television screen, reciting the poem at the end of the track.

At this point in the story, it's the future self of this person coming to visit them to give them a bit of help here. I mean, it's about time they have a bit of help. So it's their future self saying, "look, don't give up, you've got to stay alive, 'cause if you don't stay alive, that means I don't." You know, "and I'm alive, I've had kids [laughs]. I've been through years and years of life, so you have to survive, you mustn't give up."

This was written in Ireland. At one point I did quite a lot of writing, you know, I mean lyrically, particularly. And again it was a tremendous sort of elemental dose I was getting, you know, all this beautiful countryside. Spending a lot of time outside and walking, so it had this tremendous sort of stimulus from the outside. And this was one of the tracks that the Irish musicians that we worked with was featured on.

There was a tune that my brother Paddy found which... he said "you've got to hear this, you'll love it." And he was right [laughs], he played it to me and I just thought, you know, "this would be fantastic somehow to incorporate here."

Was just sort of, pull this person up out of despair. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

8. Hello Earth

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Sixth track of The Ninth Wave suite. The choral section, performed by the Richard Hickox Singers, is taken from a Georgian folk song called 'Zinzkaro' ('By The Spring'), which Kate heard performed by the Vocal Ensemble Gordela on the soundtrack of Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu The Vampyre. The lyric translates as:

'I was passing by the spring.

There I met a beautiful woman with a jug on her shoulder.

I spoke a word to her and she left, offended.

I was passing by the spring.'

The song was used in an episode of the American TV series Miami Vice.

'Hello Earth' was a very difficult track to write, as well, because it was... in some ways it was too big for me. [Laughs] And I ended up with this song that had two huge great holes in the choruses, where the drums stopped, and everything stopped, and people would say to me, "what's going to happen in these choruses," and I hadn't got a clue.

We had the whole song, it was all there, but these huge, great holes in the choruses. And I knew I wanted to put something in there, and I'd had this idea to put a vocal piece in there, that was like this traditional tune I'd heard used in the film Nosferatu. And really everything I came up with, it with was rubbish really compared to what this piece was saying. So we did some research to find out if it was possible to use it. And it was, so that's what we did, we re-recorded the piece and I kind of made up words that sounded like what I could hear was happening on the original. And suddenly there was these beautiful voices in these chorus that had just been like two black holes.

In some ways I thought of it as a lullaby for the Earth. And it was the idea of turning the whole thing upside down and looking at it from completely above. You know, that image of if you were lying in water at night and you were looking up at the sky all the time, I wonder if you wouldn't get the sense of as the stars were reflected in the water, you know, a sense of like, you could be looking up at water that's reflecting the stars from the sky that you're in. And the idea of them looking down at the earth and seeing these storms forming over America and moving around the globe, and they have this like huge fantasticly overseeing view of everything, everything is in total perspective. And way, way down there somewhere there's this little dot in the ocean that is them. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. Watching You Without Me

“Now, this poor sod [laughs], has been in the water for hours and been witch-hunted and everything. Suddenly, they're kind of at home, in spirit, seeing their loved one sitting there waiting for them to come home. And, you know, watching the clock, and obviously very worried about where they are, maybe making phone calls and things. But there's no way that you can actually communicate, because they can't see you, they can't you. And I find this really horrific, [laughs] these are all like my own personal worst nightmares, I guess, put into song. And when we started putting the track together, I had the idea for these backing vocals, you know, [sings] "you can't hear me". And I thought that maybe to disguise them so that, you know, you couldn't actually hear what the backing vocals were saying. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. And Dream of Sheep

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. First track of The Ninth Wave suite. Kate travelled to Dublin in the spring of 1984 for extended studio sessions for 'And Dream Of Sheep' and 'Jig Of Life'. Donal Lunny recalled later that Kate asked him to play the single whistle note at the end of the track over and over again for three hours, in search of just the right 'bend' in the note.

