FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Forty-Four: Alanis Morissette

FEATURE:

 

Inspired By…

PHOTO CREDIT: Stuart Pettican 

Part Forty-Four: Alanis Morissette

___________

I have featured Alanis Morissette before…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Terry O’Neill/Getty Images

and included some details and biography about her. I am going to again today, but I am doing it for a feature where I compile songs from artists inspired by her. No doubt, there are a lot of great artists who have been compelled by the phenomenal music and long career of Morissette. Her sound is so individual to her, but one can definitely hear some elements of it in other artists. I think that we will hear music from the Canadian legend for years to come. Before coming onto the playlist itself, here is some biography about the incredible Alanis Morissette:

“Pitched halfway between glossy mainstream pop and angst-ridden alternative rock, Alanis Morissette's American debut Jagged Little Pill caught the zeitgeist of the mid-'90s, splitting the difference between Gen-X cynicism and self-help actualization. Spinning off a series of Top Ten singles, including "You Oughta Know," "Hand in My Pocket," and "Ironic," and winning the 1996 Grammy for Album of the Year, Jagged Little Pill became an international blockbuster so squarely tied to its time, it threatened to leave Morissette behind in the '90s. Instead, the album gave her a lasting career, one she cultivated through emotional candor and music she gently modulated as she matured. The Top 40 hits slowed after "Hands Clean," the single pulled from 2002's self-produced Under Rug Swept, but Morissette worked steadily, her albums reflecting an earned serenity while retaining the wit and insight that made her a cultural phenomenon in the '90s.

Morissette was born in Ottawa, Canada, and began playing piano and writing songs during her childhood years. She also joined the cast of You Can't Do That on Television, a children's television program. Using money that she earned on the show, Morissette recorded an independent single, "Fate Stay with Me," which was released when she was only ten years old. She then concentrated on a musical career after leaving the show's cast, signing a music publishing contract when she was 14. The publishing contract led to a record deal with MCA Canada, and Morissette moved to Toronto before releasing her debut album, Alanis, in 1991.

Alanis was a collection of pop-oriented dance numbers and ballads that found success in Canada, selling over 100,000 copies and earning the singer a Juno Award for Most Promising Female Artist. However, no other country paid much attention to the record. In 1992, Morissette released Now Is the Time, an album that closely resembled her debut. Like its predecessor, it was a success in Canada, even if its sales did not match those of Alanis. Following the release of Now Is the Time, Morissette relocated to Los Angeles, where she met veteran producer Glen Ballard in early 1994. Ballard had previously written Michael Jackson's hit single "Man in the Mirror," produced Wilson Phillips' hit debut album, and worked with actor/musician David Hasselhoff. The two decided to work together, and despite their shared experience with mainstream pop, they opted instead to pursue an edgier, alternative rock-oriented direction. The result was Jagged Little Pill, which was released in 1995 on Madonna's label, Maverick Records.

On the strength of the angst-ridden single "You Oughta Know," Jagged Little Pill gained attention upon its release in the summer of 1995. The song soon received heavy airplay from alternative radio outlets and MTV, sending the album into the Top Ten and helping it achieve multi-platinum status. Jagged Little Pill's subsequent singles -- "Hand in My Pocket," "All I Really Want," "You Learn," and "Ironic" -- kept the album in the Top Ten for an astounding 69 weeks, and Morissette was nominated for six Grammys in early 1996. She won several of those awards, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year.

While she never managed to replicate the success of Jagged Little Pill, Morissette continued to release well-received albums into the 21st century. Her much-anticipated follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was released in the autumn of 1998, setting a record for the highest first-week sales by a female artist. An Unplugged set appeared a year later and featured a cover of the Police's "King of Pain," while 2002's Under Rug Swept saw Morissette writing and producing without the help of collaborators. So-Called Chaos followed in 2004. A year later, she took Jagged Little Pill on the road as an acoustic tour. Those tour dates led to the release of Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, an album originally (and tellingly) sold exclusively through Starbucks outlets. Morissette and her fans had grown up, and Collection -- an 18-track retrospective of her work -- followed in November 2005. But Morissette wasn't done, returning in 2008 with the brooding Flavors of Entanglement, which dealt with the emotional fallout from the dissolution of her engagement with actor Ryan Reynolds. In 2010, Morissette gave birth to her first child, Ever Imre, with rapper Mario "MC Souleye" Treadway, resulting in 2012's spry and hopeful Havoc and Bright Lights, which focused on spirituality, marriage, and motherhood; it debuted at five on the Billboard Top 200. Over the next few years, Morissette played some acoustic shows, acted, and launched a self-help podcast. Also in 2015, she celebrated the 20th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill with the release of a four-CD Collector's Edition reissue of the album. In December 2019, she released "Reasons I Drink," which served as the first single off her ninth studio album, 2020's Such Pretty Forks in the Road”.

I am going to leave it there. The playlist below is a collection of songs from artists who, in some way, owe a debt to Alanis Morissette. One of the greatest artists of her time, let us hope that Morissette has many more albums left in her. She is someone who has left behind so many iconic songs. As you can hear from the playlist, these artists would be less…

WITHOUT the brilliant Alanis Morissette.

FEATURE: Too Long I Roam in the Night: Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Four

FEATURE:

 

 

Too Long I Roam in the Night

PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz 

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Four

___________

DESPITE the fact there have been…

a few covers of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, nothing beats the magic and sheer oddity of the originally. Bush’s debut single was officially released on 20th January, 1978 (though it was leaked the year before and played on radio). I wanted to mark forty-four years of one of the greatest debut singles ever. Reaching number one in the U.K., few people would have expected a song like Wuthering Heights would do so well at a time when Punk was still a huge force. Taking ABBA’s Take a Chance on Me off of the top spot, actually, the records that topped the U.K. chart in early-1978 are eclectic. With songs from The Bee Gees, Boney M, and The Commodores ending up as huge hits, maybe there was this appetite for music that was more interesting and different to what was being offered elsewhere. Even so, Wuthering Heights is a song one cannot compare to anything else. From her debut album, The Kick Inside, it was Bush herself that fought EMI to get the song released as her first single (they wanted the more conventional and commercial James and the Cold Gun). It is a sign that Bush wanted to not only have a bigger say in how her music was released; she also wanted to stand out and present songs that were not immediately familiar or accessible. I am not surprised Wuthering Heights has endured and remains one of the most-loved songs ever.

The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives us details and facts behind the extraordinary, mesmeric and timeless masterpiece that is Wuthering Heights:

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

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

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

 Originally, record company EMI's Bob Mercer had chosen another track, James And The Cold Gun as the lead single, but Kate Bush was determined that ‘Wuthering Heights’ would be her first release.  She won out eventually in a surprising show of determination for a young musician against a major record company, and this would not be the only time she took a stand against them to control her career.

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

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

I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn't seem to get out of the chorus - it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn't link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it. I was really pleased, because it was the first song I had written for a while, as I'd been busy rehearsing with the KT Band.

I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn't relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.

It's funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she didn't know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct. A similar thing happened with 'Wuthering Heights': I put lines in the song that I found in the book when I read it later.

I've never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it's supposed to be.

One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I've had from the song, though I've heard that the Bronte Society think it's a disgrace. A lot of people have read the book because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about it for me. I didn't know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song helped them. I'm really happy about that.

There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song. When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song. Also, when I was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him. When I came back I had this urge to switch on the TV - it was about one in the morning - because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on. I tuned in to a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, playing channel roulette, until I found it. I came in at the moment Cathy was dying, so that's all I saw of the film. It was an amazing coincidence.

Kate Bush Club Newsletter, January 1979”.

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

It is fascinating reading about Wuthering Heights and how it cane about. I can imagine Bush sitting at her piano and looking up at the moon as she wrote the song on that fabulous night. I have been meaning to have lyrics from Wuthering Heights tattooed on my arm. Containing some of Bush’s finest lyrics, one can imagine themselves in the scene; in the song, as we see the ghostly Catherine at the window of Heathcliff. With an incredible performance by the band (drums: Stuart Elliott, bass, celeste: Andrew Powell, acoustic guitars: David Paton, electric guitar: Ian Bairnson, organ: Duncan Mackay, percussion: Morris Pert), it must have been so satisfying hearing Wuthering Heights back after the recording! Among the stunning lyrics, this is perhaps my favourite passage: “Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely/On the other side from you./I pine a lot. I find the lot/Falls through without you./I'm coming back, love/Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream/My only master”. Although Wuthering Heights is one of Kate Bush’s most recognised songs, it is not played on the radio a whole lot (compared with some of the songs from Hounds of Love, certainly). I am going to finish off with another article about the song. One cannot overstate how groundbreaking Wuthering Heights and Kate Bush was in 1978:

“A phenom for her time, Kate Bush debuted her first album The Kick Inside in 1978, when she was just 19 years old. This year marks the 40th anniversary of its release and our introduction to one of the most wildly unique performers of our time.

Bush was not only one of the first British singer-songwriters to blend performance art and choreographed dance together (now categorized as “art rock”), but she was also the first female artist to reach #1 on the UK charts for her single “Wuthering Heights.” The track remains perhaps one of the most haunting musical tributes to a piece of literature ever.

Listening to Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” for the first time is a spiritual experience—appropriate for a song that is also about a spiritual experience. The verb “wuther” fits the bill for this dual mystical experience. As in, “I laid on the ground in someone’s off-campus college housing, I burned Nag Champa, and Kate Bush completely wuthered me.” Okay, so that is an example from my real life. Yes, the first time I heard “Wuthering Heights,” it was in that very environment and on repeat for hours. Even in the heyday of cassette tapes, it was worth every manual rewind to have Bush's otherworldly voice sing me into oblivion.

The song is richly layered with piano, electric guitar, and an amazing bass line. Bush sings in the voice of Catherine, Emily Brontë’s deceased character, who has returned to haunt her first love, Heathcliff.

The famous lines of the chorus, which soar in Kate’s ethereal tone, are: Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy / I’ve come home now / so cold / Let me in through your window...

The chorus is liable to get stuck in your head for days, if not months. Brilliantly, Kate places the listener of the song in the position of Heathcliff, the character who broods over the loss of his first love Catherine throughout the entirety of the Brontë novel. As a result, listeners are indirectly led to contemplate our own experiences with lost love, and Kate (as “Cathy”) embodies the hope of its return. No wonder we still love her so much.

If you’re a visual learner, and prefer YouTube over iTunes, a few videos were released in the late 70s to promote her debut single. A 2006 biography of Kate Bush by Rob Jovanovic, however, states that these videos “pushed her further into the sex-object category...and detracted from her initial efforts to be considered a serious artist.” One could argue the same fear of not being taken seriously also applied to Emily Brontë when she decided to publish her novel under a male pseudonym”.

I am going to finish off in a minute. I will do another feature about The Kick Inside close to its forty-fourth anniverssary in February. There has not been another song like Wuthering Heights since its release. Such a beguiling track – and the video of Bush in the white dress helps add to that mystique and beauty -, we will be talking about it for decades to come. From the wind, the wild and the turbulence of loss and love at the beginning (“Out on the wiley, windy moors/We'd roll and fall in green/You had a temper like my jealousy/Too hot, too greedy/How could you leave me/When I needed to possess you?/I hated you. I loved you, too”), through to the spellbinding chorus (“Heathcliff, it's me—Cathy/Come home. I'm so cold!/Let me in-a-your window/Heathcliff, it's me—Cathy/Come home. I'm so cold!”), Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite songs. I like the fact that it reached number one in Australia (a country that supported Kate Bush since the start); I love the fact that Bush had to perform it quite a few times on Top of the Pops - and, despite a horrible experience first time around, she grew more comfortable. Above all, I respect how Bush fought to have the song released as a single, in spite of the fact that it was not the first choice of EMI. As it was, Wuthering Heights was released as her debut single on 20th January, 1978. As they famously say…

THE rest is history.

FEATURE: The View from the Top Room: The Joys of Shaun Keaveny’s Community Garden Radio

FEATURE:

 

 

The View from the Top Room

IMAGE CREDIT: Shaun Keaveny

The Joys of Shaun Keaveny’s Community Garden Radio

___________

RIGHT through 2022…

I am going to write about podcasts, music shows and series that are worthy of committed listening. I didn’t do that too much in 2021. As I have been relying more on podcasts and radio more than ever (like so many others), I feel I need to pay something back and promote those who I take great comfort from. I have written about it before, but one of the most heartbreaking events of last year was when Shaun Keaveny left his BBC Radio 6 Music show. None of us saw it coming before he made the announcement. In truth, it wasn’t entirely a mutual decision. One feels that he could have been in his afternoon slot for years to come. As BBC Radio 6 Music turns twenty in March, it would have been great to have Keaveny being present on the 11th when so many of the broadcasters get to wish the station a very happy birthday. He was with BBC Radio 6 Music for fourteen years, and he was one of the main reasons why I discovered the station and stuck with it. To me, the weekday was not complete and proper without tuning into his show! It was gutting listening to that last show back in the summer. I am going to get to the main point of this article soon. After leaving BBC Radio 6 Music, Keaveny has been busy with podcasts and other projects. His own podcast, The Line-Up, is one that everyone needs to listen to, subscribe to and review. It features guests selecting their own festival line-up (complete with catering, design and a name). He has also appeared on other podcasts…so the man has been keeping himself pretty damned busy!

Before writing about his latest endeavour, I want to bring in a couple of interviews that Keaveny has given since leaving BBC Radio 6 Music. Whilst at the station, he did the odd interview here and there. I think many of us wanted to read what he had to say after departing a station that he had made his home for so long – and, being such a popular figure there, he won so many fans and a huge audience for them. The Times spoke with Keaveny back in October. Although they incorrectly say that he was ‘axed’ by the station, he does get the opportunity to talk more about the decision that BBC Radio 6 Music made (they, essentially, wanted to move him to another slot which would not have been ideal or fair):

“I am a BBC super-fan, but there is a lot of heat on the BBC at the moment that makes it really difficult for clear-headed decisions,” he says. “Because there’s a lot of pressure from other sources. The effect of that sometimes is that it can trickle down, make people second-guess — not confident about decisions they’re making editorially. As a member of staff, I was expected to be non-partisan. But I do have opinions and they sometimes seem a little strong to be put out when I was also a BBC guy. At the end of the day, that wasn’t why I left. But that definitely exists. The BBC wants the people who broadcast to be as impartial as possible.”

But it’s intense,” he says. “I was at the Beeb for 14 years and it felt like I was the pilot light of national radio — I’m burning, but it’s a low light. But it’s constant. Chris Evans is a huge fireworks display. With our programme, it was the least amount of fuss and hassle. And on it went.”

Until, of course, it did not. So now he is on The Line-Up, in which Keaveny and a guest run through their fantasy festival line-up. His would be James Brown and Aretha Franklin, James Blunt in a comedy tent far away from a guitar. Soon there will also be Shaun Keaveny’s Creative Cul-De-Sac, another podcast in which he and a guest will run through ideas for sitcoms, novels and such that were never made.

It will be interesting how many of his listeners follow him to these podcasts and, indeed, which radio he does next. Last weekend he sat in for Liza Tarbuck on BBC Radio 2, while he has also been narrating Rockanory on Absolute Radio, a show about apocryphal rock’n’roll legends. Do people listen to a radio station or a person?

He remains in shock, as anyone would when cast off from a job they thought they were doing well. “I’ll always want to do live radio,” he says, sadly. He pauses. “Please continue to give me some work.” Radio gave him confidence. He says that he created a “little bubble of people that love you” and feels he did exactly what 6 Music wanted him to do when he started working there in 2007”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Shaun Keaveny with his former BBC Radio 6 Music colleague, Matt Everitt/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

There is a lot of positive stuff to talk about in a minute. There is another interview, this time from Far Out Magazine, where Keaveny talks about the BBC (he has a lot of love for them and what they provide in spite of a difficult split):

“What’s great about it The Line Up is its dead simple. Really, all we’re talking about is your favourite bands, your favourite festival experiences. We’re asking you to imagine what it would be like to have Paul McCartney and NWA next to each other on the bill. We’re talking about your favourite carbohydrates. Then we end up just talking about emotional experiences because music is emotional”.

In the New Year, he is beginning another new podcast too, Shaun Keaveny’s Creative Cul-De-Sac, which he describes as “me sitting in my top room going through all my stupid old ideas and talking bollocks, then I do that with a guest”.

Although he’s enjoying the foray into podcasting, radio will always be his first love, and Keaveny is already plotting to return in the not so distant future. “I’m keeping my hand in,” he tells Far Out. “I’ve not burned a bridge at the Beeb because I’m still doing bits and bobs here and their super-subbing, but I’ve got plans to come back somehow next year. But, it’s a hard landscape to get into. It’s like selling your house in London, moving back up north, and trying to get back into London”.

The BBC remains close to Keaveny’s heart, and he does worry that the institution is at risk of abandoning what makes it great in a bid to rival Spotify with BBC Sounds. “The BBC almost doesn’t understand what it’s got,” he says from a place of love rather than bitterness. “It doesn’t understand how unbelievably great it is, and it’s the world’s best radio provider. I think it’s so important that whatever happens next, they protect that, and they don’t just put everything on BBC Sounds and make everything about mixes. Other people do that, and arguably better than them,” he adds.

Despite Keaveny no longer being an employee of the BBC, it’s clear that he still has the best wishes for the corporation in his heart, and he doesn’t want them to be just another broadcaster, which they are potentially sleepwalking into becoming.

Whether Keaveny will make a permanent return to the airwaves in 2022 is unknown, but surely if there’s a commissioner with a grain of common sense, the wait won’t be too much longer. For now, the second series of his binge-able podcast, The Line-Up, is airing weekly until the end of the month before he invites us to his Creative Cul-De-Sac in the New Year”.

