FEATURE: The Pride of Tyne and Wear: Celebrating the Stage Return of the Incomparable Queen Nadine Shah

FEATURE:

 

 

The Pride of Tyne and Wear

  

Celebrating the Stage Return of the Incomparable Queen Nadine Shah

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MAYBE the tickets…

will be sold out by the time this goes live but, if there are some left and you are near Brighton or Glasgow, you can see the divine Nadine Shah perform later this month. She is at Chalk, Brighton on 19th; King Tut’s, Glasgow on 29th. It is a chance to see one of our greatest artists back on stage after a bit of a time away. The Whitburn-born (Sunderland) artist is one of my absolute favourites. Her latest studio album, Kitchen Sink, came out in 2020. New music, Shah has posted, is coming along soon. I wanted to celebrate that fact. I will come to Kitchen Sink and a bit of publicity around that. I will also mention her 2022 debut acting turn in A Midsummer Night's Dream, where she won critical applause. It is fascinating seeing artists like Shah, Rebecca Lucy Taylor (Self Esteem), and even Cheryl (Cole) stepping into acting and getting this curiosity and acclaim. I don’t need much of an excuse to spotlight and spend time with Nadine Shah’s music. As she is an actress and is coming back to the musical stage, it is an exciting and different time! I am going to finish with a look at each of Shah’s four albums and reviews for them all. I am starting out with this interview that she gave late last year to promote her turn in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

“Imagine you’ve never acted before, but you’re on your way to rehearsals for a new production of a Shakespeare classic where you’ll be playing a central role.

Anyone else’s heart rate just gone up a notch?

Add to that the knowledge that the ‘riotous’ incarnation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – where you’ll be playing Fairy Queen, Titania opposite the voice of Bafta Award-winning David Morrissey by the way – will be the first play to hit the stage at a spanking new Shakespeare-devoted venue, and I think anyone would forgiven for doing some kind of runner before they’d had time to hang up their coat.

Thankfully, Nadine Shah required no such forgiveness, having embraced the above opportunity with a big dollop of gusto.

Despite professing to be ‘absolutely knackered’ thanks to the demanding performance schedule she’s currently keeping, the joy she’s getting from the experience shines through as she Zooms in for a chat from her Liverpool digs.

“There’s something really special about the theatre. I love being a part of it, and I have a newfound respect for theatre actors, they work damn hard,” laughs the 36-year-old who hails from South Tyneside.

“The reason I love my job as a musician is that I love working really hard on something creative and delivering it to an audience to bring them joy. At its bare bones, that’s what my work is about. And that’s exactly what this play does,” she adds.

But back to the decision to take the role in the first place.

“I’d had a lot of time off work because I was very unwell. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I needed to take a few months off to mend,” she says.

IN THIS PHOTO: Nadine Shah in rehearsals for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

During this period of recovery, Nadine was contacted by director Matthew Dunster who was working with Jimmy Fairhurst, artistic director of ‘gig’ theatre company, Not Too Tame on a new production of Shakespeare’s dreamy comedy.

The play – a co-production with Northern Stage in Newcastle – would be the opening attraction for the Shakespeare North Playhouse (a new venue in Prescott, Merseyside) before coming for a two-week run on Tyneside.

“It was never something I was looking for – I’ve never acted in my life aside from possibly a couple of minor roles in school plays and had zero ambitions to do so,” says Nadine.

“But it transpired that Matthew – with his impeccable taste in music – had been a fan of mine for a long time and thought that I would be a good fit for Titania.”

Nadine says she couldn’t have considered taking the role before taking her much-needed time away… but the invitation came at exactly the right time.

IN THIS PHOTO: David Nellist as Theseus with Shah’s Titania/PHOTO CREDIT: Patch Dolan

“I wanted to challenge myself and this was something completely out of my comfort zone. I loved the idea of the structure of theatre and getting back into something that I had to work really hard on.”

Known for mining her own life experiences for her music, the chance to inhabit another character also appealed.

“As much as I might deny it, all my songs are about me and my life. It can be quite tiring and sometimes overwhelming exhibiting my personal life on stage night after night. That’s possibly why I got so poorly,” she says.

“There’s something really joyous about playing somebody else for a change… and have the permission to play.

“I was always very concerned with looking cool and never wanting to make myself look silly or daft. Theatre allows you to play – to be daft, to be silly, to explore all these different things within yourself. There’s a great freedom which comes with that and I love it.”

Billed as a ‘full tilt, full on night out’ the production, which opens at Northern Stage on Saturday (Oct 27) has had a lovely reception from reviewers and critics alike.

“Not Too Tame are my kind of theatre company,” says Nadine.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patch Dolan

“They don’t want the theatre to be intimidating and their focus is for people to enjoy themselves and have a great night out.

“But there’s no dumbing down of Shakespeare whatsoever. It’s a beautifully chaotic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which has daft and silly and dark and harrowing… and so much beauty.”

And don’t forget the music. It would have been downright silly to have Nadine Shah in the cast and not ask her to sing something.

She laughs.

“There’s loads of me singing in it. Sometimes I’ll be leaving the theatre and an audience member will stop me and say ‘you have got an amazing voice’ and I just want to go, ‘yeah, I know, but what about my acting?’”.

Prior to coming to a review for Kitchen Sink, I wanted to drop in one of the many interviews around its release. I would advise people to look at some of the others. In a great questions-and-answers chat with Jude Rogers for Observer New Review, we get some great insights into the album – in addition to an order/shipment issue that could have destroyed Nadine Shah’s wrists!

“Nadine Shah, 34, was born in South Tyneside to a British-Norwegian mother and British-Pakistani father. Since her 2013 debut, Love Your Dum and Mad, her albums have explored mental health, Islamophobia, the refugee crisis and feminism through post-punk, gothic pop, and her blackly comic personality. Holiday Destination (2018) was nominated for the Mercury prize, and her fourth album, Kitchen Sink, is out 26 June.

What’s it like releasing an album in the time of Covid-19?

It’s strange, and I’m sad, obviously, as I was really looking forward to playing live to support it. I had a great slot at Glastonbury, this massive dream, on a great stage at a great time, and the idea of all those people who could have come to see me, or chanced upon me, not happening… I don’t want to think about, really. But being stuck at home means I’ve got social media at my fingertips, and I’ve been seeing who’s reacting to my songs. Lots of people have been tweeting about my singles. That’s been great.

PHOTO CREDIT: Katherine Anne Rose/The Observer

How are you finding lockdown?

I’m glad I’m in Ramsgate by the sea, where I live with my boyfriend, but I miss my band. We’ve all been on WhatsApp giving each other advice about emergency grants and musicians’ funds. I’m also sick of celebrities tweeting at us from their huge gardens reminding us to breathe, going [dreamy American accent] “this is the time to learn Italian, to do your sabbatical”. For most people, managing to maintain relationships and friendships and not bursting into tears all the time is enough, love.

You tweeted recently that you got 20,000 copies of Kitchen Sink sent to your flat to sign for your fans, instead of 200. What happened?

It was hilarious, not that my boyfriend thought so at 6.30am when there was a lorry driver at our door. I was pretending to be asleep [laughs]. There were actually only 8,000 when I counted them, but looking at all those records was interesting, thinking: “I’ve made this, I’m really proud of it, but how much money that people pay for it will actually come back to me?” Hardly anything. It made me want to sell them off the balcony! They’ve gone back to Germany now, though. We can get into our living room again.

Kitchen Sink’s cover art is of 70s party food, shot in Technicolor. What was its inspiration?

Abigail’s Party. I loved the idea of the bored housewife, all manic and vibrant, stuck at home while her husband was at work, going mad on the Blue Nun, feeding her frustrations into this outpouring of creativity. Women still feel those feelings. There’s this idea that the sexual revolution and 70s feminism changed everything for women, but it didn’t, especially in places outside trendy London. Oh, I must mention the 70s dinner party Twitter feed that influenced me too. It’s full of food in the shape of other food. Look! A salmon quiche in the shape of a pineapple!

The new album has lots of lyrics about being a woman, and getting older. Why make a pop album about that?

Because it’s something women have to think about all the time, but you never hear songs about it. You say your age to some people, and they’re already raising their eyebrows, going “tick-tock”. Don’t you think that’s already on my mind? Don’t you realise some people might not want kids? Or can’t? Or might have tried? Or might have lost babies already? I did a lot of research for this album last year, which was basically talking to female friends in pubs. It’s amazing how much shit we all put up with.

There are also songs about gaslighting, catcalling, and women being infantilised by men. The female protagonists often take back power. Was that important to you?

Yes. I really wanted to take back power in a celebratory way, and I wanted its sound to be joyous too, not dour or mournful, and good to dance to. I worried early on about alienating men with some of the songs, to be honest, then I realised all the men I knew were brilliant, and never would. If anyone takes offence to anything on Kitchen Sink, they’re the one with the problem, not me.

You’ve been tweeting a lot in recent weeks in support of the Black Lives Matter protests. What is like for you, living in this moment?

It’s made me think of the Asian community I grew up in, and some of the things people I knew said about black people, and the hierarchy of racism that exists. I’ve had some brilliant conversations with my father, who’s starting to realise the real weight of some of things he might have casually said about the black community. When I’ve spent the last week watching people I usually agree with calling others scumbags on Twitter – which is hypocritical, and perpetuates the hatred – these conversations [like the ones she had with her father] give me hope. They’re long overdue. I hope they don’t stop.

You presented the Q awards in 2019 to much fanfare, and you’ve also been doing a series of Instagram live interviews, Payback, in which you interview music critics. Was this purely out of devilment?

Yes! Not really. I’ve just always found it weird to be asked a lot of questions in an interview, and not be expected to ask any back. Quite often, I’ve had a drink with a journalist afterwards, and I’ve been so nosy: “Ooh, who’s the worst person you’ve interviewed, then?” That’s always great to hear. This isn’t going to be a new direction for me, though, unless something happens organically, or I get really skint. Actually, I probably will be after all this, so call me up, BBC Breakfast!”

I think that Kitchen Sink was the best album of 2020. I think it should have been shortlisted for the Mercury Prize! Regardless, the fourth studio album from Nadine Shah may be her very best. The reviews for Kitchen Sink were all hugely positive. It was massively acclaimed. This is what The Line of Best Fit noted about the sublime, powerful and hugely interesting Kitchen Sink:

“Intensity is the word that comes to mind when I think about Nadine Shah.

Intensity of purpose, of sound, of vision…everything about Nadine Shah screams intensity. Her humour is coal-black and morbid, her music is challenging and muscular, and her unique perspective on the human condition is incomparable. Nadine Shah is intensity, personified.

Her favourite artist of all time? Scott Walker. Her favourite Talking Heads album? Naked. The artists she’s frequently compared to? Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and other neo-noir hardboiled Goth-ites. These aren’t things one should take lightly, and although they’re clear indicators, these factoids can’t really prepare you for the onslaught Shah delivers on Kitchen Sink.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fraser Taylor

That Talking Heads album – frequently overlooked because of just how draining it is – informs the opening salvo, “Club Cougar”, with its blaring brass and thunderous rhythms. It’s the first sign that you need to strap yourself in, and Shah just increases the pressure relentlessly throughout this excellent record: the guitars throughout the album are aggressive and sharp-edged, the bass is consistently robust and roaring, and rhythms are serpentine and oppressive - barely a moment goes by that you aren’t feeling Shah’s own claustrophobia, the weight of her own aging bearing down on your shoulders. The haunting, open-sky, Wild West terror of “Kite” is one such track that just oozes existential doom, from its ringing synths to its dizzying guitar – it’s like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, reimagined by Cormac McCarthy and brought to life by a Geordie goth. The demons you meet there on the prairie are real.

“Buckfast” is a loose Berlin blues, with dead eyes, open mouth and a lurching gait – this is “Sister Midnight” as written by Sylvia Plath or Shirley Jackson. 1977 Iggy informs the swinging rhythm of “Trad”, but this time the slack-jawed, sweat-slicked Lust for Life speed demon. Elsewhere, the chiming indie rock of “Ukrainian Wine” carries hints of the Velvet Underground, and the steamy, rubbery grooves of “Dillydally” instantly evoke Can, and David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. All of these complementary flavours combine to a truly satisfying whole: this is Shah’s fourth, and best, album.

Earlier I said that intensity is the thing that comes to mind when you think about Nadine Shah, and in all seriousness, it’s probably just because she seems to feel things so intensely. Aging, and motherhood, and society, and femininity – all weaponised and handled with aggression and raw power. Shah isn’t angry, nor is she raging against anything in particular, but her clear-eyed sense of perception just skewers humanity, with all of our strengths, all of our flaws. Nadine Shah is an equal-opportunity misanthrope, and she’s coming for you, whether you like it or not”.

I am going to round off with a look at Nadine Shah’s stunning four studio albums. I wanted to wish her luck for her upcoming gigs! It is not an exaggeration to say that she is one of our most treasured and astonishing artists. A vital voice and incredible human. It is amazing that new music will come soon. Maybe a fifth studio album will be on the way in 2024. I also hope that Shah gets time to revive her interview series, Payback. It will be fascinating to see how her acting career develops and progresses after her triumphant stage debut! She is one of the country’s greatest artists. That excellent news yesterday (12th October) that that there are gigs and new music has been met with love and a sense of real relief and happiness. If you are new to Nadine Shah and wonder whether you should invest in her music (an absolute yes!), below are details about her four albums. It goes to show how she has developed as an artist over the past decade. Someone that holds so much respect in the music industry, the marvelous Ms. Shah is definitely…

A national treasure.

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Love Your Dum and Mad

Release Date: 22nd July, 2013

Producer: Ben Hillier

Label: Apollo Records

Buy: https://nadineshah.bandcamp.com/album/love-your-dum-and-mad

Standout Tracks: To Be a Young Man/Runaway/Floating

Review:

“Nadine Shah has already dealt two mortal wounds with her Aching Bones and Dreary Town EPs, but that’s not enough for the Whitburn (a quaint coastal village in Tyne & Wear for non-northerners) singer-songwriter. Her killing blow will be Love Your Dum and Mad, her full-length debut. Already various corners of the internet are palpably fizzing with anticipation, waiting for what’s sure to be a revolutionary, incendiary debut.

Shah’s Norwegian mother, the daughter of a sea captain, was swept off her feet by a gentleman from Pakistan. Shah grew up gazing upon the stony outcrops submerged in the North Sea from her precarious cliff-top home, and her father would sing Urdu ghazals and Sufi hymns, filling the house with music. It’s a mysterious, fantastical start to her story that could be penned by some golden-age of silver-screen romance peddler. It’s a colourful tale of origin, but it sort of explains her sound – as do her arm-length list of influences. She’s inspired by frequent comparison Nick Cave (she told us back in November that she’s not at all bothered by the oft-mentioned similarities), Frida Kahlo, PJ Harvey, Black Flag and Philip Larkin, to name a few.

Produced by Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, The Horrors), Shah’s long-awaited debut is finally upon us. ‘Dreary Town’, from the EP of the same name, makes an appearance. Cyclic, waltzing piano forges with desolate guitar plucks, the two nervously harmonising underneath Shah’s tempestuous torrent of emotion. It’s like the soundtrack to a deranged fairground, executed by a sombre organ-grinder and a sulking monkey. There’s a Zola Jesus-y twang, minus the electronics, in that it’s operatic, haunting and performed with gusto. Also appearing is ‘Aching Bones’, again from the EP of the same name. The cut’s a post-industrial paean, throbbing bass and clanking metal provide a vital rhythm that provides a spine for Shah’s possessed wail. She sings like a woman on the brink of giving up, allowing herself to succumb to agony – it’s a visceral glimpse into her brooding world.

The other efforts on the record are just as stellar as what we’ve already heard. ‘The Devil’ creaks with macabre guitar hooks, warped beyond rescue. It’s a shadowy tango, seemingly flecked with Iberian influences and the passionate, forceful rhythm. Her voice, trembling as if performing at a Baudelairian cabaret, is the tangible river through what is otherwise a largely electronic cut. ‘To Be A Young Man’ is washed with a post-punk brush, bringing those Nick Cave references to the forefront via Gothic, hopeless lyrics: “Now we’re stalking nine to fives in monotonous routine/ and any hope we had seems distant and obscene.” It’s vaguely grunge-y; distortion-laded guitars and nerve-wracked acoustic six-stringers writhe in harmonious terror, and Shah’s shellshocked croon feels weighed down by ash and dust in her throat.

Nadine Shah’s first foray into the world of LPs is an aural siege. Her unrelenting bouts of emotion don’t leave much space for breathing, and quite frequently you’ll be sucked into a vortex of spiralling despair; in a way, her sounds are claustrophobic. What originally appears to be quite simple, basic instrumentation (voice, piano, occasional guitar or synth), soon reveals itself to be something quite different. There are thick textures and engorged melodies that swell and bloat until they begin to choke you; but Shah doesn’t let up the assault. Her smoky, emotional noxious smog struggles to clear. She’ll hold you under the water with her voice until the last bubble bursts. And you won’t even try to stop her.

It’s utterly magnetic. There are few albums that will make you experience so many emotions concurrently, and even fewer that will still give you chills hours later. Even though it may be tough to swallow some of the brutish feeling, it’s an exceptional record” – The Line of Best Fit

Key Cut: Dreary Town

Fast Food

Release Date: 6th April, 2015

Producer: Ben Hillier

Label: Apollo Records

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fast-Food-Nadine-Shah/dp/B00SHTH1P8

Standout Tracks: Fast Food/Matador/Stealing Cars

Review:

“Nadine Shah’s problem is not really a problem yet. At the moment, the fact that she imparts her songs with such stark believability doesn’t matter, as it’s easy enough to believe that her subject matter comes from first hand experience.

But if she does take her songwriting into realms away from biographical adventure, she’s going to run into the PJ Harvey effect, when people come up in and remark how well she looks for being a supercentenarian veteran of the Galliopli campaign.

For the moment though, her second album keeps things grounded. What doesn’t take long is for ‘Fast Food’ to remind you how good a voice Shah has: the kind of soulful, howling instrument that should you be sat on a rotating seat with a button in front and the wreckage of your career behind, you’d say helps to makes songs her own.

Not that Shah needs much help owning these tracks. Much like the debut, there’s an intensely personal slant to this album. Unlike the debut, there are a few more patches of light in and amongst the storm clouds.

‘Divided’ is subtle and folky, all acoustic strums and plaintive yearning. ‘Matador’ is hushed and restrained while still brooding dramatically. Even ‘Stealing Cars’, with Nick Webb’s clanging guitar battering away like an irate blacksmith on a short deadline has a certain romantic tenderness to it.

Although, this far from being a loved up, picnics and slow walks in the park record. Shah can still do spiteful with the best of them - ‘Fool’ in particular is a brilliantly scathing pinpoint character assassination.

So it’s sweet, it’s sour, it’s angry, it’s reflective, ‘Fast Food’ is pretty successful in capturing the ups and downs of complicated relationships. The fact it manages that in a way which is neither hackneyed or predictable is near miraculous” – DIY

Key Cut: Fool

Holiday Destination

Release Date: 25th August, 2017

Producer: Ben Hillier

Label: 1965

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/nadine-shah/holiday-destination

Standout Tracks: Out the Way/Evil/Ordinary

Review:

“Holiday Destination is Nadine Shah's third record, and it's the one that sees her emerge from the ubiquitous PJ Harvey and Nick Cave comparisons most fully. Certainly, as far as Harvey and Shah's music is compared, there are certain aesthetic and thematic crossovers, but the latter's political concerns feel acutely direct and personal compared to the more conceptual nature of Harvey's later work. With this latest record she tackles big and troubling issues apparent both in her native U.K. and around the world, yet those heavy themes are consistently met with a playful, limber, and imaginative musicality. Opener "A Place Like This" pairs funk rhythms with pro-refugee protest chants, and "2016" speaks of "Fascists in the Whitehouse" among nimble guitar riffs and a crisp, disjointed beat. The bracing lead single "Out the Way" is a frank cautionary tale about the rise of nationalism and the treatment of second generation immigrants -- "Where would you have me go?/I'm second generation/Don't you know?" -- and its jittery, marching rhythm, vibrating guitar, and lunging sax feed into the urgency and importance of the narrative. The title track was inspired by news footage of holiday makers in Greece complaining of the refugee crisis' effect on their break, and still its danceability doesn't detract from the troubling lyrical content, which warns, "Fatalities in the water/traffic jam by your side/feed your son, feed your daughter/how you gonna sleep tonight?/the bad guys they are winning." Unlike her previous records, which were recorded live, Shah has described Holiday Destination as a studio album. However, there is little to fear in terms of this record being too polished, as it's lost none of the character of her previous efforts. "Yes Men" is an example of light production touches serving the songs beautifully as Shah's vocal is repositioned to the fore. The pace is slowed, but not at the expense of impact -- her voice admonishes sycophants who peddle lies in service to their own agenda with a rich sensory power. It's an album filled with wonderful moments from the delicious grooves of "Evil" to "Mother Fighter's" entrancing hooks, and they only ever serve to deepen Shah's message. To have made this collection as musically grim as the problems she addresses could have left a sense of hopelessness ringing in the air. But this lively and spirited musical landscape celebrates music's ability to unite as much as it eloquently protests division” – AllMusic

Key Cut: Holiday Destination

Kitchen Sink

Standout Tracks: Club Cougar/Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)/Prayer Mat

Review:

“Nadine Shah’s last album, the Mercury-nominated ‘Holiday Destination’, was a searing response to the political turmoil caused by Brexit and Trump. This was a topic that Shah was perfectly suited to tackling, being an intelligent, outspoken and feminist songwriter, but it did often mean that her songs – while brilliant – were dark and brooding. Her new album, ‘Kitchen Sink’, is once again political, but is about women’s place in the world, the infinite different lives they lead, and the difficulties of being a strong female. While it goes to some dark places, Shah is able to have a lot more fun as she embodies all these different female experiences.

This is obvious right from the jump, as ‘Club Cougar’ places her out on the town, being chatted up by a young man whom she laughs off: “Your conversation makes me abhor ya.” Her band rises to match her sneering glee, providing swaggering brass fanfare to which she adds ironic catcalls – a truly superb opening to the record. This instrumental prowess remains through the majority of ‘Kitchen Sink’, the band revelling in the opportunity to be more expressive and outrageous in tandem with Shah’s stories.

‘Buckfast’ is a perfect example, as they back Shah’s story of a drunken man gaslighting his partner with a skronking and slightly lopsided jazz-rock, portraying his physical and mental instability. In ‘Trad’ Shah is embodying a woman who is desperate to please her man – “shave my legs / freeze my eggs” – and the band provide a lightly danceable rock bop, before the singer declares her readiness for holy matrimony in the chorus, the band giving the song a divine lift through a subtle layer of brass. ‘Walk’ has lightly dextrous percussion that puts us in the shoes of a woman who is simply out for a stroll, but finds herself “swerving perverts” and being watched by “prying eyes” – the rising discomfort and anger brilliantly reflected by buzzing synth textures, while flute animates her picking up the pace to get away.

Central to the whole album is the title track, where Shah takes up the traditional housewife role, bored of what her neighbours think – “Forget about the curtain twitchers / Gossiping boring bunch of bitches.” The band provide echoing jabs of guitar, like thoughts bouncing around her benumbed skull as she watches with pure apathy: “I just let them pass me by.”

The 11 tracks on ‘Kitchen Sink’ each take on an internal perspective of an entirely different life, made vivid through detailed instrumentation – and describing them in words is only scratching the surface. The very idea of a ‘kitchen sink drama’ is to reflect real life and offer some kind of understanding for the personalities within them. That’s exactly what Nadine Shah’s new album does, and the only way to earn that empathy for all the women she portrays is to invest some time in listening to it” - 8/10” – CLASH

Key Cut: Kitchen Sink

FEATURE: Smells Like Pre-Teen Spirit: Teachers Putting Grunge and Contemporary Rap in the Spotlight

FEATURE:

 

 

Smells Like Pre-Teen Spirit

 

Teachers Putting Grunge and Contemporary Rap in the Spotlight

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AT a time…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Soundgarden

when music is being faded off of the curriculum in schools and colleges, we need to take every opportunity we can to put it back in! It is vital that children get the chance to play an instrument and start a path that leads them into the music industry. The social impact of certain genres and albums is huge. Rather than see it as purely music, one could see these iconic and world-changing releases as part of history. Therefore, I think that there is so much to music that should be integrated throughout education. Not that it is only Grunge and Rap being brought into secondary schools. As The Guardian write in their feature, Oak National will introduce Grunge and Rap into new lesson aids:

“Any teacher who likes to sing along to Nirvana will soon be encouraged to get their pupils rocking to the Seattle grunge sound of the 1990s in lessons.

Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and other 90s bands could be included in the new lesson aids for teachers being issued by the Oak National Academy, the government-backed creator of curriculum resources for England’s schools.

The new English resources for secondary schools will also study a more diverse selection of works, including Andrea Levy’s award-winning novel Small Island, while the history curriculum includes units on “interpreting the British empire”.

Oak National grew out of online lessons developed for schools doing remote learning during the Covid pandemic, but has since bloomed, with the Department for Education (DfE) offering model teaching plans and other classroom resources such as slides, quizzes and worksheets, with the aim of reducing teacher workload.

In preparing its pop music resources to match the secondary school music curriculum, a spokesperson for Oak National said, “we decided to look in detail at some specific styles rather than take a generic approach, so we have looked at 80s pop and disco, 90s grunge and contemporary rap, for example”.

“Grunge was not only really popular in the 90s, it was influential both socially and musically,” the spokesperson added, with the impact of Nirvana and their lead singer, Kurt Cobain continuing to be felt in the following decades, despite his death in 1994.

The model curricula will also keep purists happy with detailed strands on the western classical tradition and music from other cultures, as well as music from influential video games, allowing teachers and schools to choose the repertoire they want to cover in class.

“We’ve tried to offer a diverse and balanced range of different styles covering different eras of music and show them an example of how we think they work together,” the spokesperson said.

The new English literature curriculum includes the work of Black British author Winsome Pinnock, whose play Leave Taking has this year been added to the GCSE syllabus, alongside more traditional choices such as Chaucer and Shakespeare, as part of an effort to ensure Oak’s English curricula represents the diversity of modern life.

In history, teachers will be able to access resources on controversial debates over decolonisation and perceptions of the British empire, with topics including “imperial decline” and “imperial anxiety and celebration of empire”, as well as commemoration and contestation of the British empire.

Matt Hood, the chief executive of Oak National, said: “We have selected topics that, when taken together, give pupils a rich understanding of the world and allow them to participate as educated citizens in modern society”.

Whilst there has been criticisms and doubts about these plans from Oak National and Department for Education (DfE), I do think it is especially important that any music is kept alive in schools. I hope that this plan rolls out to high schools. Many children in secondary schools might not know about genres like Grunge and why it is important. How bands like Nirvana were impactful when they were around. How they are still important now. If many people want a more traditional and classic lesson structure and way of education, times are changing. Things will be phased out whereas other things come through. I feel education needs to adapt and evolve through time. It is not going to be the case that teachers are playing Grunge and Rap tracks and using lessons to just play music and learn nothing from it. Artists like Pearl Jam will be used as aids. It is interesting that this has come in – and where it may well lead. I think that it is tragic that music as a standard lesson will be phased out! This comes at an interesting time. Since 2021, there has been a decline of students studying music at school. This article explains more:

“Although the numbers of students studying music at GCSE and A-Level in 2021 were pretty similar to 2020 – indeed, the number of students taking music GCSE went up slightly – figures for the last decade show a steady decline.

In its statement, UK Music compares 2021 figures to 2014. In that time there has been a 16.8% decline in the number of students taking music GCSE, despite an overall rise in the number of students taking GCSEs in general. In the same time period there was a 32.1% decline in students taking music A-Level.

In its review of the exam stats, ISM compares the 2021 figures with 2011, with declines over the full decade of 19% for GCSE and 44% for music A-Level.

The music community has long blamed the declines in students taking music at GCSE and A-Level on funding cuts and curriculum priorities in the country’s schools. And, in England in particular, the EBacc scheme used to assess the academic performance of English schools, which completely ignores creative subjects like music”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels

Rather than this being a tangent, I feel that incorporating music and certain genres into lessons through secondary schools in England shines a light on the role of music in education. State schools will see music fade away and phased out. There is a goldmine in the classroom when it comes to the next generation of artists and producers. Recently, Tom Watson, the Labour peer and UK Music chair, wrote for Huffington Post as to why we need to reverse the decline in music education:

“The precipitous decline in music education is fast reaching the point where learning a music instrument or how to sing professionally could soon become the preserve of the rich and the privileged.

There are some success stories such as that of Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the outstanding young cellist who played at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. He studied A-level music at a Nottingham comprehensive in a disadvantaged part of the city and defied the odds to become a BBC Young Musician of the Year and a global star.

The reality is very different for young people at most state schools. The uptake of A-level music has fallen by a catastrophic 45% in the UK since 2020 when the English Baccalaureate was introduced. It is a similarly worrying picture when it comes to those studying music for GCSE.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

A big part of the problem is the big fall in the number of music teachers and funding cuts that have left many schools struggling to afford even the most basic of musical instruments.

There are now parts of the country where it is almost impossible for a budding musician to study A-level music.

According to a study by Birmingham City University, the rates of decline in entries are so severe that no one might be taking A-level music in just ten years.

That would be a tragedy for all the tens of thousands of children who will miss out on the joy music brings with all its benefits to health and wellbeing as well as the chance of a fulfilling career.

It would be a disaster for our cultural landscape if we are deprived of future stars that will never grace the stage at Glastonbury or join the orchestra at the Royal Opera House.

There is also the damage that it will cause to the talent pipeline of the UK music industry which has a reputation for producing performers, musicians and music professionals who contribute billions each year to our economy.

PHOTO CREDIT: Yan Krukau/Pexels

So many young people dream of singing or playing music for a career. They have the ambition, drive and talent. They just lack the opportunity.

As a first step, it is imperative we reverse the decline in music teaching in our state schools. Put simply, we need to train and recruit hundreds more music teachers with the passion and determination to make music lessons the best part of any child’s week.

Between 2010 and this year, the number of people starting initial teacher training for music has more than halved. The removal of the music teacher training bursary in 2020 means even fewer people can afford to train for the job.

As the chair of UK Music, the collective voice of the UK music industry, we are putting the need to train and hire more music teachers at the heart of UK Music’s ‘Music Manifesto’ which we will be delivering to the government tomorrow.

According to the Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza, more than one in five children in England are now frequently missing school - double pre-Covid levels. Over the last academic year, Department for Education figures show 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent.

That’s deeply worrying. Yet we have a chance through the power of music to play a part in helping get children back in the classroom”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: PNW Production/Pexels

There is argument as to why Electronic music should be taught in schools. How Classical music should not be the preserve of the wealthy. A part of a rich and rounded education, the Department for Education set out plans as to how music education should look like in schools. It does seem there will be a decline in music education across all schools and colleges. The fact that we are talking about music being used in secondary schools in an interesting way should give hope. It provides diversity and a richness that was not there before. Same goes for the new literature they are bringing in and using as aids/for lessons. Talking about Rap and its artists past and present. Not only do children learn about the music and can connect with it. They can hear about a genre like that in a different context. The importance of learning about and celebrating Black artists. Learning about Grunge and how it was a cultural moment whose shockwaves are rippling today. Let’s hope that there is a concerted and joined-up effort to ensure music not only remains on the curriculum for students aged between, say, five and sixteen (and beyond). There needs to be assimilation of various periods of music to thew wider curriculum. Access to instruments and those resources. Using music more as a historical and social lesson. Hearing great music and making that direct connection with children. Forwarding and implementing new plans to bring Rap legends and Grunge bands like Nirvana into classes is really brilliant. I hope that it dopes happen and is not imposed. Ensuring children have this incredible resource without there being…

SOMETHING in the way.

FEATURE: The Woman in Me, The Icon in Them… Looking Ahead to a Must-Read Memoir from a Modern Pop Icon: Her Influence and Essential Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

The Woman in Me, The Icon in Them…

IMAGE CREDIT: Simon & Schuster

 

Looking Ahead to a Must-Read Memoir from a Modern Pop Icon: Her Influence and Essential Albums

_________

ON 24th October…

a truly fascinating and must-read memoir will be released. Britney Spears’s The Woman in Me is going to be an open and emotional read from a Pop icon! Talking about her career and conservatorship, I am interested to see how it is reviewed and what the fans think. As it stands, there are no immediate plans for her to release music and tour. It does seem like she will make that return. At the moment, with the memoir about to come out, it is a period of rest and reflect for Spears. To celebrate the book coming out, I am going to explore her legacy and status. How she is this icon whose power and appeal goes beyond her music. I will also select the three Britney Spears albums you will want to get. I will end with a definitive Britney Spears playlist. First, here are some details about a memoir that will set the record straight:

“Global megastar Britney Spears reveals all in her candid and heartfelt memoir, covering her incredible, tumultuous career, her controversial conservatorship experience and more.

The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice-her truth-was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey-and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears's groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love-and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last”.

Actually, I think I will make two playlists before wrapping up. An ultimate Britney Spears playlist. One that collates artists influenced by her. I am going to highlight her three best albums.. The ones you need to add to your collection. I think it is important, when looking to The Woman in Me, to get some background to Britney Spears. Why she should be celebrated and honoured. Someone who has had to overcome so much through the years, she has given so much to the world. Medium, in 2013, charted the highs and lows of one of Pop music’s most important figures:

“Introduction: A Glimpse into the Phenomenon

In a whirlwind of stardom and setbacks, Britney Spears has remained an indelible figure in the music industry. From her rise to fame as a teenage pop sensation to her legal battles and personal struggles, her journey has been one of triumphs and tribulations.

Early Stardom: The Baby One More Time Era

The Innocent Girl Next Door Takes the Stage

At the tender age of 16, Britney burst onto the scene with her debut single “Baby One More Time.” The catchy tune and iconic schoolgirl outfit instantly captivated hearts, making her a global sensation overnight.