[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. 'And Dream Of Sheep' is about them fighting sleep. They're very tired and they've been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it's starting to get dark and it doesn't look like anyone's coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they're trying to keep awake; but they can't help it, they eventually fall asleep - which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

 An engineer we were working with picked out the line in 'And Dream Of Sheep' that says 'Come here with me now'. I asked him why he liked it so much. He said, 'I don't know, I just love it. It's so moving and comforting.' I don't think he even knew what was being said exactly, but the song is about someone going to sleep in the water, where they're alone and frightened. And they want to go to sleep, to get away from the situation. But at the same time it's dangerous to go to sleep in water, you could drown. When I was little, and I'd had a bad dream, I'd go into my parents' bedroom round to my mother's side of the bed. She'd be asleep, and I wouldn't want to wake her, so I'd stand there and wait for her to sense my presence and wake up. She always did, within minutes; and sometimes I'd frighten her - standing there still, in the darkness in my nightdress. I'd say, 'I've had a bad dream,' and she'd lift bedclothes and say something like 'Come here with me now.' It's my mother saying this line in the track, and I briefed her on the ideas behind it before she said it. And I think it's the motherly comfort that this engineer picked up on. In fact, he said this was his favourite part of the album. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 21, 1987)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. Cloudbusting

“This was inspired by a book that I first found on a shelf nearly nine years ago. It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it I was very moved by the magic of it. It's about a special relationship between a young son and his father. The book was written from a child's point of view. His father is everything to him; he is the magic in his life, and he teaches him everything, teaching him to be open-minded and not to build up barriers. His father has built a machine that can make it rain, a 'cloudbuster'; and the son and his father go out together cloudbusting. They point big pipes up into the sky, and they make it rain. The song is very much taking a comparison with a yo-yo that glowed in the dark and which was given to the boy by a best friend. It was really special to him; he loved it. But his father believed in things having positive and negative energy, and that fluorescent light was a very negative energy - as was the material they used to make glow-in-the-dark toys then - and his father told him he had to get rid of it, he wasn't allowed to keep it. But the boy, rather than throwing it away, buried it in the garden, so that he would placate his father but could also go and dig it up occasionally and play with it. It's a parallel in some ways between how much he loved the yo-yo - how special it was - and yet how dangerous it was considered to be. He loved his father (who was perhaps considered dangerous by some people); and he loved how he could bury his yo-yo and retrieve it whenever he wanted to play with it. But there's nothing he can do about his father being taken away, he is completely helpless. But it's very much more to do with how the son does begin to cope with the whole loneliness and pain of being without his father. It is the magic moments of a relationship through a child's eyes, but told by a sad adult. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)

 'Cloudbusting' is a track that was very much inspired by a book called A Book Of Dreams. This book is written through a child's eyes, looking at his father and how much his father means to him in his world - he's everything. his father has a machine that can make it rain, amongst many other things, and there's a wonderful sense of magic as he and his father make it rain together on this machine. The book is full of imagery of an innocent child and yet it's being written by a sad adult, which gives it a strange kind of personal intimacy and magic that is quite extraordinary. The song is really about how much that father meant to the son and how much he misses him now he's gone. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD 012, 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

4. Hounds of Love

“The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case th hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)

 When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)

 In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?

Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.

But why not "three steps"?

It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Waking the Witch

“These sort of visitors come to wake them up, to bring them out of this dream so that they don't drown. My mother's in there, my father, my brothers Paddy and John, Brian Tench - the guy that mixed the album with us - is in there, Del is in there, Robbie Coltrane does one of the voices. It was just trying to get lots of different characters and all the ways that people wake you up, like you know, you sorta fall asleep at your desk at school and the teacher says "Wake up child, pay attention!". (...) I couldn't get a helicopter anywhere and in the end I asked permission to use the helicopter from The Wall from The Floyd, it was the best helicopter I'd heard for years for years [laughs].