One of the best Christmas treats was hearing the first broadcast of Shaun Keaveny’s Community Garden Radio broadcast. For those of us who loved and tuned into his BBC Radio 6 Music afternoon show (prior to afternoons, he had a long-running breakfast show), he has brought some of the best elements to his new slot. At the moment, every Friday at 3 p.m., we get to tune into a much-needed dose of his impressions, (in his own words) slight clunkiness and amazing and unflinching love for his listeners and music. Armed with his legendary cartwall (that has various clips and sounds that listeners know and rely on) and jingles, it is pretty similar to his afternoon show. The Christmas show was Keaveny broadcasting in his top room in North London. One thing I love about the Community Garden Radio (and what we will hear when his Creative Cul-de-Sac podcast/show takes flight) is that this is a homemade and humble show. When he was at the BBC, you knew he was in a bigger, professional studio and was broadcasting to a massive audience. Now, Keaveny is at home and speaking to us from his top room (see the photo below).

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ben Tulloh

Yesterday (7th January) was the first ‘proper’/post-Christmas broadcast of the Community Garden Radio. Alongside Keaveny was producer Ben Tulloh, who was on hand to ensure that things flowed smoothly. Although the show is going to become slicker and a bit closer to his BBC Radio 6 Music show, it is great to, essentially, hear the cogs moving and experience this sort of raw and very homely broadcast! The intimacy one gets from listening is clear. I would recommend people become a Patron, so that you can listen on Fridays at 3 p.m. What one will hear is an hour of great music, chat and Keaveny’s proprietary blend. He is a broadcaster that is much-missed on the BBC airwaves. My hope is that he gets a permanent gig on a station like BBC Radio 2 (he brilliantly stood in for Liza Tarbuck a couple of times last year). Actually, if he gets more Patrons, I guess we can have an even longer Friday broadcast. It is the perfect way to end the working week! The sense of community and togetherness means that, from the second the show starts, you feel warm and embraced. The music selection is top-notch and awesome (yesterday, he played song from, among others, Madonna and Cleo Sol). He reads out listener comments/emails, and there is that reliable mixture of his impressions and stories.

I’m doing dry Jan. But in bits. So I was dry jan 2nd-4th. And for an afternoon on the 6th. For those struggling with it, I gift thee this: https://t.co/29ljFr2XDK

— Shaun Keaveny 💙 (@shaunwkeaveny) January 8, 2022

After such a sad departure from his BBC show, we did wonder whether we would hear Shaun Keaveny on the air again. This is a much-welcomed return. I am sure he will be getting some big radio offers this year. Let’s hope that he has the time to continue delivering the essential Community Garden Radio on a Friday. Rather than this simply being a promotion piece or something fawning, the reason I wanted to write this – apart from directing people towards the show – is to highlight how such a respected and experienced broadcaster has managed to build something of his own after leaving a long-running show. Keeping his loyal listeners and recruiting new ones, I am excited to see how the Community Garden Radio grows and sprouts. It is early days, yet the past couple of broadcasts have been so soul-lifting and nourishing. 2022 is going to be a very busy one for Shaun Keaveny. Although he can do podcasts like The Line-Up from his home and do others from there, I reckon there will be other jobs and offers that will take him to new places and stations.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ben Tulloh

It was a shock saying goodbye to him when he said his final words on BBC Radio 6 Music back in September. The weeks and months after that must have been strange and upsetting. It is wonderful to see that Keaveny is as busy now as he has ever been. With another podcast coming and other projects in the back of his mind (he has said how he is writing a book; maybe a sitcom could come from him?), the man won’t have much time to rest! I forgot to mention that, this year, there are two huge musical birthdays happening in June. Paul McCartney (who Keaveny loves loads and does a great impression of!) is turning eighty on 18th. Four days earlier, Keaveny turns fifty. I am not sure what point I am trying to make, though it is kind of cool that we have these birthdays to look forward to. An early birthday gift for him would be subscribing to his Patreon and listening in to the Community Garden Radio. It is a weekly hour of gold that gets you ready for the weekend. Although the seeds have been planting and these are early days, before too long, we will see the radio garden…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sean Adams

IN full bloom!

FEATURE: I’m Just a Killer for Your Love: Blur’s Incredible Eponymous Album at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

I’m Just a Killer for Your Love

Blur’s Incredible Eponymous Album at Twenty-Five

___________

RELEASED on 10th February, 1997…

Blur released their eponymous album into the world. Blur is an album that I have written about before. Although I cannot offer many new angles, I wanted to mark its twenty-fifth anniverssary next month. In 1997, Britpop had pretty much all but faded away. The scene was changing drastically, and bands like Radiohead and The Prodigy were coming to the fore. The long-lasting competition between Oasis and Blur had sort of past its peak. One can debate that, in 1996, Oasis were ahead of Blur when it came to their fanbase and popularity. That changed in 1997 after Blur was released. Oasis released the somewhat overblown and disappointing Be Here Now in August. Hardly changing their sound or direction, Blur succeeded because they were embracing new sounds and ambitions. I think it was the band’s guitarist, Graham Coxon, who suggested they embrace American guitar music and bands like Pavement. I think they were feeling a bit tired and lacking necessary direction. Departing from the sort of sound we heard through 1994’s Parklife, songs like Death of a Party, I’m a Killer for Your Love, Essex Dogs and Song 2 marked a darker, more American sound. That might sound vague, but one can notice a sonic shift from their earlier work. Song 2, alongside Beetlebum and On Your Own are the best-known tracks. At nearly an hour long and spanning fourteen songs, Blur is an album that takes us to America (Look Inside America), Essex (Essex Dogs), via the rumble of Chinese Bombs and the incredible Country Sad Ballad Man. Few albums of the 1990s started as strongly as Blur. When you have a one-two of Beetlebum and Song 2, that is hard to beat!

Like I do with features such as this, I want to bring together a couple of critical reviews. It would have been easy for Blur to call it quits in the lead-up to their eponymous album. It was clear that they needed to rethink and rebuild as a group. Classic Pop Mag gave us more information about Blur in a 2019 feature:

“Blur’s own Achtung Baby where the band rip up everything they ever knew and start from scratch; a scorched earth policy which marked a breathtaking reinvention. Ironically, their volte-face saw them transform into the kind of US-influenced alt-indie rock band they’d previously kicked so vigorously against on their preceding Anglocentric trilogy. Graham Coxon’s love of Pavement finally won through, ushering in with it a much grittier sound, rough around the edges.

This Year Zero policy to their history (even the album title suggested that they were beginning all over again) coincided with their best collection of material to date. Blur spins all over the map, but, despite its experimentalism, hits the bullseye every time.

Pleasingly, their fans went with them for the ride, too. It topped the charts in the UK and Song 2 helped break the band in the States, shifting a healthy 700,000 copies of the LP.

Despite struggling with a drink problem, a re-energised Coxon is in inspired form throughout and Albarn returns to a more personal style of songwriting, eschewing the character-based material for the most part.

Coxon claimed he wanted to “scare people again” with his music and after previously finding little in common with the guitarist’s lo-fi tastes, Damon admitted in an interview with Select magazine: “I can sit at my piano and write brilliant observational pop songs all day long but you’ve got to move on.”

Recorded in London and Reykjavik, where Albarn now had a home, the band built up songs from jam sessions for the first time rather than the disciplined studio performances they’d previously undertaken.

Beetlebum, the first taste of the album, displayed a subtle reinvention; Coxon’s sly guitar riff and Albarn’s woozy vocals and lyrics, alluding to the latter’s experiences smoking heroin. Blur’s central pairing were in a dark place in their personal lives but managed to turn that into wonderful art.

Blockbuster second single Song 2 remains one of the greatest 120 seconds of unadulterated joyousness in modern music; its gonzo ubiquity at the time meant they were known as ‘The Woo-Hoo! Band’ in the States for a while.

Coxon’s unconventional soloing style sparkles in Country Sad Ballad Man and his guitar sounds more like a squealing electric drill for Movin’ On.

Meanwhile, the heavily treated guitar tones of M.O.R usher in a trademark chorus that hinted the band hadn’t wholly given up their attempts at crowd-pleasing moments.

The heady, intoxicated fug at the heart of Blur is best evidenced in the haunted dancehall dub of Theme From Retro and crepuscular spoken word Essex Dogs. Coxon gets his own dazed showcase in the slacker strumalong You’re So Great,  foreshadowing the off-kilter pop of Coffee & TV.

In the main, Blur sound like they are working in an all-consuming vacuum here, satisfying themselves rather than chasing hits. Only the Space Oddity-era Bowie homage Strange News From Another Star wore its influences brazenly on its sleeve”.

In ranking Blur’s albums, it is hard to make a definitive top three. I think that Blur is definitely up there. Maybe Parklife and Think Tank would be my top two. I would put Blur third. It is such a stronger album. There must have been an element of risk when it came to refocusing their sound and vision in 1997. As it was, Blur went to number one on the U.K. album chart. Aside from a rather low position in the U.S., the album did very well worldwide. This is what AllMusic observed in their review of 1997’s Blur:

“The Great Escape, for all of its many virtues, painted Blur into a corner and there was only one way out -- to abandon the Britpop that they had instigated by bringing the weird strands that always floated through their music to the surface. Blur may superficially appear to be a break from tradition, but it is a logical progression, highlighting the band's rich eclecticism and sense of songcraft. Certainly, they are trying for new sonic territory, bringing in shards of white noise, gurgling electronics, raw guitars, and druggy psychedelia, but these are just extensions of previously hidden elements of Blur's music. What makes it exceptional is how hard the band tries to reinvent itself within its own framework, and the level of which it succeeds.

"Beetlebum" runs through the White Album in the space of five minutes; "M.O.R." reinterprets Berlin-era Bowie; "You're So Great," despite the corny title, is affecting lo-fi from Graham Coxon; "Country Sad Ballad Man" is bizarrely affecting, strangled lo-fi psychedelia; "Death of a Party" is an affecting resignation; "On Your Own" is an incredible slice of singalong pop spiked with winding, fluid guitar and synth eruptions; while "Look Inside America" cleverly subverts the traditional Blur song, complete with strings. And "Essex Dogs" is a six-minute slab of free verse and rattling guitar noise. Blur might be self-consciously eclectic, but Blur are at their best when they are trying to live up to their own pretensions, because of Damon Albarn's exceptional sense of songcraft and the band's knack for detailed arrangements that flesh out the songs to their fullest. There might be dark overtones to the record, but the band sounds positively joyous, not only in making noise but wreaking havoc with the expectations of its audience and critics”.

One of the very best albums from the 1990s, Blur is an album that definitely subverted expectations and took the band to a new audience (whilst they retained their existing fanbase). To close up, I want to bring in some of Pitchfork’s words regarding the mighty Blur:

“Death of a Party" (which now sounds like the first proto-Gorillaz Blur song) is the most apt song title on 1997's Blur. Recorded partially in self-imposed exile in Iceland, it is a post-success record, what happens when the odd burdens of mega-fame don't destroy a band but instead sends it diving into uncharted waters. It is 1995's hangover. Exquisitely bleary-eyed ("I'm Just a Killer for Your Love", the oddball sprawl of "Essex Dogs") and often jolting ("M.O.R.", "Chinese Bombs"), Blur sounds like staying up for six days and then accidentally catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. And somehow, amidst the claims of career suicide, it was a huge international hit, the one that finally broke them in the States. (Which is to say that yes, this is the "Song 2" album.)

Blur found Pavement in the mid 90s the way Dylan found Jesus in the late 70s: The transfiguration was that complete, that apparent, that difficult for longtime fans to swallow. Coxon had long been evangelizing American indie rock to his bandmates, and, wearied of fame and looking for a new direction, they finally started to listen. To call Blur Coxon's record is a huge simplification (it also marks the height of Albarn's Bowie phase), but it does contain the first song that Coxon wrote and sang on a Blur record, the sweetly wooly "You're So Great".

Much has been made of the Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. influence on his virtuosic playing, but Coxon has said that the record he was listening to most while making Blur was Big Star’s elegiac Third/Sister Lovers. Alex Chilton was an artistic kindred spirit for Coxon. Both had experienced intense, Tiger Beat-cover-style adoration (Chilton had a No. 1 song with the Box Tops before he was 18) and had figured out early on that commercial success wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Chilton, of course, lost his foil too early when Chris Bell left Big Star and died in a car crash not long after. The tension that kept Blur going, in a creatively fertile, decade-long state of about-to-combust, was the push and pull between Coxon and Albarn”.

I have already released playlist of songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries this year. I will try and cover as many of those individual albums in the form of features closer to their anniversaries. Blur was one of the albums that I had to spotlight. Definitely one of my favourite albums as a teenager, I still listen to it today. Twenty-five years since its release, Blur is a magnificent album that is being discovered by those fresh to it. There is so much in the way of lyrical and sonic range throughout. The band, in spite of a few cracks, sound together and incredible! In a hugely busy and impressive year for album releases, Blur’s fifth studio album sat alongside the very best of them. Their amazing eponymous album is…

A 1997 masterpiece.

FEATURE: Cover Aversions: Is Album Art Still Important and Interesting Today?

FEATURE:

 

 

Cover Aversions

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for perila’s album, how much time it is between you and me? 

Is Album Art Still Important and Interesting Today?

___________

DURING such a tough and changeable time…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Marc Fanelli-Isla/Unsplash

there is uncertainty regarding the music industry and its prosperity. We are not sure whether many festivals and gigs will go ahead during the summer. At the end of last year, great news came out concerning the success of vinyl sales. 2021 was another that saw the boom of the treasured format. The Guardian take up the story:

“For many people, placing a record on the turntable will always be the quintessential musical experience.

Sliding a shiny black disc out of a gatefold sleeve and dust jacket, laying it on the turntable platter, then the unmistakable crackle and the low, almost imperceptible analogue rumble as the needle slides into the groove.

Before the digital revolution, vinyl was the premier choice for listening to music. But the format’s resurgence in popularity over the past few years shows no signs of letting up, with new figures predicted to show sales growing to their highest level in more than three decades.

Adele, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Elton John and Abba all all competing for limited vinyl pressing plant production capacity

According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), more than 5m vinyl albums have been bought in the UK over the past 12 months, up 8% on sales in 2020 and the 14th consecutive year of growth since 2007.

By the end of the year, vinyl will have accounted for almost one in four album purchases – the highest proportion since 1990 – according to BPI estimates.

But why? There are tactile, sensuous and theatrical qualities to vinyl that made it a unique format, said Andy Kerr, the director of product marketing and communications for Bowers & Wilkins, a British audiophile speaker maker.

Popular streaming services used digital file compression to lower internet bandwidth that “tend to make the sound tinny”, Kerr said. “Vinyl is the opposite of that. It tends to make the sound lush and warm.”

But Kerr said he did not think the renewed interest in vinyl was being led by audiophiles. “I do think a huge amount of what’s going on with vinyl is not about the sound at all, it’s about the theatre of it, it’s the experience of it,” he said.

“The LP record forces you into that [experience], you don’t tend to skip every 30 seconds because you don’t like the way that the song is going, you tend to listen to it all the way through.”

Tom Fisher, record buyer at Rat Records, a secondhand record dealer in Camberwell, south London, said lockdowns had led to “frustrated demand for music as a cultural thing”.

“If you can’t go and see a band you might buy an album or T-shirt, [that satisfies you] in a way that digital doesn’t fulfil,” he said.

Emphasising that his comments related to the secondhand trade in LPs, Fisher said: “The only thing I would say about the renewed interest in vinyl is that it is not really very good for creative music and art, because the interest in vinyl is retro”.

There are a number of reasons why vinyl sales have boomed and continued to trend upwards. That need for a physical connection at a rather edgy time has translated to music. In the absence of gigs, many people are without the usual physical connection to music. People want to support artists and rely less on streaming platforms and the low payments they provide artists. Also, people want to enjoy albums in their long-form state. I feel there the communal aspect of a record shop draws people in. Legendary albums are reaching new generations, whereas some major artists like Ed Sheeran and Adele are reaching a wider demographic. One might think younger fans would stream more than buy vinyl. Perhaps we have this moment where listeners are more concerned with preserving an album rather than listening and having this ephemeral relationship with music. I think that vinyl sales will continue to flourish for many years to come – as formats like the C.D. decline and many people are heading away from streaming. One of the major reasons to buy an L.P. is that it lasts and you have this piece of art. Some people buy vinyl purely because of its imagery, rather than the music that is on it. Whilst I think albums should be bought and heard, I can understand why some people buy classics albums: because of the sleeve and the striking imagery. One does not see too many articles regarding eye-catching album covers. The Vinyl Factory ran a feature last year regarding the best artwork and packaging.

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for IDLES’ album, CRAWLER

The reason I bring up the subject of artwork is because, although vinyl sales have increased, I think that album covers are getting less ambitious. Although 2021 saw some great album covers (including IDLES’ CRAWLER), I tend to find that most albums have really boring covers. The most-popular albums of last year, by and large, sport rather ordinary and plain covers. The artist not really going for a concept or a new angle. The best covers tend to be from the albums that did not sell hugely or get the huge critical attention of artists like Little Simz, Self Esteem, Arlo Parks, Billie Eilish, Wolf Alice or Adele. 2021 was a year defined by women making the strongest and most interesting music. In a wider sense, the album covers were not exactly timeless. Think about some of the classic albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Clash’s London Calling, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Blondie’s Parallel Lines. Even though the latter is the band shot with not a lot else, it is the outfits and colour scheme that makes it iconic. There have been some sensational album covers the past decade or so (I think Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, is the most stirring example). Maybe the reason why so many of the classic album covers were from the 1960s-1990 is because there was no streaming and it was physical sales. Seeing an album cover leap out from the shelves is one of the great pleasures of vinyl. You are transfixed before you have heard a single song!

