FEATURE: Diamonds on the Soles of His Shoes: Paul Simon’s Graceland at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

Diamonds on the Soles of His Shoes

Paul Simon’s Graceland at Thirty-Five

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TODAY (25th August)…

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul Simon in 1986/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith

is the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of my favourite albums ever. Paul Simon’s Graceland was released this day in 1986. It is a masterpiece that marks the peak of one of the finest songwriters who has ever lived. I wonder whether Simon will mark the album’s anniversary or say anything. Certainly, Graceland is seen as one of the most important albums ever. I am going to bring together a couple of reviews for the album, in addition to an article about its legacy/importance. Yesterday, The Independent marked thirty-five years of Graceland and discussed Simon recording In South Africa with musicians from the country at a time when Apartheid was present:

“I’d never heard [the singer’s] name and I was scared,” he recalls. “In the township, when somebody tells you an English name, you know there’s a problem. I’m expecting a South African name calling me for a session, not an English name. My boss says, ‘Relax, he’s a singer from Jamaica’ – he sings ‘Mother and Child Reunion’. And I said, ‘That’s a brilliant song. He’s from Jamaica?’ He says, ‘No, no, Jamaica, Queens, New York’.”

Paul Simon arrived in Johannesburg in February 1985 on a pilgrimage of personal recovery and creative rejuvenation. His marriage to actor Carrie Fisher had collapsed. His turbulent on-off partnership with musical foil Art Garfunkel had hit the rocks once more, following the roaring success of their 1981 reunion concert in Central Park – the largest concert ever held at the time, before a crowd of 500,000 – and a fractious world tour. The comeback album the pair had planned fell foul of their personal differences, and emerged as Simon’s sixth solo record Hearts and Bones in 1983, his first major commercial flop. His label Warner Brothers had lost interest in him; the synthpop masses considered him a Sixties has-been. “I had a personal blow, a career setback, and the combination of the two put me into a tailspin,” he said.

In freefall, though, Simon discovered a weightless freedom. While producing a singer-songwriter called Heidi Berg, she’d handed him a label-less bootleg tape of mbaqanga street music from Soweto, entitled Gumboots: Accordion Jive, Volume Two. Already aware of the South African sounds of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, he was instantly entranced by this “summer music, happy music” that reminded him of the Atlantic records rhythm and blues hits of his Fifties youth. Scatting his own melodies over the tape while driving, he vowed to track down the artists, initially intending to buy the rights to the track “Gumboots” to write his own song over, as he had with his 1970 Peruvian folk single “El Condor Pasa”. Then, after hearing further tapes from South African producer Hilton Rosenthal, and with Warner paying him little attention as a lost cause, he decided to travel to Johannesburg to record with them in person. The sort of devotional odyssey which, within the confines of America, might usually have been made to Elvis Presley’s Memphis homestead.

The record he began in Johannesburg – 1986’s Graceland, 35 years old tomorrow – would become a 16 million-selling career resurrection for Simon, and a pan-global cultural benchmark. While Talking Heads, The Tom Tom Club, Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow and Peter Gabriel had all explored African rhythms in their music before (the last even launching a festival, Womad, to help popularise global sounds in 1980), Graceland’s success placed South African music centre stage in mainstream western culture for the first time, and widely popularised what would become known as “world music”. It would also land Simon in the eye of a political storm that would result in violence and assassination threats and take the approval of Nelson Mandela himself to shake off.

Though Band Aid and “We Are The World” had turned many western rock superstar’s thoughts towards Africa by 1985, the prospect of one of them recording in South Africa was a moral and political minefield. Having twice turned down million-dollar offers to perform live in Sun City, Simon was well aware of the United Nations cultural boycott in place to protest the apartheid regime entering, under PW Botha, its 37th year of brutally oppressing and segregating the country’s black majority population. Consulting his friend and anti-apartheid activist Harry Belafonte following the recording of the USA For Africa single, he was reportedly advised to discuss his proposed trip with the African National Congress, who had instigated the boycott”.

Following its completion, Simon toured alongside South African musicians, performing their music and songs from Graceland. I am glad that Graceland put Simon back on top after some lukewarm reviews for 1983’s Hearts and Bones. I love the entire album. I think that the title track is one of the greatest compositions ever! From the beauty and giddy delight of the opening track, The Boy in the Bubble, to All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints, it is a phenomenal album! I am not going to talk about various controversies that surrounded the album – including Simon working in South Africa, Linda Ronstadt appearing on the album and accusations of plagiarism levied at Simon by Los Lobos. I am keener to focus on the multiple riches and goods of Graceland. Thirty-five years after its release, the album is still being played and celebrated.

There are a couple of reviews that I want to introduce. When reviewing the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Graceland in 2012, this is what Pitchfork had to say:

“The stories Simon tells on Graceland wouldn't have been told without the collaboration of the mostly South African musicians he worked with on the record. Their music sparked Simon's imagination after the commercial disappointment of 1983's Hearts and Bones, and the jam sessions he recorded with them in South Africa gave rise to all but a few of these songs. Simon learned to write differently by homing in on the ways guitarist Chikapa "Ray" Phiri varied his playing from verse to verse, and by grounding his vocal melodies on the basslines of Bagithi Khumalo. Khumalo's playing has such fluency and personality that, at least on the five songs he's a part of, this is nearly as much his record as anyone else's. On the brief disc of outtakes included in this set, there's a version of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" that's stripped down to just vocals and bass, and his line so completely frames the song (rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically) that the other elements of the album version's arrangement are barely missed.

So we get songs where the groove came first, and the lyrics long after. Simon considered writing political songs about apartheid but quickly concluded that he wasn't very good at it and owed it to the other musicians involved to stick to his strengths. Still, the album's opening song, "The Boy in the Bubble", is a thriller that ties together threads of technological progress, medicine, terrorism, surveillance, pop music, inequality, and superstition with little more than a series of sentence fragments, all tossed off in the same deadpan delivery. The song sets a monumental stage on which the small dramas and comedies of the other songs can play out, and it also establishes the record's unsettled tone-- out of all these songs, only "That Was Your Mother" is sung from a settled place, and even that one is a reminiscence about itinerant life.

To have Simon's songs mingling with mbaqanga, township jive, shangaan music, zydeco and chicano rock, all played by their real practitioners, complemented the themes of dislocation, misplaced identity, and the meeting of worlds. "You Can Call Me Al" traces Simon's own arc on his trip to South Africa, beginning in confusion and ending in ecstatic realization-- he goes from"far away, in my well-lit home" to, "He sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity/ He says 'amen' and 'hallelujah.'"

Graceland was the first many of Simon's fans had heard of South Africa's black music. When I saw that this set included a two-hour documentary on the album, I wondered whether it would shy away from the issue of Simon's violation of the cultural boycott on South Africa, but to its credit, it doesn't. In fact, director Joe Berlinger uses a one-on-one conversation between Simon and Dali Tambo, the founder of Artists Against Apartheid and a one-time vocal critic of Simon, as a framing device for his story.

But more than Simon's single-minded devotion to his art and Tambo's ideological politics, the experience surrounding this album is best conveyed by the musicians who made it. They were violating the boycott, too, just by participating in a dialogue with non-South African musicians, and there's a moment where Ray Phiri describes a meeting he was called to in London with African National Congress officials while touring to support the album that speaks volumes. The ANC officials told Phiri that he was violating the boycott and had to go home, and his response was that he was already a victim of apartheid, and to force him to go home would make him a victim twice. In the end, Simon's assertion that Graceland helped put an emotional, human face on black South Africans for millions of people around the world doesn't seem off the mark. This set also comes with a DVD of the concert Simon and these musicians played with South African exiles Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1987, and the joy visible on stage and in the audience certainly speaks to that.

It's easy to overstate what Graceland was. It wasn't the first world-music album, as some critics claim. But it was unique in its total, and totally natural, synthesis of musical strains that turned out to be not nearly as different from each other as its listeners might have expected, and the result resonated strongly around the world and across generations”.

It is easy enough to see Graceland as a fantastic album without appreciating the musical richness and the importance of what was being recorded. I will come to an article that discusses the legacy of one of the best albums of the 1980s. First, this is what AllMusic wrote in their review for Graceland:

“With Graceland, Paul Simon hit on the idea of combining his always perceptive songwriting with the little-heard mbaqanga music of South Africa, creating a fascinating hybrid that re-enchanted his old audience and earned him a new one. It is true that the South African angle (including its controversial aspect during the apartheid days) was a powerful marketing tool and that the catchy music succeeded in presenting listeners with that magical combination: something they'd never heard before that nevertheless sounded familiar. As eclectic as any record Simon had made, it also delved into zydeco and conjunto-flavored rock & roll while marking a surprising new lyrical approach (presaged on some songs on Hearts and Bones); for the most part, Simon abandoned a linear, narrative approach to his words, instead drawing highly poetic ("Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"), abstract ("The Boy in the Bubble"), and satiric ("I Know What I Know") portraits of modern life, often charged by striking images and turns of phrase torn from the headlines or overheard in contemporary speech. An enormously successful record, Graceland became the standard against which subsequent musical experiments by major artists were measured”.

Rather than source one article, I am interested in the Wikipedia section for Graceland where we see its legacy. I know that there will be articles published today on its thirty-fifth anniversary that dissect the importance of Graceland:  

“New York Times writer Jon Pareles identified Graceland as an album that had popularized African rock in the west, alongside albums such as Peter Gabriel's So (1986) and Talking Heads' Remain in Light (1980).A 2012 documentary film, Under African Skies, was directed by Joe Berlinger for the album's 25th anniversary, and includes archival footage, interviews, discussion of the controversy, and coverage of an anniversary reunion concert.

Advocates for Graceland feel its music transcends the racial and cultural barriers of its production. "Graceland was never just a collection of songs, after all; it was a bridge between cultures, genres and continents, not to mention a global launching pad for the musicians whose popularity had been suppressed under South Africa's white-run apartheid rule," said Andrew Leahey of American Songwriter. Presenting the album in a modern context, Tris McCall of the Star-Ledger writes that "In a sense, Simon was ahead of his time: The curatorial approach he took to assembling full tracks from scraps of songs and pre-existing recordings is closer in execution to that of Kanye West than it is to any of his contemporaries."

The album has influenced musicians including Regina Spektor, Bombay Bicycle Club, Gabby Young, Casiokids, The Very Best, Givers, Lorde, and Vampire Weekend. The latter faced particular criticism that their 2008 debut album was too similar to Graceland, due to its origins in African music. Simon later defended the band, remarking, "In a way, we were on the same pursuit, but I don't think you're lifting from me, and anyway, you're welcome to it, because everybody's lifting all the time. That's the way music grows and is shaped."

Simon recalled his experiences with the record in 2013:

There was the almost mystical affection and strange familiarity I felt when I first heard South African music. Later, there was the visceral thrill of collaborating with South African musicians onstage. Add to this potent mix the new friendships I made with my band mates, and the experience becomes one of the most vital in my life”.

On its thirty-fifth anniversary, I wanted to celebrate an album that is so important and strong. It is a shame that it garnered controversy and Simon got some criticism for entering South Africa and recording with musicians there. It is the input of South African musicians and vocalists like Ladysmith Black Mambazo that make Graceland so astonishing and different. If you have not listened to Graceland in a while, then today is as good an excuse as any! Put it on and get lost in an album that…

IS an all-time classic.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential September Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz/PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan Hart for Wonderland.

Essential September Releases

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ALTHOUGH there are…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Amyl and The Sniffers/PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Wdziekonski

quite a few good albums due next month, I am selecting the essential ones that you will want to own. There are two particularly stunning albums out on 3rd September. Wasting no time in getting the month off to a great start, Iron Maiden’s Senjutsu is one that you will want to get! Go and pre-order a copy, as this is primed to be a huge album from the legendary British Metal band! I am looking forward to listening to the album. The group’s first album since 2015’s The Book of Souls, Senjutsu is going to be cracking. On the official Iron Maiden website, we get a sense of what the album is about:

“For Senjutsu – loosely translated as ‘tactics & strategy’, the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Steve Harris. And with a running time of a little under 82 minutes, Senjutsu, like their previous record The Book Of Souls, will be a double CD album/triple vinyl album.

Steve says "We chose to record at Guillaume Tell Studio in France again as the place has such a relaxed vibe. The setup there is perfect for our needs; the building used to be a cinema and has a really high ceiling so there’s a great acoustic sound. We recorded this album in the same way we did The Book Of Souls in that we’d write a song, rehearse it and then put it down together straight away while it was all fresh in our minds.

There’s some very complex songs on this album which took a lot of hard work to get them exactly as we wanted them to sound, so the process was at times very challenging, but Kevin is great at capturing the essence of the band and I think it was worth the effort! I’m very proud of the result and can’t wait for fans to hear it."

Bruce Dickinson continues, "We’re all really excited about this album. We recorded it back in early 2019 during a break in the Legacy tour so we could maximize our touring yet still have a long set up period before release to prepare great album art and something special as a video. Of course the pandemic delayed things more - so much for the best laid plans – or should that be ‘strategies’!? The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long. There’s also one or two songs which sound pretty different to our usual style, and I think Maiden fans will be surprised - in a good way, I hope!”.

I know that there will be a lot of love for Senjutsu. A fan has already given a track-by-track review that should get people excited. Do make sure that, even if you are a casual fan of Iron Maiden, you go and pre-order a copy.

A wonderful album slated for 3rd September is Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. This is an album that you are going to want to pre-order. The follow-up to the hugely acclaimed GREY Area (2019), there is a lot of buzz around the release of the London rapper’s upcoming fourth studio album. This is what Rough Trade say about Sometimes I Might Be Introvert:

“Over the course of her lush, expansive, defiantly sprawling new album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, released on Age 101, the Ivor Novello award-winning, Mercury nominated Little Simz delivers an undeniable modern classic, effortlessly condensing any number of disparate styles and genres into music which thrillingly broaches the gap between urgent modern treatise and hip hop. A bold, quantum leap forward from the critically beloved Grey Area, this is hardly music aiming simply for the pop charts; rather, it is turbo charged with the kind of fury and potency, confusion and anxiety that make up the modern experience of being Black, British and female at this particular point in time. This is no mere philosophical exercise, however - the result is her most ambitious and soaring body of work to date, one which operates at the very heights of what rap can be.

Without wasting any time at all, the album opens with the heart stopping clarion call of “Introvert”, a visceral essay about lives lived in the cross-hairs of society, fuelled by fear, exhaustion, frustration, but also a kind of white hot political awakening. It’s a full-bore, high-stakes, facing up to death riposte, as urgent as it is compelling, complete with a stunning video by Salomon Lightelm which is by turns majestic and terrifying, with a chopped up, collaged structure perfectly mirroring the landscape it maps; a place of beauty and danger, of violence and dogged resistance. The centre, Simz is keen to remind us, will not hold (“man it’s like they can’t sleep until our spirit is crushed”) – and here she is driven to document every unsparing detail.

The ensuing tracks, produced by Inflo in LA and London, run into each other seamlessly and enlist the rapidly emergent likes of Cleo Sol, Obongjayar and even “The Crown” actress Emma Corrin, to create a kind of rangy, nimble storytelling which conjures up the febrile, strident world we live in with an unflinching energy and vividness. These songs are flash-lit Polaroids, ready framed and developing before our very eyes, and their creator is nowhere and everywhere, documenting a new natural history in which moments of tenderness (“Miss Understood”) coexist with shocking violence (“Little Q Pt 2”), and unabashed celebrations of femininity (“Woman”) sit alongside deeply personal glimpses of introspection (“I See You”).

Of the many voices in music today, Simz’ is among the most commanding, writing at a pitch of intensity and urgency that few can match. However, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is no diatribe. Instead, it is an intensely alive hybrid, a work of radical honesty that uses personal history as a means of magnifying and challenging the paradoxes we find ourselves in, both social and personal, macro and micro. Like some of the legendary musicians that came before her, Simz is looking at the chaos and disorder in the world right now with resourceful, refined eyes, and she sees the glorious opportunity and enormous responsibility that affords. This is the end result; listen on in wonder”.

The first album out on 10th September that you will want to grab is Manic Street Preachers’ The Ultra Vivid Lament. The new album from the Welsh legends is going to be another epic! They always produce the most interesting and repeatable albums. Go and pre-order the Manics’ upcoming treasure:

“The Ultra Vivid Lament is the 14th studio album from Manic Street Preachers. It is both reflection and reaction - a record that gazes in isolation across a cluttered room, fogged by often painful memories, to focus on an open window framing a gleaming vista of land melting into sea and endless sky.

Musically The Ultra Vivid Lament is inspired by a formative years record box (ABBA, post-Eno Roxy, the Bunnymen, Fables-era REM, Lodger) though the end result could only be the unique union of James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore, collectively one of the UK’s most consistently brilliant rock’n’roll bands for over three decades”.

We have heard a bit from The Ultra Vivid Lament, and it is sounding like it will be among the best albums from Manic Street Preachers. I have been a fan of the band since childhood, so I am really keen to see what their fourteenth studio album offers up. If you want to get an album that is guaranteed to provide huge satisfaction, then make sure that you pre-order The Ultra Vivid Lament.

There are quite a few other albums from 10th September that should be on the must-buy list. Amyl and The Sniffers’ second studio album, Comfort to Me, is going to be one of the best of the year! Do make sure that you pre-order an album that is going to massive, raw and utterly compelling:

“Already renowned for a ball-tearing live show, The Sniffers made their international debut as one of the hottest tipped acts at The Great Escape in 2018. Soon afterwards, they signed deals with both Rough Trade Records and ATO Records, made a massively hyped appearance at SXSW, and finally released their self-titled debut album in 2019, landing them an ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Award for Best Rock Album, capping off a wild year for the lunatic, likeable punks.

Late in 2020, Amyl and The Sniffers went into the studio with producer Dan Luscombe to record their sophomore album, Comfort To Me. Written over a long year of lockdown, the album was influenced by and expanded on a heavier pool of references - old-school rock’n’roll (AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Motörhead and Wendy O Williams), modern hardcore (Warthog and Power Trip) and the steady homeland heroes (Coloured Balls and Cosmic Psychos). Lyrically, the album was influenced by Taylor’s rap idols and countless garage bands and in her words ‘I had all this energy inside of me and nowhere to put it, because I couldn’t perform, and it had a hectic effect on my brain. My brain evolved and warped and my way of thinking about the world completely changed.’

Seventeen songs were recorded in the Comfort to Me sessions and the top 13 made the cut. They were mixed long-distance by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, IDLES, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and mastered by Bernie Grundman (Michael Jackson, Prince, Dr Dre).

Comfort To Me demonstrates the same irrepressible smarts, integrity and fearless candour as their debut but as you’d expect of any young band five years on, their sound has evolved, in Amy’s words it’s ‘raw self expression, defiant energy and unapologetic vulnerability’”.

You can also check out the Melbourne Punk/Pub Rock band’s official website for more details. After the success of their eponymous debut, there will be a lot of eyes their way on 10th September.

There are a couple of solid albums from 10th September I will pass by, as I am trying to narrow down to the very best. One that is worth investigation is Diana Ross’ Thank You. She is such a legend, one cannot ignore anything she put out. The fact that the album is going to promote something positive and inclusive means you will certainly want to pre-order it:

“Diana Ross sings “Thank You” to the world. “This collection of songs is my gift to you with appreciation and love. I am eternally grateful that I had the opportunity to record this glorious music at this time,” said Ms. Ross. Her new album, Thank You is released through Decca Records / Universal Music Group.

Recorded in her home studio, Thank You offers a powerful, inclusive musical message of love and togetherness. With its songs of happiness, appreciation and joy, it wholeheartedly acknowledges that we are in this all together. Her family, friends and loyal and loving audiences all around the globe have been an integral part of her wonderful life’s story. In this special moment, it is time to step into the light.

Ms. Ross co-wrote and collaborated on the 13 songs along with award-winning songwriters and producers including: Jack Antonoff, Troy Miller, Triangle Park, Spike Stent, Prince Charlez, Amy Wadge, Neff-U, Freddie Wexler, Jimmy Napes, Tayla Parx, Fred White, and Nathanial Ledgewick”.

There are four more albums from 10th September that you will want to get – I told you that it was a busy week! Matthew E. White’s K Bay is one I am looking forward to. The follow-up to 2015’s Fresh Blood, K Bay is going to be a gold album from the Virginia songwriter. Go and pre-order your copy:

“New, long-awaited solo album, K Bay, via Domino. It features Spacebomb’s trusted house band (bassist Cameron Ralston, drummer Pinson Chanselle, and orchestral arranger Trey Pollard), along with multi-instrumentalist Alan Parker, keyboardists Devonne Harris and Daniel Clarke, and engineer / mixer Adrian Olsen. The LP was produced by White and recorded between his beloved Kensington Avenue home studio (and album namesake) K Bay, Richmond’s Montrose Recording and his own local institution, Spacebomb Studio. K Bay finds the singer / songwriter, bandleader, and musical polymath expanding every facet of his creative process and harnessing the full power of his community, culminating in the best record of his career.

K Bay, White’s first solo album in six years, is the astounding record he has forever aspired to make. A bold reclamation of independence and identity, K Bay establishes White as one of his era’s most imaginative artists. These 11 pieces are retro-futurist magic tricks that feel instantly classic and contemporary, the product of a musical mind that has internalized the lessons of his idols and used them to build a brilliant world of his own.

A decade ago, Matthew E. White made a classic beauty no one expected; on K Bay, he has made a masterpiece by harnessing what he’s learned from that community and life itself in entirely unexpected, electrifying, and reaffirming ways”.

The upcoming tenth studio album from the brilliant Saint Etienne is one to pre-order. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is looking like it will be among their best:

“Saint Etienne return with their 10th album and prove they are still utterly essential. Saint Etienne have always understood that pop music is the nearest thing we have to time travel, the closest we can get to breathing the air of a different time. On this album, they take that theory to its logical conclusion. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You uses sounds and samples from 1997 to 2001, evoking the folk memory of the period by using and twisting recordings from the time, re-working them into new songs. “They're all by people you'd have heard on daytime Radio 1 or 2 at the time,” Bob clarifies, “not Boards of Canada or anything.” Opening track “Music Again”, for example, begins with some gorgeously poignant electric harpsichord from a long-forgotten R&B hit.

For the first time, Saint Etienne didn't record together in a studio. The album was completed remotely, in Hove (Pete), Oxford (Sarah) and Bradford (Bob, in collaboration with film and TV composer Gus Bousfield, who contributes to a number of tracks). Communication was handled via Zoom meetings and emails.

I’ve Been Trying To Tell You has an internal unity, its heartbeat always at the low end of mid-tempo/high end of downtempo, landing at the approximate pace of Tricky's Pre-Millennium Tension (an album released on the very cusp of the era in question). This helps sustain the dream-state.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Baker Ashton 

That hypnagogic sensation is enhanced here and there by the eerie sound of seagulls and garden birds. It's like falling asleep listening to Minnie Riperton's “Lovin' You” and coming a-dreamwake in Kew. This, it turns out, is another turn-of-the-millennium reference. “In the early series of Big Brother,” Bob explains, “when Channel 4 used to broadcast live from the house in the daytime, they'd dip out the sound whenever the housemates talked about real life people, or swore or whatever, and they'd replace the sound with quite avant-sounding field recordings of birdsong.”

The lyrics, too, obey the fractured logic of dreams. Sarah Cracknell sings in short phrases - “here it comes again”, “never had a way to go”, “ruby dust”, “a love like this again” - looped and repeated, rather than a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. “They are all snatched phrases that could have been used at the time,” Bob explains, “from news items, or songs, or magazines.” The album's centrepiece is arguably “Little K”, the fourth track of eight, a six-minute oneiric ocean which ends with the sound of lazily lapping waves. The words that filter through the haze are ones which define the album: “No reason to pretend. In my reverie, the mind will carry me...”

