FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from the Best Mercury Prize-Shortlisted Albums Ever

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The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Mvula was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in 2021 for the phenomenal and year-best Pink Noise (Arlo Parks won for her debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams)/PHOTO CREDIT: Dawbell PR 

Songs from the Best Mercury Prize-Shortlisted Albums Ever

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ON Thursday (27th)…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Pulp won the Mercury Prize in 1996 for Different Class

we will learn which twelve albums from British and Irish artists have made the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize. It is always an exciting time of year, as you get established and legendary artists being placed with some fascinating new talent. Each time out, we get surprises in terms of the shortlisted albums. This year, the Mercury Prize Awards Show will be held at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on Thursday, 7th September. I think that, among the twelve shortlisted artists this year will be Jessie Ware, Hak Baker, Loyle Carner, and Billie Marten. Their albums are worthy of being included but, as I say, you never call tell! I am going to go back to my predictions feature because, in addition to Hak Baker, I think that Maisie Peters might also get a nod for her second studio album, The Good Witch. There are so many albums to choose from! Ahead of the shortlist announcement on 27th, I wanted to put together a playlist featuring the best Mercury shortlisted albums – and only a few from the winners in each year. The ones that got onto the list but didn’t win. Although, as there have been some amazing winners, I have put a few in the mix. Below are awesome cuts from…

SOME terrific albums worth exploring.

FEATURE: Days Are Gone? Why HAIM Defending Their Musicianship Against Sexist Comments Highlights a Deep-Rooted Toxicity and Misogyny

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Days Are Gone?

IN THIS PHOTO: Este, Alana, and Danielle Haim/PHOTO CREDIT: Drew Le Fore Escriva/The Guardian/Eyevine/Redux 

Why HAIM Defending Their Musicianship Against Sexist Comments Highlights a Deep-Rooted Toxicity and Misogyny

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I am not sure whether it ever happens…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

to male musicians, but you really get people going online questioning whether they play their own instruments. They’ll highlight them playing great or, if it is a bad gig, that they were not up to scratch. That can be insulting…but rarely do you get people asking if men are playing their own instruments. Whether it is a live performance or a studio cut, so many women in the industry have had their musicianship called into question. You would think, in 2023, that we should not have established women in music doubted regarding their credibility and authenticity! HAIM are Los Angeles sisters Este (bass guitar and vocals), Danielle (lead vocals, guitar, and drums), and Alana Haim (guitars, keyboards, and vocals). Their phenomenal debut album, Days Are Gone, is ten in September. Acclaimed upon its release,  a tenth anniversary reissue is out soon. Amidst that anticipation and celebration of an important debut album coming up for its tenth anniversary, they spoke to NME. During the interview, they mentioned how people have commented as to whether the group, and specifically Este, actually play their instruments – like they were imposters that has men behind the scenes playing for them and piping it out to the audience, perhaps:

“Haim have responded to the constant doubt they receive from trolls about not actually playing their instruments when performing.

While chatting with NME about the 10th anniversary reissue of their 2013 debut album ‘Days Are Gone’ and their upcoming headlining slot at this year’s All Points East Festival, the sister trio – consisting of Danielle, Este and Alana Haim – also spoke about the hate they receive about their musicianship.

Back in June, the band played New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival. In a clip posted to NME‘s Instagram of the band performing ‘My Song 5’, the band received a comment that read: “Is it just me or is that bassist just acting?”

The band replied: “Lol, I can’t believe this shit is still happening.” In a longer post shared on Haim’s Instagram Story, they wrote: “I’m so used to seeing this shit on every fucking video of us playing ever.”

“I’m so over it,” they continued. “Don’t ever say we don’t play our own fucking instruments.”

Now, while discussing the interaction in a new interview with NME, the trio revealed the true extent of the comments over their musical ability that they continue to receive.

“That video came up on my Instagram and I was like ‘Oh My God. that’s such a great video, wow!’,” recalled Danielle. “I think the thing that is really frustrating is… there will be amazing videos of us online playing our instruments really well and I’ll look at our comments [not that we sit and look at comments regularly] and I’ll just be shocked that people are still like ‘They’re not playing,’ ‘That’s not real,’ ‘They’re acting’. It’s unbelievable.

“It’s just really disappointing because that’s the thing we worked so fucking hard for our whole lives you know.”

Music has played a critical role within the sisters’ lives. Before Haim, they were in a band with their parents called Rockinhaim. Their father, Moti Haim, was a drummer and believed that music was important.

Alana shared: “We have been a band for 16 years but we have also been a band since we were children. We were in a band with our parents and have been playing since we were kids, so to then be a band for 16 years and and still have to prove ourselves… it never ends.

“It’s like ‘You don’t play your instruments, you don’t write your songs, you’re not a real band’. And it’s like, we’ve been here for 16 years and there’s no stopping yet.”

She continued: “We’re gonna keep going until we can’t fucking play anymore. So to be so proud of the work that we’ve done and then to see mostly men I mean, pretty much all men comment things that are not only just terrible about our looks but then on top of that, that we don’t fucking play our instruments is insanity.”

Este, the band’s bassist who the comment left under NME‘s video clip was aimed toward, weighed in and said: “It’s one thing to talk about the way we look, we don’t care, whatever. But the way we play? I will go toe to toe with whoever, whatever band wants to go toe to toe with me. I know how to play”.

This is neither an isolated incident or the last time that we will read about something like this (in fact, for a 2019 interview with The Guardian, HAIM talked about sexism and how they can stand toe to toe with any male group). The exasperation that HAIM expressed when they were challenged about whether they were playing. Whether Este was actually on the bass. She is just a naturally gifted player, so that is why it looked seamless! It is depressing that there are still these very sexist opinions about women with instruments. There have been articles written where women discuss the underlying sexism when it comes to playing an instrument. Even though attitudes are changing because of the visibility and emergence of more women in bands and playing at the front of the stage, it is still the opinion of many that performance and instruments are for men and women are more defined by songwriting and singing. It is a binary and outdated mindset that means, when you do get amazing bands like HAIM performing, their chops are called into question! I will come to a few awesome women in music who have faced the same judgment and sexism as HAIM have. Before that, and going back to that idea as to whether people define women as songwriter/singers and not musicians or imbued with any edge, this article is relevant. A misogyny pervades where we still think Rock and Rap for instance are male genres. That genres like Pop, where women dominate, are seen as inferior or weakened because they are less defined by instruments and riffs.

Melodies and Pop structures more feminine, whereas there is greater importance and relevance from male-led music. Often boys are encouraged to play instruments, whereas girls are not necessarily so. Maybe they will be guided to the piano rather than guitar, bass or drums. Things are changing there but, when you look at how some men perceive women in bands and wonder whether they are playing – or if they are miming and a man is playing away from the stage etc. -, it does infuriate and highlights how conversations about respecting and embracing women as musicians needs to happen frequently and urgently. The 2021 articles asks some interesting queries and posits theories which I want to bring in:

“You may notice that women and nonbinary artists are most plentiful in the pop and indie pop scene. Many other genres like rap, rock and country remain fairly male-dominated. You might also recall from aforementioned data that straight men don’t really listen to pop or any women or nonbinary artists. So why don’t men listen to pop? Why is the genre not respected? It’s a complex question. I suspect the answer is thanks to deep rooted misogyny thinly veiled as “an aversion to pop” (and coincidentally, to all female rappers and rockers). The story goes like this: From a very young age, boys are encouraged to master instruments, and girls are not. However, women are notoriously more attuned to their emotions than men due to a culture of toxic masculinity. That skill generally lends itself to a strength in songwriting and expressive vocal performance. Ultimately, the gender binary translated into music equates complicated instrumentation with male identity, and strong lyricism and songwriting with female identity.

It’s the classic sexist logic and reason versus emotion and passion dichotomy, just in music. Thus, pop is deemed feminine, rock is deemed masculine, etc. Of course, the complexity of your instrumentation doesn’t measure the greatness of a song. If it did, pop wouldn’t be one of the most popular and influential genres of all time. People don’t always want to hear 12 chords and random riffs; sometimes they want to hear simple melodies that get stuck in their heads, melodies that are relatable, that they can sing along to. Melodies and lyrics that make you feel something. In pop, melody has priority over instrumentation. That’s not “inferior.” It’s just a different type of musical expression. Because of this sexist framework, artists like Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber and Harry Styles don’t have many male fans even though they’re men; their music is considered feminine and therefore inferior because of its pop structure. This binary doesn’t tell the whole story of course. Straight men don’t take female rappers or rockers seriously a lot of the time simply because they are women”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Hayley Williams (Paramore)/PHOTO CREDIT: Peyton Fulford for The New Yorker

I have mentioned this chat before but, at the end of last year, Wet Leg and Hayley Williams (Paramore’s lead) discussed sexism and expectations in the industry. As NME wrote, they have received the same sort of criticisms and sexism as HAIM have through their career. That feeling they cannot play instruments on stage in case they get offensive comments or people think they are faking it:

“Paramore‘s Hayley Williams has discussed sexism in music with Wet Leg, saying she doesn’t “dare” play guitar on stage due to sexist comments.

The artists were speaking to each other for a new podcast from The Face, when they discussed the higher bars set for female musicians in guitar-led spaces.

Wet Leg vocalist Rhian Teasdale said: “I think for us one of the hardest or most irritating things about being women is probably just the stupid comments on the internet like, ‘Oh she’s holding that guitar but she’s not actually playing it’.

She continued: “Like, for example, when I am just not using my guitar but then I need to play it in the chorus or something, there will always be a comment being like, ‘Girls shouldn’t play guitar, women shouldn’t play guitar,’ and it’s just like… it’s so dated but it’s still there! And I just hate it so much. It’s so frustrating.”

Williams added: “I know those people so well, and I don’t even play guitar on stage. I don’t even dare, because I love to play guitar but I don’t know if I could handle… man. I feel you so hard.

“I just hate that people even need to point it out,” she said. “I don’t even really think about my gender at all, when we play the music especially. It’s just not part of the picture. I’m trying to lean into femininity and empower that part of myself more in this era of my career, but do you ever get on stage and feel ‘other’? You feel like this alien thing that’s powerful and beautiful.”

Wet Leg’s Hester Chambers responded: “It’s a scary thing to be confronted with. When it’s just us being ourselves in a room, I’m not thinking about it at all. But as soon as you have a gig and an audience, you become a bit hyper-aware”.

Among the many conversations that need to happen around women in music and how they are perceived, the opportunities offered to them, and issues around parity and misogyny, we do need to stop doubting female musicians! Bands like HAIM play their own instruments and should not have to answer to people who think they don’t have the skills. Like their natural ability looks fake and they are miming their parts. They, nor any other woman in music, should have to prove themselves or justify why they should be taken as seriously as men. On a lighter note, HAIM’s Days Are Gone is ten in September. The title is almost ironic when we use it to ask whether the kind of sexism and misogyny they have faced still exists. It is sadly alive and well. Those dark days are still here! Go and listen to Days Are Gone and pre-order the 10th Anniversary Deluxe Anniversary. It is a remarkable introduction from…

A wonderful trio.

FEATURE: Madonna at Forty: How Holiday Confirmed Her As a Future Icon

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Madonna at Forty

How Holiday Confirmed Her as a Future Icon

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THIS Thursday…

Madonna’s debut album turns forty. It is a huge moment that will be celebrated by fans around the world. There is no anniversary edition or anything especially huge going on because, as we all know, Madonna takes to the stage soon to start her Celebration Tour – one that has been delayed due to her recent hospitalisation. The tour is to mark forty years of Madonna, but I think it is also a chance to mark forty years of the breakthrough song, Holiday. After 1982’s Everybody and the first single of 1983, Burning Up (released on 9th March), Holiday arrived at a very crucial time. Out on 7th September, it came at the very end of summer – or maybe we were in autumn/fall at that point?! Her most confident song to that point, there is something about Holiday that instantly sticks in the mind.  One of the things that has always interested me about Madonna is the track order. Sequencing is always a crucial thing for any album. In the case of Madonna, it is a classic album that is beyond fault. I do wonder about the sequencing choices, mind! Everybody ends the album, yet I sort of thing it should be higher up. The rest of the tracks are where they should have been – though, if we are moving Everybody somewhere, then it could nestle between Holiday and Think of Me.

Holiday is the opening track of the album’s second side. It is the perfect spot for it! Rather than go in all guns blazing and have it as the opening salvo, it is the introduction to the second side. Lucky Star opens Madonna. Followed by the epic Borderline, I like the fact a Madonna-penned song opens her debut album (she wrote five of the eight tracks, including Everybody). Many might think an eight-track debut is quite short, yet most of the songs are over four minutes. At a time when Pop music was typically shorter, Madonna was mixing Disco into the blend. Making songs a bit longer and giving them room to breathe and unwind, Holiday is a typical example. It could have been this tight three-minute song. Instead, it runs in at over six minutes! I think that might be one of her longest-ever songs. On a debut album, there is this bravery and huge confidence having a song at 6:08 not only being released as a single (though the 7-inch single was just over four minutes), but also not really giving it a bigger music video. I guess the budget was a bit tight, so it would have been costly making a high-concept video for a song so long. I have always wondered why the video for Holiday has not been remastered. I will end with why I feel Holiday not only came into the world at a crucial time. It also confirmed Madonna as a Pop artist who would soon take over the world! I want to collate some features about the majestic Holiday.

To start things off, I want to source from Wikipedia. A song that dominated the charts and was a massive success in the U.S. and U.K., Madonna has performed Holiday numerous time during her tours. The most recent time she performed the song was in 2016. Covered or sampled by the likes of Kelis and Cassandra Peterson, the song has been acclaimed and celebrated through the years. In 2018, The Guardian ranked it as Madonna’s eighth-best single; Entertainment Weekly placed it third last year; Dig! put it among their top-twenty essential Madonna cuts; Parade placed Holiday seventh in their rundown of the one-hundred greatest Madonna songs. Written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder, and produced by Madonna’s then-boyfriend John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez, Holiday is a giddy masterpiece:

“Holiday" is a song by American singer Madonna from her self-titled debut album (1983). It was written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder for their own musical act Pure Energy, and produced by John "Jellybean" Benitez. Hudson came up with the lyrics of the song while watching negative news on television, and together with Stevens-Crowder worked on the music. They recorded a demo, which was turned down by their label Prism Records. Afterwards, Benitez pitched the track and offered it to several artists, including former The Supremes singer Mary Wilson, but it was rejected. Around the same time, Benitez was working with Madonna on her album; after realizing they needed a song for the project, Benitez thought of "Holiday" and approached Hudson and Stevens-Crowder.

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna with John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: David Mcgough/DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Recording for the song took place at New York City's Sigma Sound Studios; although Madonna and Benitez did not want the final version to differ too much from the demo, minor alterations were made in the composition, including the addition of a piano solo, which was done by their friend Fred Zarr. Described as a dance-pop, post-disco song, the lyrics talk about the "universal feeling" of needing and wanting to take a holiday. It features instrumentation from guitars, electronic clapping, a cowbell, and synthesized strings. Initially released as a double-sided single with "Lucky Star" on August, "Holiday" was published by Sire Records as the official third single from the album on September 7, 1983.

Holiday" has received positive reviews since its release. Rooksby deemed it, "as infectious as the plague. One listen and you could not get the damn hook out of your mind". On a similar note, it was described as a "festive, infectious anthem [that] caught fire almost immediately [...] in dance clubs all across the country" by J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Madonna: An Intimate Biography. Writing on Encyclopedia Madonnica, Matthew Rettenmund referred to "Holiday" as a "prime example of Madonna's reliance on infectious optimism", that has "aged remarkably well". It was considered a "simple song with a fresh appeal and a good mood" by author Mary Cross. For Lucy O'Brien, it is the song that "cemented [Madonna's] style. With its bubbling Latin undertow, crunchy bassand strings, and Fred Zarr's elegant closing piano riff, it's one of her most persuasive numbers". Adam Sexton, author of Desperately Seeking Madonna: In Search of the Meaning of the World's Most Famous Woman (1992), named it a "loping disco ditty" with an "ineffable charm".

To the staff of Billboard, "Holiday" is a "pretty standard dance tune, but [Madonna] has the pipes and presence to make [it] special". On the same vein, Don Shewey from Rolling Stone named it, alongside "Burning Up", simple but clever. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine singled out "Holiday" as "effervescent", and as one of the "great songs" on his review of the Madonna album; from the same portal, Stewart Mason highlighted its "undeniable electronic groove". According to Entertainment Weekly's Jim Farber, "['Holiday'] satisfied both worlds". While Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani deemed it airy, it was referred to as "sparkly" by the Portland Mercury's Mark Lore. From Pitchfork, Jill Mapes applauded the song's "feel-good wiggle", and opined it "helped resituate electronic dance-pop at Top 40’s apex".

While reviewing The Immaculate Collection on its 25th anniversary, the Daily Review's James Rose referred to "Holiday" as a "fairly sappy, empty [...] conventional '80s dance number", with vocals that are "ordinary, even chirpy", and "gidgetish" lyrics. On his review of the 2001 re-release of Madonna, Michael Paoletta from Billboard pointed out that, "such tracks as 'Holiday' [...] remain irresistible".The same opinion was shared by The Quietus' Matthew Lindsay, who also added that it "bubble[s] with joie de vie", and compared it favorably to Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" (1980). A 2012 poll conducted of Rolling Stone readers found the song to be Madonna's tenth best, as well as one of her "most enduring". In another occasion, the magazine named it the singer's 22nd best song. It was named Madonna's ninth and eight best song by Gay Star News' Joe Morgan and Matthew Jacobs from HuffPost, respectively; the latter wrote that, although it didn't reach the Hot 100's top ten, "it's certainly her most infectious song". For The Arizona Republic's Ed Masley, "the production hasn’t aged as well as, say, 'Into the Groove', but the melody? That’s timeless"; he deemed it Madonna's 20th best”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Corman

In 2018, when looking ahead to the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of the most important and best debut albums in music history, the New York Post wrote how Holiday almost didn’t happen. I don’t think many of us can imagine music without it now! Even if the Madonna album was a little bit slow to explode and get into people’s hearts, there was something instantly anthemic about Holiday:

“It’s hard to imagine Madonna’s namesake debut album — which came out 35 years ago, on July 27, 1983 — without “Holiday,” the classic party anthem that became her first mainstream hit and has given people all over the world cause to celebrate on the dance floor. But the song almost didn’t happen: It was a last-minute substitute for another track on her first LP.

“Madonna’s album was finished,” says “Holiday” producer and New York DJ legend John “Jellybean” Benitez, who was dating Madonna at the time and had been hired to do some remixes for her. There was just one problem: Madonna found out that a song she had recorded called “Ain’t No Big Deal” had already gone to disco act Barracuda, so the track was no longer an option. “She wasn’t so thrilled about that,” says Benitez. 

With the “Madonna” LP then down to just seven songs, a replacement was urgently needed. “And I had a demo of ‘Holiday,’ so I played it for her, and she loved it,” the producer says.

 Benitez, who had remixed “tons of records” but had never produced one from scratch, was given a one-week deadline by Madonna’s label, Warner Bros., in February 1983. “They said, ‘If you could have this song done by next Friday, you can make the album.’ I started on Monday and finished on Friday, and we delivered it.”

And deliver it did: After “Everybody” and “Burning Up” failed to make the Billboard Hot 100, “Holiday” became Madonna’s first single to hit that chart, reaching No. 16. The track also became her first No. 1 dance song (as a double-A-side single, with “Lucky Star”).

While “Holiday” jump-started one of the biggest careers in pop history, the tune was written by ex-spouses Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder for their own group, Pure Energy. “I started out playing that chord progression as a ballad,” recalls Stevens-Crowder of the song’s keyboard inception. “But as I kept playing it over and over for a couple of days, I sped it up. And then Curtis came up with that bass line.” 

“The whole song just kind of poured out of me,” says Hudson, who came up with the musical arrangement while writing the uplifting lyrics in response to all of the bad news he was watching on TV. “I was like, ‘Man, what’s going on? We need a holiday or something.’ The melody just came to me. I wrote the lyrics in, like, 30 minutes. That’s why I always think of it as a gift from God.”

But Pure Energy’s label, Prism Records, passed on “Holiday” for them. So Benitez, who knew Pure Energy from their performances at the Fun House club where he was resident DJ, offered to shop the song around. “I originally played it for Mary Wilson from the Supremes,” says Benitez. “She liked it, but she wasn’t in love with it.” Then after also pitching the song to the R&B singer Phyllis Hyman and the disco group the Ritchie Family, Benitez found “Holiday” a home with Madonna.

“We were a little nervous at first,” says Hudson about the then-unknown Material Girl recording “Holiday.” “We were thinking of black artists, so it kind of put a whole different spin on it. But once we met Madonna, I knew she was gonna go somewhere. I just didn’t know to what level.”

Hudson played guitar on the final recording of “Holiday,” cut at Sigma Sound Studios in New York. Madonna herself also got in on the instrumental action, playing the cowbell that kicks in early in the song. “It was just sort of like, ‘You got to play something,’ and it worked,” says Benitez, who also added a piano solo by Fred Zarr toward the end of the six-minute track.

Stevens-Crowder — who, as Pure Energy’s lead singer, had done the main vocals on the demo — thought that Madonna made the song her own: “She captured the soul I put into it, but she added her own flavor. She didn’t try to copy it. Madonna did Madonna.”

Because of Madonna’s soulful delivery on “Holiday” and the fact that the song was getting played on black radio, there were those who didn’t realize that the singer was actually white. “Back then, people thought she was black,” says Benitez. “They didn’t know.”

Benitez went on to produce Madonna’s 1985 smash “Crazy for You,” while Hudson also co-wrote “Spotlight,” off Madge’s 1987 remix album “You Can Dance.” It’s the legacy of “Holiday,” though, that truly endures.

“I’ve run into so many people who ‘Holiday’ has had some kind of impact on,” says Hudson. “It defies race, age and all of that stuff.”

Of the song’s iconic status, Benitez says, “It’s amazing to see. Madonna still performs it on her tours, sometimes as an encore. It always gets an amazing reaction. It’s a song that they remember.

And it’s a song whose message is more relevant than ever, 35 years later. Pointing to “the political climate and crazy things that are going on in this world,” Stevens-Crowder says, “We need a holiday today in 2018”.

The final feature I want to highlight is from Dig!. They looked back at the track last year. As they lead, nobody expected the monster success and record-breaking brilliance of Holiday. Considered to be one of Madonna’s signature songs, it shook up and inspired the scene in a year when there was nothing as thrilling and fresh as this in Pop!

“While finishing sessions for her self-titled debut album, Madonna seized on the demo of Holiday, enlisting then boyfriend John “Jellybean” Benitez to produce it and add it to the collection of songs she had already cut with producer Reggie Lucas. It was the first of many decisive moves that would change the direction of her career. “The songs on Madonna were pretty weak and I went to England during the recording, so I wasn’t around for a lot of it,” the singer later reflected. “I wasn’t in control.”

Issued in July 1983, the album proved a slow burn – Everybody and Burning Up had already been released in some markets, gaining traction on the dance listings. With no video being filmed for Holiday, which was issued in the US on 7 September 1983 (its UK release would follow in January 1984), Madonna’s promotion of the track was gruelling: scores of lip-synching appearances on TV shows of the day, including American Bandstand, the UK’s Top Of The Pops and Discoring in Italy. As the single climbed the charts in Great Britain, she made a legendary appearance on The Tube, performing Holiday, Everybody and Burning Up at the Factory Records-owned Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, alongside backing dancers Erica Bell and her brother Christopher Ciccone, who would go on to be the art director on Madonna’s classic Blond Ambition Tour of 1990.

Holiday would become a staple of Madonna’s live shows. It was placed second on the setlist of her debut The Virgin Tour, in 1985, and was heard as recently as the Rebel Heart Tour, which ran across 2015 and 2016. The song’s most famous staging was arguably at Live Aid, where Madonna performed at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. That appearance triggered “Madonna Mania” across the globe, igniting the growing hysteria that had been building around the star since the release of 1984’s Like A Virgin single.

Madonna’s record label were quick to seize on the momentum by reissuing Holiday with a new picture sleeve (and as a collectable 12” picture disc) which would see the single soar back up the UK charts to peak at No.2 in the summer of 1985, just behind Into The Groove, the third in what would be an unstoppable run of Madonna No.1s, taken from her first major film, Desperately Seeking Susan. This notable chart double saw the soon-to-be “Queen Of Pop” enter the record books for the first time, becoming the first woman to achieve simultaneous hits at the top of the UK charts in the rock era. The single also did well again across the rest of Europe.

Six years later, Holiday received a third issue in the UK, following the incredible sales of Madonna’s first hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection, and the critical and commercial triumph of the seminal Blond Ambition Tour, which was then concluding its final European leg and featured Holiday in an infamous sequence that got some conservative cities hot under the collar (the Truth Or Dare documentary, aka In Bed With Madonna, reveals how close the singer came to being shut down ahead of the Toronto shows). This time, the single would have to settle for a No 5.peak in the UK, but its place in the history books was secured.

Madonna still recognises the track’s anthemic appeal, and has remained comfortable revisiting it across the years. Now one of the best summer songs, it’s guaranteed that, as soon as the seasons change and the sun comes out, streaming services and radio programmers will return to the track that first got the “Queen Of Pop” noticed”.

I have said how Holiday was released at a crucial time. With Madonna’s eponymous debut out in the world for over a month by this point, she was being heralded as a contemporary queen of Pop. A bold artist mixing in older Disco sounds to a current and exciting Pop blend, Lucky Star was released in the U.K. and Europe a day after Holiday came out in the U.S.. Holiday was first released in the U.K. in 1984, so we got a slightly different order and experience here. I wonder why artists would release different singles in different countries years ago. We don’t really have that now. I guess Holiday needed to come out in America in 1983, to highlight the album and it seemed to a perfect moment to launch one of the standouts from Madonna. Maybe the U.K. market was not as instantly receptive. We got the amazing but slightly less energised Lucky Star. We also got a different visual representation of Madonna. Lucky Star has this more professionally-looking video. Holiday, whilst quite basic, is memorable in its simplicity. Lucky Star hit fourteen in the U.K. I think that Holiday was a seismic moment in Pop. From this promising artist who had released a couple of great singles to that point, Holiday blew Madonna up! We mark forty years of Madonna’s debut album on 27th July. In September, Holiday has its fortieth birthday. I think Madonna will be playing it a lot through her Celebration Tour this year and next. A timeless and utterly thrilling and legendary song, I wanted to use this final Madonna anniversary feature to look at a cut that confidently opened the album’s second side. I can only imagine how exciting and head-spinning it must have been hearing Holiday for the first time in 1983. In 2023, it remains like nothing else! This is a song that showed Madonna was an artist who would soon…

RULE the world!