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power

Not to say 2021 was a wipe-out for album covers, though it has been quite sparse. I think my favourite cover is Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Not because it is quite explicit; I love the concept and the image stays in your mind. This article lists some good album covers, though I think most of them are quite unadventurous and do not hit you as hard as the very best. Similarly, whilst this article lists some genuinely strong album covers, most of their favourites are defined by bright designs and bold images. There is less intricacy and layers than one would expect. I guess a lot of the classic covers have a simplicity. Maybe something bright and sharply-coloured is a more popular and successful cover angle compared to detail or anything cinematic, creatively rare or enduing. For example, how many of these album covers genuinely linger in the mind?! Whereas I love Arca and Cedric Noel’s covers from this feature, there are not many others that capture me. Maybe there is psychology or something ‘2021’ behind the shift in album art and its importance. Artists may argue they want the music to be the most important thing, but physical albums also need to have a good cover in order to sell! There is something slightly unsatisfactory about a great album with a mediocre cover. This does not seem to have put off vinyl buyers this past year. They have turned out in their droves and boosted sales massively! I wonder if this year will see more interesting album covers. I have been compiling playlists for albums celebrating big anniversaries in 2022. Interestingly, many of the covers that I like best are from over thirty years ago. The albums I am featuring from 1992-1967 are vastly more intriguing than those from 1997-2017 (though 1997 has a few pearls!). Although the past year has sported some unique covers, too many albums have been based or boring portraits, bright images with no real depth or point…or there has been little that takes the breath. As the vinyl growth continues, one would like to see more in the way of engaging and iconic-worthy covers. To me, a wonderful cover design elevates an L.P…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The (rather unmemorable) cover for Adele’s new album, 30

TO insane and giddy heights.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential February Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Mitski 

Essential February Releases

___________

I am actually…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Big Thief/PHOTO CREDIT: Buck Meek

writing this feature on 29th December, so in the couple of weeks until this goes live, schedules could have changed. I am a bit late to really get a grip on the January-due albums, so I want to look ahead to the best albums out next month. There are quite a few must-own albums out that will make a cold month much warmer. The first big week for new releases is on 4th February. I will start with the upcoming album from Los Bitchos. Let the Festivities Begin! It is one I am pre-ordering myself (you can also order the album here). It is going to be a real treat of an album:

“Produced by Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand). Panthers prowling through a desert. Cowgirls swaggering into a saloon and kicking up dust. Riding shotgun with a Tarantino heroine. Having the fiesta of your lives under a giant piñata with all your friends. Los Bitchos’ hallucinatory surf-exotica is as evocative as it is playful: the London-based pan-continental group could well be your new favourite party band with their instrumental voyages that are the soundtrack to setting alight to a row of flaming sambucas and losing yourself to the night. They’ve got a bun-tight knack for a groove – and they’ve got the best fringes in rock’n’roll too.

Serra Petale (guitar), Agustina Ruiz (keytar), Josefine Jonsson (bass) and Nic Crawshaw (drums) hail from different parts of the world but met via all-night house parties, or through friends, in London. Their unique sound binds them together, though, taking in a retrofuturistic blend of Peruvian chicha, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych and surf guitars. They are London’s answer to Khruangbin, if Khruangbin spent all weekend getting slammed on cheap tequila in”.

The excellent Animal Collective release their eleventh studio album, Time Skiffs. It is an album that I would advise people to pre-order. The Maryland-formed band have been around almost twenty years now. They always release such amazing albums. It seems that Time Skiffs will be no exception:

“Time Skiffs’ nine songs are love letters, distress signals, en plein air observations, and relaxation hymns, the collected transmissions of four people who have grown into relationships and parenthood and adult worry. But they are rendered with Animal Collective’s singular sense of exploratory wonder. Harmonies so rich you want to skydive through their shared air, textures so fascinating you want to decode their sorcery, rhythms so intricate you want to untangle their sources. Here is Animal Collective's past two decades, still in search of what’s next”.

After releasing one of last year’s best albums, For the First time, it is amazing that Black Country, New Road (Isaac Wood, Tyler Hyde, Lewis Evans, Georgia Ellery, May Kershaw, Charlie Wayne and Luke Mark) are putting out their second album, Ants From Up There, on 4th February. It is a sign of their amazing productivity and popularity. This will already be one of 2022’s most-anticipated albums – and I expect it will get the same awesome reviews as their debut. This is an album that you definitely need to pre-order:

“Black Country, New Road return with their second album Ants From Up There. Following on almost exactly a year to the day from the release of their acclaimed debut For the first time, the band have harnessed the momentum from that record and run full pelt into their second, with Ants From Up There managing to strike a skilful balance between feeling like a bold stylistic overhaul of what came before, as well as a natural progression.

Released alongside the announcement the band (Lewis Evans, May Kershaw, Charlie Wayne, Luke Mark, Isaac Wood, Tyler Hyde and Georgia Ellery) have also today shared the first single from the album, ‘Chaos Space Marine’, a track that has already become a live favourite with fans since its first public airings earlier this year - combining sprightly violin, rhythmic piano, and stabs of saxophone to create something infectiously fluid that builds to a rousing crescendo.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Foster 

It’s a track that frontman Isaac Wood calls “the best song we’ve ever written.” It’s a chaotic yet coherent creation that ricochets around unpredictably but also seamlessly. “We threw in every idea anyone had with that song,” says Wood. “So the making of it was a really fast, whimsical approach - like throwing all the shit at the wall and just letting everything stick.”

Their debut For the first time is a certain 2021 Album of the Year, having received ecstatic reviews from critics and fans alike as well as being shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. For the first time the band melded klezmer, post-rock, indie and an often intense spoken word delivery. On Ants From Up There they have expanded on this unique concoction to create a singular sonic middle ground that traverses classical minimalism, indie-folk, pop, alt rock and a distinct tone that is already unique to the band.

Recorded at Chale Abbey Studios, Isle Of Wight, across the summer with the band’s long-term live engineer Sergio Maschetzko, it’s also an album that comes loaded with a deep-rooted conviction in the end result. “We were just so hyped the whole time,” says Hyde. “It was such a pleasure to make. I've kind of accepted that this might be the best thing that I'm ever part of for the rest of my life. And that's fine”.

Another brilliant artist releasing an album on 4th February is Cate Le Bon. The exceptional Welsh songwriter prepares to release Pompeii. Following 2019’s Reward, her sixth studio album is looking like it will be hugely well-received. This is what Rough Trade say about it:

“Cate returns with another intricate, timeless and rewarding album. Pompeii Cate Le Bon’s sixth full-length studio album and the follow up to 2019’s Mercury- nominated Reward, bears a storied title summoning apocalypse, but the metaphor eclipses any “dissection of immediacy,” says Le Bon. Not to downplay her nod to disorientation induced by double catastrophe — global pandemic plus climate emergency’s colliding eco- traumas resonate all too eerily. “What would be your last gesture?” she asks. But just as Vesuvius remains active, Pompeii reaches past the current crises to tap into what Le Bon calls “an economy of time warp” where life roils, bubbles, wrinkles, melts, hardens, and reconfigures unpredictably, like lava—or sound, rather. Like she says in the opener, “Dirt on the Bed,” Sound doesn’t go away / In habitual silence / It reinvents the surface / Of everything you touch.

Pompeii is sonically minimal in parts, and its lyrics jog between self-reflection and direct address. Vulnerability, although “obscured,” challenges Le Bon’s tendencies towards irony. Written primarily on bass and composed entirely alone in an “uninterrupted vacuum,” Le Bon plays every instrument (except drums and saxophones) and recorded the album largely by herself with long-term collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. Enforced time and space pushed boundaries, leading to an even more extreme version of Le Bon's studio process – as exits were sealed, she granted herself “permission to annihilate identity.” “Assumptions were destroyed, and nothing was rejected” as her punk assessments of existence emerged.

 Enter Le Bon’s signature aesthetic paradox: songs built for Now miraculously germinate from her interests in antiquity, philosophy, architecture, and divinity’s modalities. Unhinged opulence rests in sonic deconstruction that finds coherence in pop structures, and her narrativity favors slippage away from meaning. In “Remembering Me,” she sings: In the classical rewrite / I wore the heat like / A hundred birthday cakes / Under one sun. Reconstituted meltdowns, eloquently expressed. This mirrors what she says about the creative process: “as a changeable element, it’s sometimes the only point of control... acircuit breaker.” She’s for sure enlightened, or at least more highly evolved than the rest of us. Hear the last stanza on the album closer, “Wheel”: I do not think that you love yourself / I’d take you back to school / And teach you right / How to want a life / But, it takes more time than you’d tender. Reprimanding herself or a loved one, no matter: it’s an end note about learning how to love, which takes a lifetime and is more urgent than ever.

To leverage visionary control, Le Bon invented twisted types of discipline into her absurdist decision making. Primary goals in this project were to mimic the “religious” sensibility in one of Tim Presley’s paintings, which hung on the studio wall as a meditative image and was reproduced as a portrait of Le Bon for Pompeii’s cover. Fist across the heart, stalwart and saintly: how to make “music that sounds like a painting?” Cate asked herself. Enter piles of Pompeii’s signature synths made on favourites such as the Yamaha DX7, amongst others; basslines inspired by 1980s Japanese city pop, designed to bring joyfulness and abandonment; vocal arrangements that add memorable depth to the melodic fabric of each song; long-term collaborator Stella Mozgawa’s “jazz-thinking” percussion patched in from quarantined Australia; and Khouja’s encouraging presence.

The songs of Pompeii feel suspended in time, both of the moment and instant but reactionary and Dada-esque in their insistence to be playful, satirical, and surreal. From the spirited, strutting bass fretwork of “Moderation”, to the sax-swagger of “Running Away”; a tale exquisite in nature but ultimately doomed (The fountain that empties the world / Too beautiful to hold), escapism lives as a foil to the outside world. Pompeii’s audacious tribute to memory, compassion, and mortal salience is here to stay”.

There are two more albums due on 4th February that I want to highlight, before I move along to the following week. Perhaps the best February-due album comes in the form of Mitski’s Laurel Hell. This is an album that you definitely need to pre-order. I am going to quote from a recent Rolling Stone interview with her soon. First, this is what Rough Trade write about Laurel Hell:

“We don’t typically look to pop albums to answer our cultural moment, let alone to meet the soul hunger left in the wake of global catastrophe. But occasionally, an artist proves the form more malleable and capacious than we knew. With Laurel Hell, Mitski cements her reputation as an artist in possession of such power - capable of using her talent to perform the alchemy that turns our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. Her critically beloved last album, Be the Cowboy, built on the breakout acclaim of 2016’s Puberty 2 and launched her from cult favourite to indie star. She ascended amid a fever of national division, and the grind of touring and pitfalls of increased visibility influenced her music as much as her spirit.

Like the mountain laurels for this new album is named, public perception, like the intoxicating prism of the internet, can offer an alluring façade that obscures a deadly trap - one that tightens the more you struggle. Exhausted by this warped mirror, and our addiction to false binaries, she began writing songs that stripped away the masks and revealed the complex and often contradictory realities behind them. She wrote many of these songs during or before 2018, while the album finished mixing in May 2021. It is the longest span of time Mitski has ever spent on a record, and a process that concluded amid a radically changed world.

She recorded Laurel Hell with her longtime producer Patrick Hyland throughout the isolation of a global pandemic, during which some of the songs “slowly took on new forms and meanings, like seed to flower.” Sometimes it’s hard to see the change when you’re the agent of it, but for the lucky rest of us, Mitski has written a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Josefina Santos for Rolling Stone

When speaking with Rolling Stone late last year, the Japanese-American singer-songwriter talked about her career, upbringing, and following up the hugely successful 2018 album, Be the Cowboy, with the her highly-anticipated sixth studio album:

“In the past year, as she’s planned her return with Laurel Hell, Mitski spent time setting boundaries for herself and being aware of her limitations. She’s even worked with her team to ensure that her schedule has mandatory breaks so she can eat and unwind. (In December, weeks after this interview, it was reported in Billboard that her management company had dissolved following a sexual-harassment allegation against her manager. A representative for Mitski says that this person is “currently transitioning out of the role of being Mitski’s manager”; the manager did not respond to a request for comment.)

“I think this break has been good for me,” she says. “I had physically neglected my health because I was on tour so much. I didn’t have health insurance. Basically during all of my twenties, I had no time or space to figure out who I am. I needed to actually figure out how to take care of my body”.

Even though The District have had to cancel some shows recently, they are bringing out Great American Painting on 4th February. This is the follow-up from their 2020 album, You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere. Make sure that you go and pre-order their approaching fifth studio album:

“The Districts return with their biggest, boldest and most naturally pop album. It's upbeat and has a real XTC mid period edge. It's a bundle of fun and a real surprise.

This record is a new era. The desire to create something larger than yourself, that will infiltrate people’s hearts like well oiled machines, to paint pictures that will shake them and create a resounding push forward towards something more. In our pandemic isolation, what we wanted was to play a loud collage of music, unconfined by preconceived notions of what it should be, and to transcend ourselves in a room full of breathing, screaming, vibrating human beings - to let the darkness out in a cathartic squeal of noise, eclipsing it with light. We wanted to feel it all at once with you and to escape this fucked up world and find our way into a better one together”.

Although there are two albums (each) from the week 18th and 25th February, there are three from 11th that I want to discuss. Big Thief have been sharing songs and snippets from their forthcoming album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. One of the most prolific and extraordinary groups, this is an album you need to pre-order and add to your February collection:

“Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You is a sprawling double-LP exploring the deepest elements and possibilities of Big Thief. To truly dig into all that the music of Adrianne Lenker, Max Oleartchik, Buck Meek, and James Krivchenia desired in 2020, the band decided to write and record a rambling account of growth as individuals, musicians, and chosen family over 4 distinct recording sessions. In Upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, The Rocky Mountains, and Tucson, Arizona, Big Thief spent 5 months in creation and came out with 45 completed songs. The most resonant of this material was edited down into the 20 tracks that make up DNWMIBIY, a fluid and adventurous listen. The album was produced by drummer James Krivchenia who initially pitched the recording concept for DNWMIBIY back in late 2019 with the goal of encapsulating the many different aspects of Adrianne’s songwriting and the band onto a single record”.

The band formerly known as British Sea Power, Sea Power, are giving us Everything Was Forever on 11th February. A band who have endured and captivated for many years, they show no signs of slowing. I feel that one cannot be without their new album. Ensure that you go pre-order the amazing Everything Was Forever:

“Sea Power (formerly British) release their first new album in five years – Everything Was Forever. Their music has won them some remarkable admirers – Lou Reed, David Bowie and London's National Maritime Museum. Indeed, the BSP fanbase now includes Doctor Who, Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes. Peter Capaldi is a confirmed BSP fan. "A band of stark originality," he wrote in his foreword for the reissue of the band's 2003 debut album, The Decline Of British Sea Power. "BSP's songs bring you the bite of the wind, the fury of the sea, and music that is simply exhilarating." Daniel Radcliffe has talked in detail about his plan to get a BSP tattoo (featuring the 2002 T-shirt slogan Bravery Already Exists). Benedict Cumberbatch is also an admirer of the band.

Fifteen years on from their first concert, British Sea Power continue to make bold, galvanising, idiosyncratic marks on the world. Race horses and massive ocean-going yachts have been named after the band. London's National Maritime Museum recently opened a new £35m exhibition wing. Visitors are greeted by huge, sculpted quotations from Shakespeare and Coleridge – and a lyric from British Sea Power”.

The brilliant American band, Spoon, release their tenth studio album, Lucifer on the Sofa, on 11th February. If you are not familiar with their previous work, I would still recommend their forthcoming album. They are a band that will definitely hook you in. Go and pre-order a copy of Lucifer on the Sofa:  

“Spoon’s tenth album, Lucifer on the Sofa, is the band’s purest rock ’n roll record to date. Texas-made, it is the first set of songs that the quintet has put to tape in its hometown of Austin in more than a decade. Written and recorded over the last two years – both in and out of lockdown – these songs mark a shift toward something louder, wilder, and more full-colour.

From the detuned guitars anchoring “The Hardest Cut,” to the urgency of “Wild," to the band’s blown-out cover of the Smog classic “Held,” Lucifer on the Sofa bottles the physical thrill of a band tearing up a packed room. It’s an album of intensity and intimacy, where the music’s harshest edges feel as vivid as the directions quietly murmured into the mic on the first-take. According to frontman Britt Daniel, “It’s the sound of classic rock as written by a guy who never did get Eric Clapton”.

Actually, there are more albums out in February that I want to recommend (I underestimated how many good ones are due!). One of two from 18th that I want to bring to your attention is Beach House’s Once Twice Melody. You can pre-order the album now. I am not a massive Beach House fan, though I do like their stuff. I am interesting in that they are going to deliver with Once Twice Melody:

“Beach House release their 8th album titled Once Twice Melody. Once Twice Melody, the first album produced entirely by Beach House, was recorded at Pachyderm studio in Cannon Falls, MN, United Studio in Los Angeles, CA, and Apple Orchard Studios in Baltimore, MD. For the first time, a live string ensemble was used, with arrangements by David Campbell. Once Twice Melody was mostly mixed by Alan Moulder but a few tracks were also mixed by Caesar Edmunds, Trevor Spencer, and Dave Fridmann”.

The second album from 18th February that you should add to your basket is Metronomy’s Small World. This is a band who always release such incredible music! For that reason alone, you will want to pre-order their new album:

“Now on album number seven, Metronomy has continued where many of their 2000s ‘cool’ band peers have dropped off along the way. Small World is a return to simple pleasures, nature, an embracing in part of more pared down, songwriterly sonics (some moments wouldn’t sound amiss on a Wilco release), all while asking broader existential questions: which feels at least somewhat rooted in the period of time during which it was made – 2020. For all that Mount seems to think he has made a comparatively sombre record, much of Small World still pulses with the zesty, tongue-in-cheek joie de vivre you’d expect of a Metronomy record.

So sure, things are different now Joe Mount is getting older and what’s on his mind is changing, but that doesn’t mark a change in quality for Metronomy. An immaculate set of tracks, Joe Mount’s ability as a songwriter and arranger shines through on Small World, evergreen. Metronomy might be growing up, but they’re not afraid to still have fun with it all. Through the tumultuous ebb and flow of the years, Metronomy continues to endure and make great pop music – and, really, that’s all that we could ask for”.

