FEATURE: You Can't Hurry Love… Now That's What I Call Music! at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

You Can't Hurry Love…

Now That's What I Call Music! at Forty

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THIS 28th November…

we celebrate the fortieth birthday of a legendary compilation series. It seems somehow wrong that the Now That’s What I Call Music! series is forty! One always associates it with our teenage year. Iconic and unmissable, it is still going strong today. You can check out the official website for all the latest news and releases. Whilst the series, for a long time, released yearly/bi-yearly compilations with the best music from that year, now it has expanded and it more thematic and broad – whilst still doing its annual releases of the best from the year. 28th November will be a big date for many who grew up collecting the Now That’s What I Call Music! series. With the initial pressings on vinyl and audio cassette, most people get the compilations now on C.D./digitally. There have been anniversary celebrations for big Now That’s What I Call Music! years. I wonder, on its fortieth, whether anything special has been planned. Follow their Twitter page and Instagram. You can also check them out on YouTube. Released in July, we are now up to 115. Looking back on that first release from 1983. I was only six months old, so I was not conscious of what was unveiled. It must have seemed quite exciting at the time. I am not sure if people had access to Pop compilation then. The first track on that first release was Phil Collins’s You Can't Hurry Love. The chance to buy a single album where you got all of these chart hits! Before carrying on, there is a little more housekeeping to do. Follow and support the Pop Rambler podcast, Back to NOW!. I am going to drop in some podcast episodes from various sources, a few of the tracks from the first Now That’s What I Call Music!, the advert that went alongside it, plus the album itself (which was compiled by a fan).

In December 1983, the compilation debuted at number seven on album chart in the U.K. It got to number one a week later, staying at the top for five non-consecutive weeks. I want to start by dropping in the entirety of a great feature The Guardian published back in 2018. They marked the one-hundredth release with a terrific insight into the making and history of the serries. Among those interviewed was Peter Duckworth, one of the directors of the Now That’s What I Call Music! brand:

“Peter Duckworth, one of the directors of the Now That’s What I Call Music brand, is a bespectacled man in his 50s who has helped put together the famed pop compilations for about half his life. That’s since 1990, if you measure things by the regular calendar, or “since 18”, if you go by what Duckworth and his collaborators Steve Pritchard and Jenny Fisher call “Now-time”, in which recent history is marked out entirely by the release of the numbered, three-a-year disc sets. The trio, who work out of the Sony Music offices in London, are about to celebrate the release of Now That’s What I Call Music 100, and in the buildup to this landmark, I shadowed them in their work. I wanted to learn how Nows are made and try to understand why the anthologies, on the shelves since 1983 and still selling well, have had such staying power.

It is February when we first meet. Months to go until the July release of their 100th edition, and in fact the team still have the Easter-time Now 99 to compile and master. In a corner of the Sony office that’s busy with coffee cups, branded mouse mats and a Guinness World Record naming Now the longest-running music album series, they set to work.

Any new Now starts with Fisher – the hoodied, soft-spoken fortysomething director of the brand – and her clutchbag full of loose, clacking memory sticks. For weeks, Fisher has been collecting songs for possible inclusion, which are sent to her by email. It all used to be more glamorous, she admits, back in the analogue era, when labels sent over individual songs on massive DAT tapes by courier. But what can you do?

My first Now was 23. It ran deliriously from Erasure to Abba to Billy Ray Cyrus

Across the office from Fisher, Pritchard, a 58-year-old motorcyclist who occasionally shows up for work in leathers, crunches commercial data, scowling at his iPad as it notes chart positions and streaming counts. At a facing desk, Duckworth, who is the savant to Pritchard’s metrics guy, immerses himself in pop culture in a more general way, trying to work out what tracks will be popular by the time their next Now comes out. Duckworth has a party trick that he demonstrates to me. “What was the first Now you owned?” he asks.

“Now 23,” I say. (A Christmas present in 1992, double-tape edition. Even the name of this record still gives me a little tickle of pleasure.)

“So you’re... 35 years old.”

I blink. “How did you do that?”

Duckworth shrugs. “Everyone gets their first Now between nine and 10. I only hesitated because I couldn’t remember if that one came out in ’92 or ’93.” Meanwhile, Pritchard has found the old tracklist for Now 23 and asks if I can name the first song.

But it’s a silly question. Can’t we all? Nows tend to land at a particular moment in your young listening life. Some time after the realisation that the pop playing on the radio and out of Chinese restaurant speakers isn’t all indistinguishable mulch, but some time before you learn what albums really are and turn obsessive about track arrangement and liner notes, bearing choices of favourites like a coat of arms and self-defining by your dislikes as much as your likes. The Nows scooped up whatever was charting at the time – so that Now 23 could run deliriously from Erasure to Abba to Billy Ray Cyrus to the song from the video game Tetris. I must have played it a thousand times. Of course I can remember track one, I tell Pritchard. “Tasmin Archer, Sleeping Satellite.”

He nods. Oh, they had high hopes for Archer, he recalls, but she was never included on another Now. So many acts have come and gone in this way that the trio admit blocks of Now-time are a bit of a blur. To refresh their memories, they refer to a book, published a couple of years ago, that lists all the tracks on all the compilations from the early 1980s onwards. Flicking through, they purr with delight at the memory of a recent high point, Now 85, which began with what they see as an unbeatable two-track punch, Get Lucky by Daft Punk, then Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke. Then Justin Timberlake! Taylor Swift! Jason Derulo! The gang sigh. It was one of their biggest sellers. 

I ask how they come up with the running order and they invite me to the mixing day for Now 99. By 35-year tradition, the mixing takes place in a small upstairs room at Abbey Road Studios. Fisher brings her bag of memory sticks and printouts of a spreadsheet that lists about 65 songs for possible inclusion. There’s room on a double-disc comp for about 45. The cull starts at 10am, after the trio are joined in the studio by an engineer, Alex Wharton, who has “been doing this since the late 70s or early 80s, in Now-time”. 

Wharton uploads a couple of gigabytes of songs to a PC attached to a mixing board. He has to crawl in behind the computer tower and thunk in each memory stick. Beside Fisher on a sofa, Pritchard has an iPad, waiting for the midweek chart numbers to come in. Duckworth, on an office chair, twirls a Biro. It’s 10.17am when they start to compile Now 99 and by 10.19am Fisher’s pitch for the first track on disc one – These Days by Rudimental – has been agreed to.

Easy. The song’s ubiquitous. Its sales and streams are unarguable. “We try to get that opening section to be familiar with as wide a section of the population as possible,” Duckworth says. Tracks two and three don’t take long either. Dua Lipa? Portugal. The Man? They do a lot of “top-and-tailing”, as Duckworth calls it, repeatedly listening to the first and last 15 seconds of each song to see how they segue into each other. The process will be familiar to anyone who’s obsessed over the momentum of a homemade mixtape.

Soon, decisions about track ordering get harder, paths leading from paths. The trio confer nonstop. “Can Justin go next to Marshmallow? There’s something attractive about the two of them together... Taylor next? Where’s Bruno in today’s chart? Taylor to Bruno! They’re made for each other... Sigrid’s sales have dropped a lot since Sunday. Craig David instead? The Craig David features Bastille. Two names for the price of one! Jax Jones? Try Derulo after Bruno… We haven’t done Kylie yet.” I ask the gang if, in the work they do, they’re essentially wedding DJs, fiddling around with the order of bankable hits. Or is there more to it?

“Being a good wedding DJ is important,” Duckworth says. “You don’t want to put a heavy metal track next to a Celine Dion ballad. But, yeah, there’s more to it.” Often, they’re trying to freeze a pop moment a little earlier than it wants to be frozen. They might be working against their own tastes, or prejudices. “You have to leave your own feelings at the studio door,” Pritchard says. “You can’t judge a generation’s tastes.”

Phil Collins! Duran Duran! UB40! The guy from Kajagoogoo! And so it began – disc one, side one, Now 1. It was 1983. A poster of a kitschy old ad for Danish bacon hung on the walls of the Virgin Records office in Notting Hill. It showed a singing chicken next to a frowning pig, with the pig thinking, “Now. That’s what I call music.” Virgin founder Richard Branson had brought in the poster on a whim, and when a team of his A&R chiefs, working with executives from EMI, were trying to drum up a name for a compilation of the two labels’ biggest pop acts, they decided to pinch the poster’s slogan.

Out on vinyl and tape a month before Christmas 1983, Now That’s What I Call Music was a hit, at the top of the album chart until the new year. Three more Nows were released through 1984 and a release pattern established – new Nows before Christmas, Easter and the summer. Polygram and Universal were contributing tracks to Now, while other labels, including Sony, set up a rival compilation brand called Hits. Because Hits tended to get the exclusives on big American acts such as Michael Jackson and Madonna, Now’s flavour was more domestic. Cosier. A bit twee.

Probably this helped create affection. Though the Nows featured European and American acts, what threaded through these anthologies was a relentless, grinning, slightly frayed Britishness. Now 2 and Now 6 began with a one-two of Queen and Nik Kershaw. Now 7 had a divine run of Bananarama-Bucks Fizz-A-ha-Simply Red back to Queen. After a decade, Now 1 veterans UB40 kicked off Now 26, only the Birmingham band were among eurodance and cheeky California rap, as well as mid-career Take That, early Jamiroquai, late Belinda Carlisle and... Radiohead?

Pritchard smiles when I ask how Radiohead wound up on a Now. “People will do things, early on, that you don’t remember later.” Duckworth adds: “And I know there are Now buyers for whom this became their lead-in to Radiohead. So, having these more interesting songs on there, even if they are tucked away, they sometimes lead people to musical discovery.”

This pair used to handle the marketing of the Nows and theirs was the dynamite decision in the early 20s – I remember this – to give the records a 3D-rendered logo. As the Nows progressed (flush with Britpop through the 30s, lots of Robbie in the 40s and Black Eyed Peas in the 50s and 60s), Duckworth and Pritchard took on more responsibility for the brand. Tape and vinyl went. A foray into MiniDisc-formatted compilations did not last. The Now brand moved into the hands of Sony, in partnership with Universal. By the mid-70s, Pritchard and Duckworth, with Fisher, had pretty much full control.

There have been strange decisions, this trio will admit. “Does anybody remember Mattafix?” Duckworth asks. “I do!” Fisher says. “I think!” But it is the ephemeral stuff that makes old Nows so special – these bizarre time capsules of a cultural moment, for instance the spring of 2003, when t.A.T.u. could sit next to Timberlake, next to Nelly, next to Liberty X on Now 54.

There are said to be about 2,000 Now superfans around the world, who have made themselves known as owners of all the editions released to date. “These are smörgåsbords of popular music!” says Patrick Kelly, a 61-year-old Canadian bank employee. “These treasure troves! I was in from the beginning, as soon as I found Now 2 in an import shop. Later, I found Now 1 on tape in a remainder bin, and I nearly cried.”

Claudia Lucatelli-Cutter, who works in a school in the north-east of England, is chasing the full set: “The early ones are so difficult.” Apparently there’s a thriving underground market in the single-digit Nows. And Pritchard tells me about a strange week when Now 48 shot up in resale value from 50p to £50, after its appearance in the Peter Kay sitcom Car Share.

In terms of tangible purchases, I bowed out of the Now scene in the mid-30s. It was Now 30 that put me on to Oasis, and after that it was only a matter of time before I was too much of a snob to buy a compilation. When I find out that in this modern era of boundless, costless music to stream the Now CDs are selling well, I admit my amazement to the trio. Nows were the biggest-selling CDs every year from 2010 through to 2017, beaten only by Adele in 2015. How come?

Duckworth gives his honest take. “It’s the car – the last bastion of the CD. People like to listen in their car. Plus, the CDs are gift-y. At Easter, when people don’t want to give more chocolate, they give a Now.” Pritchard says that, for customers in their 30s and above, the Nows are a relatively unstressful way of keeping up with the churn of global pop. Need to catch up on how it sounds when Iggy Azalea features on an Ariana Grande song, and when Charli XCX features on an Iggy? Get thee to disc one of Now 88. Curious about the difference between a track credited to “Mabel & Not3s”, and another to “Not3s x Mabel”? That’ll be Now 99.

IN THIS PHOTO: Steve Pritchard/PHOTO CREDIT: Leonie Morse/The Guardian

In the mastering suite, they’re on to disc two, traditionally a place for the more niche hits of the day. In the Now 20s, this meant leather-clad Europeans who made frisky techno, and in the mid-40s it meant the trance crossing over out of Ibiza. In the latter Nows, disc two has tended to mean rap. A track by Stormzy goes first on disc two, followed by the American rapper Post Malone and then 10 more tracks that would categorise roughly as grime or hip-hop.

I wonder if the compilers aren’t ring-fencing a genre that might be ready to grow even larger if it weren’t kept in check by industry decision-makers in this way. But the Now compilers insist it’s all about “flow” – what sounds good with what, that wedding-DJ instinct not to create a sound-collision between tracks – and I take them at their word. From my observation of them in the studio, there’s more pernickety fanboy care put into ordering and reordering the rappers on disc two than into arranging the cheesy boy balladeers at the end of disc one.

There are minor crises to be overcome, Fisher fretting about missing .wav files (“I’ll call and see if Radio 1 can help us”), and Duckworth about swearing. “We imagine kids in the back of a car, singing along…” The biggest dramas are over whether songs have been cleared for inclusion with their owners. A song by Hailee Steinfeld goes close to the wire. Ed Sheeran’s people have said no this time. “There have always been the non-clearers,” Pritchard says in the voice of somebody recalling old, lost loves. Rihanna’s people never say yes, which Duckworth puts down to the mindset of the US music industry. “They think that if people buy the Now albums, they might not buy their artist’s album, too.” In fact, the trio point out, inclusion on these compilations patently favours the artists, who get royalties and a big bump to their overall streaming numbers via Now’s popular Spotify page.

And so to the last track of disc two, which according to Now custom will attempt to pack a little emotional punch. Charity singles go here, or a major artist who has died since the last instalment. “We’ll try to pay tribute,” Pritchard says. (That’s why Freddie Mercury was last on my old Now 23, I learn: Christmas 1992 was the first anniversary of his death.) To acknowledge the anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing, Oasis conclude Now 99. One last play of the package, tracks one through 45, and the trio are done. “Nice, isn’t it?” Duckworth says. They finish their coffees and head back to the office.

The next morning, Fisher writes the liner notes and finalises the album artwork: psychedelic multicolour bubbles swirling around the famous 3D logo. (Now 1 pictured individual artists, including a flat-capped Phil Collins, but due to the spectre of last-minute “non-clearers”, the compilers don’t dare do that any more.) A day’s more fiddling and then Now 99 is gone, away for pressing and printing. They won’t see it again for about 10 days, until it’s a shrink-wrapped product.

One day in May, I sit with the trio in the office, surrounded by the plastic glitter of Now 99s. We catch up on their progress on the 100th instalment. Because production happens so close to release, by the time you read this they won’t have mastered it; when we meet, they’re in the clacking-memory-stick phase. It’s looking like Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa for the opening track, they say. Meanwhile, they’ve decided to break their own conventions and make a special disc two that is ring-fenced for nostalgia. It’ll be a greatest hits, a meta-Now, with one artist plucked from every decade in Now time.

I ask, hopefully, if Tasmin Archer has made the cut. Pritchard checks his list and says, sadly no. “It’s Wet Wet Wet. I’m sorry.”

They’ll master Now 100 in early July, they say, before a late-July release. And then what, I ask.

“101,” Fisher says. “101,” Duckworth says. How long do they think the brand can survive? Surely even car drivers will leave CDs behind eventually?

“Even in an age of streams,” Duckworth says, “people need a curator. It’s a vast forest of songs out there.”

“And we’ve got an app,” Pritchard says (this is like a Now-only Spotify).

“And we’ve got an app,” Duckworth agrees. “But I take your point. Reaching 100, it’s a good moment for reflection.” He says they see themselves only as “custodians of Now”. Maybe there’s value in keeping it as unchanged as they can for as long as they can.

And I see what he means. All these curiosities that bob by on pop’s current, the good and the mediocre and the deeply regrettable. We need somewhere to put this stuff and keep it pristine, if only to remember how brilliantly ridiculous we were, those few months around Now 23, when we could like Enya and East 17, Roy Orbison and the plinky song from Tetris, all at once.

Now that’s what I call nostalgia - fans look back

Clara Amfo, Radio 1 DJ and presenter Whoever had the Now in my class would be the most popular person of the day. My stand-out one is album 54. It had Jay-Z and Beyonce’s 03 Bonnie & Clyde on disc one, and Camron’s Hey Ma on disc two: two of my favourite music videos at the time.

It reminds me of the corny hip-hop and R&B club nights I used to go to, as well as fun times staying in with my girlfriends, whose parents kept up with the collection. The albums made you think you were getting the very best of the chart at the time, even though now, looking back, they all missed out key songs (I’m sure due to pesky record label politics). I can empathise: making mixtapes was basically my job at school. I made a really good girlband one that I wish I still had.

Alexis Petridis, music critic I never bought a Now compilation when I was a kid. I’ve no idea why – I was 12 in 1983, the ideal age. Then, a few years ago, I was researching a feature about compilations, and ended up listening to Now 5. Somewhere between Simple Minds’ Don’t You Forget About Me and The Commentators’ N-n-nineteen Not Out, I found myself fully transported back to 1985. It happened because the albums were, and are, compiled without discrimination: if it’s a hit, it’s in, regardless of whether it’s good or bad, built to last for ever or destined to be forgotten in a flash. It offered pop’s past not seen through the distorting lens of nostalgia, but as it really was: a perfect time capsule.

Dan Smith, lead singer, Bastille The CDs are these markers of time. Often a quite mad and eclectic jumble of songs – whose only common link was that they were massive (until you reached the later end of each disc) – that would live on and be replayed in car CD players for what felt like way too long. From novelty songs about being horny or literally being the colour blue, to world music trends that would temporarily invade chart pop music, they’re a collection of tunes that don’t belong together on an actual album elsewhere. Stumbling upon an old issue can be the most surreal time warp back to school rides and family trips”.

I was born in 1983, and the first Now That’s What I Call Music! was in 1993. That was 24. This was a huge introduction to Pop! Aged ten, I was opened to the eclectic possibilities of modern music. Although it was mainly chart-based and did not dig into Grunge or anything too heavy, it did allow me this access into a world of music that I would not have had access to. In 1993, pre-Internet, you had to rely on the radio and the charts. Having an album with all these hits in one places was mind-blowing! Even if I have not bought a new Now That’s What I Call Music! in many years, I still keep track. It is testament to its popularity that it is still being made. The empire is expanding by the year! I like that people want a compilation of the best hits of the year. They could stream them. Instead, they keep an album that is almost a yearbook of the best music from a given time. One of the biggest talking points is this: Which number in the series is the best?! Which year was strongest for Pop, I guess? I am subjective when I say 24, as many other people would disagree! There seems to be some crossover and consensus when you look at features that rank the series and declare the very best. Many would say that the late-'90s was a particularly fertile time. That may be because the person who wrote the feature is of the age where they were a teen when that album came out. That said, people of different generations argue that the end of the 1990s was a great time for chart gold! If some prefer the 2010s, there are those who love 44 – a year (1999) when Britney Spears was breaking through. Many stick within the late-1990s/early-2000s when it comes to their faves. This feature recommends we avoid the ‘best’ of 2014. This 2018 feature marked the one-hundredth Now That’s What I Call Music!:

“Now That's What I call Music albums – known as Now! to its fans – has been collecting the biggest contemporary chart hits since December 1983, when the very first edition topped everyone's Christmas list and spent five weeks at the top of the Official Albums Chart.

Although Now! is one of the most well-known hits collections, they didn't invent the format: compilations by various artists had been around in some form or another for a couple of decades, usually released by a record label wanting to showcase their own artists.

Tamla Motown, for example, had a successful Motown Chartbusters brand which gave them three chart-topping albums and telemarketing companies K-Tel and Ronco released collections featuring tracks licensed from record labels. Ronco managed a couple of Number 1s on the Official Albums Chart with various artists' albums – the That'll Be The Day movie soundtrack in 1973, and the amazingly titled Raiders of the Pop Charts in 1983. But you weren't guaranteed a record full of actual hits.

Michael Mulligan, who spent twenty-five years in music retail - including ten as Head of Music for Tesco - details the evolution of the compilation in his upcoming book, The Story of NOW That’s What I Call Music In 100 Artists, released to coincide with the release of Now's upcoming 100th compilation. In the foreword, he recalls of the Raiders albums: "It featured seven songs from the Virgin vaults, one of which was the compilation's only Number 1, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me by Culture Club; customers scanning through the rest of ‘Raiders’ thirty strong track-listing would have scratched their heads at the non-chart padding provided by The Chaps rendition of ‘Rawhide’, ‘The On And On Song’ by Precious Little, and a jazz-funk workout of the ‘Bladerunner’ theme by Morrissey-Mullen."

The compilations' success was due in part to the huge inconvenience of listening to a variety of singles by different artists – back in the vinyl days, you'd have to race over to the turntable every three minutes or so to change the song. Compilation albums, then, gave you a good half-hour of interrupted tunes – perfect for a party. And when CDs came along, you could have hours! Who needs DJs, eh?

But what if you wanted to get your hands on hits and the label hadn't released it on a comp? One weird quirk of the pre-Now! era were cut-price albums of covers by session singers. Yep, proving that the song was the star, among the shameless copycats was the Top of the Pops series – nothing to do with the long-running BBC TV show – which was hugely successful. The series, known for its slightly pervy covers featuring women models, scored a couple of Number 1s in 1971, before "budget" albums were disqualified from the chart because their lower price gave them an advantage. Listeners of early editions were hearing a future superstar, however – Elton John was known to have started his career appearing on anonymous covers. Says Michael Mulligan: "While TV advertised compilation albums were nothing new [when Now! launched] it was still necessary to reassure potential buyers these were ‘Original Songs, Original Artists’ and ‘Full Length Versions’ – not the imitations of variable quality."

So the Now! series wasn't a pioneer, but they had a distinct advantage that two huge record labels – Virgin and EMI – were behind them. Now! came about when the two label bosses, irked at quality of some compilations featuring their artists, decided to join forces rather than put out rival albums, enlisting songs from 12 other labels too to ensure a bigger collection of popular hits and, of course, more sales. The first edition, a double album, boasted eleven Number 1s including Duran Duran, Phil Collins, Culture Club, and New Edition. The deal was said to have been inked on Richard Branson's boat, at Little Venice in Paddington, London.

The comp's iconic name came from an antique poster bought by Branson for his cousin Simon Draper and hung over his desk at Virgin Records. The poster, featuring a pig listening to a chicken singing and saying yes, you, guessed it "Now. That's What I Call Music" was a joke as Draper was notoriously grumpy in the morning. The pig himself was the mascot of the first few albums before the covers became more arty and the visual feast we know and love today, although he does make a guest appearance on the 100th edition, released on July 26.

Now! was a runaway success and all but one of the first 13 editions topped the Official Albums Chart – poor old Now 4 got trapped at Number 2 behind a rival compilation The Hits Album. By 1989, hits collections and other compilations by various artists, like soundtracks or charity albums, were quite a dominant force on the Official Albums Chart. It was decided to create a chart especially for them, the Official Compilations Chart, and have the Official Albums Chart reserved for albums by a credited artist”.

I have said in previous features how there should be some anniversary events of the big fortieth on 28th November. I know you can get some of the Now That’s What I Call Music! albums on vinyl and cassette. Maybe it would be expensive to do it! I would love to be able to order any of the editions on vinyl or cassette! I am keen to get a new cassette version of 24. In any case, we should promote the podcasts, write new features, and get people together to discuss what Now That’s What I Call Music! means to them. Forty years on, and this legendary and essential compilation king is showing no signs of sagging or a mid-life crisis! In fact, as there are yearbook editions and genre-specific Now That’s What I Call Music! albums, it is growing stronger and more powerful. I look back to 1983 and wonder what it was like seeing that advert for an album where you could get the chart-troubling artists who you only heard before on the radio. Like a selection box, you could buy Now That’s What I Call Music! and hear a song by Culture Club or Duran Duran. If you liked that song, you could then get the studio album it was from. The joy  of discussing the latest Now That’s What I Call Music! album and saving your pocket money so you could get it! I think I bought them up until about 1999 - though I still have a huge interest in the series and how it has evolved. You can buy the first Now That’s What I Call Music!. Many fans of the complications are primed and ready to see what is coming from the makers prior to 28th November. A very special day, it will spark off new debate as to which of the one-hundred-and-fifteen numbered albums is best. We will flash back to childhood and our teenage years and say why particular Now That’s What I Call Music!  albums resonated – and why they still do to this day. I cannot understate how important they were to me. How seismic Now That’s What I Call Music! 24 was (and still is!). Once heard, it opened my mind and changed how I saw and connected with music. For that reason alone, the mighty Now That’s What I Call Music! deserves…

HUGE love and respect.

FEATURE: Waxing Empirical… With Another Rise in Vinyl Sales, Will This Lead to a More Widespread Physical Music Renaissance and Reassessment?

FEATURE:

 

 

Waxing Empirical…

PHOTO CREDIT: Alana Sousa/Pexels

With Another Rise in Vinyl Sales, Will This Lead to a More Widespread Physical Music Renaissance and Reassessment?

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SOME more good news came in this week…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Yelena Odintsova/Pexels

relating to vinyl and increased sales. In fact, rather than classic albums driving sales and being the go-to, new albums are leading a lot of people to the format. In fact, Lana Del Rey’s Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd has seen massive vinyl sales. With the choice available online and the communal aspect of going to record shops and browsing, it does mean that we will continue to see steady sales. Events like National Album Day have raised interest in the classic format. Vinyl is very much a go-to for many. I will spread this out and ask about whether this new heigh for vinyl sales will impact other physical formats – in the sense that there is a revival and resurgence of physical music in general. Streaming is still popular, though there is a clear affection and desire for viny. Music Week explained more in their feature from yesterday:

“Vinyl sales have surged by 13.2% year-on-year for the first nine months of 2023.

According to data from the BPI, 3,952,262 vinyl LPs were sold during the year to the end of September. The year-on-year increase was ahead of the 12.4% growth for the first half of 2023.

At 15.1%, the year-on-year increase was even bigger during the three months of the Q3 period. A total of 1,237,620 vinyl LPs were sold in the quarter.

Vinyl sales increased by a fairly modest 2.9% in 2022, but double-digit growth for the format looks likely to return for 2023. With a potential blockbuster Q4 line-up – including albums from Take That, the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift – vinyl is set for another strong quarter during the gifting season.

Black Friday, Record Store Day’s sister event, will take place on November 24. More than 90 artists, including De La Soul, Sia, Joni Mitchell, Prince, Rilo Kiley, The Doors and Post Malone, will release limited edition vinyl editions.

The indie retail sector spoke to Music Week for a feature in our current edition – you can read insights from Rough Trade, Crash Records, Banquet and Drift.

 Speaking about the impact of Record Store Day as part of the feature, ERA CEO Kim Bayley said that the annual event “stands alongside the invention of streaming as a landmark moment for music” and became “the single most important catalyst” for the vinyl revival.

Record Store Day stands alongside the invention of streaming as a landmark moment for music

Kim Bayley

“Are there wrinkles in it? Are there challenges? Of course,” she told Music Week. “That is why we tweak the day every year and take feedback from the entire industry as to ways to shape the day. But the big picture is that it has been and continues to be a resounding success.”

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift was the biggest-selling vinyl release during Q3 with 29,649 sales (Official Charts Company), followed by Blur’s The Ballad Of Darren (26,894), Kylie Minogue’s Tension (19,160), Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts (14,611) and Wham!’s The Singles: Echoes From The Edge Of Heaven (10,782).

The biggest vinyl release for the year to date is Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, which has sales of 33,568 on the format.

With CD sales down 6.3% year-on-year so far in 2023 (to 7,270,654), physical sales are flat overall (down just 0.5% to 11,365,554).

Streaming is of course the dominant means of music consumption now, taking an 88.5% share of the recorded music market. Streaming growth remains in double digits with an 11.6% increase in Streaming Equivalent Albums (SEA) to the end of Q3 (118,914,835 units), according to the BPI.

Overall music consumption (AES) is up 9.8% year-on-year so far in 2023 at 133,914,835 equivalent album units.

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

2023’s biggest albums & singles

According to Official Charts Company data, The Weeknd’s The Highlights is the most consumed album of the year so far (304,923 chart sales in 2023). It has been out in front since Q1.

The Highlights is one of six catalogue titles in the Top 10 for the year to date.

Taylor Swift’s Midnights is at No.2 overall (264,260 sales in 2023) for the year to date, followed by Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (230,927).

The biggest week one sale so far remains the 95,882 for Lewis Capaldi’s Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent.

In the artist album rankings, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was the biggest album of Q3 (131,471), followed by Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts (100,848), which achieved that gold certification in just three weeks.

The biggest UK breakthrough in the album rankings so far this year is Polydor-signed Clavish, whose mixtape Rap Game Awful makes the overall Top 100 to the end of Q3 (No.94, 59,092 sales).

Miley Cyrus’ Flowers, which spent 10 weeks at No.1, is the biggest single with 1,496,859 sales, followed by UK star Raye’s smash Escapism (feat. 070 Shake) on 997,024 chart sales in 2023 (the No.1 for Raye has 1,228,614 sales including those at the end of last year).

During Q3, Sprinter by Dave & Central Cee – which spent 10 weeks at No.1 – emerged as the quarter’s biggest single (612,888 sales).