The reverie has interludes with no words at all, at least not sung. “Blue Kite”, made from backwards strings and synths and bassy beats from the room next door, is entirely instrumental, as is “I Remember It Well” apart from snatches of mysterious voices which evoke childhood holidays. Some tracks, like some dreams, are simply too strange for analysis: the inscrutably-titled “Penlop” (a Tibetan term which translates loosely as 'governor') has a refrain which appears to run “I don't really know you/But I'd like to show you/Chester town/We went all around...”

Low are a band who always produce exceptional albums. Following the amazing Double Negative of 2018, HEY WHAT is going to be another stunner from the Minnesota group. Even if you have never heard of Low, I guarantee that you will appreciate HEY WHAT. Low’s music is so accessible and memorable. You should pre-order HEY WHAT and discover a musical treat:

“Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present Hey What. These ten pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse - building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks Forward, with teeth”.

I am going to move to a different week soon enough. It is amazing how many great albums are out in September. 10th September is looking especially packed for albums that you will want to add to your collection!

The last album due on 10th September I will recommend comes in the form of The Stranglers’ Dark Matters. Following the sad death of their keyboard player Dave Greenfield last year, it is a combination of songs recorded with him and bits without. The iconic band have a load of fans who will want to pre-order their upcoming album. This is from the Rough Trade site:  

“The Stranglers release the long-awaited new album Dark Matters. Surviving Stranglers band members, JJ Burnel, Baz Warne, and newest member Jim Macaulay completed Dark Matters remotely during lockdowns, making it their first album since 2012. The album features the single 'And If You Should See Dave...', an honest tribute to their much-missed keyboard player Dave Greenfield who tragically passed away a year ago from Covid-19.

“A year ago, on May 3rd my great friend and colleague of 45 years, Dave Greenfield, passed away, another victim of the pandemic.” says JJ Burnel. “We had already recorded most of the album with him and during the lockdowns our only wish was to complete it as a fitting tribute to his life and work. I consider this to be one of our finest recordings.”

Greenfield himself features on 8 of the 11 tracks, which were made over the course of two years at the band’s studios in the rural idylls of Somerset, and in Southern France, produced by long-time collaborator Louie Nicastro”.

There are two albums from 17th September that are worth checking out. Lindsey Buckingham, the eponymous album from the former Fleetwood Mac lead, is one to pre-order. Buckingham was fired from Fleetwood Mac back in 2018. As we discover in a recent interview from Uncut, that forms some of the inspiration behind his eponymous album:

“In fact, the subject of Buckingham’s departure from the group in 2018 – after he requested a delay to their upcoming tour so he could release his own album – comes up early in our conversation, after Buckingham himself raises it. It is, he explains, inexorably tied in with the origins of this new album.

“Once I’d been ousted from the band – which in itself was just so absurd after all the troubles we’d been through and managed to overcome for 40-plus years – I was poised to put the album out. Then I ended up having a bypass operation, so we had to kick it down the road a little further. And then the pandemic hit. So it’s been a sort of running gag, to have so many false starts.”

Here at last, post-Macxit, the Lindsey Buckingham album has many highlights – including the chiming, propulsive I Don’t Mind and the striking and experimental Power Down – that bring into focus Buckingham’s melodic gifts as well as his hunger for unconventional thinking”.

Before moving along, I want to direct people to José González’s Local Valley. His songwriting is among the most affecting and moving of any artist out there! Pre-order this beautiful album from González:

“Few people have managed to become quite so celebrated worldwide, quite as quietly as Jose Gonzalez has. Local Valley, his long awaited fourth album, serves as a relieving reminder that you don’t have to be loud to be heard.

Since his debut single ‘Crosses’ back in 2003, both he and his music have remained dependably quiet and unassuming. Local Valley calmly exhibits his singular ability to communicate with such modesty and power.

Beginning with the sun-dappled ‘El Invento’, the first song he’s recorded in Spanish (the native tongue of his Argentinian heritage), and ending with the intimate yet rhapsodic ‘Honey Honey’. Along the way it engages in his signature melodic and metrical hypnotism, showcasing his remarkable fingerpicking skills, while there’s further evidence of his love for music from around the world (he references an inspiring jam session in Gothenburg with Niger artist Bombino) and for the first time, the introduction of a drum machine on a few songs, further widening José´s musical spectrum.

The record, full of his trademark bittersweet pastoralism, includes what Gonzalez considers “my most accomplished songs to date”. While continuing his tradition of reinterpreting songs by other artists, with ‘Line Of Fire' he picks one written for Junip, the band he formed with friends in 1998. That the original version has now been streamed some 60 million times suggest it, like other songs he’s covered, is now part of the songwriting canon”.

Moving onto the albums due on 24th September. You might have to look around or go local to get a copy of Brittany Howard’s Jaime Reimagined. I have heard a couple of the songs from the album. It sounds incredible! It has already been released digitally. I feel a vinyl copy is the way to go with this album. This is what Pitchfork wrote back in June:

“Brittany Howard has announced Jaime Reimagined, a record featuring new versions of songs from her solo debut Jaime. The album includes previously shared remixes from Bon Iver, Michael Kiwanuka, Fred again..,and EarthGang. Reimagined also features Childish Gambino’s interpretation of “Stay High,” as well as new guest contributions from Common, Emily King, and the Internet’s Syd. Below, hear Little Dragon’s remix of “Presence” and BadBadNotGood’s remix of “Tomorrow.”

“Making Jaime was so much fun for me because I was able to explore so many different genres of music,” Brittany Howard said in a statement. “There were no rules. This reimagination project has been no different. I have been honored to have so many incredible artists from all musical worlds interpret my songs in such interesting and different ways”.

I love the idea of reworking a studio album and having remixes, reversions and other artists interpreting its tracks. I feel this is something that we will see a lot more of in years to come. The wonderful Brittany Howard is someone who so many people want to work with and pay their respect to.

There are four more albums from 24th September that you will want to pre-order. One comes in the form of Nao’s And Then Life Was Beautiful. Go and pre-order this album now. The London Soul/R&B artist is one of our finest young talents. This is what we can expect from her new album:

“After her most recent hit Messy Love, which received huge praise from tastemakers, NAO finally releases her highly anticipated, third studio album And Then Life Was Beautiful, the follow-up from her critically acclaimed, Mercury Prize and Grammy-nominated album Saturn. While her previous project propelled the singer-songwriter into a new stratosphere with its cosmic, coming-of-age themes, the songstress is now entering a brand new chapter with And Then Life Was Beautiful - where ‘Saturn’ untangled the knots of late twenties soul-searching, And Then Life Was Beautiful goes a step further by setting out a clarified sense of purpose.

Now a mother of a young daughter, NAO is more confident in herself and her voice than ever. A pandemic album, written and recorded throughout never-ending lockdowns, the project celebrates life’s ups and downs, reaching out a hand to guide listeners through what hurdles may confront them next. It includes previously released tracks Antidode, featuring Nigerian superstar Adekunle Gold, Woman, featuring Lianne La Havas, which she recorded with her new-born daughter strapped lovingly to her chest, as well as Messy Love, a stunning offering loaded with strummed guitar grooves and drum rhythms rooted in 90s R&B.

Other notable stand-out tracks include Wait, a stripped-back track which takes an intimate look at how you make mistakes to develop a relationship, and ‘Postcards’, highlighting a gorgeous vocal interplay of NAO and serpentwithfeet, who features alongside her on the track. For Good Luck, R&B crooner Lucky Daye jumped on board.

She says: “Life isn’t perfect; we still go through ups and downs, but it can be beautiful as a whole. I do think it’s a hopeful album, in an honest way – it’s not shiny or all ‘isn’t this great!’ and ‘party party party.’ But it’s hopeful in that through every rough patch, every dark patch or struggle we always come out again. That’s what life is. You keep going. But most of all you try and step into a place of gratitude so that you can see life in all of its beauty”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Frank W Ockenfels III for The Forty-Five

Poppy’s Flux is an album to pre-order when you can. Following her third studio album, I Disagree (2020), this is going to be another huge and impressive release. I am keen to bring in part of an interview that she was part of for The Forty-Five for their July edition:

“It has always been hard to tell where the persona of Poppy stops, and the thoughts of her creator, Moriah Rose Pereira, begin. In her earliest appearances, Poppy was undoubtedly an artistic creation – her soft, high-pitched voice sounded like a soothing and slightly unsettling ASMR video distilled into a vial of sleeping potion, and her music both celebrated and satirised pop music. When interviewers asked personal questions, Poppy skillfully dodged them – whenever she was asked where she grew up, she would reply: “the internet”. Looking back, the whole thing felt like a pointed comment on both privacy, and the parts of us we choose not to share.

This act has gradually softened over the years, but still, following Poppy’s every move, you’ll find swathes of listeners speculating about whether the musician is still in character. When she answers the phone today with a hint of Tennessee twang, she certainly doesn’t seem to be – there’s no hint of the hypnotic voice present in the star’s early YouTube videos, which showed her holding court with a basil plant and satirising predictable interviewers in saccharine monotone. “The hint of my accent hasn’t subsided entirely,” she quips, describing her memories of growing up in Nashville. We speak about Poppy’s family, her childhood passion for dance and roller-skating, and the video games she’s been playing with her fiance Eric – who makes music as Ghostemane – during lockdown. Her openness catches me off guard. Has the real Poppy finally come to the phone?

“I never really think of it as a persona,” Poppy shrugs, reflecting on her past iterations. “People are wearing a mask no matter what.”

Persona or not, we’re certainly in a very different era of Poppy these days –  last month saw the release of a grunge-flecked new single. While previous releases toyed playfully with rock influences and set them against crisp, glimmering pop melodies, ‘Her’ goes full pelt, and wouldn’t sound out of place on a Hole record. Produced by Justin Meldal-Johnsen – known for his work with Paramore, Wolf Alice and Nine Inch Nails, among others – the spiky comeback moment is accompanied by a dystopian stop-motion video in which robotic singers are cranked out of a production line and forced to perform. It’s the first glimpse of a forthcoming new album which takes influence from the heavier end of the sonic spectrum, and explores the idea of “accepting uncertainty in your life and not being afraid of the unknown.” Though there are no featured collaborations “there are people who have lent their skills to making some of the album,” Poppy hints cryptically.

For her next record, Poppy has also recruited a live band – who she’ll also be taking out on tour – and in comparison to her robotic beginnings, it’s set to be an album centred around “real humans playing human music”.

“It was Justin’s idea to have the band all record together in a room,” she says. “I was driving in my car with my cat around LA, and he called me and was like: ‘What do you think about this idea?’. It had this warmth and togetherness and live element,” she enthuses. “It was a pretty wonderful feeling to be by the mixing board with Justin and Mike, the engineer, and hear it happening. I was getting chills, this is exciting”.

I want to recommend people pre-order Natalie Imbruglia’s Firebird. The legendary Australian artist is someone I have been a fan of ever since the 1990s. Her music has evolved since then, though she remains an artist both celebrated and underrated. Firebird is one that I am definitely going to check out. Imbruglia is a remarkable artist who has this power and passion that draws you in! I am pleased that she has another album coming out. Every release offers something special and interesting. This is what Rough Trade say about Firebird:

“Natalie Imbruglia returns with her brand new album Firebird which marks the first new music from Natalie in almost a decade after choosing to remain out of the limelight following her monumental success in the nineties and early noughties. The new album was written and recorded between the UK, the US and her homeland of Australia, co-written with the likes of Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes, Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers, KT Tunstall, Eg White (Adele, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith), Luke Fitton (Little Mix, Girls Aloud), Fiona Bevan (One Direction, Ed Sheeran), Rachel Furner (Little Mix, Jason Derulo, Craig David) and more, and produced by Natalie and My Riot with additional production from Albert Hammond Jr, Gus Oberg and Romeo Stodart”.

The final album out next month (on 24th September) you will want to add to your collection is Public Service Broadcasting’s Bright Magic. Ensure that you pre-order the album if you are a fan of the band. It is an album that moves their sound forward:

“Public Service Broadcasting release their fourth album, Bright Magic, via Play It Again Sam. An album in three parts (Building A City / Building A Myth / Bright Magic), it is their most ambitious undertaking yet, bringing you to Europe’s heart and de facto capital, the cultural and political metropolis that is the ‘Haupstadt’ of the Federal Republic of Germany – Berlin.

Though PSB’s use of electronics and surging guitar rock remain familiar, Bright Magic uses samples, and the English language, sparingly. It differs from their previous albums in other ways: less linear and narrative, instead it’s an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up. A Eureka moment of sorts came in November 2018 when Willgoose heard Walter Ruttman’s radical Berlin tape-artwork Wochenende (or Weekend), which is sampled on three of Bright Magic’s tracks. Created in 1928, the piece collaged speech, field recordings and music into a sonic evocation of the city. Resolving to integrate these long-gone fragments with new manipulated sound sources, he set about making his own Wochenende, a narrative drama for the ears which decodes and realises the dreams of Berlin he’d constructed in his mind. J.Willgoose, Esq moved to Berlin from April 2019 to January 2020. Combining sound archaeology and the flâneuring of the psychogeographer, one street-level pursuit of the city’s energy involved Willgoose walking the Leipzigerstrasse, site of the city’s first electric streetlight, using a wide-band electromagnetic receiver from Moscow’s Soma Laboratories.

He wrote and recorded in Kreuzberg’s famous Hansa Tonstudio recording complex. This brought closer several inescapable musical touchstones: Depeche Mode’s classic eighties triumvirate, U2’s Achtung Baby and, crucially, Bowie’s Heroes and Low. Indeed, the Warszawa-evoking “The Visitor” – whose designated colour is the particular Orange of that album’s sleeve – was initially intended to feature a sample of Bowie reflecting. As well as EERA, the album’s other guest voices include Blixa Bargeld, veteran of The Bad Seeds and Einstürzende Neubauten, who becomes the voice of Berlin’s industry on the robo-teknik “Der Rhythmus der Maschinen”. Andreya Casablanca of Berlin garageistes Gurr stands in for Marlene Dietrich in “My Blue Heaven”, an anthem of proud self-determination. A very pro-European record, Bright Magic is ultimately not just about one city, but all centres of human interaction and community which allow the free exchange and cross-pollination of ideas”.

Those are the treats due next month. Of course, like I say with every one of these features: new albums might come out of nowhere, and the ones I have listed above might get pushed back. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, so one can never predict how that will affect album release schedules and getting vinyl out there. September is gearing up to be a busy and great one for new albums! The ones I have recommended above are my suggestions. There are others that you might want to investigate. I hope that there are a couple of albums above that…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Matthew E. White

STRIKE a chord.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Maisie Peters

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Lillie Eiger 

Maisie Peters

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EVEN though…

I have included Maisie Peters’ music in various playlists, I have yet to spotlight her in any big way. I feel that, as she has had a busy 2021, that I should do that now. Her amazing debut album, You Signed Up for This, is out on Friday (27th August). It looks like she is playing Manchester’s Gorilla tonight. Make sure that you grab a copy.  Released on the Gingerbread Man label (Ed Sheeran’s label), it is one of the best debut albums of this year. I think that Peters is going to be a major artist very soon! Her music is so original and memorable. I say that about many artists, though it is especially true of the Brighton-born artist. I feel it is important to source a few interviews so that one can learn more about the amazing Maisie Peters. At twenty-one, we are going to see music come from Peters for many years. For someone so young, she sounds so accomplished and confident! In 2017, Peters released her debut single, Place We Were Made (August 2017) and Birthday (November 2017). She started to gain traction and attention the following year. Her loyal fanbase - ‘Daisies’ as they are called – are excited to receive You Signed Up for This. It is an album that will get a lot of positive reaction!

The first of four interviews that I will bring in is for Why Now. Peters spoke with them earlier in the year about her music and upcoming debut album:

“The Brighton-born musician has a very intimate relationship with her fans. A relationship which feels very generation Z, cultivated during an age of social media and instant communication. Peters regularly retweets memes from fans desperate for her first album, has hopped on Zoom calls with devotees, and set up a lockdown book club.

She first created her YouTube channel in 2015 at the age 15, and has grown up with an ever increasing legion of loyal followers. “One messaged me the other day and said ‘Your lyrics still mean as much to me as they did when I was in school.  I feel like I’ve grown up with you.’ It blew my mind because I’m only 20. But I’ve been on the internet making music for the past five, six years now.”

Her songs have amassed a quarter of a billion global streams and she has delighted fans (and critics) with two EPs ‘Dressed Too Nice For A Jacket’ in 2018 and ‘It’s Your Bed Babe, It’s Your Funeral’ in 2019. Taylor Swift is also a fan, commenting on a recent video: “My ears have been blessed”.

I ask whether she channeled any lockdown melancholy into the album. She said: “There are not any songs explicitly about the pandemic in the album. But I think music has definitely shifted tone.” She does make one promise: “There will be no pandemic pop!”

With vaccine passports being debated, and the prospect of outdoor music gigs on the horizon, Peters is already planning her first night out after lockdown.

“I would metaphorically run out and play a show. But logistically speaking, you can’t just run out and play a show,” she said. “So what will actually happen is on that day, I will go to the pub and stay there for about three days. And then come home, make some more music and stay in my bedroom.”

“That’s gonna be the irony. I’ll probably still spend loads of time in my bedroom”.

Peters chatted with NOTION when promoting the single, John Hughes Movie. She was also asked about the album and what she wants her legacy to be:

“You pull on your personal experiences and stories from your circle for inspiration, so I wonder how the past year has been for you? How has it impacted you creatively?

I think it’s changed for everybody the way they create. For me, I actually found it mostly really great creatively because it made me a lot more self-sufficient. I just wrote heaps more on my own, returning to the way I started making music, just alone in my bedroom. In terms of inspiration, I’ve always been someone that’s able to be really inspired by many things. In a way, this has been really interesting to me because suddenly everything is about words now that you can’t see anybody anymore. Words – written, spoken, telephone and video chatted. For me, words are the most important thing. I’ve written countless… so many songs the past year, I haven’t found a lack of inspiration at all. I’ve been very inspired, which has been great.

Your debut album is expected later this year. What can you tell us about it?

Well, I mean, I can’t tell you much. As much as I would like to, my manager will kill me [laughs]. I like to think it’s going to be what everybody came for when they signed up for me. But it’s also what they didn’t know they came for, but will also enjoy. I think it’s a good mix of that and the music I’ve made so far. The person that’s made those songs is the same person that made this album and the same person that wrote “John Hughes” and the same person that had a YouTube channel when she was 14. Like, it’s all the same people. But it’s also me at my current creative peak. But I guess, you know, with all the culmination of years of experience, in music, and in life, I think it’s kind of a combination of both.

You’re very active on social media. How do you navigate the blurred lines between keeping certain stuff in your private life and what you put out in the public sphere as an artist?

I think, personally, I just decided very early on that there were some things that I would talk about, and some things that I wouldn’t. I would say I do I share a lot of my life, but I’m also very stubborn about what I won’t share. I think that’s important. Having basically grown up on the internet, and having been a person who shared her life since I was a teenager, I’m really grateful that past me decided to do that. Social media is a mind chasm of good and bad. It’s definitely been hard because being an artist this year, more than ever, there’s a huge, like pressure to be on social media as much as possible, but also you’re not doing anything, you’re just in your bedroom all the time. You’re trying to be entertaining, and you’re trying to keep people interested and invested, but obviously, everyone’s been struggling the past year. It’s been very tricky mentally, so yeah, it’s definitely been complicated. But I would say that I have the best fans and the nicest social media; it’s such a wonderful place. So I’ve been lucky.

Looking back, how do you think you’ve grown personally and musically since your first release back in 2017? Are there any words you’d use to describe yourself then versus now?

I guess back then I was a lot more naive. But I think in a really amazing way. I love all the music I made back then. There’s a real sound of purity. I just have no idea what I’m doing and I think that’s amazing. You can never go back again. There’s like a wide-eyed romanticism of making music and being a songwriter. And now, I think there’s been growth. I’ve grown up as a person and musically I’ve grown. Obviously, I love the music I make nowadays but I’ll probably never make better music. *Pauses* I don’t know, that’s not true. But there’s a level of that, where it’s like, you’ll never make better music than the music you made when you didn’t have anyone to make it for. And I think that that’s always true to some level. But I love past me, I love now me, and I’m excited for future me.

And then lastly, what do you want your legacy to be? If you had to capture the thing that you want to be remembered by?

Ha, I feel like 20 is quite young to make a legacy plan [laughs]. I hope I’m making music for all of my life, so in 10 years time, ask me the same question again and I’ll give you an answer”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lillie Eiger 

Around the same time, Peters was featured by LOCK. I have selected this interview, as it is interesting hearing Peters discuss being back at her childhood home in East Sussex – and what being back there did for her creativity:

“If you could be any character from a ‘John Hughes Movie’ who would you be and why?

I think I’d love to be Sloane Peterson , Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend because he is the dream man. Also I would like to be Ferris Bueller’s sister because she kisses Charlie Sheen at the end, and that’s really iconic. One of the two.

Has being back in your Sussex family home over lockdown inspired your work at all?

Definitely. Going back for lockdown at the start of 2020, was amazing in terms of creativity. I was back in my childhood bedroom, which made me begin writing songs, the way I used to when I was a 14-year-old. It was just me on my own with my guitar, with my parents bedroom right next door and them saying, “Shh, Maisie it’s 10-o-Clock, go to sleep.” So I would creep down to the living room with my guitar and laptop and sit on the other end of the room, in the hope I wouldn’t disturb them. It was very cool to go back to being in that space, I don’t know when else you would get the chance to do that in life. Being back in my bedroom, with the knowledge I have now, as a 20-year-old, was amazing.

Your songwriting has also led you to be the only british artist to have a song featured on the Birds Of Prey film, with your song, ‘Smile’. Obviously that’s a massive achievement, how did you end up being a part of that film?

I had a friend who works in Atlantic Records for America and he was involved in creating a Birds Of Prey soundtrack, so he just sent me the brief. Think empowering, Cardi B vibes. He basically said, if you want to have a go, then run with it. It probably got sent to hundreds of writers. Me and my friend Ben who goes by the name Two Inch Punch, he is a producer and we just spent the day writing this crazy Cardi B-esc pop song. We were obsessed with it by the end of the day, we actually listened to Cher, when she’s in a sound clip saying, “My mum says I need to marry a rich man, and I say mum I am a rich man” we had that looping the whole day in the studio. It miraculously got to the guy’s who were making the sound track and they miraculously liked it. The whole time I kept expecting somebody to say, “Ok but it’s not actually in the film.” But that day never came, they really liked it and it ended up in the film. I actually went to see the film two or three times, it’s actually a really good film too, and not just because my songs in it.

You try to step away from this pop-star image and you’re known for being very down to earth with your fans. Why is this so important to you?

I would say that I think it’s important to convey something that’s real to people. Now more than ever it is so easy to compare ourselves, it’s easy to look at someone else’s life and feel like you can’t ever achieve what I have, which you absolutely can. However you decide to present yourself on social media is entirely your own business, but for me it’s important to show everyone that I am in fact just a real person. I’m in many ways the same as all of my fans. I have good days and bad days. Sometimes I look great, sometimes I don’t. Being real is very important in a world where lots of things aren’t”.

Do make sure that you order a copy of You Signed Up for This. I can see Maisie Peters creating beautiful, uplifting and hugely affecting music for decades more. She is someone who will also have an interesting acting career. She strikes me as someone who will be in great films and T.V. series. Whether that has entered her mind I am not too sure. RIFF magazine spoke with Peters earlier this month. Now based in London, I wonder whether Peters will be playing a lot of the city’s venues to promote her album (she has a few dates already booked):

“It took three tries, but Maisie Peters finally got her drivers license, using her parents’ car, naturally. However, soon after that, the singer-songwriter moved back to London, where she hasn’t needed a car. In fact, she hasn’t driven a car—not even once—since passing that third driving test.

Instead, the 21-year-old ferocious songwriter has accelerated her career even further. Just in the past year she’s signed to Ed Sheeran’s label (Gingerbread Man Records), written and curated the soundtrack to Apple TV+ show “Trying,” and is now about to release her full-length debut album, You Signed Up For This. Of course, she’s already got enough material for another album and she’s currently working on more and more.

She’s also found time to take up bicycling as a hobby with her London roommates, riding through Victoria Park or London Fields using the city’s app-based bikeshare.

PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Records 

“I’m not a great cyclist, but there’s something so fun about hopping on a bike, weaving through London and trying not to die,” she said, laughing. “Maybe I’ll get a real bike. We’ll see. … My driving skills, probably, are a little bit ropey right now, but technically I can drive. Legally, I can drive.

Peters video-called from a scenic recording studio in Suffolk, where she was visiting friends and filming for a project, to talk about the new album, the “Trying” soundtrack, and what she’s learned from Ed Sheeran, now a good friend.

RIFF: How does your single “Psycho” compare to the rest of your album; thematically or musically?

Maisie Peters: I think, sonically it’s pretty different. It was the last song we wrote for the album, so it was me trying to—in that day, one of the last sessions of the album—do something I hadn’t done. … Your album’s basically finished and you’re thinking, “What can I add? What can I write right now that will make the album [stand out]?” [With] “Psycho” … I really, really wanted to do something that felt fun and big, and we could dance to it, and we could have a good time. I think that a lot of my album maybe isn’t so much of those vibes, and that’s fine. There’s a breadth to the album, which is great. But this song; I really just wanted to go full Carly Rae Jepsen, Girls Aloud, Abba. I wanted to make a song that I could play this summer—I’m playing festivals—and feel good. … The past few years [there’s] been a lot of anxiety and sadness and various feelings of various natures. I really wanted to start this summer and start this phase, [with] a real song of solidarity and dance and joy and sort of humor and good times”.

What can listeners expect from the rest of the album?

Maisie Peters: I think people can expect songs that they’ll love and songs that they’ll recognize as being a continuation of music that I’ve already made. “Psycho” was pretty unexpected, and there are definitely other songs on the record that won’t be what anyone’s expecting, necessarily, so I like to think that’s a good amount of both.

How’d you end up with Ed Sheeran on his label, Gingerbread Man?

Maisie Peters: We both have lots of mutual friends and mutual collaborators [like] Joe Rubel, Fred Gibson; writers and producers that we both work with intensely. Really, he reached out about writing together. I went up to Suffolk to where he lives, and we wrote for a few days, and actually those songs ended up on the record, and the first two we did. We really just clicked and connected as friends and collaborators, and he’s so humble and so down to earth and so friendly and easy to love. Musically and as artists, we work in very similar ways and write in very similar ways, so it really just felt like an obvious thing to do to continue working together and building that relationship.

From the time you first started writing music, it’s taken you nine years to release an album. How long will the second one take?

Maisie Peters: I guess we’ll see. I write a lot and I’ve already been working on the next album and the next bunch of songs. I was talking about it with my band this morning, and we were talking about the idea of putting out mixtapes while you’re on tour and just constantly releasing, which I’m really excited about. I’d definitely say for sure, prepare yourself for more music next year. I think it would be pretty unlikely that I wouldn’t release anything. I’m really excited to work on the next batch of stuff, and I’m really excited for this album to come out, and I just think it’s gonna be a really fun few years”.

Go and follow the incredible Maisie Peters. Following her on social media, I can tell how thrilled she is that her debut album, You Signed Up for This, is mere days away. It has been a while in the making, so she is going to be thrilled to see it out in the world1 I love her music and know that she has a very busy and productive career ahead – and, as I say, we will see her on the screen before too long. Go and show one of our best young artists…

PLENTY of love

____________

Follow Maisie Peters

PHOTO CREDIT: Lillie Eiger  

Official:

https://www.maisiepeters.co.uk/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/maisiehpeters/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/maisiehpeters

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2RVvqRBon9NgaGXKfywDSs

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/maisiepetersmusic/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJvnOmwPOgeLczo7zLzb5Xg

FEATURE: Ten at Thirty: Revisiting Pearl Jam's Extraordinary Debut Album

FEATURE:

 

 

Ten at Thirty

Revisiting Pearl Jam's Extraordinary Debut Album

___________

WHEN one celebrates the thirtieth anniversary…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Pearl Jam in 1991/PHOTO CREDIT: Lance Mercer

of an album that they loved as a child, they know they are getting old! That is the case with Pearl Jam’s Epic (it was released on that label and, coincidentally, is epic!) debut, Ten. Released on 27th August, 1991, it came out at a time when Grunge was huge. The album was seen as Grunge - though it is more Classic Rock. It is not as instantly intense and grimy  as a Grunge record. I can’t believe that we are days from celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Seattle band’s amazing debut! Unlike many of their contemporaries from that time, Pearl Jam are still together. Their latest album, Gigaton, was released last year. I wonder whether the band will get involved with the anniversary celebrations. Although Ten was not an immediate and obvious success upon its release in August 1991, it is credited as popularising Classic Rock through the 1990s. The three singles, Alive, Even Flow, and Jeremy are classics. Jeremy became one of Pearl Jam's best-loved songs; it received nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance at the 35th Grammy Awards. If you have not got the album, then go and buy a copy.  On 24th March, 2009, Ten was reissued in four editions (Legacy, Deluxe, Vinyl and Super Deluxe). It was the first reissue in a planned re-release of Pearl Jam's entire catalogue that led up to the band's twentieth anniversary in 2011. Ten years later and we have a new milestone to celebrate!

I want to bring in a few articles ahead of Ten’s thirtieth anniversary. I have seen a couple of articles marking thirty years of Ten. There will be many more in the days leading up to the anniversary. Last year, Loudwire marked twenty-nine years of Ten and provided some backstory regarding one of the 1990s’ most important debuts:

“Who knew? After toiling for several years in Seattle bands like Green River and Mother Love Bone, bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard could have taken a step back from playing after the death of Mother Love Bone vocalist Andrew Wood in 1990, but instead the pair were invited by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell to pay homage to Wood in a project called Temple of the Dog. And also during this period, they gathered their bearings and decided to push on by forming a new band, one that would eventually become Pearl Jam.

Rounding out this new group were guitarist Mike McCready, drummer Dave Krusen and a singer named Eddie Vedder from San Diego who was given a Stone Gossard demo tape by former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons and decided he liked what he heard and felt like writing some lyrics and singing over the track. Included on the demo tape was a song called "Dollar Short" that fans would eventually come to know as "Alive." Vedder had the idea that three of the songs told a story like a mini rock opera that could be tied together. He told Rolling Stone, "[It's] based on things that had happened, and some I imagined."

Of those instrumentals, the first would become "Alive," a track penned by Vedder loosely based on the fact that he learned the man who was his stepfather wasn't his real father and that his biological father had passed on. "Everybody writes about it like it's a life-affirmation thing -- I'm really glad about that," said Vedder with a laugh. "It's a great interpretation. But 'Alive' is … it's torture, which is why it's f---ed up for me. Why I should probably learn how to sing another way. It would be easier. It's too much."

The other two songs in the mini-opera derived from Gossard's demos were "Once," a track detailing how the son couldn't deal with the betrayal and became a serial killer, and "Footsteps," a track about his eventual execution. "It's a modern way of dealing with a bad life," Vedder told Rolling Stone, before smiling and adding, "I'm just glad I became a songwriter."

Not long after Vedder wrote the songs and recorded over the demo, the tape made its way back to Gossard and Ament, who were blown away by what they heard. Vedder was invited to Seattle and by the time he arrived in town, he also had the song "Black" that would become a future Pearl Jam favorite, as well. Within a week, the fivesome of Vedder, Gossard, Ament, McCready and Krusen were fully clicking.

The songs were flowing and shortly after Vedder's arrival in Seattle, the band signed a record deal with Epic and entered London Bridge Studio to record their debut disc with producer Rick Parasher. Even before they hit the studio, a majority of the record was already written. Only "Porch," "Deep," "Why Go" and "Garden" were penned during their monthlong stay at London Bridge.

Reflecting on that period, McCready told Spin, "Ten was mostly Stone and Jeff. Me and Eddie were along for the ride at that time." But there was little doubt that Vedder's songwriting expertise helped bring the Gossard and Ament songs to life. "All I really believe in is this f---in' moment, like right now," Vedder stated of his songwriting approach. "And that, actually is what the whole album talks about."

Though the album was good to go, there was still one more obstacle to address before they went on to monster success. Drummer Dave Krusen entered rehab shortly after recording was complete, revealing that liquor had gotten the better of him. In an interview with Punk Globe, Krusen would reflect, "It was a great experience. I felt from the beginning of that band that it was something special … They had to let me go. I couldn't stop drinking, and it was causing problems. They gave me many chances, but I couldn't get it together." With Krusen exiting, the band briefly filled the void with Matt Chamberlain, but he had other obligations and recommended Dave Abruzzese, who sat behind the kit for a majority of the Ten album touring.

On Aug. 27, 1991, Epic released the Ten album, making "Alive" the lead single. The track dropped a few weeks prior to the album release and enjoyed a slow climb. With a familiar almost siren-like guitar opening, listeners began to take notice. And while Vedder had stated that the song was somewhat torture to him, fans interpreted it a different way, taking it as an anthem for self-empowerment. Vedder would later reveal on the band's VH1 Storytellers episode that thanks to the fans, he was later able to view the song differently. "They lifted the curse," said the singer. "The audience changed the meaning for me." As for THAT guitar solo, you know the one that typically gets fans going, Mike McCready revealed in Guitar School that he was inspired by Ace Frehley's work on "She" and The Doors' "Five to One" when coming up with the licks. As an intro to the band, "Alive" would climb to No. 16 on the Mainstream Rock Chart and No. 18 Modern Rock, but would become a classic despite its modest radio play”.

Although some were not completely sold by Ten upon its release, most others were full of praise. Looking back at Ten thirty years later, one can see how it influenced the scene and the role Pearl Jam played. With stunning production from Rick Parashar and Pearl Jam, coupled with stunning tracks brilliantly played by the band (Stone Gossard – rhythm guitar, Jeff Ament – bass guitar, Mike McCready – lead guitar, Eddie Vedder – vocals and Dave Krusen – drums, timpani), it is a masterpiece! Mental Floss provided ten facts one might not known about Ten to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2016. I have selected a few:

“The band began recording Ten with producer Rick Parashar on March 11, 1991 at Seattle's London Bridge Studios, and completed the album within a month. But it wasn't all smooth sailing for the musicians. "Even Flow," in particular, proved to be a tough song to record.

"I don't know why," Dave Krusen said. "Not sure why we didn't use that one from the demo as well, but I know it felt better." McCready estimated that they recorded the song 50 to 70 times. "I swear to God it was a nightmare," he said. "We played that thing over and over until we hated each other."

Vedder successfully protested against Epic Records' insistence that "Black" should get a music video. As bassist Jeff Ament told Rolling Stone, Mark Eitzel—lead singer of the San Francisco-based band American Music Club—told Ament he thought the "Jeremy" video "sucked" because it ruined his vision of the song. Ament admitted that the comment stung, and he told Vedder that, "Ten years from now, I don't want people to remember our songs as videos."

Up until they were recording the album at London Bridge Studios, Pearl Jam was known as Mookie Blaylock, as in the professional basketball player. Since calling themselves Mookie Blaylock would have possibly led to legal problems, they decided to just pay tribute to the point guard by calling their debut album Ten, his jersey number.

"I'd love to remix Ten," Ament told Spin in 2001. "Ed, for sure, would agree with me. Three, four years ago, I picked out a cassette, and it had the rough mixes of 'Garden' and 'Once,' and it sounded great. It wouldn't be like changing performances; just pull some of the reverb off it."

In 2009, Ament said that—unlike their other albums—Ten had a "little bit more of an '80s production." When Gossard was promoting the 2009 reissue of the album, featuring a remix of the original songs, he said that, "I think Ten's still good, but I don't put it on".

I listen to Ten now and it still impacts me greatly. I was eight when Ten arrived - so it had a different effect on me then. I was just becoming aware of Pop music and other genres. I am not sure whether I was too conscious of Grunge and Rock back then. Pearl Jam resonated because their Classic Rock sound was more similar to some of my parents’ records. I could identify with some of the songs and sounds more easily than Grunge artists. Now, I listen to Ten and it stands as a phenomenal album. It has not dated or lost any of its power!

I want to end by sourcing one review for the album. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of love when it comes to Ten! This is what AllMusic said in their review:

“Nirvana's Nevermind may have been the album that broke grunge and alternative rock into the mainstream, but there's no overestimating the role that Pearl Jam's Ten played in keeping them there. Nirvana's appeal may have been huge, but it wasn't universal; rock radio still viewed them as too raw and punky, and some hard rock fans dismissed them as weird misfits. In retrospect, it's easy to see why Pearl Jam clicked with a mass audience -- they weren't as metallic as Alice in Chains or Soundgarden, and of Seattle's Big Four, their sound owed the greatest debt to classic rock. With its intricately arranged guitar textures and expansive harmonic vocabulary, Ten especially recalled Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. But those touchstones might not have been immediately apparent, since -- aside from Mike McCready's Clapton/Hendrix-style leads -- every trace of blues influence has been completely stripped from the band's sound. Though they rock hard, Pearl Jam is too anti-star to swagger, too self-aware to puncture the album's air of gravity. Pearl Jam tackles weighty topics -- abortion, homelessness, childhood traumas, gun violence, rigorous introspection -- with an earnest zeal unmatched since mid-'80s U2, whose anthemic sound they frequently strive for.

Similarly, Eddie Vedder's impressionistic lyrics often make their greatest impact through the passionate commitment of his delivery rather than concrete meaning. His voice had a highly distinctive timbre that perfectly fit the album's warm, rich sound, and that's part of the key -- no matter how cathartic Ten's tersely titled songs got, they were never abrasive enough to affect the album's accessibility. Ten also benefited from a long gestation period, during which the band honed the material into this tightly focused form; the result is a flawlessly crafted hard rock masterpiece”.

A happy thirtieth anniversary to Pearl Jam’s Ten on 27th August. Those who loved the album in 1991 will share their memories. There are younger music fans who may not be aware of the album and how important it is. Ten is one of the 1990s’ greatest album…and, surely, one of the best debuts ever. Happy thirtieth anniversary to an album that still sounds amazing to this day! If you have a copy of Ten, go and get it out and…

PLAY it loud!

FEATURE: Produced By… Shola Aleje

FEATURE:

 

 

Produced By…

Shola Aleje

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SIMILAR to albums…

where we recognise the artist and maybe consider the producer(s) less, do many people listen to their favourite radio shows and think about the producers behind them!? Although she has a dream job (it is one many of us would love), Shola Aleje is a superb audio producer who deserves big credit. Working as a podcast producer and delivering her must-hear Moods for Moderns monthly show on Totally Wired Radio (which I hope returns at some point), here is someone who has a huge love for music and radio! Radio/audio production is a job that requires a huge degree of knowledge, organisation, concentration, focus and patience. Many people assume that the broadcaster/D.J. do most of the work and the show sort of puts itself together! One of my all-time favourite broadcasters, Aleje is Assistant Producer for Lauren Laverne’s breakfast show on BBC Radio 6 Music. I am sure Laverne would be one of the first to say how integral Aleje is to her show – as an award-winning broadcaster, the breakfast show host knows how important and hard-working producers are in terms of ensuring the shows run smoothly! In future features, I will spotlight other audio producers behind some of the best radio shows. There is no doubting the fact Lauren Laverne’s weekday BBC Radio 6 Music show is the best way to wake up. Beside the eclectic music and infectiousness of our host, make sure you tune in. Aleje is sometimes name-checked on the show – whether because she has put together a great feature or selected a fantastic tune, there is a real bond and respect between the broadcaster on the microphone and the producer who is such an important support.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Aleje with fellow producers Lucy Madge and Mark Higgins alongside Lauren Laverne on her first breakfast show in January 2019/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

I can only imagine how difficult it is – even with years of experience – to keep a fast-paced radio show going without error! It is testament to producers like Shola Aleje that we cannot hear any cracks or blips (not many anyway – they are human after all!). Not only is the technical skill impressive. I feel a lot of the hottest and most memorable music that is played on the BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show is because of Aleje – whether that is a hot-off-the-press cut or an old gem that has not been played in a while or languished as a deep cut for all of these years! I know she has given advice to potential producers and those hoping to follow in their footsteps before. I would love to hear a video interview where we get more insight into the daily role. Perhaps (when most of the pandemic restrictions have lifted) we cab get a look inside the breakfast show studio at Wogan House, London. Listening during the week, one can feel and detect Aleje’s presence; though I know there is this interaction during the show that we might not be aware of – a literal window into what happens during the breakfast broadcast. Of course, the BBC Radio 6 Music show is not the only feather in Aleje’s cap! If she had more time on her hands, I am sure she would love to put together a documentary or take on other projects.

Before I move on, I want to bring in a 2019 Fred Perry article where Aleje discussed some of her favourite music. Not only is the first song she played on-repeat one of my firsts – as I am a child of the '90s-; she cites David Bowie’s Station to Station as one of her favourite albums. I adore that album and would love to hear songs like TVC15 (my favourite cut from the record) played more:

“What do you do?

Radio Producer at BBC 6 Music, also produce the odd Podcast here and there and present a monthly show called ‘Moods for Moderns’ on Totally Wired Radio.

Describe your style in three words:

Changes daily depending on what I'm listening to, watching or reading. A bit mod, bit '60s/'70s, a bit del boy when it comes to jewellery, definitely obsessed with anything that is well cut and sits nicely above the ankle. So, in three words, hmm - a slightly ‘Androgynous Mary Quant’?

Which music defines the teenage you?

The Clash were a huge influence on me, they knocked me for six when I first heard London Calling, I related to them so much, especially the crossover in genres and the fact that they were friends with people of different races - I remember that being a huge deal for me.
When I think of artists and moments that single-handedly changed the course of my listening habits, I’ll never forget the moment I first saw Captain Beefheart performing late night on TV when I was a teenager - I didn’t know music like this existed.

What was the first song you played on repeat?

The Cranberries - 'Linger'.
I used to listen to this song several times a day at one point, I don't know what it was about this song, but I remember feeling absolutely heartbroken listening to it like I had experienced some kind of heartbreak personally... I hadn’t - I was bloody 14! I also remember listening to Roxy Music - 'Both Ends Burning' on repeat around that time too.

A song you wish you’d written?

The Specials - 'Do Nothing' as the lyrics showed a real social snapshot of Britain in the late '70s and Dusty Springfield - 'All Cried Out'. I just love how this track is so unashamedly about heartache, proper heartache, which we all know is absolutely horrific when it happens to you!

Best song to bring people together?

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - 'Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)' or Madness - 'It Must Be Love'.

PHOTO CREDIT: Shola Aleje

Is there a song you like that people wouldn’t expect?

I’m a mixed bag when it comes to the music I listen to, but I've been listening to a lot of Ludovico Einaudi, John Barry and Ennio Morricone to calm me down recently! Also enjoyed the new Harry Styles album.

A song from your favourite album?

David Bowie - 'Stay' from the album 'Station to Station' - it’s the perfect track to get you dancing, and an album track I've been listening to on repeat recently is Paul McCartney - 'Monkberry Moon Delight.

What new music/bands are you listening to?

Really loving Confidence Man and Klaus Blatter at the moment, I love the latest Michael Kiwanuka album, and I’ve also gone back deep into Richard Russell’s 'Everything is Recorded' record”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shola Aleje (@donvanvliet)

One of my favourite shows to listen to is her Mood for Moderns on Totally Wired Radio (“Moods for Moderns is a monthly show hosted by Shola Aleje which takes you on a themed musical journey. From the early days of Krautrock to the sounds of The Haçienda, the mix will also include a scattering of archive clips and interviews. Shola will also be playing an eclectic mix of her current favourite earworms each month”). There are not many producers who work on the other side of the microphone! The passion Aleje has for music means that we get to hear her as a world-class audio producer and a host in her own right. I feel that, as the years go by, she will inspire many others to go into radio production (I hope that she stays on Lauren Laverne’s show for a very long time, mind). There is also this other career as a broadcaster/presenter. I think she could have their own permanent show on a station like BBC Radio 6 Music or Soho Radio – as her musical selections and commentary is infectious and hugely warming and interesting. I like Aleje has an appetite and love for Captain Beefheart in the same way as I do for Kate Bush (Beefheart was a definite influence on her music). You can follow Shola Aleje on Instagram and Twitter.

I cannot embed everything that Aleje has been involved with. Listen to the Get It Off Your Breasts podcast series that she produced which ran between 2017 and 2019. Aleje is really inspiring to listen to! I can relate to a lot of what she says during the Freelance Pod talk from 2018. She also produced for The Hotbed podcast (I have missed out some of her work, though one can check her LinkedIn profile). I hope, too, that Aleje is offered new interviews and podcasts. She has been the producer for an award-winning breakfast show and helped it to bring in hordes of admiring listeners – one mustn’t undervalue the sheer brilliance of Lauren Laverne though, with audio producers like Aleje on her team, here is a show that can go from strength to strength for many years to come! I am not certain whether, time-permitting, she will adopt any more projects. As a producer and host, Aleje is awe-inspiring and so inspiring. I use that i-word a lot, I know – though that is the best way to describe her. From her excellent Totally Wired Radio shows to the fact that, one suspects, a lot of her downtime away from work is spent diving into vinyl crates, assembling playlists and hunting for the best new music…here is someone who has a very long career ahead of her! It would be cool for BBC Radio 6 Music to run new interviews and bits for their YouTube channel, where they talk to those behind the scenes who are so invaluable. Whilst not heard, audio producers are as important as broadcaster regarding radio shows!

I am going to finish off in a second. I may well feature other producers from BBC Radio 6 Music. I wanted to kick off the mini-series with Shola Aleje to run alongside my Station to Station feature (I started that series with Lauren Laverne and I have extolled her virtues many times). Hearing Aleje mentioned by Lauren Laverne a lot on her show (or ‘producer Shols’, as she is called!) because of a great musical moment, a seamless and wonderful series – such as her curation for 6 Music Salutes or The People’s Playlist – or a terrific discovery, it is obvious how much affection there is for her on the show and on BBC Radio 6 Music as a whole! For me, she has compelled me to get more into radio; to, at some point, get round to producing a podcast about my all-time favourite artist. I know there are so many people out there who have been impacted by Shola Aleje and have pursued a career in broadcasting and radio because of her. Not only does she have impeccable music taste and an unquenchable thirst for great new music; here is an audio producer who is among the very best in the game. I am trying to cover everything off here, and I hope that I have not missed anything out! As my blog approaches its tenth anniversary (in November), I still think I have stuff to learn; ways I can improve and expand. Shola Aleje has been a broadcaster for years though, as with every avenue of the creative industry, she will keep on learning and developing. It will be utterly fascinating to see how her career evolves and what challenges she takes on – though, as I pleaded before, we have to keep that sisterly bond between Laverne and her strong for as long as possible! A salute to a phenomenal producer who, in addition, is an exceptional broadcaster, music fan, mentor, inspiring figure and all-round legend. There is no doubt that Shola Aleje is someone that many people…

LOOK up to and admire.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: Kris Needs: ZigZag (1980)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Kris Needs: ZigZag (1980)

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I am really interested in…

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

the print inter views Kate Bush has conducted through the years. It gives us an illustration and snapshot of various stages of her career and where she was as an artist. I have been thinking about 1980 and Never for Ever. Coming off of The Tour of Life the previous year, this album was a chance to start a new chapter. As I have said before, perhaps she wasn’t as happy with her first two albums – 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart – as she could have been. Maybe she was too much of a participant in the album rather than someone having bigger creative control. Never for Ever saw her co-produce with Jon Kelly. It is  a more experimental album where she made leaps and bounds. Perhaps the energy and scope of The Tour of Life opened her imagination as a songwriter; she was determined to produce an album that was more reflective of who she was. Because of this, I have goner back and looked at the interviews from the time. Thanks to this Reaching Out for leading me to this ZigZag interview of 1980. Kris Needs’ conversation with Bush is engrossing and respectful. I am not going to put it all in this feature. I have chosen some portions of the interview that I find particularly relevant and illuminating:

“What's Kate Bush doing in ZigZag? It's a fair chance that's the thought flitting through your noggin as you espy our rather tasteful cover. Well, I thought it would be interesting, a laugh and definitely on for you lot to get a peek at the lady without all the 'Oo's yer boyfriend, then?' or 'Drop 'em!' techniques so favoured when she's in the media's sights. Also, because she seems to get roundly slagged, piss-taken or sycophated over every time she pops up in the Music Weeklies. These sort of injustices and the prejudices they foster could've kept you from giving Kate Bush a fair listen

 Kate's been boxed and packaged in shiny paper with little ribbons on top, it seems. Safe, but 'odd' enough to let the purchaser feel outrageous displaying it on the coffee table.