FEATURE: Anti-Heroes: Should Major Artists Like Taylor Swift Make Gigs More Affordable for Fans?

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Anti-Heroes

IN THIS PHOTO: Are major artists like Taylor Swift (who is currently performing a huge run of sold-out shows as part of her Eras Tour) turning their backs on loyal fans by charging extortionate amounts for some gig tickets?/PHOTO CREDIT: Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times

Should Major Artists Like Taylor Swift Make Gigs More Affordable for Fans?

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WHILST a modern-day…

superstar like Taylor Swift is deserving of every plaudit and success she gets, one feels that she has the riches and foundations to be comfortable for the rest of her life. She is currently on her Eras Tour. I have raved about that before, because it is a spectacle that has won huge reviews. The fans are getting this extraordinary live experience! I do feel that there is a problem, though. Ticket prices vary depending on which artist you see. As we can see here - and from this tweet from Mark Savage -, remaining tickets for Swift’s upcoming legs are selling at extortionate rate! That V.I.P. rate is eye-watering! Fans who are hoping to catch some of the last tickets to see Taylor Swift in the U.K. next year are angry and upset. Here are some more details:

"Taylor Swift fans are fuming after getting through to buy tickets for her UK tour dates only to find that their only option is to fork out more than £600 for 'VIP' packages. The singer is bringing the Eras Tour to the UK in June and August next year, stopping off in London, Liverpool, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

Last week, Swifties with access to the Midnights presale snapped up the first of the sought-after tickets. This week, it's the turn of the registered fans, who were lucky enough to be selected at random to access the general sale.

However, fans took to social media as tickets went on sale today to complain that they were being asked to spend hundreds of pounds on tickets, despite the cheapest seats being listed at around £60.

Fans scrambled to get their hands on tickets for two London shows and all three Edinburgh shows today. But Swifties in Scotland were left disappointed to find that after waiting in the queue they were only able to purchase VIP packages, which are priced between around £200 and more than £600.

It was a Speak Now (my version) album release party at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City this weekend, full of surprises 😆 I got to premiere the video for ‘I Can See You’ on the big screen and hearing the crowd’s reaction to it is something I’ll never forget. THEN @JoeyKing,… pic.twitter.com/buuEmVgMG7

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 10, 2023

Six different VIP bundles are on offer for the Eras Tour and they are each named after a memorable Taylor Swift song lyric. Perks of the VIP packages include early entry to the standing area and exclusive merchandise such as tote bags, souvenir concert tickets and lanyards.

But not all fans wanted to spend the extra money and felt let down that VIP packages were left as their only option. One angry fan posted an image of the seating plan she had been shown on the ticket page, which indicated that there were plenty of seats available. She fumed: "General sale started at 11am today and there are THIS MANY seats still available for Edinburgh N1 (its like this all the way round the stadium) but every seat is the top VIP ticket…£661 each. How is this allowed?!"

@EurovisionSwift agreed and commented: "Honestly so disgusting. Why not sell the seats at face value with the option of buying the vip package as an add-on?? Some fans only want to experience the concert, not be forced into buying overpriced VIP boxes."

Another fan, @greynovember13, told Ticketmaster "this is not okay", adding: "Cost of living crisis hello?? Why is this experience only available to those who can drop the cost of their monthly bills on a single ticket?? Taylor would want this show to be accessible to all."

While some Swifties begrudgingly forked out for the higher priced tickets, others were forced to say goodbye to their chances of going to the show.

@FFCasuals_Lama said: "Ach well we tried and failed lmao. Only prices for Taylor Swift tickets at over £600 a pop. Bit steep for my 19yr old niece..... So I reckon that it's all only VIP packages we are trying to get, everything else must have sold at the pre pre sale :(" Another fan, @aquarising111, wrote: "Trying to get tickets for Taylor Swift Edinburgh via axs since this morning and only the vip packages are coming up. Sorry miss taylor but I aint a millionaire I aint paying £600+ for a single ticket. Absolute shambles"

Swifties were unhappy with the high prices, with one describing the cost as "crazy money". @HeatherHamilt10 said: "Not to fret if you didn't get a code for Taylor Swift. There are still seats available... They'll only set you back £661. I'm bitter I know, but that is crazy money, full on ridiculous!"

Some went straight to Ticketmaster and AXS with their complaints. @MadeleineRuddle asked: "@TicketmasterUK why is EVERY SINGLE ticket for @taylorswift13 Eras Tour in Edinburgh being sold as a 'VIP package' at £660, instead of the £57.50-182.50 advertised? That's not a special package, that's just pricing them way higher than listed!"

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels

@hollyleiper said: "Twice now @AXS_UK I have logged on with issues and when I get there you only have the really expensive VIP tickets. Did anyone get normal tickets from AXS?"

Some even wondered whether the cheaper tickets had all been sold during the presale last week. @annabell91882 said: "i’m literally so upset why did they sell out all the non vip tickets during the presale and leave us with £1325 tickets??" @slutsofsaigon replied: "NO LITERALLY. I tried to buy two normal tickets but the only option for me were packages for at least £700"

@JesscatB94 addressed her concerns to the singer herself, telling her: "I love you, I love you so much I’m here anxiously waiting to hear from my friend buying tickets and unable to do anything else, but why are there so many tickets at £600+ and none at normal prices? It’s not fair, it’s not accessible to normal people."

Ticketmaster and AXS have been contacted for a comment.

On Tuesday, tickets for another five shows will go on sale, including all three nights at Liverpool Anfield. On Wednesday, the final London dates will go on as sale along with the only show in Wales at Cardiff's Principality Stadium.

Ticketmaster has not made it clear whether there will be any further sales of tickets”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Harry Styles photographed for Better Homes & Gardens/PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Walker

It is not only Taylor Swift who has these inflated prices. I guess artists need to charge quite a bit to fans, as they have that demand, and the tours cost a lot of money. Considering how much travel is involved, the sets they construct and how many people work with them, the costs run into huge numbers. I can imagine someone like Taylor Swift spends hundred of thousands of dollars getting something like The Eras Tour polished and looking like it does! Madonna is heading on the road later this year, and prices for some of her shows are several hundred dollars/pounds. I have been looking at other major artists and what they charge. Even someone like Harry Styles, they charge anywhere between £90 and over £500. I think the whole V.I.P. thing is ridiculous. What are you getting for that money?! It seems insane anyone would pay that sort of money for a gig! The fact that some fans have no choice or are left with these hugely expensive ticket options is scandalous! Ticket resale sites are also not helping things. You find tickets on there hugely inflated that price out most fans.

That is the thing with fans of artists like Swift. They do not have huge disposable income and, even if it is a dream seeing their favourite artist, obtaining even $100 to see her is a lot. I guess that would be what you would expect artists to cap their prices at. As we see, that is not the case. Is profiteering overtaken ethical and moral considerations regarding the fans?! Even if all seats retailers for that sort of $100/£100 mark – or those seats obscured or higher up go for less -, that would still mean massive income for the artist. They would make serious bank after all the expenses are worked out! Ticket resale sites are preying on fans. This article from earlier in the year explains more – and it mentions a campaign group that is looking to change things:

“A campaign group backed by Ed Sheeran, PJ Harvey and Arctic Monkeys has warned that music fans will continue to face “rampant” ripoffs by touts on resale sites, after ministers rejected plans to crack down on the sector.

The Department for Business and Trade decided not to implement proposals from the competition watchdog designed to make life harder for professional touts, who have been repeatedly exposed using sites such as Viagogo and StubHub to exploit fans.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set out the suggestions in August 2021, including moves to stop bulk-buying of tickets and end the fraudulent practice of “speculative selling”, where touts list seats they don’t have, bank the proceeds upfront and hope to secure a ticket later to fulfil the order.

IN THIS PHOTO: PJ Harvey/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Gullick via The Guardian

The CMA also suggested a licensing scheme that would have allowed it to penalise or shut down resale sites found to have breached its rules.

Dismissing the proposals on Thursday, the junior business minister Kevin Hollinrake acknowledged the emergence of an alternative resale market in the form of ticket exchange platforms, where fans can recoup the face value of tickets they are not able to use plus a small commission.

However, he said sites such as Viagogo and StubHub, which allow professional resellers to charge limitless prices, “may still provide a service of value to some consumers”.

He said it was “too soon” to conclude that legislation was required, adding that broader changes to consumer law were the priority.

FanFair Alliance, the music industry campaign group backed by representatives of artists such as Sheeran, Pixies and Iron Maiden, said the government was ignoring “overwhelming evidence of continuing bad practice”.

“The experiences of consumers appear to have been overlooked entirely,” said spokesperson Adam Webb. He added: “FanFair Alliance shares the views of the CMA that further action is still required to tackle these evident and ongoing problems with online secondary ticketing.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Ed Sheeran/PHOTO CREDIT: Jo Hale/Redferns

The group said practices carried out at the expense of genuine fans, such as speculative selling and bulk-buying, “remain rampant”.

The Labour MP Sharon Hodgson said the government had “effectively given bad actors a free pass”.

A dusiness department spokesperson said: “The new digital markets, competition and consumers bill will give the Competition Markets Authority significant new powers to tackle bad businesses ripping off consumers.

“We do not therefore see the need for additional regulatory powers or bodies specifically on secondary ticketing, which would add costs that would inevitably be passed onto consumers”.

Artists such as Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott have capped their ticket prices. I know they are not on the same level as a Taylor Swift or someone like Harry Styles, but they show that you can give fans access and affordable live music and not lose out. One might say that labels and venues are deciding what price fans have to pay. It does vary depending on the artist, though I think they have more say in what the tickets cost than you might imagine! Maybe ticket companies are taking advantage, but the artists know what sort of prices are being charged. Even someone like Bruce Springsteen has pretty high prices on his tickets. Artists can step in and lower them. They can apologise to fans who they are charging extreme amounts!

Not only do these tickets that cost hundreds means many will not buy them because they can’t justify that amount of spending, but it sends a very bad message. If artists like YUNGBLIUD can cap their prices and keep it reasonable, then why do larger artists feel the need to keep their ticket prices high?! These are the people who need the money less. So many artists struggle to make money from touring, and yet they make sure their tickets are on the low side. Millionaire artists need to be compensated for their popularity and the incredible work they do, but there is something garish and disrespectful charging massive amounts for V.I.P. tickets and these being the only ones left for fans. Even thew standard prices are really high! Massive artists could sell out venues and make millions by charging no more than $75/pounds per gig. That is still a lot of money, but I think that many fans could afford that. Why don’t they?! Of course, if ticket resale sites and scalpers are in the world, they will scoop up tickets and sell them on for inflated prices to fans who missed the boat. Limiting the number of tickets per person to one or two does preclude groups of friends going together, but you do need an upper limit! There needs also to be some form of vetting for those buying tickets or ways or prosecuting those who resell tickets at massive prices. This may be hard to implement, but it is clear something needs to charge! News of artists like Taylor Swift – as much as I respect and love her music and what she does – charging hundred and hundreds of dollars to their fans is an insult and nothing more than greed and gouging! Until things change, artists who feel comfortable with this practise and do nothing are anti-heroes. You’re the problem…

IT'S you.

FEATURE: Physical Attraction: The Continued Boom of Vinyl Sales in the U.S.

FEATURE:

 

 

Physical Attraction

PHOTO CREDIT: ALTEREDSNAPS/Pexels

The Continued Boom of Vinyl Sales in the U.S.

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EVEN though it is not a new trend…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift/PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Garrabrant

there is allure for and demand of physical music formats. I think part of the appeal comes from the album covers in addition to the tactile nature of the product. People get to own something real and ensuring. Vinyl is especially popular, as you get this fantastic physical album that will last for years. Whilst there has been criticism that many legacy albums have taken too much focus. They sell very well, but that is not to say that new artists are unable to get a foothold. You can see why classic albums are selling on vinyl. New listeners discover the album and want to preserve it this way. People want to replace older copies. I don’t think that it is the case that old classic albums rule vinyl charts. If you look at the vinyl charts and the best-selling so far this year, there are plenty of new albums. That is encouraging to see! The Guardian reported how vinyl sales in the U.S. are continuing to boom:

“Vinyl sales in the US are up 21.7% for the first half of 2023 over the same period last year, according to a new music industry report.

The vinyl resurgence is itself not new – 2022 marked the 17th consecutive year that sales of vinyl records rose, according to Luminate’s music midyear report. But the growth rate this year has reassured experts that the vinyl market did not hit a natural plateau after surging during the pandemic, which caused a 108% increase in 2021.

The data company’s findings, released on Wednesday and first reported by Variety, also includes figures on Americans’ consumption of non-English language music (40% of US listeners have non-English music in their diet), as well as charts of the best-selling and streaming albums of the year so far.

The company found that other formats beyond vinyls, including compact discs, did not see a decline in sales from the previous year. But nothing is even close to the numbers from streaming, which doesn’t seem to have a growth ceiling in sight. On-demand audio and video streaming numbers were up 15% in the US, and double internationally at 30.8%.

The international market with the most streaming growth was Asia, with a 107% increase in audio and video streams over the same period last year. Latin America was up 70%, while Europe was up 57%.

Taylor Swift’s Midnights, which was released last October, is the best-selling vinyl LP of year so far, with 251,000 copies sold in 2023. She leads a top 10 list including Lana Del Rey, supergroup Boygenius and Melanie Martinez as well as record-store staples Fleetwood Mac (Rumours has sold 103,000 copies this year) and Michael Jackson. The top 10 best-selling CDs were all K-pop groups with the exception of Midnights, which landed at No 6 with 176,000 units sold.

Swift topped the list for pure album sales, with 607,000 copies sold in the past six months. But the biggest album and single this year on the Billboard year-to-date charts, which factors in streaming numbers, belongs to country artist Morgan Wallen, for his 36-song album One Thing At a time and blockbuster single Last Night.

 Luminate found that direct-to-consumer sales were up more than vinyl alone – 26% to 21.7% – demonstrating an audience of devoted fans willing to buy music direct from artists’ websites. Traditional physical album sales as a whole, including vinyl, CD and cassettes, were up 13.3%. CDs alone, long dismissed as dead, were up 3.8% over this time last year. Overall album sales trended up by 7.9%, with the surge in vinyl purchases counterbalanced by the slow returns of paid digital downloads.

There was a daunting 112,000 new tracks released a day so far this year, up from 93,400 per day over the same period last year. The vast majority of these are independent releases, with only 3.3% of total track releases coming from major distributors.

“The story of music in the first half of 2023 is defined by more empowered super fans with a growing hunger to support their favorite artists, more engagement with non-English music in the US, and more content being uploaded on a daily basis, which creates more opportunities and challenges,” said Luminate’s chief executive, Rob Jonas, in a summary to Variety.

“The key word here is ‘more’, which leads to the need for a more focused and insights-fueled understanding of worldwide music listener habits”.

When vinyl sales increase, that then leads other people to seek out the format. What are the reasons behind the continuing rose in vinyl sales? Maybe the fact streaming music denied artists of proper compensation is leading people to buy more vinyl. Earlier in the year, Music Week published an article where they theorised why vinyl sale are in such great health:

“But vinyl unit sales in 2022 increased by just 2.9% year-on-year to 5.5 million, compared to growth of 10.6% (around 500,000 units) in 2021. Nevertheless, vinyl is now at its highest level in units since 1990.

Of course, a large part of the problem is to do with supply rather than demand, with stores only able to sell LPs in the quantities made available by labels and distributors due to production capacity issues.

“The outlook for vinyl remains extremely positive,” said ERA’s Kim Bayley. “It’s worth remembering that the much talked about problems of vinyl have been a result of demand exceeding supply – there are worse problems to have. There are issues around price – arguably vinyl has gone from being underpriced to in some cases being too ambitious – but I expect these to be resolved as supply more closely aligns with demand.”

Almost half of those extra 200,000 sales in 2022 were down to Taylor Swift’s Midnights (EMI), which moved 89,163 copies on vinyl last year.

IN THIS PHOTO: Harry Styles/PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Walker for Better Homes & Gardens

Eight of the Top 10 vinyl sellers last year were from albums first released in 2022. It follows a period when catalogue was driving the growth of the format, alongside increasing streaming consumption. In 2017, just three of the year’s 10 biggest vinyl LPs were released in that year with the top sellers dominated by catalogue titles by artists including The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

“The rise in sales of catalogue albums on vinyl is a clear example of the symbiotic relationship between streaming and physical retail,” said Bayley. “People are finding and listening to classic albums on streaming services and in many cases buying - or re-buying - those albums on vinyl.

“That said, the more striking development in 2022 was the strong performance of new releases from the likes of Taylor Swift and Harry Styles on vinyl – vinyl is far from some kind of heritage format.”

Harry Styles had the overall No.1 album of 2022 with Harry’s House (Columbia), which was the No.2 vinyl release of the year (77,955 copies).

During Q4, vinyl sales were up 7.4% year-on-year with more than two million units sold in the quarter.

“The market is going to continue to be strong across 2023,” said Charles Wood, VP of market planning and sales at Sony Music UK. “We had good vinyl sales on new [Q4] releases from Bruce Springsteen and First Aid Kit plus continuing strong sales on Harry Styles.

“The backlog at some manufacturers inherited from Covid, has begun to ease, so we are much better equipped going into 2023 than we were at the turn of the last two years. We still have some strong catalogue titles yet to be re-issued or released on vinyl, for example Whitney Houston following on from the recent success of Jamiroquai”.

I do think that vinyl sales will continue to rise across the world. It is pleasing that the American market is doing so well. Any great news about vinyl is worth celebrating. I would say, even though vinyl is successful and selling well, there is still an issue around pricing. It is expensive as a format, even if you do get quite a lot for your money. To make it more accessible, the price does need to come down a bit. Ensuring there are more plants to press vinyl. In any case, encouraging news in the U.S. relating to vinyl sales is encouraging. I think that vinyl sales will continue to grow…

FOR decades more.

FEATURE: Whiplash: Metallica's Kill 'Em All at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Whiplash

Metallica’s Kill 'Em All at Forty

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I am not sure why…

I never considered 1983 to be a year when a band like Metallica would come through. They did! Well, their debut album, Kill ‘Em All, came out that year. In fact, it turns forty on 24th July. It is a brilliant album that I wanted to explore more ahead of its anniversary. I will get to some reviews in a bit. First, there is a feature I will get to. The Los Angeles band- James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, Kirk Hammett – lead guitar, Cliff Burton – bass, Lars Ulrich – drums – created something masterful and genre-defining with their debut album. It is amazing that Kill ‘Em All did not enter the Billboard 200, following the success of their 1986 album, Master of Puppets. In this feature from last year, Consequence celebrated thirty-nine years of a Thrash Metal classic. The forefather of the genre, in fact:

“Bang that head that doesn’t bang.” – R. Burch ‘83

Thus reads the quote on the back sleeve of Metallica’s debut album Kill ‘Em All, which was released on July 25th, 1983. It stands as one of the earliest documents of thrash metal, a pivotal album that explored artistic extremes and set the foundational archetypes of thrash as a sound, image, and lifestyle. At a time in heavy music when record labels were starting to embrace super-produced glam-metal bands that would go on to dominate radio and MTV for the remainder of the decade, Metallica literally said: “Metal up your ass.”

Ironically, that was meant to be the original title for the album, but the label execs decided it was too profane for the sensitive tastes of American consumers and suggested the band change it. So Metallica picked the arguably more aggressive title of Kill ‘Em All, ostensibly in reference to those very consumers. That is metal. And there are so many moments on the album that warrant that remark. You listen to it and you throw up the horns reflexively at various moments: the chorus of “Jump in the Fire”, the intro chugs on “No Remorse”, the opening riff of “Seek & Destroy” — just to name a few.

Suddenly metal had the punk attitude, the drunken joy of rock ‘n roll, and the poeticism of the ‘70s prog masters. Freaks, drunks, stoners, and outcasts had a new set of anthems and a band that was speaking directly to them: “On through the mist and the madness/ We are trying to get the message to you/ Metal militia!”

While not on the album, Dave Mustaine deserves a lot of credit for Kill ‘Em All. He brought the thrash to Metallica. Listen to the original version of “Hit the Lights” on the Metal Massacre comp from 1982, recorded with Jamaican guitarist Lloyd Grant before Mustaine joined. Not to be too harsh on a young band, but it’s not very good, something like high-school kids covering Diamond Head (which was pretty much the case). When Mustaine showed up, the riffs came with him. The addition of bassist Cliff Burton in place of Ron McGovney further tightened the musicianship.

As a guitarist and songwriter, Mustaine transformed Metallica into a tornadic speed band. There would be no Kill ‘Em All without his influence, and perhaps no Metallica as we know it. His wild side and drinking would also rub off on his bandmates, but only to a point, as these habits would lead to his removal.

A number of the riffs on Kill ‘Em All are obviously written by Mustaine, but it’s the desire for sheen shared by frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich — a well-documented desire that has since become their albatross — that makes the album a masterpiece of early thrash. With Mustaine’s compositions as shells for the songs, Hetfield and Ulrich arguably improved the artistic presentation (i.e. the conceptual and lyrical alteration of “The Four Horsemen” from Mustaine’s “The Mechanix”, which resulted in one of Metallica’s finest songs).

Essentially, Kill ‘Em All is the best of the both worlds, even if Mustaine doesn’t play on it. Kirk Hammett’s solos remain impressive and memorable; Hetfield and Ulrich get to indulge in the record-making inspired by their nerdy love of Rush and Budgie. Though it’s fun to ponder the alternate reality where Mustaine played lead (listen to the Megaforce demos to semi-indulge your fantasy), there is no dissent anywhere on the record. The band is tight and locked in.

While several of the rhythms are Mustaine, the songs are Metallica. It’s fun to note the “firsts” throughout the album, tropes which would recur throughout the band’s career: Hetfield’s patented syllabic accents on “Horsemen”, the acoustic guitar that peeks through on the bridge of “Phantom Lord” (predating their ballads), an instrumental track (Burton’s bass solo track “Pulling Teeth”), and the use of samples with a pre-recorded military step that closes “Metal Militia”.

This was extreme, underground music in its time. Long before Metallica became a corporate music entity unto itself, they hustled like any aspiring band, operating DIY until they gained attention through cassette demos and live shows. The innocence of youth and discovery is captured on Kill ‘Em All, and those intangibles can’t be bought or sold”.

Even if it is nearly forty, Kill ‘Em All remains so fresh, startling and vital. An album surely inspiring musicians still, its power and brilliance has not dimmed or dented through the years. On 24th July, the world celebrates four decades of a masterpiece. This review goes deep with an album that I would suggest to anyone who has not heard it before:

“They are simple, angry songs with a punk rock ethos, which is not uncommon for thrash metal. Why did they tap into the zeitgeist so hard, thought? Why did the disenfranchised gen Xers had such a visceral reaction to Kill 'Em All and turned to Metallica like demin-clad saviors? It's because the lyrics don't speak to complex, wordless emotion, but the guitar does. Guitar has always been a primary weapon for Metallica and it already takes a lot of air time on this album.

The real "voice" on Kill 'Em All is the angry, powerful and hyperactive guitar of Kirk Hammett. Before you ask, Dave Mustaine co-wrote some of the songs, but he was fired a month before the recording started.  Kill 'Em All is a treasure chest of awe inspiring guitar solos that both show unbridled anger and exquisite control. There's an instrumental song on the record titled (Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth where Hammett's guitar is almost like the hum of an electronic voice. The opener Hit the Lights is another example where like, half of the song is constructed with solos.

For young and angry teenagers that don't care or simply don't know how to express their feelings, it was a new way to live out their anger.  Nobody before Metallica had built these monuments to the noxious feelings that consumed them. They mixed the darkness of early heavy metal (Black Sabbath, Motörhead) with the speed and sophistication of NWOBHM and created something entirely new. It didn't need words to be efficient, but the simple and angry anthems worked in their favor and rallied the troops.

And it spoke volumes to angry young people.

Kill 'Em All didn't exactly made Metallica famous. It sold 60 000 copies in a year and made them a quite successful for a metal band, but it was a mere stepping stone for things to come. It laid the foundation for an identity that would become richer and more nuanced for every album until ...And Justice for All. So, Metallica didn't suffer from the aura of their first album the way bands like Guns N' Roses did. Kill 'Em All has a special place in their legacy, but if they hadn't gradually evolved out of it, they would've become Slayer or Testament. They would've been fine, but wouldn't have become the juggernaut they have been for two decades.

That is why Kill 'Em All is not Metallica's best album. It's one of their best, easily top 5, but the best was yet to come for the band that would engineer the sound of a generation”.

There are a couple more reviews that I want to get to. Pitchfork recognised the fact that Metallica hit the ground running on a titanic debut album. Maybe it was too different and bracing in 1983 to get into the charts. The more Metallica got recognised and people were familiar, that is when Kill ‘Em All did some proper business. It is a shame it took the world a long time to wake up to the audio whiplash of this mesmeric 1983 debut:

“Without belaboring the point, some albums change the course of music so profoundly that it's hard to imagine what the world was like before their arrival. Metallica's 1983 debut Kill 'Em All more or less singlehandedly launched thrash metal and established the template for every other speed- or extremity-oriented metal band on earth that's been active since. You can split hairs about the key role played by fellow ground-floor pioneers Slayer and Exodus, and point out that Anthrax and Voivod had also already formed by the time Kill 'Em All was released. You could even argue that other bands were bound to reach the same threshold of tempo and attack because the early-'80s metal underground was collectively headed in the same direction anyway—i.e: getting faster and heavier and building on the work of Motörhead, Venom, Mercyful Fate, and others.

But the fact is, several key participants in thrash metal's first wave freely admit that Kill 'Em All gave them a framework for the sound they had all been searching for. In other words, once Metallica stepped up the pace, everyone else followed suit. Listening back through modern ears, it's almost like revisiting those first three Ramones records—you know this music shaped the world you live in, but since so many artists have added extra levels of intensity since then, there's no way to re-create the sensation of how revolutionary the music was during its time. Today, the sequencing sounds a little more abrupt, and a surprising share of the riffs fall closer to traditional Maiden/Priest-level heavy than outright thrash. But of course, there are moments—the crunching chugga-chugga riffs that propel songs like "Whiplash," "Metal Militia," for instance—where Metallica's sense of purpose crystallized, and it's easy to see why the band became known as such a genre-defining force right out of the gate”.