Olivia Rodrigo was at No.2 with Vampire (498,407), followed by Dua Lipa’s Dance The Night at No.3 (402,282).

Dance The Night is taken from The Barbie Album soundtrack, which would have made No.2 in Q3 (127,152 sales) but for its inclusion on the compilations chart.

Subscribers can click here to read our feature on independent retail as the sector prepares for the busy Q4 period”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Alina Vilchenko/Pexels

Some might say that younger listeners buying vinyl is to be trendy or have the artwork. As I have said in previous features when reacting to the ongoing popularity of vinyl, there is this need for ownership and having something tangible. You get a different relationship with and reaction from an album if you play it on vinyl. Something that can be prized and passed to friends or future generations, there are modern albums that will be future classics. In the same way our parents bought vinyl and have kept them alive, we will see many albums bought this year that are going to be in record collections for decades to come! Maybe the fact C.D.s are stalling and no real boom is happening leads us back to cassettes and alternative physical formats. I think a reason C.D.s are not played as much is because of the lack of devices. Fewer people have C.D. players in their cars. Older systems and Hi-Fis where you could play C.D.s are more reserved to older listeners. For younger fans of physical music, it is great that vinyl is healthy. Despite the fact the cost of a single album on vinyl can cost anywhere between £15-25, there is still this demand. Artists such as Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift are helping bring vinyl to a new generation. Also, as this report lays out, the effect of increased vinyl sales means the turntable market is growing:

“The Turntables Market is a thriving industry that caters to audiophiles, music enthusiasts, and professionals in the music production sector. This report offers a comprehensive overview of the market, presenting key market insights, the impact of COVID-19, latest trends, driving and restraining factors, segmentation, regional insights, key industry players, industry developments, report coverage, and frequently asked questions.

“According to the Market Research Report, the Turntables market is expected to surpass USD 569 by 2027, which is an increase from its current value of USD 395 in 2022. This growth is projected to have a compound annual growth rate (5.4%) between 2023 and 2027.” Ask for a Sample Report

KEY MARKET INSIGHTS: Turntables Market

The Turntables Market is witnessing steady growth due to the resurgence of vinyl records and the revival of analog audio equipment. Key market insights reveal that direct-drive turntables are gaining popularity among DJs and music producers for their precise speed control and quick startup. Additionally, belt-drive turntables are favored by audiophiles for their smoother rotation and reduced motor noise.

COVID-19 IMPACT: Turntables Market

The COVID-19 pandemic had a mixed impact on the Turntables Market. While the initial lockdowns and restrictions disrupted supply chains and sales, there was an increase in demand for turntables from consumers seeking home entertainment options during quarantine. The market experienced a surge in vinyl record sales, benefiting the turntables market”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matthias Groeneveld/Pexels

I have said this before, but I do feel that to encourage physical sales wider than the vinyl market, there needs to be the same availability of other technologies to go alongside turntables. I am not sure what bizarre hybrid it could be. Manufacturing new turntables so there is a playing option/compatibility for C.D.s and cassettes. A new line of players and Hi-Fis for cassettes and C.D.s. Of course, one can still buy older models, though I am not sure how many people buying vinyl who also would necessarily have space or budget for a Hi-Fi. It takes me back to the debate around portable players and reviving them. Again, there are options out there, yet they can be expensive or old-fashioned. A turntable does not necessarily need to adapt in the modern age. I do feel the price of vinyl needs to come down a bit to make it more accessible to all. There are issues and hurdles regarding shipping, the number of vinyl plants, together with the cost of producing a vinyl record to start. I know I am repeating myself from features earlier in the year. The new good news regarding vinyl sales is reason to reinstall and highlight those points. I think that there does need to be focus given to other physical formats and ensuring that there are affordable and convenient options - that means we do not solely rely on vinyl. People still want to listen to albums on the go. The vast majority of people doing that do so through their phones.

PHOTO CREDIT: Car Girl/Pexels

Even if the overall sales of vinyl are high so far this year, as has been pointed out, sales of new albums have slightly declined. Perhaps classic albums are still favoured or obtainable to a different (maybe older) demographic. I wonder whether a younger audience who might want to buy a vinyl copy of a new album do not have the disposable income. That, or they are being given too many reissues and deluxe editions. It is a hard thing bringing down the cost of a vinyl album, given all the costs and logistics involved from pressing to manufacturing. If we celebrate the vinyl market in general, at such a tough and cash-poor time where fans still want to show to own physical music, there does need to be serious thought given to C.D.s, cassettes, and even relaunching a bygone option like MiniDisc. Few of us felt that, by 2023, physical music sales would be hampered by outdated hardware formats or the discontinuation of others. With so many new artists struggling to make a living and relying on album sales to do anything, it is imperative that we make it an affordable as possible. Sites like Bandcamp are really great if someone wants a digital copy. If you are in a shop or want to get a new album, often the vinyl copy can be expensive. You may buy that and decide not to buy a further one (to budget). That, or people are not buying vinyl at all. It would be interesting to see an age demographic and types of albums that each bought.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Feist/PHOTO CREDIT: Mary Rozzi via The New York Times

One of the best albums of this year is Feist’s Multitudes. I was sorely tempted to own it on vinyl but, as you can see, it is quite pricey. Maybe the sheer weight of vinyl makes it harder to produce at a lower cost. Even so, I see different websites and stores quoting different prices for albums. Artists want to sell as many as they can, and yet they have no influence when it comes to setting the price. With so many offering album bundles where you can get a C.D. and cassette, there are options. As I have said many times, fewer people have the devices on which to play them. It is an awkward situation where the fuller picture needs to be represented. Yes, vinyl sales look brilliant, though they do not really highlight how few non-mainstream artists see big vinyl sales. I suspect a lot of teens and people in their twenties do not have the income and option to buy many vinyl albums. Also, there does seem to be this assumption that C.D.s are cassettes are irrelevant and shouldn’t be highlighted. Maybe they have disadvantages that will require major restructuring and remodelling (the vulnerability of the cassette; the fact people don’t have C.D. players). A few things are clear. Vinyl is growing and sales suggest, whether older or new albums are being bought, there are encouraging signs. We also know that fans want physical music and to have that balance with streaming. That means, if vinyl prices are high or there are reasons why fewer new albums are selling huge number, cost and accessibility is considered. Whether uncool or flawed, I still feel there is value and that cheaper option by making C.D.s and cassettes available to play portably – which might mean reissuing a new-style version of the classic Discman/Walkman. Regardless, those sales figures at the top are reason to be cheerful at least! I hope that this pleasing trend continues…

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

RIGHT through 2024.

FEATURE: Summertime Sadness: The Increasing Cost of Attending Music Festivals

FEATURE:

 

 

Summertime Sadness

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels

The Increasing Cost of Attending Music Festivals

_________

MANY people are looking forward…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lana Del Rey at Glastonbury Festival earlier this year/PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Green/Getty Images

to next year’s Glastonbury Festival. Organisers Emily and Michael Eavis have promised there will be two female headliners in 2024. This year saw another all-male line-up. With the likes of Lana Del Rey already on the bill and more than headline-worthy, excuses around ‘pipeline issues’ – one reason why few women are booked as headliners – did not hold water. The Debbie Harry-fronted Blondie could also have headlined. Reacting to this by ensuring that there are women headlining is long overdue. It is something all festivals need to follow! Quit making poor excuses and recognise the talent that is out there and ready to headline! I hope that all festivals get a fifty-fifty gender balance across their bills. With very few major festivals achieving that this year, things need to change next year. That all said, music festivals are a lifeline at a time when many smaller venues are closing. With COVID cases back on the rise, let’s hope that we are not in a position in the summer where we are isolating and not able to mingle! There are a terrific range of festivals that are available to a variety of tastes. One of the main problems with larger festivals is the cost of tickets. Even a one-day pass can be very steep. News broke recently that highlighted some climbs in festivals passes/tickets next year:

“Ticket prices for Glastonbury Festival next year will rise to £360.

It is a £20 increase from this year's event, which cost £335 plus a £5 booking fee - and a £75 hike from the price in 2022.

Fans will be able to buy ticket and coach travel packages on 2 November, and standard tickets on 5 November.

Festival goers will be charged £355 plus a £5 booking fee for standard tickets, with £75 as a deposit and the balance due by the first week of April.

 These standard tickets will not include additional perks like glamping accommodation, paid for separately after tickets are obtained.

Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis made the pricing announcement on social media and said people would need to register in advance on the festival's website.

To purchase a ticket, members of the public must register on the Glastonbury's website by 17:00 GMT on 30 October.

Several major UK festivals have released prices for standard tickets next year - all of which are cheaper than Glastonbury:

• Download - £275

• Wireless - £259.25 (plus £3.25 booking fee)

• Isle of Wight - £190 (plus £19 booking fee)

But Glastonbury is by far the biggest festival in the UK - hosted across the 900-acre site of Worthy Farm in Somerset.

Around 200,000 people attended concerts at this year's event, and a record 21.6 million watched TV coverage on the BBC.

It was headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns N' Roses, and Sir Elton John, who all took to Glastonbury's iconic Pyramid Stage.

Other top artists filled the line-up, including rock band Queens of the Stone Age, and rapper Skepta.

Stages also hosted film screenings, speeches by politicians, and circus and theatre performances.

Despite a price increase of £70 between 2019, when tickets were sold for the 2020 concert, and last year, tickets for the 2023 event sold out in 61 minutes”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels

Despite the fact festivals are an essential release and community for music fans, I don’t think they are being supported and backed by the Government. Same goes for independent venues. As costs rise and it is getting more expensive to stage festivals, it will means ticket prices need to rise. What is the solution? It is clear that many will be squeezed out. With the cost of living going up and people having to ration and budget hard, it will be quite a sacrifice for people going to large festivals in 2024. Even if demand will mean festivals sell out, I think that this comes at a loss for so many. Once on site, there is the cost of food and drink. Throw in travel to get to an event and it makes for a very expensive experience! With rent prices rising heavily, it is going to be even more difficult for many to go to festivals. It is not the fault of organisers. Last year, this article highlighted the fact that rising festival ticket prices are almost unavoidable. There is no safety net in place at all:

“British music fans expressed dismay this week as Glastonbury announced that the cost of tickets for next year’s event will rise from £265 to £335.

Emily Eavis, co-organiser of the not-for-profit festival, said: “We have tried very hard to minimise the increase in price on the ticket but we’re facing enormous rises in the costs of running this vast show, while still recovering from the huge financial impact of two years without a festival because of Covid.”

It is likely that Glastonbury is the canary in the coalmine, as many festival organisers grapple with increasing financial challenges.

Paul Reed, CEO of the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), said the concern over transferring the financial burden to the consumer was shared across the sector: “Organisers are very mindful that there is a cost of living crisis. I think festivals by their very nature want to be inclusive of all parts of society, but they run with incredibly tight margins at the best of times – it can be 10% or less in terms of your potential profit margin – and costs are going up by 25%-30%, so ultimately something has to give.”

PHOTO CREDIT: freestocks.org/Pexels

Many of the rising costs stem from the ongoing effects of Brexit and the pandemic. Supply chain issues continue; many events professionals retrained throughout the lockdown periods, meaning the available workforce is far smaller than at the beginning of 2020. With demand increasing as the festival market grows, labour costs have swelled. Even so, many festivals honoured their 2020 prices for ticketholders returning in 2021 and 2022, despite a dramatic rise in inflation in the interim.

New challenges, such as an increase in artist fees to account for higher post-pandemic touring costs, add to the financial strain. Meanwhile, fluctuating fuel prices mean that the cost of operating generators and transporting infrastructure to sites is unpredictable.

“This is something that is unique to festivals because you build the entire thing from scratch,” says Marina Blake, creative director of Brainchild, an independent festival that had to cancel this year due to a combination of increased costs and slow ticket sales. “In the past, there’d be a quote including hire fee and transport costs right at the start. Now, they’ll give you the quote for the equipment but not the transport costs until the week of the event, which means you don’t know what it’s going to cost you, but you know it’s going to be more than you’re expecting.”

The risks, she says, are too much to bear during a time in which consumers’ financial habits are changing constantly: “We’d sold out every year for the last four years; I felt as if our demand was the only thing I could count on. Now, the people who usually buy tickets are going out less and spending less money”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Caio/Pexels

I think the latest news of yet more ticket price rises for U.K. festivals needs to send a message to the Government that they need to be supported and backed. Many artists are having to pull out of festivals because of the rising cost of touring. The Guardian published a feature earlier this year that underlines how many artists are paying more than they are earning for playing at festivals. Even though I do not buy the fact there is a pipeline issue that means fewer women are visible as potential headliners, it is clear that so many potential festival names are simply unavailable to perform:

“Musicians are dropping out of festivals because huge rises in the cost of performing are outstripping their fees. Artists told the Observer they have had to turn down offers to play or cut out elements of their live shows, while others have revealed they have lost as much as £17,000 for a single performance.

Although ticket prices have risen by 15% on average, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) warned that the costs of staging a show are up by 30%, and that gap is costing both artists and promoters.

More than 100 UK festivals – one in six – have closed permanently since the start of the Covid pandemic, three in the last week alone, due to staffing shortages and the high costs of energy and equipment such as fencing, toilets and stages.

Maxïmo Park were due to play Chagstock in Devon this month but the organisers cancelled it, blaming escalating costs and lower than expected ticket sales.

“It’s a real shame,” said Paul Smith, Maxïmo Park’s lead singer. “I think a lot of festivals are wondering whether it’s worth putting it on, and a lot of smaller acts are wondering if it’s worth the small fees to get there.” The indie rock band are known for their lively stage shows and were unable to tour with their 2020 album, Nature Always Wins, because of lockdown. This summer they have just a handful of dates planned, including Hartlepool’s Tall Ships festival.

IN THIS PHOTO: Elkka

“We’ve stripped back because of the costs – we didn’t take a lighting engineer on our recent European tour,” Smith said. Brexit rules have also made touring more expensive due to the cost of visas and cabotage rules on tour buses.

The Newcastle singer is also part of Unthank : Smith, a collaboration with folk singer Rachel Unthank. “We put a record out this year,” he said. “We looked at a few logistical things. It would have cost us a lot of money to do festival dates, and our fees would have been minimal. So we didn’t.”

Elkka, the electronic artist whose 2021 club hit Burnt Orange helped get her a Radio 1 residency, played a DJ set at this year’s Glastonbury. “I have to be really, really selective about what I do and whether it’s possible financially,” said the musician, whose real name is Emma Kirby. “I’m a DJ as well, so sometimes I look at something and think that I can’t afford to take a show because it’s too expensive to take my show there. So I DJ instead – but I’m lucky to have that option.”

Even as an emerging solo artist, Elkka needs a tech expert to maintain her synthesisers and drum machinesso they don’t fail during a performance, a live sound engineer and a tour manager. Sometimes she will just accept a loss-making trip. “I’m a queer artist. I like to play in spaces where I’m with my allies, and those parties don’t always have the money to take you there. But I can’t keep doing things at a great loss,” said Kirby”.

 IMAGE CREDIT: All Points East

Our economy and position on Brexit means that festivals are struggling to keep costs down. As Time Out showed in their feature that was published before the announcement of price rises in 2024, it does appear that the U.K. is in a unique position. Our festival prices are rising faster than festivals in other parts of the world:

“And not unsuprisingly, it seems that the cost of UK festivals is rising faster than anywhere else. Out of the world’s top ten festivals to see the biggest price surges, seven were based in Britain. Revellers at Reading and Leeds this year have paid 34.4 percent more to attend than last year, making it the second highest increase worldwide after Open’er in Poland (which inflated by 42.1 percent in sterling terms).

London's All Points East didn’t fall far behind, with tickets to see Stormzy et al rising from £68 to £91 from 2022 to 2023 – a 33.8 percent increase. Then came Cornish surfing and music fest Boardmasters, for which attendees have paid 30.3 percent more than last year.

Despite being one of the country’s most spenny weekenders, Glastonbury only came fourth on the list of UK events, with a 19.6 percent increase in ticket prices. Creamfields and Wireless followed with an 18.2 percent and 17 percent increase respectively.

These are the percentage increases of ten UK festivals between summer 2022 and 2023, according to No1 Currency:

1. Reading and Leeds (34.4 percent)

2. All Points East (33.8 percent)

3. Boardmasters (30.3 percent)

4. Glastonbury (19.6 percent)

5. Creamfields (18.2 percent)

6. Wireless (17.0 percent)

7. Latitude (12.2 percent)

8. Isle of White (10.3 percent)

9. Download (2.6 percent)

10. Parklife (0 percent)”.

If some festivals are not raising prices – or only by a small percentage –, it does appear that our biggest are having to incur massive costs - and, as such, it means an average ticket price is almost beyond the reach of many. That is a shame. Attending festivals like Glastonbury or Boardmasters provided these incredible memories. An essential live music experience, it is disappointing that it is so expensive. I hope that there is more funding for music festivals.

 IMAGE CREDIT: Reading Festival

Brexit means that fewer EU musicians are able to play in the U.K. That means that artists from wider afield are being booked. This article highlights a real issue when it comes to artists from the EU being able to come to Britain. This access restriction is causing big damage for music festivals. Something that is not going to be solved next year:

“Figures published today by internationalist campaign group Best for Britain show that, on average, the number of European musicians scheduled to take to the stage at major festivals across the UK this summer has fallen by 40% compared to 2017-19.

The findings mark a slight improvement on 2022 figures where in the first festival season after Brexit and Covid restrictions, European musicians booked to play British festivals had fallen by 53% compared to the years 2017-19. Industry leaders have attributed the improvement to festival organisers and musicians having some experience with new restrictions and paperwork in the second post-Brexit Festival season.

However, this year the number of European musicians playing at Britain’s most iconic festival, Glastonbury, has decreased even further, down 50% this year compared to 42% in 2022.

These new figures have reinforced concerns around the impact that Brexit is having on the diversity of the music scene in the UK. Earlier this year, Best for Britain published research suggesting that the number of UK musicians playing EU festivals had fallen by a third since Brexit.

Industry leaders have confirmed that the government’s Brexit deal continues to make touring much more difficult with new rules on visas and cabotage, and is incompatible with common industry practice where musicians are often asked to fill last-minute vacancies in a festival line-up”.

It is a real problem. The cost of buying a ticket to a major festival. That article I opened with shows what a problem we have. Costs will only rise each year, to the point where people hoping to attend festivals are going to be spending an inordinate amount. I know many will make that sacrifice. They shouldn’t have to! It is an issue reflected across live music. So many big artists are putting their ticket prices up. The cost of seeing your favourite artist on the stage is rising ever higher. Live music should be something everyone is able to access! Festivals especially. Let’s hope there is a solution and price hike freeze soon. Festivals in the sun should not be about stress, sadness and financial strains: they are all about…

HAPPINESS and togetherness.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Grrrl Gang

FEATURE:

 

 

 

Spotlight

Grrrl Gang

_________

WITH a couple…

of great dates ahead in Australia – 20th 0ctober at Pleasures Playhouse, Sydney, NSW: 21st Oct at The Chippo Hotel, Sydney, NSW – there is this international respect and demand that is coming the way of Grrrl Gang. The trio from Yogyakarta, Indonesia consists of Angeeta Sentana (vocals, guitar), Akbar Rumandung (bass, vocals) and Edo Alventa (guitar, vocals). The group have been making waves since 2016. A lot of K-Pop bands translate from Asia and are highlighted in the media. I am not sure whether any other types of music from the Asian continent are given as much spotlight. In fact, most of my Spotlight features concern artists from the U.K. or U.S. It is nice to embrace and dive into the music of Grrrl Girl. They are getting some real praise and salute from the British press. It is no surprise! The trio’s new album, Spunky!, is one that is among this year’s absolute best. I shall come to a review for the album to end. First, here is some detail about a remarkable album:

“Indonesian trio Grrrl Gang build on their considerable worldwide buzz with Spunky!, their full-length debut album. Released on 27 September 2023 by Green Island Music in partnership with exclusive licensees Kill Rock Stars (for North and South America), Trapped Animal Records (UK and EU) and Big Romantic Records (Japan and Taiwan), the album is preceded by its title track and first single which drops on May 31.

Spunky! arrives following some major life changes for Angeeta Sentana (vocals, guitar), Akbar Rumandung (bass, vocals) and Edo Alventa (guitar, vocals), including a switch in locale from Yogyakarta, the city where they formed the band while still in college. “This is Grrrl Gang’s first release after we graduated and got day jobs that made us have to move to Jakarta, which is undeniably 180 degrees compared to Yogya,” says Rumandung. “But moving to Jakarta enabled us to work with Lafa on Spunky! from start to finish.”

Overall, Spunky! is the sound of a band not content to rest on its laurels, despite gathering an impressive list of achievements since Grrrl Gang first got together in 2016 and proceeded to take the local, regional, and international indie scenes by storm, leading to a prestigious performance slot on the pandemic-induced online edition of SXSW 2021 and an A- review that esteemed music critic Robert Christgau bestowed upon Here to Stay!, the 2020 compilation of their early singles. According to Rumandung, “We want this album to show that we’ve changed, that Grrrl Gang is a band that isn’t stuck in one place and that we always have the urge to discover new things.”

In other words, Spunky! proves that Grrrl Gang are – to borrow a familiar phrase – here to stay”.

Let’s move to some interviews from this year. It is hard for any group outside of the U.K. and U.S. to grab a larger foothold and get that international attention. We do not really look at the music coming out of countries like Indonesia. Before getting to a recent NME interview A-indie spoke with the captivating and cool Grrrl Gang:

“The Origin of Grrrl Gang

– I know you formed in 2016. How did the three members, Angie, Akbar, and Edo, meet and get to form the band?

Angee: We went to the same university. I was still a freshman when I met Akbar and Edo, they were already in their third year. Akbar and I studied the same major, while Edo studied economics. I was introduced to them by our former drummer, because I was invited to be a part of a music collective, called Terror Weekend, which Akbar and Edo founded in 2015.
Akbar and I were in a car ride together with said former drummer, as he was looking for new housing, and we thought that it would be great to form a band together. Then Edo came along to be the lead guitarist to make our sound less flat and more colorful.

– What is the meaning of the band’s name, “Grrrl Gang”?

Angee: I think there’s no meaning behind the name “Grrrl Gang”. The idea to name the band came into fruition as a joke, and we looked for other names using a band name generator on the internet, but they all sucked! So, we just stuck with “Grrrl Gang”.

The Choice of English Lyrics

– I’ve heard that there are about 500 languages used in Indonesia. If your home language is Indonesian, why do you use English in lyrics instead of using your first language？

Angee: It’s because I use more English on a daily basis, rather than Indonesian. I feel more comfortable writing, speaking and singing in English.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tiny Studio 

The Issue of Hijab in Indonesia

– I read an article that Indonesian women are practically not free from wearing or not wearing hijab. Regardless of such situations, I guessed it would be “spunky” that Angie didn’t wear hijab in promotion photos. Angie, could you tell us your ideas about wearing or not wearing a hijab?

Angee: I’m not a Muslim, that’s why I don’t wear hijab in promotion photos and in daily life. Indonesia is a multicultural country with many different religions, and what I understand is that for some Muslim women wearing the hijab comes from their own choice and is a rite of passage for them—basically, it’s their own business with God and spirituality. So, seeing how several institutions in this country are “forcing” Muslim women to wear the hijab is quite depressing.

The Asian Indie Music Scene

– How do you think of the Asian indie music scene these days? And do you have any competitors in Asia

Angee: I think it’s great how globalization and the rapidly increasing access to the internet opened up the possibilities of discovering new music in Asian countries and for the Asian indie music scene to be more exposed to more people in different regions, especially considering how traditional media was mostly dominated by the West. I think right now, the Asian indie music scene is bustling and thriving and I’m looking forward to see what’s to come.
Akbar: We don’t see any competitors because music is not a competition anyway.

The Story Behind the Album “Spunky!”

– Listening to this album “Spunky!” just once, indie music fans will get hooked on Grrrl Gang. How did you name this album and the single “Spunky!”?

Angee: The themes that are written about are quite depressing, and the takeaway that I want the listeners to know is that you can overcome anything despite your circumstances. So, we decided to name this album “Spunky!”, because all you need in life is courage and determination. As for the single, I figured that it’s very fitting to name it that, because, I feel like, this is the first ever song that I’ve ever written where I proudly declare that I am powerful and remarkable.

The Concept of “Cool Girl”

– In “Cool Girl”, which is the 5th track of the new album, “Spunky!”, Angie sings “I wish I was a Cool Girl” repeatedly. What is like “Cool Girl” do you think of?

Angee: The “Cool Girl” that is referred to in this track is the patriarchal idea of what a girl should be. The song is satirical and personal, because I can’t deny that I’ve internalized these ideas that manifest in my need to be deemed “perfect” by everyone and myself. The “Cool Girl” that I strive to be is someone who just doesn’t care about what others think.

The Target Audience of Grrrl Gang

– Is there any particular listener or person aiming for?

Angee: Not really, to be honest. I just want everyone that listens to our songs to enjoy and relate to them.
Edo: Same with Angee, we don’t really aim for any specific segment when we wrote the album. This album is for everyone.

The Influences of Punk Music on Grrrl Gang

– I guessed your music was influenced by punk music. Please tell us about three albums that have influenced your music. And tell us about the specific part that inspired you in each album.

Angee: The three albums that inspired “Spunky!” for me are Hole’s “Live Through This”, Sleater-Kinney’s “Dig Me Out”, and The Go-Go’s “Beauty and the Beat”. I love Courtney Love’s candid and morbid lyrics in “Live Through This”, and I deeply relate to them. I guess, her honesty assured me that it’s okay for me to be completely honest about what I went through. “Dig Me Out” made me want to play the guitar for the tracks in “Spunky!” to be more aggressive, meanwhile the vocal melodies in “Spunky!” were inspired from “Beauty and the Beat”.

This NME interview spends time with a trio making irresistible Indie Pop. Angeeta Sentana spoke about the group’s beginnings and how they got to their debut album, Spunky! I have selected some parts of the interview that caught my eye. It is clear that we will be hearing a lot more from Grrrl Group. They are very much here to stay:

“There’s a saying: bands from Jogja that move to Jakarta or other cities when they finish college will disband,” says Rumandung. Grrrl Gang decided they would break the curse. Sentana pushed through her creative block by writing the first song for the record, ‘A Fight Breaks Out At A Karaoke Bar’, and then keeping at it until it felt “effortless” again. Instead of working with a producer they already knew, Grrrl Gang picked someone from outside their circles: Lafa Pratomo. Over a month-long recording process, the band had free rein of Pratomo’s studio, Alventa’s experiments with guitars and pedals manifesting in the noisy, grungy moments of ‘Spunky!’ – textures never before heard in Grrrl Gang’s discography.

The band describe Pratomo as a producer who needs to “deep-dive” with his collaborators. “Talking to Lafa before recording really helped me access those old moments [in the lyrics],” says Sentana. “I told him everything that happened in college, from shitty exes to sexual assault experiences and sexual harassment on stages. I harboured all these feelings that had always been stored in my body but never vocally expressed.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Hafiyyan Faza for NME

Grrrl Gang were, from the beginning, a statement against machismo in Indonesia’s music scene – specifically the othering and objectification of female musicians. That was one of the reasons the band named themselves Grrrl Gang: to anticipate and defang that misogynistic framing, says Sentana. I know you’re going to see me as a woman in a band – so I’ll own it. That was the logic.

Nevertheless, Grrrl Gang still came face to face with these ugly perceptions. “No one really saw me as a songwriter,” Sentana says of her experiences fronting the group, especially early on. “They would just focus on me being a woman in a band: the mouthpiece, the trophy for this group. They only focused on how pretty I looked, and never on the qualities of the songs we make.”

And with Grrrl Gang, it’s all about the songs. “We always thought that this band had to have a female perspective for all lyrics and narration,” Rumandung says. “We never had that before, especially in Indonesia where the industry and community are too masculine sometimes. We need to balance it. And there are lots of stories that Angee needs to tell.”

As a storyteller and a musician, Sentana hopes she can be a positive influence: “I just hope I inspire young women to pick up a guitar or any musical instrument and write their own songs.” That hope manifests in their music video for ‘Spunky!’, which follows an introvert at a rowdy Grrrl Gang show. As she gazes at Sentana, resplendent before the crowd, her discomfort morphs into open-mouthed awe – and before long she’s imagining herself holding a guitar, standing on stage singing ‘Spunky!’.

I am going to finish with a glowing review for Spunky! An emphatic debut that people should get, I first want to quote from Rough Trade, and what they say about one of the most exciting and essential debut albums of this year. Proof that some of the very best and most important Pop is coming from Asia:

“Indonesian trio Grrrl Gang builds on their considerable worldwide buzz with Spunky!, their full-length debut album. Released on 22 September 2023 by Green Island Music in partnership with exclusive licensees Kill Rock Stars (United States), Trapped Animal Records (United Kingdom) and Big Romantic Records (Japan and Taiwan), the album is preceded by its title track and first single dropped on May 30, featured from the same title of the album, 'Spunky!' Spunky! arrives following some major life changes for Angeeta Sentana (vocals, guitar), Akbar Rumandung (bass, vocals), and Edo Alventa (guitar, vocals), including a switch in locale from Yogyakarta, the city where they formed the band while still in college. “This is Grrrl Gang’s first release after we graduated and got day jobs that made us have to move to Jakarta, which is undeniably 180 degrees compared to Jogja,” says Rumandung. “But moving to Jakarta enabled us to work with Lafa on Spunky! from start to finish.” The song itself essentially describes Sentana's experience during a manic episode. “I feel like I’m on top of the world, untouchable. I do things without thinking, always chasing after that feeling of instant gratification. I feel extra confident in myself to a point of grandiose thinking and that I could do anything,” Sentana explains. That would be Lafa Pratomo, the in-demand producer brought in to help shape the ten tracks that make up Spunky! With a resume that includes the likes of the chanteuse Danilla and legendary singer-songwriter Iwan Fals, Pratomo might not seem the obvious choice to take the Grrrl Gang producer’s chair. But according to Rumandung, “In terms of production, this was something new for us by working with someone outside of Grrrl Gang’s comfort zone.”