Conquering the Music Charts

Britney’s album “Baby One More Time” soared to the top of the charts, solidifying her as a pop phenomenon. Her infectious energy, combined with relatable lyrics, resonated with a generation, establishing her as a cultural icon.

The Evolution: From Teen Pop to Artistic Maturity

Rebellion and Transformation (H2)

As Britney matured, so did her music. With albums like “Oops!… I Did It Again” and “Britney,” she showcased a more mature and experimental sound, breaking away from her earlier image.

The Iconic Slave 4 U Performance

Britney’s electrifying performance at the MTV Video Music Awards with her hit “I’m a Slave 4 U” marked a pivotal moment in her career. The provocative choreography and edgy persona signaled her departure from the girl-next-door image.

Public Scrutiny and Personal Battles

Love Life and Relationships Under the Spotlight

Britney’s romantic relationships often made headlines, intensifying media scrutiny. Her high-profile romances and breakups were heavily documented, impacting both her personal life and public image.

The Infamous Head-Shaving Incident

In 2007, Britney made headlines for shaving her head — an act perceived as a symbol of rebellion and distress. This incident was a poignant portrayal of the intense pressure and personal struggles she was facing.

The #FreeBritney Movement: Fans Unite for Her Freedom

Guardianship Battle and Legal Constraints

The #FreeBritney movement gained momentum as fans expressed concerns about Britney’s conservatorship. Questions surrounding her autonomy and well-being led to widespread support for her legal rights.

Britney’s Emotional Plea

In a court address, Britney emotionally detailed the challenges she faced under the conservatorship. Her heartfelt plea sparked a renewed fervor within the #FreeBritney movement and prompted a reevaluation of her situation.

Resilience and the Road Ahead

A New Chapter Unfolds (H2)

Despite the obstacles, Britney’s resilience continues to shine. She embarked on new endeavors, including a successful Las Vegas residency, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to her craft.

The Power of the Human Spirit (H2)

Britney’s journey serves as a testament to the strength of the human spirit. Her ability to triumph over adversity resonates with fans worldwide, inspiring them to overcome their own challenges.

Conclusion: A Living Legend’s Legacy

In the ever-evolving narrative of Britney Spears, we witness not only the evolution of an artist but also the embodiment of perseverance. Her story is a poignant reminder that behind the glitz and glamour lies a person fighting to reclaim her life”.

We look at modern-day icons like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles and other titans. I think each of them, in some way, has been inspired by Britney Spears. She has helped shape the face of modern Pop! I think her influence will spread and endure for generations. Far Out Magazine write a feature in 2021 that explained and explored how Britney Spears became the defining icon of our age:

“When she was signed to Jive Records in 1997, they set about making her “another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany.” Shortly afterwards Spears met with the Swedish pop music mastermind Max Martin at the behest of Jive and soon after she travelled to Stockholm to begin making music with him. “I had been in the studio for about six months listening and recording material, but I hadn’t really heard a hit yet,” Britney recalled in an interview with Billboard.

Adding: “When I started working with Max Martin in Sweden, he played the demo for ‘Baby One More Time’ for me, and I knew from the start it [was one] of those songs you want to hear again and again. It just felt really right. I went into the studio and did my own thing with it, trying to give it a little more attitude than the demo. In 10 days, I never even saw Sweden. We were so busy.”

Indeed, the track was a catchy pop masterpiece and coupled with the provocative video that attracted the eyes as well as ears of millions while the media fuelled the fire, a reverse bonfire of the vanities was born. With the imitable knotted shirt, you had kids all over the world getting home from school and doing their best Britney impression in front of MTV. This was a craze the likes of which the world had never seen before.

It was a craze, however, that Britney’s label could ill-afford to put on ice and let their phenom settle into stardom. There was cash to be milked. At the heart of all of this was commercialism. Some of the early songs were hits with great musicological backing and Britney’s performative skill was clear, but even the most ardent fan would agree that artistry was second place.

This was something that David Bowie mused upon a few years after the dawn of Britney when he opined: “However arrogant and ambitious I think we were in my generation, I think the idea was that if you do something really good, you’ll become famous. The emphasis on fame itself is something new. Now it’s to be famous you should do what it takes, which is not the same thing at all. And it will leave many new artists with this empty feeling.”

There was a prescience to his thinking that Britney tragically embodied. It would seem that Britney was indeed interested in artistry, however, many of those around her were more interested in fame. As a result, the image of a troubled star pushed around by labels became a central part of her image, particularly in songs like ‘Lucky’. This was something that the kids who had grown up with ‘… Baby One More Time’ clung to, as they entered their angsty teenage years and Britney’s stardom endured into the next chapter.

However, the irony was that she was still heavily controlled by labels and management as a product and even this new angle of a troubled star was manufactured by them like some MTV Kafkaesque version of the Truman Show. She had tricky public breakups with other former Mickey Mouse Club stars in the form of Justin Timberlake and her plights were heavily publicised for profits. In an era where angst was fetishized with pop-punk and moody teen shows, this all seemed part of the appeal.

For years, the hits continued and as she got older the sexualised element of her act was less controversial and more readily at the forefront. During this period Britney embodied the prime entertainment that ran alongside the rather more questionable elements of the MTV pinnacle. She was, in short, a star. She had everything in her arsenal in an era where you didn’t just need to be able to tick every box but invent new ones or push the limits of existing ones as you went along. Tracks like ‘Toxic’ were not only rousing bops, but they had unforgettable videos to go along with them and the live TV Madonna snogs to keep them relevant.

As Britney got older and her continued success reached overwhelming heights, she grew more concerned with gaining control of her own life. This proved to be a fractious process and the first rumblings of controversy began. During this period, she became engaged with the dancer Kevin Federline in a whirlwind three-month romance. Even this process was broadcast for profits with the reality show Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. The star would later reflect on this in 2013 and call it “the worst thing I’ve done in my career.” The show and the sorry aftermath embodied the reality side of reality TV. This wasn’t merely chaotic entertainment; it was frenzied happenings of someone’s life.

Soon after Britney became pregnant and thereafter the stresses of motherhood only made matters worse for her. In the intervening months, she hit headlines for driving while holding her son in one arm and thereafter the infamous head-shaving moment occurred. The subsequent media attention gave very little thought to potential, if not highly probable, postnatal depression, indicative of the highly salacious nature of the press in the pre-phone tapping era. In fact, even 20 years prior, this almost would’ve been seen as standard reckless superstar behaviour and put down as a titbit on page nine.

Up until this point, Britney’s fame had proved unassailable, however, now the same forces that had built her up were happy to leave her behind and move on. Her stardom was saved by the ardent core fanbase that she had built up over the years. This legion of supporters not only loved her music and performances, but they identified with her struggles.

For years, Britney has since sustained this core fanbase without ever really rising to the top of the pop circles as new blood came through. Recently, however, she defined our cultural narrative once more as her conservatorship case unfurled publicly. More so than the case itself, what was most notable about the trial from a sociological point of view was how much of the impetus came from the internet and fan groups. The hashtag FreeBritney movement was a central force showing how the axis of power has switched towards social media in the modern age.

Hopefully, her recent success in court can bring some much need calm to a life that has been beleaguered by the grubby hands of commercialism that have pushed and pulled at the star since she was 14 years old, if not before. As a performer, she offered up a boon to millions who celebrated not only her music but her resilience amid an unforgiving society and as such, she became a true icon of our age like Marilyn Monroe before her. In an era where the notion of celebrity has almost outstripped conventional forms of social mobility and artistry, the buzzword for her life is undoubtedly: fame”.

If Britney Spears’s success and accomplishments have inspired a generation of artists who have followed, her struggles and battles have shown that it is a complex career. Being an artist is fraught with perils and personal invasions. Time wrote a feature about how her legacy goes beyond the music. In recent years, Spears has tried to put music out and engage with fans more. It seems that her label have been holding her back. Spears has been criticised for videos she posts on Instagram of her dancing (often with very little clothing). She slams those who criticise her but celebrate male artists whose music videos are provocative. How there are double standards, haters and those who will always been against her. Having to battle against so many people is taking its toll. Even so, I think that The Woman in Me is a rare opportunity for unfiltered and unchecked balance and honesty from Britney Spears:

“Pop songwriting is more laden with mythology than most entertainment products; credits can include people charged with writing toplines (vocal melodies), snatches of melody, or even bits that sound like already-existing hits (a la Right Said Fred’s credit for a borrowed cadence on Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do”). Run down the credits of Spears’ albums and you’ll see her name pop up under the lists of songwriters. What that actually might mean is fairly opaque; she could have written an entire song or just a line.

Still, Britney Spears wouldn’t be Britney Spears without the outsized, appealing personality at the megastar’s nucleus. Martin was onto something when he said he would “use [Spears’] qualities appropriately,” even if the phrasing does give one pause in the context of her present life under conservatorship. Over the years, her catalog has been studded with songs that reflect the facets of the singular traits at which she’s offered glimpses. Her 2011 comeback single “Hold It Against Me” pivots on a pickup line that sounded dated in the swingers’ era four decades prior–”If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me?”–but her attitude, half-winking, half-serious, makes it work. Tracks like the defiant “Stronger” and the hip-shaking “Overprotected,” meanwhile, showed off her inner strength, presaging her recent courage in speaking out against her current situation. And other pieces of her catalog, particularly in the depths of special-edition bonus tracks, show off her personality’s quirks and depth, from the loopy 2016 track “If I’m Dancing” to the chilling video for her 2004 single “Everytime.”

This was why her performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, during which she sleepwalked through the brooding Blackout opener “Gimme More,” was such a blow for fans. That show, which followed a string of highly publicized personal challenges exacerbated by the cruel tabloid landscape of the era—felt like a sign that Spears’ spirit, which had propelled her into the American mainstream, had been if not snuffed out, at least misplaced.

Blackout, which contained production and songwriting contributions from the likes of Pharrell Williams (with his duo The Neptunes) and “Toxic” hitmakers Bloodshy & Avant, was hailed upon its release, presaging the synth-heavier, moodier sounds embraced by the likes of Kanye West on 808s & Heartbreak and Lady Gaga on The Fame. While Spears was reportedly more in control on that record than any other, Blackout succeeds in part because she’s a mysterious presence at its core, her signature wail refracted by effects and shrouded in synths. The shadowy vibe reflects the atmosphere surrounding her at the time, with songs like the glitchy paparazzi rebuke “Piece of Me” and the spare synth pop banger “Radar” feeling of the always-on digital age.

Since Blackout, Spears has released four albums, all of which have sold well; their reception, though, seems to parallel just how weird she can get on them. The lead single from 2013’s Britney Jean, the brittle “Work Bitch,” was shrug-worthy upon release, and lyrics like “You want a hot body, you want a Bugatti/ you want a Maserati? You better work, bitch” land uncomfortably after her conservatorship hearings. In contrast, her most recent full-length, 2016’s Glory, was hailed for its explorations of post-millennial pop’s fringes. It concludes with “Coupure Électrique,” an icily minimalist track in which Spears whisper-sings, in broken French, of love in the dark, a throwback to the Blackout era that also lets her display her playful side.

More than two decades after her debut, Spears’ legacy as a pop artist is complex, made up of dazzling musical heights and music-business-borne lows. This year, Olivia Rodrigo’s path from Disney stardom to pop-chart domination bears broad similarities to Spears’. The “drivers license” singer was born a few years into Spears’ era of TRL superiority, though, and in a recent interview with Nylon, her response to a question about Framing Britney Spears indicated that she sees the treatment of the elder pop supernova as a sign of how easily pop stardom can be undermined by supposed allies. “I just hope that this next generation of women don’t get asked [invasive] questions…. I hope reporters don’t think that that’s OK. It’s just disgusting,” she said in the interview.

The twists and turns in Spears’ story over recent years have fundamentally altered the dream of becoming a pop star, even as the appeal of finding one artist who can make a song that changes the world for five minutes remains. While Spears’ catalog is part of the canon that defines the first 20 years of this millennium, one hopes that her public struggles, and the strength she’s shown while enduring them, will lead to her cementing her true legacy: Reshaping the machine that turns those songs into cultural touchstones”.

I am going to come to a couple of essential playlists: one of Britney Spears’s great music; the other consists of artists who have definitely been influenced by her in some way. First, I am going to recommend three of her studio albums that you need in your life. Whether a big Spears fan or not, I feel these albums are still must-hear.

_______________

Oops!... I Did It Again

Release Date: 3rd May, 2000

Label: Jive

Producers: Barry J. Eastmond/David Kreuger/Eric Foster White/Jake/Kristian Lundin/Max Martin/Larry ‘Rock’ Campbell/Paul Umbach/Per Magnusson/Rami/Robert ‘Esmail’ Jazayeri/Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange/Darkchild/Steve Lunt/Timmy Allen

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/britney-spears/oops-i-did-it-again

U.S. Album Chart Position: 1

Key Cuts: Stronger/Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know/Lucky

Review:

“Given the phenomenal success of Britney Spears' debut, ...Baby One More Time, it should come as no surprise that its sequel offers more of the same. After all, she gives away the plot with the ingenious title of her second album, Oops!...I Did It Again, essentially admitting that the record is more of the same. It has the same combination of sweetly sentimental ballads and endearingly gaudy dance-pop that made One More Time. Fortunately, she and her production team not only have a stronger overall set of songs this time, but they also occasionally get carried away with the same bewildering magpie aesthetic that made the first album's "Sodapop" -- a combination of bubblegum, urban soul, and raga -- a gonzo teen pop classic. It doesn't happen all that often -- the clenched-funk revision of the Stones' deathless "Satisfaction" is the most obvious example -- but it helps give the album character apart from the well-crafted dance-pop and ballads that serve as its heart. In the end, it's what makes this an entertaining, satisfying listen” – AllMusic

Standout Track: Oops!... I Did It Again

In the Zone

Release Date: 1st November, 2003

Label: Jive

Producers: Bloodshy & Avant/Brian and Josh/Roy ‘Royalty’ Hamilton/Jimmy Harry/Penelope Magnet/Moby/The Matrix/Rishi Rich/Guy Sigsworth/Shep Soloman/Mark Taylor/Trixster

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/britney-spears/in-the-zone-htignk

U.S. Album Chart Position: 1

Key Cuts: Me Against the Music/Brave New Girl/Everytime

Review:

“With this, Britney Spears' fourth album, the former little girl diva of pop is desperate to prove that she is now a proper grown up. If her last offering saw the singer straddling the two worlds of girlhood and womanhood, then this one sees her announcing her distinctly adult intentions. She is twenty-two after all! Sadly, her attempts to prove her new-found maturity are what overwhelm and cloud all that is good about Into The Zone.

The album opens very confidently with "Me Against The Music" which,althugh it has more than a passing similarity to a Justin Timberlake production, still manages to sound fresh and as funky as hell. Cries of 'let me see you dance' and 'time to party all night long' emphasise our heroine's love of the good time. Britney clearly relishes her new role as nightclub siren, but she somehow doesn't quite convince.

"Showdown" and "Toxic" are produced by the Bloodshy & Avant team and, though hardly original, have the catchy hooks you'd expect from the duo. "Breathe On Me" is very reminiscent of Madonna during her Ray Of Light period, offering welcome relief after the overcrowded chanting of "(I Got That) Boom Boom".

The Moby produced "Early Morning" is the standout track on this collection. Its contagious, down-tempo groove and soaring string chorus all add up to make a brilliantly simple piece of pop. The other high point is "Touch Of My Hand", its sugary sweet harmonies can't help but impress. (It features Madonna, just in case you've been living on Mars).

"Shadow" is Spear's only return to the power ballad and it's a fairly lukewarm affair; it sounds more like a Pop Idol release than a Britney one. She should stick to the more adventurously upbeat formula. She should also place less emphasis on how self-fulfilled she has become, in repeatedly declaring this she simply draws attention to all the growing up she still has to do. Don't rush it girl! Enjoy being young!” – BBC

Standout Track: Toxic

Glory

Release Date: 26th August, 2016

Label: RCA

Producers: BloodPop/Burns/Cashmere Cat/DJ Mustard/Jason Evigan/Oak Felder/Andrew Goldstein/Oscar Görres/Ian Kirkpatrick/Mattman & Robin/Nick Monson/Alex Nice/Robopop/Lance Eric Shipp/Twice as Nice/Tramaine Winfrey

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/britney-spears/glory

U.S. Album Chart Position: 3

Key Cuts: Do You Wanna Come Over?/Private Show/Clumsy

Review:

“The soft commercial performance of 2013's Britney Jean made it clear that it was time for Britney Spears to shake up her recording career -- a move made somewhat less urgent due to the success of Britney: Piece of Me, the residency show she launched at Las Vegas' Planet Hollywood a few months after the release of Britney Jean. Sin City's influence can be heard within the splashiness of the arrangements of certain portions of Glory, the 2016 album designed to be Britney's return to the Top 40. To that end, Glory downplays the show biz glitz of Vegas in favor of modern dance-pop, one with EDM undercurrents and hip-hop overtones. Sometimes echoes of other stars can be heard -- Justin Bieber's Purpose appears to a primary text -- but despite this contemporary gloss, the album usually relies on sounds of Spears' past, trading heavily on the cloistered dance of Blackout and the shimmering neon of Femme Fatale. Glory is much lighter than either album, a reflection of Britney's maturation -- the softer nocturnal numbers make a play for Ellie Goulding territory, but they could slide onto adult contemporary -- and her willingness to be goofy. Some of the highlights are the silliest songs: the swinging "Clumsy," the overheated flamenco chorus of "Do You Wanna Come Over?," and "Private Show" and "Slumber Party," a pair of heavy-breathing come-ons that never manage to seem sexy despite the flood of innuendo. Such moments accentuate Britney's playfulness, an aspect of her persona that's been in hibernation for nearly a decade, and it's a welcome return, as is Glory as a whole: it feels as fun and frivolous as her earliest music while retaining the freshness of her best mature work” – AllMusic

Standout Track: Slumber Party

On 24th October, we will get to read The Woman in Me. Go and pre-order it. The first time Britney Spears has had opportunity and freedom to tell her own story, this is one that every music fan needs to read. It will be a fascinating thing! We will get an insight, not only into her careers and highs. There will also be revelations and stories about her fight for independence and an end to the conservatorship that was dragged into the public eye. I can only imagine how strange and upsetting things have been for Britney Spears for a long time now. Let’s hope that she finds happiness and can continue her career on her own terms! I think most people would love to hear new music as soon as she is ready. That would be really a relief to hear, when it comes about. I am going to end this feature with a playlist of songs from artists influenced by one of the all-time greats. As we look ahead to a new chapter (no pun intended!) for Britney Spears, we all wish her nothing but…

HEALTH and happiness.

FEATURE: The Beatles at Fifty-Five: Ranking the Thirty Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

The Beatles at Fifty-Five

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles on 28th July, 1968 during their ’Mad Day Out’ photo session in locations all across London: Gray’s Inn Road, Notting Hill, Highgate, Old Street, St. Pancras, Wapping, and finally St. John’s Wood (where Paul lived)/PHOTO CREDIT: Don McCullin
 

Ranking the Thirty Tracks

_________

RELEASED on 22nd November, 1968…

I am doing a run of feature about The Beatles’ eponymous album. A sprawling and brilliant thirty-track release, it is seen as one of the band’s best albums. I am going to rank the tracks from The Beatles. Before getting there, from The Beatles Bible give us some background and personnel details. There is no doubting the quality, variety and legacy of The Beatles. There is something in there for everyone:

“Peronnel

John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, organ, Hammond organ, harmonium, harmonica, tenor saxophone, drums, timpani, percussion, tape loops, effects, samples, handclaps
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, six-string bass guitar, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, organ, Hammond organ, electric piano, flügelhorn, recorder, drums, tambourine, bongos, percussion, handclaps
George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Hammond organ, drums, percussion, samples, handclaps
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, tambourine, bongos, castanets, sleigh bell, maracas, percussion, effects, handclaps
George Martin: piano, celesta, harmonium
Eric Clapton: lead guitar
Chris Thomas: piano, Mellotron, harpsichord, organ, electric piano
Yoko Ono: vocals, effects, samples, handclaps
Mal Evans: backing vocals, trumpet, handclaps
Pattie Harrison, Jackie Lomax, John McCartney: backing vocals, handclaps
Maureen Starkey, Francie Schwartz, Ingrid Thomas, Pat Whitmore, Val Stockwell, Irene King, Ross Gilmour, Mike Redway, Ken Barrie, Fred Lucas, various others: backing vocals
Jack Fallon, Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas, Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Sofier, Les Maddox: violin
John Underwood, Keith Cummings, Leo Birnbaum, Henry Myerscough: viola
Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey, Frederick Alexander: cello
Leon Calvert, Stanley Reynolds, Ronnie Hughes, Derek Watkins, Freddy Clayton: trumpet
Leon Calvert: flügelhorn
Tony Tunstall: French horn
Ted Barker, Don Lang, Rex Morris, J Power, Bill Povey: trombone
Alf Reece: tuba
Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chester, Rex Morris, Harry Klein: saxophone
Art Ellefson, Danny Moss, Derek Collins: tenor saxophone
Ronnie Ross, Harry Klein, Bernard George: baritone saxophone
Raymond Newman, David Smith: clarinet
Uncredited: 12 violins, three violas, three cellos, three flutes, clarinet, three saxophones, two trumpets, two trombones, horn, vibraphone, double bass, harp

The background

Although financially secure, critically and commercially acclaimed, and assured as figureheads of popular music, by the summer of 1968 The Beatles were in a degree of turmoil. The previous year they’d achieved possibly their crowning glory in Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and suffered their first major artistic failure in the Magical Mystery Tour television film.

By 1968 The Beatles’ world had changed immeasurably from their early days. Having stopped touring in 1966, they were set free to explore the possibilities from inside the studio, and began enjoying the time that their fortunes allowed. Their musical output may have slowed from the mid-1960s, but their creativity was as strong as ever.

After Sgt Pepper changed the world, the world keenly awaited The Beatles’ next step. They had released just the six-track Magical Mystery Tour EP and the ‘Lady Madonna’ single since then, and there was widespread speculation in the press that they were a spent force.

While recording the album, the group was in the process of launching the multimedia business Apple Corps, while coping with various upheavals including drug busts, changing relationships and substance abuse.

The Beatles were old hands at dealing with such pressure. They turned away from the elaborate excesses of Sgt Pepper, recording instead a simple collection of 30 songs under an even simpler name: The Beatles.

George Martin later claimed he had wanted the group to omit the album’s weaker songs and focused instead on producing a solid single-disc release.

I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed. A lot of people I know think it’s still the best album they made. I later learnt that by recording all those songs they were getting rid of their contract with EMI more quickly.

George Martin

Anthology

Ringo Starr agreed with the sentiment.

There was a lot of information on the double album, but I agree that we should have put it out as two separate albums: the ‘White’ and the ‘Whiter’ albums.

Ringo Starr

Anthology”.

I am going to come to my view regarding the very best songs on The Beatles. This is not a new thing. The Independent ranked the songs in 2022. Far Out Magazine had their say a couple of years ago. Billboard gave their ranking in 2018 on the fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles. This feature gives an interesting top ten decision (they ranked all thirty tracks); Ultimate Classic Rock marked the fiftieth anniversary with their rankling. The Beatles Bible put a John Lennon classic in the top spot. Some argue that The Beatles would make a great single album. I think that it would be impossible to do. One reason why The Beatles is great is because of its range and lesser tracks. Prior to The Beatles’ fifty-fifth anniversary on 22nd November, I wanted to rank the thirty tracks (huge thanks to The Beatles Bible for track information). Many have got there before me, but here is my ranking of an iconic album’s…

INCREDIBLE thirty songs.

_____________

THIRTY: Wild Honey Pie

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 20 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, drums

A solo recording by Paul McCartney, ‘Wild Honey Pie’ was a singalong written in Rishikesh, India, and recorded at the end of the session for ‘Mother Nature’s Son’.

[‘Wild Honey Pie’] was just a fragment of an instrumental which we were not sure about, but Pattie Harrison liked it very much, so we decided to leave it on the album.

Paul McCartney

In the studio

‘Wild Honey Pie’ was recorded on 20 August 1968, during the second and final session for ‘Mother Nature’s Son’. McCartney also recorded another demo, ‘Etcetera’, during the same session, but the song remains unreleased.

We were in an experimental mode, and so I said, ‘Can I just make something up?’ I started off with the guitar and did a multitracking experiment in the control room or maybe in the little room next door. It was very home-made; it wasn’t a big production at all. I just made up this short piece and I multitracked a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and a harmony to that, and built it up sculpturally with a lot of vibrato on the strings, really pulling the strings madly. Hence, ‘Wild Honey Pie’, which was a reference to the other song I had written called ‘Honey Pie’. It was a little experimental piece.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

TWENTY-NINE: Piggies

 

“Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 19, 20 September, 10 October 1968
Producers: Chris Thomas, George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

George Harrison: vocals, guitar
John Lennon: tape loops
Paul McCartney: bass
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
Chris Thomas: harpsichord
Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas: violins
John Underwood, Keith Cummings: violas
Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey: cellos

George Harrison began writing ‘Piggies’ in 1966, the same year he composed the similarly ascerbic ‘Taxman’. Although musically quite different, both songs contain social commentary about financial greed and class differences.

‘Piggies’ wasn’t recorded by The Beatles until late 1968. The song underwent some revisions beforehand, with lyrical contributions from John Lennon and Harrison’s mother Louise.

‘Piggies’ is a social comment. I was stuck for one line in the middle until my mother came up with the lyric, ‘What they need is a damn good whacking’ which is a nice simple way of saying they need a good hiding. It needed to rhyme with ‘backing,’ ‘lacking,’ and had absolutely nothing to do with American policemen or Californian shagnasties!

George Harrison”.

TWENTY-EIGHT: Birthday

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney

Recorded: 18 September 1968

Producer: Chris Thomas

Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, piano, handclaps

John Lennon: vocals, tambourine, lead guitar, handclaps

George Harrison: vocals, lead guitar, handclaps

Ringo Starr: drums, handclaps

Pattie Harrison, Yoko Ono: backing vocals, handclaps

Mal Evans: handclaps

The opening song in the second half of The Beatles’ White Album, ‘Birthday’ emerged from a jam in Abbey Road’s studio two.

The Beatles had scheduled an earlier start for their 18 September 1968 session, in order to watch the classic rock ‘n’ roll film The Girl Can’t Help It. It was showing that night for the first time on British TV, on BBC Two between 9.05 and 10.40pm.

I had mentioned to Paul a couple of days earlier about The Girl Can’t Help It being on television during this evening. The idea was to start the session earlier than usual, about five o’clock in the afternoon, and then all nip around the corner to Paul’s house in Cavendish Avenue, watch the film and go back to work.

So on the day Paul was the first one in, and he was playing the ‘Birthday’ riff. Eventually the others arrived, by which time Paul had literally written the song, right there in the studio. We had the backing track down by about 8.30, popped around to watch the film as arranged and then came back and actually finished the whole song. It was all done in a day!

Chris Thomas

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn”.

TWENTY-SEVEN: Savoy Truffle

 

“Written by: Harrison

Recorded: 3, 5, 11, 14 October 1968

Producer: George Martin

Engineers: Barry Sheffield, Ken Scott

George Harrison: vocals, lead guitar

Paul McCartney: harmony vocals, bass guitar, tambourine, bongos

Ringo Starr: drums

Chris Thomas: organ, electric piano

Art Ellefson, Danny Moss, Derek Collins: tenor saxophones

Ronnie Ross, Harry Klein, Bernard George: baritone saxophones

A lighthearted song written by George Harrison, ‘Savoy Truffle’ was inspired by his friend Eric Clapton’s gluttonous love of chocolate.

‘Savoy Truffle’ on the White Album was written for Eric. He’s got this real sweet tooth and he’d just had his mouth worked on. His dentist said he was through with candy. So as a tribute I wrote, ‘You’ll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy Truffle’. The truffle was some kind of sweet, just like all the rest – cream tangerine, ginger sling – just candy, to tease Eric.

George Harrison, 1977

In his autobiography I Me Mine, Harrison explained that the song was inspired by a box of Mackintosh’s Good News chocolates. Many of the lines came directly from the varieties of chocolate in the boxes, although Cherry Cream and Coconut Fudge were Harrison’s own inventions”.

TWENTY-SIX: Yer Blues

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney

Recorded: 13, 14, 20 August 1968

Producer: George Martin

Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, backing vocals, lead guitar

Paul McCartney: bass

George Harrison: lead guitar

Ringo Starr: drums

John Lennon’s most emotionally-revealing moment on the White Album, ‘Yer Blues’ was written in Rishikesh, India. Balanced deftly between parody and earnestness, the song anticipated the raw, revelatory and confessional spirit of Lennon’s solo work – most notable in ‘Cold Turkey’ and the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album.

‘Yer Blues’ was written in India, too. The same thing up there trying to reach God and feeling suicidal.

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff

A cause of his anguish may have been Yoko Ono. Although their relationship had yet to begin, Ono wrote regularly to Lennon from England, and it is likely that she is the ‘girl’ the song is addressed to.

The funny thing about the [Maharishi’s] camp was that although it was very beautiful and I was meditating about eight hours a day, I was writing the most miserable songs on earth. In ‘Yer Blues’, when I wrote, ‘I’m so lonely I want to die,’ I’m not kidding. That’s how I felt.

John Lennon

Anthology”.

TWENTY-FIVE: Don't Pass Me By

 

“Written by: Starkey
Recorded: 5, 6 June, 12, 22 July 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott

Ringo Starr: vocals, piano, sleigh bells, percussion
Paul McCartney: piano, bass guitar, drums
Jack Fallon: violin

Ringo Starr’s first recorded composition, ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, was written several years before its 1968 release on the White Album.

‘Don’t Pass Me By’ was mentioned by the group way back on 14 July 1964, during an introduction to ‘And I Love Her’ for the first edition of the BBC radio music series Top Gear. Starr was asked if he had plans to write songs, and replied that he had written one. Paul McCartney then interjected by singing “Don’t pass me by, don’t make me cry, don’t make me blue”.

In June 1964, during a radio interview in New Zealand, Starr playfully urged the rest of the group to “sing the song I’ve written, just for a plug”. Other press reports from as early as 1963 mention the song”.

TWENTY-FOUR: Why Don't We Do It in the Road?

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 9, 10 October 1968
Producer: Paul McCartney
Engineer: Ken Townsend

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, lead guitar, piano, bass, handclaps
Ringo Starr: drums, handclaps

Recorded during the late stages of work on the White Album, ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’ was a spontaneous recording by Paul McCartney with assistance from Ringo Starr.

The song was recorded while John Lennon and George Harrison were working on other songs. Lennon later described McCartney’s decision as hurtful, explaining that it represented the fragmented way in which the group’s members had taken to recording songs in 1968.

That’s Paul. He even recorded it by himself in another room. That’s how it was getting in those days. We came in and he’d made the whole record. Him drumming. Him playing the piano. Him singing. But he couldn’t – he couldn’t – maybe he couldn’t make the break from The Beatles. I don’t know what it was, you know. I enjoyed the track. Still, I can’t speak for George, but I was always hurt when Paul would knock something off without involving us. But that’s just the way it was then.

John Lennon, 1980

All We Are Saying, David Sheff”.

TWENTY-THREE: Rocky Raccoon

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 15 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar
John Lennon: backing vocals, harmonica, harmonium, six-string bass
George Harrison: backing vocals
Ringo Starr: drums
George Martin: piano

A jokey song about a cuckolded young American man seeking revenge against a love rival, ‘Rocky Raccoon’ was written in India by Paul McCartney in early 1968.

Paul [wrote it]. Couldn’t you guess? Would I go to all that trouble about Gideon’s Bible and all that stuff?

John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

McCartney wrote the song on the roof of the ashram in Rishikesh, with John Lennon and Donovan Leitch also helping out.

‘Rocky Raccoon’ is quirky, very me. I like talking blues so I started off like that, then I did my tongue-in-cheek parody of a western and threw in some amusing lines. I just tried to keep it amusing, really; it’s me writing a play, a little one-act play giving them most of the dialogue. Rocky Raccoon is the main character, then there’s the girl whose real name was Magill, who called herself Lil, but she was known as Nancy.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

TWENTY-TWO: Mother Nature's Son

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 9, 20 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, timpani, bass
Uncredited: two trumpets, two trombones

Written by Paul McCartney, ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ was inspired by a lecture on nature given by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India, although the song was mostly completed in Liverpool.

I seem to remember writing ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ at my dad’s house in Liverpool. I often used to do that if I’d gone up to see him. Visiting my family I’d feel in a good mood, so it was often a good occasion to write songs. So this was me doing my mother nature’s son bit. I’ve always loved the [Nat King Cole] song called ‘Nature Boy’: ‘There was a boy, a very strange and gentle boy…’ He loves nature, and ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ was inspired by that song. I’d always loved nature, and when Linda and I got together we discovered we had this deep love of nature in common. There might have been a little help from John with some of the verses.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

TWENTY-ONE: While My Guitar Gently Weep

 

“Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 25 July; 16 August; 3, 5, 6 September 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

George Harrison: vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ
John Lennon: organ
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass guitar, piano, organ
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine, castanets
Eric Clapton: lead guitar

George Harrison’s most celebrated song on The Beatles’ White Album, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ was inspired by the I Ching, and featured his friend Eric Clapton on lead guitar.

Harrison began writing the music for the song in India, although the lyrics were mostly completed upon his return to England.

I wrote ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ at my mother’s house in Warrington. I was thinking about the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Changes… The Eastern concept is that whatever happens is all meant to be, and that there’s no such thing as coincidence – every little item that’s going down has a purpose.

‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ was a simple study based on that theory. I decided to write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book – as it would be a relative to that moment, at that time. I picked up a book at random, opened it, saw ‘gently weeps’, then laid the book down again and started the song.

George Harrison

Anthology”.