Moving on to some terrific albums coming out on 25th February. SASAMI is an artist I have been following for a while. Her new album, Squeeze is one I will be pre-ordering. There is not a tonne of information about the album available online (I cannot see any recent interview from her). She does say on her Bandcamp: “Squeeze, the second full length from Sasami, surveys the raw aggression of nu-metal, tender plainspokeness of country-pop and folk rock, and dramatic romanticism of classical music”. Similarly, there is not too much available regarding Soft Cell’s *Happiness Is Not Included. Regardless, this is an iconic group who are always brilliant. This is what Rough Trade say about their new album:

“Soft Cell - legendary frontman Marc Almond and producer / instrumentalist Dave Ball - return with their fifth studio album and first in 20 years, *Happiness Not Included. It represents their first new album since they issued Cruelty Without Beauty back in 2002”.

I am providing links to pre-order these albums. If they are sold out, it is worth checking other sites. Sticking with legendary acts, Spiritualized release Everything Was Beautiful on 25th February. This is an album that you need to pre-order, as the demand is quite high already!

“During lockdown last year, J Spaceman would walk through an empty “Roman London” where the world was “full of birdsong and strangeness”, trying to make sense of all the music playing in his head at the time. The mixers and mixes of his new record weren’t working out yet. Spaceman plays 16 different instruments on Everything Was Beautiful which was put down at 11 different studios, as well as at his home.

He also employed more than 30 musicians and singers including his daughter Poppy, long-time collaborator and friend John Coxon, string and brass sections, choirs and finger bells and chimes from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Eventually the mixes got there and Everything Was Beautiful was achieved.

The result is some of the most “live” sounding recordings that Spiritualized have released since the Live At The Albert Hall record of 1998, around the time of Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space”.

March is looking pretty tasty for new albums! I shall write about those albums next month. The final album I will recommend is from Tears for Fears. They are releasing The Tipping Point on 25th February. This is a group that have been giving the world such amazing music for decades. You will want to get this album:

“Some forty years into one of music’s most impactful, sometimes tense and yet curiously enduring partnerships, Tears For Fears have finally arrived together at The Tipping Point – the group’s ambitious, accomplished and surprising first new studio album in nearly two decades.

And now, at very long last, Tears For Fears find themselves back in peak form at The Tipping Point, an inspired song cycle that speaks powerfully and artfully to our present tense here in 2021. This is an album that vividly recalls the depth and emotional force of the group’s earliest triumphs. Imagine a far more outward-looking take on Tears For Fear’s famously introspective 1983 debut album The Hurting set in an even more mad world, or 1985’s Songs From The Big Chair bravely confronting even bigger issues in our increasingly unruly world. Or even 1989’s The Seeds Of Love that sows a mix of love and other emotions.

The Tipping Point is the bold, beautiful and powerful sound of Tears For Fears finding themselves together all over again”.

Above are a selection of albums out next month that I think people should order. You can see others here if you want more selection. Even though we are only just in 2022, there are some amazing albums planned and due already! If you need some brilliant albums to enjoy in February, I hope that the above…

IS of some assistance.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: k.d. lang - Ingénue

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

k.d. lang - Ingénue (25th anniversary edition)

___________

IN March…

 IN THIS PHOTO: K.d. lang in 1992/PHOTO CREDIT: Jill Furmanovsky

k.d. lang’s superb second solo album, Ingénue, turns thirty. The Canadian legend’s album is one that I discovered when it came out in 1992. For this Vinyl Corner, I am going to point you in the direction of the 25th anniversary edition. We all know the single, Constant Craving, though The Mind of Love and Miss Chatelaine are other standouts. I really love all of k.d. lang’s work, and she is one of these artists who writes and sings like nobody else. I am going to quote a couple of reviews. Before that, this article from 2017 lists a series of facts regarding Ingénue. I have selected a few to highlight:

“Ingénue, released on March 17, 1992, was k.d. lang's first all-original album. She co-wrote most of the songs with her longtime collaborator and bandleader, Ben Mink.

"The fact is that in our eight years of collaboration we have only got together four times to write her entire body of work," Mink told Mat Snow in Q magazine in April 1993, a year after the record's release. "It comes out very quickly. Ingénue was written in a week and a half, though we agonised for ages over the arrangements, and she over the lyrics. We sit down with a couple of acoustic guitars and talk, but we'll start off a song with anything. If the kitchen clock falls to the ground and clanks in a certain key, that can give us enough of an idea to start something."

The album's focus on sex was referenced in many of the reviews, though perhaps none as vehemently as Phil Sutcliffe. In Q magazine he described the record as "something completely different; normal on the surface, very strange underneath" and "carefully non-gender-specific, Ingénue is head over heels in love with love and sex." According to Sutcliffe, "the moment she starts singing, she's off into the high planes of seduction," though he criticized stylistic elements of lang's balladry as "the pleasantly unsettling sensation" of "lusty sweat cooled by the all but Sinatra-like sheen" before concluding that Ingénue is "open, self-assured and sexy as a cobra."

In the interview — which is archived here — lang reaffirms that Ingénue is, at least in part, about her love affair with a married person.

"Miss Chatelaine" is a sly send-up of gendered expectations, particularly since the main thing being written about lang's appearance at that point was an appraisal and examination of her androgyny, and whether that was code for something else. Lang embraced the character of Miss Chatelaine wholeheartedly in her music video, a tongue-in-cheek, high-femme treatment that was also a tribute, in part, to The Lawrence Welk Show.

Ingénue won the Juno Award for best album in 1993, beating out a host of other albums that were also classics in the making: Celine Dion's self-titled record, the Tragically Hip's Fully Completely, Barenaked Ladies' Gordon and Blue Rodeo's Lost Together.

Lang was also nominated for several Grammy Awards in 1993, including album, song, and record of the year. She won best female pop vocal performance for "Constant Craving," and lost in the same category the following year for "Miss Chatelaine".

 IN THIS PHOTO: K.d. lang and Cindy Crawford on the 1993 Vanity Fair cover/PHOTO CREDIT: Herb Ritts

Ingénue is a gorgeous album that everyone should listen to. Watershed is the latest album from lang. Released in 2008, I hope she puts out more music soon. She is an artist that transfixes you and takes you someone magical. There is no doubting the fact Ingénue is one of the best albums of the ‘90s. This is what AllMusic said about lang’s amazing second studio album:

“On her early albums, k.d. lang was a country traditionalist with a difference -- while she had a glorious voice and could evoke the risen ghost of Patsy Cline when she was of a mind, there was an intelligence and sly humor in her work that occasionally betrayed her history as a performance artist who entered the musical mainstream through the side door. And while the three years between Absolute Torch and Twang and Ingénue were full of controversy for lang that may have encouraged her to seek out new creative directions (among other things, she came out as a lesbian and her outspoken animal rights activism alienated many fans in the C&W mainstream), the former album suggested lang had already taken her interest in country music as far as it was likely to go. Ingénue presented lang as an adult contemporary artist for the first time, and if she felt any trepidation at all about her stylistic shift, you'd never guess after listening to the record; lang's vocal style is noticeably more subtle on Ingénue than her previous albums, but her command of her instrument is still complete, and the cooler surroundings allowed her to emotionally accomplish more with less.

lang's songwriting moved into a more impressionistic direction with Ingénue, and while the literal meanings of many of her tunes became less clear, she also brought a more personal stamp to her music, and the emotional core of "Save Me," "Constant Craving," and "So It Shall Be" was obvious even when their surfaces were evasive. And the production and arrangements by lang and her longtime collaborators Ben Mink and Greg Penny were at once simple and ambitious, creating a musical space that was different in form and effect than her previous albums but one where she sounded right at home. Ingénue disappoints slightly because while lang was a masterful and thoroughly enjoyable country singer, she was a far more introspective adult contemporary singer/songwriter who seemingly demanded the audience accept her "as is" or not at all. However, the craft of the album is impressive indeed, and few artists have reinvented themselves with as much poise and panache as lang did on Ingénue”.

Prior to wrapping things up, there is another interview that I wanted to include. Pitchfork provided a detailed take on k.g. lang’s 1992 masterpiece in a review in 2019. This is what Laura Snapes had to say about the masterful Ingénue:

“Ingénue—an album named for the roles ascribed to young women, and one that early screen stars wilfully exploited for professional reward—often finds lang questioning who she has become in the wilds of heartbreak. “The Mind of Love” comes from a similarly comic school to “Miss Chatelaine,” a pillowy torch song where she considers her plight with tender impatience. “Talking to myself/Causing great concern for my health,” she declares, with operatic boldness, only to circle in on the joke and ask, “Where is your head, Kathryn?” in an all-time great example of a star singing their own name. But lang also plays it dejected, a mode that can seem to weigh heavy given her evident spryness.

“Tears of Love’s Recall” is, at least technically, the album’s least interesting song—lang’s usual pin-drop vocal delivery is flattened to a series of unengaging sustained notes, and its cinematic air feels rote compared to the creativity elsewhere. And the lyrics are oblique, even tortured, like bad Shakespeare: “Love, thing of might and dread, stays the savior and poison to all of heart and head,” she sings over a pattering dirge. But what feels like emotion held at arm’s length spoke specifically to the elusive experience of queerness at the time. Reflecting on Ingénue for its 25th anniversary, lang remarked that its sometimes obtuse nature felt like a form of protection: “It was our own prison that we were trying to break out of, but it was also our comfort zone.”

On Ingénue, you hear lang brushing against the limits of internal experience. It’s an album about purgatory, a place where you work out who you are. But then there’s the lonely, self-flagellating hermitage of it. There is the private fantasy of a self, a side that lang makes genuinely sexy: “I can exist being caught by your kiss,” she belts on “So It Shall Be,” a moment of subjugation that soon melts away. “Outside Myself,” Ingénue’s most beautifully written song, explicitly evokes that dislocation: “I’ve been outside myself for so long,” she heaves, answering the earlier question from “The Mind of Love. It’s a great, rueful sigh of realization that obsession is as much self-neglect as self-indulgence.

Ingénue’s final track, “Constant Craving,” is lang’s conclusion to all this, a brilliant song about how yearning runs deep within us all, yet one that feels tacked on, in sound and in spirit. It’s brisker than everything that came before it, as if her label had asked lang to come up with a potential hit, although its plaintive accordion and melodramatic vocal tumbles probably weren’t going to shake Kriss Kross and Sir Mix-a-Lot from the top of the Billboard charts. And lang’s sanguine takeaway was another depersonalized construction—“Constant craving has always been.” She had sewed up the wound.

That it was this song that became a hit (No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100; later peaking at No. 15 in the UK) probably protected her. She released Ingénue in March 1992. Three months later, k.d. lang came out in an interview to The Advocate magazine, and her heartbreak had to bear the weight of a massive socio-cultural shift. Suddenly, Madonna was likening her to Elvis and seeing the potential in letting rumors about a dalliance spread; Cindy Crawford was sensually shaving her face on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, the best magazine cover of all time. lang enjoyed the performance of stardom for a little while before retreating again. She knew it wasn’t her”.

An album that people should grab on vinyl, Ingénue is one of those moments I remember from childhood. Constant Craving was the song that introduced me to k.d. lang. I have been a fan ever since. There are few albums finer than…

THE stunning Ingénue.

FEATURE: Scratched: A Music Series with a Twist

FEATURE:

 

 

Scratched

IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Wilde/PHOTO CREDIT: Isak Tiner for The New York Times

A Music Series with a Twist

___________

WITH podcasts growing ever-popular…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Mclean/Unsplash

and more diverse, there is pretty much one our there for everybody! That is true of music fans. If you want to find an album explored or a genre covered, you can go to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music or somewhere else and discover the podcast for you. Whilst 2022 is a year where I am going to (finally/hopefully) put my Kate Bush podcast fantasies into motion, I am also thinking wider afield. Maybe there is already a format like this but, when it comes to music I find the most interesting chats and insights come from people who are not musicians themselves. That being said, it can be interesting hearing musicians discuss albums they have been involved with. There is the incredible and long-running Song Exploder series, where artists (in the main) discuss a song of theirs. It is a real forensic and fascinating look into an individual song. I like all kinds of music podcasts, though one does not realise how widely music is utilised. From scoring films and plays to be using in political campaigns, different music in different settings can evoke separate and distinct reactions. A novelist or actor might have a whole new experience with music compared with, say, a director, campaigner or comedian. There are podcasts and series where ‘non-musicians’ are asked about their favourite tracks and music memories. In the U.K., we have Desert Island Discs: where a famous figure selects eight discs that they would take with them to a hypothetical desert island.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Pugh/PHOTO CREDIT: Jingyu Lin

Whereas an audio podcast would be the most convenient and easy option for this idea – considering it would bring in guests from around the world; the pandemic makes it harder for face-to-face chats -, there are not many music series and interviews on the screen. I pitched a series idea a while ago which would be held in an empty London cocktail bar where guests would sit opposite the host and, in a casual atmosphere, shoot the breeze about music and their formative song choices whilst sipping on their selected cocktail. I have been thinking hard about a new audio/visual idea: Scratched. The title refers to scratching a record, or scratching an idea or notion (it would also be a term used to describe a song that a guest used to love but doesn’t now). It would be a six-part series (that, hopefully, could run for several series) with a diverse range of guests from the world of literature, T.V., film, comedy and further afield – essentially, people who are not musicians but have a great appetite and knowledge of music. It has grown from the fact that actor, director, campaigner and all-round legend Olivia Wilde did a guest mix for KCRW a while back that I really loved and listened to a lot (she also appeared in the excellent and short-lived U.S. series, Vinyl). I love the idea of well-known figures chatting about music and getting to spin their favourite records. I am a big fan of Olivia Wilde, and I think that her passion for music of various tastes is really fascinating!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Henry Perks/Unsplash

Someone else who I would love to have on/feature (if I were not to host) is director Edgar Wright. His films are noted for having great songs featured. He is a big music fan and, like Olivia Wilde, it would be awesome to hear Wright putting together his own playlist and discussing the music that matters most to him. Another hypothetical guest – on a hypothetical series! – would be the remarkable Aisling Bea. The Irish comic, writer, journalist, and general genius, again, has a deep and diverse love of music. I have read interviews where Bea has talked about music. I would be intrigued to learn about her childhood music tastes, what role it plays in shows she has written and appeared in, and what she listens to in her spare time. Maybe the guest list is quite ambitious, but I would plump for actor Florence Pugh as a guest. She is an amazing talent but, once more, someone who would reveal some really interesting stories and recollections. As someone in her twenties, her experiences and tastes might be very different to that of Edgar Wright or someone who was a little older than her. Another must-book is an author who is among the world’s very best: Colson Whitehead. Among other honours, he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Actor Elisabeth Moss is someone else who I really love and respect. She is someone who loves music but, as she is a different field to someone like Colson Whitehead, her episode would be different. It is about uniting a cross-section of acclaimed faces who give their own take on their unique music experiences.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Aisling Bea/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Roy Rochlin

It is all very well having a guest list before you have an idea or anything solid! Whilst it is not out in the world yet or at the stage where it can be launched, I think a series called Scratched could work well purely as a podcast or a visual series. I like either option, though a T.V. series (whether it was a BBC, Netflix or Amazon thing) could deliver something more enriching and stimulating. The series would combine a general interview with that guest about their relationship with music…though there would also be categories and criteria that would be addressed. Such categories include the first song they remember, their favourite album of this year (whenever the year is when it goes out), and their favourite album of all time. There would also be an old-skool mixtape, where the guest would compile six songs that mean the most to them. As there would be actors, writers and comedians, it is a chance for that guest to explain how music links to their profession and the songs/artists who have been important in that sense. As I said, there would be that one song they used to love but no longer do. I am obsessed by the idea of T.V. series that are set in the past where we get music from that time played throughout (whether it is diegetic music or not). I also love music biopics too, so I would be asking about their pitches for shows like this. I am also intrigued about how music helps us when we are low or when we are happy. Delving more into the psychological side of things. So, Scratched would be a mix of the fun and more serious, where that guest’s full musical palette and tastes are opened up and explored.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Edgar Wright/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

If it were a T.V. series, we would see mentioned albums and songs physically held and played; music videos seen, and this cool set allowing us to showcase their music choices. A podcast would allow the interview to be deeper I feel, and it would mean guests don’t have to travel. In any case, I know there are so many incredible people that we know and love who have this rich and deep love of music. I have thrown out some guests that I would love to include (especially Olivia Wilde and Aisling Bea) but, even if it does not get going or turn into anything concrete, it is my hope that a radio station, podcaster or station will think about doing something similar. Margot Robbie, too, is another person who has an eclectic and excellent taste in music! From their childhood choice tracks to the way music has fed into their career now, there is so much to discuss and uncover! Scratched is something that I am going to pitch this year and, alongside my hopeful Kate Bush podcast, see if it can come to fruition. I don’t think there is anything quite like this out there at the moment. To me, chatting with extraordinary people from various walks of the cultural map about the music that shapes them would be…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Colson Whitehead/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Close

A really cool idea.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Pip Millett

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Pip Millett

___________

I am including…

a remarkable artist in Spotlight; someone I have been following a while now. Pip Millett was recently named one of Vevo’s DSCVR Artists to Watch 2022.

“Jodeci Rampasard, Junior Manager, Music & Talent, said: “I’m very excited to have Pip Millett on our Artists to Watch List. Her soulful and warm vocals captivate you as a listener, while her raw and honest lyrics take you on a journey through her eyes. She’s an incredible talent and I’m very excited to see what 2022 brings.”

Pip added: “To be selected as a Vevo DSCVR artist for 2022 is dreamy! I know there are some great artists that are chosen to be a part of this every year so it’s dead exciting to be included”.