Indeed, Pratomo considerably beefs up Grrrl Gang’s sound particularly Alventa’s guitar tones, Rumandung’s rumbling bass, and touring drummer Muhammad Faiz Abdurrahman’s muscular beats while preserving the band’s signature raucous energy, catchy melodies, and Sentana’s attitude-filled, equal-parts-honey-and-vinegar vocals. The music video for Spunky! premieres on the Grrrl Gang YouTube channel on the same day as the release of the song. The video, directed by Bathroom Girls, is part of a continuous movie, with Spunky! being the second chapter. It tells the story of an introverted girl who goes to a house party to validate herself among her peers. Despite facing challenges to her self-esteem, she manages to overcome her discomfort to survive the night. During the party, she watches Grrrl Gang perform Spunky! and is mesmerized by the confident performance of Angee, the lead singer. The girl imagines herself as Angee, a confident and cool person that she will never be. Hailing from the cultural city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Grrrl Gang is a rising force in the independent music scene with their infectious melodies, anthemic songs, and electrifying live performances. The power trio, composed of Angee Sentana on guitar and vocals, Akbar Rumandung on bass, and Edo Alventa on guitar, has been making waves in the Southeast Asian music scene since their formation in 2016. Grrrl Gang's music is a celebration of their collective roots and a testament to the power of pop music to connect people across cultures and borders. Their lyrics touch on themes such as feminism, mental health, and relationships with a raw honesty that speaks to a generation of young listeners. With their infectious energy, socially conscious lyrics, and unique sound, Grrrl Gang is poised to take the global music scene by storm and become a voice for a new generation”.

Let’s finish on a review from Joyzine. This is what they had to say about an irresistibly listenable album that is going to be among the most-celebrated of the year when critics decide on the best albums of 2023. I am excited to see where Grrrl Gang go next. Let’s hope they have some touring dates in the U.K. very soon. So many people here would love to see them play:

“Spunky!’ is the debut album from Indonesian band Grrrl Gang I have to say for me, if I see any band in any way associated with the Kill Rock Stars record label, it always piques my interest.’ Spunky’ has been released across several labels across the world- Green Island Music in partnership with exclusive licensees Kill Rock Stars (for North, Central, and South America), Trapped Animal Records (UK and EU), and Big Romantic Records (Japan and Taiwan). So many good bands have been associated with Kill Rock Stars in particular, and Grrrl Gang are no exception.

Spunky! is a fun debut that is in no way one dimensional. I note that on their Bandcamp bio, they have described themselves as an ‘indie pop trio’. While there is definitely indie-pop moments to be had here- such as songs ‘Blue Stained Lips’ and ‘The Star’, there is also punky, riot grrrl moments too. Title track ‘Spunky’ is one of those moments, even featuring lyrics that wouldn’t seem out of a place on a Bikini Kill album- ‘I was born in the pit, I gave birth in the pit, I never shave my pits, Let me swallow your spit’. ‘Better than Life’ is a minute and a half shouty assault that will stick in your mind. The song is quite dark, dealing with thoughts of depression.

Other topics touched upon on this album include insecurity on single ‘Cool Girl’ (a personal favourite for me) and self loathing on ‘Birthday Blues’. So despite the fun sounding title, ‘Spunky!’ actually covers a whole spectrum of personal emotions.

The band have been together since 2016 and have already built an impressive fanbase in that time. They have toured around South East Asia and one of their first singles ‘Bathroom’ received over a million streams online. With the release of ‘Spunky!’ I am sure that they will be making waves here in the UK also”.

Such a sensational, fresh and colourful trio who have provided us with one of the best albums of the year in 2023. Spunky! is a sign that Grrrl Gang are going to be a huge name. Such a broad and varied group who can make any subject and sound completely compelling and their own, many will sit back and watch to see…

WHAT they do next.

___________

Follow Grrrl Gang

PHOTO CREDIT: Hafiyyan Faza for NME

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/grrrlgang/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@grrrlgangband

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/grrrlgangband

Bandcamp:

https://grrrlgang.bandcamp.com/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@GrrrlGang

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GgA61hzcYno3GYTrjhZ6A

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/grrrlgangband/

FEATURE: To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have a Nice Time): The Jam's All Mod Cons at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have a Nice Time)

The Jam's All Mod Cons at Forty-Five

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ALTHOUGH fans of The Jam…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Jam (from left to right: Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler, Paul Weller)/PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

would argue which of their studio albums is the best, few can deny that All Mod Cons was a big step forward. Released on 3rd November, 1978, I wanted to look ahead to the forty-fifth anniversary. One of the best British albums ever, it was produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven. 1977’s This Is the Modern World got some good reviews - though it was largely seen as a disappointment by many critics. The third album from The Jam saw everything click into place. All Mod Cons was when Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler released into the world their first major work. You can buy All Mod Cons on vinyl. Mature, confident and assured,  The Jam had definitely moved up and were in stunning form. Classics like Down at a Tube Station At Midnight, English Rose, David Watts, All Mod Cons and ‘A' Bomb in Wardour Street rank alongside the finest songs that The Jam ever recorded. I want to get to a couple of features about All Mod Cons. Last November, Udiscovermusic. highlighted an album that announced The Jam as one of the most essential and influential bands of their generation:

“Unlike contemporaries such as Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Jam initially spent several years honing their craft on the small club circuit, so when they burst onto the scene early in 1977, they blazed with passion and purpose. In just five short years, with albums the likes of In The City, All Mod Cons and Sound Affects, the group spearheaded a mod revival that still reverberates today.

Seemingly at odds with punk’s “Year Zero” mentality, the Rickenbacker-wielding, Surrey-based trio didn’t immediately slot in with their peers. Though acceptably loud and aggressive, the band’s music openly betrayed their collective love of mod-inclined forbears The Who and The Kinks, while their sharp black stage suits were anathema to young punks sporting safety pins, ripped T-shirts, and bondage trousers.

Nonetheless, the kids dug The Jam from the word go. After the band signed to Polydor Records, their debut LP, In The City, rose briskly to No.20 in the UK charts in May 1977; its swift follow-up, November ’77’s This Is The Modern World, climbed to No.22 and went silver. Yet while This Is The Modern World was superficially a success, it was largely savaged by the press and, during the first half of 1978, The Jam were plunged into crisis. Frontman and primary songsmith Paul Weller was struck down with writer’s block, while Polydor rejected the band’s next set of demos. After Weller eventually finished a fresh batch of songs, The Jam were forced to complete their third LP, All Mod Cons, with engineer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, after producer Chris Parry was sacked during the fraught initial sessions.

Triumph ultimately sprang from adversity, however, and fans bagged an exciting preview of the imminent All Mod Cons when the LP’s superb lead single, “Down In The Tube Station At Midnight,” was released in October 1978. Buoyed by an intricate Bruce Foxton bassline and Weller’s vivid, narrative-style lyric bemoaning the rise in right-wing violence, the song was effectively The Jam’s first truly great 45 and it rapidly re-introduced the band to the British Top 40, where it peaked at No.15.

Issued just weeks later, on 3 November 1978, the pivotal All Mod Cons more than fulfilled “… Tube Station”’s promise. Tracks such as “‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street” and the caustic, stardom-related “To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)” were laced with the band’s hallmark nostril-flaring aggression, but this was tempered by a rapidly flourishing maturity in Weller’s songwriting abilities, which ensured that The Jam could now deliver material as brave and diverse as the Revolver-style psychedelia of “In The Crowd,” the bittersweet “It’s Too Bad” and the wistful, Nick Drake-esque “English Rose.”

Championed by fans and critics alike, the album hit Gold status, shot to No.6 in the UK Top 40, and scooped the New Musical Express’ prestigious Album Of The Year award. Its success was integral to The Jam outstripping punk and embarking on a lengthy tussle with the mainstream which, a mere 18 months later, yielded their first British No.1, courtesy of “Going Underground”.

I will come to some reviews of the mighty All Mod Cons. Whist many might name 1979’s Setting Sons as the best album The Jam ever released, All Mod Cons usually comes in the top three. The improved songwriting and the range of sounds and emotions that one hears on All Mod Cons means that it held in high esteem. It is clear that The Jam were close to splitting after This Is the Modern World. Paul Weller was apathetic and the band were being written off as a one-hit wonder. A Punk band without stamina, this criticism and pressure almost spurred The Jam onto proving themselves. All Mod Cons instantly made an impression. Maybe inspired by Ray Davies and his observational, character-driven songwriting, this source of influence means All Mods Cons is the rich and relevant album that is as important today as it was in 1978. I am going to move on to CLASH. It is amazing that The Jam managed to produce something as incredible as All Mod Cons following the disappointing reaction to This Is the Modern World. Weller departing London and going back to his hometown. The promises and perceived glamour of London was not all it cracked up to me. Maybe the quiet and lack of opportunities outside of London were frustrating:

“In 1978, to a backdrop of tribal youth cultures and economic crisis, The Jam answered years of snobbish disregard from the London-based punk elite when their aggressive and melodic sound, previously sneered at by the capital’s hip art school set, came of age with the release of their third album, ‘All Mod Cons’.

By 1978 The Jam had released two albums of R&B-infused teenage punk to transient acclaim. Their debut ‘In The City’ had hit a real nerve with the new wave of mod kids, however their weak second album, ‘This Is The Modern World’ was met with a frosty reception by the music press. This scathing reaction shook main man Paul Weller and sent the band into a period of severe creative drought. Hoping the location would provide inspiration, Polydor hired an isolated country house to record the third album. Unfortunately the fresh air left little impression on the cappuccino-loving Weller and the new material drew a blank with the label.

Taking the opinion of Polydor to heart and realising that the glamorous mythology of London perhaps wasn’t all that great, Weller, the band’s principal songwriter and spokesman, left the buzz of London for his hometown of Woking to ponder their next step. The unchanged landscape recalled the life he had left behind; crumbling brick walls and empty chip shops, romantic teenage lovers under streetlights, the pouring of rain and the missing of buses. In the face of the transparency of the London scene these places and memories, although only half-formed, seemed real and true. This hazy nostalgia added a touch of whimsy to Weller’s songwriting, which referenced directly the innocence of English psychedelia.

Reunited with engineer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven the band progressed from their early Who arrangements, delving deeper into their beloved Sixties and finding massive resonance with the innovative recording techniques pioneered by George Martin and The Beatles. Coppersmith-Heaven introduced the band to double-tracking and phasing, adding to the psychedelic feel of the lyrics on the tender ode to love ‘It’s Too Bad’. This dreamy sentimentality is continued on ‘English Rose’. With its opening sounds of a tugboat and the tide splashing against the sand, it is a stripped-down acoustic track using finger-picking to accompany a personal and tender lyric that demonstrates the depth of feeling and maturity to Weller’s thoughts at the time. This level of reflection enabled him to look inward, adding depth, pathos and luxury to his songwriting.

As a consequence the lyrics became more like narratives, telling fly on the wall stories laced with emotion about the unnoticed subtleties of life. Influenced by The Kinks’ Ray Davies, Weller developed a third person commentary, honing a talent for narrative and storytelling. ‘All Mod Cons’ advances this notion in its creation of nameless characters moulded in the current issues of the day. In ‘Mr. Clean’ Weller mockingly parodies the rat race and capitalism backed by a tight rhythm section flirting with psychedelic phasing. Equally as studied, ‘Billy Hunt’ is a small-town reactionary pissed off with low-wages, shit pubs, and the limitations of a working class boy in Thatcher’s Britain.

From its Sixties-influenced inner sleeve to the beauty of effects-drenched compositions like ‘The In Crowd’ and the lyrical perfection of ‘The Place I Love’, ‘All Mod Cons’ was the starting point in a journey that would see The Jam become one of the most revered bands of all time. The albums that were released in its wake saw Weller take the band on a diverse route to the very top of the music industry that he so despised. Petrified of complacency and always applying the mod ethos of never looking back and always progressing, Weller presented a new sound or idea for each further album before breaking up the band at the very peak of their powers, amid mass media hysteria and fans dependant on their mythology tearfully grieving their loss.

Although their ideas strengthened in its wake, never again were they as tight, incisive and fresh as on ‘All Mod Cons’, the album for which they will always be remembered and whose influence is plastered all over the sound of this decade”.

I am going to finish off now. Uncut spoke with Paul Weller in 1998. Twenty years after All Mod Cons was released, Weller was reflecting on his career and time with The Jam. It is clear that Weller, when writing All Mod Cons, had unlocked something inside of him:

“All Mod Cons was enthusiastically received. Could you feel your songwriting improving?

"Yeah, I could. I'd found my feet. Modem World was a low point. You make your first album - basically, it's your live set. It took about 10 days to record. All of a sudden, we'd used our 10 songs and you've been out on the road and you've got to sit down and write another album. Which we did, the same year - and it shows. But it didn't happen. It was . . . what's the word I'm looking for? 'Shit ! It was shit. I had to sit back and going to let this slide or fight back against it?' I had to prove my worth, sort of, 'This is it.'"

You had a steady girlfriend - Gill Price -by this point. Was that stability important? "I think it's totally separate."

Had you started to move away from the other two in The Jam?

"Well, I fell in love. All of a sudden, that person becomes your world, you know, so you don't hang out with your mates any more. [Pause]. But I wouldn't say any of that had a bearing on my work."

Did that distance give you the space to create? "Nah. More like, 'Fuck, I'm going to prove myself.'"

To critics, to your audience, or just to yourself?

A bit of all of that. But to myself, mostly. I've often been good at that, when my back's against the wall. It's like self-pride. A belief that I am still fucking good and I can do it."

"English Rose" was the first punk ballad. Quite a brave step?

"It was at the time, because we hadn't done anything like that."

How did it go down at gigs?

"We never played it live. I had enough fuckin' trouble recording it-it had quite a few tricky chords. I can actually remember recording it. No drums or bass, just me and an electric guitar. I was very self-conscious singing those kind of open words. It was very revealing. Like bearing your soul a bit."

Was that the first time you did that?

"Yeah. There were even some seagull noises on it-1 needed something to hide behind."

An early glimpse of the solo Paul Weller?

"I suppose so."

Is it a shock to hear that "version" of yourself 20 years on?

"No, not so much a shock because I feel comfortable with that part of me as well. Some of the lyrics make me cringe because they're so youthful. Naive idealism? Yeah, but I can appreciate it. It was that age, written for that moment. That state of mind." "A-bomb In Wardour Street" was pretty apocalyptic. "It was quite a violent time. There were always fights at gigs. You were guaranteed it was going to kick off at the end of the gig. Even walking around London was a violent thing at the time."

In December, 1977, Weller was alleged to have glassed a bloke's face in the bar of Leeds' Hilton Hotel. He turned out to be the Australian rugby team's manager. Said team proceeded to beat "seven shades of shit" out of Bruce Foxton: Weller spent the night in the cells.

Did you ever get attacked on the street like Johnny Rotten did?

"Not so much, but there were times we come close to it. At gigs, beer mugs would come at you -that's if people liked you People would spit on stage and all that bollocks "

You didn't like that?

"No, I wasn't that keen, really."

Did the public think you were more like them than your Strummers and Rottens?

"Yeah, and they were right, we were. I think also, by the same token, the press - it was easier for them to get into The Clash because there was an intellectual side, like fuckin' Lenin, or. . . know what I mean" And I could only quote Lennon'

"We were the real deal, though, I think. Without hyping it all up, we were three suburban, pretty green, ordinary people."

The People's Band?

"It was a people's band. I know it's dodgy ground when you say those things because it sounds a bit pretentious, but it's fuckin' true And there was always that feeling at gigs, man. That we weren't all that dissimilar to our audience."

You would always talk to your fans, let them come back stage.

"It was great at first, because we was popular - we'd started to take off. Then all of a sudden there were 100 people outside after the gig, and then there were 500. I kind of retracted from that point. Put up a wall a little bit It was a bit freaky for me I thought it was kind of a bit odd. We was trying to say, We're the same as you.' But once something blows up big . . . one of my aunty's friends was saying something about how in Hendrix's day they used to speak to people afterwards, but I was saying to her, 'You forget there were only about 60 people at his gigs in them days What about when it's 6,000?' It gets increasingly difficult”.

I think there is some context and useful insight from Paul Weller. On 3rd November, we celebrate forty-five years of this brilliant album. If some of the press had written The Jam off in 1977, a renaissance and resurrection happened. Few would doubt them again. Such a timely and important album that so many people reacted to, it is no surprise that it has endured and still speaks truth. The Winter of Discontent was the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the country where we saw widespread strikes by private, and later public, sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Labour Party government had been imposing. At such a turbulent and tough time for the U.K., The Jam released this album that talked about politics, class struggle, and the far-right. In some ways, All Mod Cons is relevant and timely…

IN whole new ways.

FEATURE: Kissability: Sonic Youth's Glorious Daydream Nation at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Kissability

Sonic Youth's Glorious Daydream Nation at Thirty-Five

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I want to spend some time with…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sonic Youth in 1988/PHOTO CREDIT: Frans Schellekens/Redferns

the iconic Daydream Nation. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to call it that. The fifth studio album from Sonic Youth came out on 18th October, 1988. This phenomenal and highly acclaimed double album earned Sonic Youth a major label deal. One of the most celebrated albums ever, the band adopted a new creative process here. Longer sessions and jams were favoured in search of finding that perfect sound. Led by Thurston Moore’s melody ideas and chord changes, the band spent ages fashioning these into songs. Far from sounding like a laboured and complex album, there is an accessible, nimbleness and urgency to the tracks. Strangely for a double album, there is no baggage or wasted moments. Even the very best double albums have some filler on them. The Beatles’ 1968 eponymous album for example. After signing with DGC, Sonic Youth released the mesmeric Goo in 1990; 1992’s Dirty was the completion of a sensational trio. An album that I would recommend everyone grabs on vinyl, this is one of those classics where you do not need to know much about the band to appreciate it. I don’t think it is possible to do justice to Daydream Nation in a single feature! I will try my best. Nearly thirty-five years since it came out, it has this huge and vital legacy. One of the most important albums of its era I think. I am not sure whether Sonic Youth’s members are marking the thirty-fifth anniversary. Maybe Kim Gordon will say something? Whether Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley have an announcement coming? It will be interesting to see.

I am going to come to a couple (of the many) incredibly positive reviews for Daydream Nation. It is clear that the band ascended to a new level after the stunning Sister (1987). I said that Daydream Nation was the start of a trilogy of genius albums. In fact, ever since their third studio album, 1986’s EVOL, they had hit this rich vein of form! Established this unbreakable connection and set a golden standard for all Alternative Rock/Post-Punk sounds. Albumism spotlighted Daydream Nation on its thirtieth anniversary in October 2018:

“Sonic Youth has always been a band with a lot to say and their fifth full-length studio album Daydream Nation is no exception. It’s an incredible album, both angry and funny, thoughtful and flippant—a perfect equation for “cool.” Recorded in the summer of 1988 at Greene Street Studio in New York City, Daydream Nation featured a photo in the liner notes of the band standing in a dark city alleyway. They look young and aloof, Thurston Moore wearing his sunglasses in the streetlight. There isn’t anything in the photo that would look out of place 30 years later, a testament to the enduring coolness of Sonic Youth.

When released on October 18, 1988, Daydream Nation was met with widespread critical acclaim. It was produced by Nick Sansano, who up to this point had mainly worked on Public Enemy albums. The Wharton Tiers-bred jazz and noise elements of earlier albums are used on top of a pop structure, instead of as the foundation. A studio engineer whose experience had been with hip-hop, not art rock, his rhythm-driven influence played beautifully with the more obscure sound the band had cultivated to that point.

Sister (1987), the album preceding Daydream Nation, shares a similar conceptual background, based on the science fiction writing of Philip K. Dick. While not a true concept album, Daydream Nation incorporates the same futuristic paranoia, this time finding inspiration in Neuromancer and James Ellroy. The mindset of a dystopian near-future feels prescient in the late ‘80s ultra-consumerist society and adds an edge of desperation to the general punk angst.

Widely considered Sonic Youth’s greatest album, it served as a manifesto for alternative music. College radio was thriving, bringing a very specific brand of New York cool to campuses across the country. “Teen Age Riot” kicks off the album with a Kim Gordon incantation. Originally referred to as “J. Mascis for President,” the threat of a second coming of punk is an enthusiastic rallying cry for indie music.

Charges against capitalism and the American Dream are leveled again on “The Sprawl.” Gordon drawls, “Does fuck you sound simple enough?” and kicks off an ode to suburban horrors. “Come on down to the store / You can buy some more and more and more and more,” serves as the chorus, a menacing pastiche of the late ‘80s culture.

“Eric’s Trip,” “Hey Joni,” and “Rain King” are Lee Ranaldo tracks, adding surrealist drama to the album. Based on the monologue by Eric Emerson in the Andy Warhol movie Chelsea Girls, “Eric’s Trip” is a dry parody full of manic noise, Moore using a drumstick on his fretboard while Ranaldo roars ahead on his guitar. Ranaldo’s significant contributions to Daydream Nation would position him as a vital member of the band and help to further define their sound into their second decade.

“Silver Rocket” and “‘Cross the Breeze” are full throttle rock music, everyone having fun and showing off a little bit. They fit nicely into the ‘80s college rock zeitgeist, with hints of Hüsker Dü. “Total Trash” sounds like Sonic Youth’s version of pop. Musically, the group runs the gamut on Daydream Nation in a more comprehensive fashion than previous albums, perhaps due to the extended double album length giving them some room to try things out.

Despite the length of Daydream Nation, every song is good. There is a frantic intensity that never seems to die down, normally only captured by a newborn band hungry to prove their collective rage. Even when a track begins to wind down, there’s rarely a moment of ambient noise, normally a Sonic Youth signature. A two-minute song turns into seven minutes, yet even after all of the original tracks, it’s still not enough. Daydream Nation is essential to the punk rock canon, an exceptional point in a band’s already prolific career”.

Let’s move onto another thirtieth anniversary feature. The Quietus published their piece by announcing that there were events and special things happening. 2018 was a big year for Daydream Nation. Amazing and quite right that this phenomenal album was being properly celebrated and given this special recognition:

“The album’s 30th anniversary is being marked with a series of events presenting Daydream Nation-related films with filmmaker Lance Bangs, Sonic Youth archivist Aaron Mullan, Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley from the band, and others. By wielding carefully-curated – and, importantly, generation-spanning – source material, an immutable truth emerges: no matter the bandwidth or doting column inches that have been dedicated to it over the years, the legacy of Daydream Nation feels like it resides in the unrepeatable backdrop of its creation (namely New York City of 1988) and the epiphanies that it later spawned live. Only film could vividly translate those realities and it’s something that 30 Years of Daydream Nation comfortably pulls off.

The gist and schedule is straightforward: a “SY edit” of Put Blood in the Music is shown in a brand-new, restored transfer, followed by excerpts from Lance Bangs’ new concert film of the band performing Daydream Nation in its entirety in Glasgow in 2007. Rounding out the bill are unseen gems from the band’s archives with an emphasis on “localising” the presentation for each city. As ever with Sonic Youth, the fans play a sizeable role. “I’ve been in contact with tape traders and the people who originally filmed or taped the shows,” Mullan tells us. “Often times there are superior audio sources that we can re-sync with video, and with modern tools we can fix old issues like misaligned azimuth, DC offset, and just plain old noise to present old recordings better than they've been seen or heard before. Audiences often get emotional about the archival stuff.”

Centring on the heady creative energy of New York at the tail-end of the 1980s, Atlas’ Put Blood in the Music feels inextricable from the Daydream Nation story. Featuring a towering cast of scene protagonists including Glenn Branca, Lydia Lunch and John Cale, it’s a busy and beatific eulogy to, as one voice puts it early on, “the white noise of the city sounds” that finds Sonic Youth – still fresh from laying down their defining statement – thriving centre-stage. Nothing hones in on the essential topographical heart of Daydream Nation quite like this particular edit of Atlas’ film.

Fast-forwarding twenty years, long-time Sonic Youth collaborator Lance Bangs’ new concert film bounds forth today as an equally vital document from the recent past. Capturing the band, four years shy of disbanding, revisiting Daydream Nation at Glasgow’s ABC in 2007, it’s a slow-burning, multi-camera throwback that, crucially, frames the occasion with the fans (shots of the giddy yet static onlooking mass conveys something more potent than Charles Atlas or anyone else could ever hope.) Just as the woman who introduces Put Blood in the Music refers to downtown Manhattan on the cusp of the 1990s, the band’s “loud, violent, non-stop energy” is laid bare, a transmission coursing forth as sheer meditative resolve.

If there’s one thing 30 Years of Daydream Nation exhumes it’s that Sonic Youth’s defining statement didn’t just mirror the rapture and anxiety that was New York, America and the world at the tail-end of the decade. From the vantage point of the future it fiercely confronted – by having this chance to view it via the broad prism of Bangs’, Atlas’ and Mullan’s presentations – it feels like a self-contained revelation forever insisting upon the beginning of another new path. As Ranaldo incants on Daydream peak ‘Hey Joni’: “Forgot the past, and just say yes.” Thank God they took their own advice”.

Since Daydream Nation arrived on 18th October, 1988, it has received nothing but plaudits and applause! It is an album impossible to ignore or dislike. So many powerful and fascinating tracks fit together wonderfully. I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would have been for the band and producer Nick Sansano to sequence the songs and ensure there was this consistency. As it stands, Daydream Nation is an album that will be loved and honoured forever. So many bands formed after hearing Sonic Youth’s masterpiece. This is what AllMusic say about the New York City’s band’s magnum opus:

“Sonic Youth made a major step forward with 1987's Sister, their first album where the songs were as strong as the group's visionary approach and they rocked with the force and authority they'd clearly sought since the beginning. If 1988's Daydream Nation didn't make as decisive a leap in terms of theory or style, as far as execution was concerned, it was Sonic Youth's first unqualified masterpiece, a triumph that made them one of the most respected bands in indie rock. Initially released as a two-LP set, the sheer scope of Daydream Nation was ambitious, but the longer tracks worked to Sonic Youth's advantage, allowing them the space to lay down solid melodic structures and then use them as a framework for extended jams (thankfully, the band made splendid use of their wanderlust without wearing out their welcome).

Sonic Youth were playing at the top of their game on the Daydream Nation sessions; the guitar interplay between Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo was stronger and more intuitive than before, and bassist Kim Gordon and drummer Steve Shelley had grown into a powerful rhythm section that cut an impressive groove, giving the band a greater freedom to explore the space around them without getting lost. Sonic Youth were not simply tighter on Daydream Nation, they were making better and more satisfying use of their arsenal of alternate tunings and bent but elemental song structures, and the final product fused their love of creatively applied noise and the sound of the electric guitar with song structures that merged elements of punk, prog, boogie, and psychedelia. The journey from the trippy joy of "Teenage Riot" to the hot-rodded choogle of "Eliminator Jr." was a bracing, glorious experience, and Daydream Nation confirmed their status as one of America's best and most original alternative rock bands, and one that had a shot at a future outside the underground -- a pleasant surprise given the alienating air of their earliest work”.

I shall wrap things up with a review from Pitchfork. They assessed the Deluxe Edition in 2007. It seems that, regardless of what your musical tastes are, there is something on Daydream Nation for everyone. I first heard the album in the 1990s. You hear songs from the album played today. They still have this incredible power to move and get under the skin:

“I don’t expect to hear too many complaints about the rating above. Daydream Nation is a great uniter: You’d be hard pressed to find many fans of indie rock who don’t have some love for this record. That’s partly because this record is great, sure—that’s one boring reason—but it’s also because this record is one of a handful that helped shape the notion of what American indie rock can potentially mean. It’s almost a tautology: Indie fans love Daydream Nation because loving stuff like Daydream Nation is part of how we define what indie fans are.

Not that there wasn’t plenty of underground music in the U.S. before this album’s 1988 release—hardcore punk, high-art avant garde, quirky college rock, DIY, weirdo regional scenes. But the notion that all those Reagan-era discontents might be in the same boat—a new Alternative Nation just beginning to converge—hadn’t yet been fully articulated. Sonic Youth sensed that convergence in the making, and they were pretty sure it had something to do with Dinosaur Jr.: “A new aesthetic of youth culture,” Thurston Moore called it in Matthew Stearns’ 33 1/3 book about the album, “wherein anger and distaste, attributes associated with punk energy, were coolly replaced by head-in-the-clouds outer limits brilliance.” Right. So the band writes the most glorious, accessible pop song of its career, calling it “J Mascis for President”—i.e., an underground-rock campaign song—and it kicks off this record under the title “Teen Age Riot.” What does that sound like if not the grand calling-together of a nascent underground audience?

Sonic Youth don’t set the song up as a call to arms. Instead, Thurston, singing, is in bed, just like you might be while listening to it—or to Bug, or Surfer Rosa, or Isn’t Anything, all of which came within the same year. Just two motes of potential energy, both waiting for Mascis to “Come running in on platform shoes/With [his] Marshall stack/To at least just give us a clue.” The video for this song contains more images of musicians who aren’t in Sonic Youth than musicians who are: Ian MacKaye, Patti Smith, Mark E. Smith, Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Sun Ra, Daniel Johnston, Neil Young, the Beach Boys—a crash course in what still, almost 20 years later, looks like an indie canon.