TWENTY: Good Night

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney

Recorded: 28 June; 2, 22 July 1968

Producer: George Martin

Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Peter Bown, Ken Scott

Ringo Starr: vocals

George Martin: celesta

Ingrid Thomas, Pat Whitmore, Val Stockwell, Irene King, Ross Gilmour, Mike Redway, Ken Barrie, Fred Lucas: backing vocals

Uncredited: 12 violins, three violas, three cellos, three flutes, clarinet, horn, vibraphone, double bass, harp

‘Good Night’, the tender closing song on the White Album, was written by John Lennon as a lullaby for his son Julian, and sung by Ringo Starr.

After ending their previous two albums with the monumental ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘A Day In The Life’, the White Album too was brought to a close by another Lennon song. ‘Good Night’, however, couldn’t have been more different. With its almost-schmaltzy arrangement, it served as a necessary antidote to ‘Revolution 9’.

Everybody thinks Paul wrote ‘Good Night’ for me to sing, but it was John who wrote it for me. He’s got a lot of soul, John has.

Ringo Starr, 1968

No members of The Beatles other than Starr appear on the recording. Instead, a lavish orchestral arrangement was scored by George Martin, transporting listeners back to the golden age of Hollywood.

‘Good Night’ was written for Julian the way Beautiful Boy was written for Sean, but given to Ringo and possibly overlush.

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff”.

NINETEEN: Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney

Recorded: 26, 27 June; 1, 23 July 1968

Producer: George Martin

Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, guitar, percussion, handclaps

Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass, percussion, handclaps

George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar, percussion, handclaps

Ringo Starr: drums, percussion, handclaps

A bridge between the willful nonsense of ‘I Am The Walrus’ and the confessional songs of his early solo career, ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey’ was written by John Lennon about his relationship with Yoko Ono.

That was just a sort of nice line that I made into a song. It was about me and Yoko. Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were in the glow of love. Everything is clear and open when you’re in love. Everybody was sort of tense around us: you know, ‘What is she doing here at the session? Why is she with him?’ All this sort of madness is going on around us because we just happened to want to be together all the time.

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff”.

EIGHTEEN: Julia

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 13 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar

‘Julia’ was written by John Lennon for his mother, who died in a road accident in 1958. It is the only solo Lennon recording in The Beatles’ canon.

The song was written in India. Like ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’, it contained the fingerpicking guitar style taught to Lennon by Donovan

Some afternoons we would gather at one of our pads and play the acoustic guitars we had all brought with us. Paul Horn, the American flute wizard, was there. John was keen to learn the finger-style guitar I played and he was a good student. Paul already had a smattering of finger style. George preferred his Chet Atkins style. John wrote ‘Julia’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ based on the picking I taught him.

Donovan

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

SEVENTEEN: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 8 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, organ
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, acoustic guitar
Ringo Starr: backing vocals, drums, tambourine
Yoko Ono: vocals, backing vocals
Chris Thomas: Mellotron
Various others, including Maureen Starkey: backing vocals

‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill’ was written by John Lennon in 1968 in Rishikesh, India. It was inspired by an American visitor who departed for a tiger-killing spree before returning to the ashram to seek spiritual enlightenment.

That was written about a guy in Maharishi‘s meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God. There used to be a character called Jungle Jim and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It’s a sort of teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke. Yoko’s on that one, I believe, singing along.

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff

In light of Lennon’s antipathy towards Paul McCartney’s ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, it may seem odd that he was responsible for this overly frivolous singalong that appeared on the White Album”.

SIXTEEN: Sexy Sadie

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 19, 24 July; 13, 21 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, Hammond organ
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass, piano
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine

John Lennon’s most acerbic song on the White Album, ‘Sexy Sadie’ was a barbed tribute to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and was written during Lennon’s final hours in India.

That’s about the Maharishi, yes. I copped out and I wouldn’t write ‘Maharishi, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone.’ But now it can be told, Fab Listeners.

John Lennon
Rolling Stone, 1970

Shortly after Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr left India, Lennon’s friend Alexis Mardas, also known as Magic Alex, arrived.

Mardas had previously been known as Lennon’s ‘guru’, and was reportedly alarmed at seeing his influence upon Lennon waning. He is said to have started a rumour that Maharishi had made a sexual advance towards one of the women on the meditation course.

Alexis and a fellow female meditator began to sow the seeds of doubt into very open minds… Alexis’s statements about how the Maharishi had been indiscreet with a certain lady, and what a blackguard he had turned out to be gathered momentum. All, may I say, without a single shred of evidence or justification. It was obvious to me that Alexis wanted out and more than anything he wanted The Beatles out as well.

Cynthia Lennon”.

FIFTEEN: Helter Skelter

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 18 July; 9, 10 September 1968
Producer: Chris Thomas
Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, electric guitar
John Lennon: backing vocals, bass guitar, tenor saxophone
George Harrison: backing vocals, electric guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Mal Evans: trumpet

Paul McCartney’s ‘Helter Skelter’ was an attempt to create a rock ‘n’ roll song as loud and dirty as possible. It later became one of The Beatles’ most notorious songs, after Charles Manson interpreted it as a symbol for Armageddon.

The sound, which has been described as a prototype for 1970s heavy metal sounds, was an attempt to outdo The Who; in an interview, Pete Townshend had described their single ‘I Can See For Miles’ as the group’s most extreme sound to date.

I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: ‘We’ve just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock ‘n’ roll record you’ve ever heard.’ I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, ‘I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.’ And I wrote ‘Helter Skelter’.

You can hear the voices cracking, and we played it so long and so often that by the end of it you can hear Ringo saying,’I’ve got blisters on my fingers’. We just tried to get it louder: ‘Can’t we make the drums sound louder?’ That was really all I wanted to do – to make a very loud, raunchy rock ‘n’ roll record with The Beatles. And I think it’s a pretty good one.

Paul McCartney

Anthology”.

FOURTEEN: I Will

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 16, 17 September 1968
Producer: Chris Thomas
Engineer: Ken Scott

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar
John Lennon: percussion
Ringo Starr: cymbals, bongos, maracas

A love song written by Paul McCartney, ‘I Will’ was one of the songs worked on by The Beatles and their associates while in Rishikesh, India.

Alan-a-Dale. The minstrel wandering around Sherwood Forest in the Robin Hood legend. That’s me. This song finds me in my troubadour mode…

Just because I was involved with Jane at the time doesn’t mean this song is addressed to, or about, Jane. When I’m writing, it’s as if I’m setting words and music to the film I’m watching in my head. It’s a declaration of love, yes, but not always to someone specific. Unless it’s to a person out there who’s listening to the song. And they have to be ready for it. It’s almost definitely not going to be a person who’s said, ‘There he goes again, writing another of those silly love songs.’ So, this is me in my troubadour more.

Paul McCartney

The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present”.

THIRTEEN: I'm So Tired

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 8 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, lead guitar, organ
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals, bass, electric piano
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums

‘I’m So Tired’ was written by John Lennon three weeks into his stay in Rishikesh, India, where The Beatles had gone to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Free from drink and drugs for the first time in years, he found his thoughts abnormally focused, even if this meant suffering from temporary insomnia.

The song recounts Lennon’s difficulty in sleeping after meditation had absorbed his thoughts throughout much of the day. It also recounts his burgeoning obsessions with Yoko Ono (“My mind is set on you”) who remained in England while Lennon flew to India with his wife Cynthia.

‘I’m So Tired’ was me, in India again. I couldn’t sleep, I’m meditating all day and couldn’t sleep at night. The story is that. One of my favorite tracks. I just like the sound of it, and I sing it well.

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff”.

TWELVE: Dear Prudence

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 28, 29, 30 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Barry Sheffield

John Lennon: vocals, backing vocals, electric guitar, tambourine
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass, piano, drums, flugelhorn, handclaps
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar, handclaps
Mal Evans: tambourine, backing vocals, handclaps
Jackie Lomax, John McCartney: backing vocals, handclaps

Written by John Lennon in India, ‘Dear Prudence’ was about Mia Farrow’s younger sister, who refused to leave her chalet at the meditation retreat in Rishikesh, and had to be coaxed out by Lennon and George Harrison.

Prudence Farrow had become infatuated with meditation, locking herself away from the rest of the group and falling into deep states against the advice of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

‘Dear Prudence’ is me. Written in India. A song about Mia Farrow’s sister, who seemed to go slightly barmy, meditating too long, and couldn’t come out of the little hut that we were livin’ in. They selected me and George to try and bring her out because she would trust us. If she’d been in the West, they would have put her away.

We got her out of the house. She’d been locked in for three weeks and wouldn’t come out, trying to reach God quicker than anybody else. That was the competition in Maharishi’s camp: who was going to get cosmic first. What I didn’t know was I was already cosmic. [Laughs.]

John Lennon

All We Are Saying, David Sheff”.

ELEVEN: Revolution 1

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 30, 31 May; 4, 21 June 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Peter Bown

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, lead guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, piano, Hammond organ, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Francie Schwartz: backing vocals
Derek Watkins, Freddy Clayton: trumpets
Don Lang, Rex Morris, J Power, Bill Povey: trombones

The first song to be recorded for the White Album, ‘Revolution 1’ was written in India in early 1968. It was inspired by the 1968 student uprising in Paris, the Vietnam war and the assassination of Martin Luther King, and heralded a political awakening for John Lennon.

Early 1968 saw a profound shift from the hippy-era’s believe in peace and love, towards political turmoil, protest and struggle. An increasingly politicised and energised Lennon watched the unfolding events with interest, and decided to put his feelings into song, aware of the risk of alienating The Beatles’ fans.

I wanted to put out what I felt about revolution. I thought it was time we fucking spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese war when we were on tour with Brian Epstein and had to tell him, ‘We’re going to talk about the war this time, and we’re not going to just waffle.’ I wanted to say what I thought about revolution.

I had been thinking about it up in the hills in India. I still had this ‘God will save us’ feeling about it, that it’s going to be all right. That’s why I did it: I wanted to talk, I wanted to say my piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you, or whoever listens, to communicate, to say ‘What do you say? This is what I say.’

John Lennon

Rolling Stone, 1970”.

TEN: Honey Pie

 

“Paul McCartney: vocals, piano
John Lennon: lead guitar, rhythm guitar
George Harrison: bass
Ringo Starr: drums
Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chester, Rex Morris, Harry Klein: saxophones
Raymond Newman, David Smith: clarinets

Sharing little more than a title with ‘Wild Honey Pie’, this pastiche of the British music hall style was written by Paul McCartney for the White Album.

Both John and I had a great love for music hall, what the Americans call vaudeville… I very much liked that old crooner style, the strange fruity voice that they used, so ‘Honey Pie’ was me writing one of them to an imaginary woman, across the ocean, on the silver screen, who was called Honey Pie. It’s another of my fantasy songs.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

NINE: Happiness Is a Warm Gun

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 23, 24, 25 September 1968
Producer: Chris Thomas
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, backing vocals, lead guitar
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, bass
George Harrison: backing vocals, lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine

Featuring one of John Lennon‘s best vocals on the White Album, ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ was made up of four distinct song fragments, and took its title from a gun magazine, The American Rifleman, which Lennon saw in the studio at Abbey Road.

George Martin showed me the cover of a magazine that said, ‘Happiness is a warm gun’. I thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you’ve just shot something.

John Lennon
Anthology

The first section of the song was made up of phrases thought up by Lennon and Apple’s publicist Derek Taylor during an acid trip the pair experienced along with Neil Aspinall and Lennon’s childhood friend Pete Shotton.

The opening line was a Liverpudlian expression of approval, and the ‘velvet hand’ line was inspired by a fetishist Taylor and his wife met on the Isle of Man.

I told a story about a chap my wife Joan and I met in the Carrick Bay Hotel on the Isle of Man. It was late one night drinking in the bar and this local fellow who liked meeting holiday makers and rapping to them suddenly said to us, ‘I like wearing moleskin gloves you know. It gives me a little bit of an unusual sensation when I’m out with my girlfriend.’ He then said, ‘I don’t want to go into details.’ So we didn’t. But that provided the line, ‘She’s well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand’.

Derek Taylor

A Hard Day’s Write, Steve Turner”.

EIGHT: Martha My Dear

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 4, 5 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Barry Sheffield

Paul McCartney: vocals, piano, bass, lead guitar, handclaps
George Harrison: electric guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Sofier, Les Maddox: violins
Leo Birnbaum, Henry Myerscough: violas
Reginald Kilbey, Frederick Alexander: cellos
Leon Calvert, Stanley Reynolds, Ronnie Hughes: trumpets
Leon Calvert: flugelhorn
Tony Tunstall: French horn
Ted Barker: trombone
Alf Reece: tuba

When I taught myself piano I liked to see how far I could go, and this started life almost as a piece you’d learn as a piano lesson. It’s quite hard for me to play, it’s a two-handed thing, like a little set piece. In fact I remember one or two people being surprised that I’d played it because it’s slightly above my level or competence really, but I wrote it as that, something a bit more complex for me to play. Then while I was blocking out words – you just mouth out sounds and some things come – I found the words ‘Martha my dear’.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

SEVEN: Glass Onion

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11, 12, 13, 16, 20 September; 10 October 1968
Producers: Chris Thomas, George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar
Paul McCartney: bass, piano, recorder
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas: violins
John Underwood, Keith Cummings: violas
Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey: cellos

‘Glass Onion’ was John Lennon’s answer to those who looked for hidden meanings in The Beatles’ music. It was a song deliberately filled with red herrings, obscure imagery and allusions to past works.

Fully aware of the power of The Beatles’ own mythology, and with a general dislike of those who over-interpreted his work, Lennon deliberately inserted references to ‘I Am The Walrus’, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘The Fool On The Hill’, and ‘Fixing A Hole’.

The effect is a kaleidoscopic look through the group’s back pages. ‘Lady Madonna’, whose protagonist reappears in ‘Glass Onion’, contained a reference to ‘I Am The Walrus’ (“See how they run”).

That song, in turn, featured the line “See how they fly like Lucy in the sky”, a clear reference to Sgt Pepper’s psychedelic masterpiece. The effect is of a continual strand running through The Beatles’ works, even if such a strand was never intended in the first place”.

SIX: Blackbird

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 11 June 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar

A solo performance by Paul McCartney, ‘Blackbird’ was composed shortly after The Beatles’ stay in Rishikesh, India, and featured on the White Album.

The song was written on McCartney’s farm in Scotland. Shortly afterwards, on the first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his house in London, McCartney performed the song to the fans waiting outside the gates.

A few of us were there. We had the feeling something was going to happen. Paul didn’t take the Mini inside the way he usually did – he parked it on the road and he and Linda walked right past us. They went inside and we stood there, watching different lights in the house go on and off.

In the end, the light went on in the Mad Room, at the top of the house, where he kept all his music stuff and his toys. Paul opened the window and called out to us, ‘Are you still down there?’ ‘Yes,’ we said. He must have been really happy that night. He sat on the window sill with his acoustic guitar and sang ‘Blackbird’ to us as we stood down there in the dark.

Margo Stevens

Shout!, Philip Norman”.

FIVE: Cry Baby Cry

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 15, 16, 18 July 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Ken Scott

John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, organ
Paul McCartney: bass
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
George Martin: harmonium

Written by John Lennon while in India, ‘Cry Baby Cry’ recalled the nursery rhymes of his childhood.

According to Hunter Davies’ authorised 1968 book on The Beatles, the song was, like ‘Good Morning Good Morning’, partly inspired by a television commercial.

I’ve got another one here, a few words, I think I got them from an advert – ‘Cry baby cry, make your mother buy’. I’ve been playing it over on the piano. I’ve let it go now. It’ll come back if I really want it. I do get up from the piano as if I have been in a trance. Sometimes I know I’ve let a few things slip away, which I could have caught if I’d been wanting something.

John Lennon

The Beatles, Hunter Davies”.

FOUR: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15 July 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass, handclaps
John Lennon: backing vocals, piano, handclaps
George Harrison: backing vocals, acoustic guitar, handclaps
Ringo Starr: drums, bongos, percussion, handclaps
James Gray, Rex Morris, Cyril Reuben: saxophone

Written by Paul McCartney in India in 1968, ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ was an attempt at a ska-influenced recording, although the title phrase came from a Nigerian friend.

We went to a cinema show in a village where a guy put up a mobile screen and all the villagers came along and loved it. I remember walking down a little jungle path with my guitar to get to the village from the camp. I was playing ‘Desmond has a barrow in the market place…’

Paul McCartney”.

THREE: Revolution 9

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 30 May; 6, 10, 11, 20, 21 June 1968
Producers: George Martin, John Lennon
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

John Lennon: vocals, tape loops, effects, samples
George Harrison: vocals, samples
Yoko Ono: vocals, effects, samples

Dividing audiences since late 1968, John Lennon’s sound collage ‘Revolution 9’ was an exercise in musique concrète influenced heavily by Yoko Ono and the avant-garde art world.

The recording emerged from ‘Revolution 1’, the final six minutes of which formed a lengthy, mostly instrumental jam. Lennon took the recording and added a range of vocals, tape loops and sound effects, creating ‘Revolution 9′, the longest track released during The Beatles’ career”.

TWO: Long, Long, Long

 

“Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 7, 8, 9 October 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

George Harrison: vocals, acoustic guitars
Paul McCartney: backing vocals, Hammond organ, bass
Ringo Starr: drums
Chris Thomas: piano

The spiritual heart of the White Album, ‘Long, Long, Long’ provided a moment of calm between the raucous ‘Helter Skelter’ and the politically-charged ‘Revolution 1’.

While it may outwardly appear to be an ode to a lover, ‘Long, Long, Long’ was actually written about George Harrison’s joy at having found God.

In his autobiography, Harrison spoke briefly about the song, describing how its music had been inspired by the final track on Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde album.

The ‘you’ in ‘Long, Long, Long’ is God. I can’t recall much about it except the chords, which I think were coming from ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ – D to E minor, A, and D – those three chords and the way they moved.

George Harrison

I Me Mine, 1980”.

ONE: Back in the U.S.S.R.

 

“Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 22, 23 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott

Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)

Paul McCartney: vocals, backing vocals, piano, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, handclaps, percussion
John Lennon: backing vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, handclaps, percussion
George Harrison: backing vocals, electric guitar, six-string bass guitar, drums, handclaps, percussion

The opening track on the White Album, ‘Back In The USSR’ was written by Paul McCartney and inspired by Chuck Berry’s ‘Back In The USA’ and the Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’.

The song was intended by McCartney to be a parody of Chuck Berry’s 1959 hit.

It’s tongue in cheek. This is a travelling Russkie who has just flown in from Miami Beach; he’s come the other way. He can’t wait to get back to the Georgian mountains: ‘Georgia’s always on my mind’; there’s all sorts of little jokes in it… I remember trying to sing it in my Jerry Lee Lewis voice, to get my mind set on a particular feeling. We added Beach Boys style harmonies.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now, Barry Miles”.

FEATURE: Win Some, Lose Some, No Regrets: Robbie Williams’s I’ve Been Expecting You at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Win Some, Lose Some, No Regrets

  

Robbie Williams’s I’ve Been Expecting You at Twenty-Five

_________

I remember the singles from…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sound on Sound

Robbie Williams’s second studio album, I’ve Been Expecting You, being played on the radio a lot in 1998 and 1999. This superb album came out on 26th October, 1998. I wanted to mark twenty-five years of an important album. I bought Strong when it came out as a single in 1999. Everyone knows about Williams leaving Take That and going solo. One of the most anticipated debut albums of the 1990s came in 1997 when he released Life Thru a Lens. Whilst a great album, I’ve Been Expecting You feels more accomplished and mature. The singles hit harder and stay in the mind longer. Less filler on this album. Co-writing most of the album with his writing partner Guy Chambers, there is a lot to appreciate. Aside from excellent singles like Strong, No Regret and Millennium, Williams’s deeper cuts such as Grace and Man Machine are pretty strong. I am not sure whether any twenty-fifth anniversary editions or celebrations are planned. If there was snobbishness around Williams and those who would always see him as immature and a bit clownish, it is to his credit he defied critics with an album that went for depth and memorability rather than laddish Pop or something quite shallow. By 1998, Britpop was over. Williams was reacting to the fact that the music he was making with Take That was also not really being bought.

As such, I’ve Bene Expecting You is an album that aims for longevity and endurance rather than a quick commercial hit. Even so, it did get to one in the U.K. The first single, Millennium, got to number one too. It was clear there was a lot of love out there for Robbie Williams – even from Take That fans who might have had to choose sides or they were angry at Williams for leaving. I think things have changed slightly when it comes to former boyband and girl group members releasing solo work. That assumption that they are a serious artist in their own right. If Gary Barlow was the main songwriter in Take That, Robbie Williams definitely proved his worth and strengths. His second studio album, I feel, is his best and most complete work. Even if you do not like his later work, many can agree that there are a few pearls to be found through I’ve Been Expecting You. I would recommend people check out a documentary on Netflix on 8th November. Williams looks back at the first twenty-five years of the professional solo career. It will be interesting to hear how he reflects on making I’ve Been Expecting You - and how it turned him into one of the country’s most popular solo male Pop artists.

Maybe a lot of the mainstream media were predisposed to sneer and slag off anything that came from Robbie Williams. For those listening to I’ve Been Expecting You, they were treated to an album where Williams (with Guy Chambers) had found a perfect balance with his songwriting. Focused and consistent, there is little to dislike about his second studio album. Its 2000 follow-up, Sing When You're Winning, did provide incredible songs such as Rock DJ, Kids and Supreme - though it lacks a little something in my view. Regardless, for those who want to witness Robbie Williams spread his wings as a songwriter and singer, I’ve Been Expecting You is where you need to head! This is what the BBC said in their 2009 review:

“Robbie Williams’ second solo long-player saw the one-time boyband singer stretch his creative wings in a fashion entirely unexpected, embracing not only sumptuous (read: overblown to some ears) string arrangements but also bruised pop-soul and boisterous, hook-heavy rock.

While his debut, the preceding year’s Life Thru a Lens, was an album typical of its type, full of missteps in pursuit of a sound guaranteed to maintain a long and successful career, I’ve Been Expecting You focused on the finest aspects of its predecessor to come across as a 12-track collection with emphasis on accessibility only through greater investment of attention. While it lacked a sing-along anthem in the mould of Angels – Millennium is a wholly different-of-mood piece – Williams and his songwriting partner Guy Chambers achieved a consistency that marks this record out as perhaps his strongest to date.

Granted, there’s no real single of memorable note beyond the aforementioned over-ubiquitous John Barry-sampling number, but the bitterness of Karma Killer – the line “I hope you choke on your Bacardi and Coke” may seem trite on paper, but Williams’ delivery confirms he means business – and the wonderful No Regrets, featuring subtle backing vocals from Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, are songs that keep the listener engaged with the narrative. And it’s here that I’ve Been Expecting You impresses – our once cocksure protagonist reveals a sensitive side, often sounding broken by the weight of emotion and expectation, and is all the more endearing for it. His stories seem real, believable, and sympathies are stirred.

“I don’t want to hate, but that’s all you’ve left me with / A bitter aftertaste and a fantasy of how we all could live”, from No Regrets, is a telling line. After the paparazzi-baiting and headlines-courting hi-jinx of his debut, Williams found the cheekiness had drained away somewhat for this often reserved and only intermittently energised set. Even Millennium, the record’s upbeat high, offers an idea of where Williams’ head was at: “Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough”.

Few critics dared to knock the man down a peg or two, as by being lyrically open like never before Williams scored his greatest album hit yet. That’s ten times platinum and counting, since you asked, and little he’s produced since has seemed quite so times-defining of content”.

Calculated and calibrated, I do hope there is some twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of I’ve Been Expecting You. There has not been a great deal written about it. A pity that a really good album was sort of mocked or seen as inferior when it came out. Granted, 1998 is one of the best music years ever. Even if Robbie Williams’s I’ve Been Expecting You might not get into the top ten of that year, it is still one of the best albums from a magnificent year. This is what AllMusic wrote for their review:

“A more mature, calculated album from a pop star who's often gloried in being immature and spontaneous, I've Been Expecting You may suffer from comparisons to its excellent predecessor, but it also finds Robbie Williams weathering the sophomore storm quite well. While Williams' debut was infectious and outrageous, the second is indeed a more studied album. The opener, "Strong," begins very well, with the spot-on lyrics: "My breath smells of a thousand fags/And when I'm drunk I dance like me Dad," and "Early morning when I wake up/I look like Kiss but without the makeup." Many of the tracks on I've Been Expecting You show an undeniable growth, both in songwriting and in artistic expression; two of the highlights, "No Regrets" and "Phoenix From the Flames," are sensitive, unapologetically emotional songs that may not be as immediately catchy as those on his debut, but pack a greater punch down the road. Williams does indulge his sense of fun occasionally, playing up James Bond during the transcontinental hand-waver "Millennium" (which samples Nancy Sinatra's theme for You Only Live Twice), and simply roaring through "Win Some Lose Some" and "Jesus in a Camper Van”.

You can’t ignore the success and legacy of I’ve Been Expecting You. For the writing of the album, Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers began in Jamaica in the spring of 1998 – not a bad place to get the juices flowing! I’ve Been Expecting You went on to become the U.K.'s best-selling album for 1998. According to Music Week, the album sold 2,582,016 copies in the U.K. as of November 2016. It has been certified 10× Platinum for shipments of 3 million copies, making it Williams' best-selling album in the country. Very much thrust into the limelight, Williams completed album promotion with a huge European tour in the autumn of 1999. In 2005, I've Been Expecting You was ranked 91st in a Channel 4 show celebrating the 100 greatest albums of all time. Boasting five singles and plenty of gold throughout the album, Robbie Williams’s I’ve Been Expecting You is twenty-five on 26th October. Some of the singles are still played on the radio, though I think this is an album that announced Williams as a serious songwriter and a fantastic artist. From the ego a go go of his 1997 debut, Life Thru a Lens, Williams stepped up a gear on 1998’s I’ve Been Expecting You and released an album that proved he was a musical…

PHOENIX from the flames.

FEATURE: When Numbers Get Serious: Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

When Numbers Get Serious

 

Paul Simon’s Hearts and Bones at Forty

_________

A little under three years before…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Paul Simon with Carrie Fisher circa 1983 (the pair married in August 1983)/PHOTO CREDIT: Jean Jacques Lapeyronnie/Getty Images

the mighty Graceland was released, Paul Simon gave us the amazing Hearts and Bones. His sixth solo studio album, I think it simultaneously one of his most underrated and one of his absolute best. If albums like Graceland and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) find its songs get more airplay, one cannot deny the excellence of Hearts and Bones. Its standout track (in my view), René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War, shows the master was at his peak. This phenomenal album was produced by Roy Halee, Paul Simon, Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker. I think one reason why Hearts and Bones gets overlooked to a degree is that it wasn’t a massive commercial success. That would change with 1986’s Graceland….yet Hearts and Bones just got into the top forty in the U.S. and U.K. Maybe the lack of real instant standout singles means it is more for those who want depth and nuance, rather than something instantly catchy or that lodges in your brain. A woe that all artists have to face. I am going to introduce some features that shine a light on a magnificent album. With plans to work on new material with Art Garfunkel and perhaps affect some sort of unexpected reunion, Hearts and Bones instead became a Paul Simon solo work. One that is among his most important. You can buy the vinyl of this essential work from one of the greatest ever songwriters. In 2015, Ultimate Classic Rock ran a feature on Hearts and Bones. A commercial slide, Hearts and Bones did not get the acclaim and respect it deserved:

“For a good long while, everything Paul Simon touched turned to gold or platinum, first during his years as one-half of Simon & Garfunkel, and continuing through a string of successful solo albums. But by the early '80s, he'd hit a bit of a rough spot.

The seeds of Simon's dissension were sown in the late '70s, when he left his longtime home at Columbia Records and headed to Warner Bros. as part of a wildly expensive deal (one which roughly coincided with Columbia's poaching of a high-profile Warners artist, James Taylor). With the pop world at his feet and limitless record company resources to work with, Simon set about creating his most ambitious project yet: 1980's One Trick Pony, an album as well as a film starring Simon.

Rather than continuing his incredible streak of success, Pony was met with middling reviews and consumer indifference, knocking Simon into a painful period of writer's block that presaged his decision to reunite with his former partner Art Garfunkel for 1981's historically attended concert in Central Park – which then became a full-fledged tour, and was supposed to lead into a reunion album.

That project went through a series of changes before it finally arrived in stores on Nov. 4, 1983. Originally titled Think Too Much, it eventually morphed into Simon's sixth solo effort, Hearts and Bones – and Garfunkel was nowhere to be found.

As it turned out, Garfunkel quit fairly early in the recording process. In a 1984 interview with Playboy, Simon professed to have had misgivings from the beginning, recalling, "At first I thought, 'I really can't do it: These new songs are too much about my life to have anybody else sing them.' He had, 'Look, these aren't the events of my life, but I understand the emotions you're dealing with. I understand what it is to be in love, to be in pain, to feel joy. I'm a singer. I'm able to interpret. That's what I do.' I said, 'All right. Let's try.'"

Ultimately, though, Simon's need for complete creative control drove a wedge between the two partners, with one of the final breaks coming when Garfunkel said he wanted to record his vocals without Simon in the studio. "I wanted to be there when it happened, because I knew that if what he did wasn't all right with me, I wasn't going to let it go," explained Simon. "And that was the difference from the '60s. What we didn't realize at first was how big a difference it was. It was huge."

As Hearts and Bones made clear, Simon had certainly evolved from the artist he'd been during the '60s, and not always in a way his fans were prepared to accept. While he'd always striven to avoid writing lyrics that were "too on the nose," as he'd put it, the songs on Bones found him drifting into more abstract territory. Although he was still addressing timeless subjects like love and death, he was doing so from angles that weren't always easy to discern. In the eyes of some listeners and critics, the onetime voice of a generation had lost sight of his muse.

The result was another commercial setback for Simon, albeit one that proved short-lived – and also crucial, because the resulting disinterest from the label afforded Simon the level of creative freedom he needed to travel to South Africa for the sessions that produced 1986's landmark Graceland LP. By the end of the decade, he was once again one of the biggest and most highly respected rock stars on the planet.

At the time, it may have seemed like one of his lesser efforts, but time's been good to Hearts and Bones. Today, it's not only regarded as the prelude to Simon's second wind, but one of the more finely crafted records in a catalog with no shortage of classic efforts. Like he pointed out on one of his earlier songs: "You got to learn how to fall / Before you learn to fly”.

I will come to a review soon. A few years ago, American Songwriter published the first part of a feature highlighting the underappreciated genius that is Hearts and Bones. I will not include it all, though there are elements and sections of the first part that I wanted to include. In the hope of highlighting what a vital thing Hearts and Bones is. Perhaps an album whose sound did not fit in with the landscape of 1983:

“Each of the songs included, coming as they did from the heart and mind of this songwriter, contained multitudes. It would have been easier to write a book about each one than to condense all of it into the liner note limits. There was ample space offered for this, printed in a long vertical book that came with the set. But it wasn’t limitless, essentially, which was a problem at first.

For example, “Rene and Georgette Magritte (With Their Dog After The War).” It’s a song which is a universe unto itself. Quickly I had amassed thirty pages all on this one song. All of which added up, admittedly, to what Dylan called “too much and not enough.” That with all this thinking, writing, analysis, reflection and certainty, I’d written circles around this thing without getting to the main point.

Yet one truth remains, which is that the greatness of this album has not diminished. But what has changed is the judgment of it in the world. I’ve since come to know so many great songwriters who revere Simon, and they love this album as much as any of them. And do so, usually, without any knowledge of its reputation.

And so the work continues, to explore, study, analyze, bask in its glories, obsess even, and continue to sing the praises of Hearts and Bones. And all those albums that were great and somehow fell prey to the Heaven’s Gate effect.

[This can also be called the Ishtar effect, another great movie that got rained on. For songwriters, especially, it is one of the best, and funniest movies about songwriters. Paul William’s intentionally bad songs for it are genius.)

Though overtly expressing personal reasons for loving an album is something I’ve avoided almost always through the decades, for this I must take a different route. Because how songs resonate in our own lives, and albums, has a lot to do with how they exist in our lives, and why they matter so much to us.

Writing about music, as has been famously said, is about as useful as dancing about architecture. Words alone can never entirely fully express that which is instrinsically beyond words. That is why music is so powerful, and why it’s been said that all arts aspire to the level of music.

So any attempt to truly touch that realm with words alone is bound to fail, Some get closer than others. Yet even this writer’s admitted use of intentional hyperbole, which is not phony but an accurate expression of my genuine reverence for miraculous songwriting has been perceived as “gushing.” As if it is phony. It isn’t. Yet those behind the words are expected to use more restraint, so as to be taken seriously. But never did I want to play that game, as that would be phony, to pretend I wasn’t in utter awe.

Certainly this deep reverence came from a lifelong hunger to hear new music, which would be received with much gratitude and joy. In my life growing up, few things were ever as inspirational or enriching as getting a new album. Back then we had no computers or cell phones or even TVs in our rooms. But we had record players, and that is what mattered to me. Any album at all that came into my life was momentous. It brings home the understanding that how much songs matter in our lives has to do entirely with how we receive them, and if we choose to keep them in our lives.

As Leonard Cohen said when I asked him about the concept of meaningful songs, that meaning is determined not be the song or the songwriter, but by the listener.

He said there will always be meaningful songs for those who attach them to meaningful moments in their own lives. Even those songs we might consider unworthy.

“Songs do not dignify human activity,” Leonard said. “Human activity dignifies the song.”

So that is an expansive introduction to the main subject, about why certain albums for us forever impact us. In Part 2 we will get to the heart of the thing, and yes, also the bones, of why Paul Simon’s greatest underappreciated album is great”.