Well, let's see. If you profess to like Modern music which is breaking down fences and capturing true emotion, Kate Bush has just as much right to be there with A Teardrop Explodes, Bowie or whoever you care to name. A different field, yeah, but she's capable of moments of heart-stopping passion, breath-taking drama and beauty. She's also very honest. The characters might be put on, but that's it.

Kate Bush has just done the Daily Express. Now it's me...But no way does she just press her nose and gush out the conveyor-belt niceties. We talk for over 90 minutes, touching all manner of subjects in an enthusiastic flow. Quite deep at times--"It's like two psychiatrists talking," she said after. I left impressed with her honesty and sense of awe, which, in the wrong hands, could be the reasons detractors have a field day. She don't deserve it, even if you can't stick her music. And I'm warning you, don't just take my word on Kate Bush, then say I wasted your fiver -- it is down to taste, but if you've got any feelings, or just like music, have a go. It's about the only music I like that I can't dance to.

So, Kate, do you think your audience is restricted by these prejudices against you?

"Yeah, I think I'm conscious of people doing that in certain areas, because of the way they've seen me, and I think that's inevitable. I don't blame them. It's really good for me to speak to other magazines."

It'd be good if people could see that you're doing stuff that's pretty new, too. You could never mistake Kate Bush for anyone else.

"Oh, great. I'd like to think that, but it's not for me to say. When you first come out, people say you're the new thing. then when you've been around for two or three years you become old hat, and they want to sweep you under the carpet as being MOR, which I don't feel I am from the artistic point of view. It doesn't feel like MOR to me at all, although I wouldn't call it Punk! Sometimes it's not even rock...I don't know, I think it's wrong to put labels on music. Even Punk, that's really just a label for convenience--it covers so many areas. I think sometimes it can actually kill people, being put under labels. I think it's something that shouldn't be encouraged. If people could just accept music as music and people as people, without having to compare them to other things...which is something we instinctively try to do."

The way you're presented in the press could alienate some people, I s'pose.

"Don't you think any form of publicity alienates the person who is not involved in it? I think that's part of the whole process. That's why I feel that the good thing about albums and gigs and even radio is that you are directly communicating with your audience, but with papers and appearances on TV you're not really relating directly."

Does the bad criticism hurt you?

"No, I don't get hurt. I've read a few reviews of the album, an some of them really couldn't stand me, probably much more than the album. In fact, one guy didn't like me so much, he had to write four columns of 'I can't stand Bush!' That's cool. Sometimes I find it funny. I think a bad review is a good omen in some papers."

The next single is Army Dreamers, which sounds like a wistful little waltz-time ditty on first hearing, though a bit sombre. Kate adopts a lilting Irish accent--all very nice. But listen to the words and she's mourning her dead son, killed in the army. I thought Kate was singing about Northern Ireland, but not necessarily...

"It's not actually directed at Ireland. It's included, but it's much more embracing the whole European thing. That's why it says BFPO in the first chorus, to try and broaden it away from Ireland."

What about the Irish accent?

"The Irish accent was important because the treatment of the song is very traditional, and the Irish would always use their songs to tell stories, it's the traditional way. There's something about an Irish accent that's very vulnerable, very poetic, and so by singing it in an Irish accent it comes across in a different way. But the song was meant to cover areas like Germany, especially with the kids that get killed in manoeuvres, not even in action. It doesn't get brought out much, but it happens a lot. I'm not slagging off the Army, it's just so sad that there are kids who have no O-levels and nothing to do but become soldiers, and it's not really what they want. That's what frightens me."

She's well into the individual "stating your presence," citing Punk as an example. But everyone's got the same insecurities and fears.

"It's so bloody easy to be forgotten. It's so easy to go under unless you fight. Everyone has to fight, and there are different ways of fighting.

"I'm definitely trying to state my presence, I must be. It's important for me to do things on a one-man basis. I seem to work, produce, create, better as one entity, and then I involve others for feedback. That seems to be the ideal way for me to work. You see, musically, too, I feel I've only just begun. I'm not doing what I want to do musically, yet. I'm getting there, but it's nowhere near to what I actually want. I'd love to play you some of the new stuff I'm doing."

So what are the new songs like, then?

"They're much more up. I'm getting to work much more easily with rhythm boxes and synthesizers at home, and I've got some time. That's what I need, and this year is the first I've really had any time to breathe. I'm experimenting all the time and finding new things. It's great, all the toys that are around to play with--digital delay, chorus pedal, you could write a sound purely round the sound."

The NME review said the album was all glossy dressing and little else.

"Well, the other two albums were what I would call glossy, and I could understand them saying that. I feel this one is the rawest it's been, it's raw in its own context. I feel perhaps the guy just wouldn't let me in, and that was the problem. He saw me as this chocolate-box-sweetie little thing who has no reality in there, no meaning of life. That's cool, I really understand that, but I like to think that people will let me in, and I'm lucky to have so many who do.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with fans in Newcastle in 1980

"I think it's good for you to read reviews like that about yourself, because they don't matter, and although people are going to read them, it's good for you to realise in some ways that people can say anything they want about you. It shouldn't matter what they say. I think the public are starting to realise the hype in the media manipulation, the propaganda. I pick up papers and read something about someone, and I start believing it, and then I realise, 'God, I'm doing just what other people are doing to me!' I think journalism could be such an art, and some people treat it as such. Others use it as an extension of their egos. You get nothing out of reading it, other than this thick blanket of: 'Me-e-e-e!'"

It's good that you've got a big following among very young kids and are doing this, cos they'll have to know more than just Janet and John books and Tiswas soon... [Tiswas was a British television programme which was ostensibly made for children, but which eventually attracted a large adult audience, as well.]

"So many of them knew, you know. They hear a lot more than the media generally give them. They really understand the song, and I don't think it frightens them, but it really upsets a lot of them. That's good--it's not nice but it's good that that actually ot through to them.

"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-existant 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”.

I really like the ZigZag interview. Whilst some from that time (I think the interview is from 1980; it could have been late-1979) are a little too personal or shambolic (on the part of the interviewer), this one is really solid and balanced. We get insight into the songs on Never for Ever, in addition to a little bit about Kate Bush as the woman behind the music. I will continue the interview series for a bit, as there are some great examples many Kate Bush fans are not aware of. 1980 was a year where Bush had a few albums and a big tour under her belt. Her career would enter a new phase. Her sound and image were changing. The media perceived her, in the first couple of years, as quite hippie-dippy and almost a novelty. Albums like Never for Ever showed there was more to her than that – though I completely disagree with critical perception of Bush before then. 1982’s The Dreaming was the next album…taking the experimentation up a notch and seeing Bush alone in the producer’s chair for the first time. 1980 is a year where Bush was clearly looking to be more independent as a creator. One can feel that urge on Never for Ever. Interviews like the one with ZigZag are portraits of an ambitious and true artist who was…

BOUND for greatness.

FEATURE: It (Almost) Started with a Bang: Blur’s Leisure at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

It (Almost) Started with a Bang

Blur’s Leisure at Thirty

___________

PERHAPS Damon Albarn…

might not mark the anniversary of Blur’s debut album, Leisure, fondly - but I think a lot of fans will! Released on 26th August, 1991, we are coming up to the thirtieth anniversary of a great debut. Whilst the band would go on to do better albums that gained more positive reviews, Leisure’s upcoming thirtieth warrants attention! Maybe their lead felt that Leisure was a bit patchy and contained little of the genius Blur would be known for. Some might say that Damon Albarn, Dave Rowntree, Alex James and Graham Coxon were very young and they were finding their feet. I actually really like Leisure and feel that it is an album that is very underrated – I have written a feature specifically on that theme before. Rather than repeat my fairly recent piece about Leisure, I want to mention a few features about the album. Of course, we associate Leisure with the two big singles: She’s So High and There’s No Other Way (the third single, Bang, was released in July 1991). Both are classics in the Blur cannon. They are baggy and catchy; not quite as clever and layered as later Blur work, though pretty decent for early singles! In October 1990, the album’s opening track, She’s So High, was released as a single. It is weird that it only got to number forty-eight in the U.K. Maybe competition was stiff that month, though one feels that the song is good enough to crack the top twenty! Listening to it now and I feel it holds up. One of those songs from the early-1990s that remains fresh and important.

Leisure’s second single, Bang, is an excellent follow-up to She’s So High. The other single, There’s No Other Way, is my favourite track on the album. Released in April 1991, it got to eight in the U.K. and snuck into the US Billboard Hot 100. I guess Blur were slightly better-known by 1991 and had greater commercial appeal – or There’s No Other Way hit people harder and is catchier. At twelve tracks, maybe Leisure could have been trimmed slightly. There are some terrific deep cuts that one does not hear much about. Repetition and High Cool are gems. I like the entire album and think that it is the sign of an exciting band who would very soon be among the most popular in the U.K. One cannot easily compare the Britpop albums Blur produced that competed with Oasis between 1994 and, say, 1997. Although Oasis started out stronger with 1994’s Definitely Maybe, Blur were definitely a better and more popular back by 1997 – they released their eponymous album whereas Oasis released the overblown and over-long Be Here Now. Five years ago, Albuism revisited Leisure. They remark how solid it is. Whilst not classic Blur, one can hear a band finding their way with excellent results:

“Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Suede. These are arguably the most successful bands to emerge from England’s Britpop movement of the early to mid 1990s. A subgenre of alternative/pop rock that placed heavy emphasis on infusing “Britishness” within the music, Britpop was born out of the ashes of the Manchester scene and represented the antithesis of the emerging American grunge scene that was slowly making its way into the UK.

Formed in London in 1988, Blur—comprised of Damon Albarn (vocals), Graham Coxon (guitar), Alex James (bass), and Dave Rowntree (drums)—toured Britain with American punk/rockabilly legends the Cramps two years later in 1990, testing out material that would eventually appear on their debut album Leisure. After the tour was over, between October 1990 and July 1991, Blur released three singles. The first single, the trippy, quasi-psychedelic “She’s So High,” only managed to reach number 48 on the UK Singles Chart.

After adding producer Stephen Street to the mix, their second single “There’s No Other Way” became a big hit in the UK, peaking at number 8. Although the third single “Bang” did not fare as well, the band became bona fide pop stars in the UK and, according to NME, “the acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam." The band would later find out that being touted as the next big thing is not necessarily the most desirable tag for a new band with aspirations of career longevity.

Leisure peaked at number 7 on the UK Album Charts. Despite their newfound stardom, the LP received mixed reviews from the British press and was largely ignored in the States. The early release of the three singles had, in effect, rendered the album’s eventual release anti-climactic. One of the album’s chief detractors is Albarn himself, who described Leisure as “awful” back in 2007.

I could not disagree more. Heavily influenced by The Charlatans (UK) and The Stone Roses, Leisure is a great snapshot of a band trying mightily to find its voice. It does not deserve the Cousin Oliver (google it) status that has been placed upon it. What the critics—and perhaps even the band themselves—had no way of knowing at the time was that Leisure was a stepping stone for Blur. Indeed, on the strength of their subsequent releases, the foursome transformed into one of Britain’s most beloved acts of the past 25 years, while they still enjoy a very loyal, somewhat cult-like following here in the US.

Even though Leisure is very much a product of its time, it still holds up as a rather solid debut album. In the early ‘90s, the music scenes here in the states and abroad were struggling to find a definitive sound. In hindsight, Britpop was the ‘90s version of American New Wave. It was a marketing tool devised to categorize a sound derived from a genre that was either losing steam or simply not accessible to the masses. In America, it was the commercialization of punk. Record execs removed the safety pins and the gobbing, replacing them with catchy hooks and camera friendly lead singers. In England, it was much more complex. The Manchester scene had simply died out with nothing to replace it. Blur just happened to be caught in the middle of this transition.

While there are admittedly weaker, un-Blur-like tracks such as “Birthday” and “Wear Me Down,” Leisure was intriguing enough to make you wonder, at the time, what the band would do next. I had a similar feeling when I first heard U2’s debut Boy. You just knew they could do even more. You knew something special was coming down the road. You just needed to be patient. There’s something quite special about discovering a band at its genesis”.

Although some feel Leisure is a product of the early-1990s, there are songs that are relevant now. Even so, this once-young album turning thirty is very strange to me! I was at secondary school when Leisure came out. I was kind of aware of Blur in 1991, though I got a better understanding of them by the time of 1994’s Parklife.

In 2019, Classic Pop looked back at the Blur catalogue. Few articles are entirely glowing about Leisure. That said, most people have something constructive and positive to say. This is what Classic Pop observed:

“But while Damon Albarn’s versatility as a songwriter over the past three decades has often been viewed as dilettantism – he can flit effortlessly between pure pop to punk, music hall to cultured balladeering – the quality of his work has been astonishing. When the public sat up and took notice of There’s No Other Way, firing the band into the Top 10, Blur were seen as yet another addition to the current roster of dance-rock bands. But they were so much more than Mondays wannabes and head and shoulders above the likes of The Farm, Flowered Up, Inspiral Carpets and The Mock Turtles.

Leisure has at least two trump cards; Albarn’s singular ability as a songwriter and the immense talent of guitarist Graham Coxon – along with The Stone Roses’ John Squire and The Verve’s Nick McCabe, he’s the pre-eminent six-string technician of his era.

Despite four producers having a hand in Leisure, it still feels coherent; no doubt down to Albarn and Coxon’s assured hands on the sonic tiller.

The woozy psychedelia of opener She’s So High impresses and the funky Bang finds Coxon and drummer Dave Rowntree locking down a spectacular spiralling groove. Alongside classic single There’s No Other Way, Sing hinted that this quartet were capable of something rather special, head and shoulders above knocking out indie disco baggy floorfillers; the dark piano-led epic boasted an ambition that far exceeded the material around it.

There’s instrumental grit behind parts of Slow Down as Coxon cranks up the overdrive settings on his amp; Albarn’s innate melodic tendencies given a striking counterpoint with the guitarist’s predilection for throwing My Bloody Valentine-style distorted guitars into the mix – at the time Coxon would check out Syndrome, the Oxford Street basement club favoured by Creation and 4AD bands. Meanwhile, Bad Day is another blatant attempt to write in a baggy style, and Rowntree recycles a similar beat on High Cool. But Albarn’s flair for melancholy is exploited on Birthday; a gentle sting in the album’s tail”.

There is one review I want to bring in for Leisure before rounding up. In 2012, Drowned in Sound reviewed the Blur 21 edition of Leisure (as it came with bonus material):

“While the three singles off Leisure attained varying degrees of success. 'She's So High', possibly the missing link between the psychedelic haze of shoegaze and baggy's post-rave comedown, may have only hit the modest heights of number 48 on release but follow-up 'There's No Other Way' scored Blur their first top ten hit, providing the band with what remained their signature tune until the hedonistic 'Girls & Boys' arrived some three years later. 'Bang', the third and final single off Leisure could quite easily be filed under the title 'Blur's great lost 45' were it not for 1992's 'Popscene' pipping it to the post nine months on. Again, not a million miles apart from a lot of the indie/dance crossover acts of the day except for its lyrical savvy ("Bang goes another day, where it went I could not say, now I'll have to wait another week") and incessant pop hook, it's become something of a classic over the years, significantly improving with age.

It's on the less immediate parts of Leisure that a selection of real hidden gems lie in wait. 'Slow Down' takes the fast/slow/quiet/loud formula employed by Dinosaur Jr (later to be tourmates alongside The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine in 1992) et al for a Home Counties makeover, its riff re-appearing a couple of years later on Modern Life Is Rubbish-45 'Chemical World'. Meanwhile 'Repetition' is arguably the first composition to bear the hallmarks of Graham Coxon's soon-to-become customary guitar sound. The maudlin 'Birthday' and three-songs-in-one 'Come Together' also pour short shrift over those still dismissive of Blur's first long player, 'Fool' too demonstrating Damon Albarn's knack for being able to write a hefty chorus, even back then. Leisure's real highlight comes at its exact midpoint in the shape of 'Sing'. Perhaps best remembered for its inclusion in the soundtrack to Irvine Welsh's 'Trainspotting' and originally only a b-side on the 'She's So High' twelve-inch, even now those simple piano notes causing hairs to stand upright for the song's entire six-minute duration”.

A happy thirtieth anniversary to the underrated Leisure! The start of one of music’s greatest careers, look ahead and all the brilliance Blur delivered! Leisure is definitely not an album one can overlook or write off. Its two big/best-known singles are not the only worthy songs. There are some real diamonds in the pack. If you have not heard Leisure in a while (or at all), then do yourself a favour and spin Blur’s…

INCREDIBLE 1991 debut.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Keith Moon at Seventy-Five: His Greatest Drumming Performances

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: LFI/Photoshot 

Keith Moon at Seventy-Five: His Greatest Drumming Performances

___________

IF one had to think about…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Who in 1965

the greatest drummers ever, they might put Ringo Starr, John Bonham or Ginger Baker at the top of their list. Maybe Mitch Mitchell, Neil Peart or Steve Gadd. Many would put Keith Moon atop their list. The legendary drummer for The Who, he died at the age of thirty-two in 1978. As his seventy-fifth birthday would have been on 23rd August, I have put together a playlist with some of Moon’s greatest drumming performances. Before then, I want to drop in some biography from AllMusic:

“Keith Moon was best known as a member of the Who, but he was far more than that, even within the context of his role within the group. Moon, with his manic, lunatic side, and his life of excessive drinking, partying, and other indulgences, probably represented the youthful, zany side of rock & roll, as well as its self-destructive side, better than anyone else on the planet. In that sense, he was the soul of the Who, as much as Pete Townshend was its brain and Roger Daltrey was its heart; and, along with John Entwistle, Moon was at the core of its sound, and not just for his drumming per se. He played the skins with the kind of wild abandon that most trained musicians before him, not knowing any better, would have described as lunatic, in the worst sense of the word, and he lived his life with just about that same degree of intensity (even once running himself over with his own car). But more than the drumming itself, it was the lunacy that he brought to the personality mix of the four members that kept their music and their playing, not to mention their image, on the cutting edge of youth, even as they all moved into their thirties and tried to get more serious about music.

Moon's musical importance was similar to that of Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones. In much the same way that Jones, through his talent (and his abuse of it) helped lift the Stones above the level of every other blues-based band going, and made their image distinct, Moon did the same thing for the Who. When Jones left the Stones, to die just a few weeks later, they became more professional musically; they settled down with a true and admirable virtuoso in the guise of Mick Taylor, and their sound tightened up, but the youthful edge, the teenage lust was gone, not only from their sound but from their playing. When Keith Moon died, the Who carried on and were far more competent and reliable musically, but that wasn't what sold rock records.

Moon occasionally played on other peoples' records, but he only finished and released one solo album of his own, Two Sides of the Moon (though another may have been planned in 1975). Not taken seriously at the time, this record now appears to have captured the essence of Moon's nature. Recorded in a series of marathon sessions that were as notable for their huge bills for alcohol as the studio time involved, it is a strange, haunting mix of innocent '50s/early-'60s rock & roll and leering, joyful lust, and a savage sense of wit directed at the music business and played out both between and in the songs themselves”.

Here is a Lockdown Playlist that marks the upcoming seventy-fifth birthday of the legend that was Keith Moon. Surely one of the finest drummers the world will ever hear, one can enjoy his tremendous performances on The Who’s albums. This is an assortment of memorable songs where Keith Moon...

REALLY shines.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Twenty-Six: Radiohead

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Lake 

Part Twenty-Six: Radiohead

___________

FOR this edition of Inspired By…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Pat Pope/REX/Shutterstock

I am focusing on one of my favourite bands ever. The legendary Radiohead have inspired so many other artists. I am ending this feature with a playlist of songs from artists who either follow Radiohead or have cited themselves as influences. Before getting to that, AllMusic have provided some biography of the Oxford band:

“At some point in the early 21st century, Radiohead became something more than a band: they became a touchstone for everything that is fearless and adventurous in rock, inheriting the throne from David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and the Talking Heads. The latter group gave the band its name -- it's an album track on 1986's True Stories -- but Radiohead never sounded much like the Heads, nor did they take much from Bowie, apart from their willingness to experiment. Instead, they spliced Floyd's spaciness with U2's messianic arena rock heft, bridging the gap with guitar skronk borrowed from the '80s American underground. Jonny Greenwood's jagged, brutal interjections on "Creep," the band's 1993 breakthrough hit, recalled the ugly noise of the Pixies and Nirvana, a sound that translated over the expanse of an ocean, but in the throes of the alternative rock explosion of the mid-'90s, Radiohead were the odd band out. America remained besotted with their homegrown sensations, so "Creep" was treated as a one-hit wonder, and at home in England, they were seen as dour art-rock students lacking the glamour of neo-glam sensations Suede, and deliberately dodging the beery singalongs of Oasis. During the peak of Brit-pop in 1995, Radiohead released The Bends, a significant leap forward from their 1993 debut, Pablo Honey, and while that gained them some traction, it was 1997's OK Computer that broke down all the doors for the band and changed alternative rock in the process.

Expanding their sound with electronica and unapologetic prog rock suites, Radiohead turned into a different band with OK Computer, and the world followed suit. Soon, whenever rock bands dabbled in electronics, it was derived not from tightly sequenced rhythms, but rather, from glassy textures and introspection, a sensibility pioneered by the quintet. Radiohead doubled down on this aesthetic on 2000's Kid A, a record that traded concise hooks for minimal arrangements and jazz, providing a dividing line between an audience that once loved the group for their guitars and those listeners attracted to the band's aspirations. From this point on, Radiohead would occasionally flirt with concise song structures but were drawn toward unusual paths in both their music and business. Once their contract with EMI expired, they remained an independent band, pioneering different avenues of digital releases. They issued 2007's In Rainbows with little warning, letting listeners pay whatever they'd like for the record -- cementing Radiohead's reputation as a band compelled to look forward, not back.

Every member of Radiohead was a pupil at Oxfordshire's Abingdon School. Ed O'Brien (guitar) and Phil Selway (drums) were the eldest, followed by a year by Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano) and Colin Greenwood (bass). These four musicians began playing in 1985, dubbing themselves On a Friday, and before long they added Colin's younger brother Jonny, who'd previously played in Illiterate Hands with Yorke's brother Andy and Nigel Powell. Jonny started on keyboards but moved to guitar, yet this incarnation proved short-lived. By 1987, everyone but Jonny left for university, where many members pursued music, but it wasn't until 1991 that the quintet regrouped and started gigging regularly in Oxford. Eventually, they came to the attention of Chris Hufford -- then best-known as the producer of shoegaze stars Slowdive -- who offered the group the chance to record a demo along with his partner Bryce Edge; the two soon became the band's managers.

EMI bit at the group's demo, signing them in 1991 and suggesting they change their name. On a Friday became Radiohead and they recorded their debut EP, Drill, with Hufford and Edge, releasing the record in May 1992. Next, the group entered the studio with producers Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to record their full-length debut. The first fruit from these sessions was "Creep," a single released in the U.K. in September of 1992. "Creep" didn't go anywhere at first. The British music weeklies slagged it, radio didn't play it, and it limped to number 78 on the charts. Pablo Honey, the band's full-length debut, appeared in February 1993, supported by the single "Anyone Can Play Guitar," but neither release gained much traction in their native U.K. and that May's non-LP single, "Pop Is Dead," didn't help matters much, either. By that point, however, "Creep" started to gain attention in other territories. First, the song became a hit in Israel, but the bigger waves came from the United States, which was in the throes of the alternative rock revolution. Influential San Francisco radio station KITS added "Creep" to their playlist and it spread along the west coast and onto MTV as it became a genuine hit, nearly topping Billboard's Modern Rock chart and reaching 34 on the Hot 100, a big achievement for a British guitar band. A re-released "Creep" turned into a British Top Ten hit, peaking at number seven in the autumn of 1993. The band who'd had no success suddenly had more than it could handle.