I think it's very interesting the whole concept of witch-hunting and the fear of women's power. In a way it's very sexist behavior, and I feel that female intuition and instincts are very strong, and are still put down, really. And in this song, this women is being persecuted by the witch-hunter and the whole jury, although she's committed no crime, and they're trying to push her under the water to see if she'll sink or float. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)

“Song written by Kate Bush. The song was reportedly written in one evening in the summer of 1983. It was the first song recorded for the subsequent fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. The electronic drums, programmed by Del Palmer, and the Fairlight part were present from the first recording of the song. The lyrics speak of Bush's impossible wish to become her lover, and he her, so that they could know what the other felt. Kate played the first versions of the songs to Paul Hardiman on 6 October 1983. He commented later: "The first time I heard 'Running Up That Hill' it wasn't a demo, it was a working start. We carried on working on Kate and Del's original. Del had programmed the Linn drum  part, the basis of which we kept. I know we spent time working on the Fairlight melody/hook but the idea was there plus guide vocals."

The track was worked on between 4 November and 6 December, with Stuart Elliott adding drums, but closely following the programmed pattern. Alan Murphy added guitar parts whereas Paddy Bush, always providing the most ingenious instruments, played the rather better known balalaika on this track.

The working title of 'Running Up That Hill' was 'A Deal With God'. Representatives at EMI were hesitant to release the single as 'A Deal With God' due its use of the word 'God', which might lead to a negative reception. Bush relented and changed the title for the single.

It is very much about the power of love, and the strength that is created between two people when they're very much in love, but the strength can also be threatening, violent, dangerous as well as gentle, soothing, loving. And it's saying that if these two people could swap places - if the man could become the woman and the woman the man, that perhaps they could understand the feelings of that other person in a truer way, understanding them from that gender's point of view, and that perhaps there are very subtle differences between the sexes that can cause problems in a relationship, especially when people really do care about each other. (The Tony Myatt Interview, November 1985)

 'Running Up That Hill' was one of the first songs that I wrote for the album. It was very nice for me that it was the first single released, I'd always hoped that would be the way. It's very much about a relationship between a man and a woman who are deeply in love and they're so concerned that things could go wrong - they have great insecurity, great fear of the relationship itself. It's really saying if there's a possibility of being able to swap places with each other that they'd understand how the other one felt, that when they were saying things that weren't meant to hurt, that they weren't meant sincerely, that they were just misunderstood. In some ways, I suppose the basic difference between men and women, where if we could swap places in a relationship, we'd understand each other better, but this, of course, is all theoretical anyway. (Open Interview, 1985) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

1. The Big Sky

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth album Hounds Of Love in 1985, it was released as the fourth and final single from the album on 28 April 1986. The song is about remembering some of the simple pleasures enjoyed as children that most no longer find the time for, such as spending the afternoon looking at the sky, watching the clouds take on shapes.

The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the 'crowd scenes'. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted.

Someone sitting looking at the sky, watching the clouds change. I used to do this a lot as a child, just watching the clouds go into different shapes. I think we forget these pleasures as adults. We don't get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them; we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood - how perhaps the "fools on the hills" will be the wise ones. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

'The Big Sky' was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I'm writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

___________

I wanted to feature a classic from the 1980s…

in this Vinyl Corner. He is known today as Sananda Francesco Maitreya. Pandora's PlayHouse was released earlier this year and was well received. Many might know him better as Terence Trent D'Arby. There are few more confident and compelling debuts as Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. It is amazing to think that, worldwide, the album sold a million copies within the first three days of going on sale! One can understand why it is such a popular album. Classics like Wishing Well and Sign Your Name sit alongside lesser-celebrated songs such as I'll Never Turn My Back on You (Father's Words) and Rain. I would encourage people to buy this incredible album on vinyl:

“Acclaimed debut album from 80's superstar, originally released in July 1987 on Columbia Records which became an instant number one in the UK, spending 9 weeks at Number 1 on the album chart.