Following that, the band spends this double album managing to inhabit just about every major strain of the underground, collecting and referencing each facet of what this “new youth culture” might look like:

avant-garde Downtown NYC new music, complete with odd harmonic collisions and screwdrivers wedged in guitars

hardcore punk sneering and double-time drumbeats

good old off-kilter, accessible collegiate pop music

gorgeous, oceanic “head-in-the-clouds outer limits” guitar stuff, which-- along with the previous year’s releases from My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr., and the Pixies—would define indie rock’s guitar vocabulary as much as anything this side of Joy Division/New Order

high-art, film, and literary references, ranging from the album cover (a Gerhard Richter painting) to the lyrics (which borrow from an Andy Warhol film and books by Harry Crews and Denis Johnson—and this is before Denis Johnson published Jesus’ Son)

giant tongue-near-cheek rock gestures, like including a three-part “trilogy” and four Led Zeppelin-style icons representing the band members

slacker poses and goofy skater-kid trash culture

ambitious art-world braininess

this

that

the other

All melted down into one lump: “Seamless” isn’t even the word.

Of course, now that a whole genre's grown out from Daydream Nation’s roots, all its “difficult” sounds, modified guitars, and strange collisions have become de riguer, invisible, and normalized, more clearly revealing the shimmering pop epics that always lay beneath. What’s really shocking is the energy of it. This record’s default setting is the place most rock bands try to work up to around the third chorus—guitar players veering off into neck-strangling improvisations, singers dropping off the melody and into impassioned shouts. These songs start there and just stay. Usually the guitars spend a few bars wandering off and into sideways tangles, choking out their harmonies, and then come back together and spend a few bars pinning down the riff: On “’Cross the Breeze,” that means Kim Gordon keeps returning to the same refrain, each time grunting it more insistently than the last. Sometimes they don’t even stay there: Lee Ranaldo’s “Hey Joni” starts off already on some next level of energy, and then Lee shouts “kick it!” and the band ratchets up to some next next level, and then he coasts up to one exhilarating shouted “HEY!” and the band bursts through a ceiling higher than you could have imagined at the start of the track. It’s the kind of transcendent glory that crosses genres and even arts: that same in-the-zone feeling you get from a be-bop combo in top gear, a rapper at the absolute clear-eyed peak of his game—hell, even an athlete in perfect function.

Lyrically, it’s Thurston who turns in the rock slacker trash: When he’s not just lying in bed, heÆs wandering around downtown Manhattan, getting mugged, blowing up amplifiers, and talking in a stoned skater-kid argot (“you got to fake out the robot!”). Lee, being Lee, exists on some more mystical future/past plane, located in dreams and open fields instead of on the Bowery. Kim’s lyrics are the brutal, terrifying ones, each song outlining a flirtation with some demonic jerk. In “Kissability,” it’s a rotten entertainment mogul, pledging “you could be a star” and probably playing with himself under his desk. In “Eliminator Jr,” it’s Robert Chambers, the teenage rich-kid “Preppy Murderer,” and a horrible little shit even before he raped and strangled Jennifer Levin behind the Met in Central Park. In “’Cross the Breeze,” it may be the devil himself”.

A real classic that is heading up to its thirty-fifth anniversary, I wanted to spend some time with the amazing Daydream Nation. The mighty fifth studio album from Sonic Youth, everyone needs to spend some time with it. Still absolutely essential and wondrous, I don’t think any band has matched it in terms of its importance and endurance. Daydream Nation is still mind-blowing…

AFTER all of these years.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s The Whole Story at Thirty-Seven: When Comes the Next Instalment?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s The Whole Story at Thirty-Seven

When Comes the Next Instalment?

_________

THE of only greatest hits collection…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from The Whole Story shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

from Kate Bush, The Whole Story arrived in 1986. Released on 10th November that year, I am going to explore 1986 a bit more. Such momentum still from Hounds of Love (1985), this was Kate Bush at her commercial peak and creative high. I am sure that there were plans for a greatest hits album before. There had been compilations. There have been some since. None that count as strictly greatest hits. Since 1986, Bush has released a lot of great music. I think many people still know her from Hounds of Love and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). On The Whole Story, there were ten hit singles. Also, and somewhat divisive, was Wuthering Heights recorded with a new vocal. That iconic debut single still sounds familiar, yet there is a slightly deeper vocal. I prefer the original. Bush felt the original was a little high/child-like/young. She wanted to sing the song from the perspective of the slightly older woman. I am going to continue in a second. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia provide some details about The Whole Story. Words from Kate Bush about it. What those reviewing it had to say:

“Critical reception

Roger Holland in Sounds (UK): "Over the last nine years and five albums, Kate Bush (...) has matured into quite the most sensual, expressive, and creative artist this country can now boast". Colin Irwin, Melody Maker (UK): "This glorious retrospective collection... she's playing a high-risk game, and more often than not her irrepressible flair, her instinct for a hook, and her gift for unusual and gripping arrangements carry her through."

John McReady, NME (UK): "More useful and more enjoyable than the constipated jangling of a hundred and one little lads with big mouths and even bigger clothes allowances. Such people are not worth a carrot. Meat or no meat, Kate Bush is streets ahead." Andy Strickland, Record Mirror (UK): "A monumental tribute to this craziest, coziest girl-next-door. (...) One of the most refreshing compilation LPs it would be possible to put together."

Kate about 'The Whole Story'

Yes, I was [against the release of a compilation album] at first. I was concerned that it would be like a "K-tel" record, a cheapo-compo with little thought behind it. It was the record company's decision, and I didn't mind as long as it was well put together. We put a lot of work into the packaging, trying to make it look tasteful, and carefully thought out the running order. And the response has been phenomenal - I'm amazed! (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 22, December 1987)

It wasn't chronological because we wanted to have a running time that was equal on both sides, otherwise you get a bad pressing. In America, where I'm not very well known, they didn't realise it was a compilation! ('Love, Trust and Hitler'. Tracks (UK), November 1989)”.

I can understand why Kate Bush did not think a greatest hits package would be a good idea. It may give the impression her career had peaked and this was almost the end. Someone who wasn’t keen on looking back too much – at that point anyway -, the fact The Whole Story reached number one in the U.K. and was this massive success would have changed her views. Kate Bush’s 1986 was hugely busy! For those who wondered why it took Bush a while to release new music, the fact is that so much was happening between releases. This timeline gives us a sense of what 1986 was like for Bush:

“January 11, 1986

In the annual Sounds poll Kate is voted Best Female Vocalist of 1985.

February 10, 1986

Kate performs Hounds of Love live at the British Phonographic Industry Awards presentation. She is nominated for (but does not win) three awards: Best Album, Best Single and Best Female Singer.

February 17, 1986

The third single, Hounds of Love, is released in seven- and twelve-inch formats.

Kate records a duet with Peter Gabriel for his fifth solo album. The track is called Don't Give Up.

Kate abandons the plan to make a film version of The Ninth Wave side of the new album.

March 6, 1986

Kate appears on Top of the Pops to perform Hounds of Love.

March 19, 1986

For the making of the video for The Big Sky Kate assembles over one hundred fans on the sound stage of Elstree Studios.

Kate records a live performance of Under the Ivy at Abbey Road Studios for the 100th edition of the Tyne Tees TV programme The Tube.

April 4, 1986

Kate participates in the first of three Comic Relief shows at the Shaftesbury Theatre. She performs Breathing live and performs a duet of Do Bears Sh... in the Woods? with Rowan Atkinson.

April 5, 1986

The second Comic Relief show.

April 6, 1986

The third Comic Relief show.

May 25, 1986

Kate joins in the Sport Aid mini-marathon at Blackheath, South London, along with many other celebrities.

May 1986

The fourth single, The Big Sky, is released.

Kate does some session work for Big Country on the title track of their album The Seer.

June 16, 1986

The videos for the four Hounds of Love singles are released as a video EP under the title Hair of the Hound. It goes straight to the number 1 spot on the music video chart.

Hounds of Love passes the double platinum mark in the U.K.

October 20, 1986

Don't Give Up, the duet with Peter Gabriel of his song, is released as a single.

October 23, 1986

Kate participates in a personal appearance of the Comic Relief stars at the Claude Gill Book Shop, Oxford Street for the launch of the publication of the Comic Relief Book.

October 27, 1986

A new single, Experiment IV, is released in seven- and twelve-inch formats.

October 31, 1986

Kate appears on the BBC TV programme Wogan for the second time, giving a lip-synch performance of Experiment IV [with violinist Nigel Kennedy].

November 1986

Kate directs the video for Experiment IV, which is made on location at a disused military hospital in South East London and a street in the East End. The film features the Comic Strip regulars Dawn French and Hugh Laurie.

November 9, 1986

Kate interrupts the shooting of the Experiment IV video to attend a party at the Video Cafe organised by the Kate Bush Club and Homeground.

November 10, 1986

The Whole Story, the first Kate Bush compilation album, is released. It is promoted by the most expensive TV advertising campaign EMI has ever mounted. Sales are massive”.

As a convenient way of introducing new fans to her work, The Whole Story is a must-listen. It got terrific reviews. That is no surprise! Whilst not every song on the album was a massive hit, the songs are all distinctly recognisable and popular. Experiment IV was the new single released for the album. Out on 26th October, 1986, it reached twenty-three in the U.K. Prior to rounding off asking about another compilation, here is some information about Experiment IV. It is a song that many Kate Bush fans might not even be aware of:

“This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.

The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine - a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.

We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used - me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft. Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result. (KateBush.com, February 2019)”.

Various compilations have been released since 1986. In recent years, we had The Other Sides in 2019. As part of her remastering series in 2018, The Other Sides is a selection of 12" mixes, B-sides and a selection of cover versions. There has been some retrospection. That is good to see. What I wonder if whether there is going to be a second greatest hits collection, given the fact a new generation are fans of her work. There are some who may only know her for one or two songs. I have raised this before. Bush may now only want to look ahead. That said, she has not been averse to looking back. 2011’s Director’s Cut was reworked versions of songs from The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993). Apart from the remastered albums, Bush also allowed Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) to be used on Netflix’s Stranger Things last year. She is selective about who uses her work. It is clear she wants it heard. I feel like there are some terrific tracks that are never played on radio. Bush is still defined by one or two hits by a lot of stations. It is insulting and reductive to think an artist as long-standing and diverse as Bush should only exist in the form of a couple of her songs. As we look ahead to the thirty-seventh anniversary of Kate Bush’s greatest hits album, The Whole Story, I do wonder whether there will be a next instalment. A great desire is out there for something from Kate Bush. If there is another studio album coming, a greatest hits release before then would be very welcomed! It has been a few years or so since Bush opened up her music archives. She doubtless has a lot of appreciation for young fans who are discovering her. A way of leading them to her amazing studio albums might be to give them a taste of the singles from those albums. Including some songs that were not on The Whole Story. Some newer inclusions. We shall see. If you need an introduction to the iconic Kate Bush, then The Whole Story is…

A great place to begin.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Johnny Marr at Sixty: The Ultimate Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Johnny Marr at Sixty: The Ultimate Playlist

_________

ONE of the true music greats…

I am looking ahead to 31st October and the sixtieth birthday of the great Johnny Marr. Beginning his career as founder, composer and guitarist with The Smiths, he has since gone on to record with member of the Pretenders, The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs. A prolific session musician, Marr has worked with names such as Kirsty MacColl, Pet Shop Boys, Talking Heads, Bryan Ferry, and Hans Zimmer. His upcoming album, Spirit Power: The Best of Johnny Marr, is out on 3rd November. His essential book, Marr’s Guitars, is out now:

“A stunning photographic presentation of the guitars that defined the distinctive sounds and style of Johnny Marr with personal reflections and insights from the legendary guitarist himself.

'Guitars have been the obsession of my life ... they’ve been a mission and sometimes a lifeline' – Johnny Marr

The guitarist’s guitarist, Johnny Marr redefined music for a generation. His ringing arpeggios and chordal innovations helped elevate The Smiths to be one of the most influential and important British bands of all time.

Tracing Marr's career from his teenage years to his recent work on the Bond soundtrack, Marr’s Guitars showcases the most significant of Marr’s superb collection of electric and acoustic guitars, revealing through them the evolution of his iconic sound and style of playing. Each guitar is identified with a crucial moment, a specific song or a particular sound, and each embodies a key aspect of Marr’s lifelong passion.

Renowned photographer Pat Graham presents each instrument as a full portrait, supported by micro shots highlighting the specific details that make each one unique, while Johnny Marr himself reveals in his accompanying commentary on what tracks and at which shows the guitars were played. Many of the guitars are closely associated with Marr, such as the Rickenbacker 330, the Gibson ES-355 and the Johnny Marr Signature Fender Jaguar. Some were passed down to him, including Nile Rodgers’ Stratocaster, Bryan Ferry’s Roxy Music Hagstrom and Bert Jansch’s Yamaha. Others are guitars once owned by Marr that have since been passed on to the next generation of guitar heroes, including the Stratocaster used by Noel Gallagher on ‘Wonderwall’ and the Gibson Les Paul Goldtop used on In Rainbows by Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.

Punctuating the photography of the guitars and the accompanying commentary are contextual studio, backstage and onstage shots. Together, they make Marr’s Guitars a unique cultural history of modern music and guitar playing told through the prism of Johnny Marr’s experiences and achievements”.

I am going to end with a playlist featuring his best work with The Smiths, The The, Modest Mouser, Electronic, The Cribs and his solo stuff. Such a consistently inventive and brilliant artist, Marr is one of the most influential guitarists ever. Before getting to that playlist, AllMusic have compiled a useful biography and insight into the wonderful Johnny Marr and his incredible career:

“As the guitarist and co-songwriter for the Smiths, Johnny Marr helped create the musical vocabulary for indie rock in the 1980s and beyond. The Smiths were fueled by Marr's intricate, ringing guitar parts that assiduously avoided cliches while being rooted in classic British guitar pop. Marr's strengths as an instrumentalist made him a popular gun for hire after the Smiths split. Immediately following the band's separation, Marr played with the Pretenders, The The, and Talking Heads while striking up a lasting collaboration with New Order's Bernard Sumner with Electronic. He continued to bounce between projects during the '90s, eventually forming Johnny Marr and the Healers in 2000. The group didn't last long and Marr wound up joining Modest Mouse in 2006, staying with the band for several years while also playing in the Cribs. The Messenger launched Marr's solo career in 2013 and over the next decade, he toured and recorded regularly, issuing such ambitious projects as 2018's socially conscious Call the Comet and the multi-part Fever Dreams, which culminated in the release of the full double album in 2022.

Born John Maher in Manchester, England on October 31, 1963, he played in such little-known groups as Sister Ray and Freaky Party before forming the Smiths with singer Morrissey in 1982. In the years to follow they became one of Britain's most successful acts, but in 1987, following sessions for the LP Strangeways, Here We Come, Marr dissolved the group, claiming their musical approach had gone stale.

In the wake of the Smiths' demise, he made cameo appearances on records by the likes of Talking Heads and Kirsty MacColl before joining Matt Johnson's The The for 1989's Mind Bomb. Marr also teamed with New Order's Bernard Sumner and Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant in the alternative supergroup Electronic, scoring a hit with the single "Getting Away with It." Apart from a handful of guest appearances, he maintained a relatively low profile during the '90s, most notably lending his talents to The The's 1993 effort Dusk and Electronic's long-awaited sophomore record, 1996's Raise the Pressure.

Marr returned to music three years later on Electronic's third album, Twisted Tenderness, which wasn't released in the U.S. until fall 2000. He also spent time working with his new band, the Healers, playing dates across England. The next few years were a time of redefinition and reflection for Marr. He finally assembled his Healers with ex-Kula Shaker bass man Alonza Bevan, and Ringo Starr's drumming son Zak Starkey in 2002; a deal with Artist Direct's iMusic followed before the end of the year. Fans of this legendary guitarist were treated to Marr's proper singing debut in early 2003 with the release of Boomslang. In 2007, he appeared on the Washington band Modest Mouse's album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, and toured with them as a member.

Marr stayed with the band into 2008 but soon switched allegiance to another band from another country -- the British indie group the Cribs. A songwriting session soon expanded into full-fledged membership and Marr wrote, played, and toured for the 2009 album Ignore the Ignorant. Like his stint in Modest Mouse, Marr lasted for only one album with the Cribs before leaving for another project, and this time it was one that he led himself. He relocated his family to his hometown of Manchester and set about recording a solo album. The result, The Messenger, appeared to strong reviews in February 2013. He quickly followed it with a second solo set called Playland, which appeared in the autumn of 2014; the live album Adrenalin Baby was released in 2015. Marr published his autobiography, Set the Boy Free, then turned his attention to writing and recording his third solo album. The resulting Call the Comet appeared in June 2018.

Marr signed with BMG in August 2021 with the intent of delivering Fever Dreams, a double-album released as a series of EPs. Fever Dreams, Pt. 1 arrived that October with the second installment arriving in December. The full album, Fever Dreams, Pts. 1-4 arrived in February 2022”.

To celebrate the genius that is Johnny Marr, I have put together a career-spanning playlist. I have been a fan of his work since I was a child. One of the most recognisable guitarists of his generation, Marr has gone on to be this broad artist who has fitted into various bands and alongside an array of artists. His solo work is possibly his purest and most personal work, though everyone has their favourite Marr period/incarnation. To honour him ahead of his sixtieth birthday on 31st October, here is a playlist with a selection of hits and deep cuts where Marr is either playing, a member of the band, or singing (or all in some cases). There is no doubting the fact that he is…

IN a league of one.

FEATURE: Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town: Pearl Jam's Vs. at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

Pearl Jam's Vs. at Thirty

_________

EVEN though it was a number one album…

in America, there was a certain pressure on Pearl Jam’s shoulders after the release of their 1991 debut, Ten. Released in the same year Nirvana’s Nevermind came out, Ten was seen as a more Hard Rock approach. Not as feral or filthy, Ten was a more epic and slightly cleaner sound. Pearl Jam’s masterpiece debut was followed by relentless touring. A rawer sophomore album followed. Probably closer in turn to what contemporaries like Nirvana produced in 1993, Vs. (released on 19th October, 1993) is Pearl Jam’s first collaboration with producer Brendan O'Brien and its first album with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. Compared to their commercial debut that was met with videos and a lot of promotion, that was all pegged back for Vs. The band did not release any music videos. In spite of this, Vs. sold almost a million copies in its first five days of release. Staying at the top of the Billboard chart for five weeks, it was a monster success and emphatic follow-up to Ten – proving they could change direction and keep the excellence and consistency up. I am going to mark the upcoming thirtieth anniversary with a few features and reviews for the album. The band - Dave Abbruzzese – drums; Jeff Ament – bass, upright bass; Stone Gossard – rhythm guitar, backing vocals; Mike McCready – lead guitar; Eddie Vedder – lead vocals -, were on sensational form for their second album! I guess there was a lot of hype and people pitting Pearl Jam against Nirvana.

There was no real rivalry or competition between Pearl Jam and any other band. They did not need to prove themselves. Regardless, they very much meant business on an album that still sounds as direct and raw as it did back in 1993. Thirty years later and you can feel and hear every element and layer of Vs. I am going to get to some anniversary features. LoudWire did a retrospective on Vs. last year. In spite of Vs. being this incredible album that one assumes was quite quick to record, Pearl Jam did have some conflicts and struggles:

"For me, that title represented a lot of the struggles that you go through to make a record," revealed guitarist Stone Gossard to Rolling Stone. "Your own independence — your own soul — versus everybody else's. In this band, and I think in rock in general, the art of compromise is almost as important as the art of individual expression. You might have five great artists in the band, but if they can't compromise and work together, you don't have a great band. It might mean something completely different to Eddie [Vedder]. But when I heard that lyric, it made a lot of sense to me."

Vedder revealed that the title also dealt with the media scrutiny the band was under, stating, "They were writing all these articles ... Our band against somebody else's band. What they hell are they talking about? You know, don't try to separate the powers that be. We're all in this together."

Speaking of the struggles, the band had a few en route to completing the disc. As the new guy coming in on Ten, Vedder had a bit of a blueprint to work from, but relocating to remote location in California to record Vs. didn't exactly sit well with the singer, who struggled with writing during the sessions.

Bassist Jeff Ament recalled, "Recording Vs., there was a lot more pressure on Ed. The whole follow-up. I thought we were playing so well as a band that it would take care of itself. ... He was having a hard time finishing up the songs, the pressure, and not being comfortable in such a nice place." Vedder himself told Spin, "The second record, that was the one I enjoyed making the least ... I just didn't feel comfortable in that place we were at because it was very comfortable. I didn't like that at all."

However, one positive from the album sessions was the band's newfound relationship with producer Brendan O'Brien, who would go on to oversee many of the band's albums after this first experience. During the sessions, O'Brien had the band line up as though they were playing live. Gossard recalls, "I think we allowed things to develop in a more natural, band-oriented sort of way, rather than me bringing in a bunch of stuff that was already arranged”.

Maybe that idea of Pearl Jam not being in competition with someone was short-sighted. As Albumism speculated with their twenty-fifth anniversary feature in 2018, there is a degree of aggression and Pearl Jam making a statement. Things would drastically change in Grunge and Rock the year after Vs. came out. Whereas Nirvana lost their leader, Kurt Cobain, Soundgarden released their definitive album, Superunknown. The years between 1991 and 1994 were sensational for Grunge and Hard Rock:

“Pearl Jam’s sophomore effort Vs. (1993) was a record born of conflict. The title alone is an obvious indicator that the band was gunning for something or someone. Lyrically, the album is awash with references to trauma and discord. The opening refrain from “Animal,” the album’s second song, recounts “One, two, three, four, five against one” that puts the band at odds with some notion of corporate America.

Some of the conflict came from the relentless touring that went into promoting the band’s debut album Ten (1991), an endeavor that was no doubt rewarding as the band became one of the biggest acts in U.S rock music, but equally exhausting as the toil of press junkets, award ceremonies, interviews, music videos and dealing with obsessive fans were considered the downside to fame. Something was changing in the band’s collective mindset.

Upon the release of Vs., the band were adamant that they would not play the corporate game of making music videos for MTV to broadcast non-stop, nor would they allow as much press access or interviews. So in some respects, Vs. exists at an intriguing point in Pearl Jam’s career; the moment in which their trajectory towards self-determination was truly set upon and the mystique that would surround the band in the years to come was first put in place.

In fact, this would be the era in which Pearl Jam would stand up to what they perceived as injustice. Bleeding from the embers of Vs.’ slogging world tours into Vitalogy (1994) and even into No Code (1996), the band would embark on an epic lawsuit against Ticketmaster on grounds that the astronomical service charges were tantamount to extortion for the band’s fans. Pearl Jam would tour sports halls and stadiums that Ticketmaster had no jurisdiction over and basically try and undercut the monolithic ticker seller. A noble cause for sure, and one they faced alone, yet an undertaking that took them out of the game for a number of years as they tried to find these out-of-the-way venues in all major cities across the U.S.

Not like these activities saw much dent in their popularity. A quick look at the numbers will tell us this. Vs. has to date sold a staggering seven million copies in the United States. In its first week of release alone, it racked up 950,378 units sold, making it the fastest selling album of all time, a record it held on to for five years. Six of the album’s songs generated top forty positions in the U.S. Modern Rock Charts, despite only four actual commercial singles being released. The record also received three Grammy Award nominations.

And this is just the U.S perspective. The album topped the charts in eight other countries around the world.

Listening back to the record twenty-five years on, it is hard to understand how the record was actually so massive. Not, I should clarify, because the record is a bad one. Far from it. But when placed in sonic comparison to its predecessor, it’s almost like two different bands recording under the same moniker. Sure there are similarities, with Eddie Vedder’s vocals a dead giveaway for a start.

There was an obvious attempt to recapture Pearl Jam’s energetic live performances. The record’s production by Brendan O’Brian, a collaborator the band would return to again and again over the subsequent decades, is an edgier and more aggressive affair then their debut and certainly does capture that live element to a tee. It also, dare I say, dates the record to that period of the 1990s.

Only a few remnants of Ten’s soft, warm and fluid production are found on Vs. The one song that might have sat comfortably on that record is “Dissident,” maybe at a push “Daughter.” Instead the record relies on Dave Abbruzzese belting drums, Mike McCready’s face-melting solo riffs, Stone Gossard’s chomping rhythm guitar, Jeff Ament’s steady bass and Vedder’s squalling and screeching vocals. Prime examples of this are “Go,” “Leash” and “Blood,” as these songs teeter on the edge of all-out explosion”.

I am going to end with a couple of reviews. Like Ten, there was this incredible wave of affection and respect for Pearl Jam’s second album. You would think some critics would not like the band changing course and sound. Maybe many felt Ten could have been grittier. Perhaps a natural evolution, there was this praise and support for one of the best albums of the 1990s. This is what AllMusic wrote in their Vs. review:

“Pearl Jam took to superstardom like deer in headlights. Unsure of how to maintain their rigorous standards of integrity in the face of massive commercial success, the band took refuge in willful obscurity -- the title of their second album, Vs., did not appear anywhere in the packaging, and they refused to release any singles or videos. (Ironically, many fans then paid steep prices for import CD singles, a situation the band eventually rectified.) The eccentricities underline Pearl Jam's almost paranoid aversion to charges of hypocrisy or egotism -- but it also made sense to use the spotlight for progress.

You could see that reasoning in their ensuing battle with Ticketmaster, and you could hear it in the record itself. Vs. is often Eddie Vedder at his most strident, both lyrically and vocally. It's less oblique than Ten in its topicality, and sometimes downright dogmatic; having the world's ear renders Vedder unable to resist a few simplistic potshots at favorite white-liberal targets. Yet a little self-righteousness is an acceptable price to pay for the passionate immediacy that permeates Vs. It's a much rawer, looser record than Ten, feeling like a live performance; Vedder practically screams himself hoarse on a few songs. The band consciously strives for spontaneity, admirably pushing itself into new territory -- some numbers are decidedly punky, and there are also a couple of acoustic-driven ballads, which are well suited to Vedder's sonorous low register. Sometimes, that spontaneity comes at the expense of Ten's marvelous craft -- a few songs here are just plain underdeveloped, with supporting frameworks that don't feel very sturdy. But, of everything that does work, the rockers are often frightening in their intensity, and the more reflective songs are mesmerizing. Vs. may not reach the majestic heights of Ten, but at least half the record stands with Pearl Jam's best work”.

In 1997, Rolling Stone wrote about the mighty Vs. Maybe people associate Pearl Jam more with Ten still. I think that Vs. and its songs warrant much more exposure and representation across radio. It is a sensational album with some clear highlights. My favourite song, Go, opens the album in spectacular and imperious fashion:

“Pearl Jam are explosive. Few American bands have arrived more clearly talented than this one did with "Ten;" and "Vs." tops even that debut. Terrific players with catholic tastes, they also serve up singer-lyricist Eddie Vedder. With his Brando brooding and complicated, tortured masculinity, he's something we haven't seen in a while ­ a heroic figure. Better still, he's a big force without bullshit; he bellows doubt.

Like Jim Morrison and Pete Townshend, Vedder makes a forte of his psychological-mythic explorations ­ he grapples with primal trauma, chaos, exultation. As guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready paint dense and slashing backdrops, he invites us into a drama of experiment and strife. "Animal," "Daughter" and "Blood," their terse titles urgently poetic, are songs of a kind of ritual passion, tapping into something truly wild.

And when Vedder roars, "Saw things . . . clearer . . . /Once you were in my rearviewmirror," it seems that it's not only some personal sorrow that he's willing himself to tear beyond but the entire weight of the past itself.

Voicing the dreams and furies of a generation, Nirvana rock brilliantly in the now. They suggest a visceral understanding of rehab rites of passage and gen der overlap, stardom fantasy and punk nihilism. Their themes parallel both David Cronenberg's "venereal horror" and David Lynch's atonal wit, and their inchoate striving after feeling combats the blithe vacuity of outdated Warhol-style hipness. Blank generation? Not really, just young people fighting for some kind of meaning”.

On 19th October, the world will mark the thirtieth anniversary of a giant album. Even if Pearl Jam might have had some more commercial and artistic pressure to follow Vs., they delivered another phenomenal album with 1994’s Vitalogy. One of the greatest opening trio of albums in music history. If you have not heard the album before – or you have not listened since the '90s -, then take some time out to have a good listen. It is a brilliant album that is going to be talked about for decades more. From the powerful opening declaration of Go, through to Indifference (the reissue has a few extra tracks and ends with Crazy Mary), Vs. is an album that, thirty years after its release, remains so…

VITAL and extraordinary.

FEATURE: How Does Your Garden Grow? Kate Bush’s Aerial at Eighteen: Bringing A Sky of Honey to Life

FEATURE:

 

 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Kate Bush’s Aerial at Eighteen: Bringing A Sky of Honey to Life

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ON 7th November…

Kate Bush’s Aerial turns eighteen. It was released after a twelve-year gap. After 1993’s The Red Shoes, many did not expect her to release an album. She unveiled this beautiful double album in a year that really cried out for someone as original as Kate Bush. Critics loved the album. Fans did too. Another top ten success, there was a lot of love for this icon. A relief to have her back, we did not know what would follow. Bush waited another six years to release another album – we got two in 2011 with Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow. I am going to do a few Aerial anniversary features. I wanted to start by looking at the second disc. Bush split Aerial into the first half/disc, A Sea of Honey, was more conventional singles – like on Hounds of Love – and, similar to her 1985 masterpiece where we had the second side, The Ninth Wave, Aerial featured A Sky of Honey. Her second-ever conceptual suite of tracks, this was the charting of a summer’s day. Taking us through the morning and evoking nature and the wonder of the skies, the natural world, gardens, fresh air and this overall tranquillity, the songs on that suite are phenomenal! There is a lot of talk around a new venue that has opened in Las Vegas. A $2 billion Sphere has seen U2 give it an emphatic and sensational opening. This giant sphere that is immersive and filled with LEDs, you get this dazzling and almost cinematic elements around you. I wanted to start in an unorthodox way. Thinking about Aerial, and I see A Sky of Honey suiting that sort of setting. Many people have argued how witnessing The Ninth Wave from Hounds of Love projected on a sphere would be immense!