Manchester-born artist Millett has taken the U.K. music world by storm with her beautifully chilled, emotional fusion of R&B and Soul. Her passion for music began during her school days, when she received guitar lessons as a present from her mum, before moving to London to study music. She has been releasing music a while now - but last year was one when many new sites and sources were turning their thoughts and eyes the way of Millett. She is an artist that I think is going to be one of this country’s biggest before too long. I want to bring in a few fairly recent interviews with the wonderfully accomplished and compelling songwriter.

Prior to coming up to date with interviews, it is worth starting with an older one. In 2018, Wonderland. wanted to know more about an exciting artist who, even that early in her career, was presenting a very essential and engaging sound:

“Hi! Where are you from and how has that influenced your music?

I’m from Manchester, but moved from the city to the suburbs when I was 4. I think the mix of the two places allowed for a larger mix of genres to reach me. My mum was a main source for most of my musical influences, but growing up with the kids in my area probably bought me closer to the acoustic sounds, and pushed me towards wanting to learn how to play guitar.

Describe your sound.

My sound is somewhere under the umbrella of neo-soul. The lyrics are the centre of every song. It’s like the music moves around the words. I’ve been lucky enough to work with talented producers and musicians such as Lester Duval and Josh Crocker, whose productions help emphasise the meaning behind the lyrics.

What artists did you grow up listening to?

I grew up listening to various genres. Albums frequently heard in the car were Lauryn Hill’s “Miseducation”, Amy’s [Winehouse’s] “Back to Black” and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”. I still listen to them all now.

When did you first start making music?

I can’t say I can remember the exact age, but I started playing bass and then guitar when I was 14, so I think that would’ve been the beginning of anything proper.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

It’s really early days, but I think it would be the release of my first single “Make Me Cry.” I really didn’t know what to expect but it made me feel so nervous, and excited. Also watching people on the journey with me getting excited was overwhelming. The realisation that people were interested in what I was doing was great.

What is the story behind “Love the Things You Do”?

I wrote it after telling a good friend I had feelings for them and getting knocked back. I don’t think I’ve ever been that nervous sending a text, and I’ll never be sending one like it again. The feelings were mutual which made things a lot less awkward, but there was a variety of other stuff that stopped anything going further than that text. The song was basically just to ease any tension, and reassure him that our friendship would stay the same. We’re still pretty close and it’s all calm now”.

There is no doubt that Millett has gained a lot of momentum since the pandemic began. She would have much preferred to have toured more, though last year’s Motion Sick E.P. is the sound of an artist at the top of her game. I know that this year is going to be the biggest and most successful one for Pip Millett. CLASH spoke with her last year about her new E.P. and how its sound differs from her earlier work:

“Hailing from the Northern city of Manchester is rising songwriter Pip Millett, who over the past few years has blown listeners away with her soulful tone, candid lyrics, and rich sound. Captivating the listener with a refreshing sense of vulnerability, Pip’s warming and humble presence paves a lane that not many artists can touch. Since appearing on COLORS back in 2019 with a performance of her break-out track ‘Make Me Cry’, an exploration of her fighting battle with depression at the time, Pip has jumped leaps and bounds professionally and is gearing up for a sold-out UK tour later this year.

Following on from the ‘Lost In June’ EP amidst the chaotic year of 2020, Pip has recently shared her highly anticipated project entitled, ‘Motion Sick’. Taking down a completely different path from ‘Lost In June’, this old-school and empowering EP marks a new chapter in Pip’s career sonically. Uncovering issues surrounding the Black experience in the UK, moving on from friendships, identity, and more, we are taken on a journey through a selection of blissful tracks that infuse jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and soul elements into one seamless body of work.

Spread across five tracks with guest appearances from UK heavy-weight Ghetts, as well as Netherlands-based artist Gaidaa, ‘Motion Sick’ is a transitional project that marks various changes in Pip’s life. Delving into various issues from start to finish, we are swiftly accustomed with a selection of old-school felt backdrops that each compliment Pip’s silk-like tone. Continuing to prove why she is one of the most fresh and exciting acts to arise from the UK, ‘Motion Sick’ is yet another quality project from the songstress.

Are there any artists that have helped shape your sound recently?

I’ve been listening to Nas’ ‘King’s Disease’ album a lot, I love it! I think that’s probably come through somewhere. Other than that, I discover a lot of stuff through Spotify. I listen to a lot of Sabrina Claudio and Snoh Aalegra – I always listen to Snoh Aalegra, I’m obsessed with her to be honest! (laughs) She is an older female but she’s killing it! She makes me feel less pressured because sometimes – I mean, maybe I’ve given this to myself – it’s now or never, but in fact I’m looking at all these artists that are in there 30’s and I’m 23! I can calm down a bit!

You’ve just released your ‘Motion Sick’ EP! Talk me through the title behind the project and why you picked that.

It's actually a line from ‘Hard Life’, one thing about all these songs is that they are all about change and moving forward, with the good and bad that comes with that. I often think with good and bad change there is always discomfort because it’s odd, and I would call that motion sickness. Moving forward in whatever way, even if it’s a good thing and you are starting your new job, there is always a feeling that revolves around moving out of your comfort zone.

Sonically, this EP has a more old-school feel. Was this something you wanted to encapsulate throughout?

It was definitely something I wanted to do! We had ‘Hard Life’ recorded and written for years and that had an older feel to it, and I wanted to keep that throughout the whole project. Most of the songs apart from one do use samples, I wanted to keep that old, warm, and crackly feeling. We finished all the songs and sent them across to Josh Crocker, a producer in Leeds, that put his own little spin on them. It was cool to hear his input!

This project differs a lot in comparison to ‘Lost In June’. Do you think you’ve grown a lot since then?

I’m never sure if its growth or if it’s just a new phase! I still listen back to some of those songs and wish I could re-write some of them. This EP does sound so different to ‘Lost In June’ and I don’t think they could be compared in any way. I know some people say, “Oh, you’ve grown so much, you sound so much better” and I’m thinking, is this meant to be a compliment? (laughs) For me personally, they are two very different projects and its good to be able to go from zone to zone. It’s a new part of my music! The next project will be a new chapter!

You said earlier that you were quite worried about dropping ‘Deeper Dark’ because you did it on our own. Are you more comfortable now with being as vulnerable in your songs?

It's always going to be a little bit scary because you just never know what people are going to say about it! Even when people are being nice to you, they can say some shadey things. I think people think it’s a compliment to say things like “Oh, I like this one but this one is way better” and I’m thinking, I’ve put so much work into both, so shush! (laughs)

I wasn’t as nervous this time to release the project because I was so desperate to have it out and the nerves had gone, but when you release the first single from any project it can be a bit scary! Each time I go to release, my audience has grown a little bit more! When I dropped ‘Make Me Cry’, I didn’t know who was going to listen to that, I didn’t have a following back then!”.

Penultimately, I am going back a bit further to an interview where Glamcult spoke with the Manchester-born sensation. This is a 2020 interview where they focus on her single, Stupid People:

“Stupid People” is so beautiful but oxymoronic in a way; super chill musically, however, the story behind the song feels super heavy! Where does this come from?

I think I’ve always loved that kind of chilled vibe with heavier lyrics. I think maybe it’s because I write my lyrics once I’m past whatever situation it was that I was in, so perhaps naturally I’m drawn to that calmer sound because my head is clear and calm about the situation now?

Being a fellow manchester-gal; how has the scene there influenced your sound?

I’ve loved Children of Zeus for years now but that’s the only real Mancunian music I was listening to until maybe a couple of years ago. The guitar side of me has been influenced by the indie music of Manchester but I’m not sure that was by choice hahaha

And how does the Manchester scene differ to the London scene?

The London scene, until recently, had more people shouting about it than Manchester did, but that seems to be changing. I think it’s easier to differentiate between those who want to be creative and those who want fame in Manchester.

Who have you been listening to recently?

I’ve been listening to Jordan Ward at lot as well as Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Deante’ Hitchcock. They’re all amazing!”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: The Lizard Queen

I want to finish off with a simple question-and-answer interview from NOTION. It is interesting learning about Millett’s ‘firsts’ and some of her favourite early memories:  

“First CD or record you owned?

I’m too young for that! I remember cd’s being given as gifts but I had an iPod nano in primary school and before that an MP3 player with Paolo Nutini and Kings of Leon on it.

First time you realised you wanted to be an artist?

From a young age, I loved the idea of it but felt like it was out of my reach. I was super shy and everyone told me it was a really difficult career path but I went for it anyway and I guess probably over the past few years it’s gradually become more real.

First gig and first festival you went to? And the first festival you performed at?

First gig was either Rihanna or Paolo Nutini – both a great first gig. First festival I went to was either Camp Bestival or Solfest when I was about 11/12 – both were the same year.  The first festival I performed at was Manchester International this year for myself – however, I did perform at Boardmasters a few years ago with Franc Moody.

First time you felt starstruck?

Seeing Beyoncé on stage.

First time you heard your song playing somewhere?

I heard “Love The Things You Do” playing at a bar in Islington once and that’s the only time I’ve heard my music out and about”.

A wonderful and enormously promising artist, Pip Millett is someone who we are going to hear a lot more from this year. Already on the radar of so many sites regarding the artists to look out for in 2022, I am excited to see how far she can go. Having released an incredible and well-received E.P. last year in the form of Motion Sick, I wonder whether we will get a debut album. That must be the next stage? I think that, if that is her plan, there is going to be a lot of fresh attention…

HEADING the way of Pip Millett.

____________

Follow Pip Millett

Official:

https://www.pipmillett.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/pipmillett

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pipmillett/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pipmillett/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1QfEfvB62EEl4upf2ANKkR?si=Vao-TtG8TxylRUs6NpxphA&nd=1

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvge6efpKy1ef9CQB4c7hcg

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Joanna Newsom - Divers

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Joanna Newsom - Divers

___________

ON 18th January…

the ever-consistent, hugely talented and amazing Joanna Newsom turns forty. I might put out a playlist of her best tracks so far, as she is such an insane talent who has no equals. I have featured Newsom on my blog before, though I have been meaning to cover Divers. Released in 2015, it is her most-recent album. When thinking of the artists one would love to see release an album this year, Newsom is right near the top of my list. Divers is her fourth studio album. It seems that, with each release, she gets even better and more sublime! Her most transports you somewhere incredible and otherworldly. One of the best albums of 2015, it is one I would certainly urge people to buy on vinyl. Such a dazzling and diverse album, it is one that anyone can appreciate. Before coming to a couple of reviews, I want to introduce a 2015 interview from FADER:

“You figured out how to only do the kind of music you wanted to do, and nothing else.

I got lucky. I’d be dead in the water if I hadn’t ended up on Drag City. It’s not like I spoke to 10 labels and picked the one that was the best fit for me. I ended up with this one label that in retrospect, 12 years down the line, is the only one I could’ve been with for so long. I made Milk-Eyed Mender [in 2004], and then they basically consented to fund this weird five-song record with full orchestra recorded with tape, which I think at that point had been their most expensive record, and they never questioned it. They never questioned me making a three-record album to follow that one. They never questioned how long it took me to make this record, how many steps, how many layers. And they don’t ever ask me to do anything that’s corny. No negativity to anyone who enjoys social media, but from a marketing strategy, a lot of people feel like they have to do it. Drag City doesn’t ask that of me, or to do anything that feels wrong.

PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Vu 

Is your writing process serious or fun?

What is fun for me to do with language is deadly serious for me as well. I tend to start with melody and chords, which take a while to resolve into calcified arrangements. Basic melody, basic chords—those are born from some feeling or narrative idea or both. I have the prompt for the lyrics before I have the lyrics.

Some songs, I work with placeholder lyrics for months until I find the exact wording. With certain songs, there are requirements that the lyrics have to fit. For “Leaving the City,” on Divers, the choruses have three different patterns that are interlacing. Those lyrics are somewhat simple, but they took me a really long time. They had to tell a story, but they had to incorporate these syntactic parameters. There was a straight-up chart I drew. I had to have certain rhymes that were there because they emphasized the downbeat of a contrary meter that was overlaid on the primary dominant meter of the song. Then there were contrapuntal syllabic emphases. Then there were the basic rhymes at the end of each line, which were anchor rhymes. And I needed that to happen in a way that said what we wanted to say.

What did you want to say on Divers?

If I could say it all the way, I wouldn’t have bothered making a record. I will say that there’s a thematic core of the album—every song on the record is asking some version of the same question.

The whole record is personal, but a lot of what is most personal is conveyed through pure fiction or, sometimes, even science fiction—literally sci-fi. With “Waltz of the 101st Lightborne,” I’m contrasting this British Isles sea shanty with a narrative in which I’m talking about colonizing alternate iterations of the terrestrial position in the multiverse. Colonizing time sideways, front and back, traveling in four directions through time. The subject matter is some of the heaviest and occasionally saddest I’ve ever explored. It’s linked to mortality and the idea of getting older. Time runs through every single song. But it was also the most fun to make. There’s no way to know someone except to know them”

All of Joanna Newsom’s albums have been met with praise and fascination. The Californian artist is someone who you can tell takes so much time to craft her music, to ensure that it is the finest it can possibly she. Such a wonderful creative and artist, I do hope that we hear more from her very soon. This is what Pitchfork noted in their review of Divers:

“Divers makes a landscape out of this abstract fear of loss. On the courtly "Anecdotes" and "Waltz of the 101st Lightborne", she is part of a battle fought by birds to try and wrest control of time. "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive" is the most Ren Fair piece here, on which Newsom contemplates ascension to some transcendent plane, "[severing] all strings to everyone and everything." Its sister song "A Pin-Light Bent" descends sadly back towards reason and reconciliation of her unsuccessful quest to outrun time. "In our lives is a common sense/ That relies on the common fence/ That divides and attends," she sings with palpable mourning, accepting that her life, "until the time is spent, is a pin-light, bent." Where this kind of cosmic existentialism could come off like a stoner marveling at the moon, Newsom pulls it off with balance of poetry and reason. Her fantastical world is sometimes hard to get your head around, but it brings surreal, sometimes sci-fi delight to a record that's otherwise often lyrically despairing.

Where Newsom's second and third records each overhauled what came before, Divers is a refinement that draws on elements of each of its predecessors. The shapes of her records often get misinterpreted as concepts themselves, rather than the sign of a writer attuned to her work's needs. Ys from 2006 was the five-song suite; Have One on Me from 2010, the three-disc opus. On its surface Divers is more conventional, a single disc where nine of its 11 songs are under six minutes long, but it also happens to be a wild, genuine concept album. The final song, "Time, As a Symptom", ends with Newsom in raptures, commanding white stars, birds, and ships to "transcend!" On the very last burst, she clips the word to "trans—". The first word on opener "Anecdotes" is "sending." It is a perfect loop.

Most artists on their fourth album settle into atrophy, or at least comfort, Newsom delivers such complex, nuanced music, filled with arcane constructions, that she is only her own yardstick. (In a recent interview about Divers, David Longstreth cited The Milk-Eyed Mender as one of the reasons he quit college: "[What] am I doing here if someone is already out there making music like this, on this level?") Her consummate craft is a given; what surprises every time is her ceaselessly renewing sensitivity for life's vicissitudes and the fantastic ways she finds to express them. D**ivers is not a puzzle to crack, but a dialog that generously articulates the intimate chasm of loss, the way it's both irrational and very real. Nothing will stem the fear of a loved one's death, which western culture does little to prepare us for until the very end, but by pulling at the prospect of mortality from every angle, Newsom emerges straighter-spined, and invites you to stand alongside her”.

Prior to finish up, I am going to quote AllMusic. They are always insightful when it comes to albums and what makes particular ones special. That is definitely the case with their take on Divers:

“If music is a time machine, able to transport listeners to different places and eras as well as deep into memories, then Joanna Newsom steers Divers as deftly as Jules Verne. She flits to and from 18th century chamber music, 19th century American folk music, '70s singer/songwriter pop, and other sounds and eras with the lightness of a bird, one of the main motifs of her fourth full-length. Her on-the-wing approach is a perfect fit for Divers' themes: Newsom explores "the question of what's available to us as part of the human experience that isn't subject to the sovereignty of time," as she described it in a Rolling Stone interview. It's a huge subject, and even though she worked with several different arrangers -- including Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth and Nico Muhly -- she crystallizes Have One on Me's triple-album ambition into 11 urgent songs that still allow her plenty of variety. "Leaving the City," with its linear beat and electric guitar, is the closest she's come to an actual rock song; "You Will Not Take My Heart Alive" could pass for medieval music, despite its mention of "capillaries glowing with cars."

While Divers is musically dense, it may be even more packed with ideas and vivid imagery; its lyrics sheet reads like a libretto (and is a necessary reference while listening). The bird calls that bookend the album -- and the way its final word ("trans-") flows into its first ("sending") -- hint at the album's looping, eternal yet fleeting nature, while "Anecdotes" introduces how each track feels like a microcosm (or parallel universe) dealing with war, love, and loss in slightly different ways. "Waltz of the 101st Lightborne," in which time-traveling soldiers end up fighting their own ghosts, highlights Divers' sci-fi undercurrent, which is all the more intriguing paired with its largely acoustic sounds. Newsom combines these contrasts between theatricality and intimacy, and city and country, splendidly on "Sapokanikan," named for the Native American settlement located where Greenwich Village stands. As she layers the ghosts and memories of old Dutch masters, potter's fields, Tammany Hall, and allusions to Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias, the music nods to ragtime and other vintage American styles; it could be overwhelming if she didn't return to the simple, poignant refrain: "Do you love me? Will you remember?" Indeed, despite its literacy and embellishments, Newsom's music is never just an academic exercise. The album's emotional power grows as it unfolds: "Divers" itself reaches deep, bringing the album's longing to the surface. "A Pin-Light Bent" finds Newsom accepting that time is indeed finite with a quiet, riveting intensity, building to the majestic finale "Time, As a Symptom," where the personal, historical, and cosmic experiences of time she's pondered seem to unite as she realizes, "Time is just a symptom of love." Newsom can make her audience work almost as hard as she does, but the rewards are worth it: Dazzling, profound, and affecting, Divers' explorations of time only grow richer the more time listeners spend with them”.