I am going to round things off with a review from Music Aficionado. Quite an extensive review from 2017, I am going to include a fair bit from it. There will be a lot of people who might not know about Hearts and Bones. Not realise why it is so good and warrants acclaim. As it is forty on 4th November, I wanted to spend some time with it:

“Paul Simon often expressed his love and appreciation for 1950s music. Talking to Paul Zollo: “Early fifties music had a different kind of melody, more melodic. But then you’re closer to the age of melody. Because the big band era and post-war, what was still all about melody. The days of Irving Berlin and all those great songwriters was about melody. Nobody comes close to writing melodies like they did. Nobody.” To Playboy magazine in a 1984 interview: “Actually, I’m a rock-‘n’-roll kid. I grew up with rock’n’roll. My main influences in early music were Fifties R&B, Fifties doo-wop groups, Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers. But Simon and Garfunkel was a folkie act. I liked the blend of our voices, but a significant part of me just wasn’t a folkie. What we were doing was too sweet. I was too serious. When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.”

Like Hearts and Bones, The Late Great Johnny Ace offers interesting twists in the song structure. The part that starts with “and the music was flowing” is unexpected and adds additional drama to the lyrics. But even more unexpected is the coda at the end of the song written by Philip Glass and performed by a small ensemble conducted by Michael Reisman. Glass completed his soundtrack to Godfrey’s Reggio’s film Koyaanisqatsi not long before The Late Great Johnny Ace was recored, and you can hear similarities between the coda and Pruit Igoe, one of the tracks in the film. Paul Simon: “His use of what he calls an “end piece” — a short coda which does not recapitulate the melodic lines of the larger preceding piece — is an idea that he used beautifully to conclude my song “The Late Great Johnny Ace.” That end piece concept has found its way into my arrangements for live shows, as the band plays a related but original addition to a song, allowing me to shape endings to sequences of songs, or to set the environment for the next tune.”. A few years later the two would collaborate again on Philip Glass’s album Songs From Liquid Days, Simon contributing lyrics to the track Changing Opinion. After a while the coda becomes such a part of the song that you feel its absence in the demo version Simon recorded while working on the album:

If you stuck with my post thus far you reached the best part, for my favorite song on the album and in all of Paul Simon’s rich catalog of wonderful songs, is Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After The War. Simon is at the top of his game here with lyrics as surrealistic as Magritte’s paintings. When asked if his lyrics can stand alone, Simon told Playboy in 1984: “Maybe on this new album, where the lyrics are my best.” In the Cinemax 1984 TV special Simon talked about the song: “That was unusual for me in the way the song was formed. I was at a friend’s house, actually it was Joan Baez. We were rehearsing at her house and she had to take a phone call, and while she was on the phone I was leafing through this book on Magritte. There was a photo of Magritte and his wife Georgette and the caption of the photo said Georgette and Rene Magritte With Their Dog During The War. And I thought that is a very interesting title for a song. A few days later I was driving along in Montana and I was singing the title except I remembered it as Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War. I began to sing a melody that fit the syllabification.” A similar story in which a song title jumped at him is famously recalled in a Rolling Stone interview, where he sat in a Chinese restaurant and a menu item titled a chicken-and-egg dish as “Mother and Child Reunion”.

Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After The War may be the best example of the new quality and direction Simon took with his lyrics around that time. In a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine he said: “The language starts to get more interesting in Hearts and Bones. The imagery started to get a little interesting. What I was trying to learn to do was to be able to write vernacular speech and then intersperse it with enriched language. And then go back to vernacular. So the thing would go along smoothly and then some image would come out that was interesting and then it would go back to this very smooth, conversational thing. By the time I got to Graceland, I was trying to let that kind of enriched language flow naturally, so that you wouldn’t really notice it as much. I think in Hearts and Bones you could feel it, that it was coming.” In the booklet that accompanies the box set 1964/1993 Simon mentions some of the lines from the song: “I consciously came up with the part about “all their personal belongings” becoming intertwined. But the line in the bridge, “decades gliding by like Indians,” just emerged from nowhere while I was running in Central Park.”

Simon added interesting insights into the writing process and how he picked the words to the song by analyzing a few lines in an interview with Bill Flanagan, featured in the book Written In My Soul:

Returned to their hotel suite and they unlocked the door. Well, it’s just the same rhythm and it’s a rhyme. War/door. And when they open the door, it opens the song. You can go anywhere now. They’ve unlocked the door! So what happens?

Easily losing their evening clothes. That’s a just the way that it sings – the EEE OOO EEE OOO sound. e-sily loo-sing e-v’ning clo. There’s a dreaminess to that sound. And the words are also evocative. I know it works because the sound is right and the picture is interesting. Where are we going from here?

They danced by the light of the moon. Here comes  the leap: To the Penguins, the Orioles, the Five Satins. I didn’t think people would know the groups I picked. Unless they are as old as I am. But the names of those groups have a surreal quality to them. You don’t even know if they are groups, but the sounds are right. And penguins and moonglows and orioles could all be in a Magritte painting.

The deep, forbidden music They’d been longing for. Well, that’s rock & roll, and the early feeling rock & roll touched in you, because it was real. Back then it was forbidden.

René and Georgette Magritte With their dog after the war Were strolling down  Christopher Street When they stopped in a men’s store. Well that’s a joke. What else is  there going to be on Christopher street? It’s the center of the gay community in the US. I thought it was as interesting as any other place for them to be.

The easy stream of laughter Flowing through the air. Then I must have thought, where’s my rhyme? Oh I have a good joke. I’ll go to the French.

René and Georgette Magritte With their dog après la guerre. So that’s nice and tidy and brings in their language and has a joke and turns things around and everything is nicely muddled up and can go anywhere. Now I change key. You jump a tone and things feel nice.

Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War is an endearing song, recalling the music Paul Simon loved to listen to as a teenager: “My first introduction to Rock n Roll was vocal groups in the mid fifties. I’ve always considered that to be the essential vocabulary of my songwriting. Even though I used more sophisticated forms, I always go back to that sound.” Doo wop bands ruled the airwaves and Paul Simon, like many young adults at the time, was captivated by the melodies and the vocal harmonies. The song is at its core a tribute to these bands, but the specific bands mentioned in the song were selected for a reason: “The groups like the Penguins and the Moonglows, the Five Satins and the Orioles, they were very popular at the time. They were not necessarily my favorites. I used them because the sound of the names. The Penguins, The Moonglows, the Orioles. The Five Satins – until I put it in that context you really don’t know if I’m talking about birds or rhythm and blues groups of the fifties”.

On 4th November, it will be forty years since Paul Simon followed 1980’s One-Trick Pony with the beautiful Hearts and Bones. Another three years later, one of his most famous and loved albums arrived: the phenomenal and hugely successful Graceland. I really love Hearts and Bones. Never quite afforded the focus it deserves, I wanted to show some love for it here. Still so sublime and vital after forty years, this minor Simon masterpiece is one that will endure for decades. A songwriter who is seen as one of the all-time greats, go and play Hearts and Bones and see exactly…

WHY that is the case.

FEATURE: New Waves: Changing the Dynamic and Face of Music to Put Women More in the Spotlight

FEATURE:

 

 

New Waves

PHOTO CREDIT: Andre Moura/Pexels


Changing the Dynamic and Face of Music to Put Women More in the Spotlight

_________

I am going to write other features…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Brett Sayles/Pexels

about women in music soon. Now, as I look online and still see that, in 2023, figures around equality show there is a big gap that needs filling, I wonder why we always assume that women are the ones who need to fight for that voice! Why equality is the best we can hope for. I know it has always been the way that men have been seen as dominant - and the target is to get equality. After decades of music being in the mainstream, why is the highest ambition only to get equality?! I wonder whether the narrative will ever shift so that women are the ones who lead – and it is the men who need to catch up. That may seem naive on my part, though it is always frustrating when women are not championed enough and fought for. In terms of the biggest modern tours, the best new music, and most of the effecting and incredible albums, it is the women leading. I would say out finest broadcasters are women. Look at the amazing songwriters out there and so many are women. I know there are areas of the music industry where equality and that needed parity will take longer to affect. Women in professional studies, as producers and engineers, is one example. Look at a subject I write about a lot and will come back to now: playlists and the gender make-up across the board. This is one area that can be fixed easily without compromise. If a recent Why Not Her? Report found that the statistic are moving in the right direction, one only need listen to modern commercial radio to see that there is still an issue. For stations who feature very few women or only women in collaboration with men, that is being addressed.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sound On/Pexels

Again, there is this thing that equality is the stopping point. I think that women could and should be the dominant force on radio playlists. Why is it the thing, when so much of this year’s best music has been released by women, there still such a gulf?! The fact that many stations have no issue playing a block of male artists and having playlists that are nowhere near to fifty-fifty?! It is disheartening. The fact that men will be seen as the driving force. There are incredible forces and ceremonies like Music Week’s Women in Music Awards that do show the amazing women (including trans people who identify as women) who are changing the industry and doing great things. Women are still stereotypes and under-represented. If you think about the wealth of talent out there worthy of spotlighting, the industry is definitely not doing enough to redress things. This article from The Guardian shows that there is a bit of progress being made when it comes to women artists in the U.S. – though female songwriters are definitely still struggling to get fairness and exposure:

“The amount of top-selling female artists in the US increased in 2022, but the proportion of female songwriters making any commercial impact is still dismal, a new study has shown. The sixth annual University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report reveals that while the amount of women represented in Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart – which tallies the most commercially successful songs of the year – jumped 28.7% last year, to a total of 30%, only 14% of songwriters represented on the chart were women, a slight decrease from the 2021 statistic of 14.3%. Of the 232 producers represented on the year-end chart, only 3.4% were women, and one producer was non-binary.

IN THIS PHOTO: Nicki Minaj

“There is good news for women artists this year,” said Dr Stacy L Smith, who led the report, in a statement, “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there is still much work to be done before we can say that women have equal opportunity in the music industry.”

The 30% representation marks a new high for the amount of female artists on the year-end chart over the past decade, but the statistics for female songwriters and producers have largely stayed the same over the past 10 years. Since 2012 – the beginning of the reporting period for the Annenberg report – the amount of female songwriters represented in the Billboard year-end chart has never been higher than 14.4%, in 2019.

The peak amount of female producers represented on the chart also came in 2019, when 5% of producers on the year-end list were women. “Until women and men artists hire women songwriters and producers the numbers will not move,” said Smith. “It’s more than just allowing an artist to credit themselves on a song, it’s about identifying talent and hiring women in these roles. That’s the only way that we will see change occur.”

The majority of artists on the 2022 year-end chart were from an underrepresented racial background – a 6.6 percentage point decrease from 2021, and an 8.4 percentage point decline from 2020 – and 65% of artists from those backgrounds were women”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Blaz Erzetic/Pexels

It is going to be a long time until there is equality across the board, let alone a position where women are leading. It is angering that men still hold that dominance and it is assumed that this is okay. Figures through the industry not doing nearly enough to change this. I do hope we get to a day when women are the majority when it comes to radio playlists, chart successes, producers and on festival bills. In nearly every part of the industry, there are these figures that show more needs to be done. I don’t think it is the case that there is not the visibility of availability out there. That is the excuse we always hear! Whether it is festival line-ups, radio playlists, songwriters or artists who warrant celebration, it is perceived there are fewer viable women. The truth is actually, if you look around, the make-up of the music landscape is shifting. It has been for years. Why can’t radio stations instantly and effectively balance their playlists when there is an embarrassment of riches around?! Why do festivals struggle when there are headline-worthy women all around?! Why are those in power not doing more to ensure there is visibility of women producers and more done to ensure that studios are a more inclusive space?! Why are female songwriters and even artists not as prolific on charts and paid as much as their male equivalents?! There are a lot of questions to be answered. In some ways, things are going backwards. Perhaps there are not quick and simple answers. I just feel, when turning on the radio or looking around at festivals, award ceremonies and everywhere in music, there is this divide. Recognition that something needs to be done, yet those in a position to make big changes right away are not doing it. The industry needs to be one where women are not stereotypes, marginalised or seen as inferior. Change has got to come about…

AS soon as possible.

FEATURE: Spotlight: BIA

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight


BIA

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I have recently watched…

the BBC’s First Ladies of Hip-Hop. Celebrating and highlighting the women who helped define and push Hip-Hop forward, these are icons who had to fight to heard and seen as equals. U.S. rapper Eve has selected her five Hip-Hop queens who changed the genre. I think the modern crop – including Little Simz and Mega Thee Stallion – show that the future of Hip-Hop is female. When you think about the wealth of female MCs and rappers, it is clear that they are leading the way. Even though the Massachusetts rapper BIA has been on the scene a little time now, she is someone may not be known to all. Perhaps a new name to those in the U.K. Her new E.P., REALLY HER, was released back in July. It is a supremely confident and compelling work from a huge voice in Hip-Hop. With elements of Trap added to the mix, there are few as commanding as BIA. I am going to finish off by sourcing a review for Really Her. There are a couple of interesting interviews I came across tied to the E.P. release. Before I get there, AllMusic provide some biography of a sensational voice in Hip-Hop:

“Multi-platinum hitmaker BIA's tough, confident flows meet with detailed production, resulting in sinister trap bangers with the occasional R&B hook. After getting started as an independent artist, she signed on with Epic in early 2020, issuing her EP For Certain and bringing in Nicki Minaj for a remix of one of its tracks, "Whole Lotta Money." After the song cracked the upper reaches of the Billboard chart, BIA expanded For Certain into an album-length deluxe version in 2021, and from there she continued releasing new music in the form of collaborations with J. Cole and Snakehips or singles of her own. Really Her, her first proper album, arrived in 2023.

BIA was born in 1991 in Medford, Massachusetts, and spent time early in life as a part of Boston's independent rap scene. She eventually began working on her solo music and relocated first to Miami and then to Los Angeles. In 2016, she added vocals to the J Balvin single "Safari" and opened select dates in support of Ariana Grande, all while releasing new singles of her own. The EP Nice Girls Finish Last: Cuidado surfaced in 2018 and included some of her previously released singles as well as new tracks featuring guest spots from Kodak Black and Kali Uchis.

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Harper for Wonderland Magazine

In 2020, now signed to Epic, BIA released a few tracks that had a slightly harder edge, "Free BIA (First Day Out)" and the lurching, hypnotic "Cover Girl." Both songs were later featured on her second EP, For Certain, issued in December of that year. A video for the EP's "Whole Lotta Money" was released the next April, and following the song's viral success, a remix with Nicki Minaj appeared in July, reaching the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. The track earned her a nomination for Best Breakthrough Song at the 2021 MTV VMAs. In addition, BIA's reworked version of her track "Skate" was featured in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs tune-in promotions.

In 2022, BIA teamed with rapper J. Cole for the single "London," which peaked at number 62 on the Billboard charts. That year, she also appeared on tracks with Tommy Genesis, Snakehips, and a remix of Minaj's number one hit "Super Freaky Girl" that also featured Katie Got Bandz, Akbar V, and others. In March 2023, BIA issued the solo single "Sixteen." "I'm That Bitch," a collaboration with Timbaland, soon followed, and the song arrived on the full-length Really Her, which also featured Juicy J and Swizz Beatz. An expanded International Deluxe edition included several more guests such as Fivio Foreign, Giggs, Pa Salieu, and Luciano”.

I will come to that review soon. There are some great interviews with BIA. Some cool video interviews too. Go check them out if her music sounds like it is your thing. Maybe it will be longer before there is transatlantic success and recognition - though she does have a footing and fanbase here. I was intrigued by an interview from NOTION from a few months or so back. Learning a little more the super-talented Bianca Miquela Landrau:

“What’s been your greatest blessing in the past two years?

To travel the world with my friends doing what I love.

What about your biggest lesson?

Staying grateful and having no expectations.

How would you say you’ve evolved musically since then with this new project?

I think I’ve evolved everywhere from bars to beat selections. I approach all my art from an authentic place. I want all my music to be timeless.

What was inspiring you lyrically writing ‘REALLY HER’?

My life and traveling.

You’ve said before that you want people to feel empowered – “like THAT girl or THAT boy” – is that the intention behind this new music?

Absolutely! I think that’s pretty much my theme whenever I’m in the booth.

Where do you envision people listening to the music, and how do you want it to make them feel?

Anywhere, everywhere, outside. I want them to feel motivated, empowered, beautiful and ready to get some money.

Do you have a track on the project that’s most meaningful to you, or that you’re most proud of?

I love them all, but “Four Seasons” has a special place in my heart.

What’s inspiring the visuals for the project? The videos for “MILLIONS” and “I’M THAT BITCH” went off… What was on your mood boards?

I feel like my visual aesthetic is very much my aesthetic in real life. It’s classy, it’s clean, it’s fashion. Those are all the things I want to give in my visuals. I use my friends in the videos, those are really my homegirls. I am blessed to work with incredible directors that help bring my vision to life. Also we love to pay homage to those who came before us and have opened the doors to allow me to do what I’m doing now.

You give off such positive energy and message – of strength, self-reliance, resilience – what would you like to represent and stand for as an artist with a platform?

That I am a testament of staying true to who you are and doing the work. When you stay true to who you are and put in the work, it pays off. I am really grateful for having this opportunity of making music and building my legacy.

Having dropped the full project now, what are you feeling inspired by looking forwards?

I am feeling really inspired by my fans. I’m excited about going on my first headlining tour, meeting my fans and making music for them.

And looking further into the future, what does success look like to you? What’s the big dream?

I’m living it. It only gets better everyday”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Shaun-Andru

Here is an interview from The Cut. Published next month, it is clear there is a lot of momentum behind BIA. Her music mat be new to some. One spin of REALLY HER and you will be hooked. I do think that it is the women of Rap and Hip-Hop that are taking it to new places:

“Her style — which the Massachusetts-born rapper describes as “edgy, sexy, electric” — has caught the eyes of legends throughout her career. BIA was discovered on YouTube and introduced to Pharrell early in her career, and she landed on Oxygen’s Sisterhood of Hip Hop for two seasons in 2014 and 2015. By 2016, she scored a feature on J Balvin’s “Safari,” which started her rise to Billboard chart placements. In 2018, she released her first EP, Nice Girls Finish Last: Cuidado, and her second EP, For Certain, came at the tail end of 2020. A year later, it was almost impossible to go outside without hearing her hit song “Whole Lotta Money” — especially the remix with Nicki Minaj.

BIA’s no stranger to collaboration with hip-hop legends, either. On her third EP, Really Her, she worked with J. Cole, Timbaland, and Swizz Beatz, and she collaborated with Busta Rhymes for a single called “Beach Ball” this summer. It’s in her DNA to create a legacy with co-signs of major producers and artists, and she is certain that she’s unfuckwitable. “I’m really her,” she repeatedly tells me, speaking in her signature cool-girl flow. “I’m for the girls.”

A few days before her birthday, BIA started to prepare for a long flight to Australia, where she was set to perform for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. She’s never been down under, and she knows the flight is extra long, but she tells me she doesn’t mind because she travels luxuriously. “We only do lay flats, baby,” she says through laughter, referring to the first-class beds on international flights. Could she get any more “It” girl than that?

What is an “It” girl?

An “It” girl to me is just a girl who’s superconfident. She’s authentic, she knows who she is, and she sets the trends. She really sets the bar when it comes to looks and fashion especially. She’s in the know.

Who are some musicians you would classify as an “It” girl? Do they inspire you?

I’ll take it all the way back to Aaliyah and Missy Elliott. I love Rihanna, too. She’s the biggest “It” girl to me. And Nicki sets the trends. Those are my “It” girls; they set it. Even when I think about my style, there is one person I always think of: Aaliyah. She made streetwear and sexy, cool, effortless fashion. She wore baggy stuff but still made it cute and girly. Then there’s Rihanna, who mixes high fashion with streetwear. It’s her own personal style — she wears whatever the fuck she wants. You know that person on TikTok who everybody’s killing for looks right now, the subway fashion? I feel like Rihanna could put on any of those. That’s what we all think we look like when we try to replicate a Rihanna look.

Your confidence already answers this question for me, but do you consider yourself an “It” girl?

Yes, I do. I’m definitely sure of myself. I might not have the most followers, but I have a lot of eyes. Nobody’s the first to do anything, so I feel like we all just take things and reinvent it and figure out how we can amplify it and make it bigger and better than the last time. I pay a lot of love and respect to a lot of the girls that I feel are “It,” too. I show them a lot of love, and they show me a lot of love. Sometimes we’ll be in the DMs, and I’ve had girls tell me, “Oh, girl, I’m going to copy this.” It’s all love. It’s like, “Okay, cool. That’s what we’re here for.” We’re here to push the culture forward and raise the bar.

Where do you shop?

I shop everywhere. Online, at boutiques, outside. Sometimes I’ll get a little vintage piece, I’ll thrift something, but it’s like, I really just love pieces. I love Ottolinger, Andersson Bell, Rick Owens, and Diesel, to name a few brands. I like to find up-and-coming designers, too. Designers that aren’t so mainstream yet, but they have pieces. I’m always searching for key pieces.

What about going out? Where do you like to go out?

I live in L.A., and my friends and I like to go out to eat. We’re classy girls. I love Catch and LAVO; I could eat at LAVO every day, girl. I love the Ivy, too. They have this lobster ravioli, and it is so good. We do the hookah scene every once in a while or a lounge; we like to just go there and dance.

What was your vision going into your most recent project?

I work on a lot of songs, and I wanted this to be an elevated version of what For Certain felt like. For me, that project was the first time in my life and my career where I really felt super-sure of myself, like a hundred percent about everything. I was like, You know what? I’m stepping into it. I don’t need validation from anyone. This is me. This is what and who I am. So with this project, Really Her, I struggled on finding a name that resonated with me, but I would always randomly say, “I’m really her,” or, “Oh, I woke up her again today. It’s me.” I would always say it and one day it just clicked. I had so many other names, but I felt like this was the next step of For Certain because for certain, I’m really her — now I’m really in it. You can’t take me out.

As for the songs, it’s for the girls. If you know me, I’m really a girl’s girl. People say they’re girl’s girls, but I’m really such a homegirl. I’ve got so many homegirls, and I want them to feel that. I want everybody that is my girl to get money; I want them to put themselves in a position to boss up and to feel good and to look good and to be happy. You need music and motivation to do that. You have to feel powerful and move powerfully”.

I will round it up with a review for REALLY HER. I hope that BIA makes some appearances in the U.K. soon enough. I think she will get some good traction and affection from some of our stations. This is what Respect My Religion noted when they took a trip through REALLY HER. I have heard it a few times now and am always struck and awed. Whilst quite new to my ears, BIA is a pretty big name in the U.S. She is someone who has a glittering future ahead:

“BIA, the 31-year-old Massachusetts rapper, has been making waves in the hip-hop scene since signing to Pharrell Williams’ I Am Other record label back in 2014. With a musical style characterized by swagger and bravado, BIA exudes confidence in every rhyme she spits. After a label change to Sony in 2020, BIA’s single “Whole Lotta Money” with Nicki Minaj went viral on TikTok the following year. With a viral single complete with impressive penmanship, BIA solidified her position as a name to remember in 2020s hip-hop. Now, with her newest album, REALLY HER, BIA emphasizes her standing as a true rapper’s rapper.

Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, REALLY HER is certainly a concise listen. The album’s production is dominated by nocturnal 808 beats, creating a dark and menacing atmosphere. While the soundscape occasionally tiptoes towards being one-dimensional, the album’s short length keeps it from becoming repetitive, ultimately leaving listeners craving more.

One of the strengths of REALLY HER lies in its collaborations. BIA enlists the talents of Juicy J, Swizz Beats, J. Cole, and producer Timbaland, which add some necessary layers to the project. The collaboration with J. Cole on “LONDON” is a standout track, with Cole demonstrating his lyrical prowess and even experimenting with an unexpected British accent. His impressive internal rhyme scheme makes this song instantly playlistable.

BIA’s own verses are marked by honesty and authenticity as she fearlessly delves into her personal perspectives and life experiences. On “FOUR SEASONS,” she addresses her role as a successful woman in hip-hop, confidently rejecting stereotypes and society’s sexual expectations.

One notable aspect of REALLY HER is the brevity of its tracks, with all but one being under three minutes. This reflects an understanding of Gen Z’s short attention span, as BIA keeps things moving constantly to avoid dull moments. While this approach allows for a quick and engaging listen, it also leaves room for growth in lengthier tracks in the future.

The album’s closing track, “I’M THAT BITCH,” featuring the legendary producer Timbaland, is another standout. BIA’s swagger takes center stage on this track, reaffirming the album’s title that she’s “REALLY HER.” However, the real gem here is Timbaland’s masterful production, blending contemporary drill elements with the bounce and playfulness of southern hip-hop from the early 2000s. The result is an irresistibly catchy and vibrant song.

BIA put out a really solid album in REALLY HER. She displays her talent as a rapper while leaving room for experimentation in future music. Her authenticity shines through every track, making it clear that what BIA does well, she does really well. While the album’s production occasionally flirts with bland repetitiveness, the project’s brevity and features keep the listener engaged. With her career still on the rise, REALLY HER cements BIA’s status as a legitimate artist with a beaming future ahead”.

With REALLY HER under her belt, there will be a lot of curious eyes the way of BIA. After signing a record deal with Epic Records in 2020, FOR CERTAIN, her second E.P., arrived in December 2020. I think that REALLY HER is BIA’s best work so far. It is going to be exciting seeing how her future unfolds. For anyone unfamiliar with her music, make sure that you…

INVESTIGATE it now.

_______________

Follow BIA

FEATURE: Second Spin: Kylie Minogue – Body Language

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

 

Kylie Minogue – Body Language

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EVEN though…

I have written about Kylie Minogue a lot in the past couple of months because her new album, Tension, was released and is a chart smash, I like to cover great albums coming up for a big anniversary. I am a Kylie Minogue fan, so I am looking at all of her album anniversaries. Second Spin is about me advising people to seek out an album that is underrated and warrants a new look. As her ninth studio album, Body Language, was released on 10th November (in Japan; 17th October in the U.K.), it is also a twentieth anniversary salute. Whilst not poorly reviewed, I don’t think it has received all the acclaim it warrants. I cannot find a new vinyl copy, though you can get the album on C.D. I cannot see any announcement there is going to be a twentieth anniversary edition of Body Language. It is a great work by Minogue I am putting back under the spotlight. I will end with a couple of the positive takes on her 2003 success. Number six in the U.K., it spawned terrific singles like Slow, Chocolate and Red Bloodied Woman. One of the issues might be that Minogue released two career-best albums not long before Body Language. A great renaissance and ‘comeback’, 2000’s Light Years and 2001’s Fever is one of the great one-twos in music history! In 2002, unsurprisingly, a new greatest hits album came out. There was a sense of expectation by 2003 to equal the success of Light Years and Fever. Maybe take things to a new high. Although that didn’t necessarily happen, I think too many were comparing Body Language to those huge albums – rather than judging them it on its own merit.

Prior to getting to a couple of reviews, I want to bring in a feature from 2018. Celebrating fifteen years of Body Language’s release, Albumism, they celebrated the highs of the album. How it has endured and still sounds great now. For Body Language, Kylie Minogue wanted to create a Dance-Pop album inspired by Electronic music from the 1980s. She enlisted the support of collaborators such as Cathy Dennis, Dan Carey, Emiliana Torrini, Johnny Douglas and Mantronix:

“On November 15, 2003, two days prior to its UK release, Kylie Minogue gave a “one-night only” live showcase for her ninth studio affair, Body Language. Housed for the evening within the prestigious halls of the Hammersmith Apollo in London, the audience for the “Money Can’t Buy” concert was made up of journalists, colleagues, family and die-hard fans. Never had Minogue put on such a grand exhibition for the disclosure of a record, then again, Body Language was a unique collection of compositions as exciting now as it was then. But, Body Language had not happened by accident or by design. Rather, it was actualized by several different career events.

Later to be rightfully canonized as pioneering, Minogue’s deConstruction Records epoch was seen, by and large, as a commercial misstep when it concluded. So, when she inked a deal with Parlophone Records in 1999, her mission was to make long players with a thoughtful, but mainstream appeal. Light Years (2000) and Fever (2001) followed making good on this intention and they triumphed.

Outwardly, Minogue was content with her newfound power. However, one could assume that the itch to create in a less constricted way hadn’t completely left her. Closer listens to Light Years and Fever gave credence to this theory as there was a markedly subversive current running beneath both albums. In 2003, as Minogue began to plot and plan her ninth recording, she tapped back into the artistic abandon of her deConstruction expanse, but tempered it tactfully with a chart consciousness gained from her recent experiences.

The past and the present became sources that Minogue aurally drew from for Body Language—initially titled City Games—as it took shape. The former aspect looked to a specific stretch in popular music (1985 to 1987) when freestyle, synth-funk and electro-hop reigned. The latter aspect had its eye “on the moment” as it related to tonally variegated electro-pop and dance music. Minogue sent out the call for collaboration to help her whisk these disparate elements into one groovy gestalt.

Cathy Dennis, Johnny Douglas, Green Gartside (of Scritti Politti), Kurtis Mantronik, Karen Poole, Richard Stannard and Ash Thomas were only some of the songwriting/production/cooperative luminaries to answer Minogue’s hails. The appearance of Gartside and Mantronik is significant, each were prominent figures from the halcyon ’85 to ’87 period Minogue was referencing. Having them present on Body Language brought legitimacy to the sessions; Gartside gifted his vocals to “Someday,” while Mantronik gifted Minogue with “Promises” and “Obsession”—all three cuts were highlights. Of all the Body Language entries across its assorted international pressings—and the B-sides earmarked for the record’s three singles—Minogue features as a co-writer on nine of them.

As the song cycle developed, it became a curiously compelling study in supposed musical contrasts that, with Minogue’s supervision, found itself convincingly blended into an esoterically charged set. Body Language’s introductory number, the simmering, midtempo synth jam “Slow” unabashedly displays Minogue’s affection for (and command of) modish electro-pop. The track’s snake-like bassline, however, yielded an irrepressible rhythm and blues vibe that felt more pronounced than ever before. R&B wasn’t completely new for Minogue; it had contributed handsomely to certain sides of Minogue’s last two antecedent albums and been a major factor in the innovative air of Kylie Minogue (1994). Yet, the urban-pop immersion of Body Language rendered those past interactions with the genre demure in comparison.

And so, in this way, the record strikingly carries on in mixing digitized soul with crisp live instrumentation—as heard best on “Still Standing”—or taming the sample savvy hip-hop beats of “Secret (Take You Home).” The two cuts blow reverent kisses to the likes of “Skin Trade” era Duran Duran and early Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force. Still, Body Language doesn’t restrict itself to retro-modernist fusion strategies. Layered noir ballads (“Chocolate”) and ambient song pieces in a wealth of organic (“After Dark”) and inorganic (“You Make Me Feel”) textures are spread out throughout the LP making it uniform in tone, but diverse in function.

Vocally, Minogue uses the upper range of her voice to aesthetically color the engrossing lyrical pictures on the record of romance either for her craft (“Sweet Music”) or for an individual (“Loving Days”). While this may not be to everyone’s tastes, it does evince one of the many risks Minogue willingly embraced on Body Language and grants it the distinction of being her most sensual project to date.

Preceded on November 3, 2003 by its first smash single “Slow,” Body Language manifested in nearly all global markets two weeks later. America received the record a few months later in February of 2004. Even though Body Language had enough of a general commercial surface to make it chart accessible, the LP did not bow to the unspoken demand that Minogue recreate what had come before. As such, sales and notices for it were respectable, but lacked the enthusiasm that greeted Fever. Two further singles emerged during the lifespan of Body Language in “Red Blooded Woman” and Chocolate,” both yielding healthy returns in numerous singles charts around the world.

Accordingly, with the passage of time, Body Language has outstripped all of the hurdles that initially impeded it. Besides its singles becoming perennial performance pieces in Minogue’s concerts years afterward, the album’s experimental heart now finds favor and complementary comparisons to the peaks of her deConstruction phase. Written, recorded and released at a time when Minogue could have done a textbook redux of her most successful album, the ever-enterprising pop vocalist instead drafted one of the subtlest and most creatively defiant vehicles within her canon”.

One of Kylie Minogue’s talents is working with a range of collaborators who can take her music to the next level. Always remaining fresh and compelling, it would have been tempting to give the world another Fever. Instead, she moved her work forward by bringing in other influences and ideas. This is what AllMusic said in their review of the brilliant Body Language:

“If Light Years was the comeback, and Fever the confirmation, then Body Language can best be described as Kylie's "big step forward." Sure it's still simple dance-pop, but this time she (and a team of producers and writers -- including Kurtis Mantronik -- it must be said) has put together an album that works as a piece. It's stylish without being smarmy, retro without being ironic, and its energy never gets annoying. In other words: a near perfect pop record. Instead of opting for more of the light dance- and disco-pop of the last two releases, Kylie has sought to expand her horizons. Adding elements of electroclash, '80s synth pop, bouncy club beats -- even a dash of Eminem-style raps! -- she's found the formula that not only makes her vocal shortcomings irrelevant but gives her the edge on the rest of the divas on their newfound quest: maturity. While Madonna, Xtina, and Britney have attempted to achieve maturity through trashiness and not really all that shocking behavior (i.e., that MTV Awards kiss), Kylie maintained a low profile, retained a sense of class, and put together what may well be the best album of her career. Simply, Body Language is what happens when a dance-pop diva takes the high road and focuses on what's important instead of trying to shock herself into continued relevance”.

I will finish with a review from Entertainment Weekly. Although some have it more mixed assessment, there were those that saw the depths and relevance of Body Language. Not instantly assuming that Minogue should have repackaged her past work. As Tension shows, one can never predict or write off someone as innovative and forward-thinking as her:

“You ready for the change?” Kylie Minogue inquires a few numbers into her ninth album, and you think, At last — the first dance tune about menopause! It’s not to be, sadly; the legendarily cellulite-free Aussie songbird is a mere lass of 35. But that’s plenty old enough to harbor firsthand affections for a certain celebrated decade. So when she calls one new song ”I Feel for You”; enlists Scritti Politti’s erstwhile singer on ”Someday”; incorporates bits of the Lisa Lisa oldie ”I Wonder If I Take You Home” in the Ms. Dynamite-copenned ”Secret”; and liberally quotes from Janet Jackson, Chic, INXS, and Dead or Alive, one might reasonably wonder if Minogue is, as they say, livin’ in the ’80s.