That suite was about a woman swept overboard and having to survive at sea. Whilst I maintain a short film would be the best option, maybe filming one and projecting it in a Sphere-like venue would be an absolutely incredible thing. I think there is something about A Sky of Honey that warrants the dramatic and beautiful. Maybe it would also be a good short film though, if you imagined Kate bush performing again, being in a giant venue where you had a screen/projection around you would be perfect. Her songs would come to life in a whole new way. I think A Sky of Honey would be breathtaking. Bush did perform songs from Aerial during her 2014 residency in London. We have seen songs from A Sky of Honey performed on stage. There was not anything as bewildering and epic as you’d get from that Sphere venue. Having bird, butterflies, the tumultuous sky and the brightness of the sun all brought together around an audience. That would be something to see! I would urge people to listen to Aerial and check out its phenomenal suite on the second disc. On the album, we have A Painter’s Link – Rolf Harris originally voiced the painter, but he was removed from the album and replaced by Bush’s son, Bertie -, where artwork and artistic visions could spring and dance. A mix of Disney-like animation and different-coloured LEDs would create this fantastical and almost psychedelic combination. If The Ninth Wave could stir drama, fear and let us sea what is in the sea under the heroine and the vast sky above, there are similar possibilities when we think of A Sky of Honey. The expansiveness of the sky together with the nature all around us. The intimacy and beautify of an English country garden brought to life.

 IN THIS PHOTO: U2 at the Sphere, Las Vegas/PHOTO CREDIT: Rich Fury

I think there is real scope when you consider the sounds and detail through A Sky of Honey. I definitely feel The Ninth Wave should be turned into a short film. As Bush sees A Sky of Honey as a compassion piece in a way, one could certainly imagine it made into something bigger. Tracks like Somewhere in Between and Nocturn are gorgeous. Imagining those songs and watching the suite go from day to night is sensational. I am going to go more into Aerial in future features. When Bush was interviewed in 2016 - around the release of the live album for 2014’s Before the Dawn -, the suite from Aerial was mentioned alongside Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave:

“She certainly brought new language to pop, and has continued to do so throughout her career – one thinks of the inventive feat of her (literal) 50 Words For Snow, and of her musical realisation of 'Pi' to 80 places. And not just human language, either. On Before The Dawn, the new 3CD live album of her extraordinary shows of 2014, there’s a passage in the suite A Sky Of Honey, from 2005’s Aerial, where she imitates the frolicsome chatter of birds.

“I’ve always loved birdsong,” says Kate, “and I suppose that was the starting point for that piece on the record, speculation about whether it’s a language. The key idea was this connection between birdsong and light, that singing seems to be triggered by the breaking of light, and in the absence of light, they stop singing.” She pauses. “Though there’s a few exceptions – nightjars, reed warblers, blackbirds. And of course, the owl!”

In that suite, an artist appreciates the changing light from sunrise through sunset into night, a progress musically evoked in green and golden tones and timbres. It’s balanced in the show by another suite, The Ninth Wave, from 1985’s Hounds of Love, which presents the drifting ruminations of a woman slowly drowning, alone in the ocean at night. The extraordinary staging for the work involved the skeleton ribs of a boat’s hull, a floating buoy, a helicopter, and a Caligari-esque room of odd angularity, while a huge back-projection of a life-jacketed, singing Kate presented her and her crew with one of the production’s more difficult challenges”.

I have a lot of affection for A Sky of Honey. Maybe pairing it with The Ninth Wave and having this contrasting story about the same woman. The one who is in a garden watching nature around her. Th one who is lost at sea. Never quite sure which is real and which is a dream. Which came first indeed. It could be this spectacle where we see the beauty of nature and the unpredictability of the ocean at night alongside one another. The more I read about Las Vegas’s mega Sphere and what it could do, the more I think of Kate Bush. Because Aerial is eighteen on 7th November, I wanted to explore and spotlight the magnificent A Sky of Honey. Witnessing that projected in a venue as an audience watches agog would be…

A sight to behold!

FEATURE: Groovelines: Lorde - Royals

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Lorde - Royals

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RELEASED in June 2013…

I have missed the tenth anniversary of Lorde’s single, Royals. In fact, it was Lorde’s debut single. The New Zealand-born artist released her debut album, Pure Heroine, on 27th September, 2013. Written by Ella Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde) and Joel Little, it went to number one in many countries around the world – including the U.S. and U.K. Inspiring artists (in terms of the sound and tone of Royals) such as BANKS, Billie Eilish, Clairo, Halsey, Mallrat, and Olivia Rodrigo, Royals has a huge legacy. I am covering the song now, not only because it is seen as one of the best debut singles ever. Royals debuted in the U.K. at number one on 28th October, 2013. Celebrating the tenth anniversary of that track scaling the U.K. charts is important. Lorde became the youngest solo artist to score a U.K. number one single since Billie Piper's 1998 song, Because We Want To. It was an amazing introduction to this incredible artist. There are a few features that I want to get to. They give us an insight into a remarkable track. First, here is some background regarding the genesis of Royals – and how it proves that quickly-written songs can be the most successful and resonant:

“Lorde wrote the song in 2012 at her house, which only took half an hour. Herself and Joel Little worked on Royals at Little's Golden Age Studio in Golden Age Studios in Morningside, Auckland NZ. Within a week they had finished the song.

The first idea for the song came to Lorde after she read an article published by National Geographic with a picture of  Kansas City Royals baseball player George Brett signing baseballs, with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt. She said "It was just that word. It was really cool." Historic aristocrats were also an inspiration for the song. She also explained the lyric "We're driving Cadillacs in our dreams" was something she read in a diary she received at the age of 12. Lorde further revealed that she took inspiration from hip-hop-influenced artists during the writing process, yet criticized their "bullshit" reference to "expensive" alcohol and cars.

"I was definitely poking fun at a lot of things that people take to be normal. I was listening to a lot of hip-hop and I kind of started to realise that to be cool in hip-hop, you have to have that sort of car and drink that sort of vodka and have that sort of watch, and I was like, "I've literally never seen one of those watches in my entire life." (- Lorde about the lyrics)

The song was produced by using the software Pro Tools. A Spin writer described the song as being "artpop". Written in the key of D Mixolydian, it is followed by the chord progression I-vii-IV (D – c – G). The song has a moderate tempo of 85 beats per minute (Andante). "Royals" is instrumented by finger snaps and bass. On the song, Lorde performs with a mezzo-soprano vocal range, spanning from F♯3 to F#5. Lyrically, Lorde sings about the luxurious lifestyle of contemporary artists”.

There has been some critique and scrutiny as to whether Royals is offensive, or its lyrics can be seen as racist. As Royals talks about wealth and extravagant lifestyles, some lyrics maybe pertaining to Hip-Hop and excess were called out by writer Bayetti Flores. Rather than home in on a criticism that is unwarranted and untrue, I wanted to highlight the positives. This feature, published in September, discusses how Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, calibrated and refreshed Pop music with songs like Royals critiquing and examining Pop music and the lifestyles of artists, it was a shot in the arm:

“Even if you haven’t heard “Royals” in years, it’s likely that just seeing the title has caused its slinky, subdued groove to worm its way back into your mind. There’s not much to the song’s arrangement – finger snaps, a hip-hop beat, a wobbling bass after the first chorus – but it’s enough to get stuck in your head, and it doesn’t distract from Lorde herself, whose deep vocals and sly, self-assured delivery made her one of the most immediately compelling singers since Adele. Clearly, Lorde was onto something, and “Royals” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks.

The love club

“Royals” was almost a year old when it hit the airwaves. When it was recorded, the ground hadn’t even been broken for Pure Heroine. After a few false starts with other songwriters, Lorde began working with fellow-Aucklander Joel Little, who’d had some success down under as a member of pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse, in December 2011.

Over a three-week period in 2012, the two finished “Royals” and four other songs for Lorde’s debut EP, The Love Club, which was uploaded to SoundCloud later that year. The EP was a success, it was downloaded 60,000 times with virtually no promotion, spurring Lorde’s label to release it commercially. While Lorde and Little were keen to release another EP, it wasn’t long before what they were working on grew into a full-length album”.

Rather than Lorde’s lyrics about excess and flash cars being about Rap and, therefore, racist, it is actually about growing up in a country like New Zealand, where the media covers and celebrates American wealth and dominance. That anti-imperialist stance that Royals takes was highlighted by Buzzfeed in 2013:

“Royals" is a song about growing up in New Zealand immersed in American cultural imperialism. The core of the song is alienation, sure, but the lyrics about pop culture are far more ambivalent than they are angry and strident. This is part of why it has resonated with so many people — Lorde isn't saying that she doesn't like this music, only that she sees a disconnect between the hyper-consumerist fantasy at the core of contemporary pop and the actual lives of anyone she knows. "I've always listened to a lot of rap," she recently told New York Magazine. "It's all, look at this car that cost me so much money, look at this Champagne. It's super fun. It's also some bullshit. When I was going out with my friends, we would raid someone's freezer at her parents' house because we didn't have enough money to get dinner. So it seems really strange that we're playing A$AP Rocky."

If you grow up in the United States, it can be very easy to have no perspective on living in a culture dominated by art and media from another country. Some music from around the world seeps into mainstream American culture, but it's never dominant, and music from abroad is made with the understanding that you have to cater to the American market to be a big star. Americans are used to the rest of the world bending over backwards to blend in with their culture, and think nothing of foreign stars from ABBA and Björk to Shakira and Phoenix singing in their second language to appeal to the English-speaking world. Americans are almost never asked to adapt, and very rarely have to feel as though their culture is being infiltrated by the value systems of foreign nations.

This context may get lost a bit when "Royals" is played in the United States, but it clicks with American listeners because this sort of cultural imperialism happens within the U.S. too. The "culture wars" that have informed the past few decades of American politics are rooted in a belief that the values of media produced and promoted almost exclusively by companies based in New York and California are disconnected from the majority of the country. On a more personal level, it's just easy to look at mainstream culture and feel disenfranchised, that no one is speaking for you.

"Royals" may be ambivalent about music, but it's openly defiant when it comes to class and this sort of imperialism. It may well be the most leftist song to become a major hit in years, at least in that it's focused on rejecting wealth and privilege, and questioning capitalist ideas that encourage people from lower classes to buy into a system that is mostly rigged against them. Lorde's song takes pride in not coming from money, and asks the listener to give some thought to why they want to buy into a glamorous fantasy. If it seems like Lorde is being especially rough on rap, but it's mainly just because she's a fan, and it's the genre that is most invested in this fantasy. There are a lot of valid reasons why African-American culture in particular is invested in these material fantasies, but that's not really what Lorde is talking about here. She's mainly interested in the unintended cultural consequences of those values on the other side of the globe, and perhaps pushing Americans to consider for a moment that their pop culture is not happening in a vacuum”.

Maybe it is worth coming back to critique and scrutiny of the lyrics. The fact that the then-teenager Lorde wrote this song so quickly - and yet it has been poured over and is this complex and compelling thing goes to show what an amazing songwriter she is. Someone who definitely hit a nerve when it was released in 2013. The fact is Royals didn’t translate in all overseas territories too well. As it got to number one around the world, it was clear that the buying public loved the song and connected with its messages. The Guardian, writing in 2013, argued how Royals deserves a more nuanced investigation:

“Those are a few possible ways of hearing it, anyway. Another is that it’s a privileged white woman belittling black cultural aspiration. At least, that was the take of Verónica Bayetti Flores on feministing.com, who caused something of a minor international pop cultural incident with her analysis, under the unambiguous headline ‘Wow, That Lorde Song Royals is Racist’. It goes on to ask: “why not take to task the bankers and old-money folks who actually have a hand in perpetuating and increasing wealth inequality? I’m gonna take a guess: racism.”

Predictably, because Lorde is ridiculously popular, the post became an excuse for commenters to beat up on the writer, a venting space for a bunch of New Zealanders to defend their countrywoman.

It’s funny (read: embarrassing) that whenever anything gets written about New Zealand anywhere on the internet, we as a nation all dutifully congregate to refute, apologise or agree wholeheartedly with what’s being said. Click-hungry web editors take note: as a small, self-conscious set of islands with high internet penetration, we’re easily manipulated. Praise or pillory us and the clicks will roll in for days like the waves at Raglan.

Many of the guests from the bottom of the world arrived at feministing bearing well-argued responses, often pointing out that the song’s very next line ridiculed white cultural excess. Other visitors behaved a little strangely, making the post’s author’s point seem more valid in their attempts to refute it. “Wayne” summed up one vein of the sentiment:

If this woman that did the review, would have opened her ears a little more, than she would have realized what Lorde was referring too, and that is the over popular culture in music today. Bling, Pimped out rides, half naked artist on stage and in video’s, as well as showing off their money to the point, that they look like a big damn joke.

Basically what Wayne is saying is that, even if Royals isn’t racist, he sure is, and thoroughly enjoys the way listening to it reinforces his prejudices. This is a bit of a shame. Because Royals deserves a more nuanced critique.

Fortunately, the Wayne-type response was balanced out by the biting response of New Zealand satire site The Civilian, which went digging for other racist elements in Royals. These included discovering that the line "let me live that fantasy" really meant that “Lorde desperately wants to live out her fantasy of owning black slaves”.

I will get to reviews. INQUIRER.net had this to say when they reviewed Royals upon its release. It is amazing that an artist so young wrote a song like Royals. Both catchy and singalong but also deep and challenging, it is no wonder that we are still discussing the track a decade down the line. This majestic and emphatic introduction to the wonderful Lorde:

“Lorde, whose real name is Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor, is a 17-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand. She is starting to quickly establish her own identity with music aficionados spanning every age group with her meaningful and well-crafted lyrics that speak directly from the heart of who she is as an artist. That right there explains a lot to me why there are so many teens now moving away from listening to artists like Miley Cyrus to more thought-provoking and sensible music that Lorde has to offer.

The lyrics of her single “Royals” isn’t all about nonsensical themes that really do nothing to help broaden the tastes of listeners. Her song is surprisingly simple and sincere which provides a window to her humble beginnings and her own aspirations while growing up.

We can take for example in the pre-chorus: ” But every song’s like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin’ in the bathroom blood stains, ball gowns, trashin’ the hotel room, we don’t care, we’re driving Cadillacs in our dreams. But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece. Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash. We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair. “To even listen to lyrics as poignant as these isn’t exactly the “norm” these days.

Switching to other aspects of “Royals”, I would say there was really a conscious effort to keep things to a minimum as much as possible when it came to its instrumentation. And almost everything else about this single is minimalistic in its approach too—from the simple backing drum beat to even the finger snapping in the chorus section.

The best part about “Royals” is Lorde’s voice quality—low-pitched and husky—which is truly reminiscent of the late Amy Winehouse.

Normally, the production serves as a “boost” to make the song better in heightening the listeners’ experience. But in this case, if that method had been applied at all in the engineering of “Royals” in the recording studio, it would not have fit and most likely, it would have even worked the other way around because her voice would only have been drowned out. I say this because no amount of multi-layered sounds in the background was needed so that listeners could have a better appreciation of Lorde’s vocal work.

It really proves an old phrase “less is more.”

Everything I have mentioned and enumerated above leads me to believe we have a “counter-culture” artist who just so happens to have struck a chord with mainstream listeners looking for something different this time.

There will always be a huge chunk of music aficionados who are in search for new artists that would challenge their own definition as to what music sounds good to them. And this is where Lorde fits the bill perfectly.

Her voice alone speaks for itself”.

I will round off with a round up by Wikipedia. They collated reviews for the mighty Royals. A modern classic that has been covered by everyone from Selena Gomez, Jack White, and Bruce Springsteen, there is no doubt that this song has huge pull, power and importance. Something so many other artists wanted to add their stamp to. The sign of a true classic:

“Royals" received widespread acclaim from music critics. Lewis Corner from Digital Spy awarded the track a five rating and lauded its "addictive hook that thrives on its simplicity". The Guardian's Duncan Grieve was impressed by the song's "direct response" to excess and wealth. The Boston Globe writer James Reed selected "Royals" as the highlight of the album Pure Heroine. Rita Houston of NPR praised its melody, "heartfelt" songwriting, and Lorde's "rhythmic" vocals that combine to create a "polished little gem of a song". Jon Hadusek from Consequence of Sound also named the track the album's standout, singling out its "self-reflexive" lyrics and "catchy" production. PopMatters writer Scott Interrante felt that the song's sound was "distinct and fresh", while The New York Times's Jon Pareles highlighted its clever message, describing it as a "class-conscious critique of pop-culture materialism".

The lyrical content of the song was scrutinised after Feministing blogger Véronica Bayetti Flores called it "racist". She felt that "gold teeth, Cristal, and Maybachs" were direct references to items used by mainstream black artists. This prompted responses from several media publications, including The Washington Times, Complex, and Vice, who disagreed with Flores's comments. Journalist Lynda Brendish wrote that the song also critiques other stereotypes associated with affluent, high-profile personalities, such as rock musicians, socialites, and Russian oligarchs.[57] In contrast, Spin writer Brandon Soderberg argued that the inclusion of "Royals" on urban radio was an attempt by the music industry to whitewash traditionally black radio stations”.

Because 28th October was when Royals went to the top of the charts in the U.K., I wanted to mark and celebrate that anniversary with a closer look and dissection. If some misconstrued the lyrics and were misinterpreted, since it is seen as what it is: a teenager in New Zealand reacting to all the wealth and excess of American/western culture that was everywhere. Maybe some of the excess that musicians were used to. Quite gaudy and tacky. Perhaps a little cool too. I think everyone has a slightly different take on the lyrics. Whatever your impression, there is no doubting the fact that Royals is…

A supreme, all-conquering work of wonder.

FEATURE: Simon Le Bon at Sixty-Five: Duran Duran’s Biggest Hits and Amazing Deep Cuts

FEATURE:

 

 

Simon Le Bon at Sixty-Five

IN THIS PHOTO: Simon Le Bon in New York City in 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: Julia Johnson & Cody Cloud/The Licensing Project

Duran Duran’s Biggest Hits and Amazing Deep Cuts

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ONE of the…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Duran Duran in 1983

all-time great band leads of all time turns sixty-five on 27th October. Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon is one of the most distinct voices in music history. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. I am going to get to the playlist very soon. Before then, turning to Wikipedia for some background and history about Duran Duran and their history, here is some useful information:

“Duran Duran was founded by childhood friends John Taylor and Nick Rhodes along with singer-songwriter Stephen Duffy in 1978, but Duffy left a year later, convinced that the band was not going to be successful. The band went through a long succession of line-up changes after Duffy's departure, but finally settled on a guitarist and drummer.

Le Bon's ex-girlfriend, Fiona Kemp (a bartender at the Rum Runner nightclub where Duran Duran were rehearsing), introduced him to the band in May 1980, recommending him as a potential lead vocalist. As band legend has it, he turned up for the audition wearing pink leopard-print trousers, and carrying a notebook containing a large collection of poems he had written—several of which would later become tracks on the early Duran Duran studio albums.

After listening to the songs the band had already composed together, Le Bon spent some time fitting one of his poems ("Sound of Thunder") to one of the instrumentals, and found they had a good match. Le Bon agreed to "try [Duran Duran] out for the summer"; within six weeks the band was playing steadily around Birmingham, London and Nottingham, and a national tour supporting Hazel O'Connor led to a recording contract with EMI Records in December that year.

The band's debut studio album, Duran Duran, was released in 1981, and they quickly became famous as part of the New Romantic movement. Three more albums followed in quick succession: Rio (1982), Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) and the live album Arena (1984). Each album release was accompanied by heavy media promotion and a lengthy concert tour. By mid-1984, the band were ready for a break. Duran Duran's only other work that year was an appearance on the Band Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London on 25 November 1984. Le Bon's vocal appears fourth on the song after Paul Young, Boy George and George Michael sing their lines.

Following the departures of Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor, Le Bon, Rhodes and John Taylor continued on as Duran Duran, recording and releasing Notorious (1986) and Big Thing (1988). The group added guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell and recorded the studio album Liberty (1990), but the band's success had begun to wane in the late 1980s.

Duran Duran had a resurgence in popularity in 1993 with The Wedding Album, featuring the top-10 single "Ordinary World". Several months into the extensive worldwide concert tour supporting this album, Le Bon suffered a torn vocal cord, and the tour was postponed for six weeks while he recovered.

In 1995, Duran Duran released the covers album Thank You, and Le Bon had the chance to cover some of his favourite artists, (Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Elvis Costello), but the album was severely panned by critics from all quarters. That year Le Bon also performed Duran Duran's 1993 hit "Ordinary World" with opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti during a "Children of Bosnia" benefit concert for War Child. Le Bon described the event to Jam! Showbiz thusly: "If you're talking about name dropping, he's one of the biggest names you could drop, Pav-The-Man".

When bassist John Taylor left the band in 1997, Le Bon and Rhodes remained as the only two members who had been with Duran Duran from the beginning of their recording career. The successive two studio albums with Le Bon, Rhodes, and Cuccurullo, Medazzaland (1997) and Pop Trash (2000) were not commercial successes.

In 2001, Duran Duran's original five members reunited to record a new studio album, Astronaut, for Epic Records. Astronaut was released worldwide on 11 October 2004. The album was preceded by the single "(Reach Up for The) Sunrise", their first UK Top 10 single in a decade”.

To mark the approaching sixty-fifth birthday of Simon Le Bon, I wanted to assemble a collection of Duran Duran tracks. Even though Le Bon is more than the band, this is where people know him from. His best work is with the Birmingham-formed group. Whether you are younger and do not know much about Duran Duran, or you are someone who has followed them for decades, below is a playlist that should give you a good taste and representation of…

A music legend.

FEATURE: Inspired By... Part One Hundred and Three: Elliott Smith

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By...

Part One Hundred and Three: Elliott Smith

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ON 21st October…

it will be twenty years since the wonderful and hugely influential Elliott Smith (Steven Paul Smith) died. The Nebraska-born artist - raised primarily in Texas, he lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon – left the word some truly incredible music! From his beguiling and astonishing 1994 debut, Roman Candle, to 2000’s Figure 8, seemingly everything he put out into the world was impactful and astonishing! In terms of his masterpieces, maybe 1997’s Either/Or is seen as that peak. Regardless, there is no doubting the fact that Smith’s cannon of music lives on through other artists. I am going to mark twenty years of his passing with a playlist of songs from artists who have been influenced by him. First, and as I do with these features, AllMusic provide a detailed biography of the much-missed artist:

“An acclaimed singer/songwriter with a distinctively melancholic sound, Elliott Smith was a member of the thriving music scene of Portland, Oregon in the mid-'90s when he began releasing a series of highly influential solo albums. His musical palette expanded over time, from the hushed acoustic guitar demos of his 1994 solo debut, Roman Candle, to the orchestrated studio craftsmanship of his fifth album, 2000's Figure 8. Still, all were distinguished by a vulnerable demeanor conveyed by intense but wispy vocals (often double-tracked) and personal lyrics that referred candidly to subjects like addiction, depression, and alienation. His music's character was also shaped by artful chord transitions, which he called his favorite part of songs. He moved abruptly from indie cult status to mainstream success in 1997 when his contributions to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack resulted in an Academy Award nomination ("Miss Misery"). He recorded only six solo albums, releasing five before his untimely death at the age of 34 in 2003.

Born Stephen Paul Smith in Omaha, Nebraska but raised mostly in Texas, Elliott Smith's musical influences included such figures as Bob Dylan, the Kinks, Big Star, Elvis Costello, and the Beatles; he said he was inspired to become a musician after hearing The White Album. He began writing and recording his first songs around the time he moved to Portland, Oregon at the age of 14. After high school, Smith headed to Amherst, Massachusetts to study philosophy and political science at Hampshire College. It was there that he met future bandmate Neil Gust. After graduating in 1991, Smith moved back to Portland with Gust, and the co-singer/songwriter/guitarists formed the indie rock band Heatmiser with bass player Brandt Peterson and drummer Tony Lash. Mixing Smith's melancholy-pop sensibilities with Gust's more aggressive style and a notable grunge influence, they signed with Frontier Records, which released 1993's Dead Air and 1994's Cop and Speeder. Peterson then left the group and was replaced by Sam Coomes.

In the meantime, Smith's then-girlfriend convinced him to send some of his solo demos to Portland-based Cavity Search Records. The label immediately expressed interest in releasing a full album. A set of spare acoustic guitar ruminations with just a few other instruments used as accents, Roman Candle was home-recorded on a four-track tape recorder. Four of the songs didn't even have titles. It stood in sharp contrast to the scene's alternative rock that was popular upon its release in 1994. He signed with noted indie label Kill Rock Stars for the next year's Elliott Smith. It was recorded partly at his bandmate Lash's house and featured Gust on additional guitar. The attention the records received soon overshadowed Heatmiser, though they helped draw the interest of Virgin Records, which signed the band for their final LP, Mic City Sons. It arrived via subsidiary Caroline Recordings in 1996. Heatmiser officially disbanded prior to its release.

s Smith continued to develop as a songwriter, his more ambitious but entirely self-recorded third solo LP, Either/Or, arrived in early 1997. With its title taken from a Søren Kierkegaard book of the same name, the album's expanded instrumentation included several songs with full-band arrangements and even keyboards. The results were still intimate, however, marked by his whispery, often despondent delivery and lyrics, even among a few livelier, uptempo tracks. The album was mixed by Smith and Heatmiser producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf.

By then, Smith had made a fan of film director Gus Van Sant, who asked for permission to use his music in an upcoming film. Counting an orchestral version of "Between the Bars" recorded with score composer Danny Elfman, four of his existing songs could be heard in the critical and box office hit Good Will Hunting later in 1997. The soundtrack also included Smith's original song for the film, "Miss Misery." When the Academy Award nominations were announced the following February, the track was a surprise entry in the Best Original Song category. Although it didn't win, Smith performed an acoustic guitar rendition live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien a few days before the Oscars, marking his network television debut. He followed it with a live performance of "Miss Misery" on the Oscars telecast accompanied by the Broadcast Orchestra.

The newfound exposure led to a record deal with DreamWorks, resulting in Smith's first album in professional studios. Though he had relocated to Brooklyn following touring for Either/Or, he headed to Los Angeles to work with musicians including Jon Brion and Joey Waronker on the notably more elaborate XO. Released in 1998, the Beatleseque production was again mixed by Smith, Rothrock, and Schnapf. His first album to appear on the Billboard 200, it reached number 104 in the U.S., also charting among the Top 50 in Australia and Sweden. Smith performed on TV's Saturday Night Live in October 1998, backed by Schnapf, Brion, Coomes, and John Moen. In 1999, he contributed a cover of the Beatles' "Because" to the soundtrack of Best Picture winner American Beauty and moved to Los Angeles, where he began work on his DreamWorks follow-up. Recorded partly at Abbey Road Studios in London, his fifth solo album, 2000's Figure 8, was co-produced by Smith, Rothrock, and Schnapf. Its more textured, orchestral arrangements drew further comparisons to the Beatles' later recordings. Figure 8 charted in several European countries and hit number 99 in the U.S.

For the next couple of years, Smith labored over what was to be his next album. He parted ways with DreamWorks, and after a falling out with Brion, he scrapped an album they had begun together. In the meantime, "Needle in the Hay" from his eponymous LP was used by Wes Anderson to accompany a suicide-attempt scene in his film The Royal Tenenbaums. Smith eventually made a fresh start at his sixth LP, combining home recordings and material from sessions with Goldenboy's Dave McConnell. Musicians including Coomes and the Flaming Lips' Steven Drodz contributed performances to parts of a planned double album. However, Smith would not live to see its completion.

Elliott Smith died on October 21, 2003, after he was found in his home with two stab wounds in his chest. The coroner was unable to determine whether he killed himself or was murdered, and the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation remains open. Smith's estate asked Schnapf and former girlfriend Joanna Bolme to complete the album in progress. After mixing -- or in some cases remixing -- 15 tracks from over 30 he left behind, they completed From a Basement on the Hill. It was released as a single album by Anti- just two days shy of the first anniversary of Smith's death, to a warm critical reception. It became his only Billboard Top 20 album, reaching number 19.

In 2007, his former label Kill Rock Stars issued a two-disc set of Smith's earlier unreleased work, all of which had been recorded between 1994 and 1997. Entitled New Moon, the 24-track collection contained three songs that had been previously released on hard-to-find compilations or soundtracks, including an early version of "Miss Misery" and a cover of Big Star's "Thirteen." It, too, charted in several countries, peaking at number 24 in the U.S. The career compilation An Introduction to Elliott Smith appeared in 2010, and in 2015 Smith was the subject of a documentary called Heaven Adores You. The first such documentary to receive permission to use his music, its soundtrack album followed in 2016 and landed on the Billboard soundtracks chart. A 20th anniversary expanded reissue of Either/Or returned Smith to the Billboard 200 in 2017. Three years later, Kill Rock Stars reissued his self-titled second album with the addition of Live at Umbra Penumbra, a 1994 recording of Smith's first performance as a solo artist”.