One of the most original recording artists of the 80s Introducing! combines the best of rock, pop and contemporary urban R&B, Terence's vocals can be smooth like the sweet soul singers of the 60s, funky like Prince, or as impassioned as the most sizzling rocker. Terence's voice echoes everyone from James Brown and Sam Cooke to Stevie Wonder. He also played many of the instruments, co-produced most tracks, and wrote just about all of the songs”.

When we think of the best albums of the 1980s, I think that Terence Trent D'Arby/Sananda Francesco Maitreya’s stunning debut needs to be in the mix. It is a wonderful album that still sounds great today. It is another one of these albums I don’t think has dated (almost thirty-five years since it was released).

I am going to end with a review for Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. Before that, there is an interesting article that examined and celebrated the album after thirty years (it was published in 2017):

“The sweet science of pugilism demands certain key characteristics. Speed of mind and body. The ability to punch powerfully and accurately. An impenetrable defensive setup. Conditioning to survive twelve brutal rounds of battle. Discipline to devote the prime years of your life to a monk-like existence. And the courage to take that long walk from changing room to ring.

None of which count for a thing without confidence—staring your opponent in the eye and knowing beyond all knowing that you have the beating of your nemesis mere inches away, no matter how intimidating he or she may look. For the winner of the Florida State Golden Gloves Lightweight title of 1980, confidence was never an issue—even when he abandoned boxing and a career in the army to become a musician. After all you don’t call your debut album the most important record since Sgt. Pepper’s if you’re the shy and retiring type.

Born Terence Trent Howard in Manhattan in 1962, July 1987 saw the supernova arrival of Terence Trent D’Arby and his extravagantly monikered debut album Introducing the Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby. Within just three days of its release, it had sold a million copies, establishing him as a nascent superstar to battle with the global behemoths (Prince, MJ and Madonna) that bestrode the music world.

That arrival though was fueled by his residence in the UK, rather than his homeland. Just as Jimi Hendrix and other artists in the past had left their home shores behind to taste success, so TTD did the same. Seemingly taking refuge on legendary music show The Tube (and dating host Paula Yates for a year), he launched his own brand of soul, pop and funk (with the help and guidance of Martin Ware of pop denizens Heaven 17) to a world unsure of where to place him in the musical climate of the moment. Europe seemed a more natural home for his prodigious talents, as he didn’t neatly pigeonhole himself alongside the trends taking root in the US. There was decidedly nothing of the newly birthed New Jack Swing sound and the awakening giant of hip-hop received no shrift either. So what could America make of this throwback with his Sam Cooke vocals, Elvis Presley lip curl and James Brown moves?

Times were getting tougher for those not following the aforementioned templates, even for established stars. 1987 saw the creative peak of Prince’s work in the form of Sign O’ the Times, but his commercial clout had dwindled post Purple Rain and wouldn’t return until he himself gave in to following trends, rather than making them with 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls. What place was there for a black man with a guitar and an incandescent charisma?

As for ballads, the worldwide smash that was “Sign Your Name” is an obvious highlight with its sublime drum patterns and barely contained eroticism. But better is its close cousin “Let’s Go Forward” which sees D’Arby run the full gamut of his soul vocal stylings, from his warm and innocently cherubic mid range, through his peerless falsetto and onto his rumbling growl of desire. It is heavy on atmospherics and lust.

Elsewhere less feted songs sit comfortably alongside those classics. “As Yet Untitled” is a master class in the art of simplicity, replete with his amazing voice, exceptional performance and lyrics to shake your foundations: “Shall I tell my children if they ask of me / Did I surrender forth my right to be? / Y’see my daddy died to leave this haunting ground / And this same ground still haunts me.”

“Who’s Loving You” finds D’Arby channeling Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson in his delivery of the Smokey Robinson classic. Album opener “If You All Get to Heaven” is a bizarre slice of slightly preposterous magic that defies accurate description, but succeeds due to his impeccable delivery and the sparkling, nimble keyboard lines of the verses”.