Yes and — mostly — no. Body Language‘s opening single, ”Slow,” remains firmly within the realm of contemporary low-throb electro-pop, and the rest of the album is subtle and thoroughly synthetic enough that it’s easy to initially assume she’s just making her Madonna-meets-Mirwais move. That is, until you notice all those retro vocal riffs creeping in amid the electronica. On the cover, she’s striking a Nancy Sinatra-esque, ”These StairMasters are made for walkin”’ pose, but it turns out she’s less kitten with a whip than just whip-smart about creating a none-too-obvious alchemy between ’80s pop-funk and ’00s chill-out. The results are ludicrously enjoyable, and somewhere Nile Rodgers is smiling. You should be too”.

As it is twenty on 10th November, I wanted to mark that in its own right. An important album from Kylie Minogue, Body Language is also quite underrated. One that truly deserves some new praise. You hear Slow on some radio stations. Not many other tracks giving an airing. Great deep cuts such as Promises and After Dark. If you are a Minogue fan or not, take a bit of time to dive inside 2003’s…

SUPERB Body Language.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Spotify at Fifteen: The U.K.’s Most Streamed Artists and Songs

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Vlada Karpovich/Pexels

 

Spotify at Fifteen: The U.K.’s Most Streamed Artists and Songs

_________

BECAUSE Spotify was launched…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Killers

in October 2008 (on 7th by founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon), they have compiled statistics of the most streamed artists and songs on that platform from U.K. users. Rather than only focus on U.K. artists, it is the preference of music from users here. I was interested seeing the tracks that made the list. I am going to get to a playlist with the artists and tracks that have proved most popular to U.K. users of Spotify since 2008. Music Week give us full details about what Spotify found when it came to tastes of U.K. streamers:

“To mark its 15th anniversary this month, Spotify has revealed the biggest artists and songs during that period in the UK.

Following its launch in October 2008, streaming has gone on to become dominant in terms of music consumption with Spotify as market leader. The Swedish streaming platform was first available on an invite-only basis and became fully accessible to the public in 2009 as both an ad-funded and subscription service.

According to UK data, Mr Brightside by The Killers is the most streamed song on Spotify in the UK during the past 15 years (October 2008 to August 2023).

The single was first released 20 years ago (September 29, 2003) and has become a true perennial. Two decades since its release, Mr Brightside was No.27 in the biggest singles of the year (Official Charts Company) up to the end of Q3 in 2023.

Although it is not the biggest hit in terms of chart position for The Killers (No.10 on debut in May 2004 – its only week inside the Top 20), Mr Brightside has had incredible staying power with 382 weeks in the Top 100, which is more than seven years. It has spent six weeks in the Top 40 and 130 weeks in the Top 75.

In 2021, Mr Brightside reached five years (260 non-consecutive weeks) in the Top 100, a record-breaking result which has since been consolidated thanks to consistent streaming consumption.

Mr Brightside (Vertigo/EMI) has chart sales to date of 5,146,333 (Official Charts Company), including 4,083,702 from sales-equivalent streams, 1,040,115 downloads and 22,516 physical copies. It was the lead single from The Killers’ 2004 debut album, Hot Fuss, which peaked at No.1 and has sales to date of 2,460,124.

Spotify doesn’t reveal the UK-only streams for Mr Brightside, which has a global Spotify streaming count of 1,881,261,446 (as of October 9, 2023).

According to OCC data, The Killers’ single has 446,450,174 audio streams across all DSPs in the UK. That puts it at No.4 in terms of the most streamed tracks ever in the UK, behind Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved at No.1 (547,203,306 audio streams), Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You at No.2 (539,804,486) and Sheeran’s Perfect at No.3 (475,746,011).

However, the Official Charts Company only began counting streams as part of its charts calculations in June 2014, so Mr Brightside had several years to establish its lead on Spotify. Its main streaming rivals are more recent singles by Capaldi (2018) and Sheeran (2017).

Speaking to Music Week in late 2017, The Killers’ frontman Brandon Flowers pondered whether the track would have made as big of a splash had it been released in the current era.

“I just don’t think it would be as certain of a home run as it was,” said Brandon Flowers. “There’s not a home for traditional rock music - guitar, bass, drums and vocals - and I see a lot of people catering to a certain listener to try and get on the radio.

“A lot of rock is getting enthused with hip-hop and urban sentiments, feelings and tones, and so I don’t know that [Mr Brightside] would have been as easily taken into people’s hearts as it was.”

Even five years ago, the power of Mr Brightside on DSPs was undeniable.

“The band talk about Mr Brightside taking a life of its own,” the band’s manager Robert Reynolds, of Reynolds Management, told Music Week at the time. “Mr Brightside has become an anthem for a generation and you kind of surrender a little bit of ownership and let that song do what it does. We’re all happy to have it in the catalogue.”

Spotify’s 15th anniversary streaming charts

While many of the most streamed Spotify songs of the last 15 years are long-running No.1 singles, there are others tracks – like Mr Brightside – which have earned their place thanks to long-term, consistent consumption over years rather than a high chart placing.

Riptide by Vance Joy is the sixth biggest song in Spotify history in the UK (No.10 chart peak in January 2014 – 3,475,431 sales to date), while Arctic Monkeys’  Do I Wanna Know? didn’t even need to breach the Top 10 of the singles chart to make Spotify’s anniversary rundown at No.7. It peaked at No.11 on the weekly chart in June 2013 and has sales to date of 3,043,054.

Ed Sheeran is the most streamed UK artist globally on Spotify over the last 15 years and he’s the holder of the most streamed UK track globally with Shape of You, ahead of Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved and Glass Animals’ Heat Waves.

According to Spotify’s 15th birthday data drop, Dua Lipa is the most streamed female artist from the UK on Spotify. Two of her songs – Don’t Start Now and New Rules – make the Top 15 tracks by UK artists of all time on the platform.

Linkin Park’s Shadow Of The Day was the most streamed track on launch day in 2008, while Coldplay became the first UK artist to reach one million monthly streams in January 2009.

Click here to read Music Week’s 2020 cover feature on The Killers.

IN THIS PHOTO: Adele/PHOTO CREDIT: Samir Hussein/Getty Images

Spotify Top 15 Artists from the UK by global streams:

1 Ed Sheeran

2 Coldplay

3 Dua Lipa

4 Calvin Harris

5 Queen

6 Sam Smith

7 Harry Styles

8 One Direction

9 Adele

10 The Beatles

11 Arctic Monkeys

12 Elton John

13 Ellie Goulding

14 James Arthur

15 Lewis Capaldi

IN THIS PHOTO: Harry Styles

The biggest tracks on Spotify by UK artists from the past 15 years by global streams:

1 Ed Sheeran - Shape of You

2 Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved

3 Glass Animals - Heat Waves

4 Harry Styles - As It Was

5 Ed Sheeran - Perfect

6 James Arthur - Say You Won't Let Go

7 Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar

8 Dua Lipa - Don’t Start Now

9 Ed Sheeran - Thinking out Loud

10 Ed Sheeran - Photograph

11 Coldplay, The Chainsmokers - Something Just Like This

12 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody - Remastered 2011

13 Passenger - Let Her Go

14 Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa - One Kiss

15 Dua Lipa - New Rules

The UK's 15 most streamed songs of the past 15 years on Spotify:

1 The Killers - Mr Brightside

2 Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved

3 Ed Sheeran - Shape of You

4 Drake, Kyla, Wizkid - One Dance

5 The Weeknd - Blinding Lights

6 Vance Joy - Riptide

7 Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?

8 James Arthur - Say You Won't Let Go

9 Ed Sheeran - Thinking out Loud

10 21 Savage, Post Malone - Rockstar

11 Hozier - Take Me To Church

12 Burna Boy, Dave - Location

13 Oasis - Wonderwall

14 George Ezra - Shotgun

15 French Montana, Swae Lee – Unforgettable”.

Fifteen years since Spotify launched. It has changed the way we experience music. There were digital options prior to 2008. Spotify opened things up and gave us the entire music universe. Even though I am not a fan of the most-streamed song, Mr Brightside by The Killers, I respect that it has endured and is so popular after all of these years! I wonder how tastes will change through the years. Fifteen years from now, which artist and genres will be most popular?! It is exciting to think. Below is a playlist with the tracks and artists that U.K. Spotify users have loved the most…

THIS past fifteen years.

FEATURE: Sing It Again: Beck's Mutations at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Sing It Again

 


Beck's Mutations at Twenty-Five

_________

ONE I of my favourite artists ever…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Beck in Los Angeles in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cultice

no two Beck albums are the same! I first came across his music when he released Odelay in 1996. I was mesmerised by his experimentation and the sheer range of sounds in his albums. I have followed him pretty loyally since then. The way he can make these eclectic and genre-jumping albums that are quite wild and unpredictable. He can then change tracks altogether and release something beautiful and personal! An album that is among the most celebrated from the maestro is Mutations. Released on 3rd November, 1998, I am looking ahead to the twenty-fifth anniversary of a classic. One of the best albums of the 1990s – from a man responsible for more than a couple! -, I have previously covered Mutations. I want to revisit it ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary. I will come to some reviews. Beck is, as I said, someone who can make a very bright and crazy album. The very next one might be tuneful and serious. There is no telling what direction he will head in! After 1996’s Odelay and the success that garnered, many might have assumed Beck would continue in that manner. Release another album that had the same spirit and sounds. Instead, Mutations is more comforting and melodic. Last November, Udiscovermusic. highlighted an album recorded in just two weeks. More personal than Odelay, many got to see a new side to Beck on Mutations:

“In the award-winning afterglow of Odelay, Beck Hansen travelled the world, with adventures in the 1997-98 season that took him from the cover of Rolling Stone to the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival. Then it was time for another sonic shift that manifested itself in Mutations.

The reception to 1996’s Odelay had been passionate, both critically and commercially. In the UK, he was feted with BRIT and NME Awards; in the US, five MTV Video Music Awards came his way in September 1997. That event was one of many high-profile performance settings that also included the 1997 Mount Fuji Rock Festival near Tokyo and the H.O.R.D.E. Festival, in which he moved across America with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Morphine, Primus and others.

Beck was an increasing influence on TV and cinema screens, too. That year also had him as a featured guest on Saturday Night Live and performing with Willie Nelson on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. He ventured into film work: the new song “Feather In Your Cap” appeared alongside music by Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips et al on DGC’s soundtrack of SubUrbia, with a script by Eric Bogosian and adapted from his eponymous play. Then came “Deadweight,” included on the score album of A Life Less Ordinary and nominated for Best Song from a Movie at the 1998 MTV Movie Awards.

A new production collaborator

As Odelay rolled over towards a US double platinum circulation, it was time to get back on record, with a new production collaborator. Beck now teamed with Nigel Godrich, the British producer who had come to the fore with his brilliant coordination of the talents of Oxford, England tastemakers Radiohead. Far from any extended studio contemplation, they recorded Mutations in two weeks.

Working at Ocean Way, the Hollywood studio that proudly declares sales from records made there at one billion units, Beck, Godrich and a crack team of musicians started recording on March 19, 1998 and wrapped on April 3. What emerged was as confident, concise and cutting-edge as one had come to expect, no mere Odelay doppelganger but an even deeper, joyfully melodious exploration of Beck’s individuality.

Immediately after completion and before release, he was on to new challenges that included the premiere of a performance art piece featuring his grandfather, Beck and Al Hansen: Playing With Matches, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in California. On May 24, on his only UK date of the year, a remarkable triple bill combination saw Beck and John Martyn playing at the homecoming show, at Haigh Hall in Wigan, by the British modern rock champions of the time The Verve.

Beck’s own summer tour of North America began on June 1, on shows that featured the additional attractions of Sean Lennon and Elliott Smith. On a massive show in New Jersey, this writer had the privilege of seeing Beck, on a bill that also featured Ben Folds Five, playing a triumphant set opening for the all-conquering Dave Matthews Band.

An album of exotic instrumentation

When it was released, on November 3, 1998, Mutations unveiled arrangements by Beck’s father, David Campbell and exotic instrumentation including tamboura, sitar, and the cuica drum. There were also contributions from distinguished players who remain with Hansen to this day, such as keyboard player Roger Manning, bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and drummer Joey Waronker.

The album went straight into the US chart at its No.13 peak, and was gold inside a month. Even if it didn’t go on to mirror the commercial achievements of Odelay, the record overflowed with evidence that Beck was now firmly established as one of the most innovative artists in the world. The following February, Mutations beat Fatboy Slim, Tori Amos, Moby, and Nine Inch Nails to the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Gone was the sample-heavy hip-hop veneer of his previous triumph, and critics were united in their admiration of Beck’s refusal to take the easy option of repeating himself. “A collection of psychedelic folk-rock and country waltzes that couldn’t have wandered much further from Odelay,” purred the Los Angeles Times in its year-end round-up. “Another fully formed creative facet of Beck we haven’t seen before.”

The NME, meanwhile, advised: “You’d better sit down. Mutations sees Beck replacing the spinning turntable with the acid-rock lightwheel, the concrete streets with the long and winding road, retreating further from glaring expectation into the complex little universe between those fluffy sideburns.

“‘Nobody’s Fault But My Own’ strings its nerves out across those Wichita telegraph poles; ‘Sing It Again‘ is ‘Norwegian Wood’ tinged with rabbit-skinning pedal steel, while the deceptively cheery honky-tonk of ‘O Maria’ casts Beck as saloon showgirl, playfully chucking grizzled cowboys under the chin.”

Beck’s prettiest record?

Rolling Stone’s Nathan Brackett observed the album’s distinctive juxtaposition of dark lyricism (“the night is useless and so are we,” declared ‘O Maria’) and attractive melodies. “The twenty-eight-year-old Beck Hansen’s new album…brims with death, decay and decrepitude,” he wrote. “But in its own peculiar way, it’s also his prettiest record to date.

“On Mutations – recorded in two weeks last spring – Beck stops talking down to his tuneful side. Compared with the funk collage of 1996’s Odelay or the raw anti-folk of 1994’s One Foot in the Grave, this is an album of comfort songs.”

We’ll conclude this entry with David Browne’s appreciation in Entertainment Weekly. “Mutations fulfills Beck’s need to chill out, take things down a notch, and avoid pigeonholing as the white-rap geek with the weird suits,” he said. “To say those goals are admirable is an understatement”.

I guess Beck is impossible to define. He is whatever he writes. With his albums switching between cool and quite out-there, to something much more restrained and heartfelt, it can be hard to pin who this person is. Beck keeps things fresh - and he is someone not necessarily eager to be defined! That is great. Taking people by surprise on 3rd November, 1998, he released this albums that was almost a polar opposite of Odelay. That said, though Mutations does have its madder and more eccentric moments. Stereogum celebrated twenty years of Mutations back in 2018:

“Beck Hansen has had one of the most interesting and singular career arcs of any musician of his generation, and his sixth album, Mutations, marked a turning point in a catalog filled with turning points. It is the album that solidified the idea that Beck is prone to do whatever he wants. Is it also possible this is where we first saw a glimpse of the real Beck, and therefore every time he was chasing down some sort of impulse, the expectation is that this is the mean to which he would inevitably return. Maybe. It is also possible that “real Beck” is yet another guise this chameleon of a performer decided to put on, in the process making us question if “real” really means anything at all.

By 1998, Beck was in the rare position of being both unimpeachably cool and absolutely huge. His 1996 everything-at-once album Odelay was an era-defining smash. He lodged alt-rock radio hits in an era where that still mattered, performed at the Grammys, losing Album Of The Year to Celine Dion. He swept the 1996 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Awards, made the cover of Rolling Stone, and was named the Most Important Artist In Music by Spin. He had become such a shorthand for “Smart But Accessible Alt-Culture Figure” that MillerCoors even shamelessly ripped off his whole steez for a beer campaign based around a slacker character named Dick.

Of course, no one stays in their imperial period forever, and one can only imagine how Beck felt, watching as the wildly free-flowing sound he and the Dust Brothers created on Odelay was immediately turned into frat-boy fodder by the likes of Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray. So with Mutations — which turns 20 tomorrow — he made a hard pivot, setting aside his free-associative hip-hop sensibilities for a series of cosmic folk songs that saw him trading Irony for Feelings.

After the tour for Odelay wound down, Beck recruited Nigel Godrich for his major work after helming Radiohead’s OK Computer, the other huge era-defining alt-rock album of the late ’90s. Beck and his crack live band cut a song a day for 14 days, for an off-the-cuff feel that Godrich would soak in his trademark antiseptic, Kubrikian sheen. The original plan was that Bong Load Records, the tiny Los Angeles label that first released Beck’s breakout “Loser” would also release Mutations.

Beck had worked out an unprecedented deal with Geffen Records that would allow him, in theory, to release albums with smaller labels, which is how K Records was able to release his collection of early lo-fi recordings One Foot In The Grave and Flipside released his hodgepodge Stereopathetic Soulmanure the same year as Geffen released his official debut Mellow Gold. But after hearing Mutations, Geffen pulled rank and insisted on releasing the album, marketing it as a detour for hardcore Beck fans while he stayed hard at work on the “real” follow-up to Odelay. No videos were made for the album, and aside from appearing on Saturday Night Live, Beck did little to promote it, but such was his stature at the time that the album eventually went platinum and won Best Alternative Music Album Grammy.

I get the sense that amongst critics and fans, Mutations is often considered Beck’s dress rehearsal for his 2002 heartbreaker Sea Change, trying sadness on for size before later going Full Desolation. But honestly, this is probably because of the album highlight “Nobody’s Fault But My Own,” which finds Beck beating himself up over unspecified mistakes over a sea of psychedelic strings that could have been sampled from Rubber Soul. It was a startling turn at the time, the effortlessly cool guy from “Where It’s At” asking aloud, “Pointing a finger, throw the book at you/ And who would want to dance with you?”

But listening to Mutations today, I think what the album tells us is that even when he’s trying to be serious, Beck is still a playful guy. “Cancelled Check” and “Bottle Of Blues” have a light, Hank Williams-worthy sway to them, complete with some light piano rolls on the former; you can practically see Beck copping a sheepish grin while tinkling the ivories at a frontier barroom for a bunch of prospectors during happy hour. “O Maria” might revolve around an oddly moving couplet that signifies the need to grow up already (“Everybody knows/ the circus is closed”) but it glides by on a ’60s melody that feels cloned from Donovan.

There’s enough fingerprints of classic rock songwriters, from the Lennon-ish melodies and chord changes on “Dead Melodies” through the Bob Dylan worthy whines of “Lazy Flies” that it sometimes feels like Beck’s aim was to make an album that if you found it in a dusty vinyl pile, you might mistake as a lost prize from the ’60s, à la Inside Dave Van Ronk. But while Beck is a scholar of music, he’s never been content with merely reproducing his record collection. Mutations is filled with dozens of tiny little Beckisms, choices only he would make, be it contrasting a wheezing harmonica with sci-fi synth wiggles on “Cold Brains,” undercutting the Beatles-like reverie of “We Live Again” with dread-inducing negative space or spicing his Brazilian-music homage “Tropicalia” with post-modern lyrics about isolation and a noisy sound collage.

Mutations would prove that Beck could do sincerity, or at least Sincerity, just fine thank you very much, and the woozy, operatic country rock he summons here in many ways feels like a blueprint that Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst would follow with Bright Eyes, where the slowly unraveling ballad “Static,” tucked all the way at the end of the album, feels like Beck’s big budget answer to the delicate balladry Cat Power and Elliott Smith were getting up to, declaring “it’s a perfect day to lock yourself inside” as the guitar solo shrugs and the keyboard lines evaporates”.

I am going to end with a couple of reviews. This is what Rolling Stone said in their review in November 1998. Mutations is unobjectively one of the most important albums of the 1990s. An artist who was huge and regarded as super-cool by 1996, it was quite a commercial risk releasing something like Mutations! Only hitting thirteen in the U.S. and twenty-four in the U.K., it was less of a chart success than Odelay. The same is true of the sales. Even so, Mutations was provided with lots of love:

“LET’S CALL THIS song “Where it’s Not”: “There is no one, nothing to see,” sings Beck. “The night is useless, and so are we.” “Night birds will cackle,” he intones on another track, “rotting like apples on trees.” The twenty-eight-year-old Beck Hansen’s new album, Mutations, brims with death, decay and decrepitude. But in its own peculiar way, it’s also his prettiest record to date.

On Mutations – recorded in two weeks last spring – Beck stops talking down to his tuneful side. Compared with the funk collage of 1996’s Odelay or the raw anti-folk of 1994’s One Foot in the Grave, this is an album of comfort songs. Assisted by Nigel Godrich (who co-produced Radiohead‘s OK Computer), Beck finally gives his melodies – some of them, like “Cancelled Check” and “Static,” as old as his first demo tapes – the full studio treatment, letting them seep into pellucid Sixties folk-pop arrangements.

The most gorgeous example of this is “Nobody’s Fault but My Own,” a wise, dreamy song traced by sitars and strings arranged by Beck’s father, David Campbell. “When the moon is a counterfeit,” sings Beck, “better find the one that fits/Better find the one that lights the way for you.” It sounds like he’s singing about a bad relationship, but he might as well be delivering a personal manifesto; he’s doffed the rhinestone suit and James Brown schtick for a new costume.

Mutations is a highly mannered album that references vintage psychedelic folk and rock as overtly as Odelay sampled Schubert. “Lazy Flies” has the same arch, carousel-like tone as the Beatles’ “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”; “Bottle of Blues” rolls along like the Kinks at their Muswell Hillbillies rootsiest. The album’s affectations can be overpowering: “Lazy Flies” is a Hieronymus Boschpainting populated by “dead horses” and “shadows of sulphur.” “We Live Again” is comically dreary; “Oh, I grow weary of the end,” Beck moans. Amid the track’s harpsichords and elevator-music slothfulness, Beck’s insincerity-which we can forgive or enjoy in other contexts – doesn’t quite fit; it seems a bit cold and removed.

But even if he doesn’t find exactly the right pitch every time, Beck has entered his prime as a songwriter, which is exciting. Few lyricists of his generation are coming up with lines as good as “Doldrums are pounding/Cheapskates are clowning this town” (“Dead Melodies”). It’s also a testament to his talent that he has so effortlessly assimilated bossa nova into his repertoire, as he did last year on the single “Deadweight” and as he does here with the wonderful “Tropicalia,” a tribute to the progressive Brazilian music of the same name from the Sixties and Seventies. Like Brazilian musicians such as Caetano Veloso and Jorge Ben (who was sampled on “Deadweight”), Beck is a singer-songwriter with a sophisticated sense of rhythm. Here, a silvery, uplifting groove brings to life a macabre carnival in which “tourists snore and decay” and people “dance in a reptile blaze.”

It’s that combination of the straight for ward and the surreal that Beck has always pursued, and on Mutations he’s found some kind of balance. Like the blues singer he once wanted to be, he broods, moans and frets – but there’s joy in the music”.

I am going to end with a review from NME. The press in the U.K. were suitably impressed by the sixth studio album from the California-born genius. Producing alongside Nigel Godrich (who then had recently produced Radiohead’s OK Computer), this was two incredible creatives working on a wonderous album. One that endures twenty-five years later:

“SO YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH FROM the all-you-can-wear trainer buffet, kicked a soda can moodily round the old-skool yard, and whatever the game is, you're pretty damn sure you know the score. Ready for the next round, you genuflect in the direction of the hipsters' Mount Rushmore, from where Yauch, Horowitz, Diamond, and there on the end, young Mr Hansen, stare down unimpeachably. You won't, however, be expecting their winter collection to include velvet tabards and incense, and as for the cacti and spittoons, well, you'd rather eat plaid.

You'd better sit down. 'Mutations' sees Beck replacing the spinning turntable with the acid-rock lightwheel, the concrete streets with the long and winding road, retreating further from glaring expectation into the complex little universe between those fluffy sideburns.

To be fair, Beck insists 'Mutations' isn't the official follow-up to 'Odelay' - that should hit the planet some time next year - but a continuation of the wax-cylinder folk unearthed on 1994's 'One Foot In The Grave'. There's no white-suited, jewel-fingered pirouetting possible here, the singer retreating to a massively unfashionable time where consciousness was peeled raw by hallucinogens, where psychedelia toppled into psychosis and the open spaces of country rock offered fresh air amid the patchouli fumes.

More 'Ohdearlay' than a joyous whoop from a cultural swinger, it's a bleak and gentle record - the opening 'Cold Brains' wobbles like a nervous breakdown on a plate, while the disillusioned 'We Live Again' suggests a man weary of the hip hype. "Dredging the night, drunk libertines", he croons, desolate, "I grow weary of the end". Only cocktail-shaker single 'Tropicalia' fits his now-established image, Antonio Carlos Jobim hanging in the 'hood while preposterous synth scrunching suggests a guest appearance by Ross from Friends. Yet as Beck's ancient voice becomes all the more intimate, the mischievous angel takes a turn for the worse, tapping into a timeless mythology of melancholy. 'Nobody's Fault But My Own' strings its nerves out across those Wichita telegraph poles; 'Sing It Again' is 'Norwegian Wood' tinged with rabbit-skinning pedal steel, while the deceptively cheery honky-tonk of 'O Maria' casts Beck as saloon showgirl, playfully chucking grizzled cowboys under the chin.

Once out on the road, though, Beck soon reins himself back into inner space, passed out on the floor of the Fillmore Ballroom watching his brain go by. The beautiful medieval whimsy of 'Lazy Flies' sounds like Beck was surrounded by jesters and maidens playing finger-cymbals. 'We Live Again' steps back even further to the days when Pink Floyd still had a definite article, but most terrifying is freakout, 'Diamond Bollocks' where booted fairies stomp out the peace-and-love embers. From fly irony to Iron Butterfly is one hell of a leap, and Beck makes it like Neil Armstrong on a helium bender.

You would expect nothing less. 'Mutations' might be the inveterate individualist's way of keeping ahead, but more gladdeningly, it swerves the style diktats and mint-condition rareties in favour of pure emotion. Sure, Beck remains the Midas Of Cool, but most importantly, it's his heart that's made of gold.

8/10”.

A stunning work that opened a more sensitive and open side to Beck, he would go on to mix more experimental and multifarious albums – see 2005’s Guero – with something deeper and more heartfelt (2002’s Sea Change). I like how he can go from Odelay in 1996 to Mutations in 1998. He would do similar with the one-two of 1999’s Midnight Vultures and 2002’s Sea Change! Someone always keeping people guessing, Mutations ranks alongside the best of Beck. Turning twenty-five on 3rd November, this is a beautiful and consistently brilliant album that will always be…

VERY dear to my heart.

FEATURE: Spotlight: mary in the junkyard

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

mary in the junkyard

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LIKE I did fairly recently…

when writing about The Last Dinner Party for Spotlight, I am capturing mary in the junkyard on their debut single. It is always interesting expressing your feelings and impressions of a group from the very first song. Things will change and evolve with the trio. Comprising guitarist and vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and viola player Saya Barbaglia, and drummer David Addison, I think that there are big things ahead for mary in the junkyard. Whether they remain as a trio, or Freeman-Taylor and Barbaglia remain as a duo, I am not too sure. The group’s debut single, Tuesday, has been getting quite a bit of buzz. It is a song that announced them as one of the most interesting and promising new bands around! Seeing where they go from here and how they develop will be compelling. I will get to that song soon. First, in August, Loud and Quiet spent time with the group. This was even before they released their debut single. Spotlighting them on the cusp of stepping into the music industry! There is an originality and high standard to their music and lyrics that have already seen them acquire a loyal fanbase:

“While they’re yet to release music, their DIY punk riffs, accented by Joni Mitchell-inspired poeticism and Björk’s whimsy, see them regularly draw in crowds at much-loved South London venue The Windmill – a second home to them. “I like that other people see us and associate us with it because it’s such a wonderful place,” she says. “It’s very authentic. Tim [Perry – head booker and promoter] doesn’t care about profit, he just cares about putting really great music on and he’s been really nurturing. We owe him a lot.” A fertile community that has fostered a new generation of guitar bands, the DIY label is one that Mary as a group wear proudly. “I think we’re quite unprofessional,” says Clari. “I don’t really feel like a guitarist, I play with my hand rather than a pick.” Preferring to give way to happy accidents rather than a deeply methodical approach, there is a beautiful rawness not only to their sound but also the writing. “We don’t try to be anything. We just do what feels good.”

And what feels good to them is just about everything. That’s the beauty of Mary. “Everything we do feels very chaotic. I think we all have a lot of energy to give to it,” Clari chuckles. “It’s pretty sporadic, but it kind of works. Sometimes it feels just like everything is falling into place.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Walton

Clari and Saya both having classical backgrounds, and while symphonic parallels aren’t what first come to mind when you think of angsty rock bands, the expansiveness of the classical genre is apparent in their creative approach, with Saya sometimes adding viola parts to their performances. “It’s a really cool layer,” Clari says. “We’re a trio but we’re trying to figure out how much we can do with that. It’s probably good for us creatively to have to figure out how to do things just with us.”

They are sometimes accompanied by Brian, too – a large paper mache head, who is also lurking around during our interview today. He’s yet to earn his stripes as an officially christened fourth member of a band, but his presence is indicative of the playfulness that underpins Mary as a collective. “I just think he’s funny,” Clari laughs. “We want to have a bare bones kind of vibe, like paper mache. But the main reason he’s here today is because he was in Saya’s room for a while. She wants me to take him home!”

It’s unclear if Brian will remain a constant, but one thing Clari is sure of is that Mary In The Junkyard are set to release music soon; yet part of her is reluctant. “It’s nice to not have music out, it makes us kind of mysterious and cool,” she laughs. “I’ll be sad to lose that.” Pointing to the loyal fanbase that has already been built, the mild trepidation is understandable. “Because people can’t listen to our music really easily, they have to work a bit harder. They’ve got to seek us out”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Walton

Played and championed by the likes of BBC Radio 6 Music, it is clear that mary in the junkyard have the promise and potential to go a very long way. I really love what they are doing! Their experimental sound means you can never predict where a song goes. Tuesday starts in one place. It winds and mutates into something different. NME recently put the trio under their radar. They can definitely detect something amazing in them. Expect mary in the junkyard to be suitably huge very soon:

“On a cloudless August afternoon, the fields of Glanusk Estate – home to Green Man Festival – look like a picture of bliss. As they prepare for their NME photoshoot, the members of Mary In The Junkyard attempt to scale a small oak tree while discussing the festival’s vast and eccentric activity offerings, from willow weaving to charcoal making. The harmony of the scene is spoiled only by dozens of muddy puddles, the last remaining evidence of the weekend’s heavy rainfall.

The music of this experimental rock trio – comprising guitarist and vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and viola player Saya Barbaglia and drummer David Addison – would find a fitting backdrop in this sprawling and dramatic festival site. Their debut single ‘Tuesday’ plays like a slowburn to a frenzied finale: staccato guitar and Freeman-Taylor’s whisper-like vocal meld with a careening intensity before reaching a two-minute crescendo. The track is both fragile and fearless at once, swooping between devastating new depths with the same quiet ferocity of caroline‘s self-titled debut or Crack Cloud’s ‘Pain Olympics’.

For Freeman-Taylor and Addison, ‘Tuesday’ represents a “new era” of their lives. Prior to forming Mary In The Junkyard with Barbaglia, whom Freeman-Taylor met at a youth orchestra, the pair were part of Second Thoughts and had garnered a devoted social media following during those long, desolate days of lockdown. With a Discord channel and multiple meme accounts dedicated to the indie-rock group, plus a 100,000-strong TikTok audience, the online attention often overshadowed the music itself, Freeman-Taylor says today. “The TikTok stuff felt like hysteria,” she adds, twiddling with a handful of leaves as she speaks. “What we’re doing here is trying to be the complete opposite of that. Because we fucking hated it.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Marieke Macklon

Your music has a real sense of spontaneity. Does it feel like a bit of an escape from the classical worlds you grew up in?

Clari: “Totally, but Saya is also an incredibly talented classical musician. She can play beautifully over anything I write. The bassline at the end of ‘Tuesday’ is really honky-tonky, and I wasn’t expecting it! Saya and I used to play in string quartets together, and a massive part of that is about being able to read each other – it helped us to bond in such a special way. I think being a three-piece allows us to keep that focus.”

Saya: “I don’t play classical music often anymore, but the passion – in the same way a lot of people may feel about sports – will always be there. When we play live, as I don’t sing, I’m often jumping around the stage, which is new for me. It’s been freeing.”

What does being in Mary In The Junkyard offer you that your previous projects didn’t?

Clari: “We were just like, ‘We have to do this or we’ll explode.’ David and I were really young when we were in the other band and I think we did a lot of stuff that we didn’t really want to do. All the numbers popped up on social media and they didn’t mean anything to us.”

David: “I think now we are really learning how to play live and be there for each other. I love these guys and feel excited by what we are making. Looking back at what happened before, and that tricky period of time, feels really weird”.

I will finish with a feature that spotlights Tuesday. Loud Women are already fans of mary in the junkyard. I am not sure what sure what the situation is relating to live dates. Keep an eye on their Instagram feed for details and their next moves. There is going to be so much demand around the country follow the release of the amazing Tuesday:

“mary in the junkyard emerge today with their anticipated debut single and video ‘Tuesday’ on AMF Records.

The band is guitarist and vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and viola player Saya Barbaglia and drummer David Addison.

‘Tuesday’ – written by the band, produced by Yuri Shibuichi and mixed and mastered by Nathan Boddy – is a mesmerising first statement from mary in the junkyard which delivers on the promise of their live shows and then some. Accompanied by a characterful and visually striking music video – directed by the band themselves – ‘Tuesday’ conveys chaotic feelings induced by city loneliness and climaxes in positively Lynchian fashion.