It seems hard to believe that Elliott Smith is not in the world. I was into his music in the 1990s. I was instantly struck by how powerful his lyrics were, in spite of the fact his delivery is a lot softer that a lot of his peers. Somehow more affecting and potent than a more pained and angered delivery, albums like Roman Candle will inspire artists for generations. Below is a playlist of songs from artists either compared to Smith or have cited him as an inspiration. It is an impressive list of names who owe a little something to the legend. Although we mark twenty years of his passing on 21st October, we also can look back at his work and celebrate. It is an honour to pay tribute to…

A towering and peerless talent.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Billie - Honey to the B

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Billie - Honey to the B

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NOT that one needs any reason…

to write about Billie’s debut solo album, Honey to the B…though, as it is twenty-five on 19th October, I wanted to mark the important anniversary. For this Second Spin, you can grab a copy of the 1998 album and listen to one of the most infectious Pop albums of the '90s. 1998 was a year when the music landscape shifted dramatically. Now Britpop was very much gone, classic albums from Madonna (Ray of Light), Beastie Boys (Hello Nasty), Air (Moon Safari) and Ms. Lauryn Hill (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill) were dominating. Pop music was still very much alive and well though, in a year when the music landscape was shifting, one might think that Billie’s debut would have sounded more fitting a few years earlier. At a time when the likes of Shampoo were releasing songs like Trouble (1994), Honey to the B would have slotted in perfectly. Maybe that is why some critics were not that warm towards a great album. We all know Billie Piper as a superb actress. There are some that do not know about her brief music career. Her second and final studio album, Walk of Life, arrived in 2000. I think that Honey to the B is her strongest album. You occasionally here hits like Because We Want To on stations like BBC Radio 2, Capital and more Pop-oriented options. I feel that the great and still fresh songs from the album warrant wider appreciation. With terrific deep cuts like You’ve Got It and Don't Forget to Remember, Honey to the B is well worth a listen. The then-sixteen-year-old was writing and performing music that had a lot more kick and attitude than many of her Pop peers. Songs such as Girlfriend and She Wants You were played a lot when I was at high school. I was fifteen when the album came out, so it was quite common that something like Honey to the Bee or Because We Want To would pop up on the radio. It is a shame some of the music videos from the album have not been remastered and preserved. They could do with an HD transfer.

Even so, there is a lot to recommend about Honey to the B. Billie was the first and youngest British female artist to have a debut single enter the U.K. singles chart at number one. That is not to be sniffed at! At a time when the singles charts was rammed with quality and variety, Because We Want To won out and was this massive hit. Reaching number fourteen in the U.K., Honey to the Bee is an album that I think would win and charm people now. One cannot deny the fact that its singles sound relevant now. So many current young artists have elements of Billie about them. Or at least some of the Pop that was around in 1998. Even if there are a couple of songs that can be seen as inessential or weaker – Saying I’m Sorry Now is quite difficult and a little cringey -, there are so many terrific tracks. This is what Pop Rescue wrote in their 2021 review. They awarded Honey to the B four stars:

“Today’s Pop Rescue from a fate unknown, is the 1998 debut album Honey To The B, by British pop star and actress, Billie Piper. Will this album give you a buzz, or is it simply a Honey trap? Read on…

Billie Piper – Honey To The B (1998) album

This 12 track CD opens with the debut hit single Because We Want To, which bursts open with some full-on teenage rebellion. The track is full of powerful parental defiance and this, alongside the energy the song exudes quite rightly ensured it was a hit, taking roost at #1 in the UK singles chart. The crowd shouting moments, plodding bass all help to keep this song catchy. This is a few years into Girl Power, super-charged by the Spice Girls a few years later, and you can certainly hear the musical similarities here. We’re off to a brilliant start.

That’s followed by second single Girlfriend, which takes the tempo down and temperature up. This track takes a more RnB sound to it, giving Billie a great platform to show off her richer vocals on a slower track. It’s slick, and effortlessly wanders from verse to chorus to verse. The track also hit #1 in the UK chart, a contrast to the lead single.

Officially Yours follows this, again picking up an RnB beat, with a few vinyl scratches thrown in. The synth orchestral hit works well here. I’m reminded a bit of Eternal here, but Billie’s vocals are softer. It’s quite a nice little song, with some thrown in asides from Sweet P, although it doesn’t particularly evolve much.

A gentle keyboard sequence opens next track She Wants You as a pop beat fades in and we see a return to an upbeat catchy track. Billie’s vocals sound effortlessly rich here. This track was the album’s third single, giving Billie a #3 UK hit. I seem to remember there being some excellent pumping remixes of this song, whereas this album version is a little more mellow. Still, it’s perfectly catchy and and a great pick up from the previous two slower tracks.

Next up is Love Groove, and we have a wonderfully funky introduction with bass, simple beat, more vinyl scratches and interjections from Sweet P, and even a little flurry of brass. We even get a flute in this track. Musically, it sounds like something left over from George Michael‘s Older, or a Stereo MC’s album. Vocally, it sounds odd though – with a meandering melody, and Billie takes on a slightly weird vocal style in this wafty jazz-funk track.

That’s followed by a ringing phone of Party On The Phone. You’ve got to love the 1990s, and the concept of this song reeks of 90s party lines. Whilst the song is catchy, with its ‘na na na’, chiming bell sounds from keyboards and phone ringing samples, set on top of a funky RnB track, it is now quite amusingly dated. ‘Everybody swingin’ it on the phone’ – really? ‘So get ringin’ it!‘ Billie demands. Can’t wait for the Zoom follow-up ‘everybody on mute’ ‘Tina’s left the call’.

Saying I’m Sorry Now is next, and we’re back into 90’s pop, and very much back into a kind of Eternal sound. Billie’s vocals sound a bit off at times here in this multi-layered – sometimes too low, and sometimes taking a wrong step. Breathy vocals, an RnB beat, a tinkling piano, and Billie’s vocals sound ok, but they don’t feel like they are always pushing in the same direction at the same time. This makes it a bit odd.

Then it’s time for You’ve Got It, which bursts open, feeling like a return to form. Billie is joined by the London Community Gospel Choir, who help to lift her higher in the chorus. It’s a fairly simple pop song, and it allows Billie to shine nicely. There’s a really nice bridge at roughly the 2:20 mark where Billie and the choir get to shine without the beats for a few moments. The pair also get to shine again towards the end. It’s nice enough, but lacks the same amount of oomph that the singles have.

I Dream follows that, and returns us to a heartfelt reflective Billie. Her vocals are soft and tender here, set against a shuffling beat and acoustic guitars. This is a really nice little mid-tempo song, and probably could have been a nice final single for the album. It has a really nice synth pad ending that adds to the dreaming theme of the song.

Birds sing and a bee buzzes around as titular song Honey To The Bee begins. ‘C’mon, buzz me up to heaven’ Billie whispers suggestively. Musically, the song reminds me a lot of Never Ever by All Saints, but Billie definitely makes the vocal performance her own. The track was the album’s fourth and final single, giving her a sultry #3 UK hit. The London Community Gospel Choir are back again singing about ‘heaven’, but it’s possibly a different kind of heaven to what Billie is talking about being buzzed to here. It’s a brilliant song, that grows perfectly before returning us to those birds and bees.

Penultimate track Whatcha Gonna Do follows this, and Billie is rejoined by Sweet P again, and she’s clearly taking issue with him this time. A slinky guitar riff leads us through this RnB track. Billie once again seems to be channeling All Saints a bit, as she sings about taking control and leaving her lover. It’s a nice plodder of a track, and gives Billie plenty of space to show off her vocal range.

The album closes with Don’t Forget To Remember. The song opens with what sounds like a lone pianist playing in a busy bar before a beat bursts in and we’re back in pop stomping Billie richness again. This is a really nice catchy pop song, and one of the non-single highlights of the album. The perfect ending to a debut album of a debut pop career.

Billie’s lead single ‘Because We Want To’ (1998).

VERDICT

Over all, this album is packed with an acute awareness of the late 90’s chart music of which it was part. The similarities at times to Eternal and All Saints are a reflection of the style of music that was dominating the UK at the time – bursting pop/dance songs, and slick RnB inspired tracks. That similarity clearly leant it some success but Billie’s choice of singles singled her out without relying on those.

Billie’s vocals are playful, occasionally childish, but there’s no doubting the power and control that she has over them. As a young pop star, with a debut album, she was likely at the whim of the team writing for her. What we do get here are some of the best late 90’s pop songs in the form of Because We Want To, She Wants You and Honey To The Be, but that’s joined by Girlfriend, I Dream, and Don’t Forget To Remember.

Sadly, there are some low points too, with Saying I’m Sorry Now being a difficult listen, followed by Love Groove. These are a minority though on a 12 track CD, and would have been better to have been left off of what is otherwise a great pop album, and a wonderful debut.

Why you gotta play her songs so loud? Because you ought to. Because you ought to”.

If artists of that time such as All Saints got a bit more traction and critical respect, one listens to Billie’s debut album now and realises it deserved more acclaim. Billie Piper is one of our very best actors, though she had this amazing music career. An artist that I think could release a great album now and it would do terrifically. I am going to finish off with Off the Record’s 2022 review of Honey to the B:

“Billie Piper, is an English actor and musician, she first came to the public attention when she released her debut single ‘Because We Want To’ at the age of fifteen, which made her the youngest female artist ever to enter the UK Singles Chart. She however did not truly come to be a household name until she starred as Rose Tyler, a companion to the Doctor, an alien time traveller, on the first season of the revival of the BBC show Doctor Who back in 2005. Following on from her tenure on Doctor Who she also starred as Hannah Baxter, the titular and main character, on the hit show Secret Diary of a Call Girl. She was also Brona Croft/Lily Frankenstein in the horror-drama Penny Dreadful, and she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Netflix Original Collateral, where she played Karen Mars. More recently she co-created and starred in the Sky Atlantic series, I Hate Suzie, a comedy/drama in which she plays the titular character, Suzie Pickles.

As I touched on above, Billie Piper, or as she was known back then, just Billie, is a former musician, having retired from the music business in 2003 to focus on acting, but prior to this point she released two albums, the first of which we are here to discuss today. Yes, we will be reviewing her debut album ‘Honey to the B’ which was released on 19th October 1998.

‘Because We Want To’ opens fast, high energy, percussive beats support Billie’s vocals, she has a nice voice, melodic but fresh, she’s obviously just starting off at this point and yet despite that she has a maturity and strength to her voice that some performers never learn. I like the energy of this track, the fun pop energy, and the back and forth, call and response nature of the chorus. Even the rap sections work well, they’ve got a nice rhythm and structure to them, that make for an overall good track.

‘Girlfriend’ opens with record scratching, and melodic vocal fills that blend into a funky, little tune, that is fun and catchy, and not just in the repetitive, cookie cutter, pop way, it’s just a nice little melody, that again shows off multiple sides to Billie’s voice. I like that even though she has a nice that’s nice to listen to, she doesn’t rely just upon that, instead throughout this song and the rest on the album she experiments with style, delivery and performance.

‘Officially Yours’ has a really nice rhythmic opening, light percussive and beats that lead into some softer vocals, you can feel the soulful delivery of the lyrics, it all comes together really well. This one is a lower tempo track than the past couple, but while it’s not as full of energy it’s still a strong performance, and you get the clearest impression of Billie’s voice throughout the track.

‘She Wants You’ has piano chords building slowly, while beneath it a more upbeat, high energy beat is playing, it then explodes and takes over, and Billie matches it, high energy vocals, but still rich and deep and passionate, you just get caught up in the vibe of this one. I’ve talked about it before but especially for a debut album by such a young artist, she’s got a remarkable range. Perhaps my only issue is that perhaps the subject material of the songs are just a touch mature, but other than that they resonate well and have a nice energy to them.

‘Love Groove’ opens with counting, before kicking into a tight bass and percussive melody, and this one just kinda flows over you, a funky tune and again we see a different side to Billie’s voice, I admire a vocalist that is confident enough to see what they can do musically, I recently reviewed Kat Graham, and I felt very much the same about them, a talented and appealing voice, but she also didn’t steer away from exploring things in her music. I really liked the pipe section towards the end, and the rap breakdown by the guest vocalist, all added to the performance.

‘Party on the Phone’ is a very busy track, it incorporates in phone trills, and a heavy bass driven beat that work to support Billie’s voice, and once again can I say that she’s genuinely a talented singer, her voice is nice to listen to, she’s got a strong range and works well within the structure of the melody. I’m curious, listening to this years after the release, how much creative control she had over this album, whether she had a hand in producing the songs. It doesn’t really impact the quality or my enjoyment of the track but it’s something to think about.

‘Saying I’m Sorry Now’ is maybe my favourite on the album, it’s a relatively simple beat and melody off the bat, especially compared to some of the other tracks, but it has some of the best vocal work on the entire album, and it just flows really well. It’s also a slower track, which is usually my preference, but honestly it’s not even just that it’s more in keeping with my personal musical tastes, it’s just a really strong, even tempo track, with a sharp percussion beat to it, and it just works.

‘You’ve Got It’ opens with a hammering beat that blends out to a sonorous sort of ambient synth melody which works really well with Billie’s voice. It’s got a really nice rhythm as well, and is surprisingly memorable as I found myself humming it a few days after I’d finished writing the review. I think it’s probably my second favourite on the album, after the song directly before it.

‘I Dream’ opens with percussive tones that build, as an electronic guitar is laid over it, it blends to create a really beautiful and filling melody, and obviously Billie’s up to the task vocally, her voice is deep and resonant and you just get caught up in it. Despite having my own favourites, I think I would recommend this song to someone if I were trying to get them to listen to the full album, there’s just something about it that’s not only good, but has mainstream appeal.

‘Honey to the Bee’ kicks off with the sound of nature, and gentle guitar notes and vocals, meshing and bouncing off one another. I really liked this track, it’s very different overall to the rest of the album, and yet it works as part of the greater help. I liked the melody a lot, and I liked the building nature of the track, you just get kinda caught up in it.

Whatcha Gonna Do’ is also different, deeper and heavier, a percussive beat is the driving force behind this track, and unlike the majority of the tracks so far, Billie has another voice to bounce off, it helps to flesh the song out, and add something to it.

‘Don’t Forget to Remember’ closes out the album for us, we are greeted by the sounds of an audience and electronic piano chords, building and creating a soft, melody before breaking, a quick percussive fill changing up the track, and then the vocals kick in. Again, I’m amazed by the range and vocal depth Billie is capable off, especially this early in her career, and I feel like this was a strong track to close things out on”.

As Honey to the B is twenty-five on 19th October, I wanted to nod to it. I am not sure whether Billie Piper will celebrate or recall memories of making the album. I’d like to think that she at least smiles remembering a wonderful time in music where this exciting and arresting Pop artist broke through. As I say, I could well see Billie Piper recording an album now and it being remarkable. Perhaps something soulful or Jazz-influenced. Her vocal range through her 1998 debut is stunning! If you have some spare pennies to get a copy of Honey to the B on cassette or C.D., it is well worth some time. It deserves a second spin. This is one of those '90s albums that sort of passed under the radar a little. It was worthy of much more than that. For anyone in need of a lift, I can thoroughly recommend you check out Billie’s…

TREMENDOUS Honey to the B.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Nico - Chelsea Girl

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Nico - Chelsea Girl

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THERE are a couple of places…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nico with The Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed in 1967

where you can get this album. If you want a vinyl copy of Nico’s classic 1967 album, Chelsea Girl, then you can grab it here or here. I would recommend people think about investing in a copy, as it is one of the all-time great albums. I am featuring it now, as Nico would have turned eighty-five on 16th October. She sadly died in 1988. It was a tragic loss of a unique and unforgettable artist. She released a few iconic albums during her career. Many might know her from the timeless 1967 album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Nico’s amazing debut solo album was produced by Tom Wilson. The title is a reference to Andy Warhol's 1966 film, Chelsea Girls, in which Nico starred. Wilson added strings and flutes to the album, even though Nico was very much against this. It is a shame that the German singer was dissatisfied with Chelsea Girl. It is considered a masterpiece by so many. When Nico was quoted in Dave Thompson's liner notes for the 2002 Deluxe re-issue of The Velvet Underground & Nico - which includes all five Velvet collaborations for Chelsea Girl -, she remarked (of Chelsea Girl):

“I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes!... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute”.

Perhaps, in a year where the likes of The Beatles released psychedelic albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Chelsea Girl sounded twee or out of step with what was around it. It is those qualities which make it stand out. Perfectly accompanying Nico’s vocals, the flutes work really well. It is a pity a compromise could not have been worked out – so that there were flutes but more guitars and drums. I am going to get to some reviews of the mighty and mesmeric Chelsea Girl. It is a magnificent record that everyone should hear. This feature from 1st October is a brand-new view and assessment of Chelsea Girl:

“Part lost Velvet Underground album and part baroque-folk pop-art experiment, Nico’s solo debut LP, Chelsea Girl, was worlds apart from anything else she’d ever record, but it’s a classic on its own terms.

The album was made almost immediately after the March 1967 release of The Velvet Underground & Nico, and was reportedly assembled in a mad frenzy of activity over just a few days, with VU producer Tom Wilson at the helm. Its basis was the solo act Nico had recently begun developing, sometimes backed by her 18-year-old paramour Jackson Browne, who contributed three songs to Chelsea Girl. Browne would later recall that amid the hectic sessions, he was in the studio playing with Nico on his compositions the same day Lou Reed was there laying down guitar on tunes he wrote.

Chelsea Girl was not a million miles from “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale,” the ballads Nico sang with the VU. The basic template for the singer’s husky vocal approach was still Marlene Dietrich meets ‘60s mod, but instead of a full-band backing, the album places the German émigré in a baroque-folk setting.

There were precedents in Marianne Faithfull’s early recordings, which became mid-’60s U.K. hits, and Judy Collins’ In My Life, which helped break the folk singer into the mainstream. This may have informed the business-savvy Wilson’s decision to make a drumless album and engage Larry Fallon for chamber-style woodwind and string arrangements. A 1968 review in New Society would memorably dub Nico “a satanic Marianne Faithfull.”

Time has vindicated Wilson’s decision. From an objective distance, the taut but warm string and flute parts feel like the ideal foil for Nico’s deadpan delivery. But both Nico and Reed would later gripe about the arrangements. “I cried when I heard the album,” Nico would say, “I cried because of the flute.” In a 1978 Creem interview, Reed held forth on the album: “Everything on it – those strings, that flute – should have defeated it. But with the lyrics, Nico’s voice, it somehow managed to survive. We still got ‘It Was a Pleasure Then’ on, they couldn’t stop us. We’d been doing a song like that in our beloved show; it didn’t really have a title. Just all of us following the drone. And there it sits in the middle of the album.”

Half of Chelsea Girl was written by some combination of Velvet Underground members. Reed’s “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” and the Cale/Reed tune “Little Sister” had both been tried at the Velvet Underground & Nico sessions, ballads with calm surfaces belying the lyrics’ psychological and physical violence. Cale’s “Winter Song” and the Reed/Sterling Morrison-penned “Chelsea Girls” bear the same sort of contrast, the latter inspired by the studied decadence of the 1966 Nico-starring Andy Warhol film of the same name. The staccato string arrangements bring just the right blend of archness and accessibility to all of them.

As Reed suggested, “It Was a Pleasure Then” grew out of a wild, avant-garde improv piece from the Velvets’ live set known as “Melody Laughter.” While it moves at an unhurried pace similar to the other tracks, Fallon’s arrangements are eschewed for Reed and Cale’s ebbing and flowing currents of sonic derangement.

The Browne songs are far closer to the folk-rock singer/songwriter conventions of the day. Their tender melodies and melancholy yearning balance with Nico’s emotional distance, especially on the poignant “These Days,” the only one of his three tunes that Browne would later record himself.

Chelsea Girl is rounded out by a song each from Bob Dylan and from Nico’s labelmate and occasional accompanist Tim Hardin. Dylan’s open-hearted “I’ll Keep It With Mine” was first recorded in 1964 by Judy Collins, creating yet another parallel between her and Nico. The album closes with Hardin’s literally mournful “Eulogy to Lenny Bruce,” which would turn up as “Lenny’s Tune” on 1968’s Tim Hardin 3: Live in Concert. Hardin’s lyrics bemoan the substance abuse that led to his famous friend Bruce’s untimely death, and the song becomes all the more chilling in light of Hardin’s own early, drug-assisted exit from our realm.

After completing Chelsea Girl, Nico diverged from the album’s path as quickly and drastically as humanly possible. Her 1968 Cale-produced album The Marble Index was the start of two decades of self-penned albums embracing utterly uncharted territory. But, for a brief moment in 1967, Nico occupied the strangely compelling space between arty abandon and fragile balladry. It was – and is – a pleasure”.

Before getting to a couple of other reviews, I want to source The Vinyl District’s 2017 view on a wonderful album that you can hear in so many artists who have come along since. In one of music’s strongest-ever years (1967), Nico’s debut stood alongside the very best. The Marble Index followed in 1968. It kept the quality up – announcing Nico as a truly wonderful and compelling solo artist:

“Everybody, or so it seems, loves Teutonic chanteuse Nico’s absolutely enchanting 1967 debut solo album Chelsea Girl–except Nico. In 1981 she said, “I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! They added strings and–I didn’t like them, but I could live with them. But the flutes! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute.”

“They” were Velvet Underground producer Tom Wilson and arranger Larry Fallon, and as should be obvious from the above quote they sugar-frosted Chelsea Girl without so much as asking for Nico’s by your live.

Nico may have been crestfallen about Chelsea Girl, but generations of listeners have been bewitched by her hauntingly droning approach to songs by the likes of the young Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, and (of course) her former Velvet Underground bandmates Lou Reed, John Cale, and Sterling Morrison. These songs are as coldly tender as a Baltic Sea wind blowing through the pines of Spreewald Forest where Nico spent her childhood war years, watching the flickering lights of Allied bombers devastating Berlin on the horizon.

The veddy veddy German Nico (aka Christa Päffgen) is certainly one of the most distinctive vocalists you’ll ever run across; my East German ex-Frau lost her accent within a year or so of leaving the Deutschland, but the ex-model, Warhol actress, and member of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable’s accent remained every bit as thick as the walls of Hitler’s bunker, making her without a doubt the frostiest Ice Queen in the history of modern pop music.

But Nico’s frigid vocals are warmed up by this collection of winsome songs; with the exception of the eerily beautiful (and vaguely Middle Eastern sounding) “It Was a Pleasure Then” (on which Reed and Cale bring to bear the all of the dissonant powers they displayed on “European Son”) “Chelsea Girls,” and Hardin’s “Eulogy to Lenny Bruce” the tunes are fetching, and the Wilson-Fallon strings and flute overlay gives the LP an accessible, chamber pop sheen. Which, of course, Nico despised.

Some albums are disparate affairs; others are uniform in mood. Chelsea Girl falls into the latter category; its 10 songs, taken as a whole, evoke a bittersweet wistfulness. They bring to my mind the misty grey days I used to spend with my former significant other walking across the desolate potato fields of Mecklenburg-Vorpommen off the Baltic Coast, storks wheeling regally overhead towards their nests in the smokestacks of derelict sugar factories. The LP conjures memories and induces trances, alternately haunts and teases, leads one by the hand down a set of stone steps to the cemetery where your dreams are buried.

This is Nacht Musik to be listened to alone, preferably while strolling the backstreets of Berlin or Hamburg–some Northern German metropolis where the fog is made welcome, and the weight of history lies as heavy as the monolithic Nazi-era flak towers that still stand in the latter city. Nico is a siren calling you back to a place you never even knew was home, harkening you back to a lurking sadness you didn’t even know you felt.

Very few artists have this power to bewitch, intoxicate and mesmerize; in its power Chelsea Girl reminds me of nothing so much as Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, another masterpiece of stirring evocation and sustained mood. I have my favorites (Browne’s “These Days,” Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine,” Reed and Morrison’s “Chelsea Girls,” Reed and Cale’s “Little Sister”) and you probably have yours, but in the end they’re all enchanting, they all flicker and disappear the moment you turn your gaze upon them, they’re all as hard to catch as the fugitive feather falling from the sky in “Somewhere There’s a Feather.”

Nico would go on to make her artistic dreams come true on 1969’s The Marble Index, 1970’s Desertshore, and later albums, all of which are formidably stark and fully realized evocations of gloom, doomm and other Wagnerian fun stuff. I find ‘em a bit too Gotterdammerung bleak for my tastes, which ain’t to take away from the fact that “Janitor of Lunacy” is probably the greatest song title of all time. If you’re a depressive or just like to pretend you’re one, I suggest you check them out.

GRADED ON A CURVE:
A”.

I am going to finish with a couple of other reviews for Chelsea Girl. In fact, I will come to a review and then end with a feature that talks about the album and the legacy it holds. Pitchfork reviewed Chelsea Girl fifty years after its release in 2017. I don’t think I have ever seen a review of Chelsea Girl that is anything but effusive and hugely complimentary. Even if Nico very much went in her own direction with 1968’s The Marble Index, there is no doubting the fact Chelsea Girl holds a very special place in music history:

“Chelsea Girl presents a young woman torn between the regrets of her past and the unknown but hopeful future. Browne’s three contributions—“These Days,” “The Fairest of the Seasons” and “Somewhere There’s a Feather”—are introspective meditations on change backed up by Cale’s chirping viola and Browne’s gentle acoustic guitar. “These Days,” the ultimate loner anthem and the most famous song of Nico’s career, has been covered by artists from Drake to Elliott Smith, and is as iconic as Nico herself. It’s no wonder Wes Anderson chose to use it as a theme of sorts for The Royal Tenenbaums’ Margot, a character whose mystery and sadness is as heavy as her mink coat. But upon listening to Browne’s twangy version of “These Days,” it becomes obvious that Nico’s droning, Germanic drawl is what makes the song so affecting.

While Browne focuses on transitions, Cale pushes Nico into more a more esoteric realm. On “Little Sister” (co-written with Reed), Nico’s voice is flat and brooding in direct contrast to the whimsical organ which pipes along beside her. She sings in “perfect mellow ovals” as Goldstein wrote in 1966. “It sounds something like a cello getting up in the morning.” “Winter Song” on the other hand, basks in an almost medieval atmosphere which is heightened lyrically by talk of “tyranny,” “royal decay,” and the “worshipping wicked.” The closest thing to a Velvet Underground song on Chelsea Girl is Reed, Nico, and Cale’s hefty eight-minute “It Was a Pleasure Then.” While Cale’s viola groans with distortion and Reed’s guitar drives into darkness, Nico’s voice soars into a wordless soprano at the peak of her range. She draws out the words until they lose definition and simply become expressions.

PHOTO CREDIT: Billy Name

Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” provides some levity at the end of Chelsea Girl. Though Judy Collins also claimed that Dylan wrote the song for her, technically he wrote it while on vacation in Greece with Nico in 1964. Whereas Collins’ version is an alarmingly cheery love song drowning in organ, Nico’s take indulges in darkness despite the poppy orchestra backing her up. “I’ll Keep It With Mine” brings Nico full-circle from “I’m Not Sayin,” and would be the last time she ever made a song so conventional.

Reactions to Chelsea Girl was at best indifferent and at worst, sexist. One Los Angeles Times writer remarked, “Nico’s a classy girl, but they’d sell more Nico if she were naked...and not hiding behind a string orchestra in a flower print dress.” For her next record, 1968’s wintry The Marble Index, Nico picked up the harmonium and wrote all of the songs after being encouraged by her “soul brother” and part-time lover Jim Morrison to document her dreams. She dyed her blonde hair with henna and trading her white clothing for an all-black ensemble. “I felt that at last I was independent, and that I knew what independence was,” she said.

But while Nico was taking some control of her music, her life was spiraling. There was the time in 1974 that she performed the German national anthem “Das Lied der Deutschen” including the verses that were banned in 1945 due to their Nazi associations. A year later, Nico was dropped from Island because she told a reporter that she “didn’t like negroes.” In an alleged instance in the early ’70s, Nico declared that she “hate[d] black people,” smashed a wine glass on a table, and stabbed the eye of a mixed-race singer who worked with Jimi Hendrix. Concert footage of a middle-age Nico in the early ’80s portray her as a skeletal figure with gaunt cheeks, rotten teeth, and sunken eyes from a disturbing heroin addiction. It’s as if Nico found power in destroying her image.

Nico once admitted that she could not relate to the songs Reed wrote for her. “I can’t identify with that,” she said of “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “to notice only the beautiful and not the ugliness.” Despite its melancholy, Chelsea Girl is still very much caught up in this world of the Screen Test, one focused on ineffable, alluring melancholy. To today’s casual Nico fans, she still exists in this bubble, a blonde monolith in a white pantsuit, a vessel for dreams and desires. But to consider Nico as frozen in her Chelsea Girl years is a disservice to the active efforts she made later in life to move beyond her image. But consider all of Nico, the strange circumstances of the Velvet Underground, the image of Chelsea Girl, and the horrific, inexcusable actions of her later life. It’s a wholeness she craved all along”.

I will end with this feature from The Student Playlist. Another 2017 feature, they paid tribute to an album that has a really interesting background. I can imagine that there were these magical moments in the studio. Even if Nico was not fully onboard with the album, it was a breath of fresh air against what was popular and expected in 1967. Chelsea Girl is so beautiful and entrancing:

“By all accounts, Nico herself had very little creative control of the recording process for Chelsea Girl. Producer Tom Wilson was responsible for a great many of the string and flute arrangements that adorned many of the tracks, something that Nico herself had no knowledge of at the time and which were added after her vocal contributions had been finished.