Radiohead kept touring Pablo Honey into 1994, but no subsequent hits were forthcoming, raising the specter of the band as a possible one-hit wonder -- a criticism that weighed heavily on the group, who were anxious to record their new songs. They received the opportunity early in 1994, entering the studio to work with producer John Leckie -- then best-known for his work with the Stone Roses -- with My Iron Lung, an EP released in late 1994, being the first music released from the sessions. Muscular and ambitious, the EP provided a good indication of what would come on 1995's The Bends. Released in March 1995, The Bends not only found Radiohead growing musically -- it was dense and expansive, without skimping on songs -- but also in reputation, as critics in the U.K. embraced the band with the audience eventually following: none of the first three singles ("High and Dry," "Fake Plastic Trees," "Just") rose above 17 on the U.K. charts but the final single, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," wound up reaching five in early 1996. Radiohead's rise may have been assisted by the mania cultivated by Brit-pop, a term that didn't quite suit the band -- they were far artier and rock-oriented -- but nevertheless stoked interest in indie guitar bands, which the quintet certainly was. Over in the U.S., The Bends stalled out at 88 on the Billboard charts but the record gained a cult following among listeners and the band never stopped touring, taking North American opening slots for R.E.M. in 1995 and Alanis Morissette in 1996.

During 1995 and 1996, the group recorded new material with Nigel Godrich -- an engineer on The Bends sessions who was now the band's producer -- with songs slowly creeping out during the course of the year. "Lucky" showed up on War Child's 1995 charity LP The Help Album, "Talk Show Host" appeared on a B-side, and "Exit Music (For a Film)" showed up on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet. The latter showed up on OK Computer, the June 1997 album that proved pivotal in Radiohead's career. "Paranoid Android," a twitchy suite released as a single in May of that year, suggested the ambition of OK Computer -- and by reaching number three, it was the band's biggest hit to date in the U.K., placing them on the cusp of a breakthrough.

A breakthrough is precisely what OK Computer turned out to be, a record that proved pivotal not just for Radiohead but for the direction of '90s rock. Greeted with enthusiastic reviews and corresponding strong sales, OK Computer closed the doors on the hedonism of Brit-pop and the dour after-effects of grunge while opening a new path to sober, adventurous art-rock where electronics co-existed with guitars. Over the next few years, the band's influence would become readily apparent, but the album made a sizable impact upon its release, too, debuting at number one in the U.K. and earning a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. Radiohead supported it with an international tour, documented in Meeting People Is Easy.

By the time Meeting People Is Easy showed up in theaters, the group began work on their fourth album, once again reuniting with producer Godrich. The resulting Kid A doubled down on the experimentalism of OK Computer, embracing electronics and threading in jazz. Appearing in October in 2000, Kid A was one of the first major albums to be pirated through file-sharing services, but this bootlegging had no apparent effect on the sales of the record: it debuted at number one in the U.K. and the U.S., becoming their first American chart-topper. Once again, the album took home the prize for Best Alternative Album at the Grammys and although it didn't produce any hit singles -- indeed, no singles were released from the record -- it was certified platinum in several territories. Amnesiac, a collection of new material initiated during the Kid A sessions, appeared in June of 2001, topping the U.K. charts and reaching two in the U.S. Two singles were pulled from the album -- "Pyramid Song" and "Knives Out" -- a signal that the album was more commercially accessible than its predecessor. At the end of the year, the band issued I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, and by the summer of 2002, they turned their attention to recording a new album with Godrich. The resulting Hail to the Thief appeared in June of 2003, once again debuting in the upper reaches of the international charts -- number one in the U.K. and number three in the U.S. -- and the group supported the album with live dates culminating in a headlining appearance at the 2004 Coachella Festival that coincided with the release of the B-sides and remix collection COM LAG, a record that helped close out their contract with EMI.

Over the next couple of years, Radiohead entered a hiatus as individual members pursued solo projects. Yorke released the heavily electronic solo collection The Eraser in 2006, and Jonny Greenwood embarked on a side career as a composer, beginning with 2004's Bodysong and then striking a fruitful collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson for 2007's There Will Be Blood; Greenwood would also work on Anderson's subsequent films The Master and Inherent Vice. During all this, the group tentatively chipped away at their first post-EMI album. Some unsuccessful sessions with Spike Stent led the band back to Godrich by the end of 2006, and the group completed recording in June of 2007. Still without a record label, they decided to release the album digitally through their official website, letting users pay whatever they wanted for a download of the album. This novel strategy acted as the album's own promotion -- most of the articles about the release claimed it was revolutionary -- and In Rainbows allegedly moved over a million downloads on the first day of its release in October 2007. In December, the album received a physical release in the U.K., followed by a January 2008 physical release in the U.S.; the record sold well, debuting at number one in the U.K., and it earned Grammys for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.

Radiohead toured in support of In Rainbows into 2009, during which time EMI released Radiohead: The Best Of in June of 2008. The band took time off in 2010, which allowed Yorke to form a band called Atoms for Peace with producer Godrich and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. During this time, drummer Phil Selway released his debut solo album, Familial. By early 2011, the group finished a new album and, like In Rainbows before it, Radiohead initially released The King of Limbs digitally through their website. The downloads appeared in February, with the physical copies appearing in March; the album reportedly shifted upwards of 400,000 digital copies upon its release. That autumn brought the release of the remix album TKOL RMX 1234567, and the band continued to tour The King of Limbs material into 2012. Once the tour wrapped up, the group took some quiet time as a new round of solo projects appeared. Atoms for Peace released Amok in February 2013 and Yorke put out Tomorrow's Modern Boxes in September 2014, just a month before Selway issued his second album, Weatherhouse. In the autumn of 2014, the band began work on a new album and continued to record throughout 2015, releasing only "Spectre" -- a proposed James Bond theme rejected by the filmmakers -- that year. The ninth Radiohead album, A Moon Shaped Pool, appeared on May 8, 2016, preceded earlier in the week by the singles "Burn the Witch" and "Daydreaming." Radiohead supported A Moon Shaped Pool with an international tour, and in June of 2017 they celebrated the 20th anniversary of OK Computer with a double-disc reissue dubbed OKNOTOK. Featuring a host of bonus cuts and previously unreleased material, its number two showing on the U.K. charts was bolstered by a major televised live performance at Glastonbury. Over the next year, Selway, Yorke, and Greenwood each issued film soundtracks with the latter earning an Oscar nomination for his score to Phantom Thread”.

To mark the huge influence of one of the greatest bands ever, my ending playlist is comprised of artists who have elements of Radiohead in their bones. I am not sure whether the band’s are following up 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool anytime soon. I know that, whenever a new album comes, it will be…

SIMPLY amazing.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Iron Maiden - Brave New World

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Iron Maiden - Brave New World

___________

THERE are distinct stages…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Iron Maiden circa 2000

of Iron Maiden’s career. There is that phenomenal run of wonderful albums from their debut, Iron Maiden (1980), to their seventh album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. That was released in 1988. Hugely prolific and extraordinary, it was only during the 1990s when some cracks and weaknesses began to show. The band regained focus and quality by the 2000s. They are preparing to release their seventeenth studio album, Senjutsu, in September. Consisting Bruce Dickinson – vocals, Dave Murray – guitars, Janick Gers – guitars, Adrian Smith – guitars, Steve Harris – bass, keyboards, Nicko McBrain – drums, Senjutsu follows the excellent The Book of Souls of 2015. The legendary London Metal band show no sign or slowing or calling time. I love how they have released so many fantastic albums through the years! There are a few of their albums that are quite poor and some that are underrated. I feel 2000’s Brave New World falls into the latter camp. Although the album was generally well-received and peaked at seven on the U.K. chart, there have been some reviews that are not so kind. I do not hear many songs from Brave New World played on the radio or compared to Iron Maiden’s classics. It was their first studio release since the return of their long-time lead singer Bruce Dickinson (he left the band in 1993). Playing as a six-piece for the first time, I think there are a lot of great songs through Brave New World.  Brave New World and The Wicker Man are two clear highlights, though each of the ten tracks are really solid.

I am going to bring in a couple of the slightly less positive reviews for Brave New World. As I mentioned, it got mostly good press. It is a shame that some were not as enamoured and sold. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:

“The return of Iron Maiden's "classic" Dickinson/Harris/Murray/Smith/McBrain lineup (plus third guitarist Janick Gers) in 1999 led to an incredibly successful world tour that saw the New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends commanding stages with the same unmitigated power and authority as they had during their mid-'80s heyday. But the question remained as to whether the reconstituted group would be able to carry this momentum into a studio setting and recapture the songwriting chops of its glory years. This question made Brave New World one of the most highly anticipated metal releases of 2000, and thankfully, the eventual answer to that question was a resounding "YES!" In fact, the album pretty much picked up right where the "classic" lineup had left off on 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son: with a faithful rediscovery of Iron Maiden's best-loved sonic aesthetic and compositional quirks, updated only insofar as was necessary to measure up to new-millennium recording standards. In every other respect (and much like Seventh Son of a Seventh Son), Brave New World's meticulously orchestrated three-guitar attack still allowed for a greater sense of space than early Maiden albums (as well as the use of subtle keyboard textures in a supporting role), while boasting a beefier, in-your-face mix à la Piece of Mind or Powerslave. The remarkable pipes of singer Bruce Dickinson actually seemed to have benefited from a less grueling touring schedule over the previous decade, and his renewed songwriting partnership with bassist Steve Harris (and other assorted bandmembers) yielded several new Maiden live standards such as punchy first single, "The Wicker Man," and the positively anthemic title track. Also worthy of special mention were Harris' emotional solo copyright, "Blood Brothers," Adrian Smith's distinctive solo licks throughout "The Fallen Angel," and six-string stalwart Dave Murray's Arabian-flavored contributions to "The Nomad." These highlights notwithstanding, a more lucid appraisal revealed that Brave New World was no Number of the Beast, once the initial euphoria died down. But as comeback albums go, its excellence was undeniable, and announced not only Iron Maiden's triumphant return, but an important turning point in heavy metal's long, arduous climb back to respectability after years of critical abuse”.

Another review that caught my eye is from NME . They were a little less convinced by Brave New Wold when they reviewed it in 2005:

 “Fashion was never a consideration. Metal always existed outside the realms of time anyway, and Iron Maiden were its prime old-skool sorcery’n’riffs exponents. They survived everything the ’80s threw at them, but now, with sports metal prowling, this is no time to go soft.

For the most part they haven’t. With longest-enduring singer [a]Bruce Dickinson[/a] back in their number, they still want to rattle your grey matter. Accordingly there are no hip-hop beats, no rapped choruses, just reassuring masturbatory solos and the high camp of men obsessed with monsters and goblins. It makes ‘The Wicker Man’ a rough-house tumble of operatic silliness, while ‘The Mercenary’ unleashes the dogs of war in guitar form.

But there’s a problem – that very dismissal of the outside world, which kept them safe all those years, now leaves them looking rather obsolete. It’s not just their ongoing fondness for cap-sleeve denim jackets and mullets, nor the risible face of skeleton mascot Eddie staring from the cover. Iron Maiden were always prone to [I]Dungeons & Dragons[/I] hilarity and pretension (the tradition kept up by the dire orchestral portent of ‘Blood Brothers’ and ‘Dream Of Mirrors’), but in the face of Korn and Slipknot offering more authentic rage and violence, they’re no longer the high priests of the black arts, and seem almost innocent by comparison. And that, surely, is as far from the point as it’s possible to get”.

I would advise people to read this Kerrang! review, as they were a lot more positive. I think that Iron Maiden were at their peak in the 1980s, though their last few albums have been tremendous. The 1990s and early-2000s were not the greatest for the band in terms of quality. There are definitely some Iron Maiden albums that have not won complete love that we need to reinspect. Brave New World is a great example. If you are a casual Iron Maiden fan or a diehard who has set Brave New World aside, then make sure that you revisit…

THIS great record.

FEATURE: Beyoncé at Forty: Imagining an ‘Ultimate Queen’ Vinyl Series

FEATURE:

 

 

Beyoncé at Forty

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images 

Imagining an ‘Ultimate Queen’ Vinyl Series

___________

BECAUSE the modern icon…

that is Beyoncé turns forty on 4th September, I am doing a series of varied features. I will look deeply at one or two of her studio albums, how I discovered her music when she was part of Destiny’s Child, where she could head from here and what the future holds. We do know that new music is not too far away. I will explore this more in a feature where I look ahead. FADER were among the many who reported some good news:

“If anyone was going to spend the pandemic doing something productive, it would be Beyoncé. True to form, the singer-songwriter and entrepreneur has been keeping herself busy for the last 18 months, revealing in her new Harper's Bazaar cover story that she's been in the studio working on new music. No release date is revealed, only that "the music is coming."

With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible. I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half. Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies. Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old. Yes, the music is coming!

Lemonade, Beyoncé's last solo album, was released in 2016. In 2019 she released Homecoming, a live album documenting her instant-classic performance at Coachella, as well as her soundtrack for The Lion King”.

Alongside her six solo studio albums is the soundtrack for The Lion King, in addition to her Coachella performance and her albums with Destiny’s Child. There is also her album with JAY-Z as part of The Carters, EVERYTHING IS LOVE. There is a lot of her work out there! I know that there are only a couple of her studio albums easily available on vinyl. You can get them on C.D., though the vinyl is not as readily available. After Beyoncé has turned forty, I guess she will enter a new phase both personally and musically. It would be a good idea to have all of her albums in a collection. Maybe it will be two boxsets: the solo studio albums and the other albums. I know you can get her HΘMΣCΘMING: THE LIVE ALBUM on vinyl, so maybe that does not need to be included. As, to the best of my knowledge, there have not been a greatest hits collection. Perhaps that is something that is being planned. There are a few live albums of hers available. Having a live boxset, a solo studio albums set and then an assortment of Destiny’s Child, The Carters and a greatest hits compilation. With each set, one could have booklets or words about what they represent – how great she is as a studio musician, a collaborator and a live act. Perhaps an ‘Ultimate Queen’ series, it would not merely be a chance to cash-in ahead of new music. Having the albums readily available on vinyl would offer fans a chance to own something they can keep for years.

It would bring new people to Beyoncé’s music. She is one of these artists whose albums and career has been so important. As great as it is to access her music on streaming services, there is nothing that can beat the feel and sound of vinyl! I am not a massive fan, though I have been following her since the 1990s and really respect her as an artist and person. She is a definite icon who has produced some sensational music. Preserving this or providing a vinyl set (or series of) would be awesome. So many other artists have reissued albums on vinyl and put out boxsets. It is strange that all of her work is not on new vinyl (you can probably get most of her stuff second-hand). On 4th September, the world will salute one of the modern times’ most influential artists. It is exciting to learn that new music is brewing. It seems like the perfect time to look back in the catalogue and release the studio and live albums on vinyl. I guess, with every studio album, there would have been demos and outtakes. As one of my favourite albums of hers, B'Day, is fifteen on 1st September, it got me wondering about an anniversary edition. This is just me thinking out loud – though there would be demand for Beyoncé vinyl! It only leaves me, ahead of 4th September, to wish her…

A very happy birthday.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn: Under the Tawny Moony: Staging a Masterpiece

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the shooting of the video for And Dream of Sheep (a song that is part of her suite, The Ninth Wave)/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton 

Under the Tawny Moony: Staging a Masterpiece

___________

I am writing a number of features…

around Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn, as the album from the live show turns five later in the year. That was the last ‘original’ release from Bush – in the sense that she was performing fresh in 2014, even though the songs were older. The Hammersmith residency took place seven years ago (the first show was on 26th August, 2014). Apart from the video for And Dream of Sheep that was part of the show, there is nothing else that was filmed that the public can see. Other artists, when embarking on a residency that is so big and important, would film a behind-the-scenes thing and have a documentary, perhaps. Apart from the show itself, we have the live album. I would urge people to buy that album. The show itself, back in 2014, was the first time Kate Bush had undertaken any extensive live work since 1979. As such, there was this incredible anticipation and excitement! I did not get to see any of the twenty-two dates, though I have got the album. Tickets were on sale to the general public on 28th March, 2014 and were sold out within fifteen minutes. For Before the Dawn, Bush won the Editor's Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. She was nominated for two Q Awards in 2014: Best Act in the World Today and Best Live Act – she did not win either. I will bring a review or two in for Before the Dawn. One can only imagine how complex and time-consuming it would have been to put the show together!

In terms of the technical credits (written by Kate Bush, directed by – Kate Bush, Adrian Noble, creative advisor – Albert McIntosh, lighting designer – Mark Henderson, set designer – Dick Bird, projection designer – Jon Driscoll for Cinelumina, creative consultant – Robert Allsopp, costume designer – Brigitte Reiffenstuel, movement direction – Sian Williams, oceanic wave design – Basil Twist, illusionist – Paul Kieve), there would have been a lot of consultation and coordination. There are various actors who appear through Before the Dawn. Then there are the musicians to get tight and in-sync. Bush’s son, Albert McIntosh, was one of the actors in the show. He was key in getting her back on the stage. I can imagine the discussions in the Bush household as the idea was floated. It is interesting what compelled the thought process. Bush released 50 Words for Snow in 2011. She might not have felt that recording another album was rewarding at that point. Keen to do something new, live music came to mind. It would have been the first time in many years that Bush had performed on a stage in front of people. The Eventim Apollo Hammersmith was always where she was going to set the show. She had performed there as part of her only tour: 1979’s The Tour of Life. It was the Hammersmith Odeon back then. It was a great venue that, whilst not massive, had a proscenium arch that would allow for flexibility.

Once she had decided on the venue, it was a case of getting together her ideas. I have written about how various Kate Bush albums have either never been performed live or have not been featured that much. This article gives details regarding the setlist, technical details and critical reception. As you can see, Bush mainly took from 1985’s Hounds of Love and 2005’s Aerial. Both albums feature conceptual suites that could be joined together. That spark and realisation would have been exciting for her! Not only did she get the chance to bring Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave to the stage; she would also realise Aerial’s second disc, A Sky of Honey. There are songs from other albums, though the main body is those two albums. Two that mean very much to Bush, it would have been exciting to plot the course of the show. Even so, how do you connect two suites that are very different!? Even when she had the concepts formed and ready, there is the job of recruiting musicians and her crew. Then there are the meetings, the rehearsals and ensuring that the show is ready for the audiences. What must have started out as quite an interesting idea and chance for a change would have turned to nervousness and exhaustion. Bush experienced this when putting together The Tour of Life…though it had been a long time since she was in that position!

Rather than Before the Dawn being this drain or regrettable thing, it was a live show that must rank alongside the most popular and well-received ever. From a technical standpoint, the sets and visuals were amazing by all accounts! If it was stressful getting it all sorted and conceptualised, the final results must have pleased Bush! She spoke with FADER in 2016 (to promote the live album of the residency) and was asked about the technical side of Before the Dawn:

“As a performer, do you you get lost in the moment or do you focus on the technical intricacies?

I had to stay really focused as a performer because I'm quite nervous, and I wanted to make sure I was really present when I was performing so that I could try and deliver the character of the song. And actually, the first set was the most difficult part to perform for me, because almost each song is from a completely different place.

Before the 2014 shows you hadn’t toured since 1979. When your return to the stage was so well-received, did you wish you’d done it sooner?

I don't know really. The original show was of the first two albums that I’d made, and I had hoped that to do another show after I had another of two albums’ worth of material. And as I started getting much more involved in the recording process, it took me off into a different path where it was all about trying to make a good album. It became very time-consuming, so I moved into being more of a recording artist. And every time you finish an album, there's the opportunity to make visuals to go with some of the tracks. So I became very involved in that, as well.

Do you have a technical achievement that you're most proud of in your career?

I'm really proud of what we did with those live shows, because it was very ambitious and I didn't know if it would work. It was a very complex technical show that involved the most incredible team of people. The most intelligent, sensitive people. Fantastic band, actors, everybody there had something so special to bring to that show, and I think the response that we got was more than you could ever wish for. I'm so pleased that we did it.

It was a very humbling experience, really. Every night you had a completely different audience, and every night they were so warm. It really meant so much that they liked it. It was very moving, because it felt like the audience came on that journey with us, and, each night, it was a slightly different journey”.

That is the great thing about Kate Bush as a live performer. She does not merely want to deliver the songs and do a simple concert. Almost treating it like a play or film, so much attention and thought goes to the technical and visual side. Ensuring that the audiences are immersed and almost part of the show. From the Introduction and Lily at the start of Act 1, though to Aerial’s title track at the end of Act 2, Before the Dawn was a revelation and marvel in terms of its concept, achievements and scale. Even after the audiences ensured the dates were sold out and rousing applause was provided each night, would this long-awaited return to the stage translate into great critical reviews!?

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of affection for Kate Bush on her 2014 stage return. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian was there for one of the nights and shared his thoughts:

“As it turns out, the august broadsheet rock hack could not have been more wrong: for huge sections of the performance, Bush's movements look heavily choreographed: she moves with a lithe grace, clearly still drawing on the mime training she underwent as a teenager forty years on. Her voice too is in remarkable condition: she's note-perfect throughout.

Backed by a band of musicians capable of navigating the endless twists and turns of her songwriting – from funk to folk to pastoral prog rock - the performances of Running Up That Hill and King of the Mountain sound almost identical to their recorded versions - but letting rip during a version of Top of the City, she sounds flatly incredible.

You suspect that even if she hadn't, the audience would have lapped it up. Audibly delighted to be in the same room as her, they spend the first part of the show clapping everything she does: no gesture is too insignificant to warrant a round of applause. It would be cloying, but for the fact that Bush genuinely gives them something to cheer about.

For someone who's spent the vast majority of her career shunning the stage, she's a hugely engaging live performer, confident enough to shun the hits that made her famous in the first place: she plays nothing from her first four albums.

The staging might look excessive on paper, but onstage it works to astonishing effect, bolstering rather than overwhelming the emotional impact of the songs. The Ninth Wave is disturbing, funny and so immersive that the crowd temporarily forget to applaud everything Bush does. As each scene bleeds into another, they seem genuinely rapt: at the show's interval, people look a little stunned. A Sky of Honey is less obviously dramatic – nothing much happens over the course of its nine tracks – but the live performance underlines how beautiful the actual music is.

Already widely acclaimed as the most influential and respected British female artist of the past 40 years, shrouded in the kind of endlessly intriguing mystique that is almost impossible to conjure in an internet age, Bush theoretically had a lot to lose by returning to the stage. Clearly, given how tightly she has controlled her own career since the early 80s, she would only have bothered because she felt she had something spectacular to offer. She was right: Before The Dawn is another remarkable achievement”.