True to the band’s boundless creative vision, the ‘Tuesday’ artwork – featuring the video’s lead character, a Yeti – was hand-painted by Freeman-Taylor. The video itself stems from her initial concept, too. Speaking about ‘Tuesday’, Freeman-Taylor said:

“I wrote ‘Tuesday’ when I was first experiencing life in a city and was feeling very small. It’s so easy to be swept along with the bustle and noise and feel like a worker ant amidst thousands of others.  I wanted to write about my yearning for chaos and realness – we all have wildness within us that we might be suppressing and we shouldn’t feel like aliens because of it”.

A fascinating trio that have made such a clear impact with Tuesday, there are going to be a load of eyes on them. I can see them being very much in demand at festivals next year. How they move from here is up to the trio. I suspect there will be more singles and an E.P. at some point. Right now, with Tuesday in the ether, they have made this incredible first move! If you have not heard of mandy in the junkyard, then I would urge you to…

HEAD their way.

___________

Follow mary in the junkyard

FEATURE: Revisiting... Martina Topley-Bird – Forever I Wait

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting...

  

Martina Topley-Bird – Forever I Wait

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RELEASED on 10th September, 2021…

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Vermandel

the legendary Martina Topley-Bird released Forever I Wait. Produced by Topley-Bird, it is a magnificent album that has not got the sort of press and adulation I feel it deserves. Featuring collaborations and arrangements from Robert Del Naja (of Massive Attack), Euan Dickinson, Rich Morel, Christoffer Berg, Benjamin Boeldt and Tiadiad, I want to spend a bit of time with this album. Before getting to some reviews for Forever I Wait, here is what Topley-Bird’s Bandcamp page says about an album that I feel everyone should check out:

“'Forever I Wait' is Topley-Bird’s fourth long awaited studio album and her very first self-produced and curated piece of work to date. The album, set for a digital release on September 10th with a special “marble” vinyl edition, available to pre-order now, captures an extensive journey confronting, exploring, analysing and reflecting on the devastating fragilities of life as it ultimately seeks to make peace with what life is.

A sentient and sensual presence framed Tricky’s trip-hop pioneering white label debut release, Aftermath. Hauntingly unique and immediately recognisable, that voice became the defining timbre of a new music movement. Behind this voice was mysteriously soft-spoken, London-born Martina Topley-Bird, whose exquisite voice came to inspire and infuse other pioneering artists across all genres.

“It’s a trip through different emotional states and frequencies from insecurity and desire, all the way through to serenity and acceptance with themes that resonate from my young teens all the way through till today. Things that I’ve seen and things I’ve felt and worked through, although sometimes I sense them trying to return”

“Forever I Wait”, as the title alludes, was written and re-written over a long period of time.

“I had to change my way of relating to music and the music industry in order to make the record I wanted to make.…and that took time. And I took the time I needed. I started in London, moved and lived in America for the first time in my life, then briefly moved back to London and finished the record in Spain.”

“After trying to work on a new record for a couple of years, I came to a realisation that in order to move forward I had to separate the concept and vision I had for this record from me as a person. I had to shift my perspective. That was a big personal win and the beginning of “Forever I Wait.”

'Forever I Wait' leans on a multitude of tense sounds, dubby atmospherics and natural instrumentation to demand the listeners attention leading to over two decades of observations, experiences and musical sacrifices. It is a bi-product of the new perspective featuring carefully selected and tailored supporting arrangements from a handful of collaborators including Robert del Naja (Massive Attack), Rich Morel (Deep Dish), Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Benjamin Boeldt (Adventure).

A truthful expression of desire and heartache “Forever I Wait “Is Topley Bird’s most precise and accurate album to date”.

Many might know her instantly from her work with Tricky. She is an accomplished solo artist in her own right. Perhaps her finest work is 2008’s The Blue God. I wanted to revisit her 2021 fourth studio album - as it is one I have recently passed through and taken a lot away from. An astonishing artist who has collaborated with everyone from Gorillaz to Massive Attack to David Holmes, Martina Topley-Bird is someone that everyone would have heard of at some time. Before getting to sopped reviews, I want to bring in parts of a few interviews she did to promote the album. I will start with her chat with CLASH from September 2021:

“As soon as the conversation moves on to her brand new album ‘Forever I Wait’, Martina becomes more chipper and animated. One of the long term collaborators on the new album is Robert del Naja, or D, as he’s referred to by friends, produced ‘Collide’, ‘Rain’, ‘Hunt’ and ‘Your Heart’. It turns out there is a crucial link between them. “Coming from Bristol and the mix culture, reggae and sound systems and punk, I know that Robert’s got that. There is an unspoken checklist of signatory motifs, an identity of the songs that both of us agree on,” she explains. “We don’t make punk music but there is a soul of that represented somewhere.”

Between the three previous solo albums and ‘Forever I Wait’, a seismic shift has taken place. In hindsight, the first and only clue as to what this would entail was a bittersweet, heart-wrenching single ‘Solitude’ in 2018. Seeing as the space previously reserved for nylon strings, harmonicas and a Fender Rhodes has now been snatched by drum machines, synths and midi controllers, the deal here is very much out with the old, in with the new, a fresh start rather than a comeback.

If Martina preferred to steer well clear of big names in the past to preserve her artistic integrity, now her skin has grown thick enough to take them on all at once. Enter Christoffer Berg, the Swedish whizz-kid behind Fever Ray, and Richard Morel, a hyphenate who has worked with New Order, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys, well-versed on toplines and packed dancefloors. “I was aware that Rich came from a more commercial background. What ended up on the record was ‘Wanted’, this melodically beautiful song, and ‘Game’, a fun, upbeat track. He brought an open, light sensibility and contrast to the rest of the record, which is moody, edgy.”

More to the point, this time around there she’s had a coherent vision, there’s no two ways about it. “I wanted to make an album with a broad appeal. I was trying to mash the abrasive, organic with electronic and synthesizers,” she sumps up. “I wanted synths on this record. That was my thing. If someone put them in, they were not taking them out again. They had the tension and texture and melody. They were my signature sound. If anyone had a problem with the synths, then they had a problem with me!” she quips, pointing both index fingers at herself, laughing.

But it’s obvious there is a lot more at stake here than winning a straightforward argument over the instrumentation. “It was my evolution, the sound that wasn’t there before, and it was my decision. On previous records, 'Some Place Simple', 'The Blue God' and 'Quixotic', these weren’t necessary my ideas how the tracks would start or evolve,” she contemplates. “I think it makes a lot of sense… Not as a solo artist but my whole history, my roots and my subsequent collaborations”.

There are different parts of an interview with The Guardian that I want to source. One where Martina Topley-Bird talks about Forever I Wait, working with Tricky on Maxinquaye, and their relationship together. Topley-Bird’s daughter, Mazy, died in 2019 aged only twenty-four. The album was almost completed when Mazy died. How gruelling and challenging it must have been for Topley-Bird to return to it:

“Forever I Wait was almost complete when Mazy died. I ask if it was difficult to return to the project. “Actually, connecting with the record was helpful,” she says. “And just going through the process of getting to my desk and making lists and doing a lot of computer work helped. Because I’ve always found that if there’s difficult emotions going on, doing things that are rote or mechanical can be helpful.”

I sense a weariness in her voice so ask if she’s OK to talk about her daughter. She lets out a big exhale. “I don’t know. Generally I’m not. I get a feeling of a ball in my stomach and it’s still very unpredictable how I’ll feel.” With a suddenness that seems to take her by surprise she starts to cry. “I’d like to be able to comfort other people that are affected by it, too,” she says after a while. “But I don’t even know how to talk about it. It was just the two of us for a very long time, and…” She trails off again and I suggest we move on.

“I’m sorry this has turned into a jolty ride,” she says with a laugh through the tears.

I’m sorry for making you cry, I say.

“It’s still unpredictable,” she says. “Nobody asks me on a day-to-day basis, so it’s not something I deal with. And so if I do go anywhere near it then, yeah, that starts happening and I’m not used to it.”

Martina Topley-Bird was born in London in 1975, growing up in a large family with five siblings and three step-siblings. Her father, Martin Topley, died before she was born; her surname combines his with that of her stepfather. After moving to Bristol, she studied at the prestigious boarding school Clifton College. But a chance meeting with Tricky – he heard her singing outside his house – sent her life down a more musical path. Was she a rebellious teen?

“I had quite a lot of attitude and was a tiny bit maybe arrogant, yeah,” she says. “I mean… yeah!”

What did her family make of the sudden change in her life?

“It wasn’t like a one-day thing. I did Aftermath but that didn’t get released for two years. It was kinda fun, people were calling to say that Björk liked the track and it sounded like Sade, but I was studying still. I’m not sure I told my parents about it.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Martina Fornace

It was later, while resitting some of her exams, that Topley-Bird embarked on a romantic relationship, worked on Maxinquaye and, as she puts it, her “life began to drift. I started to lose form, as it were.” She had sung in the school choir and in her piano teacher’s jazz band, but she had no recording experience when Tricky enlisted her as the record’s main vocalist. To make matters more confusing, it was one of the most unconventional records ever made: many of the vocals you hear are first takes, with Topley-Bird having never even heard the backing track before she recorded.

And she’s found a sense of fulfilment in working out how to express herself differently in her music. “Because I’m a lot more open. Maybe there’s some catharsis but I think it’s more an evolution, a growth. I’ve let go of some immature, restricting ideas. Bullshit beliefs that were not helping me achieve what I wanted to achieve or really be doing what I want to do.”

In April last year, Topley-Bird travelled to the mountains by the sea south of Valencia to decide on the tracklisting. The album ends with Rain, which sees her singing over a string quartet: “One day while walking in the rain/ I found my path along the way.” It speaks of acceptance, of living in the present. It feels like a moment of cleansing and spiritual rejuvenation.

The song’s lyric was written not by her but Nat. “It’s funny because she works in international development, she has never written lyrics before. But she thought she’d have a go. And I saw them and thought, ‘This is so not me. I would be cryptic and vague and I don’t know if I would be that person. But then I found a way to sing it.’”

She’s beaming with pride now. And a sense that, despite everything, she’s finally arrived at what she wants to say”.

Prior to the reviews, there is an interview I found that is relevant. There is a nice smattering of interviews. All really interesting to see. It is a pity that there were not more reviews for the stunning Forever I Wait. Juno Daily spoke with Martina Topley-Bird in October about one of her strongest albums yet:

“Forever I Wait could well be Topley-Bird’s strongest and most coherent album to date. Factor in how long it took to conceive and the elongated production process (although largely recorded between 2015 and 2018, it was only completed earlier this year), and you can only marvel at the results.

“Thank you,” Topley-Bird responds when Juno Daily offers its assessment of the album. “I think I now know how to make things work better together, and I deliberately didn’t work with a lot of elements. The producers I chose to work with, I did so because I thought I knew what they would come up with, and if that didn’t work, I had Benny [Benjamin Boeldt], who I knew could make it work.”

Although Topley-Bird is credited as the producer  of Forever I Wait – a role she’s keen to define as “a courtesy of choice role”, in line with a traditional producer rather than an always hands-on one – Boedlt undeniably played a key role in the album’s creation, alongside a number of other producers and beat-makers whose sounds can be heard across the set’s 12 tracks (Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, Richard Morel, Depeche Mode collaborator Christopher Berg and California-based Tradiad all contributed).

 “Benny was like the glue that held the project together,” Topley-Bird enthuses. “He worked with me on tracks I’d started myself, beefed up things I really loved but weren’t hitting hard enough in the low-end, and added really fascinating things to arrangements. He was able to take direction in that he made tracks that were nothing like his own music, but with pinpointed reference points. I think that’s the way for me to work.”

It was not always this easy, though. Topley-Bird admits that she has enjoyed mixed relations with some producers she’s worked with and in the past sometimes struggled to take on board constructive criticism from those she worked with. “I had to get over the idea that my ideas were precious and needed respecting and protecting,” she says candidly. “I realised that ideas were just that, but they were my ideas and that’s what we were doing – it’s about the ideas, not me and my feelings. If an idea works for the record I’m making, it stays, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is better than, ‘I don’t know’, ‘maybe’, or just being too uncomfortable to tell you what I really think.”

At several times during our conversation, Topley-Bird refers to having a specific vision for the album. While she doesn’t elaborate on that, Forever I Wait – and the Pure Heart EP that precedes it – certainly sound like a coherent musical statement. The LP starts with a blast of murky, guitar-laden Bristol soul that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and ends with the string-drenched poignance of ‘Rain’; in between, you’ll find a mixture of stirring soundscapes, thickset trip-hop, gritty grooves, bustling electro-pop, dubbed-out heaviness and lo-fi headiness. Throughout, the album is held together by her trademark voice, thought-provoking lyrics (all of which were written before the tragic death of her and Tricky’s daughter two years ago) and a distinctive aural atmosphere that recalls her musical roots in the Bristol scene of the 1990s.

“What I wanted to do is reclaim my entire history and make a coherent body of work that was an actual piece of art,” Topley-Bird asserts. “A real artistic statement, with an emotional arc and a beginning, a middle and an end. That’s in contrast to other things I’ve done in the past, which had beautiful and rather wonderful things within them, but had something about them that felt like exercises. That’s a terrible word to use because it sounds kind of reductive, like there wasn’t emotion and creativity that went into them, but I think it’s accurate.”

The idea of reclaiming her history, and specifically embracing the role she played in the darker and murkier end of the Bristol sound, is something she returns to a few times while talking about the album. “Sonically, claiming my history was important, because when I started making solo records, I was being reactive,” she admits. “It was like, ‘I’m not going to do everything I just did’. When you’re younger, you try things out. With a bit of distance, it’s easier to realise what’s yours.”

Topley-Bird admits that she’s not been back to Bristol for many years, but she now understands how much the city shaped her personal and musical DNA. “It’s still part of me and I do claim that Bristol sound as mine as well,” she muses. “I know why things from Bristol sound the way they do and that represents me. Growing up as a mixed-race person, it was much easier in Bristol than anywhere else in England because it’s very mixed, socio-economically as well as racially. That’s why there’s reggae, soul, hip-hop and punk all mixed together. The people I make music with, it’s part of their DNA and it’s part of mine as well.”

With that, our time is almost up. So how has the interview-shy Topley-Bird found our encounter. “I really enjoyed it actually,” she chuckles. “I haven’t been to England in ages and even talking to English people is a rarity for me. It’s been good”.

The first of two reviews I want to bring in is from Spectrum Culture. It is obvious that Forever I Wait’s title is apt. This is like her debut album. Where she had had control and released something that is meaningful to and representative of her. That makes it even more important that people check out this incredible work and appreciate its significance. How personal it is to Martina Topley-Bird:

“Forever I Wait may be Martina Topley-Bird’s fourth solo album but she recently told The Guardian that she regards it as her debut. Her reasoning is that it’s the first time she’s taken full control of a release, carefully choosing who she worked with and piecing together the tracks over several years.

Written largely before the death of Mazy, the daughter she had with former partner Tricky, it’s also her first album in a decade (2010’s Some Place Simple, which reworked her earlier material). She wasn’t entirely absent from music during this time, being an in-demand collaborator and appearing with the likes of Gorillaz and Diplo.

It’s a fortuitous time to officially resurface given that the downtempo trip-hop she helped to pioneer is having a moment again, influencing Brit Awards winner Arlo Parks and being sampled by The Weeknd. It’s a sound she’s doubled down on across these twelve tracks. Where previous albums had a rag-bag approach to styles – dabbling in rock, soul and jazz – here she’s largely confined herself to one mood.

It would be easy to interpret this dark atmosphere in the light of her personal tragedy. Opening track “Pure Heart” finds her waiting for her heart “to heal so I can have a fresh start,” over grungy, low-slung guitars. It’s an emotional arc that closes on the final track, “Rain,” when she accepts she has to “let go of things and live in the now,” while the lightness of the strings speak of optimism for the future. This tone is an anomaly, with the song being quite unlike anything else on the release.

The vast majority of the album instead bears the unmistakable hallmarks of her collaborators, which include Massive Attack’s Robert “3D” Del Naja, Fever Ray producer Christoffer Berg, and Depeche Mode remixer Rich Morel. “Hunt” has the creeping unease of those artists, with its rumbling bass noises, while “Free” could have been cut from the same cloth as Tricky’s Maxinquaye, its production being superficially sparse but an entire soundscape appearing when heard through headphones.

The way in which these tracks contrast disconcerting bass notes with icy synths and scuzzy guitars taps into the mid-’90s. Some of the production and lyrical concerns – including the crystal meth epidemic – nonetheless help to pull her soulful trip-hop into the newer territories that it always promised before it faded too fast. The album could have lost a couple of songs in this vein, the tone lacking in variation, but it also features some sparkling surprises.

“Wanted” drifts towards Zero 7 coffeehouse politeness with its dreamlike passages but “Love” has a gorgeous sleepy blues haze and “Collide,” a put down of “corporate greed” is a hiss of hi-hats and drum and bass rhythms. Best of all is “Game,” which leaps out of the speakers with its playfulness and barely disguised debt to Gorillaz.

In returning to her first musical home – having recorded with Tricky when she was still a teenager – Topley-Bird’s given the genre a partial rebirth. The album lacks the musical variety of her earlier recordings, but it rarely feels comfortable, her soulful and husky vocals carrying emotional depth that makes it worth the wait”.

I will end with a review from The Arts Desk. Many gave Forever I Wait the equivalent of three-and-a-half/four stars. Pretty respectable though, the more you listen, the more you realise that it is a minimum of four stars! A very strong album from one of music’s most distinctive voices:

“Martina Topley-Bird, who started out doing vocals for Tricky’s first single "Aftermath" aged 15, has matured.

On her fourth solo album, self-produced, she builds confidently on the dreamy vocal lines that were essential to the Bristol sound of the '90s.

On her previous solo ventures, it seemed as if she were in search of an identity, a rock chick one moment and a trance-weaver the next. She has definitely found herself: bathed in soft-edged dubby sounds that suit a sensual voice that makes a virtue of reverb, this is music that floats and supports Martina’s naked expression of vulnerability.

There are collaborations with Robert del Naja that could be outtakes from a Massive Attack album not yet made, Martina having worked as a live and studio vocalist for the Bristol band for half a dozen years. She has chosen her other collaborators with all the right intuitions – Christoffer Berg, Rich Morel, Benjamin Boeldt and Tialdia – all of them perfectly attuned to her breathy and soulful vocals.

Martina is a master of introversion, creating chiaroscuro songs that explore her inner states, playing darkly with existential angst and an ever-present sense of foreboding. All of this was present in Tricky’s first album Maxinquaye (1997), and it could be said that this classic and ground-breaking album was as much Martina as Tricky’s. Back then, she was thought to be Tricky’s muse, or the voice of his mother who wrote poetry and committed suicide when he was a child. Tricky and Martina’s daughter Mina committed suicide herself in 2019. The new album was mostly finished before Mina's tragic death, but it’s almost as if Martina were navigating a life haunted by self-destruction and suicidal tendencies born of excessive sensitivity and creative talent – fates shared in an uncanny way within the constellation of her intimate relationships.

The mood is somewhat relentless. There's little variation from a sound born of Bristol in the '90s, including the lilting beat of what was known as trip-hop,  the nervous energy of drum’n’bass and the dreamscapes of dub. This is a mature album though, nourished by darkness and passion. Martina has dared face her demons, and her work has a depth well beyond her earlier solo work. “Sand” finds her with a sharper voice, ringed with the edge of an anger that has never been part of her palette. The closing song on the album, ”Rain”, bewitchingly lyrical with string quartet accompaniment, is a gem, and suggests another way forward into new and exciting territory”.

One of 2021’s best – and yet under-reviewed albums -, Martina Topley-Bird’s Forever I Wait is one that I would recommend to everyone. I hope the interviews and reviews have given you context and impetus to check the album out. Songs from it should get a peek onto radio playlists now and then. It is another essential listen from the London-born icon. If you have some time spare today, go and spend some of it with…

A truly excellent album.

FEATURE: #BlackHistoryMonth 2023: The Upcoming Documentary Concert Film, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

FEATURE:

 

 

#BlackHistoryMonth 2023

IMAGE CREDIT: Parkwood Entertainment 

 

The Upcoming Documentary Concert Film, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

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AS I have written before…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé performing during her Renaissance World Tour in London on 30th June, 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainment

there are a couple of very big concert films coming out. Taylor Swift releases her concert film, TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR, today (14th October). One of the biggest and most successful tours in history, the concert film already broke records before it was released. For those who did not go to see her on tour – or cannot do whilst it is on at the moment -, this concert film gives you an insight into the preparation and spectacle of a tour from one of the world’s most important artists. Tomorrow (15th), Madonna is at the 02 Arena in London to start her delayed Celebration Tour. Coming back from serious illness, she is starting an epic tour that arrives forty years after her debut album and her breakthrough hit, Holiday. You know there will be a concert film from that. Maybe one that will outdo Taylor Swift’s in terms of its impact and popularity. It is a time when amazing women are mounting these extraordinary tours. I will talk more about that for another feature. As it is #BlackHistoryMonth, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to look at another epic concert film that is about to be released. The iconic Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE was one of the biggest albums of last year – and one of the very best of her career.

An early Christmas treat comes in the form of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. It is distributed by AMC Theatres. It is scheduled to premiere on 1st December, 2023. It will reportedly be an amalgamation of the creation of RENAISSANCE (2022), Beyoncé's seventh studio album; the record's accompanying visual album; the recorded footage from the Renaissance World Tour and its development. Like concert films from Taylor Swift – and a presumed one from Madonna – it shines a light on how much involvement artists like Beyoncé have in their tours. From the choreography and production through the visuals, there is so much work put in by the artist! A visionary artists who is a queen and Black icon, this film is going to empower so many people. Someone who is a source of strength for the Black community and her L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fans, I wanted to spend some time with the tour and concert film. I will come to a recent article from NPR announcing details of the film. It is the sheer size and scale of these tours that amazes me. So much that could possibly go wrong. Instead, they are flawless and memorable. By all accounts, this is the pinnacle of Beyoncé’s live career. The Renaissance World Tour ended on 1st October, though it will go down in history! Even if there seems to be more media attention on Taylor Swift’s achievements this year and her tour, it seems like the Renaissance Tour is on another level. Maybe one of the finest and most captivating live experiences in history. As Esquire’s Bria McNeal wrote in August when she caught the show, the feats of athleticism, visual excellence and production is outstanding to behold:

“Forbes predicts that the Renaissance Tour could earn around $2.1 billion by the time it wraps in September. If Beyoncé pulls it off, that will make her the highest-grossing female act of all time. That title currently belongs to Madonna, who—in July 2022—had earned $1.4 billion from her shows. Taylor Swift is next in line with a projected $1.9 billion in sales from her currently-running Eras Tour. According to Billboard, Beyoncé is well on her way to nabbing the top spot, earning more than $154 million from her European tour dates alone.

You know that moment at a family party, when you see someone you don’t recognize, but feel an intrinsic connection to them? That’s what attending Renaissance is like.

Like everyone else in the crowd, I attended the Renaissance Tour as a fan. But I was a fan on a nearly 20-year-long mission. We all know Beyoncé is Beyoncé (you don’t earn $154 million on a whim), but I wondered what I'd learn from seeing her live—dancing and singing along with her, plus, of course, mingling with the Beyhivee.

One of the first people I run into is Zahir, who is proudly donning a sequined top. I simply ask why he loves Beyoncé. He says, “Her Blackness. She’s so in tune with her womanhood and voice.” The next person I talk to is Rickey Mile, a self-proclaimed superfan. He gives a dumbfounded look, as if any questions about Beyoncé's greatness go without asking. “She’s timeless,” he explains. According to Mile, it doesn’t matter when you see Beyoncé, what’s going on in her personal life, or which era of her career she’s in—the woman always puts on a good show.

After seeing the Renaissance Tour, I have to agree. The concert (and the album) is a homage to Beyoncé’s uncle, Johnny—a gay man who introduced her to house music. To say Renaissance would make him proud is an understatement. It’s one giant, queer party, filled with references to drag icons Kevin Aviance and Moi Renee, along with a cameo from viral ballroom dancer Honey Balenciaga. The stadium shook for three straight hours, with fans bouncing and rocking along to each song.

Given Beyoncé’s expansive catalog, there is a smattering of oldies woven throughout the show. But don’t be fooled. This isn't anything like Swift's Eras Tour. Instead of selecting songs chronologically, Beyoncé presents a mix of her favorite hits. The show opens with a powerful rendition of “Dangerously in Love,” which bleeds into the yearning ballad “1+1.” Then, just when you’re ready to profess your love to someone in the crowd, Beyoncé switches gears, performing the self-assured Renaissance track, “I’m That Girl.” The whole thing exudes rich aunt energy. Pure fun. No rules. And the atmosphere? Well, it’s like a reunion. After all, the last time the Beyhive convened was during 2016's Formation Tour. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainment

You know that moment at a family party, when you see someone you don’t recognize, but feel an intrinsic connection to? That’s what attending Renaissance is like. Everyone is a stranger, yet also a cousin. I suppose that makes Beyoncé our matriarch. Just ask the troves of fans yelling “Mother!” during her set.

Perhaps that maternal energy stems from Beyoncé’s dedication to lifting others up. Along with the references to the aforementioned queer icons, Beyoncé uses Renaissance to celebrate Black women. During the show, she sings, “Break My Soul (The Queen's Version), featuring Madonna. The remix praises every Black performer who inspired them: Bessie Smith, Lauryn Hill, and Nina Simone, among many others. Later on, Beyoncé brings her daughter, Blue Ivy, on stage to celebrate their heritage, with the songs “My Power” and “Black Parade.” The Renaissance Tour feels like one giant love letter to Beyoncé's community—and because of that, every moment has a purpose.

Though the Renaissance Tour is art, and even a pseudo-communion, it's also an athletic feat. Any time you think Beyoncé has reached her peak, she surprises you with something else. At one point, she’s singing riffs you’ve never heard. In the next moment, she’s dancing in stilettos. If you look away for a second, you'll miss a surprise costume change or an exciting set design. It’s magic.

After the concert, I see a teenage girl dab her eyes with her sleeve. “‘Formation’ broke me for some reason,” she tells her friend. “I continued to cry for the rest of the show”.

It is hard for her fans to see her show. With unparalleled demand and fairly expensive ticket prices, many couldn’t afford or seize that chance to see their idol. That is why the concert film coming in December is so important. It will be a cinematic experience that will unite Queen Bey fans around the globe. I will come to that NPR feature soon. First, I want to bring another perspective in regarding the wonder of her Renaissance World Tour. There is the divine, human and otherworldly in this live extravaganza. The New York Times’ Lindsay Zoladz provided her take when she saw Beyoncé conquer Toronto, Canada:

“The show’s look — as projected in diamond-sharp definition onto a panoramic screen — conjured Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” by way of the 1990 drag ball documentary “Paris Is Burning.” After a lengthy video introduction, Beyoncé emerged from a chrome cocoon and vamped through a thrilling stretch of the first suite of “Renaissance” songs; during “Cozy,” most strikingly, a pair of hydraulic robotic arms centered her body in industrial picture frames, like a post-human Mona Lisa.

In May, when Beyoncé began the European leg of the Renaissance World Tour, rumors swirled that she may have been recovering from a foot injury, since her choreography was a bit more static and less stomp-heavy than usual. The Toronto show did nothing to dispel that chatter, but it also showed that it doesn’t matter much. Perhaps because of some constraints, Beyoncé has embraced new means of bodily expression. She brought the flavor of ball movements into the show and served face all night, curling her lip like a hungry predator, widening her eyes in mock surprise, scrunching her features in exaggerated disgust.

PHOTO CREDIT: The New York Times

Few seats in the stadium provided a legible view of Beyoncé’s face, of course, though the screen took care of that. She played expertly to the cameras that followed her every choreographed move, aware of how she’d appear to the majority of the audience and — perhaps just as crucially — in FOMO-inducing social media videos. The stage itself was breathtaking, featuring an arced cutout section of the screen that made for playful visuals, but its full grandeur was not visible from many of the side seats, making the band and sometimes the dancers difficult to see.

The screen, though, was the point. Beyoncé’s two solo releases before “Renaissance” — her 2013 self-titled album and “Lemonade,” from 2016 — were billed as “visual albums,” featuring a fully realized music video for each track. Again toying with her fans’ anticipation, she has still not released any videos from “Renaissance,” giving the previously unseen graphics that filled her expansive backdrop an added impact, and making them feel more weighty than a convenient way to pass time between costume changes.

Many of the tour’s outfits struck a balance between Beyoncé’s signature styles — megawatt sparkles, high-cut bodysuits — and the futuristic bent of “Renaissance.” She played haute couture bee in custom Mugler by Casey Cadwallader and glimmered in a Gucci corset draped with crystals. But the night’s most memorable look — so instantly iconic that a few fans had already tried to replicate it, from photos of the European shows — was a flesh-tone catsuit by the Spanish label Loewe, embellished with a few suggestively placed, red-fingernailed hands.

Throughout the set, Beyoncé wove interpolations of her predecessors’ songs throughout her own, as if to place her music in a larger continuum. The grandiose “I Care” segued into a bit of “River Deep, Mountain High,” in honor of Tina Turner, who died in May. The cheery throwback “Love on Top” contained elements of the Jackson 5’s “Want You Back.” Most effective was the “Queens Remix” she performed of “Break My Soul,” which mashes up the “Renaissance” leadoff single with Madonna’s “Vogue,” paying homage to the mainstream pop star who brought queer ball culture to the masses before her. (The merch on sale at a Renaissance Tour pop-up shop in the days before the show included a hand-held fan emblazoned with the song title “Heated” for $40. It sold out.)

The show contained moments that sometimes felt conceptually cluttered and at odds with the “Renaissance” album’s sharp vision, like dorm-room-poster quotes from Albert Einstein and Jim Morrison that filled the screen during video montages. The middle stretch, arriving with a lively “Formation,” featured Beyoncé and her dancers clad in camo print, riding and occasionally writhing atop a prop military vehicle. There was a wordless, gestural power in the moment she and her entourage held their fists in the air, referencing a salute that had rankled some easily rankle-able viewers of the 2016 Super Bowl Halftime Show. But if Beyoncé was calling for any more specific forms of protest or political awareness — especially in a moment when drag culture and queer expression are being threatened at home and throughout the world — those went unarticulated.

PHOTO CREDIT: The New York Times

Beyoncé’s endurance as a world-class performer remained the show’s raison d’être; she is the rare major pop star who prizes live vocal prowess. By the end of the long night — and especially during the striking closing number, the disco reverie “Summer Renaissance,” when she floated above the crowd like a deity on a glittering horse — she extended the microphone to lend out some of the high notes to her eager and adoring fans. “Until next time,” she said, keeping the stage banter relatively minimal and pat. “Drive home safe!”

Even when Beyoncé embraces styles and cultures known for their improvisational looseness, she still seems to be striving toward perfection — a pageant smile always threatens to break through the stank face. Commanding a stadium-sized audience, she was an introvert wearing an extrovert’s armor. That tension is part of both her boundless charm and her occasional limitations as a performer. And it makes moments of genuine spontaneity all the more prized.

Naturally, #RenaissanceWorldTour was trending on Twitter long after the show, but one of the clips that went viral was unplanned. During a rousing performance of her early hit “Diva,” Beyoncé accidentally dropped her sunglasses. She fumbled them for a second, mouthed an expletive as they fell to the ground, and gave a sincere, shrugging grin before snapping back into the choreography’s formation. For a fleeting moment, she seemed human after all”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé accepts the Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for RENAISSANCE during the 65th Grammy Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

With the reviews in and it being clear that the Renaissance World Tour has taken live performance to new heights, the cinematic released is going to be something else. This is what NPR wrote about the upcoming documentary concert film:

“Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is an upcoming American documentary concert film by American singer Beyoncé. It is distributed by AMC Theatres, scheduled to premiere on December 1, 2023.[2] The film will reportedly be an amalgamation of the creation of Renaissance (2022), Beyoncé's seventh studio album; the record's accompanying visual album; and the recorded footage from the Renaissance World Tour and its development.

“The Beyhive will be getting in formation once again, as a concert film of Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour is coming to theaters.

Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé will be in theaters on Dec. 1 in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. More international dates will be listed later, according to the film's distributor, AMC Theatres Distribution.

It "accentuates the journey of RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR, from its inception to the opening show in Stockholm, Sweden, to the grand finale in Kansas City, Missouri," AMC said in a Monday release. "It is about Beyoncé's intention, hard work, involvement in every aspect of the production, her creative mind and purpose to create her legacy, and master her craft."

The trailer shows moments from her performances, as well as documentary-style footage of the singer with her dancers, husband Jay-Z, and children — including her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, who joined her onstage for a dance number during several dates of the tour.

Reaction to news of the movie was quick and enthusiastic, as fans have been asking for yet-to-be-released music videos to accompany the album, after Beyoncé released a teaser with her in different looks shortly after the album came out in July 2022.

She posted the trailer for the film to her Instagram with the caption, "Be careful what you ask for, 'cause I just might comply," a lyric from one of the album's songs, "ALL

Beyoncé performed 56 times in 39 cities for the tour, which sold more than 2.7 million tickets. In total, it earned $579 million, which has made history as the highest-grossing tour by a female artist and the seventh highest-grossing tour of all time.

Tickets start at $22 and have already gone on sale, AMC said. The movie will also show at Cinemark, Regal, Cinepolis and Cineplex locations across North America.

Back in August, AMC also announced a concert film of Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Presale revenues have surpassed $100 million for that movie, the company said.

It has not publicly released presale amounts for the Renaissance film, an AMC spokesperson told NPR”.

There is no doubting the influence of Beyoncé. One of the most important and inspiring Black artists ever, I wanted to mention her Renaissance World Tour and approaching concert film in the context of #BlackHistoryMonth. I hope that the sheer wave of love and respect for her live feat means there is more appreciation from some corners of the industry. It was a shock that her RENAISSANCE album was overlooked by the Grammys earlier this year:

“If you tuned into the Grammys last night without realizing what you were watching, you might have mistaken the program for a three-and-a-half hour Beyoncé tribute. Seemingly every celebrity in the Crypto.com Arena basked in her presence, fawned over her, and thanked her for being the artist of their lifetime in their speeches. But the Recording Academy has long ignored Beyoncé when it comes to the Big Four Categories—Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year. She’s only won once in these categories—in 2010, for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)”—and has lost all four times she was nominated for the coveted Album of the Year trophy, including last night.