An amazing album from a talent like no other, make sure that you check out Joanna Newsom’s Divers. It such a phenomenal album that you will not want to…

BE without.

FEATURE: All Things Being Well… Who Might Headline Glastonbury 2022 Alongside Billie Eilish?

FEATURE:

 

 

All Things Being Well…

IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish 

Who Might Headline Glastonbury 2022 Alongside Billie Eilish?

___________

I think there will be an announcement this month…

regarding other headline acts for this year’s Glastonbury Festival. The event has been postponed the past couple of years. The fiftieth anniversary festival was due to take place in 2020. It is such a shame that such an important anniversary was cancelled. Hopefully, all being well, Glastonbury 2022 will take place. There may need to be stricter measures, but I do feel we will get the Glastonbury Festival after two years of nothing. It will be such a relief for those who have tickets and will be attending! At the moment, one headliner has been confirmed. Billie Eilish, at only twenty, is the youngest person to headline the festival. Her incredible second studio album, Happier Than Ever, was released last year. As this article explains, there have been no other confirmed headliners (Diana Ross is an artist who has also been booked to play Glastonbury in the Legends slot):

“Glastonbury Festival is planned to finally return to Somerset in 2022.

The world-famous music event was cancelled in both 2020 and 2021 due to government-enforced coronavirus restrictions.

However, it is planned that the huge event, which welcomes more than 200,000 people to Pilton, will be back in June next year.

Despite many swirling rumours as to who will take to the stage at Worthy Farm, only two acts have been officially confirmed by the festival so far.

In October, it was revealed that Billie Eilish, 19, will headline the Pyramid Stage on the Friday night of the festival next summer.

The musician will be the youngest-ever headline act at Glastonbury Festival.

The American singer-songwriter has seen a dramatic rise to fame after her 2015 debut single success, Ocean Eyes, took the world by storm.

Since then, the teenager has gone on to achieve a chart-topping debut album in the UK, alongside seven Grammy Awards, two Brit awards and many other major music accolades.

Co-organiser of Glastonbury Festival, Emily Eavis, said: "We couldn’t be happier to announce that the wondrous Billie Eilish is headlining the Pyramid on the Friday at next year's Glastonbury Festival, becoming the youngest solo headliner in our history.

"This feels like the perfect way for us to return and I cannot wait!”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz

Taking place between 22nd and 26th June at Worthy Farm, organisers Emily and Michael Eavis have not been able to get too ahead of themselves regarding headliners this year. Assuming there are no lockdowns and restrictions, the festival can go ahead. I shouldn’t imagine there will be any last-minute announcements that would squash Glastonbury for a third consecutive year. 2020 was going to be the year when Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar were going to headline. I can understand that, as she has released a new album recently, Billie Eilish was booked. She appeared at Glastonbury back in 2019 and was a huge fan favourite. Her headline set will be historic and iconic! I think many people would like to see another woman headline. Dua Lipa is someone who has built a lot of momentum since the release of Future Nostalgia in 2020. I would not be shocked to see her booked. Paul McCartney did release an album in 2020, McCartney III, and there has been so much talk and excitement after the documentary-film, The Beatles: Get Back. I am not sure as to whether Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar will be re-invited to headline this year. I think that there is definite and deserved hype around Little Simz and how she continues to bring out music of the highest order. I think that she would be a wonderful headliner. Her Sometimes I Might Be Introvert album has been hailed as one of the best of last year. In terms of young female artists who could join Eilish on stage, one could look at Charli XCX as a potential booking. How I'm Feeling Now was one of 2020’s best albums. I feel she could command the Pyramid Stage.

IN THIS PHOTO: Adele

Last year – like the past four of five years – saw the very best albums made by women. Given the enormous success of her latest album, 30, surely Adele is among the front-runners to headline!? The same could be said of Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor) after Prioritise Pleasure was crowned the best album of 2021 by so many sources and sites. Based on albums from last year, I would say that Wolf Alice, St. Vincent and Lana Del Rey are outside bets. The same goes for IDLES. Maybe Taylor Swift will get a re-invite, but it might be the case that only one woman will headline this year (as Glastonbury, historically, has rarely booked more than one woman to headline a single year). Although I think that eighteen-year-old Olivia Rodrigo will get a slot at Glasto, maybe she is not headline-ready yet – even though her debut album, SOUR, was among last year’s very best. In terms of diversity, Glastonbury has definitely expanded in terms of headliners. Once was the time most of the headliners were Rock or Pop acts. Now, there are no barriers. Maybe a Grime/Rap artist like Dave could headline? His second studio album, We're All Alone in This Together, gained huge reviews last year. Even though Glastonbury has legendary artists playing, might one make it as a headliner this year?

 IN THIS PHOTO: Arctic Monkeys

Two rumoured acts who could be headliners are Elton John and Arctic Monkeys. The former’s much-delayed final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, is not taking place until next year. There is every chance that the legend will have space and time to play at Glastonbury. I feel that he would provide a great set and, contrasting that with the music of Billie Eilish, it does mean that there is that variety. How about Billie Eilish, Little Simz and Elton John as the three headliners?! That would be something! Arctic Monkeys are rumoured to be coming back with a new album this year. The Sheffield band would deliver a barnstorming set! A lot of people associate festival headliners with bands, so having all-solo headliners might disappoint. Of all the bands that would prove a very popular Glasto headliners, Arctic Monkeys have to be up there. Thinking about albums arriving this year – and artists tying in the release with some Glastonbury exposure -, maybe Jack White is a possible headliner? He releases two albums this year: Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive. The former album is coming out on 8th April. With The White Stripes, he played Glastonbury in 2005. He would be another amazing artist to consider. The other act I was thinking of is Beyoncé. She did headline in 2011 but, as that was a long time ago and there is an album coming from her (or at least rumoured) this year, it would be a perfect chance for her to set Glastonbury alight! I am not sure when the official announcements take place regarding the remaining two headliners. Though, whoever gets the illustrious spots, are going to face such an excited and hungry crowd! After this enforced break, the appetite for Glastonbury and all it has to offer will be immense! We will keep our ears and eyes open to see who will be…

JOINING Billie Eilish.

FEATURE: Lowdown Under: Looking Back: Songs from the Best Australian Albums and E.P.s of 2021

FEATURE:

 

 

Lowdown Under

IN THIS PHOTO: Middle Kids/PHOTO CREDIT: Mia Naome Al-Taher

Looking Back: Songs from the Best Australian Albums and E.P.s of 2021

___________

I am a little late to this…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Genesis Owusu

but, as I am nodding back at last year and the best albums that came out, I have been looking at various polls and lists (year-end/best albums of 2021) and there are some incredible albums and E.P.s from Australian artists (or those who were raised or born in the country). This nation has always produced sensational music and, even though many critics and sites focus heavily on U.S. and U.K. artists, Australia is a country that warrants even more focus and exposure. From newer acts like Middle Kids and Genesis Owusu, to more established acts like Courtney Barnett and Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, 2021 saw some absolutely fabulous albums from Australian acts! I am going to run a feature this year that highlights the best new Australian artists to look out for. Now, I wanted to nod back to last year and the sheer array of original, incredible and standout albums and E.P.s from Australian musicians. You may well discover a great artist you have not before from the playlist. As you can see, these artists from Australia delivered…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Courtney Barnett/PHOTO CREDIT: Mia Mala McDonald

SUCH amazing work in 2021.

FEATURE: In Order of Brilliance... Ranking Kate Bush’s Studio Album Title Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

In Order of Brilliance…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Hounds of Love (1985) cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush 

Ranking Kate Bush’s Studio Album Title Tracks

___________

THIS is another idea…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Lionheart (1978) cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

that I don’t think I have done before. I have ranked her album tracks before, though I don’t think I have only ranked the album title tracks. In this rundown, I am including Oh England My Lionheart as a title track – even though the album is called Lionheart. Her third studio album – aside from 2011’s Director’s Cut – is the only one without a title track. I am not sure why Never for Ever (1980) does not have a title cut. There was a song of that name recorded prior to the Never for Ever album, though it was never used. I am going to rank the remaining eight title tracks, in order of their strength and longevity. They are all terrific tracks, though there are a few that stand out and are stronger. Here is my ordering of Kate Bush’s…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay

MAGNIFICENT title tracks.

_______________

8. Oh England My Lionheart

Album Release Date: 13th November, 1978

Producer: Andrew Powell (assisted by Kate Bush)

Label: EMI

Track Information:

“It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away, you know, "ah, the wonderful England'' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like "I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just a exploration of that. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. The Red Shoes

Album Release Date: 2nd November, 1993

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Track Information:

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her seventh album The Red Shoes. Also released as a single by EMI Records in the UK on 4 April 1994. Lead track of the movie The Line, The Cross and the Curve, which was presented on film festival at the time of the single's release.

Formats

'The Red Shoes' was released in the UK as a 7" single, a cassette single and two different CD-singles. The 7" single and cassette single feature the B-side track You Want Alchemy. CD-single 1 added 'Cloudbusting (Video Mix)' and This Woman's Work, and CD-single 2, released one week after the other formats, features Shoedance (see below), together with the single remix of The Big Sky and the 12" version of Running Up That Hill.

Versions

There are three versions of 'The Red Shoes': the album version, which was also used on the single released, and 'Shoedance', which is a 10 minute remix by Karl Blagan of 'The Red Shoes', featuring excerpts from dialogue from the movie The Line, The Cross & The Curve. Finally, there's the version from Bush's album Director's Cut in 2011” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. The Dreaming

Album Release Date: 13th September, 1982

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Track Information:

“We started with the drums, working to a basic Linn drum machine pattern, making them sound as tribal and deep as possible. This song had to try and convey the wide open bush, the Aborigines - it had to roll around in mud and dirt, try to become a part of the earth. "Earthy" was the word used most to explain the sounds. There was a flood of imagery sitting waiting to be painted into the song. The Aborigines move away as the digging machines move in, mining for ore and plutonium. Their sacred grounds are destroyed and their beliefs in Dreamtime grow blurred through the influence of civilization and alcohol. Beautiful people from a most ancient race are found lying in the roads and gutters. Thank God the young Australians can see what's happening.

The piano plays sparse chords, just to mark every few bars and the chord changes. With the help of one of Nick Launay's magic sounds, the piano became wide and deep, effected to the point of becoming voices in a choir. The wide open space is painted on the tape, and it's time to paint the sound that connects the humans to the earth, the dijeridu. The dijeridu took the place of the bass guitar and formed a constant drone, a hypnotic sound that seems to travel in circles.

None of us had met Rolf (Harris) before and we were very excited at the idea of working with him. He arrived with his daughter, a friend and an armful of dijeridus. He is a very warm man, full of smiles and interesting stories. I explained the subject matter of the song and we sat down and listened to the basic track a couple of times to get the feel. He picked up a dijeridu, placing one end of it right next to my ear and the other at his lips, and began to play.

I've never experienced a sound quite like it before. It was like a swarm of tiny velvet bees circling down the shaft of the dijeridu and dancing around in my ear. It made me laugh, but there was something very strange about it, something of an age a long, long time ago.

Women are never supposed to play a dijeridu, according to Aboriginal laws; in fact there is a dijeridu used for special ceremonies, and if this was ever looked upon by a woman before the ceremony could take place, she was taken away and killed, so it's not surprising that the laws were rarely disobeyed. After the ceremony, the instrument became worthless, its purpose over. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. 50 Words for Snow

Album Release Date: 21st November, 2011

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: Fish People

Track Information:

“Years ago I think I must have heard this idea that there were 50 words for snow in this, ah, Eskimo Land! And I just thought it was such a great idea to have so many words about one thing. It is a myth - although, as you say it may hold true in a different language - but it was just a play on the idea, that if they had that many words for snow, did we? If you start actually thinking about snow in all of its forms you can imagine that there are an awful lot of words about it. Just in our immediate language we have words like hail, slush, sleet, settling… So this was a way to try and take it into a more imaginative world. And I really wanted Stephen to read this because I wanted to have someone who had an incredibly beautiful voice but also someone with a real sense of authority when he said things. So the idea was that the words would get progressively more silly really but even when they were silly there was this idea that they would have been important, to still carry weight. And I really, really wanted him to do it and it was fantastic that he could do it. (...) I just briefly explained to him the idea of the song, more or less what I said to you really. I just said it’s our idea of 50 Words For Snow. Stephen is a lovely man but he is also an extraordinary person and an incredible actor amongst his many other talents. So really it was just trying to get the right tone which was the only thing we had to work on. He just came into the studio and we just worked through the words. And he works very quickly because he’s such an able performer. (...) I think faloop'njoompoola is one of my favourites. [laughs] (John Doran, 'A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed'. The Quietus, 2011)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

4. The Sensual World

Album Release Date: 17th October, 1989

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Track Information:

“The song is about someone from a book who steps out from this very black and white 2-D world into the real world. The immediate impressions was the sensuality of this world - the fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual - you know... the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand - the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that's an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. But I'm sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing. (...) I love the sound of church bells. I think they are extraordinary - such a sound of celebration. The bells were put there because originally the lyrics of the song were taken from the book Ulysses by James Joyce, the words at the end of the book by Molly Bloom, but we couldn't get permission to use the words. I tried for a long time - probably about a year - and they wouldn't let me use them, so I had to create something that sounded like those original word, had the same rhythm, the same kind of feel but obviously not being able to use them. It all kind of turned in to a pastiche of it and that's why the book character, Molly Bloom, then steps out into the real world and becomes one of us. (Roger Scott, Interview. Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Aerial

Album Release Date: 7th November, 2005

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Track Information:

“Versions

There is only one studio version of this song.

A live version appears on the album Before The Dawn.

Performances

The song was performed live as part of Kate's Before The Dawn shows in London, 2014.

Credits

Drums: Steve Sanger

Bass: Del Palmer

Guitars: Dan McIntosh

Keyboards: Kate

Percussion: Bosco D’Oliveira” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. The Kick Inside

Album Release Date: 17th February, 1978

Producer: Andrew Powell

Label: EMI

Track Information:

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

1. Hounds of Love

Album Release Date: 16th September, 1985

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Track Information:

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

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

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

But why not "three steps"?

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

FEATURE: Second Spin: Kenickie - At the Club

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Kenickie - At the Club

___________

HERE is an album that I did…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Sweet/Rex Features

not experience the first time around in 1997. I came to Kenickie’s debut album, At the Club, in the 2000s. Listening back now, I can hear other bands who have been inspired by Kenickie. At the Club still sounds utterly fresh and thrilling. One of the big albums of 1997, it reached number nine on the U.K. With incredible, distinct and hugely impressive singles like Punka, Millionaire Sweeper, and In Your Car, it is an album that has more than its share of gems. I feel that it is not played as much as it should be. At the Club was produced by John Cornfield, Andy Carpenter and band-member Peter Gofton (Johnny X). Reviews for the album were largely positive. Maybe one of the albums from a sensational year that got buried because of the sheer quality around it, I wanted to revisit a record that turns twenty-five on 12th May. If you have not heard Kenickie’s amazing debut album, then get on it now! The Sunderland band were led by BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Lauren Laverne. I have a lot of love for the band. With her brother Peter Gofton (Johnny X) on percussion, and Marie du Santiago and Emmy-Kate Montrose providing sensational musicianship and vocals, the band were an amazing force in the 1990s! I believe that an album such as At the Club is deserving of fresh inspection now. I want to bring in a couple of positive reviews/articles about the album.

This is what NME had to day about At the Club back in 1997. Despite some minor criticisms, they were impressed by what they heard from such a young band:

“With their spiky punk-pop scrongling deepened and softened by Supergrass producer John Cornfield, Kenickie now sound wide-bodied and ready for take-off. Guitars shimmer like Hard Candy nail varnish throughout. Reference points are adopted and discarded at disorienting speed: early Blondie for the girls-with-guns playground games of 'Spies'; the Shangri-Las for the call-and-response vocals and synchronised handclaps of 'In Your Car' and the ever majestic 'Come Out 2Nite'; even Dinosaur Jr for the warmly chugging hymn to how downright classy Kenickie are that is, erm, 'Classy'. It's all PVC and parties, champagne and lip gloss, tacky glamour and fruity banter. But if it was only this -; the giddy rush of first love, classroom crushes and furtive youth club snogs -; then Kenickie really would be the shallow cheap-thrills merchants their dissenters would have us believe. If they truly were one-trick Shetland ponies in spangly threads, then those Shampoo and Fluffy parallels would make sense. Indie Spice Girls accusations could be flung with impunity, and Kenickie would be whoring themselves around the TFI Friday circuit until the cash cows staggered home.

That, of course, is not the case. Because as well as evoking adolescence's dizzying sense of immortality and hormonally charged confusion like no other album this decade, 'At The Club' consolidates an oft-overlooked strand of Kenickie's vision which throws the rest into stark perspective. Because there is vulnerability here behind the invincible posturing, a crushing sense of youth's transience and a prescient awareness of disappointments to come. Bloody hell -; and still not turned 20.

So 'People We Want' might ring with Lauren Laverne's teenage impatience to gallop out and seize the long-promised adult prizes of love and stardom, but she also sounds tremulously uncertain that these treasures even await her at all. The gushing guitar gradients of 'Brother John' tell us that, "Everyone looks better when they're sad," while 'How I Was Made' quietly evokes the fragile bodily self-disgust of Richey or Kurt at their most morbid. Even the Lottery winners of 'Millionaire Sweeper' end up lost and lonely, while album-closers 'I Never Complain' and 'Acetone' find Lauren hunched forlornly over her acoustic guitar, her breathy sighs tinged with suicidal intent. Crikey. Party time, anyone?