I will end with a review from AllMusic. Like so many, they gave it a hugely passionate review when they sat down with it. I think, whether you are a Thrash Metal fan or not, you will get something from Kill ‘Em All. In a year when Pop breakthrough’s like Madonna’s debut were out, Metallica were providing something alternative and fierce:

“The true birth of thrash. On Kill 'Em All, Metallica fuses the intricate riffing of New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Diamond Head with the velocity of Motörhead and hardcore punk. James Hetfield's highly technical rhythm guitar style drives most of the album, setting new standards of power, precision, and stamina. But really, the rest of the band is just as dexterous, playing with tightly controlled fury even at the most ridiculously fast tempos. There are already several extended, multi-sectioned compositions foreshadowing the band's later progressive epics, though these are driven by adrenaline, not texture. A few tributes to heavy metal itself are a bit dated lyrically; like Diamond Head, the band's biggest influence, Kill 'Em All's most effective tone is one of supernatural malevolence -- as pure sound, the record is already straight from the pits of hell. Ex-member Dave Mustaine co-wrote four of the original ten tracks, but the material all sounds of a piece. And actually, anyone who worked backward through the band's catalog might not fully appreciate the impact of Kill 'Em All when it first appeared -- unlike later releases, there simply isn't much musical variation (apart from a lyrical bass solo from Cliff Burton). The band's musical ambition also grew rapidly, so today, Kill 'Em All sounds more like the foundation for greater things to come. But that doesn't take anything away from how fresh it sounded upon first release, and time hasn't dulled the giddy rush of excitement in these performances. Frightening, awe-inspiring, and absolutely relentless, Kill 'Em All is pure destructive power, executed with jaw-dropping levels of scientific precision”.

Turning forty on 24th July, the mighty Kill ‘Em All the debut from the legendary Metallica. The band’s latest album, 72 Seasons, came out earlier in the year. With most of the original line-up still in the fold - Robert Trujillo is in the band; Cliff Burton died in 1986 aged only twenty-four -, this incredible force of nature continue to put out wonderful music. Take some time to revisit their stunning and hugely important debut ahead of its fortieth anniversary. It remains…

A work of genius.

FEATURE: Erase the Race That Claim the Place: The Dreaming’s Mesmeric Title Track at Forty-One

FEATURE:

Erase the Race That Claim the Place

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a photoshoot for The Dreaming’s title track in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

The Dreaming’s Mesmeric Title Track at Forty-One

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I have written about…

one of Kate Bush’s best and most underrated tracks before. I think I wrote about it for its fortieth birthday last year. The Dreaming was released as the second single from her fourth studio album. Released on 26th July, 1982, it came out just under two months before the album (which was released on 13th September). It is a memorable single for a few reasons. I am going to go into the song in a bit. I have been thinking about title tracks through Bush’s career. Whilst Hounds of Love might be the best-known, I have always wondered why she never recorded one for Never for Ever. You can say that Oh England my Lionheart is a sort of title track for Lionheart (released in 1978, it was her second studio album). A track, Never Forever, was recorded but never included on Never for Ever. I digress. I wonder why The Dreaming’s track was so-called. In terms of its subject matter, there are other titles that more easily spring to mind. I sort of like the fact there is a bit of ambiguity to calling it The Dreaming. One noteworthy aspect of The Dreaming is, unlike the first single from the album, Sat in Your Lap, it was not a chart success. Hitting forty-eight, this was the least successful single in the U.K. for Bush to that point. She would fare worse with the follow-up single, There Goes a Tenner. I have always said how The Dreaming deserved a higher chart placing. Maybe the video, more cinematic and wide-lensed compared to the tight and rapid-cut Pop videos of 1982, put some people off. The subject matter is something that was uncommon in music in 1982 – and to this very day in fact. Displacement and mistreatment of indigenous people was a little unconventional for some back then, even if the song is wonderful produced and has a lot going on.

I have had to edit and selectively choose some interview archives about The Dreaming’s origins because, unfortunately, Rolf Harris was an influence. He played didgeridoo on the track. Unlike songs he contributed to on Bush’s 2005 album, Aerial, it is hard to edit Harris’ contributions out of The Dreaming’s title track. His voice is not heard, so it is easy to overlook. It is more important to focus on the positives:

“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.

The title actually came last. It always does. It's the most difficult thing to do. I tried to get a title that would somehow say what was in there. It was really bad. Then I found this book [Hands me huge tome on australian lore]. I'd written a song and hadn't really given it a proper name. I knew all about this time they call Dreamtime, when animals and humans take the same form. It's this big religious time when all these incredible things happen. The other word for it is The Dreaming. I looked at that written down and thought, ``Yeah!'' (Kris Needs, 'Dream Time In The Bush'. ZigZag (UK), 1982)

The Aboriginals are not alone in being pushed out of their land by modern man, by their diseases, or for ther own strange reasons. It is very sad to think they might all die. 'The Dreaming' is the time for Aboriginals when humans took the form of animals, when spirits were free to roam and in this song as the civilized begin to dominate, the 'original ones' dream of the dreamtime. (Press statement by Kate Bush, 1982)”.

The first song from the second side of The Dreaming, I like the fact that its title track is half-way down. Many artists would put it as the first or second track. Whilst it sounds perfectly suited after Leave It Open and before Night of the Swallow, maybe as a single it is a bit unusual or without context. It must have been quite a hard single to promote. Bush did do live versions of the song. As I type that, I did write about The Dreaming quite recently and included some videos of her performing the song. The Dreaming is distinctly an album more political and socially aware. On her first album she produced alone, I think Bush was looking to create music more artistic and serious. Still seen as screechy or high-pitched, there were sections who were dismissive of her music. The final two tracks of 1980’s Never for Ever, Army Dreamers and Breathing, discussed young men sent to war ands potential nuclear destruction from the perspective of a foetus. Throughout The Dreaming, Bush explores politics and bigger causes. Whether it is the war in Vietnam or Aboriginal settlers who are losing their land, this was Kate Bush changing her sound. Other songs about the self and philosophy, the search for knowledge and the fact that everyone feels lonely and it is very much needed at times are fascinating. Bush also explored Harry Houdini and The Shining. There is a broad mix of topics being discussed, but I think that the plight of an indigenous Australian population arrived at a time when this was not widely discussed. There was love out there for The Dreaming album and Bush, but there were no clear-cut singes from her 1982 masterpiece. I wanted to celebrate the upcoming (on 26th July) forty-first anniversary of a brilliant song. Distinctly the work of Kate Bush, it still sounds like nothing else to this day. If you have not heard it before, then I would encourage you to…

TAKE a listen now.

FEATURE: U Got the Look? Marry Styles: Embracing the Chic, Cool and Unusual Fashions in Music

FEATURE:

 

 

U Got the Look?

IN THIS PHOTO: Lady Gaga in 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Inez & Vinoodh via ELLE

Marry Styles: Embracing the Chic, Cool and Unusual Fashions in Music

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I have been thinking about it a while…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jane Birkin on the set of the T.V. drama, Poor Cherry, 1967/PHOTO CREDIT: Popperfoto

but, following the sad passing of Jane Birkin at the weekend, it is back in my mind. Birkin was a definite icon. Someone whose music and art was extraordinary and influential; she was also someone whose fashion sense and looks were legendary. She is part of an older generation who included other fashion visionaries like David Bowie. Today, I was wondering whether style and fashion is as important as it once was. We have artists like Harry Styles who are known for their and individual wardrobe. How about beyond that?! I am not necessarily referring only to photoshoots. Then, artists make an effort anyway and can dress a lot differently to how they would on the stage or regularly. I mean someone who has that dresses in their own way and has that compelling look all of the time. I associated Prince with that too. Back in the day, Madonna was known for her changing looks and distinct eras. She still has that but, at a time when there isn’t necessarily the same demand or allure of a chameleon-like artist or someone who has that chic, it makes me a little sad. I think modern and young artists like Iraina Mancini are exceptions. Bringing 1970s fashion and cool to the music and images, I think fashion and clothing choices say more about an artist than anything. Maybe it is a cultural thing, in the sense that a various decade and how it is shaped by art and the landscape, impacts how people dress.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Iraina Mancini

Not to say the music scene is drab when it comes to fashion, but the likes of Harry Styles, Iraina Mancini, Lady Gaga or those artists who have their own style and stamp, and yet can change and bring together various looks and combinations, is far less common than it was. We had a particular Indie look back in the ‘00s. In the 1990s, there were various tribes and looks. I wonder whether the disappearance of genre and its importance means that fashion and style is more homogenise or broader. Broad clothing choice is a great thing, but genres like Glam, Disco and Grunge had distinct looks. In 2023, it might be impossible to go back and redefine genres. Break up what we have in search of some unity and distinct fashion. I guess that tribalism in music is not a great thing, but the fact that various genres and music movements had their uniforms and colour palette is arresting and one reason why they stand out. That also inspires artists within a genre in terms of their own looks and what music they produce. Now, you get a few artists here and there that catch your eye with their fashion choices. Those innovators who adopt new characters and personas between albums. The real visionaries who could mix 1960s and 1970s trends together with something more of their time seems like a relic. As I said, you do get artists dressing up more for shoots and videos. Maybe it is something that is not so absent and rare in other industries.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Prince in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Liu Heung Shing/AP

Even though Hollywood is closing down because of the writers’ strike and the support actors are giving them, the acting industry almost relies on fashion and an emphasis on style. Not always in a shallow way. Whether it is the interesting costumes you see in films or the way stars bring it to the red carpets, there is always that beauty, cool chic and unusualness that makes it so interesting. Again, we have red carpet music events where our music talent glam up and look great. Fashion and different styles are integral to films in a way you do not see in the music industry. I can’t think of two many artists today that evoke the wonder and aura that we got from the icons of the past. Jane Birkin’s passing has made me reflect on how that aesthetic and style she had was tied and blended into her music. Some might say artists use their sound collages and palette as fashion. That they strike an identity and flavour through their songs. I am talking about those artists who were as known for their clothing and the personality they brought from their threads, as much as the wonder they provoked from their music. I do miss the fact that genres and various clans brought with them this impressively distinct identity and fashion. Maybe it would lead to competition and division…but you had the cool of Disco with the grit of Punk. Couple that with the 1980s fashion and the changing looks of the ‘90s and ‘00s. It sort of stopped at some point. With genre-less music or genres becoming less defined and distinct, with it goes those sartorial chameleons and innovators. Also, the fans that could rep the genre with its distinguished and tailored looks.

IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in an iconic striped bodysuit for the legendary Aladdin Sane tour, 1973/PHOTO CREDIT: Masayoshi Sukita/© Sukita and The David Bowie Archive

The appropriately-named Harry Styles is an example of someone other artists should be following. I guess Lana Del Rey also has that incredible look and enviable wardrobe. It all takes my mind back to a recent photo at the Oppenheimer premiere. The stars on the red carpet here in the U.K. had to leave because the actors in Hollywood joined the strike and they showed their solidarity. People highlighted a photo that showed actors Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh and Matt Damon in a line. All very different-looking, people jokingly defined each actor by various areas of London or New York – so that, say, Florence Pugh’s look was more ‘Dalston’ compared with Damon’s ‘Bank’ (credit to Richard Stott for that observation). Each actor almost represented a different genres of film with their awesome looks. Do we really get the same with artists?! I think it is not far-fetched to imagine we’d have a new-day Bowie or Madonna or Prince. Artists people immolated and idolised because they had these incredible tastes and different looks. Now, it seems less important and obvious – and that is something I feel is quite sad and regrettable. Maybe people will correct me by suggesting many artists who are fashion kings and queens (and non-binary regal equivalents). As we lost a style and music icon in Jane Birkin last week, it took away something that is far less common and sought-after in music: those whose wardrobes are as stylish and standout as their music. The fashionable and maverick artist kickstarting trends and creating these heady and colourful fashion blends are not as bright and widespread as years past. I feel that it is something that we really need to…

BRING back to the front of the stage.

FEATURE: Chorus/Adverse: The Tricky Situation of Separating the Artist from the Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Chorus/Adverse

IN THIS PHOTO: Noname has been criticised on social media for featuring controversial artist Jay Electronica on her forthcoming album, Sundial (which is due this week)

The Tricky Situation of Separating the Artist from the Music

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ONE of the most difficult things in music…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

is separating the artist from the music. Whether an artist is seen as ‘problematic’, ‘controversial’, or another vague and somewhat watered-down word for something more serious and disturbing, listeners are often put in a position where they have to boycott the music on moral grounds or can enjoy the music on its own terms. Whether we are thinking of departed artists like Michael Jackson or current ones such as Chris Brown (more on him soon), slowthai (Tyron Frampton), Matty Healy or Kanye West, we have to grapple with a lot of things. Each situation and artist brings with them different contours. In the sense that there are some artists who have committed serious crime or have been accused of, say, sexual assault, compared to those who have said stupid things on social media. Both are very serious, though there is a distinction and different scenarios. Do we have moral lines and criteria when it comes to muddied waters and artists who are divisive and have lost trust?! Not to bring gender into this but, for the vast majority of the time, the artist who were are deciding whether they should be blacklisted or not is male. That is the reality. Whereas artists such as Michael Jackson and slowthai – I am using these as examples, but there are many more artists that I could list – have been blacklist by some/all radio stations, others like Chris Brown and Kanye West continued to be played. It does seem like artists accused of sexual assault or rape need to be removed from playlists. Issues around racism and political views seems like a grey area or not quite as extreme. That sounds ridiculous, though I guess there do need to be boundaries before you either ban all those artists or continue to play them.

In reality, we should be sending messages to artists that they will be punished and lose access and privileges if they unwisely commit crimes or display horrific prejudices. I bring this up because there are current artists who are in the news because they have said or done something inexcusable, and yet they appear on other artists work and there is seemingly no punishment or restrictions! Some might say that it is ‘overly-woke’, but condemning this sort of freedom and lack of repercussion is actually justified and not overreacting! If we allow artists who hold very suspect views or have committed crimes to continue their careers in a way people in other industries would not be allowed, then that sends the message they are beyond the law or any sort of rules. Almost turning them into these untouchable figures. I knew it is a complex subject and not everything is straightforward, but there are clear-cut cases where one raises eyebrows. I will come to a recent case involving Noname collaborating with Jay Electronica on her hugely-anticipated new album, Sundial. Recently, Chloe Bailey received criticism and backlash after featuring Chris Brown on her album, In Pieces:

“Chloe Bailey has found herself in hot water. Over the past week, the singer, and one-half of the beloved duo Chloe x Halle, has experienced a near 180 degree turn in public opinion online. It was largely sparked by her latest release, “How Does It Feel,” a collaboration with the controversial Chris Brown. Announced on Feb. 16, news of the single immediately stirred up feelings of shock, betrayal, and incomprehension among her fans. In recent days, that outrage has morphed into a larger question for writers and fans: Why artists — specifically. Black women artists and musicians — continue to work with Brown. Below, we break down the entire controversy, from specific grievances from fans to why the incident goes beyond the immediate backlash.

The controversy began on Feb. 16 when Chlöe announced her new single with Brown on social media. “2ND PIECE. HOW DOES IT FEEL @chrisbrown. 2/24,” she tweeted. Almost instantly, fans flooded the tweet replies and quote tweets with their shock and disappointment in the singer.

IN THIS PHOTO: Chloe Bailey/PHOTO CREDIT: Gioncarlo Valentine for Rolling Stone

All of the complaints alluded to Brown’s very public history of violence toward women. Perhaps the most well-known physical abuse incident he was involved in was with Rihanna in 2009. On Feb. 8 of that year, photos of the pop star with bruises and blood on her face surfaced on the internet, as news slowly trickled out that Brown had repeatedly punched her in the face while they were driving in a rental Lamborghini. (Brown was later arrested and sentenced to community service and domestic violence counseling.)

Years later, Brown appeared to show remorse over the incident, saying in a 2017 documentary that afterwards he “felt like a f*cking monster.” But that’s far from the only instance of violence (specifically, violence toward women) that Brown has found himself in since then. He’s been accused of stealing women’s phones, pushing them to the floor, and threatening to punch them in the face. In 2017, his ex Karrueche Tran filed and won a five-year restraining order against Brown, citing multiple threatening text messages and voicemails from the singer. Given his past extreme antagonism toward women, Chlöe’s collaboration with Brown seemed out of character and baffling to her fans.

“We're failing Black women in music if they feel like they have to collaborate with a known abuser in order to chart,” wrote journalist Ernest Owens in response to her tweet. “We will absolutely not be streaming. catch you next time tho,” tweeted Drag Queen Eve 6000”.

It is down to the artist and not the fans/industry to decide whether particular artists will feature on their music. Again, why is it male artists that are culpable?! You do get some female artists who have caused controversy, but one has to think quite hard to find too many examples! It is quite glaring and worrying. In any case, how do you separate the artist from the music?! Can you, even?! In the case of Noname joining with Jay Electronica for her new album, she has hit back at those who she considers to be too sensitive and woke in judging her:

“On Thursday (July 13), Noname announced that the lead single from her second studio album, Sundial, would drop next Friday, July 21. Titled “Balloons,” the track will feature R&B artist Eryn Allen Kane and rap legend Jay Electronica. The full album, which would be Noname’s first since 2018’s Room 25, was initially scheduled to drop in July. But after Thursday’s news was met with a mixed reception online, the Chicago rapper, poet, and activist said she’s now thinking of canceling the record’s release.

While the online reaction to Noname’s announcement has been mostly positive, some fans took issue with her choice to work with Jay Elect in light of his affiliation with the Nation of Islam and his apparent allegiance to the group’s outspokenly antisemitic leader, Louis Farrakhan. Some twitter users also pointed to Jay’s 2012 track “Bitches and Drugs,” in which he refers to himself as “Jaydolf Spitler, rap Hitler,” and his continued support for Kanye West despite Ye’s recent rash of antisemitic tirades, to make the case that Jay himself is an antisemite.

IN THIS PHOTO: Jay Electronica

Today (July 14), in a string of increasingly defensive tweets, Noname responding to criticisms of her decision to feature Electronica on her new song. “n***as legit rap about actual murder and sexual assault that they commit in real life and y’all can’t take a jay elect verse?,” she wrote this morning. “please drink water and be safe out here.” In another tweet, she implied that the backlash stemmed from the fact that she’s perceived by many hip-hop fans as “the mascot for the woke mob” due to her vocal critiques of other rappers’ politics (or lack thereof). She also dismissed gripes with the “Jaydolf Spitler” lyric, pointing out that rappers tend to “compare themselves to anything for a punchline,” and rightfully called out comparisons of the Nation of Islam (a largely nonviolent organization) to the Nazi party (who exterminated more than six million Jews between 1933 and 1945) as absurd.

After this initial run of argumentative posting, Noname took a break to retweet more positive feedback to her announcement. In her last two tweets of the morning, however, she claimed that the negative reactions were making her reconsider the album’s release entirely. “y’all want the album,” she wrote just after 10 a.m. ET. “fine.” Then, quote tweeting another comment criticizing her for defending herself so vocally, she clarified: “oh the song fa sho coming out lol. the album is another story. i’m good on the selective outrage. anyways hip hop is in a great place right now. another noname album ain’t really necessary.”

From another artist, statements such as these could easily be dismissed as hyperbole. But in 2021, Noname scrapped the release of her previously announced album Factory Baby, citing frustrations with the industry that were making her reconsider her career in music. View that post below, archived by Okay Player”.

There are so many questions and considerations when you approach artists and look at the past. If musicians such as Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) can be celebrated and embraced, even though he has more than a chequered past, then should artists like Jay Electronica be banned or judged?! I do think that there should definitely be stricter attitudes towards artists who have worrying pasts and  seemingly have been easily forgiving or things have been blotted out by areas of the media. In many cases, there does seem to be greater backlash and judgement against Black men. In the case of Jay Electronica, I don’t think he should have appeared on Noname’s album, but then that is her choice. Also, as Chris Brown has been spotlighted by Chloe Bailey recently, you can’t go back and erase him – and you can’t have one rule for one and another for someone else. It does seem like Noname is getting more flack and negative response because she is a Black women, whereas a white man featuring Jay Electronica would get a far easier ride. I am not sure what the outcome will be but, as this latest episode does reignite the debate as to whether you can separate the artist from the music, and whether artists need to think more carefully at how giving oxygen to those who have a mark against their name is damaging and unwise. It would be good to know what people think in general. I don’t think there is an overly-woke mob who are responsible for the press around Jay Electronica and Noname – I think she is wrong in this case. It is right to call out an artist who is sending out poisonous messages. Sensitivity and conscientiousness in these cases is vital and should be applauded. It is something that also extends to industries like acting; where you get those who are still allowed to work despite something awful they have done, whilst others are allowed to slide back (and, again, race seems to be a worrying deciding factor). That burning questions remains: Can we and should we separate…

THE artist from the art?

FEATURE: The Queen of Walsall: Jorja Smith’s Falling or Flying, and Changing Attitudes Regarding Body Positivity

FEATURE:

 

 

The Queen of Walsall

PHOTO CREDIT: Rashidi Noah for The Guardian

Jorja Smith’s Falling or Flying, and Changing Attitudes Regarding Body Positivity

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I have spoken about…

the captivating and simply brilliant Jorja Smith recently, because she was getting a lot of abuse and nasty comments online regarding her body. I wanted to return to that, not as a way of exploiting something quite toxic and personally damaging, but to ask why there is not celebration of body positivity and better attitudes. An issue that mostly affects women in the industry, there are so many degrading and cruel comments posted on social media if a woman has a body shape or size that is not stick-thin or what many perceive as ‘normal’ or ‘desirable’. It is part down to the industry and the way women have been marketed and promoted. We still live in a time when attitudes from the past exist regarding body image and weight. Body positivity is an amazing thing, but it is often met with so much poison and abuse. I have been reminded of it again because, as Smith is promoting her upcoming album, falling or flying, she has been discussing recent online negativity and toxicity – something, as she states, that is pretty hard to get away from. I wanted to start with the huge positives. I think that Jorja Smith’s second album – following 2018’s Lost & Found -, will be a huge success. That debut was nominated for the Mercury Prize, and I think that falling or flying will be in contention next year. Out in September, this album will confirm Smith as one of the music world’s most extraordinary talents. With a voice like nobody else, everyone needs to check out the album! She is this artist that got a lot of attention when she released her earliest singles. She has since put out a steady strong or brilliant music. Growing stronger and more confident with each release we are going to hear a lot more from the Walsall-born treasure.

I do want to get to an interview from The Guardian, where Jorja Smith was talking about her new album. She also mentioned comments she has to read about her weight and body image. In addition to talking about falling or flying and the changes from Lost & Found to now, Smith did spend a moment addressing the negative comments about her body and how she has dealt with it:

“When we last spoke, in 2017, she said she would post on Instagram, then close it without endlessly scrolling. What does she make of social media now? “I hate it,” she says – apart from TikTok, which is “a nice place. But Instagram … Someone else is doing my Instagram,” she says, now cross-legged on a sofa in a secondhand Nike T-shirt. “Sometimes, I’ll wish I gave myself a different artist name or something, so at least I could detach myself.” Using her real name for work has made it harder to separate herself from any negative comments. It also means she saw the recent wave of online commentary about her weight, enough of it for her to trend on Twitter for two days.

IN THIS PHOTO: Smith on stage with Stormzy at the O2 Academy, Brixton, in 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Okpako/WireImage

Unprompted, she starts to talk about it. “It’s funny, my friend said: ‘I thought you didn’t read comments?’ And I was like” – she puts on a faux-whiney voice – “I don’t, but sometimes it’s like I can’t escape it.” In mid-June, a video was posted on social media of her performing the junglist Nia Archives remix of Little Things – a single that has dovetailed with these hot recent weeks and is heading towards the Top 10 – and joy emanates from it as she winds through the song’s groove. But in the comments, she says: “There’s loads of talk about my weight, which is actually crazy. Because, right, I’m 26. I’m not 18. I’ve never ever been super-skinny – I’ve been slimmer, but I’ve also been younger, and a kid.”

She had already been feeling more aware of how her body has changed. “Coming into the campaign, I felt a bit like, I’ve been busy, I haven’t done as much gym. I am eating healthier, but I was chatting to some friends from school and saying that maybe I’ve gotten to that age where I put on weight a bit more easily now. Things change, don’t they, with your body?” She says she is hard on herself anyway: “I’m like, damn, I feel a bit insecure about it, and now people are commenting on it.” She smiles cheekily. “I have to think: ‘What are they going through?’ No one’s ever said anything in person, never. It’s very interesting”.

Smith, as she has never been super-skinny. She looks amazing and is clearly someone who wants to promote body positive. Healthy and happier than she has ever been seemingly, there is always this view that women in music should be very skinny or conform to some very damaging and prehistoric attitudes. Smith has remained on social media and has not lowered herself to the level or attacking or striking back against those who comment. As she also said, people don’t say anything to her face about her weight. Even so, why would people go there in the first place?! I have written about this before, but so many women in the industry have to read such vile and personal comments about their bodies. From Lizzo to Billie Eilish, so many incredible artists have had to face bullying, judgement, harassment and nastiness relating to the way they look. Jorja Smith is one of the very best artists, and we need her in the industry. Her online presence means she gets to connect with the fans. We do not want a day when she quits social media or pulls back from recording or promoting her music! She is very strong and has this resilience, but it must still get to her too. She looks phenomenal but, and it is a relatively small number, she is the recipient of horrible comments. Like so often is the case, the majority of the poisonous comments are from men.

Attituded definitely need to change. Different body shapes and sizes need to be accepted and celebrated. This weird idea that all women should be really skinny is so outdated and problematic. We have heard stories from female artists in the ‘90s how they were told to be skinny or a certain weight so they could be considered sexy. Gracing magazine cover and music videos, weight and how they looked was a big deal. It is a horrific and controlling pattern that still has some legacy today. Not as problematic as it was, there is an ideal that exists regarding women and their bodies. Not many articles or magazines that celebrate body positivity. Jorja Smith no doubt inspires a lot of women and girls who realise that they can be natural and do not have to confirm with whatever wrapped stereotypes still do the rounds. With every case of an artist feeling defined or criticised because of how they looked, it sends out this very damaging message! How many women follow these stories and feel reluctant to enter music because of what they might face. It is hard enough maintaining a career and making money, without having to answer to trolls and online bullies. Jorja Smith is a legend who is going to keep on delivering wonderful albums. falling or flying is going to score amazing reviews and earn Smith awards. A titanic talent who should be embraced and loved, she – like women throughout the industry – should not have to read comments about their weight. Our music queens are making this industry so much better and more interesting! They should have agency and not feel abused and attacked because of their bodies. Vitally important humans who are giving the world so much, body positivity and changing our attitudes towards women need to change. As much as anything, people really need to…

FOCUS on the music.

FEATURE: sleep at night: Cat Burns and Her ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Diagnoses

FEATURE:

 

 

sleep at night

Cat Burns and Her ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Diagnoses

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THE more that artists are open…

and they bravely discuss mental health issues and other illnesses, the more we get an understand of the industry at large and what many artists go through. Many artists have struggled with touring and the demands it places on them. Lewis Capaldi is one of the most recent musicians to do so. He also revealed the struggles of his Tourette’s Syndrome. Other artists have anxieties that mean they cannot tour a lot. It is hard today because there is so much competition for relevantly few gigs and radio playlists. Maybe that feeling that, post-pandemic, there is catching up to do. To get seen and keep a momentum going, so many artists play on through clear struggles and obstacles. The fabulous Cat Burns has been hailed as an immense talent to watch closely. A breakthrough talent who many hope will bring us an album soon, she has recently discussed her ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses. The BBC reports on what the situation is:

“If you're a Cat Burns fan, you'll know her lyrics are honest.