One has to respect and admire the musical and songwriting talent of D’Arby throughout his debut. It is an album that I keep returning to as it offers up so much. It is one of those albums that sounds so complete and does not have any missteps.

To end with, I want to bring in a review from Pop Rescue . They reviewed Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby back in 2015:

“This 11 track album opens with If You All Get To Heaven, which itself starts with a gentle, somewhat muted beat before the drums really kick in with Terence belting out the first lines. Here, he really shows off his vocal range – and it’s the main focus of this song with the simple instruments seemingly keeping out of his way. At times the melody feels like it’s repeating some of hit Sign Your Name.

A piano slide opens lead single If You Let Me Stay, which I instantly recognise but never knew it was him singing it. This is a really up-beat song, musically sounding in a 80s-do-the-60s despite it being an original song. This is really catchy, and once again Terence’s vocals soar perfectly throughout. Brilliant. This track gave him a #7 UK hit.

Wishing Well follows this, and this song has a wonderful beat throughout. Terence’s vocals are strong and soulful here. Musically, it’s quite a simple song, with some wonderful 80s Obligatory Saxophone thrown in alongside a funky bassline. This was the second single from the album, giving him a #4 UK hit.

I’ll Never Turn My Back On You (Father’s Words) follows this. This feels like a much more 80s pop-rock track – it’s certainly heavier. At times Terence’s vocals sound like Michael Jackson – particularly in the mid-section. This isn’t a particularly memorable song.

A snare drum rings in the arrival of Dance Little Sister with the amusing delivery of lyrics ‘get up outta your rockin’ chair grandma! Or rather would you care to dance grandmother?‘. With the delivery of the first part of that lyric, you’d be right in thinking that this is going to be a funky James Brown-sounding track. Terence makes light work of the lyrics, and delivers it in a fast funky James Brown style. A great nostalgic feeling track. The song gave him a #20 UK hit when it was released as the 3rd single.

Side one closes with Seven More Days. This is has some wonderful piano, guitar riffs and backing vocals. It’s laden with build ups made from Terence’s flawless high notes, and brooding backing vocals over a chugging bass – giving it a somewhat menacing, and epic scaled sound.

Side Two aptly opens with Let’s Go Forward, which by contrast is quite a gentle song, with lots of keyboards and repeated vocals ‘let’s go forward with our love‘. Ironically the song doesn’t really feel like it goes anywhere.

The pace picks up for Rain, which has a great beat that feels like it’s tugging on the leash of this song but the simplistic lyrics, vocals and keyboards feel like it holds it back. This was the 5th and final single, but it did not chart in the UK.

Huge #1 UK hit Sign Your Name is up next. I remember this song well, and also had it on my Brit Awards 88 double cassette. The song is soft, gentle with its minimal percussive beats and Terence’s vocals are wonderfully rich and warm here. The bass is simple but perfectly meandering. The ‘shoo do wop wop‘ section that would probably fall down in any other post-50s original song, stand here without fault. Flawless.

As Yet Untitled (c’mon Terence, it’s been 28yrs!) follows next. This song is a capella, with TTD taking all vocal parts himself. He really shines here with lead vocals that explore a huge range of notes and styles, and he puts in some lovely harmonies. The lack of beats does give the illusion that it’s a really long song.

The album closes with Who’s Loving You, a cover of Smokey Robinson‘s 1960 hit (although The Jackson 5 are probably better known for it). Terence certainly sounds like he’s having a fun time recording this song, playing with the lyrics somewhat as his backing vocalists and saxophone duel with him. He soars through a range of notes effortlessly, giving this album a wonderful soulful ending”.

A hugely popular and wonderful album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby is one that everyone should have a copy of on vinyl. After so many years, the album has lost none of its beauty…

AND incredible power.