OK, 'At The Club' isn't the best album ever made. For that, Kenickie will need to learn how to distil their huge, witty, tragicomic and obscenely gifted personalities into musical form -; and, so far, no songs have been invented which can take that level of sassy charisma without collapsing into a black hole of dense antimatter.

They could also benefit from stretching their pop palette to match their skyscraping ambition, acknowledging the electronic age which shaped them as much as geetars: after all, their primary school days were brightened by the likes of ABC, the Human League and Duran Duran. The only clear sign of this on 'At The Club' is 'Robot Song', the longest and finest number here, an android-pop ballad with a whiff of Blur's 'Boys & Girls' about it which relates the saga of a cyborg who craves human feelings but, when he gets them, is overwhelmed by sadness. Smart, tinged by tragedy and clever beyond its years -; in other words, totally Kenickie.

Even so, despite its minor shortcomings, 'At The Club' fizzes with pure spunk, drop-dead cool and blinding potential”.

Before I finish things up, this Back Seat Mafia feature discuses an impressive and brilliant album that has been forgotten a certain amount. Not often ranked alongside the best debuts of the 1990s, that is something that needs to be revised:

“The guitar bands that rose to prominence in the UK through the mid 90s in the UK were a mixed bunch. There were a handful of thoroughly enjoyable bands, but on the whole as it was largely either ridiculously pretentious, impossibly dull or lowest-common-denominator rubbish. It was even worse for the female fronted groups, as they were either frowny and miserable or just useless .

Other than PJ Harvey, Britain hadn’t produced a genuinely talented and enjoyable female fronted rock band for years and the masses were turning to identikit mouthy girls wearing shrunken T-shirts, fronting groups of anonymous blokes with guitars. Things were bleak. Then, at what looked to be the darkest hour, when the most vital females in music were The Spice Girls, three whip smart Northern lasses decked out in leather, PVC and leopard print, with big guitars, big choruses and a bloke who played the drums staggered out of the gloom and into the hearts of those that could recognise a genuinely subversive band when they heard one.

For all their attempts to mirror working-class attitudes and experiences, the majority of Brit-pop bands had fallen short. Not Kenickie though. On At the Club they sang songs of cheap nights out, booze, partying, seducing blokes because they drove flash cars, self doubt and bitchiness. On top of this they were fun too. This earthy approach did much to hide the fact that Kenickie were far more intelligent and knowing than most gave them credit for. Yes they wrote singalong songs about partying and picking up blokes, but they weren’t afraid to acknowledge the dark underside of this lifestyle as well. Despite their girly choruses both “How I Was Made” and “Acetone” are strangely sad and moving songs and a tune like “Robot Song” is strangely unnerving.

At the end of the day though, this is a pretty accurate picture of the lifestyle of British girls who were in their late teens during the last five years of the 20th century (or at least those that I knew anyway). It has big, supercharged guitars, stomping beats, marvelous singalong choruses, songs about the joys of wearing “P.V.C.” and listening to lo-fi music.

They may have followed up At the Club with a downbeat album which saw the band end on a whimper, but this joyous debut stands as a monument to one of the great forgotten bands of the late 90s. There weren’t many bands willing to blend power-pop with girl-group stylings at he time, but in recent years there seems to have been some belated acknowledgment of Kenickie’s inherent brilliance. These days former Kenickie frontwoman Lauren Laverne is now a much-loved radio and television presenter and is probably better known now than she’s ever been. The other band members, despite each still being part of the music scene to varying degrees, little has been heard from, apart from Laverne’s brother and his bewildering array of contributions to the UK music scene over the past decade.At the Club is one of those albums that is an audio time-capsule of its time, yet anyone who journeys onto West Street on a Saturday evening can confirm that its themes have remained oddly timeless. Who knows, maybe it is finally time for Kenickie to be given the respect that they were always due”.

An album I have bonded with and explored a lot over the past few days, 1997’s At the Club was the exciting and hugely talented Kenickie coming into the music with a bang! Maybe one will hear Punka now and then, but what about, Brother John, Robot Song, P.V.C., or I Never Complain?! An album chocked with great songs that are worthy of a spin, go and listen to a tremendous album. Ahead of its twenty-fifth anniverssary in the summer, I wanted to highlight an amazing album that…

EVERYONE should hear.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighty-Six: JAY-Z

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Eighty-Six: JAY-Z

___________

ON this outing of A Buyer’s Guide…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Raven B. Varona

I wanted to celebrate and highlight the work of a Hip-Hop pioneer and godfather. The legendary JAY-Z is an artist who, since his 1996 debut (Reasonable Debut) has released some of the finest albums ever. He is a hugely inventive and inspirational artist who is part of one of the world’s greatest power couples (he is married to Beyoncé). Before recommending his four essential albums, an underrated gem, his latest studio album and a good book, I wanted to bring in some biography from AllMusic:

“From the projects to the throne, New York rapper, producer, and entrepreneur Jay-Z embodied the quintessential rags-to-riches dream, becoming one of the most successful MCs of his generation while creating an empire that made him one of the richest artists of the era. After debuting in the late '90s with Reasonable Doubt and In My Lifetime, Vol 1, he began a chart run that notched over a dozen number one albums spread over two decades, including the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life (1999), the Blueprint series (2001, 2002, 2009), and The Black Album (2003). In addition to his solo work, Jay-Z also found mainstream crossover success with pop, R&B, and rock artists, notably collaborating with protege Rihanna on their Grammy-winning "Umbrella" (2008); alternative metal outfit Linkin Park on 2004's genre mash-up Collision Course; Alicia Keys on New York City's unofficial anthem, the chart-topping "Empire State of Mind" (2011); frequent foil Kanye West on Watch the Throne (2012); and wife Beyoncé on numerous hit singles, international tours, and the joint album Everything Is Love (2018). He also contributed the song "What It Feels Like" to the soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated 2021 drama Judas and The Black Messiah. In addition to rapping, Jay-Z has also served as a label head (Roc-A-Fella/Roc Nation/Def Jam), team owner (NBA's Brooklyn Nets), real-estate mogul, and fashion designer.

Born in 1969 and raised in the rough Marcy Projects of Brooklyn, New York, Jay-Z was raised by his mother and turned to the streets, where he made a name for himself as a fledging rapper and drug dealer. Known as "Jazzy" in his neighborhood, he soon shortened his nickname to Jay-Z and did all he could to break into the rap game. As he vividly discusses in his lyrics, Jay-Z also became a street hustler around this time, doing what needed to be done to make money. For a while, he ran around with rapper Jaz-O, aka Big Jaz. From Jaz he learned how to navigate the rap industry and what moves to make. He also participated in the group Original Flavor for a short time. Jay-Z subsequently decided to make an untraditional decision and start his own label rather than sign with an established one as Jaz had done. Together with friends Damon Dash and Kareem "Biggs" Burke, he created Roc-a-Fella Records. Once he found a reputable distributor, Priority Records (and later Def Jam), Jay-Z finally had everything in place, including a debut album, Reasonable Doubt (1996).

Though Reasonable Doubt reached only number 23 on the Billboard 200 chart, Jay-Z's debut eventually became recognized as an undisputed classic among fans, many of whom consider it his crowning achievement. Led by the hit single "Ain't No Nigga," a duet featuring Foxy Brown, Reasonable Doubt slowly spread through New York; some listeners were drawn in because of big names like DJ Premier and the Notorious B.I.G., others by the gangsta motifs very much in style at the time, still others by Jay-Z himself. By the end of its steady run, Reasonable Doubt generated three more charting singles -- "Can't Knock the Hustle," "Dead Presidents," and "Feelin' It" -- and set the stage for the follow-up, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 (1997).

Peaking at number three on the Billboard 200, In My Lifetime sold much more strongly than its predecessor. The album boasted pop-crossover producers such as Puff Daddy and Teddy Riley, and singles such as "Sunshine" and "The City Is Mine" indeed showcased a newfound embrace of pop crossover. Yet there were still plenty of hard-hitting songs, such as "Streets Is Watching" and "Rap Game/Crack Game" to lace In My Lifetime with gangsta rap as well as pop crossover. Jay-Z's next album, Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life (1998), released a year after In My Lifetime, was laden with hit singles: "Can I Get A..." and "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" broke the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, while "Cash, Money, Hoes" and "Nigga What, Nigga Who" also charted. Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life ended up winning a Grammy for Best Rap Album.

Like clockwork, Jay-Z returned a year later with another album, Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter (1999), which topped the Billboard 200 and spawned two hits: "Big Pimpin'" and "Do It Again (Put Ya Hands Up)." The album was Jay-Z's most collaborative to date, featuring ten guest vocalists and a roll call of in-demand producers such as Dr. Dre and Timbaland. Jay-Z then scaled back a bit for Dynasty Roc la Familia (2000), his fifth album in as many years. The album showcased Roc-a-Fella's in-house rappers, such as Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, and Freeway. On Dynasty Roc la Familia, Jay-Z also began working with a few new producers: the Neptunes, Kanye West, and Just Blaze. The Neptunes-produced "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)" became a particularly huge hit single this go-round.

Jay-Z's next album, The Blueprint (2001), solidified his position atop the New York rap scene. Prior to its release, the rapper had caused a stir in New York following his headlining performance at Hot 97's Summer Jam 2001, where he debuted the song "Takeover."

The song features a harsh verse ridiculing Prodigy of Mobb Deep, and Jay-Z accentuated his verbal assault by showcasing gigantic photos of an adolescent Prodigy in a dance outfit. The version of "Takeover" that later appeared on The Blueprint includes a third verse, this one dissing Nas, who, in response to the Summer Jam performance, had called out Jay-Z, "the fake king of New York," in a freestyle known as "Stillmatic." As expected, "Takeover" ignited a sparring match with Nas, who responded with "Ether." Jay-Z accordingly returned with a comeback, "Super Ugly," where he rapped over the beats to Nas' "Get Ur Self A..." on the first verse and Dr. Dre's "Bad Intentions" on the second. The back-and-forth bout created massive publicity for both Jay-Z and Nas. In addition to "Takeover," The Blueprint also featured "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," one of the year's biggest hit songs, and the album topped many year-end best-of charts.Jay-Z capitalized on the runaway success of The Blueprint with a number of follow-up projects. He collaborated with the Roots for the Unplugged album (2001) and with R. Kelly for Best of Both Worlds (2002). He then went on to record, over the course of the year, 40 or so new tracks, 25 of which appeared on his next record, the double album The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse (2002). Though billed as a sequel, The Blueprint² was considerably different from its predecessor. Whereas the first volume had been personal, considered, and focused, the second instead offered an unapologetically sprawling double-disc extravaganza showcasing remarkable scope. As usual, it spawned a stream of singles, led by his 2Pac cover "'03 Bonnie & Clyde," featuring his future wife Beyoncé. Furthermore, Jay-Z guested on a pair of summer 2003 hits: Beyoncé's chart-topping "Crazy in Love" and Pharrell Williams' Top Five hit "Frontin'."

It was then that Jay-Z announced his imminent retirement after the release of one more album. That LP, The Black Album (2003), was rush-released by Def Jam and soared to the top Billboard spot at the end of the year. It spawned a couple big hits -- "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and "99 Problems" -- and inspired a popular mash-up bootleg, The Grey Album, by Danger Mouse. The subsequent year (2004) was a whirlwind for the retiring Jay-Z. He embarked on a farewell tour that was topped off by an extravagant Madison Square Garden performance documented on the Fade to Black DVD, and he also embarked on an arena tour with the embattled R. Kelly.

With his reputation bigger than ever, Jay-Z accepted an offer to assume the role of president at Def Jam. The seminal rap label was struggling and needed someone to guide it through a rocky transitional phase. Jay-Z accepted the challenge and took over the company begun by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin roughly 20 years earlier. (As part of its deal with Jay-Z, Def Jam's parent company, Universal, bought Roc-a-Fella.) Considerable fanfare met the presidential inauguration, as Jay-Z became one of the few African-American major-label executives in the business. Numerous rappers owned or operated their own boutique labels, but none had ever risen to such major-label heights. The rapper-turned-president didn't take his job lightly, either, at least judging by his initial year at the helm. Within months of assuming his position, he fostered a string of newfound talents, including Young Jeezy and Rihanna.

In 2005, Jay-Z came out of retirement for the I Declare War concert in New York City. The ambitious show featured a parade of high-profile guest stars, including Diddy and Kanye West, and in a peacemaking move, Nas. With this longstanding beef squashed, Jay-Z announced he was coming out of retirement for good. He made it official when Kingdom Come (2006) hit shelves. Jay-Z kept firing with American Gangster (2007), inspired by the concurrent film of the same name. After he left Def Jam and established Roc Nation -- a label, music publisher, and talent agency through Live Nation -- he released a third installment in the Blueprint series, The Blueprint 3 (2009). Announced with the single "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)," the album featured productions from Kanye West and Timbaland, plus guest features for West, Rihanna, and Alicia Keys, the latter of whom appeared on "Empire State of Mind," one of the biggest hits of Jay-Z's career. At various points during the next two years, Jay-Z and West, joined by numerous associates, worked on Watch the Throne (2011). The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, supported by the smash hits "Otis" and "Niggas in Paris."

On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to Blue Ivy Carter. Jay-Z quickly released "Glory," featuring his daughter as B.I.C.; she became the youngest person to appear on a Billboard-charting single. High-profile television a few months later announced Jay-Z's 12th solo album, Magna Carta...Holy Grail (2012). Released that July 4, it featured production from Timbaland and partner Jerome "J. Roc" Harmon, while the lead song involved Justin Timberlake, with whom Jay-Z toured that summer. During the next few years, Jay-Z was involved primarily with assorted business and philanthropic ventures, as well as the production of the documentary Time: The Kalief Browder Story. He appeared on a handful of tracks headlined by other artists, including Drake's "Pop Style" and DJ Khaled's "I Got the Keys." Further collaborations, such as his and Beyoncé's appearances on Khaled's "Shining," along with an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (as the first rap artist), and the addition of newborn twins to the Carter family, all preceded the album 4:44 (2017). His 13th full-length, the critically acclaimed, platinum-certified set debuted atop the Billboard 200 and was nominated for Album of the Year and Song of the Year (for single "The Story of O.J.") at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018. Later that year, he embarked on an international stadium tour with Beyonce dubbed On the Run II. To coincide with the trek, the pair released the surprise album Everything Is Love as the Carters. Including the Migos-assisted lead single "Apeshit" -- which was promoted with a music video shot at the Louvre -- Everything Is Love debuted at number two and featured production by Pharrell Williams, Mike Dean, Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, and more. In 2021, Jay-Z contributed the track "What It Feels Like" (featuring the late-Nipsey Hussle) to the soundtrack to the Oscar-nominated film Judas and The Black Messiah”.

To show what an incredible and consistent artist JAY-Z is, here are my suggestions regarding which albums you should buy. I have also highlighted a book that gives more information about a truly superb talent. If you are new to JAY-Z, I hope that the below provides you…

WITH some guidance.

_____________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Reasonable Doubt

Release Date: 25th June, 1996

Labels: Roc-A-Fella/Priority

Producers: Shawn Carter (exec.)/Damon Dash (exec.)/Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke (exec.)/Big Jaz/Sean Cane/Clark Kent/Dahoud/DJ Irv/DJ Premier/Knobody/Peter Panic/Ski

Standout Tracks: Dead Presidents II/Feelin' It (featuring Mecca)/Ain't No Nigga (featuring Foxy Brown)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=9258&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3gHvsTdiiZWGxEg32lyLwk?si=NHaAsoEOTSSgu9U-mlE_eQ

Review:

“Before Jay-Z fashioned himself into hip-hop's most notorious capitalist, he was a street hustler from the projects who rapped about what he knew -- and was very, very good at it. Skeptics who've never cared for Jigga's crossover efforts should turn to his debut, Reasonable Doubt, as the deserving source of his legend. Reasonable Doubt is often compared to another New York landmark, Nas' Illmatic: A hungry young MC with a substantial underground buzz drops an instant classic of a debut, detailing his experiences on the streets with disarming honesty, and writing some of the most acrobatic rhymes heard in quite some time. (Plus, neither artist has since approached the street cred of his debut, The Blueprint notwithstanding.) Parts of the persona that Jay-Z would ride to superstardom are already in place: He's cocky bordering on arrogant, but playful and witty, and exudes an effortless, unaffected cool throughout. And even if he's rapping about rising to the top instead of being there, his material obsessions are already apparent. Jay-Z the hustler isn't too different from Jay-Z the rapper: Hustling is about living the high life and getting everything you can, not violence or tortured glamour or cheap thrills. In that sense, the album's defining cut might not be one of the better-known singles -- "Can't Knock the Hustle," "Dead Presidents II," "Feelin' It," or the Foxy Brown duet, "Ain't No Nigga." It just might be the brief "22 Two's," which not only demonstrates Jay-Z's extraordinary talent as a pure freestyle rapper, but also preaches a subtle message through its club hostess: Bad behavior gets in the way of making money. Perhaps that's why Jay-Z waxes reflective, not enthusiastic, about the darker side of the streets; songs like "D'Evils" and "Regrets" are some of the most personal and philosophical he's ever recorded. It's that depth that helps Reasonable Doubt rank as one of the finest albums of New York's hip-hop renaissance of the '90s” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Can't Knock the Hustle (featuring Mary J. Blige)

The Blueprint

Release Date: 11th September, 2001

Labels: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam

Producers: Shawn Carter (exec.)/Damon Dash (exec.)/Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke (exec./)Bink/Eminem/Just Blaze/Michael Jackson/The Trackmasters/Luis Resto/Kanye West/Timbaland

Standout Tracks: Izzo (H.O.V.A.)/Girls, Girls, Girls/Song Cry

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=46989&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/69CmkikTHkGKdkrUZTtyWl?si=oZ3nmbeESziuvIpwDYQU6w

Review:

“Bouncing up means coming down, and he does for "Renegade," teaming with the world's other greatest MC to whine about the perils of being the world's greatest MCs and all. I shouldn't have to mention the brilliant rhymes, but (surprisingly, after a few bombs on the d12 album) it's almost ridiculous how good Eminem's beat is-- strings, synth and "Good Vibrations"-style theremin tones roll easy like 1987. After that, Jay puts focus in full on his rep, bigging up Reasonable Doubt more times than every other cut of his career combined. Jay's always been moving towards abolishing the hardcore production style that originally went with being gangsta, but the funny thing about this is how overwhelmingly post-gangsta he is-- the fruits of a thug life that was too long ago to dwell on.