At Sunday night’s ceremony, Beyoncé was expected by many to win with her incredible sonic masterpiece Renaissance, her 2022 album that topped many a best-of-year list. Earlier in the night, she had broken a major record, becoming the artist with the most Grammy awards ever after bringing her total up to 32 trophies with four new wins. There was a noticeable hush in the room right after host Trevor Noah announced the nominees for the night’s biggest award. When Harry Styles was announced as the winner, there was what appeared to be a brief pause before the room erupted into applause. Over on Twitter, meanwhile, things immediately devolved into chaos as critics and fans expressed a range of reactions to the perceived snub for Beyoncé and Renaissance”.

As cultural figures and iconic artists, there are few like Beyoncé. One of the most important and respected Black artists in history, the songwriter, producer, businesswoman, philanthropist and filmmaker is also this incredible pillar of strength for her L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fans. Out on 1st December, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is going to be…

SOMETHING unforgettable.

FEATURE: Gods and Robbers: Kate Bush’s There Goes a Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa at Forty-One

FEATURE:

 

 

Gods and Robbers

IN THIS IMAGE: Kate Bush in the Suspended in Gaffa video/ART CREDIT: iniminiemoo via Deviant Art

 

Kate Bush’s There Goes a Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa at Forty-One

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SLIGHTLY breaking away…

from my Kate Bush album anniversary features, it is an opportunity to talk about two singles that were released on 2nd November, 1982. The penultimate released from her album – after Sat in Your Lap and The Dreaming -, these two very different songs were released in different parts of the world. As an experimental and not instantly accessible album, it was difficult getting singles out and them riding high in the charts. I don’t suppose Bush was thinking about singles and getting chart success. The Dreaming was very much about the whole. How the album sounded. Although this was reversed to a degree on 1985’s Hounds of Love,  1982’s The Dreaming was very much a chance for her to show she was a serious artist. Not one who like her Pop peers or easy to define. Instead, The Dreaming is a collection of songs that reveal themselves over multiple listens. That said, on 2nd November, 1982, Bush did launch her newest singles. After Sat in Your Lap fared well on the charts and The Dreaming was considered a comparative failure, there was probably a feeling that, if two different singles were released in different areas of the world, then that would be a gamble worth taking (?). One could say two other songs on The Dreaming would have been successful singles – perhaps All the Love and Houdini. Bush released the jaunty crime caper, There Goes a Tenner, in the U.K. and Ireland. Suspended in Gaffa was released in Australia and the continental Europe. There Goes a Tenner reached ninety-three. It is a song that gained no interest from any radio stations. There Goes a Tenner’s video gained little attention on music television programmes. Suspended in Gaffa got top-forty in some countries. Even if the chart position do neither song justice, they are worth highlighting and celebrating!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and an extra during the rehearsals for the There Goes a Tenner video in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Coming up to the forty-first anniversary of their release, these tracks still sound like nothing else! Distinctly the work of Kate Bush. Kate Bush Encyclopedia gives us some information about There Goes a Tenner. It is one that miffed critics. Perhaps wanting Kate Bush to be more accessible - and release songs that were more traditional -, it was clear her work was ahead of its time. The perception that women considered as Pop artists should be releasing certain types of music. I think There Goes a Tenner is a really interesting song that should have done better on the charts. It has quite a nice backstory. Another assuredly Kate Bush type of song. She explained in interviews where she got the idea for a terrific track:

“It's about amateur robbers who have only done small things, and this is quite a big robbery that they've been planning for months, and when it actually starts happening, they start freaking out. They're really scared, and they're so aware of the fact that something could go wrong that they just freaked out, and paranoid and want to go home. (...) It's sort of all the films I've seen with robberies in, the crooks have always been incredibly in control and calm, and I always thought that if I ever did a robbery, I'd be really scared, you know, I'd be really worried. So I thought I'm sure that's a much more human point of view. (The Dreaming interview, CBAK 4011 CD)

That was written on the piano. I had an idea for the tune and just knocked out the chords for the first verse. The words and everything just came together. It was quite a struggle from there on to try to keep things together. The lyrics are quite difficult on that one, because there are a lot of words in quite a short space of time. They had to be phrased right and everything. That was very difficult. Actually the writing went hand-in-hand with the CS-80. (John Diliberto, Interview. Keyboard/Totally Wired/Songwriter (USA), 1985)”.

I suppose Suspended in Gaffa would have been a successful single in the U.K. I think it is close in tone and inspiration to Sat in Your Lap. Whereas There Goes a Tenner has Bush adopting a Cockney accent and there is no real chorus, Suspended in Gaffa seems more familiar and accessible in some ways. Something that could have got radio play. I love There Goes a Tenner and think that it was let down by radio stations and the media. No fault of Kate Bush and EMI! Suspended in Gaffa is an intriguing song that should be played more today. This is what Kate Bush said about a beauty of a song:

“I could explain some of it, if you want me to: Suspended in Gaffa is reasonably autobiographical, which most of my songs aren’t.  It’s about seeing something that you want–on any level–and not being able to get that thing unless you work hard and in the right way towards it. When I do that I become aware of so many obstacles, and then I want the thing without the work. And then when you achieve it you enter…a different level–everything will slightly change. It’s like going into a time warp which otherwise wouldn’t have existed. (Richard Cook, 'My music sophisticated?...'. NME (UK), October 1982)

'Suspended In Gaffa' is, I suppose, similar in some ways to 'Sat In Your Lap' - the idea of someone seeking something, wanting something. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and had the imagery of purgatory and of the idea that when you were taken there that you would be given a glimpse of God and then you wouldn't see him again until you were let into heaven. And we were told that in Hell it was even worse because you got to see God but then you knew that you would never see him again. And it's sorta using that as the parallel. And the idea of seeing something incredibly beautiful, having a religious experience as such, but not being able to get back there. And it was playing musically with the idea of the verses being sorta real time and someone happily jumping through life [Makes happy motion with head] and then you hit the chorus and it like everything sorta goes into slow mo and they're reaching [Makes slow reaching motion with arm] for that thing that they want and they can't get there. [Laughs] (Interview for MTV, November 1985)”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush embraced by her mother, Hannah, in the video for Suspended in Gaffa/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Wiseman

I don’t think many people dove into There Goes a Tenner and deeper meaning. Hearing the composition and vocal and writing it off as a novelty or strange song, Bush had created something socially aware and political. On an album with a few political moments – not least Pull Out the Pin and The Dreaming -, this was a song that had its heart in British society under Margaret Thatcher. This is what Dreams of Orgonon wrote in their feature:

“Yet even with her classism, there’s some worth to her attempts here. Fundamentally, “There Goes a Tenner” channels the heist movie through a children’s panto. It treats poverty and crime with the tropes and language available to Bush through English popular culture. “Ooh, there’s a tenner/hey look, there’s a fiver” interpolates British currency onto the trope of money exploding in the middle of a robbery, as seen in such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are some hat tips to old gangster films, like when Bush observes her partners’ conduct in the middle of their robbery: “both my partners/act like actors/you are Bogart/he is George Raft/that leaves Cagney and me.” Clumsy, to be sure, but distinct in its aesthetics, and in a better song, Bush’s dive into British class politics with crime film tropes might be enlightening.

There’s something more going on here though. Bush asserted that her robbers were incompetents with limited experience: “It’s about amateur robbers who have only done small things, and this is quite a big robbery that they’ve been planning for months, and when it actually starts happening, they start freaking out.” She goes on to cite Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as an example of hypercompetence in cinematic criminals, objecting to the composure of the genre’s heroes, observing “the crooks have always been incredibly in control and calm, and I always thought that if I ever did a robbery, I’d be really scared.”

Certainly the heist genre is populated by “chill” paragons of masculinity. It’s how you get lead actors like Paul Newman, Al Pacino, or George Clooney as top notch criminals. The genre offers the pleasures of breaking with the decorum of civil society while still keeping a layer of masculine authority in the mix, and its films tend to conclude with major punitive measures for the culprits (see Bonnie & Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, etc).

Bush’s resulting bemusement at this is almost quaintly middle-class. “But don’t people who’ve robbed hundreds of banks get scared when they rob a bank” is the sort of question your childhood friend who’s horrified by shoplifting would pose. The pantheon of confident men in her early work is broadly absent from The Dreaming, which abounds with self-destructive masculinity. Moving beyond the bourgeois fantasy of domestic bliss between a man and a woman shakes up Bush’s faith in men. Femininity and masculinity become fluctuant, throttled by patriarchy, colonialism, trauma, and poverty. Bush could feasibly be writing a character of any gender here, but to have a woman’s voice leading the charge and vocalizing the anxiety that might pervade a robbery is canny.

  IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the There Goes a Tenner video/PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Henry

Bush also taps into a tradition of British comedy which pivots on woefully incompetent characters issued a societal role or occupation completely unsuited to them. The likes of Python or Fawlty Towers spring to mind, and doubtless Bush saw some Ealing comedies. The children’s panto delivery of “There Goes a Tenner” infers a stylistic awareness of Bush’s debt to this tradition. The music video certainly tips the viewer off to what kind of song this is, with its frankly adorable deployment of Bush and Gary Hurst in black jumpsuits and soot on their faces, its dutch angles depicting the Very Scary robbery, and the explosion of a safe full of money. Its stars are the major aberration among these cliches; a woman and people of color aren’t supposed to be the daring stars of a heist film. This isn’t the heroic act of white men showing up the rest of the world; it’s women and minorities acting out of desperation.

For its vexed class dynamics, “There Goes a Tenner” does acknowledge poverty as a motivation for its characters. “Pockets floating in the breeze” indicates impoverishment, and the final line of the song “there’s a ten-shilling note/remember them?/that’s when we used to vote for him” is a weirdly subtle political critique for “Tenner.” When the single dropped in 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government was enjoying a 51% approval rating in the wake of the Falklands War and Thatcher’s craven sinking of the retreating Argentinian battleship the ARA General Belgrano, killing 323 people. By the 22nd of September, 9 days after the release of The Dreaming, 14% of the United Kingdom’s workforce was reported to be unemployed. As the Tory government waged a war on inflation in its slow establishment of neoliberalism, it caused a glut of unemployment that lost 1,500,000 people their jobs. “When we used to vote for him” is an odd phrase — but clearly the robbers have turned to crime because alternatives are unavailable (one merely has to point out that poverty is a major contributor to crime).

“There Goes a Tenner’s” death on the charts was not a tragedy. Bush’s decision to release it as a single is one of her oddest choices as a public figure. Yet even if by accident, she’s tapped into the zeitgeist of early neoliberalism and Thatcherite austerity. How come we’re not getting paid any more? Because Margaret fucking Thatcher ruined everything”.

One great thing about Suspended in Gaffa is that Bush’s mother, Hannah, appears. It is a tender moment where they embrace! With Bush dancing in a barn in a purple jumpsuit and then going into the woods, there is something strange, child-like and a bit mysterious about the video. I guess that reflects the nature and meaning of the song to a degree. Again, Christine Kelley’s Dreams of Orgonon raise some interesting observations about a classic Kate Bush song. How many critics gave Suspended in Gaffa that much time and listened closely? Perhaps those in Europe and Australia were not expecting a track like this from Kate Bush:

“Yet at the core of this excess, there’s a simplicity to “Suspended in Gaffa.” It has the same expansive and consumptive obsessions as its sister songs — youthful aporia, an obsession with an unreachable god, a desire to unite with the subconscious. Yet it filters this through a childlike, somewhat Carrollian filter, with a surfeit of internal rhymes, abstract nouns, and ambiguous pronouns like “out in the garden/there’s half of a heaven/and we’re only bluffing,” “I try to get nearer/but as it gets clearer/there’s something appears in the way,” “I pull out the plank and say/thankee for yanking me back/to the fact that there’s always something to distract.”

The lyric is an endless series of prevarications, often relating to knowledge, or the unattainability of it (see “Sat in Your Lap”). The refrain’s “not till I’m ready for you,” “can I have it all now?/we can’t have it all,” “but they’ve told us/unless we can prove that we’re doing it/we can’t have it all” speak to an “all or nothing” approach, not identifying exactly what’s at stake so much as its urgency. Desire gets codified as an end in itself, often for a god (“I caught a glimpse of a god/all shining and bright”) — “until I’m ready for you” gives away the game (constructive spiritual union with a deity is impossible if one is unready to consent). “The idea of the song is that of being given a glimpse of ‘God’ — something that we dearly want — but being told that unless we work for it, we will never see it again, and even then, we might not be worthy of it,” Bush explained to her fan club. Tapping into the subconscious is a difficulty — when one has a glimpse of something wondrous, there’s a desperation to retrieve the feelings associated with it. “Everything or nothing” can be a neurodivergent impulse, but it’s also how a taste of the sublime works.

The nature of aporia in “Suspended in Gaffa” is cinematic. There’s the title, obviously, referring to the line “am I suspended in gaffa?,” itself a reference to gaffer (or “gaffa”) tape, which is commonly used in film and stage productions. The laboriousness of cinema is inferred a few times (“it all goes slo-mo”), as reflections and manipulation, staples of cinema, get pulled into the mix. Bush even goes quasi-Lacanian at one point; nudging herself with “that girl in the mirror/between you and me/she don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere at all,” a moment of amusing self-deprecation”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982

I am going to wrap up now. On 2nd November, it is forty-one years since There Goes a Tenner was unleashed in the U.K. and Ireland to follow from The Dreaming (that single was released on 26th July, 1982). If it was a chart bomb, the song itself is great and deserves a lot more love. Bush’s singles from Hounds of Love fared much better. Lighter, with distinct choruses and subjects/lyrics more relatable, there was this deliberate move from her to connect with the charts and put out music that was more accessible to many. Suspended in Gaffa is a terrific song that was vastly different to anything that was around in 1982. I like them both. They are very different. I will look at the final single released from The Dreaming, Night of the Swallow, closer to its anniversary on 21st November. I wanted to look ahead to 2nd November and forty-one years of the single release of There Goes a Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa. The Dreaming is an album that has always divided people. At the very least, it has not gained the appreciation and respect it deserves! From 1980’s Never for Ever, there was a distinct change. Bush solo producing for the first time. Music very much in her image. She did make another big change with Hounds of Love. Perhaps there was this move to make an artistic statement. Reacting to people who defined her by a particular sound. Felt that she was a middle-class girl who was making twee Pop music. A very serious and hugely accomplished album, many critics still couldn’t shake off those image. Accept her as a serious producer and artist. All these years later, I feel more people have more fully embraced songs like There Goes a Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa. I, for one, have a lot of good things to say about these…

TWO awesome songs.

FEATURE: National Album Day 2023: From Stores to Radio…How to Get Involved in the '90s Action

FEATURE:

 

 

National Album Day 2023

  

From Stores to Radio…How to Get Involved in the '90s Action

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ON Saturday (14th October)…

 IMAGE CREDIT: ekaterinaku via Freepik

it is National Album Day. A day that celebrates the importance of the album, there is a lot to look forward to. On BBC Sounds, you will be able to access the National Album Day-related episodes of Sounds of the 90s with Fearne Cotton. Even if you have never heard the show, you will get a great double-bill where Fearne Cotton and fellow broadcasters Vernon Kaye and Dermot O’Leary (who both present their own '90s shows on the BBC) will mark the special day. The theme of National Album Day this year is the 1990s. The iconic and diverse nature of the decade. I am going to repeat some things I put in a previous National Album Day feature recently. It is an important day. I will end with ways to get involved; why the album is booming, and the fact that the 1990s is very much in vogue at the moment. First, in terms of some great reissues and rarities, this article from the official website of the National Album Day discusses what you can get:

“National Album Day today announces the exclusive list of limited edition 90s albums that are being released for the annual event celebrating the art of the album on Saturday 14th October. The special titles will be available to purchase in retailers across the UK on NAD itself, and can also be pre-ordered from 9am on Wednesday 13th September.

Held on Saturday 14th October, National Album Day will celebrate the 90s and the milestone of 75 years of the album format. National Album Day is presented in association with official audio partner Bowers & Wilkins and official broadcast partner BBC Sounds. Last week, music icons Gabrielle, Declan McKenna, Tricky and Nuno Bettencourt were announced as this year’s NAD artist ambassadors.

Albums being reissued or released for National Album Day (See full list at end)

One of the UK’s most successful and beloved artists, National Album Day ambassador Gabrielle has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in recent years. To mark the start of her huge ‘30 Years of Dreaming’ headline tour, Gabrielle’s No.1 third solo album Rise is being reissued on vinyl. A huge commercial success, the album spent three weeks at No.1 on the UK Albums Chart and  achieved 4× Platinum status, with the iconic title track also topping the UK Singles Chart.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby proved to be Fatboy Slim’s global breakthrough album on its release in October 1998, peaking at No.1 on the UK Albums Chart and earning him a Brit Award. To mark its 25th anniversary, the album has been remastered at half speed in the best available audio quality possible for National Album Day.

It’s been 30 years since the release of blur’s second studio album Modern Life Is Rubbish, regarded as one of the defining releases of the era which saw the band continue to revolutionise the sound of English popular music. This National Album Day, fans can get their hands on a special limited edition of the record on 2LP transparent orange vinyl.

R.E.M.’s eighth studio album Automatic for the People received widespread critical acclaim upon release in 1992, when it reached No. 1 in the UK and went on to top the UK Albums Chart a further three times the following year. The record produced some of the band’s best-known songs including ‘Everybody Hurts,’ ‘Man on the Moon,’ and ‘Nightswimming’. A limited edition 180-gram yellow LP reissue of the album will be released exclusively on National Album Day

Originally released in 1997, Time Out of Mind is hailed as one of Bob Dylan's best albums, going on to win three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year in 1998. The record will be re-released on limited edition 2LP clear gold vinyl.

Garbage’s second studio album Version 2.0 was heralded as a bold progression from their self-titled debut album upon its release in 1998, and went on to sell over four million copies worldwide, matching the success of its predecessor. This 2LP Gatefold Vinyl comes as an exclusive for National Album Day, and is the first time the record has been pressed on transparent blue coloured vinyl.

Dannii Minogue’s hit third studio album Girl, which featured the UK Dance Chart topping singles ‘All I Wanna Do’, ‘Everything I Wanted’ and ‘Disremembrance’, has been remastered and reissued for National Album Day, and will be available on 2LP and as an expanded CD box set, featuring a wealth of exclusive material.

Pop group S Club are releasing a picture disc edition of their platinum selling debut album ‘S Club’ on vinyl for the very first time, featuring the smash hit singles ‘Bring It All Back’, ‘S Club Party’ & ‘Two In A Million / You’re My Number One’.

Dinosaur Jr. celebrate the 30th anniversary of the indie rock classic Where You Been with an exclusive limited edition reissue on double splatter vinyl. It received widespread critical acclaim on release and was the band’s first UK Top 10 album.

Grace is the only studio album by American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, originally released on August 23, 1994. Frequently cited by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time, it features Buckley’s definitive cover of Hallelujah. The album will be reissued on lilac wine coloured vinyl.

Legendary hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan released their iconic debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) on November 9, 1993. Its gritty, distinctive sound created a blueprint for hardcore hip-hop during the 1990s and is regarded as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. The record is being pressed on limited edition gold marbled vinyl for its 30th anniversary,

Full list of National Album Day titles below:

808 state - ex:el (2LP)

Ace Of Base - Happy Nation (Picture Disc Vinyl)

Babybird - Ugly Beautiful (2LP)

Belinda Carlisle - Live Your Life Be Free (Picture Disc Vinyl)

Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish (2LP Transparent Orange Vinyl)

Bob Dylan - Time Out Of Mind (2LP Clear Gold Vinyl)

Catatonia - International Velvet (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Dannii - Girl (2XLP / 4CD Box Set)

Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been (Limited Edition Double Splatter Vinyl)

Duster - Stratosphere (25th Anniversary Edition) (1LP Clear & Black Splatter Vinyl)

Eternal - Always and Forever (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Fatboy Slim - You've Come A Long Way Baby (2LP Half-Speed Remaster)

Gabrielle - Rise (1LP)

Garbage - Version 2.0 (2LP Blue Colour Vinyl)

Ginuwine - The Bachelor (2LP Red Vinyl)

Hole - Live Through This (1LP)

Idlewild - Captain (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

James - Laid (2LP)

James - Gold Mother (2LP)

Jeff Buckley - Grace (1LP Lilac Wine Vinyl)

Leftfield - Leftism (2LP White & Black Marbled Vinyl)

Lighthouse Family - Ocean Drive

Marc Almond - Tenement Symphony (2LP / Deluxe 6CD/DVD)

Melanie C - Northern Star (1LP)

Nas - It Was Written (2LP Gold & Black Vinyl)

Neneh Cherry - Man (1LP)

Paul Weller - Wild Wood (1LP)

REM - Automatic For The People (1LP Yellow Vinyl)

Robert Miles - Dreamland (2LP)

S Club - S Club (1LP)

Shola Ama - Much Love (2LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Simply Red - Blue (1LP Blue Vinyl)

Siouxsie - The Rapture (2LP)

Songs: Ohia - Songs: Ohia (Colour Vinyl)

Songs: Ohia - Axxess & Ace (Colour Vinyl)

Stereophonics - Performance & Cocktails (1LP)

Stone Temple Pilots - Purple (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque (1LP Transparent Yellow Vinyl)

The Corrs - Forgiven, Not Forgotten (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

The Cranberries - Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? (1LP)

Tricky - Maxinquaye (3LP, 1LP & 2CD) *Released Friday 13th October*

Various Artists - The Virgin Suicides (Music From The Motion Picture) (1LP Recycled Colour Vinyl)

Various Artists - HELP (12”)

Various/V4 Visions - V4 Visions: Of Love & Androids (2LP Clear Smoke Vinyl)

Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers) (1LP Gold Marbled Vinyl)

Now in its sixth edition, National Album Day sees the music community come together each year to celebrate and promote the art of the album. This year’s 90s theme will look to shine a light on a profoundly rich decade for music and album making that skipped between Britpop, Dance and Hip Hop; gave us national treasures Take That and global phenomenon the Spice Girls; and saw diverse genres ranging from dance, house and techno to R&B, rap and reggae and to grunge and industrial rock, among many others, rise to reach their full cultural expression –  in the UK and globally”.

Each year, some chosen ambassadors are nominated. They act as a sort of face and voice of the theme. An artist relevant to what is being themed and represented. As it is about the '90s, we have legends like Shola Amo and The Corrs lending their support. Here are some more details:

“National Album Day today announces music legends Shola Ama and The Corrs as the two new artist ambassadors, alongside Gabrielle, Declan McKenna, Tricky and Nuno Bettencourt. National Album Day, held on Saturday 14th October, will celebrate the 90s this year and 75 years of the album format. National Album Day is presented in association with official audio partner Bowers & Wilkins and official broadcast partner BBC Sounds.

BRIT Award winner, Shola Ama is known for her soul and R&B sound. Making herself known in the industry in 1995, Shola released her biggest single ‘You Might Need Somebody’ in 1997 and followed with her debut album ‘Much Love’ that year. Shola has also earned various prestigious accolades throughout her career including a Brit Award for Best British Female and two MOBO Awards. Since then, Shola has created three more albums and recently released her newest R&B single ‘Not Us’.

Shola Ama says “Overjoyed to be an ambassador for NAD celebrating the 90’s. The late 90’s was Such a great time for British music, especially for UK Soul and R&B , and now just over 25 years since the release of my album “ much love “ it’s been really nice to get the chance to revisit some songs and memories from that time and celebrate the album with a vinyl release - I love that vinyl is coming back into fashion”.

Originally from Dundalk, County Louth in Ireland, The Corrs are a Irish family band that combine pop rock with traditional Irish themes. Starting their career gigging in local pubs around Ireland in 1990, the renowned band has gone on to release seven albums, including their platinum selling album ‘Talk on Corners’. After performing all over the world, the band is now sharing their pop rock and folk tunes with thousands as they tour Australia and New Zealand later this year.

The Corrs say “We're delighted to be ambassadors for this year's National Album Day to celebrate the art of the album! Forgiven, Not Forgotten was our debut album originally released 28 years ago back in 1995. Its release came at such a special moment in time for us and it's been a real pleasure revisiting the memories as we've put together this special limited edition recycled colour vinyl.”

Now in its sixth edition, National Album Day sees the music community come together each year to celebrate and promote the art of the album. This year’s 90s theme will look to shine a light on a profoundly rich decade for music and album making that skipped between Britpop, Dance and Hip Hop; gave us national treasures Take That and global phenomenon the Spice Girls; and saw diverse genres ranging from dance, house and techno to R&B, rap and reggae and to grunge and industrial rock, among many others, rise to reach their full cultural expression – in the UK and globally.

National Album Day is again presented in association with official audio partner Bowers & Wilkins and official broadcast partner BBC Sounds, and will pay tribute to artists who tell their stories behind these significant and influential bodies of work. Artist ambassadors tied into the theme – both those that came to the fore during the 1990s and current new and emerging talent that are inspired by its music; specially reissued albums and new releases; and promotional events and other activities will be announced in due course alongside further updates.

Since its launch in 2018, NAD has been supported by a broad range of artist ambassadors, including Kylie Minogue, Joy Crookes, Sharleen Spiteri, Lewis Capaldi, Mark Ronson, La Roux, Elbow, Paloma Faith, Blossoms, Alice Cooper, Novelist, Tom Odell, Mahalia, Toyah Willcox and Jazzie B. Last year Franz Ferdinand, India Arkin, KSI, The Mysterines, Sam Ryder, and The Staves were the latest talents to add their voices as passionate advocates of the long player. Typically benefitting from around a week-long build up, NAD has hosted a variety of activities such as listening events with album platforms including Classic Album Sundays, Pitchblack Playback, The Record Club, Tape Notes and Tim’s Listening Party; live performances; in-store artist appearances and record store promotions, street art murals; and album sleeve artwork exhibitions.

Renowned audio brand, Bowers & Wilkins, continues its support for National Album Day as official audio partner. Built on a passion for music, Bowers & Wilkins has been on an unrelenting pursuit of the highest quality listening experiences for music fans for over 60 years, always delivering sound that remains true to how the artist intended their album to be heard. National Album Day will announce an extensive list of exclusive 90s albums on 13th September that are being released or reissued on vinyl and CD to coincide with this annual event celebrating the art of the album”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

Album sales are doing terrific business in the U.S. More and more people are buying albums on format like vinyl, C.D. and cassette. Vinyl sales are going up in the U.K. The first six months of this year saw a rise - which continued recently. There is a great appetite for vinyl. The fact that National Album Day marks a decade where people were buying albums on physical forms means that there will be a lot of sales of '90s vinyl released to mark the day. I hope that the embrace of the decade also sees a revival in cassette and C.D. sales. Both formats are still alive, though they still to keep up with vinyl. Maybe they do not have the same appeal, though there are less expensive and, therefore, really accessible to many. I think that this is one of the very best and most exciting National Album Days. I will round off with advice for people who want to get involved locally. You can check them out yourself. There are numerous articles arguing why the 1990s was the greatest music decade. It is an opinion I share myself. However, that could be the fact I was a teenager in the decade and, therefore, had those formative experiences and exposure! New genres were born; others were taken to new places. From the hardware formats like cassette and C.D., portable devices like the Discman, through to the music T.V. and all the music shows we had to choose from, it was a verdant and hugely exciting time! Also, as the article below states, the 1990s is very much back now. It has never gone away…yet you can hear so many modern artists nod to the '90s. Colossal mainstream queens like Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama have elements in their music. Artists such as beabadoobee and Dua Lipa were growing up in that time, so that music is relevant to them.

I think that is a fair point. One that is also covered by a second article I will bring in. Artists in their twenties and thirties now were either experiencing the 1990s' music first-hand, or they were young in the early-'00s - and getting exposure from older friends. Maybe their parents handed down and played 1990s music. Sounds of the decade played a lot on radio no doubt inspired them. This is why National Album Day’s '90s salute is perfectly timed! As this feature highlights, there are clear and understandable why the music and sounds of that wonderful time are very much fresh and current now:

“There are several reasons why ’90s music is still popular nowadays. Firstly, the theme of the ’90s was highly influential and innovative. In addition, it was a time when created many new genres and sub-genres. This meant that there was a lot of variety in the music of the time and still appreciated today.

Secondly, the artists of the ’90s were highly talented and charismatic. They connected with their fans in a way that is still rare today. This connection made their music even more special to those who listened.

Thirdly, the lyrics of 90’s songs were often very relatable and personal. This made them resonate with listeners in a way that is still relevant today. Fourthly, the production values of 90’s music were often very high. This made the songs sound fresh and exciting years after they were first released.

Finally, we cannot underestimate the nostalgia factor. For many people, the music of the 90s brings back happy memories of their youth. This nostalgia can make people appreciate the music even more.

The different genres of 90’s music

It’s no secret that music from the 90s is still popular today. Many of the different genres of music that were popular back then are still going strong. Here are just a few examples:

Hip hop – This genre of music was huge in the 90s and is still strong today. There are many different sub-genres of hip hop, but the overall sound is still the same.

R&B – Another massive genre in the 90s, R&B is still popular today. Many of the biggest names in music started in this genre, and it continues to be among the most popular genres.

Pop – Pop music was also trendy in the 90s, and it’s still going strong today. Many of the biggest hits from that decade are still played on the radio today.

Rock – While rock music wasn’t as prominent in the 90s as in previous decades, many great bands and artists still made music in this genre. Today, rock is still strong, and there are many different sub-genres to choose from.

Metal – Metal was another genre

The influence of 90s music

The influence of ’90s music can still be seen and heard today, even though some people may not realize it. Today’s famous artists and bands started in the 90s or have been heavily influenced by the music of that decade.

The 90s was a time when various genres of music were starting to become more popular. Grunge and alternative rock were rising, while hip hop and R&B were also becoming mainstream. This diversity in music led to many different sounds and styles being created, which are still present in today’s music.

One of the biggest reasons why ’90s music is still popular is because it was a time when anyone could make it big. There were no rules or specific genre requirements that artists had to follow. This allowed for creativity and experimentation, which today’s music scene lacks.

If you’re a fan of ’90s music or just curious about what made it so special, there are plenty of ways to enjoy it today. You can listen to radio stations that play only 90’s hits, or you can find online streaming services that specialize in this type of music. You can even find some great 90’s

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa

The rise of streaming services

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in the way people consume music. The rise of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music has made it easier for people to listen to their favorite songs. This has led to a resurgence in popularity for many older artists and new artists who can reach a wider audience than ever before.

One of the biggest reasons for its continued popularity is that they have been able to adapt to the changing landscape of the music industry. They were one of the first artists to embrace streaming services, and they continue to release new music that resonates with their fans. In addition, they have maintained a strong presence on social media, which has helped them stay relevant in the modern era.

Music is still popular because they have been able to evolve with the times. They have remained relevant by releasing new music and staying active on social media. In addition, their willingness to embrace new technologies has helped them reach a wider audience.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why ’90s music is still popular today:

The 90s was a time of change and experimentation in the music industry, which led to the development of new genres and sub-genres.

The technology of the time allowed for greater access to music and made it easier to produce and distribute.

Artists from the 90s remained popular thanks to their dedication and willingness to evolve with the times”.

The more we celebrate and play music from the 1990s, the more contemporary artists will utilise and harness that. Even Beyoncé, whose music career started in the 1990s, owes a debt to the decade (if you listen to a lot of the songs on her latest album, Renaissance). I will finish off in a second. First, The New York Times published a feature in 2020 that argued that, for artists in their twenties, the modern time is like the 1990s all over again:

“Artists like Ariana Grande (b. 1993), Normani (b. 1996), Charli XCX (b. 1992), Troye Sivan (b. 1995), Summer Walker (b. 1996) and SZA (b. 1990), among others, have in various ways begun to riff on the Y2K-era pop of their childhoods, creating songs and music videos that feel like they are recalling and subsequently rewriting their earliest musical memories.

Nineties nostalgia is of course nothing new — the pop-cultural landscape has long been littered with hallmarks of the early part of that decade, like flannel and “Jock Jams”-worthy athleisure, and the revivalist sounds to match. But time marches on, and so, too, does that roughly 20-year cycle of the old becoming stylishly new again. And now the halcyon, almost-forgotten pop artifacts of the late ’90s — boy bands, winking futurism, inordinate amounts of glitter — are being dusted off and refurbished by today’s younger stars.

The fashion and design worlds got to this future nostalgia first. In 2016, Evan Collins started a popular Tumblr called the Institute for Y2K Aesthetics, which one write-up described as a compendium of “Baby G watches, Britney Spears cradling a robot dog, a shimmering pink bean-shaped Walkman, [and] inflatable backpacks.” Last July, GQ ran a piece about why, suddenly, “Y2K-era gear became the hottest thing in the vintage-clothing world.” Bold, label-obsessed and often future-fixated, the style of that window of time between 1995 and 2001 was the result of, as the writer Erin Schwartz noted, a “jumble of excitement and anxiety about the spread of technology at the turn of the millennium.”

So was the music. The Y2K era coincided with the rise of the glistening, Swedish-engineered, factory-efficient teen pop of Britney Spears, ’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, as well as the futuristic R&B of TLC, Destiny’s Child and Aaliyah. What united all these sounds was a cyborgian fusion of the “artificial” and the “real”: the acoustic guitar lick trapped beneath the frosty digital sheen of TLC’s “No Scrubs,” the hammering piano riff that underscored Spears’s digitally processed “oh-baby-baby.” (Rest assured; though not a girl, she was not yet a robot.)