Nico also had to put up with a fair amount of professional ridicule and belittlement around this time. She was deaf in one ear, which caused her to occasionally veer off-key while singing live. The more research one does into the recording process, the more it reads as a case of female creative input being casually sidelined or worse, and determined by a male-dominated process – something that seems difficult to imagine fifty years later in 2017, or at least in such a routine and egregious manner.

LEGACY

In 1967, the year of the Summer of Love and the height of flower-power, the listening public was unprepared for Nico’s music, the experimental art-rock masterpieces and autumnal, melancholic suites that Chelsea Girl offered. Commercially speaking, it barely registered. However, just like Nico’s other 1967 album with The Velvet Underground, its influence is vastly disproportionate to its raw album sales.

The desolate beauty of the album’s VU-penned numbers has enraptured artists like Patti Smith, the High Punk Priestess of American punk, and her British counterpart Siouxsie Sioux, who even offered her a support slot on some of her first tours. Portishead’s Beth Gibbons and indie icon Cat Power both owe her a great deal of gratitude in terms of their performance artistry, while in the 21st century, artists like St. Vincent, Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen continue to draw inspiration from Nico.

More widely, Chelsea Girls became widely rediscovered when its opening two tracks, ‘The Fairest Of The Seasons’ and ‘These Days’, were used by director Wes Anderson on his 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums. Since then, it has gone from being regarded as a strictly cult affair to an increasingly fondly regarded ‘60s classic, albeit one that was unfairly overlooked. While some have always talked it down as an interesting but superfluous counterpart to The Velvet Underground & Nico, largely because its creative genus came from Reed and Cale, that view completely unfairly disregards its unique charms.

As for Nico herself, her next album The Marble Index, released in 1968, saw her lash out at the sense of creative suffocation she experienced with Chelsea Girl, producing an alarming volte-face with some pretty frightening lyrics and avant-garde instrumentation. That album was followed by 1970’s Desertshore and 1974’s The End…, forming a loose trilogy of similar works that went on to inform the gothic and post-punk movements later in the Seventies. Only two more records followed in her lifetime, as she struggled on and off with heroin addiction for the best part of 15 years until the early 1980s, by which time she had settled in Manchester.

Nico died in July 1988 at the age of 50, following a cycling accident while holidaying in Ibiza with her son Ari, hitting her head and succumbing to a fatal cerebral haemorrhage. Her grave in Berlin has long been a tourist attraction for indie music fans around the world, and her status as an art-rock icon is secure, with many emerging artists in the last ten years recognising her influence. That status is, in large part but not exclusively, bound up with Chelsea Girl”.

As 16th October marks Nico’s eighty-fifth birthday, I wanted to focus on her best-known album. Chelsea Girl is one that some people might be unaware of. I would urge anyone who hears the album on streaming services and likes it to consider getting it on vinyl. An undoubted classic, Chelsea Girl is fifty-six this month. Nico died in 1988. Thirty-five years since her passing, it is clear that the music world has not seen anyone like her. Go spend some time listening to…

THE sublime Chelsea Girl.

FEATURE: My 21st Century Étude: The Beautiful Melding of the Contemporary and Classical – and Why We Need to See It More

FEATURE:

 

 

My 21st Century Étude

 IN THIS PHOTO: RAYE

The Beautiful Melding of the Contemporary and Classical – and Why We Need to See It More

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A couple of recent…

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

albums and concerts cast my mind back to all the times that the world of the more commercial and conventional music has combined with Classical. Usually they do not overlap much. Artists might bring strings and some orchestration into their music, though most are quite sparse and liberal with the measurements. They do not want to drench a song in strings, though they understand how much beauty, atmosphere and elegance can be summoned. The sheer power and passion you can get from an orchestra. String especially are arresting and full of different emotions and contours. We can all think back to particular albums that were released as Pop/another genre. They were then backed by an orchestra when they were brought to the stage. Maybe a special concert was held where this work was now backed by an orchestra. It introduces that artist and album to a new audience. It also shows how seamlessly and wonderfully you can bring together all sorts of genres and Classical. A style of music that is centuries-old and still has this vital and clear relevance! Maybe other people have discussed this lately. We have seen quite a few gigs and performances where artists have been backed by an orchestra. It is always described as’ amazing’ and ‘stirring’. Why do we not see more of these concerts?! Why do more artists not re-record or reissue their studio albums with orchestration and this new element?!

I am not sure what provokes certain artists to work with an orchestra. Maybe it gives the music new gravitas and potential. It reaches a new audience. There is an album that came out that was an orchestral reworking of a studio album that I cannot for the life of me remember! It will come to me at some point. I am going to come to a modern-day R&B/Pop artist whose powerful and acclaimed debut studio album was recently performed with an orchestra. Such was the reception and impact; it did get me thinking about the underused and under-discussed perfection of mixing in Classical music alongside a variety of artists and genres. Sheffield legends Def Leppard released Drastic Symphonies on 19th May. They worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on some of their classic songs. So many contemporary and legacy artists have been looking to the world of Classical music to add something fresh and almost restorative to their music. James are a classic band whose music still sounds fresh. Even so, some may feel it belongs in the 1990s. As this article tells, they have brought new life and power to some of their work:

“Manchester favorites James are celebrating their 40th anniversary with an album of 20 re-recorded classics and deeper cuts “re-imagined” with a 22-piece orchestra and an 8-piece choir — and they’re taking the orchestral show on the road this month in the U.K.

Check out the new version of “She’s a Star,” originally off of 1997’s Whiplash, below.

The double album Be Opened By The Wonderful: 40 Years Orchestrated is due out June 9 digitally and on double CD and double vinyl in the U.K. (Pre-order: Amazon.co.uk), though it appears it may only be a digital release in the U.S. (Pre-order: Amazon.com, Apple Music).

The record finds Tim Booth and Co. performing newly arranged versions of such favorites as “Sit Down,” “Say Something” and “Laid.” There are 20 songs in total on the digital and CD releases, but one song — “Hymn from a Village” — is omitted from the 19-track double-vinyl release.

Of the project, Booth says:

“Life begins at 40. For our midlife euphoria we recorded a double orchestral album of some of our deepest cuts”.

There are other artists who are getting into the practice of reviving older hits with orchestral touches. Take Cliff Richard, for example. It is not only legacy artists who are reaping the rewards of adding strings and orchestration to their work. One of our most important modern artists is RAYE. She is someone who performed songs from her Mercury-nominated debut album, My 21st Century Blues, at the Royal Albert Hall, backed by the Heritage Orchestra. This is what The Guardian said about the extraordinary performance:

“‘No string section, no tiny violin,” goes Raye’s Oscar Winning Tears. She glances over her shoulder and behind her, in a divine sense of irony, is the entire Heritage Orchestra. For one night only at the Royal Albert Hall, the dreams of Rachel Keen are reclaimed in glorious Technicolor: a live, recorded performance of her debut album My 21st Century Blues on a scale befitting the vision she has fought for almost a decade to execute. Having been cuffed to Polydor for seven years, who allowed her (now Mercury-nominated) record to stagnate while they doled out her talents for daiquiri-syrup dance hits, tonight’s operatic reimagining is a triumphant statement of independence.

IN THIS PHOTO: RAYE at the Royal Albert Hall/PHOTO CREDIT: Luke Dyson

It makes for an incredible collision of worlds: the orchestra bleeds into Raye’s south London DNA, bringing the inherent drama of her music into sharp relief. Fortified by the thrill of strings and an entire choir, the hypnotic dance track Black Mascara reaches biblical levels of retribution. In an album laced with trauma, this musical heft matches the weight of its emotion. Mary Jane, a stripped-back confessional that grapples with addiction, is now replete with lavish saxophone solos and guitar riffs. Raye makes no attempt to hide her enchantment, waving her arms as if conducting the symphony herself, relishing every twist and turn. Punctuated with costume changes from one timeless gown to another, it feels like the realisation of a childhood fantasy.

“I promised honesty on my album,” she reminds us. As she introduces Body Dysmorphia, in an act of radical vulnerability she takes off her clothes and performs in her underwear; the slow-burning R&B track is now propelled to vertiginous heights of anxiety. She stays undressed for Ice Cream Man as she settles at her piano, a song that reckons with her experience of sexual assault. Her voice quivers as she introduces it, but she retains her incredible spirit (“I’m going to sing it for you, with my belly out and everything”) as she triumphantly underlines: “I’m a very fucking brave, strong woman”.

It makes me wonder whether RAYE will reissue the album with orchestrated songs. Reworkings. I know bygone legends like Amy Winehouse have done similar to things as RAYE when it comes to performing alongside an orchestra. RAYE has performed with an orchestra before. Whether for Radio 2’s Piano Room or with Pete Tong and The Heritage Orchestra in 2017, there is a big argument as to why more artists need to collaborate with orchestra. We do hear orchestration on albums - through most people do not isolate those parts and think about the melding of these players and that artist. Having a striking concert like RAYE’s recent turn in London must have been shivers-inducing! Who would have thought that an artist whose recent debut sounds very contemporary, soulful and personal could earn these new layers and emotions with the backing of a magnificent orchestra?! There have been occasions when artists have combined with orchestras. We do not really see it too much, mind. Many who might not be RAYE fans or know about her music are then introduced to her in a setting she would not normally perform in. There is this cross-pollination that is really interesting! There are modern artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift who I could see performing special concerts with an orchestra. Maybe a Rock band like Foo Fighters backed by beautiful strings and brass. These are tantalising prospects! I was caught my RAYE’s concert last month and how her excellent music was taken to different and new heights. Perhaps quite disparate on paper, her stunning music (and vocals) and the talents of the Heritage Orchestra were a…

TRULY heavenly match!

FEATURE: The True Definition of An L.P. Sorry I’m Late: Are Longer Albums Risking Quality Control or Offering Better Value for Fans?

FEATURE:

 

 

The True Definition of An L.P.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ruslan Sikunov/Pexels

Sorry I’m Late: Are Longer Albums Risking Quality Control or Offering Better Value for Fans?

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IT does seem like album are getting longer…

IN THIS PHOTO: Mae Muller/PHOTO CREDIT: Maximilian Hetherington

Not that there are statistics to see how that has changed during the year. It does seem like there is this thing around providing fans with value and more insight. Albums that tell more of a story of include more songs. Albums of physical formats like vinyl and even C.D. can seem expensive if there are ten or eleven tracks. If an artist can release an album with fifteen or sixteen tracks and charge roughly the same – though it might cost more on vinyl -, is that better for everyone? I have noticed it in general. Maybe it is something more common with commercial artists. Take someone like Taylor Swift and the recent 1989 (Taylor's Version). That is out on 27th October. That runs at twenty-one tracks. Speak Now (Taylor's Version) – also released this year – is twenty-two tracks! Even her original studio album, Midnights, for its 3am Edition, ran at twenty tracks. I am thinking about this because Mae Muller put out a tweet when she released her debut album, Sorry I’m Late, last month. Receiving acclaim, this is an album fans have been waiting for a while. She put out that post, as I feel a lot of people might feel it excessive that an album has seventeen songs on it. Clearly all quality enough for people to hear, Muller could easily have put out her debut and then reissued it a few weeks later with extra tracks. Instead, we get an album that is actually decent value for money – with the vinyl being £30 and the C.D. around about £14. I feel value for money is a thing. Even if you do not like a couple of tracks on Sorry I’m Late, you are still getting great value! I don’t think it detract from a complete experience or loses quality. Even at £38, for a vinyl copy of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor's Version), that is pretty good?!

I have said how vinyl is very expensive. Most albums are about ten to twelve/thirteen tracks. A vinyl copy might be, say, anywhere between £20-£25. The excellent falling or flying from Jorja Smith is sixteen songs. A vinyl copy is £25. That is not much more than you’d pay for a new studio album with three or four songs fewer – or a classic album that has been out for decades. It may be harder to market these longer albums on cassette – as it might get bulky and be spread across a doubler cassette or two cassettes -, but I like that artists are taking a risk and being more expensive…without being too expensive! With so many artists reissuing albums with extra tracks, meaning fans might sell out a lot of money to get more than one version of an album, perhaps releasing longer albums saves them that?! I will get to the subject of quality control. As many artists are embracing physical formats, like they did in the 1990s, filling every groove and spare inch of audio space with music seems like a necessary thing. It can be challenging deciding what the optimum number of songs is. The traditional ten or eleven songs is no longer the standard. More and more artists, even on a debut, are exceeding sixteen tracks. It can mean there is a bit of lag and sag here and there. You also get the option of those extra tracks you would not have otherwise had. Interesting to ask why…

Of course, in an age where more and more artists relying on streaming, getting those numbers high is more possible with a longer album. If the likes of Taylor Swift have been criticised because of their wealth, you wonder whether this will intensify the gulf (between huge artists and the majority who do not earn a living wage through music). Mae Muller’s reasoning is not related to streaming success and making money that way. She wants to give her fans as much as possible. If you have to wait a while for an album and there is the hype, maybe artists get nervous and want to include everything. Rewarding that patience – even if people never wait long and there is so much pressure to release something quickly. In the case of mainstream artists who have been around a while, I guess they do want to generate as many streams as they can. Even though they are releasing these long albums, the songs on there are available separately. It means there is greater revenue potential. That may seem cynical, though it is something all artists are considering. If a smaller band coming through generates very little with an album that has eleven or twelve tracks on, giving fans almost double that might push them in terms of how much they spend recording. It also means they have that opportunity to get more streaming figures and money from that – even if, in reality, the amount they earn is peanuts compared to huge artists regularly pulling millions of streams per song!

btw it’s not lost on me that my debut album being 17 songs long was a bit of a risk n some ppl might not get it but i just loved the songs so much and it didn’t feel right to lose any, so seeing you guys welcome it with open arms and listening to it all like i’m just so happy rn

— Mae Muller (@maemuller_) September 30, 2023

Some might say longer album is nothing new. This is true! I think it is more marked and discussion-worthy now, as one assumes people are less patient. On a twenty-track album, are people just going to skip the closer you get to the end?! In the case of artists like Jorja Smith and Mae Muller, they cannot waste songs deemed essential. You get this rounder impression of an album’s journey. One drawback is, when buying it physically, it may be a little too dear for many fans’ pockets. Streaming, therefore, is the option if they want the album but can’t afford a version that is over £30. Technology now means that artists can be recording for an album and have a few tracks that need to be polished and buffed. Technology can do that for them, so they are not spending extra studio hours and money recording. This 2019 piece noted how critically acclaimed albums were getting shorter. Was the fact they were acclaimed because there was concision in terms of the number of songs on an album and the length of each track?! Journalists for years have been asking whether albums are getting longer. Some take the positives from that – you get more music, which can be a good thing -, whereas others state that there is less quality control, and it can be a test of patience and finances investing in these albums. Rap albums were in the news a few years back, as they seemed to be getting longer. Why was this happening? Rolling Stone gave their take:

“WITH 24 TRACKS, clocking in at one hour and 46 minutes, Migos‘ Culture II lasts long enough to listen to all of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and still make it more than halfway through The Dark Side of the Moon. Its Number One debut on the Billboard album chart is the latest twist in streaming’s reshaping of music consumption: the rise of mega albums.

On Spotify, the duration of the top five streamed albums rose almost 10 minutes over the past five years, to an average of 60 minutes. It’s a trend embraced by Drake (2016’s Views was one hour and 21 minutes), Lana Del Rey (2017’s Lust for Life was one hour and 11 minutes) and Future (his two back-to-back albums in February 2017, Future and Hndrxx, totaled two hours and 10 minutes). What’s driving the trend?

“Stacking albums with extra songs is a strategic way to achieve certain goals,” says Malcolm Manswell, a marketing manager for Atlantic Records. In 2014, Billboard incorporated streaming into its chart calculations (1,500 on-demand streams equals one LP), and two years later, the Recording Industry Association of America adopted the same formula for album certifications. Longer albums that generate more streams can lead to Number One chart debuts and gold and platinum plaques. Last fall, when Chris Brown released the 45-song Heartbreak on a Full Moon, it was certified gold in less than 10 days, even though none of its singles cracked the Top 40. Album certifications remain “the indication of a great artist,” says Manswell. “On the sponsorship side, this stuff helps labels sell an artist or argue for why a brand should use an artist.”

Exploiting loopholes is nothing new in the music business. “I don’t think [releasing an extra-long album] is different than bundling tickets to your concert with your first-week sales,” says Daniel Glass, president of Glassnote Records. The bundling strategy, where fans that purchase tour tickets then get a code they can redeem for an album, is a favorite of rock and pop acts; Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem and Pink used it to ensure they debuted at Number One in 2017. (Billboard only counts a ticket sale as an album sale if a fan uses his or her code”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

In 2016, FACT asked whether artists were getting ambitious and didn’t need to be hindered by the limitations of physical formats – they could put out a double vinyl or fit twenty tracks onto a C.D. –, or was there something more cynical at play?! Actually, a ruling from 2014 might be still a factor when we wonder why albums are getting longer today:

“At the end of 2014, Billboard changed the rules that govern the charts to reflect the way we’re now listening to music. It was the biggest upheaval in the way that information is collected since 1991, when hard sales data replaced the risible surveying of a limited number of record outlets up and down the country. “Album sales have become a smaller and smaller part of the industry,” said Nielsen senior analyst David Bakula at the time of the changes. “To just look at album sales and say this is how we measure success is really leaving out that half of the business is coming from streams and song sales.”

New rules mean that individual singles all count towards the chart progress of an album. So the question is, are artists upping production to take advantage of the fact that individual song streams now contribute to chart placement? It’s fairly simple arithmetic: the more songs to stream, the higher an album charts, hence the heft. L’Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg, Reign In Blood by Slayer, Sleater Kinney by Sleater Kinney, I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside by Earl Sweatshirt – all under half an hour in length – may not have been held in the same high esteem had the CEO of the label said, “Great, but could you pad it out with another half an hour of filler to get it up the charts?”

It wouldn’t be the first time record companies have taken advantage of lax regulations to push someone on their roster up the hit parade. In the 1990s the singles charts became more or less rigged by major labels offering unlimited tracks, stickers, a variety of coloured picture discs and singles in five different formats. New releases of CD singles were priced at 99p, going up to £3.99 on the second week of release, meaning songs would crash in at number one before dropping out of the top 10 the following week. Suddenly there were 50 number ones a year and the whole thing became meaningless, so by the time the chart authorities tightened up the rules, we’d all got bored and wandered off to have our frosted tips done instead.

Perhaps the strangest recent rule change by the RIAA is the one where songs released ages ago still count towards album sales if they’re included on the LP, which may go some way to explaining why Drake tacked ‘Hotline Bling’ – released last July – onto the end of Views. “1,500 on-demand song streams in the United States [hold] the same value as 10 individual track sales or one full album sale,” according to Forbes. ‘Hotline Bling’ has so far been streamed over 400 million times on Spotify and 700 million times on YouTube. In the US, those 400 million streams equate to 267,000 album sales under the RIAA’s new rules. There was never any doubt that Drake’s weakest album to date would go platinum – and that was long before the other 19 tracks had even left the studio”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Marina Photos/Pexels

Often, when we talk of long albums and this ‘what length is too long?!’ debate, it is records from Hip-Hop and Rap. I will also talk about between-album E.P.s and how they are more frequent. Actually, as Pop artists are putting out albums with sixteen tracks or more, it is not reserved to one or two genres. A complex question is this: Is less more? That is a debate that applies to all creative mediums (maybe not literature). The appropriately-named COMPLEX provided their perspective in 2021:

“According to Rolling Stone, the duration of the top five streamed albums on Spotify rose almost 10 minutes between 2013 and 2018, to an average of 60 minutes. Although, as Pitchfork points out, there were times in the late ‘‘90s and early 2000s when the average rap album was even longer than it is now. But double albums like OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below or Dipset’s Diplomatic Immunity were the result of calculated decisions in an era of physical production costs, whereas long albums in today’s streaming era often lack artistic intention.

It’s worth noting that artists, especially in hip-hop, are always sitting on a lot of unreleased music. Migos collaborators have gone on record stating that they can make songs in under 20 minutes, and artists often have dozens of songs in the vault, waiting to be released. Even so, the decision to bulk up albums seems to be driven more from a commercial standpoint, rather than a desire to “feed the fans.” When Billboard and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began incorporating streaming numbers in chart and certifications calculations, it gave artists an incentive to bulk up their albums. The longer the album, the more likely it is to generate streams, which can lead to a higher ranking on Billboard or a platinum plaque. Both Migos and Drake debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2018, while Chris Brown’s lengthy album debuted at No. 3. This strategy is even more important right now, after the COVID-19 pandemic put a strain on yearly income and left artists looking for ways to make up for touring revenue.

Joey Badass once told Complex that a good album should have no more than 14 songs, with the duration likely varying between 30 to 45 minutes: “I don’t care if it was Michael Jackson, I am not listening to 25 songs. Less is more in my opinion.”

Financial benefits aside, though, stacking albums doesn’t take into consideration how music consumption has changed over the last few years. According to database company Statista, 54 percent of global consumers listen to fewer albums than they did five or 10 years ago. A 2019 survey conducted by Deezer in the UK, revealed that 15 percent of music fans under the age of 25 have never listened to a full album. Forty-two percent of those listeners are putting their favorite tracks on shuffle or playing them individually. Sure, adding more songs to a tracklist improves the chances that they’ll be added to playlists, but it damages the overall listening experience for a generation that’s moving away from listening to albums anyway. And in the streaming era, fans are receiving more music than ever before. Gone are the days of buying a couple albums at the record store and listening to them repeatedly for months. Today, fans have access to dozens of new albums every Friday, so it can become increasingly tiresome to shuffle through 20-song albums each music cycle.

Tracklists with 18 or more songs often cause fatigue for listeners. By the time you make it to the second half of these albums, they start sounding monotonous and stacked with filler tracks. Migos have fallen victim to this criticism. Following Culture III’s release, fans complained that the second half of the album sounded redundant and could have benefited from shortening the tracklist by three or four tracks. There were similar complaints about Culture II. These long tracklists also don’t cater to the way people actually listen to music. Very seldomly do you sit in one place while consuming an album. You’re usually on the train, in the car, or completing other day-to-day tasks, often making it difficult to listen to the same album for more than 30 minutes.

So, what is the ideal album length? Joey Badass once told Complex that a good album should have no more than 14 songs, with the duration likely varying between 30 to 45 minutes. “I don’t care if it was Michael Jackson, I am not listening to 25 songs. Less is more in my opinion,” he said.

The deluxe album trend could be a more effective way of releasing large quantities of music. Many artists, including Lil Baby, DaBaby, and the Weeknd dropped deluxe albums in 2020, which included five to 10 extra tracks each. The bonus tracks were listed under the album on streaming platforms, but were dropped weeks after the original release. The deluxe method gives listeners a break to digest music at a slower pace, which reduces the likelihood of exhaustion (although, of course, there will still be complaints from some fans about receiving too much music)”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Martin Péchy/Pexels

Many might note how this feature is already long. Ironically, am I spending too much time writing about whether albums are too long?! Well, frankly, no. It is a tricky debate that has many different sides – especially when it comes to vinyl (sorry!). I want to bring in a couple of other takes, as this argument about album length has been discussed for years now. I will end with my opinion. This feature from 2020 discussed the importance of album running time and getting it ‘just right’:

“Earlier this year, I was listening to the new Beach Bunny record and (half) jokingly tweeted that “any LP that's less than 26 minutes is an automatic 9/10 in my mind.” That’s obviously a slight exaggeration, but I do think that shorter albums are generally better and harder to pull off than longer ones. While I realize the running time of a record may seem like an esoteric piece of trivia, I believe it’s actually a vital component of what makes an album good. Sure, I love long-winded double albums, 20-minute songs, and concept albums as much as the next guy, but by and large most of my favorite records, especially recently, are ones that tend to be leaner and more economical with their time. Hell, my favorite album of last year was a 6-track EP, so this post is a long time coming. Truthfully I think shorter records are harder to make and therefore are not the norm. I also think they can be stronger, more creative, and more impactful than a “traditional”-length album for many reasons.

In my mind, an album’s running time is as essential as it’s tracklist or sequencing. Many artists don’t take those things into consideration, but the ones that do often end up crafting a more compelling piece of art. The new Ratboys album is a perfect example of a masterfully-sequenced record; each side opens with a fast-paced single, side one closes with a banger, and the back half of the album works up to a beautifully meditative title track made all the more poignant by the flow of the songs that come before it. Part of what makes Printer’s Devil great is, yes, the songs themselves, but also how the band decided to order those songs and walk the listener through them. You could take those same 11 tracks, rearrange them, and the album would be flat-out worse.

When an artist releases an album, generally, it has a point. The musician sets out to capture a feeling, depict a time in their life, or make a statement on something in the world. If you can get your point across in less time, that only makes your message all the more compelling. One of the first times I consciously began to think about album running times was when Japanese Breakfast released Psychompmp back in 2016. Admittedly enamored with the (now) infamous long-form indieheads shitpost about the album, I went into the record with almost-non-existent expectations and came out the other side 25-minutes later blown away.

Essentially a concept album about her mother’s death, Michelle Zauner set out to capture her grief, experiences, and feelings that surrounded this major event in her life. The album opens poppy enough with the mystifying “In Heaven,” the soaring “Rugged Country,” and the immensely danceable “Everybody Wants to Love You.” Things take a turn halfway through where the titular “Psychopomp” stops the listener in their tracks with a spacy instrumental containing a voicemail of Michelle’s mom. From there, “Jane Cum” bowls the listener over with a wordless explosion of grief, pain, and sharp feelings. Not only is “Jane Cum” one of the most authentic expressions of loss ever captured in music, but it’s made stronger thanks to the songs that surround it. The record is so well-paced, and it’s conscious build-up to that pivotal moment of loss makes the feelings Michelle’s depicting all the more raw and impactful. After that heaviness “Heft,” “Moon on the Bath,” and “Triple 7” act as a sort of post-script to death that sends the listener off on a (slightly) more hopeful note, though not by much. The fact that Michelle was able to fit all of those feelings into an album that’s shorter than most episodes of TV is nothing short of spectacular.

One of the reasons I love music is because it’s the only medium with the ability to make such a compelling depiction in such a short amount of time. TV shows and movies are great, but at best they take 2 hours to create a similar effect. I suppose you could make the argument that shorter-form art house movies broach a similar level of impact, but even then the two mediums don’t exist in the same quantities. There’s a more compelling narrative in the four and a half minutes of “Born to Run” than there was in whatever new teen drama Netflix shat out this weekend. There’s no comparison”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jorge Fakhouri Filho/Pexels

Billboard talked about the advantages of longer albums at a time when you can get any album on Spotify for a fixed monthly subscription fee. Arriving in 2023, this is a relevant modern article that framed the discussion around the release of Country star Morgan Wallen’s (very long player!) One Thing at a Time album:

“One Thing at a Time undoubtedly benefited from its stats-padding length, but it still would have dominated the Billboard 200 had Wallen and his label, Big Loud Records, opted for an average length. With the bottom 18 tracks accounting for 36% of the album’s total on-demand streams, if One Thing were a single-CD, 18-track release, Billboard estimates it would have moved about 360,000 units last week — putting it well ahead of the No. 2 album, SOS by SZA. The 10 most popular tracks amounted to 41.8% of the album’s streams, with the track “Last Night” alone accounting for nearly 9% of the 36 tracks’ aggregated streams.

In fact, an 18-track One Thing at a Time would have bested most recent No. 1 albums in their debut weeks, including Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me (216,000 units), SOS (318,000 units), Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains (185,000 units) and Tomorrow X Together’s The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (161,000 units). (That’s assuming One Thing at a Time would have sold the same number of CDs and digital albums with half as many songs.) Only two recent albums, Her Loss by Drake and 21 Savage (404,000 units) and Taylor Swift’s Midnights (1.58 million units), had better debut weeks than the hypothetical, 18-track One Thing at a Time.

One Thing at a Time is part of a curious paradox in current recorded music, as the widespread adoption of streaming services has caused artists to release single tracks more often while releasing increasingly lengthier albums, too. While the album is waning in popularity, it remains a vital artistic statement and commercial event.

The trend of longer albums runs counter to the experimentations of the early days of digital music. When Napster arrived in the late ’90s, many people believed file-sharing marked the death of the album format. In the ’00s, as consumers increasingly purchased individual tracks at online stores like Apple’s iTunes, labels experimented with the new paradigm. In 2005, Warner Music Group and Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman launched a digital-only label, Cordless Music, that released music exclusively in “clusters” of three or more songs instead of albums or singles. In 2010, country star Blake Shelton released two six-song EPs — called “six paks” — rather than a single 10- or 12-track album.

Today, streaming dominates music consumption and impacts how artists and labels package music. Album sales are lower than ever, but album lengths have never been longer. Because fans can stream an unlimited amount of music for a fixed price, artists can add songs knowing that a longer album equals more streams. And because streams tend to account for far more of an album’s chart position than downloads and purchases, artists have an incentive to keep people listening.

The result has been “track creep,” a consistently rising number of songs on popular albums. In 2022, the top 10 albums on the year-end Billboard 200 chart averaged 19.1 tracks and 69.9 minutes. The top album, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, has 23 tracks and runs 81 minutes. Un Verano Sin Ti is a product of the streaming age: Physical album sales account for just 1.1% of its album equivalent unit sales compared to 97.5% for streaming. Track creep is made easier considering that many albums, such as SOS and Drake’s 21-track Certified Lover Boy, don’t have physical versions.