It's something she wants to extend to her personal life too - which is why she's opened up about her recent ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis.

The singer tells BBC Newsbeat the diagnosis has left her with a better understanding of herself, saying life now "makes sense".

But like lots of people, Cat's route to being diagnosed wasn't straightforward and she's sharing her story in the hope it helps others.

In 2021, the 23-year-old was told she had ADHD and then in April this year she tweeted to say she had also been diagnosed with ASD.

In the days after her ADHD diagnosis, Cat says she did a lot of reflecting on life leading up to it.

"It was non-stop, thinking about experiences in school like revising and studying and all the other things I struggled with daily," she says.

ADHD affects people's behaviour, resulting in symptoms like restlessness and trouble concentrating.

Although Cat's diagnosis was one step further to understanding herself, she still felt her brain was "different".

"I knew I had ADHD but I still felt there was a difference in my brain that I wanted to understand and explore.

"So once I got my autism diagnosis that helped me understand myself and just how much I've had to do in order to get to where I am."

Cat believes her road to diagnosis was harder because she's a woman and person of colour.

"I think it comes from the research that's out there and the idea lots believe women can't have autism, and then on top of that adults can't have autism," she says.

"It [research] needs to be across the board, but especially with women and black women."

Like most conditions, there are lists of symptoms for ADHD and ASD but Cat says they'll present differently depending on who you are.

One sign of autism is fidgeting, but, she points out, how a black woman fidgets will be different to a white man for example.

"I guess being a black woman, there's certain experiences we have that people won't be able to pick up on.

"For a black girl, it could be taking out her braids and putting them back in or something else to do with her culture that's overlooked."

Another way autism can manifest is a feeling of being overwhelmed when exposed to bright lights or loud noises.

You might think that would make performing difficult, but that's when Cat goes into "auto-pilot".

Many other artists, fans and those in the industry will either have a similar diagnosis or they have symptoms – and Cat Burns’ revelation will get them to get an official diagnosis. It is commendable that she has revealed her ADHD and ASD. I wanted to write about it, as someone who feels very similarly to Cat Burns and it has a big impact on my workload and life in general, it is very encouraging and inspiring to read her words. Of course, she will have to adapt slightly when it comes to gigs. Having recently written about Touring and Mental Health: The Music Industry Manual by Tamsin Embleton, not only is that a very useful and relevant guide for so many right now. I wonder if there is a documentary or podcast that reacts to artists taking time from the stage and revealing illnesses. Time was when many would either live with something like ASD or Tourette’s and that would either be part of their ‘art’ or it would be dismissed. Now, there is healthy conversation about a variety of conditions. That honesty is very brave and refreshing. It also means that many fans who might be similarly affected find the courage to open up. I think that there is perhaps a stigma or pressure cancelling gigs.

Maybe artists feel like they are letting fans down or will lose too much. Actually, I am not sure whether Cat Burns will cancel gigs or take things down a bit. At the very least, she understands her better and it puts a lot of things into context – which, in turn, will affect her career and songwriting (for the better) going forward. If there does need to be dispensations for some artists depending on their illnesses, there is this movement where more are either seeking a diagnosis and/or discussing it with the media. I think there is this ideal or perception that artists power through and do not have vulnerabilities. Everyone wishes Cat Burns well. I think that she is going to be one of our most celebrated and successful artists for years. Burns revealing her ADHD and ASD, I think, gives the listener and wider world a new perspective on her music and lyrics. I don’t know whether her touring will be affected, but there is going to be some impact at the very least. It will be fascinating to see…

WHERE she heads next.

FEATURE: Revisiting... Sabrina Carpenter - emails i can't send

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting...

Sabrina Carpenter - emails i can't send

_________

WHEN considering…

PHOTO CREDIT: Vince Aung

which album to include in this Revisiting…, I came to an artist that some may not know about. Sabrina Carpenter is one of the most promising voices in Pop music. The Pennsylvania-born sensation released her fifth studio album, emails i can’t send, last year. Whilst it won some acclaim, I am not sure that it is played enough. Plenty of people do not know about the album. That is a shame, as I do not feel it is one for Carpenter’s fanbase solely. There is plenty in there that many people will enjoy. I am going to come to reviews for the album soon enough. Before that, there are interviews that I want to get to. This feels like a debut album. Her first on Island, many noted how emails i can’t send is Sabrina Carpenter at her most honest and personal. The deepest and most realistic portrait of her so far, there is a great importance and weight behind her fifth studio album. Rolling Stone spoke with Carpenter last year. Almost tackling perceptions of herself on the first four albums, emails i can’t send is her telling her own story and looking ahead:

“IT’S NOT THAT Sabrina Carpenter was putting up a front in her music before, it’s just that she — a Disney Channel actress since age of 13 — was “programmed” to be confident “till the day I die.” With her new music, Carpenter changes out the Disney-girl chip and lets the unfiltered thoughts in her brain run free, even if it places her in a place to be judged. She’s gotten used to that, anyway.

“I had to fight the urge to do what I normally do — cover it up with confidence — and instead just actually feel those feelings,” Carpenter says of her fifth album, Emails I Can’t Send, out Friday. “The tolerance for bullshit in the last two years really minimized for me.”

She adds, “When you’re younger, it’s a lot easier to let the words and labels that people put on you affect you and become part of who you are. Once you start to rebel against that, it starts to feel a little bit scarier, but also a bit more freeing. That’s why it felt like growing pains the whole time that I was making it.”

Along with facing heartbreak, the new album deals with the perceptions and sometimes-harsh assumptions that she faced after fans made her into a tertiary villain in a Disney-actor love triangle with Olivia Rodrigo and Joshua Bassett.

“Now I’m a homewrecker/I’m a slut/I got death threats…” she sings. “Tell me who I am, ’cause I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.”

The LP, which features singles “Fast Times,” “Skinny Dipping,” and “Vicious,” shows a deeply vulnerable version of the singer confronting her feelings, and coming to terms with the fact that she doesn’t — and never — had control over what people think about her. She feels that her best work comes when she sheds the need to be relatable or fully understood.

“I’m fully aware that even if you try to break it down, really really break it down for people, they still might not understand,” she says.

Most important of all, she’s now seeing things in hindsight, unlike when she dropped her track “Skin” as the Rodrigo-Bassett fire blazed around her in 2021. “I’m not in that exact place anymore,” she says.

“People can say whatever they want to say, but I was lucky to be able to verbalize an experience that some people have been through,” she adds. “Hopefully it has helped them get through their experience with a little bit more strength and understanding. If I can do that, then I don’t have regrets”.

I am going to come to some reviews soon. Before that, Vogue asked Carpenter about emails i can’t send. The radical honesty of it is amazing. With many of the songs written from emails that she was going to send herself; it is no wonder that Rolling Stone voted it one of their favourite albums of last year. Not that Carpenter’s first four albums lacked something personal, but it is clear that we get to know much more about this remarkable artist on her fifth outing. I would urge anyone who has not heard it to give it a listen:

“While Emails I Can’t Send is, somewhat remarkably, her fifth album – the first four, which leaned more pop, were all released via Disney’s Hollywood Records, while Emails is her first outing since moving to Island Records early last year – there’s something about it that feels like a new beginning for the musician. As was the case for so many, the pandemic forced a stark reevaluation of what mattered to Carpenter – and when it came to music, that meant tapping into a frankness and candour (mostly the product of writing songs at home alone), as well as a greater sense of autonomy as she shaped the sound and aesthetic of the record.

“One thing that experience did do was that it stripped back a lot of layers of tolerating anything that’s less than real, because I didn’t really have the energy to tolerate anything that was less than genuine and authentic at that time,” she says. (Another factor in Carpenter’s willingness to let down her guard may have been the tabloid maelstrom that followed the release of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License”, the lyrics of which some interpreted as a response to her ex, fellow Disney actor Joshua Bassett, embarking on a new relationship with Carpenter.)

Where Emails I Can’t Send departs from Carpenter’s heroes from decades past, however, is in its sprinkling of very Gen Z references (from unread texts to lying to your therapist to anonymous online death threats), among more timeless, heart-on-your-sleeve elegies to lost love. It feels like the most fully realised vision of Carpenter the musician – and the most rounded portrait of Carpenter the human being – yet. “I would hope that if someone had never listened to my music before, and they listened to this album, they would leave it feeling like they know me better as a person,” she says.

Here, Carpenter tells Vogue about the unusual writing process for the album, balancing heartbreak with humour, and why she can’t wait to get back on the road and perform live.

When did you start writing the record? Was there a clean break between the songwriting for Singular [Carpenter’s previous album] and Emails I Can’t Send?

I was doing a run on Broadway [in Mean Girls] right before the pandemic, and once the shutdown happened, I sort of went into this mode of... I mean, everybody has their way of coping. Some people were like, I’m not going to do anything for however long, and I’m just going to take this time off for myself and recuperate. But for me, I was like, I’m going to start this process [of writing a new album]. I knew that it would take a long time, because I really wanted to take my time with this project in particular. I signed with a new label in the middle of the pandemic, and I think there’s so much that changes between the ages of 18 to 21, so I knew that this project would be very different. But the process kind of started there. It incorporated a lot of living life as well as it did actually working on the music – I was really writing through everything that I was experiencing.

You’ve said that in some of your previous records, there were aspects of yourself you covered up with confidence, and this record is a lot more confessional. Was there any specific turning point for you where you thought, hey, I’m going to be a bit more candid this time around?

I think I’ve always been someone that likes to change things up, and no project I’ve ever made has been the same as the one before it. But honestly, I feel like the reason I couldn’t write some of those more vulnerable, some of those more insecure, some of those more forward songs before is because I just hadn’t felt those emotions. I think when you’re younger, it’s very easy to see the world and think that you can take it on – you have all the confidence required to do that. And then once you start to get humbled by the world, it’s very easy to be like, oh, never mind, backtrack, backtrack. And that’s where these feelings started to creep in. I was worried for a second that it wasn’t the fully confident pop record that fans who have been following me for a long time might be coming to my music for. I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest, but if anything, I realised that there’s far more strength in vulnerability and insecurities, because they are the emotions that I think we’re all kind of scared to face – even if that doesn’t make them any less real.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vince Aung

How literal was the title? Did any of the lyrics actually originate as emails you couldn’t send?

Yeah, totally. I think the hardest thing for me has always been naming the album. I don’t know why, but I think it’s just the fact that you have so many stories in one place, and you’re expected to slap one word on it. That’s a lot of pressure. When I wrote the actual title track, I was [using] one of the emails that I had written to myself, and I just said out loud: “That’s the name of the album!” Then every song kind of came from that place. Every song came from those emails or messages or whatever my way of coping was at the time. I think it captures a really important time in my life.

How do you decide which aspects of your personal life to include and which to leave out, especially given the intense scrutiny about your lyrics online?

It’s funny, because I look back on songs that I wrote when I was 16 and 17. The first time I ever got sued, I wrote a song called “Sue Me.” Taking personal situations in my life and being able to turn them into art was always a way of healing myself, and also understanding those situations a bit better. And so nothing changed in that sense. I’ve always been writing from that very real place. But I’m also not naïve, and even the songs that are literally about nothing at all, I’m sure people would be able to take all kinds of things from them and run with it, because I think that’s just what people do, they love the dramatics and the theatrics of it all. But personally, I don’t ever write from a place of thinking about people hearing this, and thinking about what they might assume. Otherwise, I don’t think the songs would feel honest. I think that the whole thing behind this album was really to do with me writing those emails. I was never writing emails to myself and thinking about actually sending them, or thinking about what other people would think about them, because I really was just doing it for myself, and it was a way to cope. So I kind of tried to stick with that through the album and just write songs thinking, I can say whatever I want, because no one’s ever gonna hear this. And then, yeah, I’ll just have to throw my phone in the ocean when the album comes out. [Laughs.]

It feels like you really get a fuller picture of your personality on the record, including your sense of humour.

I do think that a lot of the time, as a person, I deflect with humour, so it was only natural that a lot of the things that I was writing about – even some of the most painful moments of my life – were just so stupid, honestly, that it made me laugh. I was able to take these situations that really hurt me and use humour to cope with them. Someone that listened to the album said, “It’s almost like your music is a romantic comedy.” It felt like a weird way to describe it at first, but I guess it makes a lot of sense. I think as a songwriter I do romanticise, but at the same time, those moments of innocence and humour are the moments that I find really special. Most of the time I think, Nobody will find this funny, I’m just doing it for myself. But I think that’s all part of making something that feels a little bit closer to me”.

I am going to get to some reviews. The Indiependent provided their take on one of the most important and memorable albums from last year. Even though it was a chart success in the U.S., it didn’t get the same sort of sales and success in other parts of the world. I think that more people should have snaped up this incredible album. There is no doubt that emails i can’t send is a powerful listening experience:

“After a three-year hiatus, Sabrina Carpenter finally hit the send button on her highly-anticipated fifth studio album, emails i can’t send.

As suggested by the American singer-songwriter herself, the 13-track record is her most personal project yet. It invites the listener to take a ride on an emotional roller-coaster, exploring the inner corners of Carpenter’s mind; whereas her previous records Eyes Wide Open, EVOLution, and the two-act Singular exude innocence, self-reliance, and confidence with the occasional melancholic track in-between, emails i can’t open contains grit that simply can’t be matched. It’s a story of Carpenter’s perseverance and a much-needed step towards reclaiming her narrative.

The title track is arguably Carpenter’s best-written album opener to date. “There’s no us in us when I’m lackin’ trust / You wanna discuss, ugh, you disgust me,” she sings from the perspective of a daughter who finds out about her father’s affair; she also elaborates on how such infidelity has negatively impacted her own perception of relationships. In less than two minutes, the song packs a punch that perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the album: raw, multifaceted, and self-reflective.

With the help of fading out piano melodies and a reference to the 1975 musical Chicago, the song smoothly transitions into one of the album’s singles, ‘Vicious’, where Carpenter continues to explore a failed relationship. However, this time it’s her own, which explains the song’s somewhat heated and intense approach (and the sudden 86-to-130 BPM change between the first two tracks).

The album’s third track, ‘Read your Mind’, is almost like a farewell to the dwindling Singular era. It’s upbeat. It’s sassy. It’s got gorgeous vocal layering that Carpenter is known for. But it’ll probably be the only track for the foreseeable future to remind her listeners of the previous project. Even though it contains a fragment of whom Carpenter used to be musically, it also offers a glimpse of what’s yet to come.

The next track, ‘Tornado Warnings’, confirms that. In a rather poetic take on lyricism, Carpenter ignores her significant other’s red flags and then tries to convince herself that she doesn’t… essentially lying to herself, her audience, and the therapist she sings about. Quite ironically, she’s aware of that.

Some things don’t need explanation. And that’s exactly the case with ‘because i liked a boy’, the record’s most straightforward offering lyrically; a sincere narration of the 23-year-old Carpenter’s efforts to navigate public scrutiny. It effortlessly pulls at one’s heartstrings, leaving no room for interpretation, especially when it comes to the song’s double-bridge. And rightfully so, for it’s solely her story to tell.

‘Already Over’ and ‘how many things’ mark the end of the record’s first half. One vastly different from another, they testify to love’s miscellaneous nature. The former of the two contains some of Carpenter’s most paradoxical lyricism yet, with underlying Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves influences; “I say I’m done, but I’m still confused / How am I supposed to close the door when I still need the closure?” Carpenter wonders, describing the fragility of a relationship that should’ve ended long ago. The latter, on the other hand, portrays an extremely vulnerable side of her as she opens up about feeling worthless in the eyes of her former lover.

The second half of emails i can’t send swaps the reflective melancholy for playfulness and hopeful nostalgia. The seventh track, ‘bet u wanna’, is certainly one of the project’s biggest standouts, bringing back the bold and daring side of Carpenter’s sound. And this resurfaced confidence bleeds right into the following track, ‘Nonsense’, with sexual innuendos, catchy soundscapes, and raspy-to-silky smooth vocals that attest to the singer’s extreme versatility.

The album’s sentimental lead single and its infectious successor ⁠— ‘skinny dipping’ and ‘Fast Times’ ⁠— further investigate the aftermath of a relationship. In yet another experimental approach to music, Carpenter abandons all formulas and leans into spoken word for ‘skinny dipping’, taking a detour from the radio-friendly songwriting; as confirmed by the artist herself, the single’s oddly-specific verses resemble an awkward encounter with an ex-partner, which further adds to the project’s conceptual undertone. Both of the singles feature instrumental bridges with laid-back, euphonious melodies perfect for the lounge (just like the rest of the album).

Despite the fairly cheerful production, ‘Bad for Business’ embodies one of the most dangerous aspects of love: fixation. “He’s good for my heart but he’s bad for business / Tears me apart when he grants my wishes,” Carpenter sings carelessly, while the song’s lyrics gradually unfold as acceptance of uncontrollably flying into the face of danger. Similarly to ‘Already Over’, this song also seems to be influenced by country music and allows Carpenter to test out brand-new waters, which she does successfully.

Ultimately, the album’s final track, ‘decode’, is a sombre but hopeful conclusion to the 39-minute long record. And this is where Carpenter shines as a songwriter; when she isn’t afraid of letting go and acknowledges the hurt she’s experienced. One of the most beautiful things about this track is how subtly Carpenter takes the base of the first half and then turns it around in the second, giving the story a new allegory; from “I’m so tired / Reread every single undertone” to “I’m so tired / Unpacked every single word you wrote.” Amongst the subtle lyrical changes and heartwarming ambience produced by string instruments, the track ends with an audio clip of two individuals laughing right after Carpenter insists on recording their past selves for the future ahead, without a single clue of what awaits there. And through such an indefinite send-off, emails i can’t send isn’t just a draft anymore. It’s now an open letter to those who are ready to read it, embrace it, and live through it.

Although this is Sabrina Carpenter’s fifth studio album, it could be referred to as her actual debut. It takes on the role of reintroducing the singer to the world, and it does it in the most genuine way possible. It doesn’t sweep hurt under the rug and, in fact, welcomes the cathartic cleanse that can seem like the scariest thing sometimes.

Now, this is where Carpenter’s journey actually begins; 13 of her most personal stories have been sent. Only one question remains: are you ready to press the send button yourself?”.

I will finish off with AllMusic’s take on Sabrina Carpenter’s phenomenal emails i can’t send. One of the best of 2022, do go and seek it out when you can. I don’t think you even need t be a Pop fan to appreciate what Carpenter is saying. It is very accessible and varied. There was a lot of love for it:

“The fifth studio album from singer and actress Sabrina Carpenter, 2022's Emails I Can't Send is as charmingly ebullient as it is candid. Her first full-length release since moving to Island Records, the record builds nicely upon the upbeat dance-pop of her early work while also displaying her growing strength and honesty as a songwriter. It also finds her drawing inspiration from the classic singer/songwriter style of artists like Carly Simon and Carole King while fitting well alongside the contemporary work of artists like Conan Gray. Much of the album is loosely conceptualized around emails she wrote to herself. For example, the title track, "Emails I Can't Send," is a yearning piano ballad in which a daughter excoriates her father for his infidelity to her mother. Similarly, "Vicious" is a hooky, acoustic guitar-driven anthem in which Carpenter addresses her quiet anguish over a particularly toxic relationship. More upbeat is "Read Your Mind," in which she ruminates on a wishy-washy lover on a hooky track that evokes the sparkling disco-pop of the Cardigans. With Emails I Can't Send, Carpenter has crafted a record that reflects her emotional maturity five albums into her career, which also feels like a refreshing new start”.

An album that I was keen to spotlight and revisit, Sabrina Carpenter’s emails I can’t send confirms her as one of the best and brightest names in Pop. She actually released emails I can’t send fwd: this year. It contained some extra tracks that added more depth and story to the original album. I am interested to see where she heads for her sixth studio album. Having completed an international tour for the album, I am sure that she has been busy working on new material this year. In the meantime, go and listen to a superb album that ranks alongside…

THE best of last year.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Maeta

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Maeta

_________

I am going to source a couple of…

older interviews before I bring things more up to date promotion-wise. Following the phenomenal 2021 mini-album/E.P. Habits, Maeta (Maeta Hall) produced what I think is one of this year’s best albums: the stunning and unforgettable listening experience that is When I Hear Your Name. In a year – like the past six, seven or eight – that has been dominated by women, there are those mainstream and near-mainstream artists delivering sensational work! There is a plethora of newer female artists that are on the radar or just under it that are mesmeric icons of the future. I think that the staggering Maeta is one to watch. Before getting to interviews and a review of her wonderful new album, here is some biography concerning an American wonder:

“Maeta's dreamily seductive take on contemporary R&B incorporates touches of loungey jazz and pop. She first introduced her satiny voice and style on a series of short-form releases culminating with the Kaytranada-produced "Teen Scene" featuring Buddy in 2020. It was included on her Roc Nation debut, the Habits EP, in 2021. Ty Dolla $ign and Lucky Daye were among the guests on her first full-length, 2023's highly collaborative When I Hear Your Name.

Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, Maeta Hall posted songs on social media and music-sharing sites as a teenager before moving to Los Angeles in 2019 while in her late teens. Late that year, she released her debut EP, Do Not Disturb, on her own label, Maeta's World Music. The opening track, "Babygirl," made waves, and she next teamed up with Ambré for the collaborative single "Color Blind." Produced by Kaytranada, "Teen Scene" featuring Buddy appeared a few months later in September 2020 and soon garnered millions of streams across platforms. After a featured spot on the James Fauntleroy track "Mistletoe," she followed it with "Toxic" featuring BEAM in March 2021. That recording was executive-produced by Skrillex. Signing with Roc Nation, Maeta returned a month later with the seven-track EP Habits, which contained "Teen Scene" and "Toxic." A set of Habits remixes followed that August, and before the end of the year, Maeta was featured on Tone Stith's single "Something in the Water."

After a relatively slow 2022 that included some festival appearances and the stand-alone single "Frank for You," Maeta came back with even more star power in January 2023, appearing alongside Thundercat on the Vic Mensa track "STRAWBERRY LOUIS VUITTON," following it two months later with her own "S(EX)." The S(EX) EP offered several different mixes, including sped up, slowed down, and instrumental versions. The original edit was among the 13 tracks that comprised her debut album, June 2023's When I Hear Your Name (Roc Nation). In addition to some familiar names from years prior, it included performances by Ty Dolla $ign, Lucky Daye, Free Nationals, and others, and songs or additional writing from the likes of SZA, Demi Lovato, Kehlani, and The-Dream”.

Let’s go back to 2020. This was pre-Habits. I have discovered Maeta’s music in the past year or two, so I have gone back and got a sense of where this stunning young artist got her inspiration; how her music has evolved through the years, and what her ambitions are. Around the time of the Do Not Disturb E.P. (which came out in November 2019), The Young Folks who capitalise her name (though I have seen it mostly written as ‘Maeta’), wanted to know more about this hungry and talented rising artist:

“Stop what you’re doing and watch the art that is #MaetaMondays. Honestly, Mondays have been our favorite as of late since R&B artist Maeta started dropping a series of videos based on songs from her debut EP Do Not Disturb. Each video takes you on Maeta’s journey from heartbreak to overcoming the feeling from beginning to end.

#MaetaMondays is not a new concept either. Rooted from her days on SoundCloud, Maeta continues to hold her tradition strong even after captivating the hearts and ears of her growing fanbase week after week. Consider us included in that fanbase. We had a chance to chat with Maeta to talk all about her start in music to even share a few words on her very latest single “Boyfriend.”

The Young Folks: First off, how are you doing in this climate? What are you doing in the meantime through all of this? 

Maeta: Hi! I’m honestly doing pretty well, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on new music, watching movies, taking baths, and anything to waste some time. I started playing sims which is kind of becoming an addiction, so hopefully this ends before it gets bad.

TYF: For those of our readers who are just getting to know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got your start in music? 

Maeta: I am from Indianapolis, 20 years old, moved to LA when I was 18 and have been working on music since. I’ve been singing since I was 5 and always knew this is what I wanted to do. I have one EP out called Do Not Disturb, and am currently working on a new project!!

TYF: What was the very first song you made? Do you remember what that was like to release it out on the internet for literally anyone to hear? 

Maeta: The first song I ever made was called “Headlights.” I put it out when I was 16 and ended up hating it a year later, so I got it taken off the internet.

TYF: How would you describe your debut EP Do Not Disturb? (LOVE IT, by the way!) 

Maeta: Thank you!!! I started Do Not Disturb when I was 18 and first moved to LA. I was in a darkish place at the time, I had left home and moved here alone and didn’t really have anybody. I think that rubbed off into the EP for sure. The songs are kinda moody, and about different aspects of love. They all helped me get through the loneliness. I will always cherish it!

TYF: Can you tell us a bit about what the process was like for you when putting it together? 

Maeta: It took about 11 months to make, I spent that time working with all different writers and producers, and figuring out what I wanted it to be. I met amazing people and lifelong friends during the process, it was so much fun”.

I am going to move things onto the majestic Habits of 2021. Another confident step from a growing and blossoming artist, I think that this was a point where a lot more attention was coming her way – and you can really see why! I have listened to the E.P., and what strikes me is how eclectic yet personal and individual it is. I think my favourite song on the E.P. is Sending My Love. Whether you categorise a seven-track release as an E.P. or mini-album (technically, I think it falls short of being an album), it is undeniably a hugely impressive work. Maeta was on the radar of FLAUNT. They were curious to dig deeper with an artist making her imprints on the industry:

“Maeta is your new favorite Alternative R&B singer, and she’s here to bless the masses with her inner and outer beauty. Hailing from Indianapolis, but now residing in sunny Los Angeles, the singer-songwriter creates heartfelt ballads inspired by real-life experiences, touching on everything from the toxicity in relationships to everyday struggles we all face as we navigate this thing called life.

There are two versions of Maeta: one inspired by Indianapolis and the other inspired by Los Angeles. The former is loud, seeks attention, loves to sing, always has her shoes off, and is wild at heart—while the other version is moody and trying to figure out her life. She speaks on the latter, “I overanalyze things, I fantasize all day. I love food and wine in life. There’s a kid version and grown version.”

Now, the latest Roc Nation signee returns with her newest EP titled Habits, showcasing a more comfortable, confident Maeta than fans have ever seen before. The body of work chronicles the trials and tribulations of adulthood, spearheaded by lead single “Teen Scene” featuring Buddy and produced by Kaytranada. The second single “Toxic” features Beam and is produced by Skrillex.