I love the fact Kate Bush came back to the stage in 2014 in such an impressive and grand fashion! Whereas there were some tense and stressful moments putting together Before the Dawn – where she filmed in a water tank at Pinewood Studios for the And Dream of Sheep segment was especially fraught and long! -, it seemed like there was this family on stage. Bush said in interviews how nervous she was every night. The crowds, as she also said, were an absolute dream! They were clearly thrilled to have their hero on the stage performing her tremendous music. No matter what Before the Dawn turned out to be, there would have been this love and rapture! As it was, Kate Bush and her band (The KT Fellowship) produced this masterpiece of a show. There were some minor dips (some parts didn’t completely work; others maybe a little self-indulgent or over-ambitious), though the things that wowed and stunned the senses were numerous and unforgettable. The live album does a lot to evoke what audiences witnessed in Hammersmith in 2014. Ahead of the live album’s fifth anniversary later in the year, I wanted to return to Before the Dawn. Let us hope that this was not Kate Bush’s live farewell. Even though she is sixty-three, there is nothing to say that she would not be willing to do anymore live work – though it might be smaller in scale compared with Before the Dawn. In 1979, she wowed the world with The Tour of Life. Proving herself to be an incredible live performer who pushed the boundaries of a Pop or Rock show. Thirty-five years later, she did that again! If Bush had nerves and worried prior to the shows, she needn’t have. As reviews and the reception Before the Dawn received proves, it was a triumphant production from…

A musical legend.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Eminem (ft Dido) – Stan

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Eminem (ft Dido)  – Stan

___________

WHEN deciding which track…

to include for this feature, I wanted to focus on one that has a lot of relevance now. It was controversial when it came out in 2000 – I guess it is still courting a certain amount of controversy! The Marshall Mathers LP is an album that I really like, though it has attracted some debate as to whether it is Eminem playing a character when he sings of violence against women and messages of homophobia. Is it what he really thinks, or is it just a persona? Whilst I suspect that it is part of his act, Eminem has always been accused of sending out the wrong messages. Stan is a track that went to number-one in the U.K. Featuring a memorable vocal sample from Dido, Stan is a song with such immersive and vivid lyrics. Before moving along, Wikipedia provides some background to the song:

“Stan" is a song by American rapper Eminem featuring vocals sampled from British singer Dido. It was released in October 2000 as the third single from Eminem's third album, The Marshall Mathers LP (2000). It reached number one in 12 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, and Australia.

Dido's lyrics are a sample of the opening lines of her song "Thank You". The 45 King-produced track also uses a slightly modified break from "Thank You" as its base sample; both songs were released as singles in late 2000. "Stan" has been called one of Eminem's best songs and is considered one of his signature songs. Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Stan" 296th on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song was also listed 15th on VH1's list of the greatest hiphop songs of all time and named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

The song was nominated for multiple awards, including Best Song at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Video of the Year, Best Rap Video, Best Direction, and Best Cinematography at the MTV Video Music Awards. It won Best International Artist Video at the MuchMusic Video Awards. In April 2011, Complex magazine put together a list of the 100 greatest Eminem songs and ranked "Stan" second. The eponymous character's name gave rise to a slang term that refers to overzealous, maniacal, overly obsessed, entitled fans of a celebrity or personality; the term has since been included in the Oxford English Dictionary”.

Today, a ‘stan’ is someone who is a huge fan of something. Maybe a bit obsessive or overly-keen, it refers to the title character of the Eminem song who worships his idol. He writes to him and, when he doesn’t get a quick response, he gets angrier and eventually murders his girlfriend. It is a track that grows darker and more unsettling. I feel The Marshall Mathers LP warrants new respect, as it’s a masterful album filled with tremendous, accomplished and confident songs. GQ marked twenty years of Stan last year. It was interesting hearing why Eminem decided to write the song and what legacy it has now:

 “Stan” is turning 20. The song first appeared on Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP in May 2000, but wasn’t released as a single until 21 November, topping the UK charts the week before Christmas. “Stan” is still considered Eminem’s masterpiece as a songwriter and storyteller and it all started, oddly, with the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow romcom Sliding Doors. Producer Mark “The 45 King” James heard the song “Thank You”, by an unknown English singer-songwriter called Dido, on a TV commercial for the movie and heard sampling potential. He taped it off the TV, severed the depressive verse from the consoling chorus and fashioned it into a hip-hop loop. In “Thank You”, Dido is singing about a bad day that’s about to be turned around by love; in James’ eight-line loop, she is describing a grey, damp purgatory of one bad day after another.

James’ track ended up on a tape of potential beats that Eminem played in his car one day. One of Dido’s lyrics, “Your picture on my wall, it reminds me that it’s not so bad,” brought to mind the fans who had descended on him after the success of his 1999 debut, The Slim Shady LP, writing unnervingly intense fan mail and besieging his Detroit home. What if the picture on the wall were not of a lover but a celebrity? What if the song were the internal monologue of a tormented fan? He could see the whole story unfolding like a movie in his head. “A lot of times when I’m writing songs, I see visions for everything I’m writing,” he later told the lyrics website Genius. “This was one of those.”

Eminem was thinking of the danger posed by fans (Madonna and Björk were two of the stars whose violent stalkers made the news in the 1990s), but also of the tendency of fans and journalists to take lurid lyrics too literally: Marilyn Manson had absurdly been blamed for inspiring the two students who killed 13 people at Columbine High School in April 1999. The song could be Eminem’s corrective to listeners and critics alike: don’t get carried away. “It’s kind of like a message to the fans to let them know that everything I say is not meant to be taken literally,” he told MTV at the time.

Running to almost seven minutes, “Stan” was the ideal centrepiece for an album inspired by the head-wrecking experience of instant fame and notoriety but Eminem didn’t see it as a hit. “When I was writing it, I just thought, ‘Whoa, people are going to get sick of this because it goes on for so long,’” he told Genius. In fact, both the tense narrative and Dido’s career-making hook proved irresistible. What’s more, the song made critics who had been ambivalent about Eminem’s trollish provocations think again. When Elton John took Dido’s part in a performance at the 2001 Grammy Awards, he not only drew a line under the rapper’s juvenile use of homophobic slurs but gave him the blessing of classic rock. “Stan” showed the world that the obnoxious class clown had real depth, with the literary critic Giles Foden going so far as to compare him to Robert Browning, “the Victorian master of sly irony”. Eminem never made a track as eerily perfect again and he knew it, frequently referencing “Stan” on later albums. In the 2013 sequel “Bad Guy”, Stan’s younger brother Matthew takes his revenge. On 2017’s “Walk On Water”, Eminem recovers from a bout of insecurity by reminding himself: “Bitch, I wrote ‘Stan’.”

By then, the character was firmly embedded in the language of pop and internet culture. The rapper Nas made Stan into a generic noun when he insulted Jay-Z in his 2001 dis track “Ether” (“You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a stan”), but the word didn’t really catch on, as both noun and verb, until the social media-saturated 2010s, and only entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017: “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity”. It’s often assumed to be a portmanteau of “stalker” and “fan”, although it’s not clear if that was Eminem’s intention or just a neat coincidence. Strangely, “stan” was for a few years used benignly and with pride, as if Eminem’s song had never existed. Think of phrases such as “We have no choice but to stan” or “We stan a true queen.” A 2014 Atlantic introduction to “stanbases” had a typically jolly, winking tone. Obsessive fandom had been ironised, but there were always fans whose behaviour was more sinister and it was only a matter of time before they came to the for”.

I am going to end up with a feature from American Songwriter. They did a feature looking behind the song on its twentieth anniversary. Although some were shocked by Stan and felt that it would encourage young listeners to mimic the lead character or enact some of the threats, it is a masterclass in narrative songwriter, filled with twists and turns:

“The final product is a memorable piece of work; Eminem’s sense of time and syllabic accent, and his emotional delivery, make this song remarkable. But the words also stand on their own on paper, with a sense of rhyme and meter that put him among the greats of both music and straight poetry. To wit: Dear Slim, I wrote you but you still ain’t callin’/I left my cell, my pager and my home phone at the bottom/I sent two letters back in autumn/You must not have got ’em/It probably was a problem at the post office or somethin’/Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot ’em. Writer Giles Foden compared him to legendary English poet Robert Browning in The Guardian of London, a comparison that would no doubt freak out some 19th century Browning fans.

“Stan” spawned an award-winning video that is now legendary. Featuring Dido, the eight-minute video was heavily edited by most outlets for both length and language. The video helped make “Stan” a worldwide hit that changed the face of pop music and hip-hop. Eminem’s lyrical artistry here transcends any genre; this is more than hip-hop or alternative hip-hop, and more than just pop. And it’s still relevant 20 years later.

PHOTO CREDIT: Interscope Records 

These accolades might be a little hard for some people to take. From those who consider Eminem vulgar and tasteless, to people who think he’s a homophobic misogynistic jerk at heart, there’s always going to be a critic. But the lyric of “Stan” isn’t just the work of somebody who managed to get in the zone for a couple hours or just had a good day or is even channeling something from an unseen source. Art like this comes from somebody who clearly has given his life to his pursuit, and has walked the walk while others talk the talk. A piece of work like this, where every syllable and nuance is as perfect as it can be, is rare and inspirational and doesn’t come often or easy. Ninety-nine percent perspiration, indeed”.

I know that Eminem has had a difficult relationship with the press through the years. He is one of the greatest rappers of his time. The Marshall Mathers LP might stand as his towering work. In terms of his songwriting and delivery, there was nothing like it in 2000! The album still sounds impactful and hugely moving over twenty years from its release. The Marshall Mathers LP has been reappraised. Whilst one cannot ignore all of the lyrics and more controversial content, you have to respect the musical ambition and accomplishment! Since its release, The Marshall Mathers LP has been ranked as one of the best albums ever but a number of magazines/sources. A sensational song from a remarkable album, Stan is named for a modern-day phenomenon. More importantly, it helped turn Eminem into a superstar; one of the greatest songwriters of the time. There is no doubting that Stan is…

A true classic.

FEATURE: Spotlight: India Shawn

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

India Shawn

___________

I realise I have included…

 PHOTO CREDIT: AG Creative

quite a few female solo artists in this feature lately. I will move onto some male artists and bands soon enough. I wanted to feature India Shawn today, as she is an incredible talent that one should definitely not pass by! I am bringing in a few interviews so that we can get a better impression and picture of a terrific artist. Before then, Forth District provide some biography:

“Los Angeles born songbird and songwriter, India Shawn, has been lending her musical talents to the industry for over 9 years. Before releasing her debut EP, ORIGIN, in 2012, she already had writing credits and song placements under her belt as a member of her writing team, Full Circle. She’s worked with top names including Chris Brown, Diddy-Dirty Money, El Debarge, Keri Hilson, and Monica. In 2013, Solange Knowles featured India’s popular track, I’m Alive, on her Saint Heron compilation album, further endorsing her impact on the new wave of music.

With a smooth voice that connects to listeners immediately, lyrics that resonate with your heart, and fearless experimentation with R&B elements, India’s music has spiritual and emotional components to it. She continues to breathe fresh air into the industry with her and James Fauntleroy’s collaborative Outer Limits EP.

The essence of her music provides a spiritual/emotional connection with her listeners that is distinct and authentic while combining current and innovative elements. India Shawn’s songs take you back in time when music made you feel good inside. A musical experience that makes you think, touches your heart and motivates, some say, are the elements that are missing in today’s dynamic. India’s first solo project entitled “ORIGIN” can be expected to deliver awesomely good music that is relevant, transparent, and exciting. India Shawn is completely enchanting! Her music will captivate your mind and heart like the brightness of her beautiful, mysterious smile – something incredibly wonderful awaits…”.

A lot of interviews with India Shawn have been conducted around the release of various singles. Okayplayer. spoke with her last year when she put out Cali Love:

“Raised on the edge of Los Angeles, India Shawn is a phoenix rising from the ashes to stake her rightful claim in the fast-paced music industry. After all, she’s been putting in work for years as a songwriter co-penning for the likes of Chris Brown, Monica, Diddy’s Dirty Money and more. It all started during her childhood, she sang in the youth choir at her church and her mother was a singer in addition to a praise and worship leader.

A relocation to Atlanta would prove to be a step in the right direction for the aspiring singer. This move led to her connecting with a local music fixture who helped her create a few of her first tracks, following this she was inspired to do more. “Full Circle,” a songwriter team consisting of India, her sister and a friend would come into fruition. Accompanied by “The Clutch,” a well-known songwriting collective, the two teams became successful in their own right.

During this point of her blossoming career, singing wasn’t the focus. By 2010, she signed a publishing deal with Universal Music and admitted to feeling something was missing.  “I felt stuck,” she shared. “I knew I wanted to be writing and recording my own songs.” By 2012 she released Origin, her debut. This release features an experimental sound throughout. The majority of the production was done by John Key, producer and touring drummer for Solange. “Origin was recorded with the very pure intention of wanting to make an album for myself,” Shawn said. The project arrived with features from Hit-Boy and James Fauntelroy. “I’m Alive” was included on Solange’s Saint Heron album compilation (2013). Over the next few years, she finished college, kept recording music and would continue following her passions.

Once 2015 hit she began working with Fauntelroy again, their creative partnership led to Outer Limits a refreshing project. At this point, she wasn’t working in music full-time. A move back to Los Angeles marked by odd jobs seemed to be the reset she needed. She ended up meeting her current manager as she held down a gig with Postmates. Fast forward to 2019, she was singing backup for Anderson. Paak and would go on to sign a record deal with Epic Records that same year.

Her newest work proves that she’s kept her pen sharp over the years. The evolved sound is a culmination of the relationships she’s built since her teenage years, one being friend and producer D’Mile. On a recent visit to our Brooklyn office (pre-coronavirus), Shawn shared a few of her latest tracks with us. One standout “Cali Love” has a West Coast vibe. She expresses that this cut tackles complicated romances in LA. We also heard “Not Too Deep,” her second single of the year with 6LACK early and enjoyed the easygoing nature of it.

Why did you decide to shift gears a bit and focus on your own career rather than writing for other artists?

I’m still happy and grateful to write for others, I’ve just had more fun making music for myself. It’s less pressure, and I guess it’s kinda self-indulgent, but the entire process: living the experience, writing it all out, recording it, and sharing it has been more fulfilling for me.

Who are your top three musical influences?

Lauryn Hill for her voice and authenticity, Beyonce for her power and work ethic and Brandy for her tone and vulnerability”.

One of my favourite tracks from last year was Not Too Deep. Recorded with 6LACK, it was a clear sign that India Shawn is one of the most special artists around. She talked about that single in this interview, in addition to what it was like writing it with Varren Wade:

“Not Too Deep” featuring 6LACK is your new single. It feels hopeful, like you want to take a chance. One thing I think listeners will likely connect with is how realistic the lyrics are. Like in the second verse when you sing, “Cause nothing stays the same, we’re going to change over time.” Can you share how the song came together?

This particular one I liked him so much but at the time, I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship so it was like, “Man, I’m really intrigued with this guy and we have fun and it’s cool. Maybe we could freeze time right here in that feel good, honeymoon phase.”

What was the songwriting experience like co-writing “Not Too Deep” with Varren Wade?

Varren is like my bro, so it’s like just me reading my diary aloud. We have to be on the same page. Not literally, but that’s what it feels like. A bottle of wine is what I like in my sessions and you know, just get comfortable. D’Mile literally just plays, picks up any instrument like the keys or the bass and starts playing around and I always love what he does. And then, we’ll start humming melodies and that’s just kind of how that one came together. It’s a very organic collaboration with Varren and I and that’s why I like to write with him because we just bounce ideas off each other until we get a line that we’re both satisfied with.

What’s one important thing you’ve learned as a songwriter that helped you to transition into an artist?

I don’t know why my mind just goes to Chris Brown. When I was doing the writing stint, we worked with Chris a lot, and Chris was like a workaholic but not in a way that felt like he was doing it because he had to. It was like he was really having fun and honestly. I can say the same thing about Anderson .Paak. They just have fun, and I feel like that is a big piece of the studio aspect, but also taking that and being on stage and just having to embody the whole artist’s life.

ORIGIN is your first official project. What does it mean to you today as an artist?

ORIGIN is so special to me. That’s my baby. I feel like it’s still in a sense some of my favorite work to date because it was so pure. In some ways, I’m trying to get back to the freedom I was in when I made the project because I wasn’t making that for popularity. I was tired of writing and chasing placements and I went home to Atlanta and my boyfriend produced this album for me and I wrote the project. I felt like I had a different level of confidence because I was doing it for me and not necessarily for other people. I’m always going to love and appreciate ORIGIN.

Outer Limits and ORIGIN are, for the most part, two completely different sonic energies. How have you grown from each project?

I think I’ve definitely grown vocally from just singing a lot. Even after or during those projects, I never stopped singing and doing background work, so I think I just strengthened my vocals and those go-to tools in the studio. Additionally, I’m working with my dream producer now, D’Mile and just honing in on the sound. I feel like those projects were amazing in their own right but this project is probably the most soulful. Those were kind of pop, in a sense. Even ORIGIN had like indie, folk vibes on it too. This project is an R&B, soul record, for sure”.

Movin’ On was another remarkable release from India Shawn last year. Snobette discussed the song’s video with the L.A. artist. The subject of mental health in the Black community was explored:

“SNOBETTE: Because of COVID-19, a lot of people are quarantined with their romantic partner. How do you believe music should be pushing forward conversations about realistic narratives of Black love?

India Shawn: “I think we need more love and truth in music in general. We needed it before the pandemic, and we’ll need it after. I believe all the events of 2020 have caused us to reflect on our art and challenged us to create something more meaningful, more substantial, more loving.

SNOBETTE: In 2020, the mental wellness of the Black community has most certainly been challenged in more ways than none. What do you believe are some ways to manage your mental health and bounce back after a breakup during COVID-19?

India Shawn: “Speaking from my own personal experience, I’ve found that it’s very important to surround yourself with loving people. Therapy has been so key for me; it’s good to have a safe place to get it all out. Stay active! Make a playlist of empowering songs. Read something enlightening. Get out in the sun, move your body, drink water! Sleep, sing, dance, eat your favorite foods! Focus on yourself and on the things you want to grow. Whatever you do, don’t give up!”

SNOBETTE: How do the visuals for “Movin’ On” accurately depict the mental health, self-love and the role of social media when it comes to breakups?

India Shawn: The video introduces me totally devastated, chugging a bottle of liquor and scrolling through ex-bae’s insta. Haven’t we all been there? Just me? (laughs) It’s real life!

“We find ways to temporarily escape our issues while still totally engrossed in our situation via social media. At some point we have to make a conscious decision to choose better, or life will choose for us and we’ll find our backs against the wall. I came to that point in this video, but then I awoke to a new day, filled with new possibilities. I still couldn’t get him out of my head, probably because I was hypothetically insta-stalking him the night before (laughs), but, I was determined to move on and inevitably found my happiness and freedom.

“It was really important for us to make it about me and not have me riding off into the sunset with another man. You have to choose yourself. The answer is always self-love”.

India Shawn put out the single, Don’t Play with My Heart, recently. I am not sure whether there is an album planned soon. It is going to be exciting to see where she heads next. Here is an artist who gives the world such interesting and consistently strong music! Atwood Magazine caught up with her earlier this year around the release of Too Sweet:

“ATWOOD MAGAZINE: THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT TODAY, INDIA! FIRST OF ALL, “TOO SWEET” IS A FANTASTIC SONG AND I WAS ENAMORED THE MOMENT I HEARD IT. CAN YOU SHARE A LITTLE ABOUT THE STORY BEHIND THIS SONG?

India Shawn: Thank you so much!! It’s one of my faves from the forthcoming album. I was inspired to write this song after being ghosted. I was hanging with a guy friend, we cracked open a bottle of pinot noir, had a beautiful convo, and shared a lil moment. I was so excited about him the next day — I really felt like he was a match, but he ended up going ghost on me. Instead of writing another sad love song, I decided to reframe the story and empower myself by saying I was just too sweet for him! – that’s why he’s at a loss for words.

HOW DO YOU FEEL “TOO SWEET” REINTRODUCES YOU AND CAPTURES YOUR ARTISTRY IN 2021?

India Shawn: I think it just builds upon the groundwork I laid for the project in 2020. The production is incredible, the songs are really good. I’m 4 releases in, and the music is consistently soulful yet genre-bending. It’s fresh! I love that the UMO feature shows versatility and the range of my musical taste and relationships.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SONGWRITING EXPERIENCE OF BRINGING THIS MUSIC TO LIFE?

India Shawn: What I remember quite vividly was the FUN I had writing the song with my boy Varren Wade. I felt excited about getting this idea out in a way that I’d never heard before. It’s empowering but still cheeky and flirty. We were both so charged up that night. My mgmt had gotten me a ticket to join them at a Drake concert at the Forum that same night, but I was feeling so high creating Too Sweet that I missed pretty much the entire show (I made it for the last 2 songs).

AS A LYRICALLY FORWARD ARTIST, DO YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITE LYRICS IN THIS SONG?

India Shawn: “…now you’re cold ’cause you aint felt a soul so free — guess that’s ’cause you aint met a woman like me, my love is too sweet.” I like to touch on the spiritual in my music. In that line I’m saying you haven’t encountered an energy like mine, and maybe there’s some fear there of the unfamiliar”.

Go and follow India Shawn and check out her work. She is a phenomenal young artist with years ahead of her! I am not sure how well-known she is in the U.K. As this year comes to an end, I think that her music will reach more people here. In a very short time, I think that India Shawn is going to be…

A major artist.

________________

Follow India Shawn

PHOTO CREDIT: Epic Records 

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/indiashawn/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/IndiaShawn

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialIndiaShawn

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUrXayZHSy0rTzy3oGPTCzw

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7g0SC4F149FUX5rKFuSpqL

FEATURE: A Buyer's Guide: Part Sixty-Eight: Nas

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer's Guide

Part Sixty-Eight: Nas

___________

AS his new album…

King's Disease II came out this month and has received some incredible reviews, I thought it would be a good time to include Nas in A Buyer’s Guide. Before coming to the albums of his that you need to own, here is some biography from Wikipedia:

“Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones (/nɑːˈsɪər/; born September 14, 1973), better known by his stage name Nas (/nɑːz/), is an American rapper, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Rooted in the New York hip hop scene, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time. Nas has released twelve studio albums since 1994, seven of which are certified platinum and multi-platinum in the U.S.

The son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Jones's musical career began in 1989 as he adopted the moniker of "Nasty Nas" and recorded demos for Large Professor. He was a featured artist on Main Source's "Live at the Barbeque" (1991), also produced by Large Professor. Nas's debut album Illmatic (1994) received universal acclaim upon release, and is considered to be one of the greatest hip hop albums of all-time; in 2021, the album was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.[8] His second album It Was Written (1996) debuted atop the Billboard 200 and charted for four consecutive weeks; the album, along with its single "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" (featuring Lauryn Hill), catapulted Nas into international success. Nas's albums I Am (1998) and Nastradamus (1999) were criticized as inconsistent and too commercially oriented, and critics and fans feared that his output was declining in quality.

From 2001 to 2005, Nas was involved in a highly publicized feud with Jay-Z, popularized by the diss track "Ether". It was this feud, along with Nas's albums Stillmatic (2001), God's Son (2002), and the double album Street's Disciple (2004), that helped restore his critical standing. After quashing the feud, Nas signed to Jay-Z's Def Jam Recordings in 2006 and went in a more provocative, politicized direction with the albums Hip Hop Is Dead (2006) and his untitled 9th studio album (2008). In 2010, Nas released Distant Relatives, a collaboration album with Damian Marley, donating all royalties to charities active in Africa. His 11th studio album, Life Is Good (2012), was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. After receiving thirteen nominations, his 13th studio album, King's Disease (2020), won him his first Grammy for Best Rap Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

In 2006, MTV ranked Nas fifth on their list of "The Greatest MCs of All Time". In 2012, The Source ranked him second on their list of the "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time". In 2013, Nas was ranked 4th on MTV's "Hottest MCs in the Game" list. About.com ranked him first on their list of the "50 Greatest MCs of All Time" in 2014, and a year later, Nas was featured on the "10 Best Rappers of All Time" list by Billboard. He is also an entrepreneur through his own record label; he serves as associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine and the co-founder of Mass Appeal Records”.

If you need a guide to the Nas albums that you should buy, then I have recommend the four essential ones. I have suggested an underrated album that is worth checking out, his latest studio album, in addition to a book that makes for useful accompaniment. Here is A Buyer’s Guide dedicated to…

THE wonderful Nas.

____________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Illmatic

Release Date: 19th April, 1994

Label: Columbia

Producers: DJ Premier/Faith N./Large Professor/L.E.S./Nas/Pete Rock/Q-Tip

Standout Tracks: N.Y. State of Mind/The World Is Yours/One Love (ft. Q-Tip)

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/nas/illmatic  

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3kEtdS2pH6hKcMU9Wioob1?si=fbaRVi5qTS-HoGZw05XyFA&dl_branch=1

Review:

“Illmatic is imprisoned within itself. The power is targeted in the narrow scope of its worldview. There are six desperate and savage blocks and there is nowhere else. Nas captures the feeling of being young and trapped. You see his struggle and you see his ghosts.