Changes in how albums are counted for the Billboard 200 can probably help explain some of the track creep: In 2014, the year Billboard began incorporating streams into the Billboard 200 chart, the top 10 albums averaged 13.2 tracks and 51.9 minutes, meaning album lengths have increased by about six tracks and 18 minutes in the last eight years. (Here, Billboard counts only studio albums and excludes soundtracks and Broadway cast recordings, which are filled with score and instrumental tracks.)

In 1992, when CD sales began to dominate recorded music revenues, the top 10 albums averaged 11.9 tracks and 51.1 minutes. Garth Brooks had two of the four 10-track albums in the top 10 — Ropin’ the Wind and No Fences — and the longest, Totally Krossed Out by hip-hop duo Kriss Kross, had just 15 tracks. Albums -- particularly in the country genre -- often topped out at ten tracks, a limit set by record labels for paying mechanical royalties to music publishers.

Today, streaming dominates music consumption and impacts how artists and labels package music. Album sales are lower than ever, but album lengths have never been longer. Because fans can stream an unlimited amount of music for a fixed price, artists can add songs knowing that a longer album equals more streams. And because streams tend to account for far more of an album’s chart position than downloads and purchases, artists have an incentive to keep people listening”.

Particular people will have their views regarding whether longer albums are good value, or if they are a test of endurance. I personally like longer albums if they are affordable. You get a more complete – warts and all – view of an album. So many artists release a normal-length studio album. They then put an E.P. out soon after or before, so you get these tracks that would have been on an album arriving in a different format. People don’t really buy physical E.P.s - they can get them through Bandcamp and Spotify -, so I guess people need to consider the fact many artists who release shorter albums still put out a lot of music over the course of a year or two; though they are in the form of an album and then E.P. When albums can be streamed cheaply, artists have to make money through providing longer albums. It does mean fans shell out more though, with many artists putting out albums every couple of few years, it is not a massive expenditure if you think about it. Mae Muller’s recent post ‘defending’ her expansive debut, Sorry I’m Late, raises an interesting point. She has started a debate that has arrived at…

JUST the right time!

FEATURE: Joni Mitchell at Eighty: Both Sides, Now: Bringing the Icon to the Screen

FEATURE:

 

 

Joni Mitchell at Eighty

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in 1968/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

Both Sides, Now: Bringing the Icon to the Screen

_________

COMING up on 7th November…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell's at the Newport Folk Festival on 24th June, 2022 (you can find out more about it and buy the live album here)/PHOTO CREDIT: Nina Westervelt

we mark the eightieth birthday of one of the most influential artists ever. There is no doubting few lyrics are as evocative and poetic as Joni Mitchell. Alongside an elite few, her songs are works of art. So richly drawn and spellbinding, the songs themselves could form their own film. Maybe an album like 1971’s Blue. I think that there have been occasions where Joni Mitchell has appeared on film. Usually concert footage, she is one of those legends who has not been subjected to a biopic or T.V. drama. With series like Daisy Jones & The Six seemingly representing Fleetwood Mac in some form, you wonder when a biopic about them will come. Same too with Debbie Harry and Blondie. Madonna’s planned biopic has been shelved. That has been crying out for decades. You hope it does come to the screen very soon. One artists who might not seem as cinematic – read: dramatic and controversial – is Joni Mitchell. I have always felt a biopic or drama based on her life should happen. Luckily, as we see in this article from earlier in the year, that might come sooner than we imagined:

“Cameron Crowe, the director of Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire, is developing a new drama film with Joni Mitchell about her life.

According to a story on the entertainment site Above the Line – which was subsequently reposted on Mitchell’s own website – the project is not a documentary and Mitchell has been collaborating with Crowe on the script for the past two years.

Crowe made his name as a teenager writing for Rolling Stone and Creem magazines, experiences he went on to dramatise in Almost Famous. He is a music fanatic and has a longstanding friendship with Mitchell, who he has interviewed numerous times; in 2017 he accompanied her to her first public appearance, a Grammy awards gala, since suffering a brain aneurysm two years earlier.

IN THIS PHOTO: Cameron Crowe and Joni Mitchell pictured in November 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Bruce Glikas/Getty Images

Crowe has not directed a feature film since the romcom Aloha in 2015, which was was a box office failure and was criticised for the casting of Emma Stone as a character with Hawaiian and Chinese heritage. In 2019, he produced the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, about the folk-rock singer-songwriter who died in January this year.

Mitchell, 79, has not released a studio album since 2007’s Shine and kept a low profile after her 2015 aneurysm. But she returned to live performance with a surprise set at Newport folk festival in July 2022, playing 13 songs alongside Brandi Carlile and others, and is booked to play another solo show in June at Washington state’s Gorge Amphitheatre. A live album of her Newport performance is also planned, she told Elton John in an interview in November.

Previously unreleased material has also emerged in recent years across a series of six archival releases by the label Rhino, beginning with Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967) in 2020”.

There is a bit of speculation and wondering as to what could come about. Rather than a straight biopic, it seems maybe there will be a section of Mitchell’s life converted to a drama. I like that Mitchell is consulting and working on the script. It means there is truth and that personal input. It makes me wonder a couple of things. In such a wonderful and diverse life, is this going to be a career-spanning drama that uses her music as a backdrop?! Maybe set in the late-1960s or 1970s, you would have these incredible songs scoring a powerful drama. Whether set in Laurel Canyon, or if it talks place somewhere else, I cannot wait to see what might come about. One reason why it is important to have a film or T.V. series around Joni Mitchell’s work is because it introduces people to her music. A younger generation who use Spotify and cannot get her music – Mitchell removed her music from the platform in protest against controversial podcaster Joe Rogan. The biopic or music film can be quite difficult to get right. When it comes to Joni Mitchell, some might consider her a niche artist. Someone who only connects with people who experienced her music in the 1970s. Her legacy and brilliance has inspired modern artists like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. There are dozens of modern artists you can trace to Joni Mitchell. Alongside a drama, it would also be wonderful if there was some modern documentary. Artists and fans talking about her impact and importance. Maybe a new interview with Mitchell. Bringing those albums and songs to life in a new way. Something that covers her career and importance, you would also get to learn more about a hugely intriguing songwriter.

Whether the Cameron Crowe-helmed upcoming Joni Mitchell project is more a straight biopic or uses her music in something fictional, it is a long-overdue project that will open up her music to new generations. Show just how powerful and important her cannon of work is. I hope there is a lot of celebration in the lead-up to her eightieth birthday. Whether Mitchell herself minds or finds it a bit uncomfortable I am not sure. I’d like to think people are honouring her ahead of quite a milestone. Whilst no more original material will come, she is still performing live now and then. You cannot rule anything out. A alongside what comes to the screen, a documentary accompanying this would be magnificent. Important to hear new words from a music genius! So many people are influenced by her, thanking Mitchell and sharing their stories would be really something! I am sure we will hear something regarding Cameron Crowe and his project soon. I am excited to think about what might come about. Before 7th November, take some time to listen to Joni Mitchell’s albums and live performances. Check out video and print interviews, as they always make for engrossing and remarkable listening/reading. I am going to leave it there. I am going to put out another feature or two before Joni Mitchell turns eighty. Such a music titan, the world would not be the same without her in it! It is true that she really is…

ONE of a kind.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Lionheart at Forty-Five: Ranking the Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Lionheart at Forty-Five

Ranking the Tracks

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IN the middle of a blitz and flurry…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Lionheart photo session/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz/PHOTO CONCEPT: John Carder Bush

of Kate Bush anniversary features, I am concentrating on an album that turns forty-five on 13th November. Kate Bush’s second studio album, it followed hotly on the heels of her hugely successful debut, The Kick Inside. Lionheart is a terrific album that deserves more praise. I am going to do another feature about it before its forty-fifth anniversary. Like I have done with other Kate Bush albums coming up for their anniversary, I am interested in doing a tracks ranking feature. Some might feel a top three from Lionheart would be obvious, though you can’t always predict that! I did rank the tracks a while ago. My opinion has changed since then. Below are the ten songs from Kate Bush’s second studio album…

IN order of their superiority.

___________

TEN: Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake

Position on the Album: 4

Standout Lyric: “Emma's been run out on/She's breaking down/In so many places/Stuck in low gear/Because of her fears”

Background Detail:

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her second album Lionheart, the song was written a few years before. According to Kate, it was written as a 'Patti Smith song'.

Versions

There are two officially released versions of 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon, which appears on the On Stage EP. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

Performances

Kate performed 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake' on the Leo Sayer Show on 17 November 1978 and on the 1979 Christmas special. The song was also included in the setlist of the Tour of Life”

NINE: In Search of Peter Pan

Position on the Album: 2

Standout Lyric: “He's got a photo/Of his hero/He keeps it under his pillow/But I've got a pin-up/From/a newspaper/Of Peter Pan/I found it in a locket/I hide it in my pocket”

Background Detail:

“There's a song on [Lionheart] called 'In Search Of Peter Pan' and it's sorta about childhood. And the book itself is an absolutely amazing observation on paternal attitudes and the relationships between the parents - how it's reflected on the children. And I think it's a really heavy subject, you know, how a young innocence mind can be just controlled, manipulated, and they don't necessarily want it to happen that way. And it's really just a song about that. (Lionheart promo cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)”

EIGHT: Oh England My Lionheart

Position on the Album: 5

Standout Lyric: “Oh England, my Lionheart!/Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park/You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames/That old river poet that never, ever ends”

Background Detail:

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

A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy. It's very classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and it's done ... almost madrigally, you know. I dare say a lot of people will think that it's just a load of old slush but it's just an area that I think it's good to cover. Everything I do is very English and I think that's one reason I've broken through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing. (Harry Doherty, Enigma Variations. Melody Maker, November 1978)”

SEVEN: Full House

Position on the Album: 6

Standout Lyric: “My silly pride/Digging the knife in/She loves to come for her ride”

Background Detail:

“Song written by Kate Bush in 1978. One of three new songs - along with Coffee Homeground and Symphony In Blue - written for the album Lionheart. The lyric seems to be autobiographical, an insight into psychological struggles she was encountering, with paranoia and self-doubt. The song was also released as the B-side of the single Wow.

Performances

Kate performed 'Full House' during the Tour of Life live shows in 1979.

Kate about 'Fullhouse'

'Fullhouse' was probably quite autobiographical, you know: Talking about how hard I find it to cope with all the feelings I get, from paranoia, pressure, anger, that sort of thing. (Colin Irwin, Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside. Melody Maker (UK), 10 October 1980)”

SIX: Hammer Horror

Position on the Album: 10

Standout Lyric: “They've got the stars for the gallant hearts/I'm the replacement for your part/But all I want to do is forget/You, friend”

Background Detail:

“The song is not about, as many think, Hammer Horror films. It is about an actor and his friend. His friend is playing the lead in a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a part he's been reading all his life, waiting for the chance to play it. He's finally got the big break he's always wanted, and he is the star. After many rehearsals he dies accidentally, and the friend is asked to take the role over, which, because his own career is at stake, he does. The dead man comes back to haunt him because he doesn't want him to have the part, believing he's taken away the only chance he ever wanted in life. And the actor is saying, "Leave me alone, because it wasn't my fault - I have to take this part, but I'm wondering if it's the right thing to do because the ghost is not going to leave me alone and is really freaking me out. Every time I look round a corner he's there, he never disappears."

The song was inspired by seeing James Cagney playing the part of Lon Chaney playing the hunchback - he was an actor in an actor in an actor, rather like Chinese boxes, and that's what I was trying to create. (Kate Bush Club Newsletter, November 1979)”

FIVE: Wow

Position on the Album: 3

Standout Lyric: “He'll never make the screen/He'll never make the 'Sweeney'/Be that movie queen/He's too busy hitting the Vaseline”

Background Detail:

“Wow' is a song about the music business, not just rock music but show business in general, including acting and theatre. People say that the music business is about ripoffs, the rat race, competition, strain, people trying to cut you down, and so on, and though that's all there, there's also the magic. It was sparked off when I sat down to try and write a Pink Floyd song, something spacey; Though I'm not surprised no-one has picked that up, it's not really recognisable as that, in the same way as people haven't noticed that 'Kite' is a Bob Marley song, and 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake' is a Patti Smith song. When I wrote it I didn't envisage performing it - the performance when it happened was an interpretation of the words I'd already written. I first made up the visuals in a hotel room in New Zealand, when I had half an hour to make up a routine and prepare for a TV show. I sat down and listened to the song through once, and the whirling seemed to fit the music. Those who were at the last concert of the tour at Hammersmith must have noticed a frogman appear through the dry ice it was one of the crew's many last night 'pranks' and was really amazing. I'd have liked to have had it in every show. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Summer 1979)”

FOUR: In the Warm Room

Position on the Album: 7

Standout Lyric: “In the warm room/She prepares to go to bed/She'll let you watch her undress/Go places where/Your fingers long to linger”

Background Detail:

“Performances

Kate was asked to perform on the children's TV programme Ask Aspel, where she wanted to present the new song 'In The Warm Room', but the BBC felt this song was too explicitly sexual, so she opted for Kashka From Baghdad instead. As a result, there are no televised performances of 'In The Warm Room'. The song, however, was performed during the Tour of Life and one of these performances ended up in the Live In Germany TV special.

Kate about 'In The Warm Room'

I'm always getting accused of being a feminist. Really I do write a lot of my songs for men, actually. In fact, 'In The Warm Room' is written for men because there are so many songs for women about wonderful men that come up and chat you up when you're in the disco and I thought it would be nice to write a song for men about this amazing female. And I think that I am probably female-oriented with my songs because I'm a female and have very female emotions but I do try to aim a lot of the psychology, if you like, at men. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”

THREE: Coffee Homeground

Position on the Album: 9

Standout Lyric: “Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna - in the coffee/And you won't get me with your aresenic - in the pot of tea/And you won't get me in a hole to rot - with your hemlock/On the rocks”

Background Detail:

“Song written by Kate Bush while in the USA in May 1978. It was one of only three songs newly written for the album Lionheart - along with Full House and Symphony In Blue.

Cover versions

'Coffee Homeground' was covered by Kat Devlin and Mouse.

Kate about 'Coffee Homeground'

['Coffee Homeground'] was in fact inspired directly from a cab driver that I met who was in fact a bit nutty. And it's just a song about someone who thinks they're being poisoned by another person, they think that there's Belladonna in their tea and that whenever they offer them something to eat, it's got poisen in it. And it's just a humorous aspect of paranoia really and we sort of done it in a Brechtian style, the old sort of German [vibe] to try and bring across the humour side of it. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)“

TWO: Kashka from Baghdad

Position on the Album: 8

Standout Lyric: ”They never go for walks/Maybe it's because/The moon's not bright enough/There's light in love, you see”

Background Detail (https://www.katebushencyclopedia.com/kashka-from-baghdad):

“Performances

Kate performed 'Kashka From Baghdad' live on the piano on Ask Aspel, a TV show broadcast by the BBC in 1978. The song was also included in the setlist for the Tour of Life.

Cover versions

'Kashka From Baghdad' was covered by the Plunging Necklines.

Kate about 'Kashka From Baghdad'

That actually came from a very strange American Detective series that I caught a couple of years ago, and there was a musical theme that they kept putting in. And they had an old house, in this particular thing, and it was just a very moody, pretty awful serious thing. And it just inspired the idea of this old house somewhere in Canada or America with two people in it that no-one knew anything about. And being a sorta small town, everybody wanted to know what everybody what else was up to. And these particular people in this house had a very private thing happening. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”

ONE: Symphony in Blue

Position on the Album: 1

Standout Lyric: “When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in/Go blowing my mind on God: The light in the dark, with the neon arms/The meek He seeks, the beast He calms/The head of the good soul department”.

Background Detail:

“Song written by Kate Bush in 1978, released on her second album Lionheart. It was one of three newly written songs for the album, along with Coffee Homeground and Full House. It is believed that the lyric of the song is an attempt at describing Kate's own belief system. The descriptions of God, sex and the colour blue seem to be inspired by reading about Wilhelm Reich's theory in A Book Of Dreams.

Formats

'Symphony In Blue' was released as a single in Canada and Japan. In Canada, the B-side was Hammer Horror; in Japan it was Fullhouse.

Performances

Kate performed 'Symphony In Blue' during the live shows of the Tour of Life. The song also appeared in the 1979 Christmas special”

FEATURE: Charted Territory: Brothers Inarm: Diversifying the Podcast Market and Highlighting Amazing Women

FEATURE:

 

 

Charted Territory: Brothers Inarm

IN THIS PHOTO: Professor Hannah Fry’s podcast, Uncharted, is enormously successful and must-listen, yet she is one of few women whose podcasts are charting high and among the most listened-to, leading to a question around a new rise in popularity male-focused/voiced options/PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Clift for The Independent

Diversifying the Podcast Market and Highlighting Amazing Women

_________

AN article was published recently…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Comedians James Acaster and Ed Gamble host the hugely popular podcast, Off Menu/PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Gilbey

that raised an interesting point regarding the most popular podcasts. A market that is expanding by the day, you can pretty much find s podcast for anything! Not to say that the podcast market is dominated by men but, when it comes to the most heard and discussed, it seems that male-driven/focused ones are on top. The ‘bro’ podcast. Either podcasters who have quite a laddish or bro mentality, or two men podcasting together who are friends. There is nothing wrong with that…though there does seem to be this proliferation at the moment. I love Fearne Cottom’s Happy Place Podcast and Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware. There are plenty of great podcasts made by or for women. Yet, that being said, there is a resurgence of and seeming reliance on those with a distinct energy and dynamic.  I know this is a bit music-adjacent, though it does also apply to music podcasts. I will explore that side a bit more. First, Zoe Williams wrote for The Guardian and asked what it is with all the bro podcasts we are seeing celebrated and topping listening charts:

“I went to an event last week, Is Audio the Future?, which left me full of enthusiasm for podcasts as this pure, organic, guerrilla space, which nobody had yet figured out how to gatekeep and thereby homogenise. Chris Sweeney described how his podcast, Homo Sapiens, originally co-hosted with Will Young, came about in 2018: he was an avid fan of Woman’s Hour and thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to have an LGBT Woman’s Hour?” They started with no more equipment than an iPhone. Holly Cook, head of product at the Economist, described readers having a much richer relationship with the content when they became listeners, more intimate and proprietorial. It reminded me of publishing, in the old days, when there were low barriers to entry, a thousand flowers could bloom and not everyone in the business was in an unengaging steeplechase for the next Hogwarts.

IN THIS PHOTO: Joe Rogan, left, host of the U.K.’s most popular podcast/PHOTO CREDIT: SYFY/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images

But actually, that would have been publishing in the 17th century. A much better analogy for podcasts as they are now, or as I thought they were, would be the early days of the internet, without behemoths, advertisers or algorithms, before users were funnelled in one of four directions (violent misogynists, conspiracists and white-supremacists; mild lefties; consumers; people who like cats).

This week, the list dropped of the UK’s best-loved podcasts, telling a different story to the one I was telling myself. The top five are, in descending order, Joe Rogan; Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO, in which he counsels the layperson on how to become more like him; Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster; Sh**ged Married Annoyed, a kind of unfiltered(ish) account of real-life marriage, with Chris and Rosie Ramsey; and Peter Crouch’s podcast. I have a really low tolerance for bros chatting, unless they’re deliberately trying to be funny, so there is lots in the top 25 I cannot comment on, because to heap on the derision I believe them to deserve, I’d first have to listen.

Joe Rogan I have listened to, mainly to bottom out whether or not his reputation as the soothing face of conspiracy theories and other problematic views was deserved. Between the anti-vaxxing and his remark in February that “the idea that Jewish people are not into money is ridiculous”, it probably is, but I couldn’t possibly adjudicate because this is just more bros, chatting.

Across the piece, successful podcasts are funnelling into a handful of distinct streams: bros chatting, sometimes “inspirationally”; funny bros, being funny, and fair play, many of them are; facts, trivia and miscellany presented in a cute way (No Such Thing As a Fish, The Infinite Monkey Cage). Women are allowed, but only if they’re talking about their children or relationships, preferably with their husbands or children (besides Sh**ged …, there’s NewlyWeds, Parenting Hell, Saving Grace). The honourable exception is Hannah Fry, who gets to talk about maths and still be female”.

Maybe it is just a shift in tastes. Perhaps there is a particular energy and chemistry in particular podcasts that are appealing. Whilst I don’t agree that podcasts should be for one particular demographic or gender, it does seem that the most popular podcasts at the moment are more aimed at men. Of course, there are podcasts by women for women that are worth checking out. There was an issue last year where we heard of male podcast hosts and guests called out because of their sexism. It is not especially a recent problem. Whilst there are scores of women making incredible podcasts, how many are we seeing riding high in the charts?! I am going to come to music before. To defend men (sort of), there is a diverse array of podcasts that go beyond ‘bro-dom’ and celebrate blokes being friends. Whether it is a food podcast, one about sports, or even a music one, it can get a bit much!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Broadcasters, D.J.s and authors, Nick Grimshaw and Annie Macmanus, have just launched their new podcast, Sidetracked, on BBC Sounds/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC/Stephanie Sian Smith/PA

I am keen to explore this in a musical contest. Whether it is on Apple, Spotify - another well-known streaming platform - or BBC Sounds, there is this extraordinary amount of choice. BBC Sounds has a load of podcasts you can listen to. One that is mixed-gender and take that mates-chatting-formular that seems to be male-heavy and turns things around is Sidetracked with Annie and Nick. Presented by former Radio 1 stablemates Annie Macmanus and Nick Grimshaw, let’s hope their new series heralds in a lot more podcasts where it is not solely two men talking. In the same way you do not see many radio duos of all-women, the same is true of podcasts! Female friendships and relationships being explored and spotlighted through amazing series. Before going on, I found an article from last year that asked about the male-dominated market – and some advice for women getting into podcasting:

“Where Are All the Women Podcasters In theCharts?

It would be wrong to say there are no success stories for women podcasters in the charts. For example, Elizabeth Day’s ‘How to Fail’ and Vogue Williams’ ‘My Therapist Ghosted Me’ are consistently in the top 20. But the problem is, there’s just not enough.

Data on the gender split of podcast creators is pretty tough to get your hands on. But in one report from Sounds Profitable, just 29% of podcast creators in the US identified as women compared with 69% of men. 2% of those surveyed identified as non-binary.

Outside of this small study, there’s a real lack of solid data. This makes it hard to understand why women are so underrepresented in the podcast charts.

One report says the lack of data makes it “difficult to say if women’s underrepresentation on Apple’s top 100 podcasts is because women are not hosting as many podcasts or because they are not receiving recognition for their podcasts”.

The same report highlights some potential obstacles that could be preventing women from creating more podcasts. For example, there are fewer women in tech and are less likely to have experience with podcast recording and editing software because technology is a space dominated by men.

If podcasts are anything like books, there could also be fewer women in the charts simply because men don’t listen to podcasts by women as much as they listen to content by men.

It’s likely there’s a whole combination of factors keeping women out of the podcast charts. But the good news is, that there are some inspirational women who are on a mission to do something about it.

3 Women Making Waves in Podcasting

There are a lot of women podcasters and female-inspired podcast networks championing females in the field right now. After tuning into the International Women’s Podcast Festival this year, here are my top 3 to watch.

1. Imriel Morgan

Imriel Morgan is the CEO of Content is Queen and one of the founders of the International Women’s Podcast Festival.

Content is Queen is a London-based podcasting agency and community that seeks to amplify minority voices in podcasting.

The event was created to celebrate women who have been building up the industry but aren’t being recognised.

“There are still a number of hurdles for different people to jump through. But I think women can be at the forefront of the podcasting industry and should be. We are consuming, we are creating, and we are creating for audiences that are largely under-served,” said Imriel.

“So we are the ones creating at this mass rate but we aren’t necessarily benefiting financially or with the credibility, popularity or even the job prospects. I think there are a lot of things we need to address.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Imriel Morgan

2. Kim Fox

Also known as ‘The Podcast Professor’, Kim Fox is a leading academic who produces, teaches and conducts academic research in podcasting. She’s also a journalism professor with The American University in Cairo.

Fox recognises that progress in the field is almost entirely down to women championing other women podcasters:

“We are finding that more women are aligning up with other women and these opportunities […] are extremely valuable.”

“The way we share information, the way we cheer for each other, you can guarantee there aren’t going to be any ‘manels’ [all-male panels]. Sometimes, we hear when these conferences take place that they couldn’t find any women to talk about this topic. That’s not true.”

3. Bianca Foley

Bianca Foley is one half of the very successful, all-female-driven, Sustainably Influenced podcast.

Along with co-host Charlotte Williams, the duo’s show focuses on eco-fashion. The show was born out of a chat between friends about the frustration of packaging.

Despite the challenges of launching just before the pandemic hit in 2020, the show has gone from strength to strength. It’s now in its sixth season.

Content creator Bianca said: “I wanted to do a podcast for ages, but I didn’t have the confidence to just start it and that’s why I was so glad that Charlotte just said, we are going to do this, let’s just do it, let’s just try.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Bianca Foley

Best Advice From Women Podcasters? Just Do It

The advice to women podcasters from Content is Queen’s Imriel Morgan is, if you’re thinking of starting a podcast, stop thinking.

“My advice is just to start,” she said. “I’m not saying you have to press publish, I’m not saying you have to distribute it to the world, even though that’s far less scary than you think it is, but just start the process.

“We want to see those stories, and we want to hear what you’ve got to say. It does matter, and it is valid.”

If this has inspired you to start your own women-led podcast, this guide on how to start a podcast has everything you need to know.

And if all this has got you interested in checking out another great women-led podcasting conference, She Podcasts Live 2023 will take place June 19-22 in Washington DC”.

Even the music podcast market features a lot of male-helmed series. We have artists like Dua Lipa and her At Your Service podcast. In music, there is ample opportunity to platform women. So many great artists who could pair together. I would love to hear podcasts from women in production. Incredible female artists talking about their careers. Series exploring iconic women in music and modern-day queens! I think there is something incredibly captivating and fascinating hearing two women on a podcast. The dynamic is a little different. I think the conversation is usually broader and more interesting. Their personalities richer and  broader! I would love to hear music interview podcasts or thematic/topical music podcasts made by women. You can extend this to beyond the world of music. Think about film criticism. Again, there are some great film podcasts made by women. There are alluring and dynamite partnerships waiting to be cemented. Rhianna Dhillon and Anna Bogutskaya have presented Kermode and Mayo’s Take. They are brilliant together. I think they could present a weekly film podcast and it would ride high in the charts. It is all very well have these fantasy line-ups and wish-lists. There is the incredible female talent out there! That article from The Guardian makes a point. In some ways, the podcast charts are regressive. Women on podcasts with or talking about their husbands are more worthy or visible than ones where women are at the forefront and independent. Hannah Fry being an example (of the latter) with her extraordinary Uncharted. There does seem to be that preference for male voices. Men are harsher critics too. Even if there are terrific podcasts made by women, the most recognisable and memorable ones, it appears, are from men.

IN THIS PHOTO: Film critics broadcasters and writers, Rhianna Dhillon and Anna Bogutskaya/PHOTO CREDIT: Kermode and Mayo’s Take

Even five years ago, the topic of gender divides in podcast was raised by Forbes. Whilst it is a way of fighting against the patriarchy, (podcasts) also provide a space where women can be heard and talk about issues important to them! If bro-led podcasts about banter and mates shooting the breeze are popular because of their casual nature and that healthy male energy, there are plenty of toxic and problematic ones that are getting a big audience share. Things will change. The podcast market is definitely one that could be enriched if female voices are supported and amplified:

“As more women infiltrate the male-dominated world of podcasting, they’re inspiring and showing the way for other female hosts. And to those women who are thinking of starting a show of their own, don’t let the popularity contest deter you. Brushing off podcast rankings, Shannon and Thompson say, “iTunes algorithms are a mystery to everyone—that top 100 could be based on just about anything. So we try to not let it get our panties in a bunch; we just keep on going, doing our thing. But we're definitely dreaming of a more equal world where we don't even have to go there, and now is the time for women to step up, use their voices, share their stories, and support each other by subscribing and leaving ratings and reviews.”

“We live in a society that often tells women our voices and our stories don’t matter. I really internalized this and regrettably, I spent a big portion of my life thinking that I didn’t have anything valuable to add to the conversation,” says Todd. “From writers, to filmmakers, to podcasters, we need more women telling our stories. I can’t tell you how many times podcast networks or advertisers have told me they wish there were more women led shows out there. It’s dire. If you’re a woman who has something to say, don’t spend any time worrying that what you have to say isn’t valuable. We need your voice”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Daisy May Cooper hosts Educating Daisy/PHOTO CREDIT: Antonio Olmos/The Observer 

Being in the music industry, I know of great podcasts made by women here. So many more just begging to be made! Across all industries, sectors and interests,  it is vital that there is greater balance. Of course, you can’t dictate listener habits and force tastes onto people. Even so, podcast platforms in general can do more to balance things are promote worthy and interesting female voices. Mixed-gender podcasts that break away from the matey and blokey surge. Not that I have anything against men in podcasts though, with any scene, if there is too much of that it gets homogenised, boring and lacks variation! Articles like this from earlier in the year highlight some brilliant women making incredible podcast. Even Ryan Clark’s excellent Rylan: How to Be a Man is a much-needed, timely and refreshing antidote to the somewhat unfiltered and testosterone-filled podcasts that many gravitate towards. Seeing more women scaling the top podcasts charts in 2024 would be a hugely pleasant, inspiring, important and progressive…

STEP forward.