Flaunt caught up with Maeta via Zoom to discuss her roots in Indiana, biggest influences, moving to Los Angeles, what inspired “Toxic”, working with Kaytranada and Skrillex, her new EP Habits, studio essentials, goals, singing the National Anthem back home, and more!

You’re from Indianapolis, what was the household like growing up?

My household was always wild. My house was the house that everyone was always at. My mom didn’t care, I’d invite people over without telling her. There’s always people at my house. Always had music playing, it was loud. We always had the doors and windows open, we’re running in and out all day. When I was a kid, my dad always had camcorders recording us. We’re always in the spotlight. Indiana was fun, I loved growing up there. I had a very free childhood.

Who were your biggest influences?

Beyoncé of course, Rihanna of course. My parents listened to a lot of John Mayer and The Eagles. I got into R&B because all my friends listened to it in middle school and high school, so it became my thing.

At what point did you realize this music thing was forreal?

My dream of being a singer started at 6 or 7. I didn’t realize I could do it for a living until I was 12 or 13 when I got my first manager and then it became more about business and more serious. I was flying to Atlanta all of the time because that’s where he lived. I’d go there for meetings and record and started making it a serious career.

What have you learned since then?

One thing I’m proud of myself for is never giving up. It can look like there’s no hope, but things always turn around. Never giving up is one thing, staying consistent, which I struggle with. Also trusting myself, that’s been a thing I’ve been working on for a while and I still am. Sometimes, there’s so many people around me. I could get really lonely and tell strangers what I’m going through, and everyone has an opinion. But I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut and trust myself, trust my team. I’m still working on that.

How did you get your name?

Maeta’s my real name. I’m named after my great great grandma from Germany.

You moved to LA two years ago, how is it coming from Indianapolis?

I love It. When I left Indianapolis it was like, “Ooooo LA.” It was this big thing. Now, it feels normal. When I first moved, it was a wake up call. This isn’t what you think it’s going to be, you have to pay rent. I had no friends here. It was really hard at first because I had nobody, I was so so lonely. I was in this toxic relationship. It was really hard but two years later, I finally have friends. I have a lot of my team here, it’s starting to feel like home. I still think I’m not completely my full self here. When I go to Indiana, that’s when I let go and everything’s natural. L.A. is where everything I’m meant to be doing is  happening now.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Leviton

What do you like about LA?

First of all music, there are barely any studios in Indiana. I love making music, that all happens here. My whole team is here. I like the chaos, I live downtown. It’s loud, there’s people everywhere. I like that it’s hot, I can go to my rooftop now and tan. That’s what I’ve been doing the past few days. The food’s good. I was in New York for a few weeks, the food’s a lot better there.

What did you like in New York?

Pasta. I got so much pasta, I gained 10 pounds at least. I don’t care, I was eating a lot of pasta and drinking wine. I love taking myself out to dinner. Sometimes in LA it can feel weird, especially when I run into people. In New York I didn’t know many people  so I’d take myself on dates every night. I loved it, it was so fun. I spent way too much money.

What inspired your new EP, Habits?

Habits is about a toxic relationship I was in. It’s a bad habit I have going back to this person that I swear I’m done with. They text me, I immediately started getting ready for any plans. It’s that thing that’s really hard to get over. I’ve been dealing with it for the past two years, that’s what this project is about. It’s about every aspect of the relationship. There’s songs about how much I love this person. There’s songs where I’m mad, I’m so pissed and so over it. There’s song about sex, it’s all aspects”.

Chronologically, I want to work my way to When I Hear Your Name. There is one more interview that I want to come to. There is an interview about the album that incorrectly calls it an ‘E.P.’. At thirteen-tracks, it is 100% an album – and, as E.P. is normally up to about five or six tracks, I am not sure what they were thinking! Anyway, Schön! spoke to the then-twenty-one-year-old Maeta about the awesome Habits. Undoubtedly a brilliant, confident and incredibly rich work, you just know from reading the interview that she has her sights set on taking her music right across the world:

“The past decade has seen an electrifying resurgence in alt-R&B. The latest rising starlet on the scene is 21-year-old Indianapolis native Maeta. Recently signed to Roc Nation, she’s crafted a signature sound of crystalline vocals and sultry production. On 30 April the world will get to hear her latest offering Habits. The EP reflects on a toxic relationship and was written while Maeta was in the midst of one. Her lyricism is open, relatable and reminiscent of alt-R&B contemporaries like PARTYNEXTDOOR and Jhené Aiko. Beyond the personal perspective, Maeta’s EP radiates an undeniable tone of hopefulness over pain.

The project’s opening track Teen Scene featuring rapper Buddy and produced by Grammy-winning Kaytranada feels like a balmy summer afternoon. Maeta’s voice is saccharine and silky capturing the warm heartiness that makes R&B female voices so memorable. Her latest single TOXIC is a minimal acoustic number that shows off the crystal notes in Maeta’s vocals.  If you’re craving a new addition to your in my feels playlist, Maeta’s EP Habits is worth exploring.

Congratulations on your record deal with Roc Nation. How did you first get your foot into music?

Thank you! Music has always been a huge part of my life. I’ve been singing since I was little as most singers say. My family had music playing at home all day long. I sang in my church choir [and]  took piano lessons since I was five.

Where did you grow up and how do you think it influenced the type of music you make?

I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. A lot of my friends listened to R&B and I was always around it. I think that definitely affected what I listen to and what I always gravitate towards.

You now live in LA. As a young artist what are some of the perks and downfalls of the city?

Yes, I’ve been living there since I was 19 – about two years. As an artist it’s amazing because music is everywhere and most of my team is there. But of course it’s expensive, hard to make friends, especially outside of music. Not having my drivers license, Ubers get expensive! Especially since everything is so spread out.

Do you think creating during a pandemic has helped or hindered your creativity?

I think it hindered [my creativity] to be honest. I feel most inspired when I’m around people so having to isolate was really hard. But I think it stripped me from distractions forcing me to be alone with myself. I found inspiration from that.

Let’s talk about your new EP. What themes do you explore?

My EP Habits is about toxicity and everything that comes with a toxic relationship. I was finding my way through one during the making of this project so it was like therapy for me during that time. I sing about love, anger, sex, and every aspect of it.

How do you feel social media has impacted the way young people navigate relationships?

I think it’s made people become a little lazy in relationships. I feel like all you gotta do is like an old picture to send a sign which can honestly be a plus to people like me who don’t feel like doing all that!

PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Dimailig

Where do you usually find inspiration for your songs?

Usually from my own experiences. I fall in love so easily and that can often get the best of me which always ends up falling into a song. Everything I sing about on my project I went through.

Is there a song on the EP that feels the most sentimental to you?

The one that feels most sentimental to me is a song called Gift. It’s a song about how much I love the person I’m singing about. I poured my heart into the song while recording it and I feel it every time I listen!

You’ve already collaborated with some amazing talent like Kaytranada and Skrillex. Can you share a few of your dream collabs?

My two dreams are SZA and John Mayer. I love SZA so much now and I grew up listening to John Mayer. If I ever worked with him it would make my family so proud! My dad used to play him in the car every day so he is a big part of my childhood.

Lastly, what do you hope to get out of the rest of 2021?

I hope to just live in the moment! One thing I’m working on is letting go and letting life take me where it does without feeling like I need to control every detail. I think it’s more enjoyable that way!”.

Let’s come to the first of two interviews (I found one more that is useful!) around the breathtaking When I Hear Your Name. Rated R&B, who refer to it is an E.P. as opposed an album (grrrr!), were none the less excited to spotlight one of music’s most truly interesting and inspiring prospects. I would urge anyone not currently following Maeta on social media to give her a follow and check out her latest happenings:

“The rising singer is in Washington, D.C., having lunch outside at a restaurant near her hotel. She’s reflecting on her current love story, the driving force behind the music she’s been creating over the last couple of years.

Her new EP, Where I Hear Your Name, out now on Roc Nation Records, continues the trajectory set on Habits. “The project’s about the same person,” Maeta reveals before noting how things have changed since Habits. “We had a couple years of just getting a lot closer.”

The cover art for When I Hear Your Name shows Maeta, wearing a white knit skirt and top, as she lays languidly on a U.S. Virgin Islands beach during sunset. In the backdrop, a blood moon emerges, possibly symbolizing a profound immersion into Maeta’s emotions that takes place throughout the project.

Maeta chose to shoot the cover in the U.S. Virgin Islands to represent a cherished trip she went on with a love interest that brought a sense of calm to their storm. “We went on this trip to an island and it made us really close. We got to be away from the world, be with each other and be in love,” Maeta reflects.

When I Hear Your Name takes on a noticeably more sensual tone compared to Maeta’s previous works, Habits and her independently released project, Do Not Disturb. Captivating songs like the opener, “Sexual Love,” featuring James Fauntleroy, and the soulful “Though The Night,” featuring Free Nationals (co-written by Lucky Daye), capture intimacy in the bedroom.

“ASMR,” penned by BEAM, is lyrically more explicit than the other two as Maeta finds herself in a heightened state of pleasure with her partner exploring the depths of her treasure trove. “That foreplay got me out my mind,” Maeta sings over a pulsating beat.

There’s enough steam on When I Hear Your Name to loosen up the impurities of Maeta’s complex relationship — and there are certainly songs that echo this sentiment.

On the Ambré-assisted “Control Freak,” Maeta finds herself falling for someone who is showing signs of insecurities: “He can’t see me with nobody better than he / Got a problem with me taking authority.”

Then, there’s “Clarity” featuring Daye, where Maeta sings about receiving mixed signals in her situationship. After calling off their relationship, they move on to “Kissing New People” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.

Despite the excitement surrounding this fresh start, she still feels some type of way about her ex. “I hope you don’t see you around / Can’t let you see how much I miss you,” she sings in “See You Around,” written by The-Dream.

When I Hear Your Name includes additional writing and production support from Ant Clemons, Camper, Demi Lovato, DIXSON, Elijah Blake, Fallon King, KAYTRANADA, Kehlani and more.

In Rated R&B’s interview with Maeta, the rising singer recalls her musical upbringing, guides us through the complexities of When I Hear Your Name and teases future projects.

PHOTO CREDIT: Roc Nation Records

What was your soundtrack growing up?

I’m from Indiana, so it’s like folky, country-ish music. I didn’t listen to a lot of country music, but my family played a lot of soft rock like The Eagles and John Mayer, who I still love to this day. My dad would play random stuff. We would go on a lot of road trips and he’d always pick an album and play it. I remember him playing Corinne Bailey Rae. I got into R&B in middle school and I was like “I love it.” My friends played all R&B like Jazmine Sullivan and Keyshia Cole. I was obsessed with Dondria [and] Alicia Keys. I always knew I wanted to sing since I was a kid and have been working towards that since then.

Now, here you are a singer signed to Roc Nation Records. You dropped your official debut EP, Habits, in 2021 and you’re back with When I Hear Your Name. How would you describe the journey between both projects?

Honestly, the project’s about the same person, but I’ve reached a new level with somebody. Habits was about toxic love. You like somebody, but you guys are messing with other people, and it’s messy. We had a couple of years of just getting a lot closer. We went on this trip to an island, and it made us really close. We got to be away from the world, be with each other and be in love. Our relationship is very complicated but on this trip, nothing mattered. So, I took a lot of inspiration from that trip. [When I Hear Your Name] is about complicated and deeper love. Musically, it’s a lot more advanced. I worked with huge people for this project and pushed myself in ways that I haven’t.

As you mentioned, you worked with a lot of big names on this project, from James Fauntleroy and The-Dream to SZA and Lucky Daye. Was there anything you kept in mind or communicated to the various collaborators to make this project flow cohesively?

Honestly, there was no plan for this project. We knew we wanted to make it more musical. I wanted to sing more. Some of these songs I had before I put out my first project like [“Anybody”] with SZA. I’ve had that for four years. When I got signed, that was one of the first songs I cut. It just never made sense to add it. The-Dream song that I have [“See You Around”] is two years old. I got that before Habits came out. There’s a lot of songs that we had that I knew I wanted to be out one day. It just didn’t make sense. Now it feels right. Once we decided we were working on the project, it kind of molded itself”.

I am going to finish up soon. After great singles like S(E)X were dropped earlier in the year, there was this building tension and curiosity as to what the album would offer up. In June, VIBE spent some time in Maeta’s company and asked about this highly-anticipated and personal album. I think the more you listen to When I Hear Your Name, the more that you get out of it. Even though they too put in their headline that When I Hear Your Name is an E.P., they correct themselves and mention it as an album (seriously, what is wrong with people?!). It may seem nitpicking, but it does need to be clarified that what we got this year was a full-length outing from Maeta:

“The 23-year-old may not be lowkey about her habitual desire to love and be loved, but she’s learning balance and not to aimlessly neglect herself for someone else. Her new EP, When I Hear Your Name, is the next chapter in a four-year romantic saga that loosely began with 2019’s Do Not Disturb.

Maeta and her beau met in the process of her moving to Los Angeles from Indianapolis; she had just signed to Roc Nation. By the time she released her major label debut Habits in 2021, Maeta confessed to being “deep” in the situationship. “This was a bad habit, going back to this person, and it was kind of fun, exciting, toxic as hell,” she explained. “But I would say now, it’s just gotten a lot deeper. This is love. I don’t think Habits had a lot of love in it, but [now] I just feel it 10 times harder.”

As a Pisces sun, Maeta innately romanticizes almost everything and gets lost in a sea of her own daydreaming. With age, she hopes to get more “logical and realistic,” but where’s the fun in that? We caught up with the songbird during a lunch break as she opened up about her muse, what she defines as “disgusting love,” and making her own sound.

VIBE: Going back to the moment when you were praying for the album to come out, what was going through your head as you’re preparing?

Maeta: I feel like with projects, my life is whatever I’m working on, and I think that I’m just ready to move on and just reach a new level or a different place in my life. The project not being out was pulling me back from that. I think once it’s out, it’s going to feel like a weight lifted off my shoulders. These songs [were] the soundtrack of my life for the past two years, I’m just ready to let them go.

When I Hear Your Name sounds very personal. There’s a story behind that.

The project’s about this relationship that I’m in. He’s not my boyfriend, but there’s this person that I just keep going back to. I’ve been going back to them for years, and honestly every project has been about them, but this one just goes more into depth about that relationship and being young and in love and not knowing what you’re doing. And I think that we all have one person that we go back to, and it’s just when I hear your name.

Is the theme about the toxic side of the relationship? The fun side or just every single aspect of that relationship?

Everything. It starts off very passionate, sexual, exciting. Then halfway through, we kind of get a little toxic. We break up for six months, and then it ends with “Through The Night,” which is like, let’s just—f**k it, be in love. It just takes you through the ups and downs, and I think that love is not a textbook thing where there’s an answer for everything. Love is such a crazy feeling, and I don’t think that you choose who you love. I think love just comes in like, boom, I’m here. I keep saying I’m young and in love, but maybe I’ll feel like this for the rest of my life, I don’t know. Does anybody ever figure out what love is? I don’t know, so I’m kind of trying to solve that.

Would you say that this signifies a chapter closing in the relationship, or it’s just something that you had to go through to get to the next step of the relationship?

Honestly, maybe this signified closing? I don’t know. I thought when Habits was over that that was me releasing him, and it didn’t happen. I think I’ll say that I’m releasing him with this project, but I’m definitely not.

Still in thick of it?

Still in the journey. I’m dating elsewhere. I’m not with this person, but when I hear their name, it’s just something about them that I can’t let go of. So I’ve been struggling with it for years, but all I can do is sing about it, honestly.

That’s healing in and of itself, honestly.

Yeah, exactly.

How do you stand out in the midst of everyone sounding and looking the same?

Somebody yesterday said I’m bringing back bridges, which is like, okay, I guess there’s no bridges to talk of anymore. I just have an interesting take, and I take a lot of influences from different places. And I’m from Indiana, so I have that influence. I think that all that together just makes me stand out. What I’m proud of with this project is that I’m not trying to sound like anybody else. I’m making my own sound, but I’m proud of it”.

There are other new interviews that I have not had time and space to source. Ones to Watch were among those keen to have their say about a sultry, sexy, revealing, deep and entrancing musical encounter. When I Hear Your Name is right up there with the best albums of 2023:

“Featuring production from Pharrell and KAYTRANADA and impressive features from the likes of Lucky Daye, Ty Dolla $ign, and Free Nationals, Maeta takes us back to the bare bones of R&B in her sultry love-drenched project, When I Hear Your Name.

Signed to Roc Nation, the Indianapolis native is a promising voice in the genre, using this album as an opportunity to distinguish herself from up-and-coming to fully arrived. Opening with the James Fauntleroy-assisted ballad “Sexual Love,” Maeta wastes no time letting the world know she’s not concerned with feigning humility; she’s a powerful vocalist, and her pen is mighty.

Living at the intersection of pop and soul, When I Hear Your Name doesn’t shy from exploring the depths of a heart brave enough to confront the jagged edges of love, even when it’s accompanied by fleeting bliss. If you’re falling in or out of love, surviving it, or peeking hopefully through its haze, there’s a part of yourself you’ll find in Maeta’s unraveling. She’s a student of love, telling stories of every wrong corner turned.

“S(EX)”, which reimagines Floetry’s “Say Yes,” is a cleverly written story of that one lover stained in your sheets, one you’re not even sure you want to scrub away in the first place. “Cool Cat” pays homage to QUEEN’s original rendition, while the KAYTRANDA-produced “Questions“ is an infectious dance track, yet not at the expense of a narrative riddled with longing and desire. Every song presents a different shade of intimacy, whether at its most potent or painfully fading.

“Through The Night” closes out the album, showcasing Maeta delivering vocals so commanding it’s difficult not to be entranced. In a genre saturated with acts fighting to prove why they’re the most worthy of peering eyes, Maeta has let her talent speak for itself in When I Hear Your Name”.

I think that everyone, regardless of musical tastes, needs to invest some time in the music of the magnificent Maeta! She is a wonder that is going to go on and have a very long and successful career. I hope she comes to the U.K. at some point to hang. There are plenty of folk over here that would jump at the opportunity to witness her on the stage. It looks like she is coming to London on 12th October, so I hope that she returns here maybe next year. Go and spend some time today immersing yourself in the music of…

AN exceptional young artist with a golden future ahead.

__________

Follow Maeta

PHOTO CREDIT: Juliet Wolf via Bella

Official:

https://maetasworld.com/

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FEATURE: Sobering: Lucy Spraggan’s Memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, and the Darker Side of Noughties Celebrity Culture

FEATURE:

 

 

Sobering

PHOTO CREDIT: Bonnier Books

Lucy Spraggan’s Memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, and the Darker Side of Noughties Celebrity Culture

_________

A story that really provoked shock…

and questions recently, Lucy Spraggan has revealed that she was a victim of sexual assault when she was in The X Factor. The reality music show has given the music world some big artists. Even though there is a lot of sensationalism and it is quite ruthless, it has also been a platform for current stars to highlight their brilliance. In today’s scene, it does like a little bit of a queue jump when it comes to making it into the industry – with so many artists struggling to get heard, talent shows are a fast-track that is not always deserved. One of the best artists that has come out of The X Factor is the amazing Lucy Spraggan. The Canterbury-born artist’s revelation in an interview that she was raped during her time on the ITV show led to so many people coming out in support. It was a shocking thing to read. It makes you wonder about safeguarding on talent shows, and whether women especially are protected. On a show where these hopeful artists are looking to crack into the music industry, there is that sense that they can be exploited and taken advantage of. After Spraggan stated she was raped whilst on the show, it is clear that there needs to be changes. People definitely need to explain how this happened and why she was left to cope with it almost on her own! Spraggan’s memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, explores her time on The X Factor, where she candidly and bravely talks about what happened. You can pre-order the book here. Spragggan has talked about her relationship with alcohol and finding sobriety. After being raped by a hotel party during Rylan Clark's (who has been a great friend and support to her) twenty-fifth birthday at the Mayfair nightclub in 2012, it has obviously had a catastrophic impact on her. She has had to deal with this trauma and process what happened. For years, when asked about her departure from the show – Spraggan said it was due to illness that she left -, she had to cover what happened. Revealing such a huge thing could have had this devastating effect. She has had this successful recording career and, at all stages, this horrific event has not been known. I wonder whether she ever felt secure and comfortable talking to someone on The X Factor about what happened. It seems like there was this culture where the artists were almost seen as commodities. How much personal care and safeguarding happened? You do wonder whether other artists experienced something similar to Lucy Spraggan.

I shall come on to asking what needs to happen going forward. Things that so many people have raised and pointed out in the past day or two. There is an interview from The Guardian that has been highlighted and is causing a lot of discussion. It is shocking to hear what Lucy Spragggan went thorough in 2021. Before that, I wanted to bring in parts of an interview from The Irish Times, where Spraggan was discussing her career and forthcoming album, Balance. This interview was back in April. This was before we knew about what occurred in 2012:

“Square peg, round hole. You could see it immediately when Lucy Spraggan stood in front of the judges for the first time for the ninth (2012) edition of The X Factor. In the context of the reality contest, her audition song was also an unconventional choice, an original song no less – Last Night. The judges were charmed if a tad flummoxed – where was the version of an Adele or a Beyoncé song that auditionees usually belted out?

As the first contestant in the show’s history to have had a UK Top 40 single (Last Night) and album (Top Room at the Zoo) before the live shows aired, it was clear that Spraggan had stepped into the wrong lane. She stayed on the show for several more weeks, interspersing original material (Tea and Toast, Mountains) with covers (Maroon 5′s Moves like Jagger, Kanye West’s Gold Digger) but neither her heart nor head were in it and she walked away.

Did she feel that she didn’t match The X Factor’s commercially strategic view of what pop stars should be like? Too right, she did. Was she too niche for such a crowd-pleasing audience? Too right, she was. It is, she admits, a much bigger topic to chat about right now (she goes into it in lengthier detail in her forthcoming memoir, Process), but she says she played the game somewhat more than she might have thought.

“When you go into something like X Factor, the powers of the company that runs it and how you’re treated, the bubble you’re in telling you how it’s your biggest opportunity and how you must do certain things in order to move forward – that’s just the way it is. Looking back, I think I stuck to my guns quite a lot, and as for that square peg, round hole feeling, well, that’s me for the entire time I’ve been in music.” Spraggan’s voice sags a bit here, half-resigned, half-regretful. “But, yes, rolling over in the show? I did that quite a lot.”

Fast forward 10 years, and the songwriter has long since put that experience behind her. She has had other personal issues, of course, but she has rallied in an admirable and instructive way. After steering a course through a separation, and giving up her dependence on alcohol, she has embraced a dedicated health and fitness regime that has, she says, transformed her life.

“When sobriety marched through my front door I discovered a newfound respect for myself, compassion for myself, and the realisation that I enjoy things other than alcohol, other than music. Being sober introduced all of that into my life. Alcohol is a super-easy way to make you feel good – you know, let’s have another one, why not – but when I took that away my body was asking where was it going to get dopamine now? For me, exercise is such a huge part of my life because I’m being nourished with it.”

Spraggan also engaged with therapy, but finding a therapist that worked for her was not straightforward.

 “There are all different kinds of therapists out there and it takes people time to find one that works for them, but as in any relationship – especially in a relationship where you have to share a lot of personal details – they’re not always going to work. The difference between therapists and friends is the level of professionalism.

“Friends and family always try to provide solutions based on what they know about you and what they build their life experiences on, but a good therapist will offer you not necessarily a solution but methods of coping, of thinking, that have been studied for years. They will offer you the ability to reconstruct the way you navigate things, and help you to be less defensive and less reactive, whereas people close to you can often inspire defensiveness and/or reactiveness because they know so much about you!

“For me, therapy is having an entirely different dynamic, a professional dynamic, with somebody. Vulnerability is one of the things that being in therapy has helped me with and to learn about, and that’s been great.”

She also viewed the enforced isolation of the pandemic as generally a positive thing. It afforded her much-needed respite from being an extremely busy touring musician (“it can consume your whole world”) and it enabled her to become much more self-aware (“I hadn’t spent any time doing that”). In turn, her creative development and productivity levels increased.

Since The X Factor, she says, she has been surrounded by the music industry, “which despite being a constant in my life, can be a very lonely place. As with anyone, you use whatever makes you avoid looking at yourself, so when touring was removed I was left with this person – me – and I had to work out exactly who and what I was. As an artist, you can confuse working every single day with being productive, but over the past few years, I have found that real productivity requires you to be a little bit more restrained with your time.”

It helped that during the pandemic she lived in the northern UK countryside “about 30 minutes’ drive from a supermarket, so it was me and lots of fields and trees”. Songs for her forthcoming album, Balance, were written during this enforced period of seclusion and while some might consider them niche there’s little doubt as to their confessional nature.

“They’re all about the development of myself and other stuff I have learned or observed over the years,” she says. One of those observations is that she will persevere through anything. “Longevity in music – or any area, for that matter – doesn’t exist without perseverance, so clinging on to it is crucial. What’s hilarious is that now I think I’m a professional because everybody else thinks I am! However, in reality, I just persist”.

I want to come to the interview from The Guardian. Lucy Spraggan is extremely brave during the interview. Talking about such a hard time must have been hugely emotional but also cathartic in a sense. It is upsetting learning about the effect the rape had on her in terms of her mental health. Fans often asked her why she left The X Factor. She did not want to be defined as ‘that girl’. It is a fascinating interview that I would urge everyone to read:

“Having successfully commodified herself for the cameras, Spraggan played her role with gusto. She soon found an ally in another queer contestant, Rylan Clark, and together they revelled in causing mischief – staging unsanctioned breakouts from the luxury London hotel where contestants were holed up, and being papped pretending to flag down a stationary bus after a night out. Their antics attracted welcome press for the show. “We were always told to tell the publicist anything that worried or concerned us,” she writes. “But once you did, as if by magic, it was those stories that ended up being printed [in the tabloids].” Mostly, she writes, it was harmless.

In the fourth week of the live shows, Spraggan and Clark were told by production that they were being kicked out of the hotel, ostensibly for bad behaviour. “I remember thinking, ‘What? We haven’t even done anything!’ Nothing that would’ve warranted being chucked out of the hotel. Rylan is the most polite, respectful person in the world and he tried to get to the bottom of it, and got the impression that it was all helpful to our storyline [for the show].” While the other contestants would remain on a private floor at the Corinthia just off Whitehall, with 24-hour security provided by the show, Spraggan and Clark were exiled to a hotel on Edgware Road.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Laura McCluskey/The Guardian

Soon after, Clark celebrated his 25th birthday at Mayfair nightclub Mahiki. The drinks were free and unlimited, and X Factor crew, journalists and paparazzi were all there to capture the ensuing chaos. “By this stage, I knew my role: get drunk, do something funny, appear in the headlines the next day,” Spraggan writes. Pictures duly appeared of her picking up a beer bottle with her teeth and downing it, hands free. Some of the production team were drinking, too. “It was inappropriate for anybody – including contestants – to be drunk,” she says. “How can you fulfil your duty of care when free alcohol is involved?”