The more I listen to Illmatic, the more haunted it feels. When you're younger, it clubs you with its hail of words and the skeletal beauty of its beats. But the older I get, the more it strikes me as a teenaged requiem for those still living. "Old Soul" is the sort of stock phrase used by yoga teachers and amateur psychics, but it always fit Nas. He's 20 and prematurely nostalgic, struck by memories of park jams and watching "CHiPS.", when Shante dissed the real Roxanne, and how much he misses Mr. Magic.

There is no narrative about Ill Will, but you hear the name over and over. Will was his best friend and first music partner who lived on the 6th floor with turntables and a mic. He was shot to death in Queensbridge over a drunken argument. You don't hear how Nas and his wounded brother Jungle rushed Will to the hospital, got static from emergency room officials, and watched him die. But the sense of grievous loss shadows almost every bar, especially "Memory Lane" and "One Love".

If you listen to it enough names start to pop out: Fatcat, Alpo, Grand Wizard, Mayo, the foul cop who shot Garcia, Jerome's niece, Little Rob, Herb, Ice, and Bullet. The entirety of "Represent". You start to wonder where they are now, or if they are. The album's lone guest AZ, lays it down flat: he's destined to live the dream for all the peeps who never made it.

But Nas uses Illmatic as more than a vehicle to escape. The styles and stories that formed him fuse into something that withstands outdated slang and popular taste: it is a story of a gifted writer born into squalor, trying to claw his way out of the trap. It's somewhere between The Basketball Diaries and Native Son, but Jim Carroll and Richard Wright couldn't rap like Nas.

That's why 19 years later, Get On Down is re-issuing a box set with a vinyl, gold CD, and an ersatz cherry wood case featuring a 48-page book with The Source article that originally crowned him-- even if Illmatic was the archetypal cassette album (along with the purple tape). It's best heard by ignoring the dogma, culture wars, Nas clones, and would-be saviors that have accreted since April of 1994. Who cares whether it's the greatest rap album of all-time or not? It's an example of how great rap can be, but not necessarily the way it should be.

There was no real follow-up to Illmatic because Nas understood that he'd tapped into a moment that could only come once and in one place. This is what things had been building towards. A little over a decade later, Nas claimed that hip-hop was dead, but this world that was his was already starting to vanish on Illmatic. But you can still summon it from the first rumble of the train. This is what happened when the doors opened” – Pitchfork (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17497-illmatic/)

Choice Cut: Life's a Bitch (ft. AZ & Olu Dara)

It Was Written

Release Date: 2nd July, 1996

Label: Columbia

Producers: DJ Premier/Dr. Dre/Havoc/Rashad Smith/L.E.S./Live Squad/Trackmasters

Standout Tracks: Street Dreams/I Gave You Power/If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) (ft. Lauryn Hill)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/298151

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/78Fgb88MY0ECc4GVMejqTg?si=qWtFvNQjQLOBCxKwEol5Hw&dl_branch=1

Review:

“For his second album, It Was Written, Nas hired a bunch of hip-hop's biggest producers -- including Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, Stretch, and Trackmasters -- to help him create the musical bed for his daring, groundbreaking rhymes. Although that rhyme style isn't as startling on It Was Written as it was on his debut, Illmatic, Nas has deepened his talents, creating a complex series of rhymes that not only flow, but manage to tell coherent stories as well. Furthermore, Nas often concentrates on creating vignettes about life in the ghetto that never are apolitical or ambivalent. This time around, the production is more detailed and elaborate, which gives the music a wider appeal. Sometimes this is a detriment -- Nas sounds better when he tries to keep it street-level -- but usually, his lyrical force cuts through the commercial sheen. Combined with the spare but deep grooves, his rhymes have a resonance unmatched by most of his mid-'90s contemporaries. Because, no matter how deep his lyrics are, his grooves are just as deep and those bottomless funk and spare beats are what make It Was Written so compulsively listenable” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: The Message

God's Son

Release Date: 13th December, 2002

Labels: Ill Will/Columbia

Producers: Nas (also exec./)Steve Stoute (exec.)/Agile/The Alchemist/Alicia Keys/Chucky Thompson/Eminem/Ron Browz/Salaam Remi

Standout Tracks: Get Down/The Cross/I Can

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=20252&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3rV1aPkrWyMs6YTvTpSbIY?si=MYEQw-GnR1W9YOmuCydgXA&dl_branch=1

Review:

“In keeping with the current hip-hop penchant for acknowledging old-school ways and mores, ‘Get Down’ starts proceedings with a sleekly funky James Brown loop and a lyrically visual and detailed portrait of some heavy courtroom drama. Nothing if not known for his arrogance, which comes with the territory, Nas then declares he carries ‘The Cross’ for rappers on the song of that title produced by Eminem, over hazy, string-laden beats. Normally, thinking you’re Jesus means you’ve lost your tiny mind, but there’s nothing wrong with being a child of God, and he doesn’t stray too far into blasphemous territory.

The excellent ‘Made You Look’ follows, with monk-like chanting and sampled gunshots on the beat. And there’s also something to be said for the way ‘The Last Real Nigga Alive’ gives the real deal lowdown about the last decade in hip-hop New York City – and it’s the only song to elude to Jay-Z with an offhand dismissal of ‘The Gift And The Curse’.

Which doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of respite from the seriousness on show, as ‘Hey Nas’ attests, with rumoured beau Kelis along for the chorus ride. But Nas is nothing if not for the kids, who are, afterall, the future. The jaunty ‘I Can’ has a playground singalong accompaniment, as well as a black history lesson and a mantra for empowerment and self-improvement. Nas tells kids they can be whatever they wanna be. He’s also typically innovative with the structure of ‘Book Of Rhymes’: the verses double as discarded pages of his rhyme book.

By ‘Warrior Song’ and ‘Revolutionary Warfare’, an air of militancy has crept in, that stems from an interest in the ’60s Black Panthers. Yet, this is, in turn, offset by the penultimate ‘Dance’ and the closing ‘Heaven’- two genuinely moving tunes that touch on the death of his mother, the former in detail, the latter doubling as a ‘what are we doing to ourselves?’ call to the streets.

Truly, ‘God’s Son’ is the work of a man in his prime” – NME

Choice Cut: Made You Look

Life Is Good

Release Date: 13th July, 2012

Label: Def Jam

Producers: 40/Al Shux/Buckwild/Da Internz/DJ Hot Day/Heavy DJ.U.S.T.I.C.E. League/No I.D./Rodney Jerkins/Salaam Remi/Swizz Beatz

Standout Tracks: A Queens Story/Daughters/Cherry Wine (ft. Amy Winehouse)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=456220&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4tpG2K3nqcrFNGBikX3dc0?si=6VBnPW63TSOJygq12FkTJQ&dl_branch=1

Review:

“Given that the cover of Life Is Good pictures Nas alone, clutching his ex-wife’s wedding dress—apparently the only item she left behind after their ugly divorce—listeners could be forgiven for reading sarcasm into the title. The rapper’s 10th album really does find the Queens legend in a good place, though, taking stock of his accomplishments and giving thanks for how far he’s come since his days as a hungry kid living on free school lunches and small crimes. And if his verses are to be believed, whatever bitterness his divorce left him with has since passed. He opens the album with a sincere dedication to his ex-wife and fellow artist Kelis, and on the closer, “Bye Baby,” he frames their marriage as a valiant effort: “At least I can say I tried, plus enjoyed the ride / Plus we got our little boy, my little joy and pride.”

Nas doesn’t claim that life is perfect, though. As he nears middle age, he struggles to reconcile his growing distance from the streets—“I been rich longer than I been broke,” he confesses on “Loco-Motive”—and on “Daughters” he worries that his criminal past undermines his parental authority. He never oversells these concerns or plays them for false drama. They’re just minor anxieties, beautifully expressed in a plainspoken, thought-a-second flow that has relaxed with age. Nas rhymes so fluently that rap now feels like his first language. It’s easy to imagine him conducting all of his day-to-day conversations in verse, speaking in elaborate streams of internal rhyme and poetic wordplay as he orders a pizza or changes cell-phone providers.

But great verses have always come easy to Nas, even during the lowest hours of his up-and-down career. Unlike his overambitious, unevenly produced recent albums Hip Hop Is Dead and Untitled, though, Life Is Good fits Nas with beats that are as thoughtful as his prose. Primary producers Salaam Remi and No I.D. stuff their tracks with callbacks to golden-age rap: boom-bap drums, lush keyboards, smooth saxophones, and the occasional Run-D.M.C. and MC Shan sample—tasteful accents that celebrate hip-hop’s glory years without fetishizing them. Only the thoroughly out-of-place Swizz Beatz club thumper “Summer On Smash” breaks the album’s beatific spell; otherwise, Life Is Good leaves Nas in his comfort zone, where the vital music of his youth proves a rousing platform for commenting on matters of middle age” – The A.V. Club

Choice Cut: The Don

The Underrated Gem

 

I Am...

Release Date: 6th April, 1999

Label: Columbia

Producers: Nas (exec.)/Steve Stoute (exec./)L.E.S./DJ Premier/Trackmasters/Timbaland/Alvin West/Dame Grease/Nashiem Myrick/Carlos ‘Six July’ Broady

Standout Tracks: N.Y. State of Mind Pt. II/Hate Me Now (ft. Puff Daddy)/You Won't See Me Tonight (ft. Aaliyah)

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/nas/i-am

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4UhEjfIRx4tE1XRY21vwNa?si=aAPEW06aSymaI0KNR6Vaqg&dl_branch=1

Review:

“I’m at the Gambling spot/My hands on a knot/New York Yankees cap cover my eyes/Stand in one spot/ I take a nigga’s dough/Send him home to his shoe box/You lost that, nigga/I’ll put your dollar in a jukebox, Nas raps on “N.Y. State of Mind Pt. II.” Since his much-heralded arrival, in 1994, Nasir Jones has raised the stakes for urban elocutionists with mood-setting lines like this scenario of a cool criminal scheming on a vic. But within these glam-meets-ghetto days of hip-hop, the best MCs are those who can pass off their tragic dichotomies as cool: Rage against the machine and subscribe to the Robb Report; fuck the world but respect her in the morning. “Dime’s givin’ fellatio/Siete zeros/Bet my nine spit for the pesos/But what’s it all worth?/Can’t take it with you under this earth/Rich men died and tried/But none of it worked/They just rob your grave/I’d rather be alive and paid,” he observes on “Nas Is Like,” from I Am . . ., his third disc, jumping from the virtues of getting head, seven-figure lifestyles and busting guns to existentialism and back again, all in seconds. By comparison, it usually takes KRS-One at least two songs to refute himself so thoroughly.

Despite his years in the game, Nas is still a diamond in the rough — perhaps the rawest lyrical talent of his day but lacking the guidance and vision to create a complete album. He’s at his best on “Small World” and “Undying Love”: Sedative strings and twinkling keys back up winding narratives ripe with Shakespearean calamity. When biting song templates from the late Notorious B.I.G. — the Puffy-assisted tirade “Hate Me Now,” the sex manual “Dr. Knockboot” — he’s full of danceable, grooving entertainment, but the sentimental “We Will Survive” is a mediocre elegy to the souls of B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. When Timbaland and Aaliyah pop up on the thumping “You Won’t See Me Tonight,” Nas makes double infidelity sound like something to strive for; but “K-I-SS-I-N-G,” an eloquent tale of courtship and the difficulties of married life, is bogged down by a hook as corny as Mike and Carol Brady. Similarly, his quixotic attempts at social activism, “I Want to Talk to You” and “Ghetto Prisoners,” sound hokey. When he sings “I wanna talk to the mayor/To the governor/To the motherfuckin’ president/I wanna talk to the FBI/And the CIA/And the motherfuckin’ congressmen,” you figure that if singing this bad can’t get them to stop their ills, nothing will. But what I Am . . . lacks in content, it makes up for in lyrical acumen; the album doesn’t deliver the introspection its title implies, but it compensates for it in storytelling and craftsmanship. I Am . . . offers tantalizing hints of promise tethered by a need for pop acceptance — in a way it is what Nas is, warts and all” – Rolling Stone

Choice Cut: Nas Is Like

The Latest Album

 

King's Disease II

Release Date: 6th August, 2021

Label: Mass Appeal

Producers: B. Carr/Brian Alexander Morgan/Corbett/Eminem/Ezreaux/Hit-Boy/Jansport J/Rogét

Standout Tracks: The Pressure/Rare/Moments

Buy: https://www.hhv.de/shop/en/item/nas-king-s-disease-ii-gold-vinyl-edition-848096v1?f_lco=453054526&f_lcu=50&f_scp=44&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6s2IBhCnARIsAP8RfAgy-_mTwnIpvQR-bT_RQ37E3Ss6xm4bQL5b1DDantbkXs8E30u16FEaAouwEALw_wcB

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6CM5qhYBvpgYNek5kYwuOJ?si=Wsq6XDVTSfKogY9LA3JApA&dl_branch=1

Review:

“Last year’s King’s Disease, then, was intended as his triumphant, chest-thumping return. In some respects, it was: linking up with the likes of Hit-Boy for an album-length affair led to a cohesive product, and its highs were among the best material he’d released in years. Yet, despite picking up the Grammy for the year’s best hip hop album, its broad sense of nostalgia felt almost defensive, too comfortably snug to Nas’ nature.

All this makes King’s Disease II among the greatest surprises in music thus far this year. A course correction as sequel, the album finds Nas once again paired up with Hit-Boy - who brings the beats arguably more than ever before - and the two clearly did a supremely honest assessment of just what needed adjusting from their first offering.

Exactly how they pulled this off is initially something of a mystery. After all, the album still largely draws its narrative from mining nostalgia, yet, this time around, the album finds Nas acting as something a frank historian - from the regretful chronicle of East/West Coast beef that is “Death Row East” to the misty eyed, genuine stroll down memory lane of “Moments” (Nastalgia, anyone?).

King’s Disease II also finds strength in its storied guests. “EPMD 2” finds Nas, beyond having the legendary duo themselves playing support, finally linking up on the mic (discounting leaked reference tracks) with Eminem. To be sure, you already know what his verse sounds like: he attacks it with technical ability and flows as if his life depended on it, and while it finds him oddly keen on Christmas references (“That's a lot of bucks flyin' when I'm makin' it rain, dear” doesn’t at least amuse you, just know, you’re a registered hater), a tribute to the recent fallen, from DMX to MF DOOM, is welcome and bracing. Yet, even stronger still is Lauryn Hill’s turn on “Nobody”. Glancing at the tracklist before release, it was all too easy to assume Ms. Hill would simply drop by for a flawless hook, instead, she graces us with a supremely memorable verse. It’s as essential a moment in hip hop as any in 2021. On both tracks, a gracious Nas is more than willing to take a backseat to his guests, displaying just what shines through on King’s Disease II: his confidence that he’d nailed it this time around.

Indeed, seemingly sick of all the nitpicking he’s endured for decades now, Nas has crafted an album designated the only would it could be to escape such criticism: an impenetrable one. There’s not an ounce of fat, not a wasted moment, not a single beat that doesn’t suit its purpose to the letter. It’s a monolithic testament to a rapper tired of being treated as both the victor and the underdog at once. It’s undeniably clear just which one he is here. King’s Disease II is a victory lap that nonetheless never lets up its pace” – The Line of Best Fit

Choice Cut: Nobody (ft. Ms. Lauryn Hill)

The Nas Book

 

Nas's Illmatic - 33 1/3

Author: Matthew Gasteier

Publication Date: 1st June, 2009

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Synopsis:

“This title explores a key hip hop album marking the cross over point where the streets and the charts collided. Contradiction the simultaneous existence of two competing realities and larger than life persona are at the core of "Nas' Illmatic". Yet Nas' identity - as an inner-city youth, a child of hip hop and a Black American - predicts those philosophical quandaries as much as it does its brazen ambition. The artistic impact of Illmatic was massive. The record finds its place in the greatest transition in hip hop up to that point. Along with the Wu Tang Clan's debut from the previous year, Illmatic put New York back on the map after a long period of West coast, G-funk dominance. Nas also mapped out the laid-back lyrical style that would usher in the modern era of hip hop. "33 1/3" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike” – Waterstones

Order: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/matthew-gasteier/nas-s-illmatic

FEATURE: The August Playlist: Vol. 3: This Mood Ring Is One in a Million

FEATURE:

 

 

The August Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Lorde/PHOTO CREDIT: Ophelia Mikkelson Jones

Vol. 3: This Mood Ring Is One in a Million

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FOR this packed Playlist…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Aaliyah

there are some new tracks from Lorde, Aaliyah (or, technically, a track from an old album that has just been released on Spotify), Ed Sheeran, Angel Olsen, Sam Fender, Pip Blom, and Blossoms. We also have some tunes from Tiwa Savage (ft. Brandy), José González, GRACEY, and Villagers. If you need a bit of energy and motivation to get you into the weekend, then put these songs on and they should do the trick! It is another busy and eclectic week for music that should cater for most tastes. This August has been a really interesting one for music. Let’s hope that this continues! For the weekend ahead, make sure that you keep these tracks with you and…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Ed Sheeran

PLAY them loud.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

__________

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ben Sklar

Lorde – Mood Ring 

Aaliyah – One in a Million

Ed Sheeran – Visiting Hours

Sam Fender – Aye

Angel Olsen – Eyes Without a Face 

PHOTO CREDIT: Alma Rosaz

Remi Wolf - Grumpy Old Man

Pip Blom - You Don’t Want This 

Maisie Peters - Volcano

Blossoms – Care For

PHOTO CREDIT: Shane McCauley

James Blake – Life Is Not the Same

Jake Bugg – About Last Night

Tiwa Savage (ft. Brandy) – Somebody’s Son

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

Parquet Courts – Walking at a Downtown Pace

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikel Cee Karlsson

José González – Swing

GRACEY – What a Waste

PHOTO CREDIT: Fabrice Bourgelle

Jordan Rakei – Clouds

Orla Gartland – Things That I’ve Learned

Cleo Sol – Don’t Let Me Fall

Amber-Simone – Black, No Sugar

Lotic - Come Unto Me 

salem ilese - ben & jerry

PHOTO CREDIT: SHOT BY NEE

Deyah – Shoreditch

PHOTO CREDIT: Corinne Schiavone

Hana Vu - Everybody’s Birthday

PHOTO CREDIT: Ina Tatarko

Kiran Leonard – Sights Past 

Penelope Isles – Iced Gems 

Zola Courtney – Before We Were Us

Sam Williams (ft. Dolly Parton) - Happy All the Time 

Villagers – Circles in the Firing Line

Carrie Baxter – Something in the Water

DMA’S – We Are Midnight

PHOTO CREDIT: Fredrik Ahlberg

Lilly Ahlberg – Promise Me

t

Sarah Proctor – Tired

JONES – Read My Mind

Fia Moon – Simple

Ann Marie – Hate Love

Jelani Blackman – Bubblin

FEATURE: Beyoncé at Forty: Will We See the Return of Destiny’s Child?

FEATURE:

 

Beyoncé at Forty

Will We See the Return of Destiny’s Child?

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EVEN though we saw a raft of…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

iconic girl groups through the 1960s and 1970s, I think that the 1990s produced more than its fair share! Maybe our very own Spice Girls were among the most popular, though I always felt that the U.S. alternative was much stronger, varied and edgier. The tunes were hook-ier and bigger, the vocals finer and more accomplished. Few girl groups rivalled Destiny’s Child. Whilst there was personnel change in the ranks, the ‘classic line-up’ comprised Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. The trio performed together as part of Beyoncé’s Coachella set in 2018. Their performances together were sensational! Because Beyoncé is forty on 4th September, I am doing a number of features about her. Many would want a studio follow-up to her amazing 2016 album, Lemonade. That said, if there was another Destiny’s Child album, nobody would complain! The last album from the group, Destiny Fulfilled, arrived in 2004. It is an underrated record that contains some of the group’s best tracks. I would expect that, were there a reunion, we might get an album similar to that one. Beyoncé has confirmed she has been working on new music. DAZED ran an article recently after fans noticed how the social media pages for Destiny’s Child had changed:

“Destiny’s Child fans are buzzing after the group changed the header image on their Facebook and Twitter accounts earlier this week, prompting the question: is new music on the way?

The group’s name started to trend on Twitter shortly after, with fans speculating everything from reissues of old music to new material and a reunion tour.

 The trio previously caught up in May ahead of the release of Michelle Williams’ new book, Checking In: How Getting Real about Depression Saved My Life – and Can Save Yours. In an audio clip posted to Williams’ Twitter, Beyoncé can be heard saying: “I’m cooking some music.”

The singer recently confirmed this in a cover story for Harper’s Bazaar's September issue, where she stated: “Yes! New music is coming.”

“I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half. Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies,” she said. “Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years-old.”

While there hasn’t been any official news surrounding a Destiny’s Child release, Beyoncé’s recent Tiffany ambassadorship and her new Ivy Park collection hint that exciting things are on the horizon”.

Maybe there is going to be a tour or something of that sort. Their third studio album, Survivor, turned twenty earlier this year. I am writing this on 19th August; it is a bit too early to say what will come and whether it will be an album. Maybe, as Beyoncé is forty next month, there will be a celebration around that. If she were to lead Destiny’s Child out on a tour or announce that they had written an album, that would send fans wild! I would definitely be up for that.

It has yet to be seen. Destiny’s Child are one of the finest girl groups ever. Soulful, sassy, inspiring and replete with gems, it is a shame that 2004 was when we last heard an album from them. That said, Beyoncé especially was keen to go solo and try something new. There is still a lot of love between her, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. Let us hope that rumours translate to announcements in the coming days and weeks. I shall wrap things up. I am engrossing myself in Beyoncé for the next week or so. Ahead of a big birthday, it gives me an excuse to delve into her music and how influential she. Recent possibilities of a Destiny’s Child project have definitely got people interested. We shall see what comes. Maybe it is not going to be an album that sounds like their music in the early-2000s. It may – if there is an album – be a more composed and mature offering. Perhaps there is a Beyoncé album in addition to some Destiny’s Child dates. The thought of the incredible girl group touring and bringing those classics to the fans is what we need right now! Their chemistry, strength, incredible singing and awesome tracks are enough to…

TAKE our breath.

FEATURE: I Get My Machine to Let Them In: The Vocal Changes on Kate Bush’s The Dreaming

FEATURE:

 

 

I Get My Machine to Let Them In

The Vocal Changes on Kate Bush’s The Dreaming

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I have quite a run of Kate Bush features next month…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

as a few of her studio albums were released in September. She tended to release her studio albums between September and November. I am not sure why, though I do like the fact we have the chance to reinspect these great albums. The Dreaming arrived in September 1982. It is an album that marked a huge shift for Bush. A lot of the reviews for the album were quite mixed. Many felt that there were so many sounds clashing and it was a very busy and crowded album. I think one aspect that critics latched onto was the vocals. There are a lot of overdubs, accents and layers through The Dreaming. Although Bush had always put in vocal layers and a cast of characters, there is a distinct leap from 1980’s Never for Ever and The Dreaming. As the sole producer on the album, Bush could take her music exactly where it needed to go. She has looked at The Dreaming as an album where she maybe went a bit mad; like she was making a statement as An Artist. It is a stunning album with ten tracks that are so fascinating and accomplished. The lyrics throughout are astonishing and so impressive! Bush has this knack of being able to twist words and phrases. She offers up these unique and inspiring thoughts and lines that make you think. The Dreaming is full of that. It is the vocal work throughout that, to me, is the standout.

Maybe critics were expecting an album that was a bit lighter and less overloaded. The fact the album got to three in the U.K. meant there was a lot of love from the fans. It was two years since Bush released Never for Ever, so this sense of anticipation surrounded The Dreaming. One of the issues Bush had with her earlier albums was the vocals. Feeling they were a bit high-pitched, young-sounding and limited, The Dreaming contains greater vocal dexterity, these different accents and a rawer, deeper sound. That said, Bush mixes graceful beauty together with something intense and, at times, frightening. I have written about Kate Bush’s voice and how she changed between albums. Now, I specifically want to look at the transition and notable difference between her 1982-released album and her vocals on the first three albums, The Kick Inside (1978), Lionheart (1978) and Never for Ever (1980). Maybe not as pronounced but, consider The Beatles in 1963 and 1967. In four years, they had embraced the studio more. They had tired of touring and had chance to focus on pushing their sound forward. Bush, in the four years between 1978 and 1982, had also changed radically. Not that she tired of touring, though it is clear that she wanted to concentrate more on making albums. I will explore the vocal side more.