"If I ain't better than B.I.G./ I'm the closest one," he says on "Hola Hovito," and that's an important clarification; when Puffy and Easy Mo Bee were laying pop beats under Biggie's real-life crime stories, the old school heads complained about how the rugged and rough aesthetic was on the way out. But "Juicy" shut the haters up by simply explaining that Biggie was pop only because he didn't need that dirty funk-rock life anymore. And so, while frat boys went buckwild for screeching thugs like Cypress Hill and Onyx who boasted of a running crime rate, Biggie had already gotten over it and just wanted to live his life in peace. But everyone knows what actually happened, and after his crime style finally caught up with him, the new generation of pop thug was ushered in. After Biggie's death, no one comes closer than Jay-Z” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: Takeover

The Black Album

Release Date: 14th November, 2003

Labels: Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam

Producers: Shawn Carter (also exec.)/Damon Dash (exec.)/Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke (exec.)/3H9th Wonder/Aqua/The Buchanans/Eminem/DJ Quik/Just Blaze/Kanye West/Luis Resto/The Neptunes/Rick Rubin/Timbaland

Standout Tracks: What More Can I Say/Change Clothes (featuring Pharrell Williams)/Dirt Off Your Shoulder

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=47051&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6vT81iUtDPLkfHDAwoRNpu?si=4RZKX6A0SJOB9W9ndXyWUA

Review:

“It's rare for a rapper to make a goodbye album -- generally the marketplace kicks you out of the game first. But Jay-Z is a rare rapper. The dominant figure of the post-Biggie and --Tupac era, he spit cool and witty with devastating flows, dropped classic albums, influenced MCs, changed pop culture and built a tall stack of dollars in the process.

Time will tell whether or not The Black Album is Jay-Z's final release, but it certainly is a goodbye album. He's settling scores and letting us deeper into his life than ever. He talks in depth about his parents, giving his mother, Gloria Carter, time to shine on the opening song, "December 4th." On the Eminem-produced "Moment of Clarity," he invokes the memory of his father, Adnes: "Pop died/Didn't cry/Didn't know him that well/Between him doin' heroin and me doin' crack sales." But by the end of the verse, he has forgiven his late father and says to him, "Save a place in heaven till the next time we meet forever."

The Black Album has a dream team of producers, including Kanye West ("Lucifer," "Encore"), Just Blaze ("December 4th"), the Neptunes ("Change Clothes," "Allure") and Timbaland, whose obese club-banger "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" easily wins the prize for best beat, with Rick Rubin's raucous, rock-drenched "99 Problems" a close second.

Given one last chance to make an impact, Jay-Z has come up with one of the better albums of his career, though perhaps a shade lesser than his very best, Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint. Still, we've witnessed not merely a Hall of Fame career but one of the top-shelf greatest of all time, up there with Rakim, Big, Pac and Nas. And like every great rapper, Jay-Z has never been afraid to tell us he's Number One. On "What More Can I Say," he rhymes, "Pound for pound I'm the best to ever come around here/Excluding nobody." He could be right” – Rolling Stone

Choice Cut: 99 Problems

American Gangster

Release Date: 6th November, 2007

Labels: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam

Producers: Shawn Carter (exec.)/Antonio ‘L.A.’ Reid (exec.)/Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs with The Hitmen (also assoc.)/Bigg D/Chris Flame/Idris ‘Driis’ Elba/Jermaine Dupri/Just Blaze/Skyz Muzik/The Neptunes/No I.D./Toomp/Mario Winans

Standout Tracks: American Dreamin'/I Know/Say Hello

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=47134&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6JlAOzNEYuPBZHf1iTs5kT?si=jKd9J-RQTVCGsw0zr6GbxA

Review:

“With his criminally overhyped, thuddingly anticlimactic comeback album, Kingdom Come, Jay-Z offered listeners insight into the surprisingly dull life of a thirtysomething hip-hop mogul with nothing to prove and nothing much to say. The album's disappointing sales suggested that fans found the view from the boardroom infinitely less compelling than the street-corner perspective of Jay-Z's early work. On American Gangster, the hustler-turned-executive finds inspiration in the Ridley Scott film of the same name, the lush atmosphere of '70s soul, and the bracing grit of blaxploitation.

American Gangster stumbles a bit in its Diddy-dominated first half, but it locks into a slinky retro nighttime groove with "I Know," which breathes new life into the heroin-seduction song with one of Pharrell's mile-wide space-disco grooves. And the album sustains that groove until the final track. Meanwhile, "Blue Magic" ruthlessly deconstructs the Neptunes' sound until all that's left is organ vamping, spare percussion, and vintage Jay-Z braggadocio. On the similarly minimalist "Success," Jay-Z and Nas reaffirm their potent chemistry over No I.D.'s sleazy funk. Gangster makes explicit the implicit subtext of so much street rap: that studio gangstas are generally more influenced by the contents of their DVD collections than their personal memories. Judging by this surprisingly strong return to form, Jay-Z might want to consider spending less time in the office and more time at the movies” – The A.V. Club

Choice Cut: Roc Boys (And the Winner Is)...

The Underrated Gem

 

Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life

Release Date: 29th September, 1998

Labels: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam

Producers: Shawn Carter (exec.)/Damon Dash (also exec.)/Kareem ‘Biggs’ Burke (exec.)/Irv Gotti/Kid Capri/J-Runnah/Jermaine Dupri/Rockwilder/Lil' Rob/Mahogany/The 45 King/DJ Premier/Erick Sermon/Stevie J/Swizz Beatz/Timbaland/Darold ‘POP’ Trotter

Standout Tracks: Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator 99) (featuring Big Jaz)/Money, Cash, Hoes (featuring DMX)/Can I Get A... (featuring Ja Rule and Amil)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=46840&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3j1xCJdBMCl6wYQXurz2tb?si=Nz8o9-P1S_SzT7iZY-pRhw

Review:

“After recording with underground legends such as the Jaz, Original Flavor, Mic Geronimo and Big Daddy Kane, rapper Jay-Z got his big break with the Foxy Brown duet "Ain't No Nigga" on the "Nutty Professor" soundtrack. This radio and club hit set the stage for the Brooklyn rapper's debut album, 1996's "Reasonable Doubt." Rife with vivid images detailing the saga of a highbrow criminal, the collection was embraced by a New York audience thirsty for its own version of gangster hip-hop.

Jay-Z's biggest asset is his ability to relay the most intricate nuances of life--especially a life saturated with drugs, guns and disposable women. He seemingly reinvented these topics on last year's "In My Lifetime, Vol. 1" and the soundtrack for this year's "Streets Is Watching," a direct-to-video movie in which Jay-Z was the star.

"Vol. 2--A Hard Knock Life," which entered the national sales chart this week at No. 1, reconfirms Jay-Z's status as a superior wordsmith. Following the current rap record trend of featuring a multitude of guest stars, 13 of the 14 tracks feature at least one other voice. Still, Jay-Z emerges as the hero of this hard-hitting, lyrically intense opus” – Los Angeles Times

Choice Cut: Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)

The Latest Album

 

4:44

Release Date: 30th June, 2017

Label: Roc Nation

Producers: Jay-Z (exec.)/No I.D. (co-exec.)/Dominic Maker/James Blake

Standout Tracks: The Story of O.J./4:44/Bam (featuring Damian Marley)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1206473&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7GoZNNb7Yl74fpk8Z6I2cv?si=LYlr3hbYRmecYTa-rfrDvg

Review:

“This is Jay-Z’s mea culpa. When Beyoncé called out her husband on Lemonade in 2016, revealing how the man born Shawn Carter had been tomcatting around with “Becky with the good hair” while his missus was stuck at home changing baby Blue Ivy’s nappies, he did the sensible thing and kept out of sight. A year later (and with Beyoncé reported to have given birth to twins), on an album released exclusively on the Tidal streaming service he part-owns, he has done what unfaithful partners have been doing since time immemorial: slunk back with his tail between his legs.

“I don’t deserve you,” he wails on the title track, before apologising for myriad crimes, mostly involving other women. Then, with the air of a man coming to terms with what he has done on the morning after, he asks himself: “You did what with who? What good is a ménage à trois when you have a soulmate? You risked that for Blue?” He over-eggs the pudding when he promises to be emotionally available at all times, always there for her from now on, cross his heart and hope to die, but you have to admire the intensity of feeling.

Beyoncé deigns to lend her hubby a few backing vocals on Family Feud as he offers more apologies, making clear he knows which side his bread is buttered by stating: “Leave me alone, Becky.” On Kill Jay-Z he goes into full ego-meltdown mode, begging forgiveness for shooting his brother when he was 12, and selling drugs to people he loved, before confessing: “You egged Solange on, knowing all along all you had to say was you was wrong”, a reference to a filmed incident of Beyoncé’s sister Solange Knowles attacking Jay-Z in a lift. Rap is in large part based on braggadocio, yet here a giant of hip-hop culture is engaging in the kind of self-flagellation more commonly associated with tormented singer-songwriters.

When he isn’t donning the hair shirt, Jay-Z is rapping about familiar subjects of race and money, set for the most part to a melodic, mellow blend of subdued beats, Nina Simone, Donny Hathaway and gospel samples, and cut-up piano and orchestral parts. “OJ like, ‘I’m not black, I’m OJ’ . . . OK,” he raps in characteristically breathy fashion on The Story of OJ, offering a series of black stereotypes before concluding they are all “still nigga”, then moving on to a quick primer on the basics of property and art investment. “We stuck in La La Land. Even if we win, we gonna lose,” he raps on Moonlight, a reference to the mostly white La La Land, mistakenly announced as the Oscar winner for best picture when the real winner was the African-American drama Moonlight, firing up a racial debate in the process. Legacy, which uses Donny Hathaway’s Someday We’ll All Be Free, looks at Jay-Z’s position as a successful black man and what that will mean for his family and the culture at large” – The Times

Choice Cut: Family Feud (featuring Beyoncé)

The JAY-Z Book

 

Empire State Of Mind (Revised): How Jay Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office Revised Edition

Author: Zack O'malley Greenburg

Publication Date: 22nd September, 2015

Publisher: Portfolio

Reviews:

“Fascinating, well-done biography of one of the most extraordinary entrepreneurs of our era.

--Steve Forbes

Greenburg has become one of the rare reporters to bring dignified coverage of the hip-hop business into the mainstream. Empire State of Mind is a pure product of Greenburg's care and insight, an exploration of hip-hop's most enigmatic mogul.

--Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

Greenburg follows the money and key pieces of the Jay Z puzzle in this insightful, savvy read. This book is like a GPS leading us through the modern urban realityof how Jay Z's empire was built.

--Fab 5 Freddy, artist, hip-hop pioneer, and former host of Yo! MTV Raps

A superb guide for your career, even if you are looking to be an investment banker or grocery store manager instead of a hip-hop legend.

--CNN.com”.

Order: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Empire-State-Mind-Street-Revised/dp/1591848342/ref=sr_1_2?crid=JA410R65ZM26&keywords=jay-z&qid=1640523381&s=books&sprefix=jay-z%2Cstripbooks%2C501&sr=1-2  

FEATURE: Golden Years: Songs from Albums Turning Five in 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

Golden Years

 Songs from Albums Turning Five in 2022

___________

IN early-January of each year…

I like to put together a series of playlist with songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries. I am going back five years to 2017. That is a year that saw more than its fair share of classics released into the world. A track from the very best that 2017 had to offer, we will celebrate five years of these superb albums very soon. The playlist below is a collection of awesome songs from albums released…

FIVE years ago.

FEATURE: Golden Years: Songs from Albums Turning Ten in 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

Golden Years

Songs from Albums Turning Ten in 2022

___________

IN early-January of each year…

I like to put together a series of playlist with songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries. I am going back ten years to 2012. That is a year that saw more than its fair share of classics released into the world. A track from the very best that 2012 had to offer, we will celebrate ten years of these superb albums very soon. The playlist below is a collection of awesome songs from albums released…

TEN years ago.

FEATURE: Golden Years: Songs from Albums Turning Fifteen in 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

Golden Years

Songs from Albums Turning Fifteen in 2022

___________

IN early-January of each year…

I like to put together a series of playlist with songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries. I am going back fifteen years to 2007. That is a year that saw more than its fair share of classics released into the world. A track from the very best that 2007 had to offer, we will celebrate fifteen years of these superb albums very soon. The playlist below is a collection of awesome songs from albums released…

FIFTEEN years ago.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Tim Wheeler at Forty-Five: The Best of Ash

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

Tim Wheeler at Forty-Five: The Best of Ash

___________

ON 4th January…

it is the forty-fifth birthday of Ash’s Tim Wheeler. To honour and mark that birthday, I am going to end with a playlist of the best Ash tracks. Prior to that, AllMusic provide some biography of the incredible Northern Irish band:

“The musicians in Northern Irish punk-pop trio Ash first played together in 1989, when childhood mates Tim Wheeler and Mark Hamilton received guitars for Christmas and established a metal act named Vietnam. Following a handful of shows, Vietnam adopted the Ash moniker in 1992 and added Rick "Rock" McMurray on drums. The musicians shared a love for the raw British punk of the Buzzcocks and crafted their musical talents to take the Brit-pop scene by storm at the start of the decade. NME was soon swooning over these "teen punkers from Belfast," and by 1994, Ash had signed with Infectious Records and issued the Trailer EP.

Ash's youth was undoubtedly alluring, yet the band's Irish roots exuded a bit of American flair similar to the likes of Pavement and the Lemonheads. Wheeler, Hamilton, and McMurray weren't even out of high school before three of their singles hit the Top Five in the U.K. indie charts. A year later, Ash made their full-length debut with 1977, topping the U.K. album chart, and set their sights on America, having inked a deal with Reprise Records. Named in honor of the year Star Wars was released, 1977 displayed Wheeler and Hamilton's full-fledged love for all things extraterrestrial and science fiction-related; the record also flaunted sharp guitar hooks and exact production work by Owen Morris (Oasis, New Order, Paul Weller). Ash took to headlining major festivals -- T in the Park, Glastonbury, Roskilde, and Reading -- and playing club dates across the globe. In fall 1997, female guitarist Charlotte Hatherley was added to the previously all-male lineup, marking a change in the band's sound and image.

With a new bandmate aboard, Ash matured during the late '90s, as their sound featured heavier guitars and a gritty lyrical shift. The band's sophomore effort, Nu-Clear Sounds (1998), featured the work of Garbage's Butch Vig (Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana) at the mixing board, but it also resulted in mixed reviews. NME turned on the band, criticizing Ash's new sound, calling the band "terrifying ghoulrawk thrashnik, deathcore noiseterror sultans of satanic verse" in August 1998. Harsh words and reviews notwithstanding, Ash forged ahead with Free All Angels (released in April 2001, although it didn't even see a U.S. release until the following summer) and 2005's Meltdown, which marked the band's first stateside release for the Record Collection label. They closed the year supporting U2 on their third world tour and, soon after, Wheeler and Hamilton decided to relocate to New York while the band went on a six-month hiatus. Charlotte Hatherley announced her departure from the band one year later, having logged nearly a decade with the group.

Ash forged ahead as a trio and released Twilight of the Innocents in 2007, claiming that the album would be their last. Interestingly enough, they also assured their fans that they were not breaking up; instead, the group would only release singles in response to consumer trends. Starting in 2009, the band began the A-Z Series, releasing a new single every two weeks until all 26 singles were released. The following year they released A-Z: Vol. 1 -- which compiled singles A through M -- while A-Z: Vol. 2 completed the collection with songs N-Z a few months later. In 2011, to mark the release of their Best of Ash compilation, they were reunited with guitarist Hatherley for a short U.K. tour where they performed fan-favorite Free All Angels in its entirety.

Ash marked their 20th anniversary in 2012 with a sold-out show at the Garage in London, and they released an EP to coincide with the impressive milestone. Titled Little Infinity, the record consisted of cover versions, including the Beach Boys' "Do You Wanna Dance" and ABBA's "Lay All Your Love on Me." They continued their resurgence into 2013 with their first appearance in seven years at industry showcase SXSW in Texas, and they also played a handful of U.S. headline shows. Their busy touring schedule continued with a set of intimate shows in the U.K. before appearing at festivals at home and as far away as the 280 Festival in Jakarta. The trio kicked off 2014 with a string of shows on the West Coast of America before setting sail to perform on the Weezer Cruise. The following year they announced the release of their first full-length studio album since 2007's Twilight of the Innocents, despite their promise that it was their last. Titled Kablammo!, the record appeared in May 2015. Two years later, to mark the 20th anniversary of their debut album, 1977, the trio released Live on Mars: London Astoria 1997, a live album documenting their five-night 1997 residency at London's famed Astoria venue”.

Still going to this day, Ash are a group that have released some classic tracks. Let’s hope that we keep hearing music from them for many more years. Led by the incredible Tim Wheeler, I wanted to celebrate his upcoming forty-fifth birthday. Ending with an Ash playlist, here are some of the best moments…

FROM Tim Wheeler.

FEATURE: Golden Years: Songs from Albums Turning Twenty in 2022

FEATURE:

 

 

Golden Years

 Songs from Albums Turning Twenty in 2022

___________

IN early-January of each year…

I like to put together a series of playlist with songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries. I am going back twenty years to 2002. That is a year that saw more than its fair share of classics released into the world. A track from the very best that 2002 had to offer, we will celebrate twenty years of these superb albums very soon. The playlist below is a collection of awesome songs from albums released…

TWENTY years ago.