Spraggan ended up passing out. She was escorted back to the hotel by a member of the production team, where a hotel porter offered to help get Spraggan back to her room. As they left, the porter flipped the security latch on her door to prevent it locking behind them. Some time later, Clark checked in on an unconscious Spraggan and made sure that her door was locked when he left. His decision meant that when the porter later returned to Spraggan’s room in order to attack her, he had to use a traceable keycard. “I woke up the next day with this sense of sheer dread,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt that level of confusion since. I knew that I’d been raped, but I could not process that. So I put my clothes on and went into autopilot.”

Clark was the first person whom Spraggan told about her rape, and he became her fiercest advocate (they remain friends today). The police were called by the production team, who took Spraggan to a specialist unit. An arrest was quickly made thanks to the keycard, but she believes that the production team was “unprepared” to deal with what had happened.

Spraggan’s mother recalls standing in the street outside a restaurant when a member of the production team informed her over the phone that her daughter had been raped. The news was quickly leaked to the press, Spraggan believes by the Met police. Her right to anonymity prevented her from being named, and cyber experts were employed to delete rumours circulating on Twitter and comment sections. During her attacker’s trial the next year, the gallery was full of journalists, but reports referred obliquely to a “television star”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura McCluskey/The Guardian

The few days after the assault passed in a blur, and the side-effects of Pep (Pep – post-exposure prophylaxis – a drug that, if taken within 72 hours of exposure, prevents HIV) made Spraggan too unwell to consider continuing with the competition. She remembers being initially sequestered in a room on the 11th floor of the Park Lane Hilton. “That evening, I had to relentlessly shake away the constant pull to go towards the balcony doors,” she writes. “‘All of this could go away so quickly,’ I thought.”

Initially, Spraggan wanted to make public the reason for her exit from the competition. “At first I said, ‘Just tell them what happened.’ But I realised straight away that it wasn’t going to be so simple. I remember various people saying, ‘You have your whole career ahead of you and you can’t retract this.’” [Independent privacy and criminal lawyers, and the police, advised her of the implications of deciding to waive her anonymity.]

Tulisa Contostavlos, the X Factor judge assigned to mentor Spraggan, paid her a visit. In the book, Spraggan writes that, “I was grateful that she’d come to see me, but I felt like I had no independent advice.” Contostavlos said how sorry she was, before telling her: “This will stay with you for the rest of your life.” I’m curious to know whether Spraggan interpreted her comment to mean that the trauma would stay with her (as with any survivor), or that speaking out would mar her career? “I got the impression that she was saying that it would be a stain. But I don’t know if she was regurgitating something someone else had told her to say. I had no idea until I started writing the book that she was only a couple of years older than me. It was fucking inappropriate that she was called into that situation.” [A representative for Contostavlos told us that she visited Spraggan of her own accord and was “referring to the trauma Lucy would personally feel”.]

These days, Spraggan works hard to maintain her mental health. “People say, ‘Is it your sobriety?’ But my sobriety is me, it’s my choices. Once you feel worthy, you see things for what they are. You see success for what it is, because it’s so subjective. At one point, success for me meant getting out of bed. Then it was playing Glastonbury. Now it’s being a lesbian succeeding in the music industry. I’m really happy with the things I’ve achieved, and I have to attribute my successes to me. I’m not just ‘that girl’.” She lives in Manchester with her girlfriend and her dog – “Eve and Steve” – although she’s eyeing a move to the countryside. In August, she will release her seventh album, and will support Robbie Williams on his next tour.

More than anything, she wants to make sure other contestants are offered more support. “I have no interest in tearing anything down. Rebuilding myself taught me that the most powerful thing you can do is build. My goal is for the introduction of an industry standard where reality-production companies take a percentage of their budget and deposit that into a mental health pension scheme that production staff, presenters and contestants can access for the rest of their lives.” As well as Flack, she refers to Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis, two Love Island contestants who killed themselves after appearing on the show, and Steve Dymond, a guest on The Jeremy Kyle Show, who also took his own life. “Let’s put some more preventive measures in place to stop this happening. Let’s stop people dying, let’s stop people being raped. I’m an expert in being a reality TV contestant and having a shit time. So if anybody would like to have a conversation about positive change based on my negative experience – let’s do it”.

Whilst it was unprecedented and there was no ideal way for The X Factor to deal with this, you wonder whether they were thinking more of their ratings and the smoothness of the production, rather than connecting and empathising with Spraggan as a person! Maybe feeling like she was partying too hard or was showing a lack of discipline, it is horrible to imagine what was going through her mind in the direct aftermath of the rape. She was on the show to showcase her songwriting talent and originality. Someone who wanted to go further in the industry and connect with people around the world. Talent shows were there to provide this opportunity, but you get the feeling that there was not a great human element. No sufficient measures to ensure that the contestants are kept safe and there is that duty of care. It is the aftercare that seemed to be lacking. Whether an artist was struggling with a mental health issue or had suffered an attack, was there a team in place to ensure that that person was taken seriously and taken care of?! It seems like Spraggen had to shoulder so much herself. At a precarious time when she did want to take he music further but also had to think about her own wellbeing, at such a young age, she was processing something life-changing and traumatic. It is obviously not her fault of The X Factor that the rape happened, but there is that feeling she was let down. In the years since, Spraggan has rebuilt and gone through recovery, though it is a pain that never goes away. From finding sobriety to divorce from her wife, one of our finest artists has had some challenges and huge life changes. The strength she has shown to discuss her experiences will open doors and conversations. I do think we will hear from other reality show contestants who have either been through something similar or have experienced a trauma.

Music talent shows are still on our screens, so it is going to be hugely important that Lucy Spraggan’s words resonate and lead to change. To ensure that there is aftercare and that there is more focus and priority on the people rather than the process and production. Lucy Spraggan prepares for Process: Finding My Way Through to hit the shelves. You can read an extract here. There will be new music coming soon too. It is a big time in her career. There has been a lot of support and sympathy for her online since she revealed what happened to her in 2012. There has also been a lot of anger at The X Factor and reality shows in general. How Spraggan only feels comfortable (enough) discussing her rape over a decade on from the event. The fact that was suicidal and had addiction issues is sobering and shocking in equal measures. We are thankful she is with us still and will inspire others. It shouldn’t have come to the point where she was only able to talk about her trauma so far down the road. There needed to be that network and safe space directly after the event. Wherever support was implemented for the show, it doesn’t feel sufficient. The fear she wouldn’t be believed or that the press would blow the story up and that would be the end of her career – before it had even really started. On Thursday, one of the most important music memoirs in years hits the shelves. Process: Finding My Way Through sounds like it will be…

A phenomenally powerful read.

FEATURE: In Harmony: Why the Music Industry Needs to React to the Writers Strikes in the U.S.

FEATURE:

 

 

In Harmony

PHOTO CREDIT: Freepik

Why the Music Industry Needs to React to the Writers Strikes in the U.S.

_________

THINGS are very difficult…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Earlier this year, RAYE spoke out about how songwriters are underpaid and deserve better respect/PHOTO CREDIT: Callum Walker Hutchinson for British Vogue

and changeable in the entertainment industry in the U.S. That sounds rather vague and understated! Whereas writers were striking before, they have been joined by actors. It seems that television and film are going to massively impacted in the short-term. It will have big ramifications when it comes to new films and T.V. shows. The BBC reported on the latest developments:

“Jason Sudeikis, Susan Sarandon and thousands of other actors have joined screenwriters for Hollywood's biggest strike in more than six decades.

Actors will not appear in films or even promote movies during the stoppage.

Major films in production including the Avatar and Gladiator sequels may be affected by the shutdown.

The actors are joining writers who walked out in May, concerned about pay, working conditions and the industry's use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Brian Cox, the lead actor on HBO's Succession, told the BBC the strike could last "until the end of the year".

"The whole streaming thing has shifted the paradigm," the Scottish star told BBC Newscast.

"They are trying to freeze us out and beat us into the ground, because there's a lot of money to be made in streaming and the desire is not to share it with the writers or the performers."

Talks for a new contract with studios and streaming giants broke down on Thursday, with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) accusing the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) of being "unwilling to offer a fair deal".

About 160,000 performers stopped work at midnight, joining the 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who walked out on 2 May.

By noon on Friday, union members and their supporters had gathered outside the offices of major studios and streaming services in Los Angeles, New York and other cities.

The demonstrations have received support from some of the biggest celebrities in the movie and television business, including the stars of the upcoming Oppenheimer movie, who walked off the red carpet on Thursday night.

The two guilds want studios and streaming services to offer better pay, increased royalties, higher contributions to their pension and health plans, and safeguards on the use of AI in the industry.

Productions likely to be affected include sequels to the Avatar, Deadpool and Gladiator franchises, as well as upcoming seasons of shows such as Stranger Things, Family Guy and The Simpsons.

Red-carpet premieres, promotional interviews, and events including the Emmys and Comic-Con, have already been halted, rescheduled or scaled back.

The strike action is driven in part by an uncomfortable transition to the era of digital streaming, as well as by broader technological changes.

"AI will affect everybody," Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon told the BBC from a picket line in New York.

"There's definitely always been the feeling that if it isn't solved now, how do we ever solve it in the future?" she said.

"If you don't have the foresight to put something in place for the future, then you're screwed. It's clear that nothing is going to change from the top down, it's going to be up to us at the bottom."

Both writers and actors have complained that they make far less money than they used to make and that contracts have been undercut by inflation.

For actors, pay for individual roles has declined, forcing them to seek several more roles to make the same amount of money as they did a few years ago.

Writing contracts have become shorter and more perilous, with payment often not included for writers' work on revisions or new material.

"We are being victimised by a very greedy entity," Fran Drescher, the current SAG president, said on Thursday. "I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us."

PHOTO CREDIT: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

The failed negotiations between the unions and the AMPTP marks the first tandem strike in the industry since 1960. The last actors' strike, in 1980, lasted 10 weeks.

A third union, the Directors Guild of America (DGA), is not participating in the strike after successfully negotiating its own contract in June, but the group has said it "strongly supports" those who are picketing.

With the prospect that the strike could roll on for months, cinemas could face problems, and viewers may be left with nothing new to watch bar reality TV and live sport.

In a statement on Friday, the White House said President Joe Biden "believes all workers - including actors - deserve fair pay and benefits".

"The President supports workers' right to strike and hopes the parties can reach a mutually beneficial agreement," spokeswoman Robyn Patterson said.

Actors represented by SAG's sister union in the UK - Equity - must continue to work as normal, due to UK employment laws. That includes stars of HBO's House of the Dragon.

The union has however told US companies it will be keeping a "very close eye" on any attempts to move US productions to the UK”.

I have seen so many posts around the U.S. strikes and why there needs to be reaction in the U.K. when it comes to music. Maybe not just here. Actors are supporting writers and their rights. Making sure they get their dues and are heard. There is not really anything like that in music. There are not the same movements and unity. Whether it was the lack of #MeToo movement in music or anything else that has appeared in Hollywood and brought about change, it has not been mirrored in music. I think that the strikes in entertainment show that there is this anger and need for improvement. There is so much going on in music that needs to lead to strikes and unity. A.I. is taking over. In terms of imposing and being too dominating, A.I. is a real concern. There is this thing and feeling that it is going to have a negative impact. It is useful in terms of its technological brilliance. It can be a real advantage and asset for songwriters and producers. Unfortunately, there is a nervousness that replicated songs are taking over. Artists are being mimicked and impersonated by A.I. That feeling that people won’t tell the difference or we are going to get this tsunami of fake songs and A.I.-led sounds. A.I. can never really sound exactly like a human voice, as it does not have the same depth, layers and nuance. There is no telling right now how damaging and dominant this trend could be. Away from that, there are a lot of issues impacting songwriters. Not only are many artists being underpaid, and streaming sites like Spotify still do not compensate them properly. There is also an issue of royalties for many American songwriters. This article explains more:

“If you love songwriters and hate the many ways songwriters are underpaid, paid slowly, or not paid at all, please read the following: There is between $700-$800 million of mechanical-royalty income related to songs that were streamed between 2018 and 2022 that has not been paid — and there is no guidance on when it will.

Why? Eyes down.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) is an organization responsible for receiving mechanical royalties from streaming services, matching the royalties for songs to the appropriate songwriters, and distributing that income to songwriters and publishing companies accordingly. The MLC is currently holding $373 million dollars in mechanical royalty income for songs streamed between 2018 and 2022.

In simplest terms, the MLC can’t distribute this money because the mechanical royalty rate for that period still has not been finalized.

The statutory rate for mechanical royalties is set every five years by the Copyright Royalty Board (“CRB”). This rate hadn’t moved very much in decades; however, in a 2018 proceeding before the CRB that is known (anachronistically) as Phonorecords III, songwriters and publishers finally received an increase to the compulsory mechanical royalty rate, from 11.4% to 15.1%, for the 2018-2022 period. Four streaming services appealed this decision, causing a long and expensive back-and-forth in the courts. Finally, in July of 2022, the increased rate was preliminarily upheld — the decision was heralded as a long-awaited win to songwriters. In addition to the royalties held by the MLC, if these preliminary rate increases are finalized, streaming services will owe hundreds of millions in royalty payments to songwriters for those past periods.

In total, finalizing the Phonorecords III rates could lead to additional payments of up to $700-800 million in royalties.

Unfortunately, it has been a hollow victory for songwriters thus far. For the monies to be released, the CRB must publish a final determination on the mechanical royalty rate for the 2018 to 2022 period. Once it is set, streaming services will have six months to report and pay the MLC additional royalty payments based on the increased rate. The CRB, presumably dealing with other important matters, has still not issued its final determination.  Obviously, this is frustrating, but it is especially painful in a time of economic uncertainty and heightened inflation. Mechanical royalties are a critical source of revenue for songwriters, particularly as streaming has become the dominant format for music distribution”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Marcela Alessandra/Pexels

That is really the tip of the iceberg. There would not be a single strike or campaign in the industry. It is the case that songwriters and producers are not as heard and represented as artists. Not that there is this deliberate division between them. You do not really see producers and songwriters compensation and spotlighted as much. They contribute to these incredible songs and albums’ success, but they are not compensated and highlighted enough. From being underpaid to not being nominated and seen as award ceremonies, you do feel like there needs to be a moment when there is this real commitment to change. I have seen social media and read about so many artists feeling we need this strike and Hollywood-style coming-together when there is this change. As I say, there has not really been a #MeToo movement in music like there was in Hollywood. Because there is inequality and this discrepancy between artists and songwriters/producers, a fear of A.I.’s role and future potential and so many other things that need to be addressed. The Hollywood strike might go on until the end of the year. Let’s hope that it leads to change. We do need something similar in music. I know the industry is a lot larger than the acting one, but there could be this connection and protest. We have come to a time when technology is actually having a negative effect. From A.I. trying to replace humans to the way steamed music pays so little to artists, right through to how songwriters are owed so much compensation, what is going to happen? We can talk and write about it, yet there does need to be something bigger and more active. At a time when Hollywood is seeing this revolution, the music industry needs…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Some Hollywood writers have brought levity to their signs on the WGA's picket lines/PHOTO CREDIT: Frederick J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

TO follow suit.

FEATURE: Major Feelings: Saluting the Incredible Rina Sawayama

FEATURE:

 

 

Major Feelings

PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Lifungula for The New York Times 

Saluting the Incredible Rina Sawayama

_________

I will end with a playlist…

PHOTO CREDIT: Han Yang for Who What Wear

featuring some of her best songs, as the amazing Rina Sawayama celebrates her birthday on 16th August. There are a few reasons why I want to discuss Rina Sawayama. In addition to it being her birthday soon, she has made the music news recently. One big reason is that she has called out another artist on the Dirty Hit label, Matty Healy. The 1975 lead is not short of controversy. This is not the first time that Sawayama has taken a shot against Healy. Here is a history of their changing relationship. It is clear that, whilst Matty Healy has some musical influence and has been important when it comes to the career of artists like Rina Sawayama, he is someone who needs to be taken to task. With so many different controversies surrounding him, he is still seen in the media as a bit of a hero. Not many articles take against him or ask him to explain himself. Since he was exposed for making racist and sexist comments he has, rather weakly, said he will change – that he is not that same person as he was then. I don’t think many people believe that for a second! There is a lot about him that is quite unsettling. Whilst many do love the music of The 1975 and they are a very popular band, how many high-profile artists like Healy are challenged and punished for their problems and controversies?! Rina Sawayama recently called out Healy again during a recent performance:

“During her Glastonbury performance, Rina Sawayama took a moment before playing her song "STFU" to address controversial comments that Matty Healy had recently made.

“I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions," she said. "So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough."

In a fan-captured video during their performance at TRNSMT Festival on Sunday (9 July), in the part of The 1975's set where Healy begins to say something controversial before being cut off by his bandmates, he appeared to acknowledge Sawayama's video.

Towards the end of "STFU", with the intro of Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" playing in the background, Sawayama spoke out against Healy for the second time.

“So I was thinking a lot about apologies. It’s just funny how some people get away with not apologising ever, for saying some racist shit, for saying some sexist shit... Why don’t you apologise for once in your life without making it about your fucking self?”.

Not that this applies only to male artists, but there is a certain leeway applied to them if they are accused or racism, sexism or misogyny. Whilst there is plenty of judgment and attack against Healy on social media, there is not a huge amount of condemnation from the industry. Not too many other artists calling him out. That seems a shame! Not that he is being protected but, as a famous artist, is there this sense that he is untouchable and is just being a Rock star?! That is just his way, isn’t it?! He is this rebel and outspoken figure, so what does it matter if he does a few things that raise eyebrows?! This does seem to be such a casual attitude from many. I don’t think it should take a labelmate like Rina Sawayama to almost stand alone in the industry in challenging Healy. There are other artists around at the moment who are equally unpleasant and offensive. It annoys me how it is always women who have to challenge and speak about male artists’ offenses and prejudices. There does seem to be more awareness from male artists and other men in the industry – even if there have been a few that have come out and spoke against Matty Healy. Rather than make this all about one musical minnow, I wanted to celebrate Rina Sawayama. She is an amazing and inspiring artist who, in 2020, was excluded from the Mercury Prize shortlist and BRIT nominations for her debut, SAWAYAMA. The rules have now changed, so that artists who have been a resident in the U.K. for five years or more, even if they are not a British citizen, are eligible.

That means, I think, that artists such as BC Camplight are eligible for Mercury inclusion. I hope that he is, but I am not 100% sure about how long Brian Christinzio has resided in Manchester. I suspect that it is more than five years now. He would be eligible (“2.1 Artists must be of British or Irish nationality. Artists are considered to be of British or Irish nationality if (i) they hold a passport for either the United Kingdom or Ireland and/or were born in the United Kingdom or Ireland (“British” or “Irish” respectively) or (ii) they have been permanently resident in the United Kingdom or Ireland for more than 5 years”). I now need to revise my Mercury predictions list, as BC Camplight’s The Last Rotation of Earth would be eligible and worthy. Whereas Rina Sawayama was excluded in 2020, she is obviously eligible now. I think that her second album, Hold the Girl, is going to be one of the dozen shortlisted. It is surely going to be one of the favourites if it makes the list! One of the best albums of last year, it confirmed that she is one of our very best artists. I wanted to highlight her amazing work. Hold the Girl is an album that you really do need. I want to quote a review for that album, before getting to a recent interview. This is what CLASH said about the awe-inspiring Hold the Girl:

“Rina Sawayama is an artist consistently pushing the boundaries of what pop music can be, blending a myriad of styles from hyperpop to nu-metal, all while juggling collaborations with everyone from Elton John to Charli XCX. Debut album, 2020’s ‘SAWAYAMA’, encapsulated this genre-fluid ideology and was executed extremely well. Critical acclaim ensued, among Mercury Prize dramata. 2022 delivers (the dreaded) sophomore LP ‘Hold The Girl’, which is once again an album that refuses to play by the rules and has Rina Sawayama doing whatever she wants. And the result is one of the best pop records of the year.

‘Hold The Girl’ ignites with sombre opener ‘Minor Feelings’, which shows Sawayama crooning over delicate guitars and synths, before exploding into an anti-climax. No loud drums or screaming guitars solos like we’ve become familiar with (see debut opener ‘Dynasty’), but a choral-tinted outro (very of the time). It transitions into the title track ‘Hold the Girl’ via some fountain sounds, and the title track has Sawayama kicking the pop factor to one hundred. Centred around a 2-step rhythm and classic garage vocal chops, Sawayama blazes through some of her best vocal performances to date and the track delivers hooks galore. ‘This Hell’ also delivers infectious hooks and is clearly a track created for a live environment.

While Rina Sawayama continues to rule as Dirty Hit’s pop princess, she is also refusing to do only that. Cuts like ‘Catch Me In The Air’ and ‘Forgiveness’ lean more into soft and pop rock territory, without ever losing her pop polish. ‘Forgiveness’, especially, crashes into a raucous breakdown, balancing delightful theatrics with crunchy guitars and synthesisers. Contrastingly, she also knows how to write a great ballad. ‘Send My Love To John’ is the token ‘slow song’ on the record but supplies arguably Rina Sawayama’s best studio vocal performance ever. ‘Send My Love’ balances folky guitars, and has some amazing riffing work vocally from Sawayama. The Cohen-esque melody lifts adds a nostalgic element, an unexpected but welcomed juxtaposition to the high-intensity modern sounds of the rest of the record.

Closer ‘To Be Alive’ seems to a track that is bridging the gap between hyperpop and mainstream pop – an event that many have been awaiting. The melodies are inherently pop, but the glitchy and beautifully jarring aspects of the beat tease the realms of hyperpop. The sporadic snare hits toward the back end of the track are reminiscent of the late SOPHIE’s incredible work, and the plucky synths wouldn’t be out of place on a PC Music project.

‘Hold The Girl’ is a record that holds something for everyone. Rock riffs, club beats, saccharine melodies, 2000s pop… it truly covers a lot of ground. Like debut record ‘SAWAYAMA’, this sophomore LP does a bit of everything, but this time around feels more refined, consistent and polished: exactly what a follow up should be. And on a label roster saturated with enormous amounts of talent, Rina Sawayama is making a pretty good claim to being the ruler.

9/10”.

For their July Issue, British Vogue caught up with Rina Sawayama. Not only did she get the BRITs and Mercury Prize to change their rules about eligibility. She has always opened doors for other queer Asian artist. A definite role model and inspiration for so many people out there. Ahead of a possible Mercury nomination on 27th July (and her birthday next month), we need to celebrate this incredible artist:

“Since blasting down pop fans’ doors with her breakout 2017 EP, Rina – an exhilarating blend of bubblegum melodies, industrial guitars and lyrics charting the anxieties of online life – Sawayama has established herself as part of a new generation of pop stars reshaping the industry model to fit their own Mugler-clad mould. (So much so, in fact, she convinced the Brit Awards and Mercury Prize to change an arcane set of rules that excluded her, as a Japanese citizen but a near lifelong British resident, and others like her from competing.)

Next came her debut album, Sawayama, in 2020, which received overwhelming critical acclaim – oh, and led to a much-deserved Brit nomination in 2021. “Everything was so exciting,” she recalls of her head-spinning ascent, which saw her return to live shows after the pandemic to play venues 10 times the size as before, decked out in avant-garde cowboy gear and kaleidoscopic Vivienne Westwood bodysuits.

“When the world started to open up, everyone just did everything they could – with work, with their social lives… I went full force.” That also included a role in John Wick: Chapter 4, opposite Keanu Reeves, a collaboration with self-confessed superfan Elton John and taking her chopped-and-screwed Y2K style all the way to the front rows of Schiaparelli and Balenciaga at Paris Fashion Week. (“In my day-to-day life, I could honestly just have a capsule wardrobe and I’d be happy,” she says of her style. “But on stage, I’m all about the gag.”)

It’s not surprising, then, that she began to hit a wall while promoting her second record, Hold the Girl, last autumn. “I think I did over a hundred interviews, almost,” she says of the lead up to the album, which charted more personal terrain, including the re-parenting therapy she’d recently undergone to address childhood trauma. “It was not OK. I was just saying the same shit over and over – and when you repeat the same thing, even if you’re saying it in different ways, you start muddying what the actual record means to you.”

When I meet Sawayama, at a west London café, however, she’s feeling upbeat: perhaps because she’s been spending her time a million miles away from the flurry of stages and red carpets that have defined her year so far. “I’ve mostly been in Wickes,” she says, describing her latest obsession – powerwashing her deck – over a plate of potato waffles. “I’m a DIY girl now.”

The time she’s been able to spend with her tight-knit circle of queer friends during this current two-month break, she explains, has been especially grounding. While Sawayama came out as bisexual to that same group upon graduating from the University of Cambridge – “Having them, my chosen family, and being able to express myself… my body and my mind, was like, I feel safe to come out now,” she remembers – it was the release of her 2018 single “Cherry”, a butterflies-in-stomach ode to infatuation, that saw her introduce herself as pansexual to the wider world. “It doesn’t really matter what your gender expression is to me,” she explains of the term, adding that her understanding of it was prompted, in part, by close friends coming out as nonbinary. “Because it’s a new-ish term, people are still coming to grips with what it exactly means – but if I’m attracted to you, then that’s it, really.”

The weight of expectation placed on Sawayama as one of the few queer Asian musicians in the public eye has come to feel like less of a minefield than it once was too – a shift she describes as “freeing”. “Now, I don’t really think about it,” she says. “Although recently some guy I met in the music industry in America said, ‘You should be getting more commercial opportunities, because you tick so many diversity boxes.’ And I was like…” Sawayama pauses between a bite of waffle to pull a bemused side-eye.

“We’re still not where I want to be, but I think even since I started in music there’s so much more representation now,” she continues, reeling off a list that includes Parasite and Squid Game. “Seeing Blackpink headline Coachella… I could not have imagined that as a teenager – it’s huge. It’s nice to not have that pressure and just enjoy all the art that Asian people are making”.