Before then, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides a few interview snippets where Bush talked about The Dreaming. I have selected a couple:

“Yes, it's very important for me to change. In fact, as soon as the songs began to be written, I knew that the album was going to be quite different. I'd hate it, especially now, if my albums became similar, because so much happens to me between each album - my views change quite drastically. What's nice about this album is that it's what I've always wanted to do. For instance, the Australian thing: well, I wanted to do that on the last album, but there was no time. There are quite a few ideas and things that I've had whizzing around in my head that just haven't been put down. I've always wanted to use more traditional influences and instruments, especially the Irish ones. I suppose subconsciously I've wanted to do all this for quite some time, but I've never really had the time until now. ('The Dreaming'. Poppix (UK), Summer 1982)”.

“I have no doubt that those who buy singles because they like my hits, are completely mystified upon hearing the albums. But if it comes to that, they should listen to it loudly! If a single theme linked The Dreaming, which is quite varied, it would be human relationships and emotional problems. Every being responds principally to emotions. Some people are very cool, but they are silenced by their emotions, whatever they might be. To write a song, it's necessary that I be completely steeped in my environment, in my subject. Sometimes the original idea is maintained, but as it takes form, it possesses me.

One of the best examples would be this song that I wrote on 'Houdini': I knew every one of the things that I wanted to say, and it was necessary that I find new ways that would allow me to say them; the hardest thing, is when you have so many things to fit into so short a space of time. You have to be concise and at the same time not remain vague, or obscure. The Dreaming was a decisive album for me. I hadn't recorded in a very long time until I undertook it, and that was the first time that I'd had such liberty. It was intoxicating and frightening at the same time. I could fail at everything and ruin my career at one fell swoop. All this energy, my frustrations, my fears, my wish to succeed, all that went into the record. That's the principle of music: to liberate all the tensions that exist inside you. I tried to give free rein to all my fantasies. Although all of the songs do not talk about me, they represent all the facets of my personality, all my different attitudes in relation to the world. In growing older, I see more and more clearly that I am crippled in facing the things that really count, and that I can do nothing about it, just as most people can do nothing. Making an album is insignificant in comparison with that, but it's my only defense. (Yves Bigot, 'Englishwoman is crossing the continents'. Guitares et Claviers (France), February 1986)”.

The vocals throughout The Dreaming are immense. I feel Kate Bush is one of the most technical and finest vocalists ever. Each song is sung differently. The opening track, Sat in Your Lap, is frantic, physical and acrobatic. There Goes a Tenner is Bush taking on a cockney accent; Pull Out the Pin, Suspended in Gaffa and Leave It Open all have their own vocal sound. The Dreaming’s title track is Bush with an Australian accent, whilst Night of the Swallow and All the Love cannot prepare us for the epic closing one-two of Houdini and Get Out of My House. If one could see a vocal thread and type through The Kick Inside, there is nothing really that connects the songs on The Dreaming. Such is the wide array of vocal tones; this is a very different artist to the one of her debut. Alongside the vocal changes was the fact the compositions were a lot different. The proliferation of the Fairlight CMI, I feel, gave her greater confidence to experiment with her vocals and  broaden her palette. The lack of commercial and conventional tracks was something that took many critics aback. It is clear Bush wanted a more adult and grown-up vocal sound for The Dreaming. Something more masculine, perhaps. One example of her astonishing vocal firepower comes from the album closer, Get Out of My House. In this Medium feature from 2019, some interesting observations about the song were made:

“The song is inspired by the Stephen King novel (famously adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick) The Shining. According to Kate, it is “the only book I’ve read that has frightened me.” (1982, KBC Issue 12) The influence is apparent in the song’s subject matter: a human as a house boarding itself up from demonic outside forces trying to get in. Eventually when these demonic forces or spirits do get in and start chasing the narrator, the narrator shapeshifts and eventually turns around to scare away what is chasing them down.

Like the transforming narrator, Kate shifts into different characters (the house’s inhabitant, the concierge, a literal mule) and disembodied backing vocals while featuring other people to sing as well (engineer Phil Hardiman, brother Paddy Bush and guest Esmail Sheikh.) The song is also overflowing with symbols — dirty window panes, keys (carried over from Houdini), cats and mules, and of course the House. The mule we hear at the end is a courageous departure for Kate. In the song, the mule turns to scare away the undesirable guest, perhaps a fearful noise and animal, but also symbolic for how stubborn mules are. It is Kate turning in the faces of those who doubt her or make fun of her and standing up for herself.

After the narrator becomes the mule, “Hee-haw”-ing away, we hear Esmail Sheikh reciting rhythmic Indian syllables (Dha Dhin Dha Dha…) in a performance style known as Konnakkol (Bol refers to the specific syllables themselves.) This is yet another international element in found in the album, and Konnakkol is heard again later on in a Fruitopia jingle Kate composed in 1994, known as “Skin”.

This song stands as a testimony of Kate’s creativity. It strikes fear in those who listen, yet stands courageous as a strange and innovative piece of music.

In the album’s liner notes there’s a note that reads “This album was made to be played loud.” And if this song is any indication, Kate is right”.

As it turns forty next year, I do think that the balance of opinion has changed regarding The Dreaming. It is more respected…and many have changed their minds. It has found a wider audience. Following the stress and endless work of putting together The Dreaming, Bush refreshed and reset for 1985’s Hounds of Love. One thing she did take with her is that vocal width and breadth. Tonally and stylistically different, one can hear many layers and vocal sounds through Hounds of Love. The Dreaming is remarkable for a number of reasons. With a notably different vocal sound at the forefront through the album, this was Kate Bush breaking away from her first few albums and almost starting over. It is no surprise that one of the greatest singers ever would flourish and fly on an album as broad and fascinating as The Dreaming, The vocals through the 1982 album is Bush at…

HER very best.

FEATURE: Inspired By... Part Twenty-Five: Miles Davis

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By...

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Palumbo 

Part Twenty-Five: Miles Davis

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ON 28th September…

it will be thirty years since Miles Davis died. The legendary Jazz trumpeter and bandleader is one of the most influential musicians ever. I am going to end with a compilation of songs from artists influenced by the great man. Before then, here is some extensive biography from AllMusic:

“A monumental innovator, icon, and maverick, trumpeter Miles Davis helped define the course of jazz as well as popular culture in the 20th century, bridging the gap between bebop, modal music, funk, and fusion. Throughout most of his 50-year career, Davis played the trumpet in a lyrical, introspective style, often employing a stemless Harmon mute to make his sound more personal and intimate. It was a style that, along with his brooding stage persona, earned him the nickname "Prince of Darkness." However, Davis proved to be a dazzlingly protean artist, moving into fiery modal jazz in the '60s and electrified funk and fusion in the '70s, drenching his trumpet in wah-wah pedal effects along the way. More than any other figure in jazz, Davis helped establish the direction of the genre with a steady stream of boundary-pushing recordings, among them 1957's chamber jazz album Birth of the Cool (which collected recordings from 1949-1950), 1959's modal masterpiece Kind of Blue, 1960's orchestral album Sketches of Spain, and 1970's landmark fusion recording Bitches Brew. Davis' own playing was obviously at the forefront of those changes, but he also distinguished himself as a bandleader, regularly surrounding himself with sidemen and collaborators who likewise moved in new directions, including the luminaries John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, and many more. While he remains one of the most referenced figures in jazz, a major touchstone for generations of trumpeters (including Wynton Marsalis, Chris Botti, and Nicholas Payton), his music reaches far beyond the jazz tradition, and can be heard in the genre-bending approach of performers across the musical spectrum, ranging from funk and pop to rock, electronica, hip-hop, and more.

Born in 1926, Davis was the son of dental surgeon, Dr. Miles Dewey Davis, Jr., and a music teacher, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis, and grew up in the Black middle class of East St. Louis after the family moved there shortly after his birth. He became interested in music during his childhood and by the age of 12 began taking trumpet lessons. While still in high school, he got jobs playing in local bars and at 16 was playing gigs out of town on weekends. At 17, he joined Eddie Randle's Blue Devils, a territory band based in St. Louis. He enjoyed a personal apotheosis in 1944, just after graduating from high school, when he saw and was allowed to sit in with Billy Eckstine's big band, which was playing in St. Louis. The band featured trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker, the architects of the emerging bebop style of jazz, which was characterized by fast, inventive soloing and dynamic rhythm variations.

It is striking that Davis fell so completely under Gillespie and Parker's spell, since his own slower and less flashy style never really compared to theirs. But bebop was the new sound of the day, and the young trumpeter was bound to follow it. He did so by leaving the Midwest to attend the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (renamed Juilliard) in September 1944. Shortly after his arrival in Manhattan, he was playing in clubs with Parker, and by 1945 he had abandoned his academic studies for a full-time career as a jazz musician, initially joining Benny Carter's band and making his first recordings as a sideman. He played with Eckstine in 1946-1947 and was a member of Parker's group in 1947-1948, making his recording debut as a leader on a 1947 session that featured Parker, pianist John Lewis, bassist Nelson Boyd, and drummer Max Roach. This was an isolated date, however, and Davis spent most of his time playing and recording behind Parker. But in the summer of 1948, he organized a nine-piece band with an unusual horn section. In addition to himself, it featured an alto saxophone, a baritone saxophone, a trombone, a French horn, and a tuba. This nonet, employing arrangements by Gil Evans and others, played for two weeks at the Royal Roost in New York in September. Earning a contract with Capitol Records, the band went into the studio in January 1949 for the first of three sessions and produced 12 tracks that attracted little attention at first. The band's relaxed sound, however, affected the musicians who played it, among them Kai Winding, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, J.J. Johnson, and Kenny Clarke, and it had a profound influence on the development of the cool jazz style on the West Coast. (In February 1957, Capitol finally issued the tracks together on an LP called Birth of the Cool.)

Davis, meanwhile, had moved on to co-leading a band with pianist Tadd Dameron in 1949, and the group took him out of the country for an appearance at the Paris Jazz Festival in May. But the trumpeter's progress was impeded by an addiction to heroin that plagued him in the early '50s. His performances and recordings became more haphazard, but in January 1951 he began a long series of recordings for the Prestige label that became his main recording outlet for the next several years. He managed to kick his habit by the middle of the decade, and he made a strong impression playing "'Round Midnight" at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1955, a performance that led major-label Columbia to sign him. The prestigious contract allowed him to put together a permanent band, and he organized a quintet featuring saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, who began recording his Columbia debut, 'Round About Midnight, in October.

As it happened, however, he had a remaining five albums on his Prestige contract, and over the next year he was forced to alternate his Columbia sessions with sessions for Prestige to fulfill this previous commitment. The latter resulted in the Prestige albums The New Miles Davis Quintet, Cookin', Workin', Relaxin', and Steamin', making Davis' first quintet one of his better-documented outfits. In May 1957, just three months after Capitol released the Birth of the Cool LP, Davis again teamed with arranger Gil Evans for his second Columbia LP, Miles Ahead. Playing flügelhorn, Davis fronted a big band on music that extended the Birth of the Cool concept and even had classical overtones. Released in 1958, the album was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, intended to honor recordings made before the Grammy Awards were instituted in 1959.

In December 1957, Davis returned to Paris, where he improvised the background music for the film L'Ascenseur pour l'Echafaud. Jazz Track, an album containing this music, earned him a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group. He added saxophonist Cannonball Adderley to his group, creating the Miles Davis Sextet, which recorded Milestones in April 1958. Shortly after this recording, Red Garland was replaced on piano by Bill Evans and Jimmy Cobb took over for Philly Joe Jones on drums. In July, Davis again collaborated with Gil Evans and an orchestra on an album of music from Porgy and Bess. Back in the sextet, Davis began to experiment with modal playing, basing his improvisations on scales rather than chord changes.

This led to his next band recording, Kind of Blue, in March and April 1959, an album that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular album of Davis' career, eventually selling over two million copies, a phenomenal success for a jazz record. In sessions held in November 1959 and March 1960, Davis again followed his pattern of alternating band releases and collaborations with Gil Evans, recording Sketches of Spain, containing traditional Spanish music and original compositions in that style. The album earned Davis and Evans Grammy nominations in 1960 for Best Jazz Performance, Large Group, and Best Jazz Composition, More Than 5 Minutes; they won in the latter category.

By the time Davis returned to the studio to make his next band album in March 1961, Adderley had departed, Wynton Kelly had replaced Bill Evans at the piano, and John Coltrane had left to begin his successful solo career, being replaced by saxophonist Hank Mobley (following the brief tenure of Sonny Stitt). Nevertheless, Coltrane guested on a couple of tracks of the album, called Someday My Prince Will Come. The record made the pop charts in March 1962, but it was preceded into the best-seller lists by the Davis quintet's next recording, the two-LP set Miles Davis in Person (Friday & Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, San Francisco), recorded in April. The following month, Davis recorded another live show, as he and his band were joined by an orchestra led by Gil Evans at Carnegie Hall in May. The resulting Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall was his third LP to reach the pop charts, and it earned Davis and Evans a 1962 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance by a Large Group, Instrumental. Davis and Evans teamed up again in 1962 for what became their final collaboration, Quiet Nights. The album was not issued until 1964, when it reached the charts and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Large Group or Soloist with Large Group.

In 1996, Columbia Records released a six-CD box set, Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, that won the Grammy for Best Historical Album. Quiet Nights was preceded into the marketplace by Davis' next band effort, Seven Steps to Heaven, recorded in the spring of 1963 with an entirely new lineup consisting of saxophonist George Coleman, pianist Victor Feldman, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Frank Butler. During the sessions, Feldman was replaced by Herbie Hancock and Butler by Tony Williams. The album found Davis making a transition to his next great group, of which Carter, Hancock, and Williams would be members. It was another pop chart entry that earned 1963 Grammy nominations for both Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Soloist or Small Group and Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Large Group. The quintet followed with two live albums, Miles Davis in Europe, recorded in July 1963, which made the pop charts and earned a 1964 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Small Group or Soloist with Small Group, and My Funny Valentine, recorded in February 1964 and released in 1965, when it reached the pop charts.

By September 1964, the final member of the classic Miles Davis Quintet of the '60s was in place with the addition of saxophonist Wayne Shorter to the team of Davis, Carter, Hancock, and Williams. While continuing to play standards in concert, this unit embarked on a series of albums of original compositions contributed by the bandmembers themselves, starting in January 1965 with E.S.P., followed by Miles Smiles (1967 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Small Group or Soloist with Small Group [7 or Fewer]), Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky (1968 Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Small Group or Soloist with Small Group), and Filles de Kilimanjaro. By the time of Miles in the Sky, the group had begun to turn to electric instruments, presaging Davis' next stylistic turn. By the final sessions for Filles de Kilimanjaro in September 1968, Hancock had been replaced by Chick Corea and Carter by Dave Holland. But Hancock, along with pianist Joe Zawinul and guitarist John McLaughlin, participated on Davis' next album, In a Silent Way (1969), which returned the trumpeter to the pop charts for the first time in four years and earned him another small-group jazz performance Grammy nomination. With his next album, Bitches Brew, Davis turned more overtly to a jazz-rock style. Though certainly not conventional rock music, Davis' electrified sound attracted a young, non-jazz audience while putting off traditional jazz fans.

Bitches Brew, released in March 1970, reached the pop Top 40 and became Davis' first album to be certified gold. It also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Arrangement and won the Grammy for large-group jazz performance. He followed it with such similar efforts as Miles Davis at Fillmore East (1971 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance by a Group), A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, On the Corner, and In Concert, all of which reached the pop charts. Meanwhile, Davis' former sidemen became his disciples in a series of fusion groups: Corea formed Return to Forever, Shorter and Zawinul led Weather Report, and McLaughlin and former Davis drummer Billy Cobham organized the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Starting in October 1972, when he broke his ankles in a car accident, Davis became less active in the early '70s, and in 1975 he gave up recording entirely due to illness, undergoing surgery for hip replacement later in the year. Five years passed before he returned to action by recording The Man with the Horn in 1980 and going back to touring in 1981.

By now, he was an elder statesman of jazz, and his innovations had been incorporated into the music, at least by those who supported his eclectic approach. He was also a celebrity whose appeal extended far beyond the basic jazz audience. He performed on the worldwide jazz festival circuit and recorded a series of albums that made the pop charts, including We Want Miles (1982 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist), Star People, Decoy, and You're Under Arrest. In 1986, after 30 years with Columbia, he switched to Warner Bros. and released Tutu, which won him his fourth Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.

Aura, an album he had recorded in 1984, was released by Columbia in 1989 and brought him his fifth Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist (on a Jazz Recording). Davis surprised jazz fans when, on July 8, 1991, he joined an orchestra led by Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival to perform some of the arrangements written for him in the late '50s by Gil Evans; he had never previously looked back at an aspect of his career. He died of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke within months. Doo-Bop, his last studio album, appeared in 1992. It was a collaboration with rapper Easy Mo Bee, and it won a Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Instrumental Performance, with the track "Fantasy" nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo. Released in 1993, Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux won Davis his seventh Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance.

Miles Davis took an all-inclusive, constantly restless approach to jazz that won him accolades and earned him controversy during his lifetime. It was hard to recognize the bebop acolyte of Charlie Parker in the flamboyantly dressed leader who seemed to keep one foot on a wah-wah pedal and one hand on an electric keyboard in his later years. But he did much to popularize jazz, reversing the trend away from commercial appeal that bebop started. And whatever the fripperies and explorations, he retained an ability to play moving solos that endeared him to audiences and demonstrated his affinity with tradition. He is a reminder of the music's essential quality of boundless invention, using all available means. Twenty-four years after Davis' death, he was the subject of Miles Ahead, a biopic co-written and directed by Don Cheadle, who also portrayed him. Its soundtrack functioned as a career overview with additional music provided by pianist Robert Glasper and associates. Additionally, Glasper enlisted many of his collaborators to help record Everything's Beautiful, a separate release that incorporated Davis' master recordings and outtakes into new compositions. In 2020, the trumpeter was also the focus of director Stanley Nelson's documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which showcased music from throughout Davis' career. Also included on the documentary's soundtrack was a newly produced track, "Hail to the Real Chief," constructed out of previously unreleased Davis recordings by the trumpeter's fusion-era bandmates drummer Lenny White and drummer (and nephew) Vince Wilburn, Jr.”.

To celebrate Miles Davis and the artists that he has inspired, this playlist throws some love his way. One might assume that only Jazz musicians have been inspired by Davis. That is not the case. Here are some artists who owe a nod…

TO the Jazz icon.

FEATURE: Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me: Basement Jaxx - Remedy

FEATURE:

 

 

Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me

Basement Jaxx - Remedy

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I might run this feature down…

as I have covered albums that were important to me during childhood. It was a special time where I was discovering and digesting as many albums as possible. One that was important arrived at the very end of my childhood. I would say sixteen is the transition from childhood to adulthood. One of the best of 1999 arrived from Basement Jaxx. Their debut, Remedy, was a reaction to the rather bland and lifeless Dance and Club music that was round then – especially what was coming from the U.K. I will come onto my memories of the album and why it was pivotal. It was exciting hearing Basement Jaxx arrive. Remedy is packed with colour and a fusion of sounds. Although Pitchfork gave Remedy a crappy review – they are loathed to give too much praise! -, most were very impressed and heralded a terrific group. In fact, Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe are the men and brains behind the Jaxx. I don’t think we have really seen another act like them. There is some okay Dance and Electronic music now, though few acts can match the headiness and bliss one gets from an album like Remedy. It is worth bringing in a couple of positive reviews for Remedy. This is what AllMusic had to offer:

“The duo's long-awaited debut album is one of the most assured, propulsive full-lengths the dance world had seen since Daft Punk's Homework. A set of incredibly diverse tracks, Remedy is indebted to the raw American house of Todd Terry and Masters at Work, and even shares the NuYoricans' penchant for Latin vibes (especially on the horn-driven "Bingo Bango" and the opener, "Rendez-Vu," which trades a bit of salsa wiggle with infectious vocoderized disco). True, Ratcliffe and Buxton do sound more like an American production team than a pair of Brixton boys would -- they get props (and vocal appearances) from several of the best American house producers out there including DJ Sneak, Erick Morillo, and Benji Candelario. And "U Can't Stop Me" is an R&B production that could probably have gotten airplay in major rap markets across the U.S. Elsewhere, Buxton and Ratcliffe chew up and spit out mutated versions of hip-hop, ragga, Latin, R&B, soul, and garage -- the varied sound that defined the worldwide house scene of the late '90s”.

I don’t think Remedy is a product of the late-1990s; an album that has not aged too well or cannot resonate. I listen to the album now and it sounds so big, important and mesmeric! It is no wonder that so many tipped Basement Jaxx for great things in 1999! This is what NME wrote in their review:

“Indeed, 'Remedy' is probably as good a dance album (and that's dance as in, have a dance) as anyone from these Isles has produced this decade. Hate them that little bit more now? Come on, fight it. Imagine, instead, that you're fiddling through the radio band looking for something that, for a change, consistently surprises and lifts you. 'Remedy' is that pirate. It's a wonderful new frequency where house, ragga, techno, soul, funk... Jesus, flamenco are all mashed together and it feels like some kind of perfect moment.

It's a soundtrack that starts frantically in the dead of night and progresses to a peaceful, if disoriented dawn. Here is beautifully melodic dance music that's free of pretensions, but rammed with bold intelligence; that hits you as hard in the guts as it does in the feet. It's an excellent ride.

It starts unconventionally with the folk techno barrage of 'Rendez-Vu', all flamenco guitars, vocoder and romantic longing, and really doesn't look back. Marvel at 'Jump'n'Shout''s heads-down/hands-up ragga nuttiness (MC Slarta quite rightly scorning those who, "never did know the rules/They never did go to Basement Jaxx school"). Laugh at the genius of turning The Selecter's 'On My Radio' into a punky hip-hop anthem on 'Same Old Show'. And wonder how Goldie can ever make another concept album now that his whole long-playing career has been so economically condensed into 'Always Be There''s spun-out six minutes.

These are some of the peaks on an album that really - save for 'Bingo Bango''s over-exuberant Latino outburst - doesn't have any dips. In fact 'Remedy' describes itself accurately. Maybe it will cure the British dance disease of confusing intelligence with a need to journey up its own arse, and it highlights, once again, that musical boundaries are only there to be blurred. Above all, though, it blasts your petty prejudices clean out of the water”.

My first experience with Remedy is the huge single, Red Alert. It is the highlight of the album. I have said this in own features, but that song was played at my high school leaving prom in 1999. It was a slightly bittersweet night - though music played then has stuck with me. I was not a huge fan of House or that style of music. I was much more about Pop and R&B during the 1990s. Songs like Red Alert were really eye-opening! I became more engaged with Dance after that. I broadened my viewpoint and listened to more Techno, Café Del Mar, Club classics, modern Electronica and music that I had otherwise have overlooked. Remedy was a really important album that soundtracked various moments as I left high school. Other favourite songs from the album of mine include Rendez-Vu, Yo-Yo and Bingo Bango. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe blended these cocktails together and made them work. With elements of Latin House, Ragga-House and so much more, there is so much to enjoy through Remedy. I listen to the album now and I can still get so much from it! Such an enjoyable, varied and rich record, I hope that it does inspire artists still. I feel Dance music is not in a great state now. Artists and musicians could do well to borrow some elements from Remedy. The year 1999 was a changing one from me where I left high school and started sixth form college. I see that year as me going into adulthood and, in many ways, leaving my childhood behind. Therefore, albums from that year are so important. Right near the top of the list is…

BASEMENT Jaxx’s debut masterpiece.