From calling out a labelmate in need whose opinions and disgraces need to be put under the microscope, to a phenomenal second studio album, to the way she has inspired change and progress in the industry, the stunning Rina Sawayama should be treasured and cherished! Mixing the high-octane and thrilling with intimacy and personality, there are few out there like her. The phenomenal Rina Sawayama is definitely…

A modern icon.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Mick Jagger at Eighty: The Best of The Rolling Stones

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Mick Jagger at Eighty: The Best of The Rolling Stones

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ON 26th July…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Mick Jagger photographed in 1964 by David Bailey

one of music’s icons turns eighty. There are few band leads as mesmeric, influential, legendary and enduring as Mick Jagger. As the voice of The Rolling Stones, he has been delivering such electric and brilliant music for over sixty years. As he is eighty very soon, I wanted to do a few features around that. I will start off with a playlist of the best cuts from The Rolling Stones. Before I get there, AllMusic gives us some details and biography regarding the sensational Mick Jagger:

“As the lead singer for the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger virtually invented the concept of the rock & roll frontman. Taking his cues from soul singers, bluesmen, and Elvis Presley, Jagger crafted a magnetic, carnal persona that retained its charisma even after it was mimicked and expanded by countless singers who followed in his footsteps. He may have been surrounded by disciples, but Jagger never left the spotlight, touring with the Rolling Stones until he was in his seventies. Unlike his lifelong collaborator Keith Richards, Jagger always seemed eager to explore territory outside of the Stones, releasing a solo single called "Memo from Turner" in 1970 and launching a full-fledged solo career in 1985, 21 years after the band's debut. When he released She's the Boss, it appeared that the Stones may have been approaching the end of their career, but it soon transpired that Jagger's solo career would run concurrently with that of the band's. Over the ensuing decades, he released a string of solo albums and formed a supergroup called SuperHeavy with David A. Stewart, and while none of these projects commanded the attention that the Rolling Stones achieved, they nevertheless showcased a restless talent with an interest in pop, dance, and world music.

Mick Jagger met Keith Richards when they were attending the Dartford Maypole County Primary School as children. They met again as teenagers in 1960, discovering they shared a love of American blues, rock & roll, and R&B. At the time, Jagger was a student at the London School of Economics and was playing with a London band called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Within two years, Jagger and Richards had formed the Rolling Stones. During the course of the '60s, the Stones were the only rock & roll band to rival the popularity of the Beatles. In the process, they cultivated an image as the most dangerous band in rock & roll, a status that was confirmed not only by the band's reckless, decadent behavior, but also by Jagger's lyrical obsessions with sex and violence.

In the early '70s, Jagger began to break away from the group. He had become the most famous member of the Stones, partially due to his role as the band's lead singer, but also due to his immersion in the jet-set lifestyle, where he became a familiar figure in New York art circles and Hollywood. Jagger began acting toward the end of the '60s, first in the Australian film Ned Kelly and then in Performance, which contained his most celebrated performance. After his brief foray into film, Jagger concentrated on singing with the Stones and being a celebrity, appearing in mainstream gossip columns as frequently as music publications.

During the early '80s, Jagger and Richards conflicted over the musical direction of the band. Jagger wanted to move the band in a more pop and dance-oriented direction while Richards wanted to stay true to the band's rock & roll and blues roots. By 1984, Jagger had begun recording a solo album where he pursued a more mainstream, dance-inflected pop direction. The resulting album, She's the Boss, was released in 1985. Jagger filmed a number of state-of-the-art videos for the album, which all received heavy airplay from MTV, helping propel the record's first single, "Just Another Night," to number 12 and the album to platinum status. "Lucky in Love," the second single from the album, wasn't quite as successful, just scraping the bottom of the Top 40. In the summer of 1985, Jagger and David Bowie recorded a cover of Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" for the Live Aid organization. The single peaked at number seven on the U.S. pop charts; all the proceeds from its sale were donated to Live Aid.

Around the same time that the Rolling Stones released their 1986 album, Dirty Work, Jagger released the theme song from the movie Ruthless People as a single (it peaked at number 51) and told Richards that the Stones would not tour to support Dirty Work. For the next few years, Jagger and Richards barely spoke to each other and sniped at one another in the press. During this time, Jagger tried to make his solo career as successful as the Rolling Stones, pouring all of his energy into his second solo album, 1987's Primitive Cool. Although the album received stronger reviews than She's the Boss, only one of the singles -- "Let's Work" -- scraped the bottom of the Top 40 and the record didn't go gold.

Following the commercial failure of Primitive Cool, Jagger returned to the fold of the Rolling Stones in 1989, recording, releasing, and touring behind the Steel Wheels album. Steel Wheels was a massively successful venture, and after the tour was completed, the Stones entered a slow period, where each of the members pursued solo projects. Jagger recorded his next solo album with Rick Rubin, who had previously worked with the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The resulting Wandering Spirit was released in 1993 and received the strongest reviews of any of Jagger's solo efforts. The album entered the U.S. charts at number 11 and went gold the year it was released. A year after the arrival of Wandering Spirit, the Stones reunited for Voodoo Lounge, supporting the album with another extensive international tour. The Stones repeated this pattern with 1997's Bridges to Babylon before entering a quiet phase.

Jagger welcomed in the 21st century with 2001's Goddess in the Doorway, his fourth solo album; despite a glowing review from Rolling Stone, it failed to generate much attention. The Rolling Stones celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2002 with the compilation Forty Licks and an accompanying tour, then Jagger turned his attention to collaborating with Dave Stewart for songs for the 2004 remake of the classic 1966 Michael Caine film Alfie. Mick duetted with Joss Stone on Alfie, thereby laying the ground work for the Jagger, Stewart, and Stone supergroup SuperHeavy, which also featured A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley. SuperHeavy would release their lone album in 2011, and during the gap between that eponymous record and Alfie, Jagger kept himself busy through his film production company and with Stones projects, including the release of a new album called A Bigger Bang in 2005 and a number of tours. Following the Stones' 2016 blues album, Blue & Lonesome, Jagger returned his attention to his solo career for the first time in 16 years”.

To celebrate a huge birthday for one of the all-time greats, I have assembled a playlist featuring the best of The Rolling Stones. You will know most of these songs – though there may be a few that surprise you. Whether you are a fan of the band or not, it is hard deny the impact Mick Jagger has had on music. Still inspiring artists to this day, I know that fans will come together on 26th July to mark his eightieth. Still touring with The Rolling Stones, there is no slowing this titan! Long may we see him on the stage! I know there have been whispers the band are working on their twenty-fourth studio album (which would follow 2016’s Blue & Lonesome). I think we all hope that The Rolling Stones bring us…

SOME new music soon.

FEATURE: Watching Her With Them… Looking Ahead to Kate Bush's Before the Dawn at Nine

FEATURE:

 

 

Watching Her With Them…

Looking Ahead to Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Nine

_________

I find it hard to believe…

 PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

that this time next year, we will be looking ahead to the tenth anniversary of Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn! Her only live residency, she performed a series of twenty-two days at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo. The same venue where she performed several dates of The Tour of Life in 1979, it was the first time Bush returned to a large-scale live commitment – a gap of thirty-five years no less! I am going to drop in some details I have sourced before, but I wanted to react to that live extravaganza and return all these years later. Unfortunately, it was an event I did not attend. I could not get a ticket before all the date sold out. It is one of my biggest regrets! I can remember, back in March 2014, the excitement that was felt when Kate Bush announced that she would be taking to the stage:

“Announced on 21 March 2014, Before The Dawn was the first set of live dates by Kate Bush since the Tour Of Life in 1979. Originally, 15 live dates were announced. A pre-sale ticket allocation took place on 26 March for fans who had signed up to her website in previous months (and years). After this pre-sale, a further seven dates were added due to the high demand. Tickets went on sale to the general public on 28 March and most of them were sold out within 15 minutes. All dates took place at the Eventim Apollo in London (UK). The tour was a critical and commercial success, with all shows sold out.

Before The Dawn was a multi-media performance involving standard rock music performance, dancers, puppets, shadows, maskwork, conceptual staging, 3D animation and an illusionist. Bush spent three days in a flotation tank for filmed scenes that were played during the performance and featured dialogue written by novelist David Mitchell. Also involved with the production were Adrian Noble, former artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company, lighting designer Mark Henderson and Italian Shadows Theatre company Controluce Teatro d'Ombre. The illusionist was Paul Kieve, the puppeteer Basil Twist, the movement director Sian Williams and the designer Dick Bird. The video and projection design was by Jon Driscoll”.

Given the title, Before the Dawn, I guess you could have guessed the concept would unite Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave and Aerial’s A Sky of Honey. Both conceptual suites, the former came out in 1985; the latter arrived in 2005. Joining these songs cycles that occurred twenty years apart, The Ninth Wave takes us from the night darkness to the dawn. A woman that is adrift at sea and perilously close to death, the does she survive question has been a hot debate. In the show and on the album, the heroine is rescued – though there are clues and lyrics suggestion she drowned and was seeing herself from above the world. A Sky of Honey is the second disc of Aerial. Going through the course of an entire summer’s day, that idea of the dawn being represented and important in two different ways is striking. Whereas The Ninth Wave is turbulent, haunting and occasionally beautiful and heavenly, A Sky of Honey is calming, set in nature and inspiring. Before moving onto thoughts about the anniversary next month and some thoughts regarding Kate Bush’s live future, there are a couple more things I want to drop in. Going back to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia:

“Band

The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of David Rhodes (guitar), Friðrik Karlsson (guitar, bouzouki, charango), John Giblin (bass guitar, double bass), Jon Carin (keyboards, guitar, vocals, programming), Kevin McAlea (keyboards, accordion, uilleann pipes). Omar Hakim (drums), Mino Cinélu (percussion). Backing vocalists were Sandra Marvin, Jacqui DuBois, Jo Servi, Bob Harms and Albert McIntosh. Some actors were involved as well: Ben Thompson played Lord of the Waves, Stuart Angell played Lord of the Waves and the painter's apprentice, Christian Jenner played the blackbird's spirit, Jo Servi played witchfinder and Albert McIntosh appeared as painter. Supporting actors were Sean Myatt, Richard Booth, Emily Cooper, Lane Paul Stewart and Charlotte Williams.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay

Set list

Act 1

Introduction

Lily

Hounds Of Love

Joanni

Top Of The City

Running Up That Hill

King Of The Mountain

The Ninth Wave

And Dream Of Sheep (video)

Under Ice

Waking The Witch

Watching You Without Me

Jig Of Life

Hello Earth

The Morning Fog

Act 2

A Sky Of Honey

Prelude

Prologue

An Architect's Dream

The Painter's Link

Sunset

Aerial Tal

Somewhere In Between

Tawny Moon (lead vocals by Albert McIntosh)

Nocturn

Aerial

Encore

Among Angels

Cloudbusting”.

On 26th August, 2014, DIY were among those who gave their thoughts about the majestic, theatrical, epic and applauded Before the Dawn. It is clear that everyone who was part of the twenty-two shows will never forget that experience:

“While you try to catch your breath and reorganise your sense of reality after three hours of an astonishing, immersive and utterly singular show, the one thing that instantly becomes apparent through the mist is that Kate Bush is not one to cede to your run-of-the-mill expectations.

The whole night feels unreal and unravels in a dreamlike fashion – even attempting to put it into words here it seems to dissolve on the screen. That’s not just because of the feverish speculation that came before the show or the fact that Bush hasn’t performed in concert since 1979, but also because whatever your hopes or anticipations for this show – one of the most eagerly awaited pop performances in history – Bush turns them on their head and pours them away in an avalanche of artistic contrariness and outlandish theatre which sees the stage filled with a wooden mannequin, fish skeletons, sheets billowing like waves, a preacher, a giant machine that hovers above the audience pounding like a helicopter as well as lighthouses and living rooms, axes and chainsaws.

Yet through all the theatrics and artistry one thing remains constant, and it’s the thing that shines through the most: the rush of humanity that ties all the ideas together; the one thing that takes Bush to that other place. It’s the innate heart that pulses through all this theatre and all these ideas: the simple truths of love, hope and family life that hold all her ideas together.

‘I feel your warmth,’ she says appreciatively as the crowd passionately cheer and clap her every move and gesture. And it’s her shy but generous smile at the response from the crowd which shows exactly what this means to her.

PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

This is the weight of 35 years being lifted – thrown off with the skilfulness and heart that shows Kate Bush is no ‘mythic’ artist but a very real, supremely talented original. Tonight is an unequivocal demonstration that she’s a one-off: only she has the ambition, nerve and imagination to pull off the ideas that had filled her mind.

Yet at first it seems she’s going to play it pretty straight. Barefoot and dressed in elegant black, she strolls around the stage gently, occasionally twirling. It begins with ‘Lily’ as she leads a small group of backing singers that includes her son Bertie (who, she says, has given her the “courage” to return to the stage). The band that line up behind her are as tight as you would imagine. They play ‘Hounds Of Love’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’. They sound huge, they sound brilliant. If there’s one thing you notice most it’s that her voice is remarkably powerful and it’s brilliant on ‘King Of The Mountain’ which brings the opening ‘scene’ to a close, heralding a storm as a bullroarer fills the air and cannons fill the theatre with confetti.

It’s now time for the drama of ‘The Ninth Wave’, the second half of ‘Hounds of Love’. Here we see a story of resignation and resurrection played out in the most theatrical of ways. We see Bush in a lifejacket floating in water, looking up at the camera as if waiting to be rescued (she’s reported to have spent three days in a flotation tank at Pinewood Studios to create the special effects). At one point fish skeletons dance across the waves, at another a helicopter searches the crowd, before a living room (yes, a living room) floats across the stage in which a son and his father – played by Bertie and Bush’s husband Danny McIntosh – talk at length about sausages.

It’s hard to comprehend exactly what’s happening but the band skilfully navigate the pastoral prog and Celtic rock. Even when the music isn’t captivating, the sheer sense of spectacle means you can’t avert your eyes for a second. As the ‘The Morning Fog’ brings the performance to a close with another standing ovation.

After a twenty minute interval – during which time the bars buzz with delirium – the third act sees her play out ‘Sky of Honey’, the entire second half of ‘Aerial’. It’s so intricately detailed that you get the feeling Bush had always planned to perform these two scenes live.

‘Honey’ is a grandiose daydream moving through a summer’s day. Again the scope of her vision is immense – even when the songs don’t enthral the enormous paper planes and human birds do, as we see a wooden mannequin finding himself lost and alone. Bertie plays a major part throughout dressed as a 19th-century artist – and at one point telling the mannequin to “piss off”. It ends, as only it could, with Bush gaining wings and flying.

She returns to earth to perform a solo version of ‘Among Angels’ on the piano, before the band return to help close the show with a joyful ‘Cloudbusting’. “I just know that something good is going to happen”, she sings as a now even more euphoric crowd jump to their feet.

Then she’s gone. You’re left with the image of a singer who has managed to retain her mystery and surprise. An enigma, the mythic artist who is intensely human. It’s overblown and preposterous and brilliant. All its startling achievements, magical highs and am dram faults – its relentless ambition and human imperfections – make it the only document you could possibly have asked for from such a unique artist. Before the Dawn is everything you would expect but couldn’t imagine”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

There are a few thoughts I had. One relates to books and podcasts about the night. I have not seen either. Whilst the live album provides you with some of the spectacle and atmosphere of being in attendance in Hammersmith, I guess it can’t replace the feeling of being there. Kate Bush spoke with Matt Everitt for BBC Radio 6 Music in 2016 (when the live album was released). She put a lot of time and effort into mixing and producing the album. That 2016 interview was the last time we heard Bush in a promotional audio interview until last year – when she spoke with Woman’s Hour about the success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I wonder if there will be a book or podcast about Before the Dawn. Thoughts and reactions from people who were there. Including many famous faces, it would be awesome to hear them all compiled in a podcast. I think the same could be said of a book. Combining photos, and introduction maybe from Bush, we’d have the build-up and background, the reviews and performances, sketches about the stage and concept, in addition to a conclusion. That would be very popular, as next year is ten years since Bush brought us Before the Dawn. It is a pity that not that much has been done regarding Before the Dawn and its impact. Someone could tie it back to 1979 and mention The Tour of Life. I think there would be a lot of people keen to read and hear more about a phenomenal residency.

I wonder, above all, what this nine-year-gap means in terms of Bush and her next steps. I have speculated we may get news soon of an eleventh studio album. She always surprises us, so you can never predict what will come and when. Was Before the Dawn her live farewell? I guess the scale and effort involved mounting the production could not easily be repeated. Bush is sixty-five on 30th July, so maybe she doesn’t have the same impetus and energy as she might have done a decade ago. That said, Madonna is taking her Celebration Tour on the road soon. She has recently been hospitalise, though the sixty-four-year-old will be on the stage very soon. You can never totally rule out further livre work, though it is unlikely she will do another residency. Anything where she performs live would be a blessing. I can see a few songs being performed from Abbey Road Studios. I have mooted this before. I do feel, rather than look back at Before the Dawn wistfully, there should be projects about it coming to light. Immortalising this wonderful and unexpected event. In August 2014, Kate Bush fans flocked to the Eventim Apollo to catch the icon on the big stage. Even though the show has been filmed and there is a DVD, we might never get to see it. I hope more is explored and exposed from the awe-inspiring Kate Bush. She proved that there are few performers as incredible as her. Wha a vision she brought to the stage! For that reason, ahead of its ninth anniversary, we need to explore further…

THE stunning Before the Dawn.

FEATURE: A Modern-Day Icon: Recognising the Brilliant Broadcaster and Free Your Mind Label

FEATURE:

 

 

A Modern-Day Icon

Recognising the Brilliant Broadcaster and Free Your Mind Label

_________

ONE of the finest and most important…

voices in broadcasting belongs to Arielle Free. As presenter of the essential Radio 1’s Future Artists, she is part of this vital group of tastemaker broadcaster introducing us to the finest talent of the future. Alongside her station-mate Clara Amfo, Free lets us know about the sounds that we need in our life. The most interesting and innovative rising artists around. There have been some recent changes at BBC Radio 1. Arielle Free used to present Early Breakfast, but that has been shifted. One of the reasons that I am writing about her is that I think she is on the cusp of getting a huge presenting role. Having shown her value and incredible talent at BBC Radio 1, of course she will continue there, but I see her going to another station like BBC Radio 6 Music or Apple’s Music 1 schedule. A huge reason why I tuned into BBC Radio 1, she has this wonderful future ahead. In March, she peddled across the U.K. in a gruelling challenge to raise money for Red Nose Day. It was an amazing challenge that raised a load of money! Born in Stirling, Scotland, Arielle Free is a major talent who is a successful artist and D.J. I have recently posted a feature asking why there is not another music T.V. show to sit alongside Later… with Jools Holland. I think that Free would make an excellent co-presenter on a new format. She has that passion for music that is infectious and undeniable. I did feature her relatively recently but, since there have been developments and things I missed out, I wanted to return. I shall come to her music label soon enough.

Before getting there, there are some interviews that I want to bring in. You might not know about Arielle Free and where she has come from. Undoubtably a modern broadcasting icon, I think she has so many years ahead. Big success and huge shows. An extraordinary producer, Free spoke with Headliner last year about an exciting new single:

“Esteemed BBC Radio 1 DJ, presenter and now producer Arielle Free chats to Headliner about her recently released debut single, Soul Full, featuring Joe Killington with Mortimer via Defected’s D4 DANCE label, and her excitement about returning to the stage for some big festival sets this summer…

Despite only just starting her music production journey during the first UK lockdown, Arielle Free’s trajectory from radio DJ to beatmaker is one that makes a whole lot of sense.

Released on Defected’s D4 DANCE label, Soul Full is a big, unapologetically fun, soulful house number that is sure to get feet tapping – a track that its creator likes to think all generations can enjoy. But how does Free feel about kicking off her career as a full-fledged producer?

“It’s a bit weird,” she responds. “Because when I first started dabbling, I felt like I was hitting my head off a brick wall. I was using Ableton at the time, and then a friend recommended I try Logic, which I just got a lot better at and allowed me to learn more. I was working with my friend who works for Community Music, an organisation based in Brady Arts Centre on Brick Lane, and I was really lucky because I used to do pirate radio in that building…

“I did a few lessons online, and I was put in touch with an amazing mixer in Bristol who I went to learn with in the studio. We soon started a little project, and by the end of day we had Soul Full, just without the vocals.”

When it came to finding someone to sing on the track, Free had just the person in mind.

 “I love Joe Killington, and he’d just done vocals for the Disciples track Solid Gold, so I slid into his DMs and he was up for it!” she recalls excitedly. “Rather than getting a deep, gravelly vocal like on Solid Gold [she proceeds to give an excellent impression of this lyric], he actually sent me more of a falsetto vocal with a house/disco edge. It just took the track to another level.”

Soul Full has received a lot of love on the radio, and although you’re unlikely to find Free on any kind of underground lineup, “I’ve never been one of the cool kids”, she’s accepted that she works best sticking to what she knows and loves: big, uplifting vocal house and disco numbers.

“I'm learning so much and getting such lovely feedback from my peers and friends [including Calvin Harris!], so I feel really blessed,” she continues. “I think the track helps people, who’ve maybe never seen one of my DJ sets, to understand what they should expect from my gigs.

“I'm a big percussion fan, and I like to lean towards latin house and sometimes afro house vibes, but I also really enjoy vocals leading me down a path. It's been great to get those muscles working again.”

Around five or six years ago, things were quite different for the palpably ambitious producer; she would host her own radio shows every week for no pay and with hardly any break in an attempt to build her online audience. Testament that natural talent and hard work quite often pays off, she eventually found herself working the early morning slot on BBC Radio 1.

“During covid I went down to just one live show, we got a pre-recorded show for Saturday, and I lost my Sunday show completely, but I was really lucky that I worked within the BBC because we really became a public service during that time,” she laments. “It really showed me how valuable it was to people's lives. In the morning, our listeners used to be the straight through crews; delivery people, people on their way to the airport for their holidays, and those who had been out clubbing. We almost lost that audience entirely, and gained listeners who were up in the early morning who were anxious, or maybe were sitting on their own terrified of what this thing was, that none of us knew about at the time.

“Keeping everyone company and making things entertaining for people to provide a bit of a distraction, and then coming out of that feeling more united and hopeful was a real journey. It felt like we really needed the listeners as much as the listeners needed us.”

Already in-demand on the live circuit with her own label and club night, ‘Free Your Mind’, Free reveals that things are starting to move when it comes to festivals this summer. Her Parklife journey has been one of the particular highlights so far.

“I played one of the smaller tents a few years ago, and that’s where you learn resilience and gain an understanding of what you should play in a festival environment when it could be pouring with rain and there’s headliners you’re competing with,” she says. “This year is the first time I’ve actually made it onto the artwork of a festival bill.

“I’m also playing One Out which is one I've always wanted to be on, and that's alongside my pal Chloé Robinson – we've never been at a festival together on the same bill so I’m buzzing for that. I've got all these ambitions for places that I want to play, so I'm really hoping that 2022 is just another year of going to cool places far and wide, including Ibiza…” she trails off with anticipation.

Free is currently working on getting a sample cleared in time for her next summer track, and is also working on the follow up to Soul Full, “which is a wicked sample of an old ‘60s track, and is very me,” she says. “I’m also excited to put out more tracks on my label, because we put a bit of a pause on that, but now everything's set up”.

I have not really seen or heard an extensive interview with Arielle Free. She has achieved so much, and she has such a versatile career. Surely, it must only be a matter of time before we get this deep dive into the life and times of an amazing broadcaster, D.J., producer, T.V. presenter and hugely influential and inspiring person! Sunday Post interviewed Free last year:

“So, it’s a case of choosing a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life?

I love being on the radio, I love DJing and I love music, so I think I’m really fortunate. I know how much of a privilege it is to be my position, where I can broadcast and DJ on the radio and gig all weekend. It hasn’t felt like hard work. There’s been occasions where I’ve been tired, but I just look forward to the next one.

Your remix of Gorgon City’s Tell Me It’s True is out this month. How did that come about?

Amazon are doing this amazing series where they get DJs to remix other DJs and producers they have always really aspired to or idolised. I’ve been the biggest fan of Gorgon City, so it’s been just a total privilege. Tell Me It’s True is a song I fell in love with from the album Olympia, and I’ve given myself a bit of a reputation for loving it.

PHOTO CREDIT: ITV

Is it true your vocals are on the record, too?

Yes! I couldn’t find the “woops” that I wanted to highlight points within the track, so my friend helped to record me doing them!

You supported Calvin Harris at Hampden Park in July – was that a career highlight?

It was pretty surreal as Hampden is huge. When I did Glastonbury this year, I was in a tent with the crowd pretty much on top of me, it was so electric, amazing – I knew instantly that gig had gone well. But because Hampden is so big when I came off stage, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t until people tagged me in videos after and I saw the sea of people that I knew they had enjoyed it.

It was also so special as I was able to invite my whole family along. Having my grandpa come and witness what I do on a daily basis, in Hampden, was really huge because he’s a big football fan. He couldn’t believe that I was playing in Scotland’s national stadium!

You also host Love Island: The Morning, the official podcast. Can we expect you back for the winter series in January?

I don’t know, actually – but I hope so! We had a really nice summer spending eight weeks together on the show. It was a really great series, so I’m keen to see what the winter one is going to be like, whether it’s going to be in South Africa and who is going to be hosting”.

Apologies for shifting around a bit in terms of subjects but, before I get to one of the big reasons for writing this feature, I want to mention Free’s incredible D.J. work. It takes her around the world however, she is a bit of a legend on Ibiza. DJ Mag profiled Arielle Free last year and asked her about her experiences and time on the island:

“Future Rave is currently one of the biggest nights on the island, how did you get your residency there?

“Last year, when there were still restrictions in place, Ushuaïa were doing a thing called Palmarama, and it was tables only. At that point you could dance at your tables, but you weren't allowed to mix and whatnot. It was their way of trying to open up in some capacity. I was invited out to play for David — it was me, Riton and him. Riton was running a bit late and I played for about two-and-a-half hours, and my set went really well. I was only meant to play for an hour-and-a-half I think. And honestly, for this I will forever be grateful to the Ushuaïa family, the staff fed back to the booker on how they loved my set and how good I was, and they told me that I had really impressed the staff and that they would like to book me. Word got back to David, and here we are.”

What advice do you have for other up and coming DJs to land a slot like this?

“I really wish I knew the answer to that. I think it's just being in the right place at the right time, or just constantly playing to the best of your ability. Hustle — I think just taking those opportunities that are given to you. And you do have to do that thing, say hello and thank you to everyone you speak to. You really do have to make the most of the opportunities that you are given, regardless of if you are playing to 50 people or 6,000 people, and going out of your way to say how much fun you had. You've got to really stand out by giving the most of your time and seizing the big opportunities that you find yourself in.”

How have the nights been going?

“It is a brand-new night on the island, we are there for 18 weeks every Friday. Friday night in Ibiza is a really busy night on the island, you’ve got Marco Carola’s Music On, Trick at DC-10, Amnesia also — we’ve been fortunate as to how good the crowds have been.”

 What are your favourite nights on the island?

"If you ask me what is one of my favourite nights in Ibiza, I have to say Glitterbox at Hï. It has to be one of the most amazing nights on the island — the detail that goes into it, nothing beats it for me. There's the mix of the disco and the classics, and also you get the harder stuff in the second room — and the dancers and the spectacle. It’s such a visual experience as well as a sonic experience. I love it. I mean, not just because of the production levels — visually it blows my mind. They change it every week. This is what blows my mind, the fact that they change the production every week. Every week they’ve added something to the visuals, they do something different that is just going to make it pop even more. It's just a huge production. I'm impressed by it all. I mean, I know I do sound like I'm shouting up Hï, but they blow my mind every time with the production — and not just at Glitterbox, at the other nights as well. They really put so much into it.”

What would be the perfect weekend in Ibiza for you?

“Okay. We're landing. I don’t know, say Thursday, shall we say I dive straight into the club? What happened Thursday? I mean, you’ve done Tale of Us, which is huge and an experience like no other. Then it is Friday morning, you want to get up, get out to the beach, go for a nice swim in that gorgeous ocean. Soak up all the energy. Get ready, maybe treat yourself to a nice dinner or something like that late Friday evening.

“I've recently discovered Terra Masia, which is like a farm to table experience — just beautiful. I’m a big fan of actually just doing the classic Cafe Mambo sunset, and dinner and drinks. Afterwards, then you’ve got to get yourself down to Future Rave, obviously. If you've got time before maybe pop into Calvin Harris at Ushuaïa, because it's such a huge show and the production levels blow my mind.

“Then on Saturday you’ll be a wee bit hungover, so feel like you just need to have a pool day. Get yourself some jamon flavoured Raffles, and some Fanta lemon and lots of fizzy water, agua con gas, then dive into Ants late in the afternoon when it's not too hot, and get yourself dancing. If you do have some energy, you can always pop into Black Coffee if you wanted. Then there’s the Sunday, you want to get yourself down to Bora Bora beach, and then you're going to go into Glitterbox because Glitterbox is the only way to wind up the Ibiza experience. When I say you need to have your energy for Glitterbox, you will need to have your energy because you'll go thinking, ‘I'm probably not going to make it because everyone's burst by the time they get to Sunday’. But no. There you are and you're alive, it is one of the most thriving, most wonderful sensational experiences on the island. And if you are still there on Monday night, maybe pop in to see Danny Howard at Amnesia.

"I mean, it's going to cost you a fortune, but if you can do, go down the street and grab yourself some discount tickets from the promotional teams — that will help. You've got to do the full Ibiza clubbing experience as much as you can, especially if it's your first time — you’ve got to dive right in. Oh, and if you do get a chance, you've obviously got to pop into Pike’s for a little cheeky cocktail, because Pike's cocktails are absolutely delicious”.

I am going to round things up soon. I would suggest you check out this brilliant playlist Free suggested recently. Her Free Your Mind label is a home and haven for the best uplifting new House and cuts. I can see this label expanding and having a big impact on the scene. There is also her Free Your Mind  club. Olivia Stock from DJ Mag spotlighted Free and an amazing new single, Technicolour Kenny, where she joined Jake Shears. It is clear that the BBC Radio 1 legend is breaking out into the world and has this phenomenal future ahead:

“BBC R1’s Arielle Free has teamed up with Jake Shears for a new single, ‘Technicolour Kenny’, released via her new house imprint, Free Your Mind. Listen to it below.

The single, which samples Kenny Loggins 1977 track ‘I Believe In Love’ and features vocals from Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, is the first release on the new label. Described as a “massive slice of summery disco house”, the track sees the BBC Radio 1 Dance and R1 Early Breakfast host venture further into the world of production.

Speaking on the origins of the tune, Free said: “Technicolour’ was the first track I ever made. I fell in love with the original after hearing it on a US Radio station on the way to my brother's wedding. It samples a Kenny Loggins track, the yacht rock radio station my car was stuck on played it THREE times and every time I heard it, I thought this would make an unbelievable dance track!”

The Glaswegian creative force made her producer debut in 2022 with a string of highly collaborative releases including ‘You Can’t Stop Me’ on Eats Everything’s Edible label, and ‘Release I Need’ out on Nervous Records, featuring London-vocalist, Kelli-Leigh.

With her new label and club night, Free hopes to “provide an all-encompassing home that will support house and electronic producers from across the spectrum… I’m so happy this moment is finally here. There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears but the Free Your Mind record label is a go and I couldn’t think of a better track to launch than the first production I ever made.” Releases on the imprint are already in the pipeline from Jenn Getz & Alfie, Toriah, and fellow radio host, Tiffany Cornish”.

A magnificent D.J., broadcaster, producer, label owner and all-round music queen, I wanted to salute the awesome Arielle Free. She is someone I have immense respect for. I can see her going on to manage a stable of artists changing the face of Club and House music. One of the most respected D.J.s out there, her BBC Radio 1 work also keeps her busy. Beyond this, she will be in demand from other stations. Apart from Love Island, there will be other T.V. work too. It is a moment where these new possibilities and avenues will be ahead. An exciting time for someone everyone should follow. She also recently did some presenting from the Glastonbury Festival. This amazingly nimble, broad and effortlessly talented presenters and broadcast, it is not long until queen Arielle Free conquers the world. I wanted to salute one of this country’s…

GREATEST and most important talents.

FEATURE: Tickled Pink: Welcome to Barbie Land! The Promotional Whirlwind of Greta Gerwig’s Upcoming Blockbuster

FEATURE:

 

 

Tickled Pink

IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie’s director and co-writer, Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Ellen Fedors for Rolling Stone

Welcome to Barbie Land! The Promotional Whirlwind of Greta Gerwig’s Upcoming Blockbuster

_________

THERE is no doubt that…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie and Nicki Minaj at the premiere of Barbie, held at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on 9th July in Los Angeles/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Buckner for Variety

when Barbie is released into the world on 21st July, it will be one of the highest-grossing and popular films of the year. I have already predicted five-star reviews – and I will bring in a review that has already been written – and Academy Awards (Margot Robbie and maybe Rylan Gosling for acting; Greta Gerwig for direction; costumes and cinematography perhaps). As a music journalist, of course I have an interest in the soundtrack. Some of music’s biggest names have contributed songs. From Dual Lipa to Lizzo, there have been some amazing songs added to a soundtrack that everyone should pre-order. It is out on the same day as the film - and, of course, it available on neon pink vinyl! I am pumped about that, but I wanted to look at some of the promotion or the film. When I recently wrote about Barbie going up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, I did include an interview involving Greta Gerwig, plus one from Margot Robbie. Because there has been some cool video interviews and features together with press, I will bring that together. I will end with a review of Barbie. The film is undoubtably going to be a masterpiece! More than any other film this year, there is this whole world and brand. This Barbie blitzkrieg has taken the world by storm. So many people getting into the spirit. Although it must be exhausting for stars Margot Robbie and Rylan Gosling, and director and co-writer Greta Gerwig, there is also this thrill of unleashing a huge film into the world. One that is probably primed for a sequel at some point, one would imagine.

I am thrilled that this comedy is out soon, as the genre does not often get this much attention. Such a huge film as Barbie will bring so many people to the cinema. Many who do not have any connection with Barbie. It is a film that has crossed boundaries and borders and seems to have conquered the world! The marketing for the film is terrific. And I mean terrific. It is another reason why Barbie will win awards and massive box office receipts. I shall start with a couple of interviews about the film. I am going to come to some Margot Robbie press, as she is the iconic Barbie in the new film. In one of her most important and impressive roles so far, she has confirmed herself as one of the most iconic and inspiring actors of her generation. I want to start off with a beautiful and brilliant interview Rolling Stone conducted with Greta Gerwig. She discussed making the film and what it was like immersing herself in Barbie Land for several years:

“I know you tend to resist autobiographical interpretations, but when Barbie says, “I don’t wanna be an idea anymore,” something about that really reminded me of your transition from a much-discussed actress to a writer-director.

You know what? It’s so funny. That did not occur to me at all. But now that you say it, of course! When you’re directing something, you have to be a bit stupid about yourself, or a little bit unconscious. And, yes, you’re totally right. And also, I had no idea. But that’s true. It’s completely true.

There are things like I grew up in Sacramento, and Ladybird takes place in Sacramento. But so many of the things that are personal that come through your movies are never the things that are the most obvious to you. The things where you really feel unconsciously seen are things like that, where you realize, “Oh, man, I didn’t hide anywhere.” And that’s always part of the joy of making art for people, is sometimes they understand it more than you do, which is unsettling.

IN THIS PHOTO: Ryan Gosling, Greta Gerwig, Simu Liu, and Marhot Robbie on the set of Barbie/PHOTO CREDIT: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros

Sorry!

No, but it’s good.

How did you come to decide on Barbie’s arc in the movie?

I hope two things made that journey feel surprising but inevitable. I started from this idea of Barbieland, this place with no death, no aging, no decay, no pain, no shame. We know the story. We’ve heard this story. This is an old story. It’s in a lot of religious literature. What happens to that person? They have to leave. And they have to confront all the things that were shielded from them in this place. So that felt like one thing.

There’s a lovely scene where Barbie sees an older woman — a sight she’d never encountered in Barbieland — and tells her she’s beautiful.

I love that scene so much. And the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She’s a legend. It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way — it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, “Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.” And I said, “If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.”

Yeah, I kind of thought that was an absolutely key moment for Barbie’s journey.

That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie. The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced. There’s the more outrageous elements in the movie that people say, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe Mattel let you do this,” or, “I can’t believe Warner Bros. let you do this.” But to me, the part that I can’t believe that is still in the movie is this little cul-de-sac that doesn’t lead anywhere — except for, it’s the heart of the movie.

Margot said when she first saw the screenplay, she loved it, and was positive that the powers that be would never let you make it. How do you think you got it all through?

The movie in its conception and even from the script stage was always a wild ride. But I think that in the execution of it and the directing of it, it allowed me to go even farther, and to make it even more like a candy-colored explosion of things that people didn’t necessarily think would be the Barbie movie. But, yeah, I can’t account for it. But I’m thrilled to bits that they let me do it this way.

How did you craft the moment where Barbie finally learns that some women in the real world hate her and find her oppressive?

It felt like we had to give the counterargument to Barbie, and not give it short shrift, but give it real intellectual and emotional power. And Mattel was incredibly open to it. I said, “We have to explore it, because it’s a lie any other way. And we can’t make it a lie.” I think they heard it.

The feminism in this film comes out so naturally, just by placing Barbie and Ken in the real world. It starts the moment they arrive in Venice Beach. Ken feels that people are suddenly looking at him with respect, and Barbie doesn’t have the words for it, but she feels she’s being objectified. Did that flow out as naturally as it seems?

I think of the film as humanist above anything else. How Barbie operates in Barbieland is she’s entirely continuous with her environment. Even the houses have no walls, because you never need to hide because there’s nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed of. And suddenly finding yourself in the real world and wishing you could hide, that’s the essence of being human. But when we were actually shooting on Venice Beach, with Margot and Ryan in neon rollerblading outfits, it was fascinating because it was actually happening in front of us. People would go by Ryan, high-five him, and say, “Awesome, Ryan, you look great!” And they wouldn’t actually say anything to Margot. They’d just look at her. It was just surreal. In that moment, she did feel self-conscious. And as the director, I wanted to protect her. But I also knew that the scene we were shooting had to be the scene where she felt exposed. And she was exposed, both as a celebrity and as a lady. To be fair, Ryan was like, “I wish I wasn’t wearing this vest.” [Laughs.] But it was a different kind of discomfort.

When I hear you use the word “humanist,” I feel like I need to gently push back on behalf of the fans who are going to love this movie and perceive its message as unabashedly feminist.

Of course, I am a feminist. But this movie is also dealing with [the idea that] any kind of hierarchical power structure that moves in any direction isn’t so great. You go to Mattel and it is really like, “Oh, Barbie has been president since 1991. Barbie had gone to the moon before women could get credit cards.” We kind of extrapolated out from that that Barbieland is this reversed world [where Barbies rule and Kens are an underclass]. The reverse structure of whatever Barbieland is, is almost like Planet of the Apes. You can see how unfair this is for the Kens because it’s totally unsustainable.

Now that you’ve entered this world of big franchises, how will you balance your directing career going forward, between huge commercial films and smaller ones?

I think probably every director has a fantasy baseball league in their head of what movies they want to make. And there’s some movies I’d like to make that require a big canvas. At the same time, I’ve seen so many directors move between bigger movies and smaller movies: Chloé Zhao doing Nomadland and making Eternals. Or Steven Soderbergh, or even my weekend buddy Chris Nolan. He made the Dark Knight trilogy — and they’re wonderful — and then made The Prestige, which is not a tiny movie, but it is also not the same thing. I want to play in lots of different worlds. That’s the goal.

There’s footage out there of you directing the garden scene in Lady Bird, and you seem so joyous. It feels like you love being a director.

I love it so much. I love every part of making a movie, soup to nuts. And Margot is the same way. For us, it’s Disneyland every day. I honestly can’t believe I get to do this”.

I already sourced this interview for a recent feature regarding comedies and how the very best and most ambitious of this year have been made by female directors and screenwriters. I want to come back to The Guardian’s interview with Greta Gerwig, as we discover new sides to the director and writer. She seems like a joy to speak to! It is almost a shame that the Barbie excitement and build will die not long after the film comes out on 21st July:

“Gerwig was invited to write Barbie by the actor Margot Robbie who, with Warner Bros, had bought the rights to the film. (Robbie stars in Barbie as Barbie.) Gerwig has said she was terrified to accept the job. “It’s not like a superhero, who already has a story. It felt very much like it was going to be an adaptation. Except what we were adapting is a doll – an icon of the 20th century.” Before writing the script, Gerwig thought: “It felt complicated enough, sticky enough, strange enough, that maybe there could be something interesting there to be discovered.” She didn’t know she was going to direct the film until after the script was written. “I kind of had two thoughts: I love this and I can’t bear it if anyone else makes it. And: they’ll never let us make this movie.”

To pitch Barbie to executives, Gerwig wrote a poem so strange and “surreal” that she will not read it to me now. When I ask what it concerned, she says, “Oh, you know, the lament of Job?” before adding, “Shockingly, it does actually communicate some vibe of the movie.” Gerwig wrote Barbie with her partner, the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, though for a while she didn’t tell him she’d enlisted his help. (“He was like, ‘Did you sign us up to write a Barbie movie?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, Noah, get excited!’”) They worked on the script during the pandemic, when doubt plagued the future of the communal cinema experience.

“There was this sense of wanting to make something anarchic and wild and completely bananas,” Gerwig says, “because it felt, like, ‘Well, if we ever do get to go back to cinemas again, let’s do something totally unhinged.’” The anarchy of Gerwig’s Barbie comes from “the deep isolation of the pandemic,” she says – “that feeling of being in our own little boxes, alone.”

Barbie was conceived in 1959, by Ruth Handler, who co-founded the doll’s manufacturer Mattel. Barbie has since occupied a complicated position in the lives of her owners. On one hand, she has been terrible for girls’ body image, a fact Gerwig acknowledges playfully in the film’s opening 20 minutes. (On discovering Barbie’s flat feet, several other Barbies, and at least one Ken, heave mawkishly and knowingly in disgust.) But according to fans she has empowered, too. In more recent times, Mattel has produced dolls with different skin colours and in different shapes. While researching Barbie, Gerwig toured the company’s headquarters. “The kind of amazing thing is that Barbie went to the moon before women had the ability to get credit cards,” she says. “That’s crazy. She was always a kind of step ahead.”

At Mattel, Gerwig saw an image of an all-female Barbie presidential ticket. “I was like, ‘Huh, so Barbie’s done it, but we haven’t?” (The first presidential Barbie appeared in 1992; in the film, president Barbie is played by Issa Rae.) Gerwig was fascinated. “As an icon, she’s always been complicated,” she says. “She has always had these two sides to her.”

Growing up, Gerwig had a tangled relationship with the doll. “I was always intrigued,” she says, because, “Barbie was, if not exactly forbidden in our house, well, it was not encouraged.” Why not? “Oh, the usual criticisms. ‘If she was a real woman, she wouldn’t even be able to stand up; she wouldn’t be able to support her head.’ My mum was a child of the 60s. She was like, ‘We got this far, for this?’” Eventually, Gerwig’s mother relented. “She got me my own,” Gerwig recalls. “Fresh out the box.” It replaced the neighbourhood hand-me-downs she had been playing with.

But Gerwig already had a strong connection to other dolls, the kind you mother, and she had a vivid imagination. “I played with dolls until… I don’t want to say too late, but I played with them long enough that I didn’t want kids at school to know I still played with them. I was a teenager. I was about 13 and still playing with dolls. And I knew that kids at that point were already kissing.” She smiles. “I was a late bloomer.”

Gerwig has said that Barbie’s story mimics that of a girl’s journey from childhood to adolescence. “I always think that 8, 9, 10 years old is peak kid. I was brash and unafraid and loud and big. And then, you know…” Puberty. “It’s a shrinking. Wanting to make yourself smaller, less noticeable, take in all that spikiness and bury it. And you’re profoundly uncomfortable, because you’re going through metamorphosis, literally.” You begin to introspect. “But also, you’re getting tall. You’re getting your period. You get spots.” Gerwig describes childhood as being at peace with the world and adolescence as being suddenly not. “My experience of it was wanting to hide.”

I ask, “Is the film about growing up?”

“It’s not about growing up, exactly,” she says. “But in a way… This is about Barbie, an inanimate doll made out of plastic. But the movie ends up, really, about being human”.

In many ways, the themes in Barbie chime with those Gerwig has tackled previously, not least in Lady Bird, her loosely autobiographical directorial debut, and a 2019 adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women, which the critic Anthony Lane said, “may just be the best film yet made by an American woman”. Both films star Saoirse Ronan and feature adolescent women becoming new, more complicated versions of themselves. Gerwig was nominated for best director at the Oscars for Lady Bird – she became only the fifth female director to be nominated for the award. If Lady Bird announced Gerwig as a top-tier filmmaker, Little Women confirmed it. Plaudits followed. Hollywood invited her in. But Barbie is different altogether: bigger budget, bigger anticipation – what might be the first true summer blockbuster, post-pandemic. When I ask Gerwig how she feels about the film’s release, she says, “I’m just so nervous. I’m so nervous. I’m excited! But I’m so nervous.” And then: “I just can’t believe, like, here it is… Let’s go!”.

Again, I will source an interview that I have used before. Vogue spent some time in Margot Robbie’s company. Getting to the heart of the film and the actor, it is wonderful interview with some fantastic photos. One reason I wanted to revisit these interviews is because there is so much detail and some incredible images! It is always captivating and wonderful when you get these immersive and thoroughly in-depth interviews. I have selected parts from the Vogue interview to highlight:

“LuckyChap wanted Gerwig and Baumbach to have full creative freedom. “At the same time,” Robbie says, “we’ve got two very nervous ginormous companies, Warner Bros. and Mattel, being like: What’s their plan? What are they going to do? What’s it gonna be about? What’s she going to say? They have a bazillion questions.” In the end LuckyChap found a way to structure a deal so that Gerwig and Baumbach would be left alone to write what they wanted, “which was really fucking hard to do.”

Gerwig and Baumbach did share a treatment, Robbie adds: “Greta wrote an abstract poem about Barbie. And when I say ‘abstract,’ I mean it was super abstract.” (Gerwig declines to read me the poem but offers that it “shares some similarities with the Apostles’ Creed.”) No one at Lucky­Chap, Mattel, or Warner Bros. saw any pages of the script until it was finished.

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

When I ask Gerwig and Baumbach to describe their Barbie writing process, the words “open” and “free” get used a lot. The project seemed “wide open,” Gerwig tells me. “There really was this kind of open, free road that we could keep building,” Baumbach says. Part of it had to do with the fact that their characters were dolls. “It’s like you’re playing with dolls when you’re writing something, and in this case, of course, there was this extra layer in that they were dolls,” Baumbach says. “It was literally imaginative play,” Gerwig says. That they were writing the script during lockdown also mattered, Baumbach says. “We were in the pandemic, and everybody had the feeling of, Who knows what the world is going to look like. That fueled it as well. That feeling of: Well, here goes nothing.”

Robbie and Ackerley read the Barbie script at the same time. A certain joke on page one sent their jaws to the floor. “We just looked at each other, pure panic on our faces,” Robbie recalls. “We were like, Holy fucking shit.” When Robbie finished reading: “I think the first thing I said to Tom was, This is so genius. It is such a shame that we’re never going to be able to make this movie.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

LuckyChap did make the movie, of course, and it’s very much the one Gerwig and Baumbach wrote. (Alas, that joke on page one is gone.) If you saw the trailer released in December, you’ve seen the opening of the film. It’s a parody of the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But instead of apes discovering tools in the presence of a monolith, little girls smash their baby dolls in the presence of a gigantic Barbie. Robbie-​as-​Barbie appears in a retro black-and-white bathing suit and towering heels. She slowly lowers a pair of white cat-eye sunglasses and winks.

I saw more of the movie one morning at the Warner Bros. lot. After the Kubrick spoof we go on a romp through Barbieland, “a mad fantasy of gorgeousness,” as Sarah Greenwood, the film’s set designer, puts it later. Barbie wakes up in her Dreamhouse and embarks on the Perfect Day, accompanied by an original song that serves as soundtrack. (I am not allowed to say who sings it.) Everything everywhere is infused with pink. “I’ve never done such a deep dive into pink in all my days,” Greenwood says. Barbie’s perfectly fake, color-​saturated world retains many of the quirks and physical limitations of the toy version. Her environment isn’t always three-dimensional, and the scale of everything is a bit off. Barbie is a little too big for her house and her car. When she takes a shower, there is no water. Her bare feet remain arched.

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

Stereotypical Barbie was a tough nut to crack. Usually Robbie finds something called “animal work” helpful. Tonya was a pit bull in life and a mustang on the ice. Nellie, Robbie’s character in Babylon, was an octopus and a honey badger. An octopus because they are survivalists; they have a lot of nerve endings; there’s a fluidity to them; and they change their appearance. A honey badger because they have square backs and thick skin. “They’re such an insane animal,” Robbie says. “You can hit a honey badger with a machete.” With Barbie, animal work wasn’t useful. Robbie tried a flamingo but didn’t get anywhere. At one point she was really struggling. “I was like, Greta, I need to go on this whole character journey. And Greta was like, Oh, I have a really good podcast for you.” Gerwig sent Robbie an episode of This American Life, about a woman who doesn’t introspect. “You know how you have a voice in your head all the time?” Robbie says. “This woman, she doesn’t have that voice in her head.”

To sort out the sexiness question, Robbie had to break it down. “I’m like, Okay, she’s a doll. She’s a plastic doll. She doesn’t have organs. If she doesn’t have organs, she doesn’t have reproductive organs. If she doesn’t have reproductive organs, would she even feel sexual desire? No, I don’t think she could.” Therefore: “She is sexualized. But she should never be sexy. People can project sex onto her.” Thus: “Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it’s fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt.”

I do glean a few details about the rest of Barbie. The arc is partially inspired by something Gerwig read when she was a kid, in the 1994 bestseller Reviving Ophelia. “My mom would check out books from the library about parenting, and then I would read them,” Gerwig says. The book describes an abrupt change that happens in American girls when they hit adolescence and begin to bend to external expectations. “They’re funny and brash and confident, and then they just—stop,” Gerwig says. This memory bubbled up early in the writing and Gerwig found it “jarring,” the realization that this is where the story had to go: “How is this journey the same thing that a teenage girl feels? All of a sudden, she thinks, Oh, I’m not good enough.” There’s a completely different color template for the real world, Prieto mentions when we speak. Techni-​Barbie is only for Barbie’s world. “We wanted to create a distinctive look for Barbie, for her world, as opposed to the real world,” Prieto says.

Also, Robbie’s speech patterns change. She brings this up when describing Barbie’s non-accent. (Barbie shouldn’t sound like she’s from anywhere in particular, therefore: “General American accent. It’s called GenAm.”) At the start of the movie, Barbie speaks in a higher register, and: “Everything is very definite. There’s no second thought. There’s no hesitation.” Later, her voice lowers, and there are more pauses”.

I am going to finish with a review for Barbie. Go and see it if you get the opportunity. It comes out on 21st July. The official site is here. That will give you more details regarding its social media channels and all the information that you need. No doubt this is going to be the cinematic event of the year! The reviews that have come out already are hugely positive. I literally don’t think there will be anything less than five and four-star reviews from across the board. It is going to be impossible to find much fault with a film that will delight and blow the senses. In fact, rather than hunting a single review, let’s get a selection of opinions. Variety presented a selection of the opinions about the superb Barbie:

“A select few humans got a glimpse into Barbie World on Sunday night at the world premiere of Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Social media exploded with reactions. ScreenRant writer Joseph Deckelmeier called the film “funny, bombastic and very smart,” adding that “Greta Gerwig aims for the fences and hits a home run.” Deckelmeier praised Robbie’s performance as “great” and noted that Gosling and Simu Liu are “pure entertainment.”

Collider writer Perri Nemiroff praised the craftsmanship of the film, particularly the costume and production design. When it came to the story, however, she had more mixed opinions, stating: “I think the film serves Margot Robbie’s Barbie and her journey especially well, but there are other characters experiencing important arcs that needed more screen time to really dig into and explore to the fullest.”

Jamie Jirak of ComicBook.com called the film her “favorite film of the year,” writing: “Greta Gerwig somehow exceeded my expectations…Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination, I’m dead serious!”

“Pay Or Wait” host Sharronda Williams called the film “witty, heartfelt and downright fun,” particularly complimenting Gosling as a “scene stealer delivering most of the laughs.” Williams also stated that the screenplay “feels bloated at times.”

Variety‘s social media editor Katcy Stephan called the movie “perfection”: “Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play”.

A film that everyone will need to go and see, I wanted to have a look at some of the promotion around Barbie. I wanted to especially highlight Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. I think that Ryan Gosling is fantastic and he may well get a lot of award buzz for his role as Ken. He is a natural comic actor and I hope he pairs with Robbie again soon, as the two have this instant chemistry and clear affection for one another. It is the command and star quality if Margot Robbie that she brings to the role of Barbie. Directed by the phenomenal Greta Gerwig, it sounds like it was a really fun and exciting set to be a part of! With a terrific soundtrack accompanying the film on 21st July, the marketing has been brilliant. One of the best campaigns in living memory. Not that this alone will make the film a spectacular success. It will pull hundred of millions of dollars/pounds in the box office and, as I have predicted, earn awards for Robbie, Gerwig and probably Gosling too! On 21st July, so many of us will be spending time immersed in Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography and Greta Gerwig’s fine direction. Stepping into Barbie Land. This film has brought people together and created so much conversation – not just around the film and a series of films based around Mattel figures, but also feminism and reappropriating Barbie and her impact. It has most definitely left us all…

IN the pink.