Back then the music industry was still heedlessly optimistic and flush with cash — not yet stymied by streaming services or even fully feeling the effects of file sharing. (Napster debuted in June 1999 and shut down in July 2001.) So many labels were happy to make bets on potential new stars or shell out money for high-concept music videos. Everything was, to quote the longest-running No. 1 song on MTV’s popular early-aughts video countdown “TRL,” larger than life.

It can be surreal to process nostalgia for eras that feel like they just happened — for so long (perhaps because we never settled on a decent thing to call them), “the 2000s” were simply the present. But if aesthetics are easier to see in hindsight, so, too, are their expiration dates. The Y2K bug certainly didn’t send us retreating into our canned-good-stocked bunkers — we’d only have to wait 20 years for a pandemic to take care of that — but two very different unforeseen events would burst the music industry’s maximalist, techno-utopian bubble instead: the rise of file sharing, followed by the solemn shock of 9/11. Suddenly the future didn’t seem as bright.

But the music of the Y2K moment remains, a glorious, extravagantly budgeted, neon-hued dream forever frozen in that moment right before the alarm clock brrrrring-ed it back to reality. And as the internet makes it easier than ever to revisit the pasts we yearn for, millennium-pop will continue to hold an escapist allure. In the YouTube comments section for the 2001 Jennifer Lopez video “I’m Real,” one viewer writes, wistfully, “I came here for the late 90s early 00s sparkle sound”.

Not to stay too far away from the point and focus of this feature – celebrating National Album Day on 14th October -, it is important to give context. Rather than this '90s nostalgia in modern music being a fad or very new thing, it has been building and evolving over the past few years - or maybe even before that some would say. I seriously love it! I also hope that artists look to other periods. I guess, if you grew up around '90s music and that is your generation, you may not be that aware of music from the 1960s. Even so, there is so much gold to be extracted from that time! Artists are keeping 1990s music fresh and adding their own spin. There are events taking place for National Album Day; ways too you can share your celebrations. Follow National Album Day on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I hope they brand out in years to come to TikTok and YouTube. Maybe doing their own Spotify playlists and podcasts. In any case, it is a day where we can celebrate the 1990s and albums from the time. People who remember getting those albums in the 1990s, or those who are younger and are new top it. It will be a wonderful celebration of…

A magic decade!

FEATURE: Long, Long, Long: The Beatles' The Beatles at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Long, Long, Long

  

The Beatles' The Beatles at Fifty-Five

_________

OTHERWISE known as the ‘White Album’…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles (John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison) on 28th July, 1968 during the famous ‘Mad Day Out’ shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Goldblatt via The Beatles

I am going to bring in some features and details around The Beatles’ 1968 eponymous album. Released on 22nd November that year, it was a sprawling and wonderfully eclectic double album from the band. Whereas there were splits starting to form – various members would use different spaces and studios at Abbey Road (then-EMI) to get tracks down -, I don’t think there was as much tension between Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison as has been documented. Starr did leave when Paul McCartney criticised his tom-tom playing on one track (I think Back in the U.S.S.R.). He returned soon after, only to find his drum kit garlanded in flowers. John Lennon got proper stressed with McCartney playing Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da over and over. That frantic piano coda that you hear at the start was Lennon’s abgry (yet inspired) response! There were times when Lennon would listen to a McCartney recording and make suggestions. They were still very much invested and friends - though that idea of them recording in the same studio was not broken. For anyone who saw Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, the guys did start to jam and perform together when writing Let It Be (released in 1970). I am going to do some other features about The Beatles ahead of its fifty-fifth anniversary next month. I will talk about their spiritual retreat to Rishikesh and what impact that had on their relationships and music. I will also rank the thirty tracks. I might also discuss the impact and legacy of The Beatles and where it fits in their canon – and how critics have reviewed it through the years. I am going to come to some reviews for the album. I want to do some housekeeping before moving on. Recommend podcasts, videos, books and sources where one needs to go to learn more about The Beatles. In terms of its making and impact, there is so much to discuss – that I cannot accomplish in this first feature.

You can own The Beatles on vinyl here. There are also options here. In terms of podcasts, I can thoroughly recommend the two-part chat David Quantick had for I am the EggPod (part 1 is here; part 2 is here). You should also get Quantick’s book about the album, Revolution: The Making of The Beatles’ White Album. Another book worth owning is Brian Southall’s The White Album: The Album, The Beatles and the World in 1968. I am going to get to some features that explore the story behind and recording of The Beatles. First, The Beatles Bible go into detail about the band’s ninth studio album. I have selected the sections that discuss the background to the album, in addition to some of the events and atmosphere in the studio when the band were recording:

“Recorded: 30, 31 May 1968
4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28 June 1968
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 July 1968
9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30 August 1968
3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25 September 1968
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 October 1968

Producers: George Martin, Chris Thomas, John Lennon, Paul McCartney

Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Peter Bown, Ken Scott, Barry Sheffield, Ken Townsend

Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)

John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, organ, Hammond organ, harmonium, harmonica, tenor saxophone, drums, timpani, percussion, tape loops, effects, samples, handclaps

Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, six-string bass guitar, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, organ, Hammond organ, electric piano, flügelhorn, recorder, drums, tambourine, bongos, percussion, handclaps

George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, Hammond organ, drums, percussion, samples, handclaps

Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, tambourine, bongos, castanets, sleigh bell, maracas, percussion, effects, handclaps

George Martin: piano, celesta, harmonium

Eric Clapton: lead guitar

Chris Thomas: piano, Mellotron, harpsichord, organ, electric piano

Yoko Ono: vocals, effects, samples, handclaps

Mal Evans: backing vocals, trumpet, handclaps

Pattie Harrison, Jackie Lomax, John McCartney: backing vocals, handclaps

Maureen Starkey, Francie Schwartz, Ingrid Thomas, Pat Whitmore, Val Stockwell, Irene King, Ross Gilmour, Mike Redway, Ken Barrie, Fred Lucas, various others: backing vocals

Jack Fallon, Henry Datyner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas, Bernard Miller, Dennis McConnell, Lou Sofier, Les Maddox: violin

John Underwood, Keith Cummings, Leo Birnbaum, Henry Myerscough: viola

Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey, Frederick Alexander: cello

Leon Calvert, Stanley Reynolds, Ronnie Hughes, Derek Watkins, Freddy Clayton: trumpet

Leon Calvert: flügelhorn

Tony Tunstall: French horn

Ted Barker, Don Lang, Rex Morris, J Power, Bill Povey: trombone

Alf Reece: tuba

Dennis Walton, Ronald Chamberlain, Jim Chester, Rex Morris, Harry Klein: saxophone

Art Ellefson, Danny Moss, Derek Collins: tenor saxophone

Ronnie Ross, Harry Klein, Bernard George: baritone saxophone

Raymond Newman, David Smith: clarinet

ncredited: 12 violins, three violas, three cellos, three flutes, clarinet, three saxophones, two trumpets, two trombones, horn, vibraphone, double bass, harp

The Beatles’ ninth original UK album, and their 15th in the United States, was their first double-length release. Commonly known as the White Album, the self-titled collection of 30 songs stands as a majestic cornucopia of styles, born from one of the group’s most creative periods.

The background

Although financially secure, critically and commercially acclaimed, and assured as figureheads of popular music, by the summer of 1968 The Beatles were in a degree of turmoil. The previous year they’d achieved possibly their crowning glory in Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and suffered their first major artistic failure in the Magical Mystery Tour television film.

By 1968 The Beatles’ world had changed immeasurably from their early days. Having stopped touring in 1966, they were set free to explore the possibilities from inside the studio, and began enjoying the time that their fortunes allowed. Their musical output may have slowed from the mid-1960s, but their creativity was as strong as ever.

After Sgt Pepper changed the world, the world keenly awaited The Beatles’ next step. They had released just the six-track Magical Mystery Tour EP and the ‘Lady Madonna’ single since then, and there was widespread speculation in the press that they were a spent force.

While recording the album, the group was in the process of launching the multimedia business Apple Corps, while coping with various upheavals including drug busts, changing relationships and substance abuse.

The Beatles were old hands at dealing with such pressure. They turned away from the elaborate excesses of Sgt Pepper, recording instead a simple collection of 30 songs under an even simpler name: The Beatles.

George Martin later claimed he had wanted the group to omit the album’s weaker songs and focused instead on producing a solid single-disc release.

I thought we should probably have made a very, very good single album rather than a double. But they insisted. I think it could have been made fantastically good if it had been compressed a bit and condensed. A lot of people I know think it’s still the best album they made. I later learnt that by recording all those songs they were getting rid of their contract with EMI more quickly.

George Martin
Anthology

Ringo Starr agreed with the sentiment.

There was a lot of information on the double album, but I agree that we should have put it out as two separate albums: the ‘White’ and the ‘Whiter’ albums.

Ringo Starr
Anthology

Despite its faults as a collection, Paul McCartney stood by the album, saying that the wide variety of songs was a major part of its appeal.

I think it was a very good album. It stood up, but it wasn’t a pleasant one to make. Then again, sometimes those things work for your art. The fact that it’s got so much on it is one of the things that’s cool about it. The songs are very varied. I think it’s a fine album.

I don’t remember the reaction. Now I release records and I watch to see who likes it and how it does. But with The Beatles, I can’t ever remember scouring the charts to see what number it had come in at. I assume we hoped that people would like it. We just put it out and got on with life. A lot of our friends liked it and that was mainly what we were concerned with. If your mates liked it, the boutiques played it and it was played wherever you went – that was a sign of success for us.

Paul McCartney
Anthology”.

The Beatles began recording the White Album on 30 May 1968, shortly after Apple Records was set up. The first song to be attempted was ‘Revolution 1’, at the time just known as ‘Revolution’.

Recording continued througout the summer of 1968. The Beatles also recorded the single ‘Hey Jude’/‘Revolution’ in July 1968, although neither song was ever considered for inclusion on the album.

Although the early sessions were harmonious, with The Beatles working together to make the best of each others’ compositions, by the third month tensions began to rise. While recording the album, the group was in the process of launching the multimedia business Apple Corps, while coping with various upheavals including drug busts, changing relationships and substance abuse.

While not all of the White Album recording sessions were strained, there were frequent conflicts and disagreements within the group. The authority of George Martin, who had closely steered The Beatles during their formative years, began to wane during the sessions, and he was still much in demand by other recording artists.

At one point Martin spontaneously left to go on holiday, leaving his assistant Chris Thomas to produce the group. Often The Beatles found themselves essentially working alone with EMI’s engineers.

For the first time I had to split myself three ways because at any one time we were recording in different studios. It became very fragmented, and that was where my assistant Chris Thomas did a lot of work, which made him into a very good producer.

George Martin
Anthology

On 16 July the group’s engineer Geoff Emerick, who had played a key role in developing The Beatles’ recordings since Revolver, quit the sessions, announcing that he was no longer willing to work with the group.

With no-one taking overall control, the sessions often drifted without direction, with The Beatles recording numerous takes in an attempt to find inspiration. Among these was a 27-minute version of ‘Helter Skelter’. Another song, George Harrison’s ‘Not Guilty’, had more than 100 takes before it was abandoned; it remained unreleased until Anthology 3 in 1996.

Many of the songs were recorded as mostly solo efforts, with different Beatles occupying separate studios at the same time. Paul McCartney became used to working alone, although since Sgt Pepper he had taken a dominant role in recordings and was often happy to work on ideas without the rest of the group.

I remember having three studios operating at the same time: Paul was doing some overdubs in one, John was in another and I was recording some horns or something in a third. Maybe it was because EMI had set a release date and time was running out.

George Harrison
Anthology

On the White Album McCartney’s ‘Wild Honey Pie’, ‘Mother Nature’s Son’, and ‘Blackbird’ were all recorded without the other Beatles, and ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’ was a spontaneous recording produced by McCartney and recorded with a little help from Ringo Starr.

On 20 August, McCartney was working on the brass overdub for ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ when John Lennon and Ringo Starr entered, as engineer Ken Scott later recalled:

Paul was downstairs going through the arrangement with George [Martin] and the brass players. Everything was great, everyone was in great spirits. Suddenly, half way through, John and Ringo walked in and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. An instant change. It was like that for ten minutes and then as soon as they left it felt great again. It was very bizarre.

Ken Scott
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn

Two days later Starr walked out of the band. Although he rejoined within a fortnight, for a while it was intended as a permanent departure. The Beatles recorded ‘Back In The USSR’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ without him.

I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn’t playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider… I had a rest and the holiday was great. I knew we were all in a messed-up stage. It wasn’t just me; the whole thing was going down. I had definitely left, I couldn’t take it any more. There was no magic and the relationships were terrible. I’d come to a bad spot in life. It could have been paranoia, but I just didn’t feel good – I felt like an outsider. But then I realised that we were all feeling like outsiders, and it just needed me to go around knocking to bring it to a head.

I got a telegram saying, ‘You’re the best rock’n’roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you.’ And so I came back. We all needed that little shake-up. When I got back to the studio I found George had had it decked out with flowers – there were flowers everywhere. I felt good about myself again, we’d got through that little crisis and it was great. And then the ‘White’ album really took off – we all left the studio and went to a little room so there was no separation and lots of group activity going down.

Ringo Starr
Anthology”.

Recorded between Abbey Road Studios and Trident, London, The Beatles went to number one around the world upon its release in 1968. Before the anniversary on 22nd November, I want to take a moment to properly get inside a fascinating work! Whilst many say the album is variable in quality, one cannot deny that some of the band’s classics can be found. From George Harrison’s Long, Long, Long to Paul McCartney’s Blackbird and Back in the U.S.S.R. to John Lennon’s Happiness Is a Warm Gun and Revolution 9. Before getting to a couple of reviews, there are three features I want to source from – the last of which argues The Beatles is the band’s best albums. I am going to start out with a feature from The New Yorker from 2018. They talk about this “accidental perfection” of the album. I want to bring in their words regarding the album’s background. From when The Beatles arrived back in the U.K. from India. Those first stages:

“Upon returning to England from Rishikesh, India, in April, 1968, John Lennon and George Harrison stripped and sanded the psychedelic paintwork off of their Gibson J-160E and Casino guitars; Donovan, one of the many musicians who had accompanied them to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram for an advanced transcendental-meditation course, had told them that this would improve the sound. “If you take the paint and varnish off and get the bare wood,” Harrison explained later, “it seems to sort of breathe.” This stripping away of psychedelic symbolism was part of a larger campaign that the band undertook to remove the layers of Beatles mythology, habit, and convention that had accumulated since their beginnings, as Liverpool teen-agers—before Germany and America, before Astrid Kirchherr’s arty portraits had fetishized their mop-top haircuts, before Ed Sullivan and “A Hard Day’s Night,” and Shea Stadium, and the rest of it. Psychedelia, and the Beatles’ influential participation in it, had peaked with the release of their landmark 1967 album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the surrealist tracks on which had beguiled the world and, many said, inspired the Summer of Love. The American political theorist Langdon Winner observed, “The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album was released. . . . At the time I happened to be driving across the country on Interstate 80; in each city where I stopped for gas or food—Laramie, Ogallala, Moline, South Bend—the melodies wafted in from some far-off transistor radio or portable hi-fi. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Sgt. Pepper” had its detractors: the British critic Nik Cohn complained that “it wasn’t much like pop. . . . It wasn’t fast, flash, sexual, loud, vulgar, monstrous or violent. . . . Without pop, without its image and its flash and its myths, [the Beatles] don’t add up to much. They lose their magic boots, and then they’re human like anyone else; they become updated Cole Porters, smooth and sophisticated, boring as hell.” “ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go anywhere,” Lennon observed years later; the next record, he believed, would be a chance “to forget about ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and get back to making music.” Brian Epstein, the record-store manager who discovered and managed the Beatles, had died unexpectedly in August of 1967; without Epstein, without the pressures and demands of touring (which they had stopped after 1966), and having reached this apparently historic peak of artistic and worldly success and fame, the Beatles were finally free from all constraints and paternal influences. When they eventually soured on meditation and the ashram culture—as Lennon would relate in his savage renunciation, “Maharishi” (eventually renamed “Sexy Sadie”)—there were, finally, no father figures left at all.

The sojourn in India, led by Harrison, had been an attempt to start over, accelerating the stripping-away process that would culminate in their most ambitious musical project. “I remember talking about the next album, and George was quite strict,” McCartney said. “He’d say, ‘We’re not here to talk music—we’re here to meditate.’ ” But the songwriting—inspired by the locale, the Maharishi’s lectures, and, especially, the impromptu celebrity community there—had accelerated, and Lennon soon sent a postcard to Ringo Starr (who had tired of meditation sooner than the others and returned to London), saying, “We’ve got about two LPs worth of songs now, so get your drums out.”

The Beatles’ transition from performance to studio work, and the atomized process it allowed and encouraged, now reached its apotheosis. George Martin, who was the Beatles’ Maxwell Perkins, producing all but one of their albums, explained, “The ultimate aim of everybody [had been] to try and recreate on records a live performance as accurately as possible. . . . We realized that we could do something other than that.” “Sgt. Pepper” is a simulacrum of a performance, the concert crowds replaced by recorded cheering, but the new record would remove this narrative crutch. Also gone was the picturesque subject matter: the street landscapes and polite courtships, the elderly couples and fumbling suitors and office workers trapped in suburban patterns, intruded upon by surrealism, like figures in Magritte paintings. In their place would be a clear, raw vision of an unsafe, chaotic world.

 PHOTO CREDIT: David Refern/Getty Images

As McCartney recounts in his notes accompanying the new edition, “We had left Sgt. Pepper’s band to play in his sunny Elysian Fields and were now striding out in new directions without a map.” The Abbey Road studios became the Beatles’ safe space, where, as McCartney writes,“the tensions arising in the world around us—and in our own world—had their effect on our music but, the moment we sat down to play, all that vanished and the magic circle within a square that was The Beatles was created.” Fitting together like a novel or a painter’s canvas, “The Beatles” abandons psychedelia for a more sophisticated set of aesthetic principles, embracing the avant-garde: Lennon had begun spending time with a new girlfriend, the conceptual artist Yoko Ono, who had been associated with the Fluxus movement, a group that pledged in its manifesto to “purge the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, illusionistic art, mathematical art . . . promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote living art, anti-art, promote non art reality to be fully grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals [and] Fuse the cadres of cultural, social & political revolutionaries into united front and action.”

“The Beatles” is as much a concept album as “Sgt. Pepper,” and the concept is, again, right in the title: a top-to-bottom reinvention of the band as pure abstraction, the two discs, like stone tablets, delivering a new order. (“By packaging 30 new songs in a plain white jacket, so sparsely decorated as to suggest censorship,” Richard Goldstein wrote in his New York Times review, “the 
Beatles ask us to drop our preconceptions about their ‘evolution’ and to hark back.”) The songs progress through a spectral, mystical, and romantic dimension, the soundscape itself becoming fluid and associative. The Beatles’ ability to conjure orchestras and horns and sound effects and choirs out of thin air imbues the tracks with a dream logic. The juxtaposition of order and disorder, of the ragged and the smooth, of the sublime and the mundane, of the meticulously arranged and the carelessly misplayed, provides what the critic John Harris called “the sense of a world moving beyond rational explanation.” The music seemed to absorb the panic and violence of 1968, the “year of the barricades.” As the Sunday Times critic commented, “Musically, there is beauty, horror, surprise, chaos, order; and that is the world, and that is what the Beatles are on about: created by, creating for, their age”.

PopMatters tackled the ”glorious, quixotic” mess that is The Beatles’ 1968 album. The fact that so many reviews and features call the album a ‘mess’ is not really an insult! It is a thirty-track album with all sorts of genres and sounds put together. Lord knows how much of a headache is must have been to sequenced the album to ensure that it was gripping from start to finish?! Is there one or two of the four sides that is imbalanced and a little stronger than the rest?! These are questions fans have been having since The Beatles arrived:

“Blackbird” is another solo recording by McCartney, a beautiful piece about the civil rights movement. It’s deceptively complex, with multiple signature changes as McCartney finger-picks his guitar and taps his foot for the beat. With its charming melody, McCartney’s sweet vocal and the uplifting nature of the lyrics, a strong argument could be made that “Blackbird” is McCartney’s strongest piece on the album.

Not quite so nice is Harrison’s snide “Piggies”, a bitter diatribe against society’s greed. Chris Thomas plays the harpsichord, which happened to be in the studio for a classical recording set to take place the next day. The Baroque string section arranged by Martin was added later. The classical pretensions only render the juvenile lyrics all the more jarring — it’s a thin joke of a song. Too bad Harrison’s “Not Guilty”, a track the band attempted to record numerous times before ultimately setting aside, didn’t fill this slot — it’s far superior.

The third animal-song in a row finds McCartney continuing his survey of every musical style possible with his wonderfully ridiculous country and western adventure “Rocky Raccoon”, a folk parody that even features a lively barrelhouse piano solo (played by Martin and sped up). The whole thing is rather absurd, from the exaggerated Western accent McCartney affects in the spoken-word intro, to the lyrics: “Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy”. Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, “Rocky Raccoon” has a certain goofy charm.

The first composition by Ringo to appear on a Beatles’ album is the countrified “Don’t Pass Me By”, a shambolic novelty that adds another layer to the White Album’s idiosyncratic weirdness. With awkward lyrics (“You were in a car crash, and you lost your hair”) and clunky piano (amplified through a Leslie speaker to give it that Hammond organ feel) that plods away laboriously, “Don’t Pass Me By” is a bit of a mess — and yet it’s endearing all the same. Starr recorded the song with the always-willing McCartney’s help — Lennon and Harrison don’t seem to have participated. The wily fiddle busking over-top of the chaos is played by respected jazz musician Jack Fallon.

Hastily recorded near the end of the album’s sessions, McCartney’s quirky blues shouter “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” is another figure in the White Album’s collection of curios. The idea apparently sprung from McCartney witnessing two monkeys casually copulating while the band was in India. He delivers a killer rock vocal over the rumbling piano and Ringo’s rock-steady rhythm.

The band mischievously sequences a song about rutting in a roadway alongside an absolutely lovely romantic ballad, “I Will”. Airily brief at under two minutes, “I Will” harkens back to the Beatles’ earlier days, especially with the vibrant acoustic guitar riff that blooms between verses. McCartney uses his voice instead of his guitar for the bass part, giving the track a charming homespun feel.

Lennon’s stunning “Julia” occupies the final slot on Side Two. A poignant ode to his late mother (and also to Yoko Ono), “Julia” was the final song recorded for the album. It’s dreamy and deeply felt, just Lennon over a finger-picked acoustic guitar. As “Martha My Dear” offers a glimpse into McCartney’s future solo career, so does “Julia” for Lennon. It could easily have fit on either Plastic Ono Band or Imagine. Indeed, one of the key tracks on Imagine, “Jealous Guy”, is a similar piece also written around this time and demoed for the White Album as “Child of Nature”.

Disc Two begins with another McCartney blues-rocker, “Birthday”. Built on a ferocious guitar riff that originated in a jam session, McCartney wrote it quickly in the studio and the band recorded it the same evening. Given its simplistic lyrics “Birthday” really should be a throwaway but it works thanks to one of the band’s better group performances on the album. Although never a single, “Birthday” has become something of a standard over the years and is arguably the most widely-known track on the album. It’s followed by Lennon’s ragged “Yer Blues”, which the band perversely recorded jammed together in a tiny storage room adjacent to the main studio. The result is a sloppy mess, with a piercingly shrill guitar solo and a jarring edit at the 3:17 mark. The track seems at least partly a satirical stab at some of the white-boy blues that was percolating in England at the time, but despite this Lennon’s vocal has some genuine feeling and it hints of things to come (“Cold Turkey”, in particular).

We go from Lennon’s haywire suicidal blues to McCartney’s tranquil “Mother Nature’s Son”, a lovely acoustic guitar ballad that had no involvement from the rest of the band. “Mother Nature’s Son” is folksy, prosaic, and another stylistic notch on McCartney’s musical bedpost. Martin arranged the four-piece brass section which adds a warm glow of color to the otherwise stark acoustic recording.

After the nice lull, things heat up quickly with Lennon’s electrifying rocker “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey”. Lennon’s vocal is particularly manic, Harrison’s guitar work is blistering, the rhythm is kinetic, and there are shouts of exuberance audible in the background. McCartney madly clangs a fireman handbell through much of the song, adding to the general cacophony and excitement.

Another track, another trip. This one is world-weary cynicism and disillusionment. “Sexy Sadie” is Lennon’s bitter repudiation of the Maharishi over unfounded rumours that he made a pass at one of his sexy young adherents. Musically the slow grooving piano-based number is at least partially inspired by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and ends up as one of the White Album’s more polished productions.

There’s nothing polished at all about “Helter Skelter”, however, McCartney’s attempt to record the loudest song he possibly could. John, Paul and George all bash away madly on their guitars, and Ringo slams into his kit with reckless abandon. The track has been much mythologized, thanks in large part to Charles Manson’s violent delusions. “Helter Skelter” is certainly a blunt force trauma to the head of a song, the most extreme rock the Beatles ever recorded. It’s oddly off-kilter and out of tune, a hurricane of irreverent messiness that exemplifies the ethos of the White Album perfectly.

As with many pieces on the White Album, there seems to be a parodic aspect to it, as McCartney tries to out-Who the Who, whose guitarist Pete Townshend was famous for smashing his guitar at the end of a gig. After the long fade out, it fades back in, before Ringo lets rip with a drum roll and that famous ad-libbed shout, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”

In keeping with the White Album’s gloriously perverse nature, the Beatles follow the loudest song with the softest, Harrison’s whispery “Long Long Long”, a lovely waltz infused with palpable spiritual longing. Harrison gently strums an acoustic guitar, McCartney handles the bass and the beautifully whirring Hammond organ, and Ringo displays some deft drum-work — Lennon isn’t on the recording at all. “Long Long Long” is perhaps most notable for its weird spectral ending, with Harrison wailing like a wounded ghost while the band members rattle their instruments ominously”.

In 2018, the BBC argued why you could make a case that The Beatles is the band’s best work. The Fab Four released something too epic, wide-ranging and good to be refuted. I think the weaker songs help in a way. It makes the album more human and interesting:

“The White Album’s working title was A Doll’s House, and it could be compared to a shambling mansion, with ballrooms, bedrooms, nurseries, cellars, and rooms full of junk that are rarely visited. It starts with a joke and ends with a lullaby. Between those two points, this omnivorous record takes bites out of folk, blues, rock’n’roll, ska, country, doo-wop, psychedelia, Tin Pan Alley, musique concrete and easy listening, while offering previsions of prog-rock and heavy metal. Happiness is a Warm Gun alone is three songs in one. Songwriting inspirations include a box of chocolates, a gun magazine, a Little Richard movie, Mia Farrow’s sister, monkey sex and, on the barbed wind-up Glass Onion, The Beatles’ own history.

The White Album was the first major release to deploy incoherence as a deliberate artistic strategy. It contains space-fillers even though there’s no space that needs filling, and is sequenced in such a way as to accentuate its jumbling together of the archaic and the avant-garde, the meaningless and the profound, the generous and the toxic, the ragged and the luminous, the spiritual and the profane, the desperately moving and the too silly for words. Many of John Lennon’s cryptic contributions are an assault on rationality itself. To be an editor is to presume that somehow The Beatles got it wrong and would rather have released 45 minutes of bangers. To be a sprawler is to embrace that rare, intoxicating quality that you might call everythingness. Perhaps that is why they called it The Beatles. This is what The Beatles is in 1968, the title implied. All of it. The whole damn mess.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios to start recording on 30th May, and administered the finishing touches on 14th October (1968)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Over the years we’ve learned almost everything there is to know about the circumstances of its creation. We know that due to various rows, sulks and walkouts, the first stage of the band’s disintegration, all four Beatles appear on fewer than half the songs. We know about Yoko Ono’s contentious presence, Ringo’s huffy absence from Back in the USSR, John’s contempt for Paul’s “granny music shit”, and so on. We know that they were less than a year away from the last time that they all stood in a studio together, although in the newly released demos we can also hear that there was still plenty of fun to be had, despite those fissures. Even at the time, I imagine, one could hear pop’s quintessential gang of mates splintering into four individuals, and their musical fusions unravelling into discrete genre exercises. Listening to it is like watching an explosion in slow motion.

‘Wild, whirling spirit’

The White Album therefore made a fitting capstone for one of the most wildly eventful years of the 20th Century. The Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios to start recording on 30 May, and administered the finishing touches on 14 October. During that period, Charles de Gaulle quelled the student protests in Paris; Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague; Robert F Kennedy was shot dead in Los Angeles; James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King; the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was marked by violence and chaos to the delight of Republican candidate Richard Nixon; the Ba’ath Party seized power in Iraq; the Tet Offensive concluded in Vietnam; the Troubles began in Northern Ireland; Andy Warhol mounted his first exhibition in Britain (and survived an assassination attempt); feminists protested the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City; censorship in British theatres came to an end, prompting the cast of Hair to take to the stage naked; Britain’s first abortion clinic opened its doors; and Nasa launched the first manned Apollo mission (Apollo 7). And that was just the 20 weeks while the Beatles were in the studio.It was an everything-at-once kind of year.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles on their Transcendental Meditation course in India/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

The White Album explicitly acknowledges almost none of this. On the rare occasions that it is political, it is muddled, petty or vague. John Lennon was so conflicted about that spring’s wave of protests that he hedged his bets on Revolution 1 (“Don’t you know that you can count me out… in”), and his inscrutable Stockhausen-inspired sample collage Revolution 9 obscured more than it revealed. Only decades later did Paul McCartney reveal that Blackbird was meant to be an ode to the women of the civil rights movement. George Harrison’s Piggies is a sour pellet of misanthropy fired at anyone foolish enough to be ordinary. Most of the songs were written during a Transcendental Meditation course in India, a long way from the barricades of Paris or Prague.

Some ‘68 radicals resented The Beatles’ distance from the frontlines (and scolded Lennon to his face) but The White Album didn’t need to describe the year’s events in order to capture its wild, whirling spirit. Like Radiohead’s OK Computer or the Specials’ Ghost Town, it is one of those records where a band’s internal turmoil mingled with the unrest of the wider world: by being true to their own tensions and insecurities, The Beatles connected powerfully with those of their listeners. To many people, 1968 felt exciting, infuriating, liberating, terrifying, funny, sad, depressing, exhausting and bewildering.

Between the tumbling madness of Helter Skelter, the helpless spectatorism of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the suicidal grind of Yer Blues, the macabre whimsy of Rocky Raccoon, the defeated sigh of I’m So Tired, the hallucinatory swoon of Dear Prudence, the sonic maelstrom of Revolution 9, and the gentle stoicism of I Will, here was an album that expressed every emotion and its opposite. If you felt that things were falling apart and the centre could not hold, then, boy, did The Beatles have the perfect record for you. In the Sunday Times newspaper, Derek Jewell wrote that The Beatles were “created by, created for, their age”.

In a far less enduring review, New York Times critic Mike Jahn dismissed the album as “hip Muzak, a soundtrack for head shops, parties and discotheques,” and unfavourably compared it to jazz-rock group Blood, Sweat and Tears. Oops. But I can sympathise with anyone tasked with reviewing The White Album the week it came out, because even now it’s impossible to summarise. That’s what keeps it alive. Its illustrious predecessor Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band can feel, decades later, like a snow globe of 1967: exquisite, of course, but sealed tight, impermeable to new interpretations. The White Album feels roomy, unguarded and, in some peculiar way, malleable. Every time I hear it, there’s always something I’ve forgotten or can’t pin down.

On the face of it, one of the busy, dissonant Pop Art collages that made Richard Hamilton famous might have been a more apt sleeve design for such a teeming album, but his blank-slate minimalism sends a different message: make of this what you will. As EM Forster said of Herman Melville’s novel, “Moby-Dick is full of meanings: its meaning is a different problem.” Fifty years later, in another era of upheaval, dislocation, paranoia and confusion, The White Album remains pop music’s great white whale: forever enthralling, forever elusive”.

I will finish up with a couple of reviews. As you can imagine, The Beatles received near-perfect reviews from many upon its release. It is one of those albums where most of the reviews give it five stars. AllMusic were appropriately impressed by a staggering work from a band heading in different directions:

“Each song on the sprawling double album The Beatles is an entity to itself, as the band touches on anything and everything it can. This makes for a frustratingly scattershot record or a singularly gripping musical experience, depending on your view, but what makes the so-called White Album interesting is its mess. Never before had a rock record been so self-reflective, or so ironic; the Beach Boys send-up "Back in the U.S.S.R." and the British blooze parody "Yer Blues" are delivered straight-faced, so it's never clear if these are affectionate tributes or wicked satires. Lennon turns in two of his best ballads with "Dear Prudence" and "Julia"; scours the Abbey Road vaults for the musique concrète collage "Revolution 9"; pours on the schmaltz for Ringo's closing number, "Good Night"; celebrates the Beatles cult with "Glass Onion"; and, with "Cry Baby Cry," rivals Syd Barrett. McCartney doesn't reach quite as far, yet his songs are stunning -- the music hall romp "Honey Pie," the mock country of "Rocky Raccoon," the ska-inflected "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and the proto-metal roar of "Helter Skelter." Clearly, the Beatles' two main songwriting forces were no longer on the same page, but neither were George and Ringo. Harrison still had just two songs per LP, but it's clear from "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," the canned soul of "Savoy Truffle," the haunting "Long, Long, Long," and even the silly "Piggies" that he had developed into a songwriter who deserved wider exposure. And Ringo turns in a delight with his first original, the lumbering country-carnival stomp "Don't Pass Me By." None of it sounds like it was meant to share album space together, but somehow The Beatles creates its own style and sound through its mess”.

I will end with Pitchfork’s deep review in 2009. They awarded it a perfect ten when they provided their thoughts. Many share that sort of passion and praise for the album. The Beatles still sounds truly breathtaking fifty-five years after its release:

“The Beatles, the band's complex and wide-ranging double album from 1968, is all of these things. It's a glorious and flawed mess, and its failings are as essential to its character as its triumphs. People love this album not because every song is a masterpiece, but because even the throwaways have their place. Even so, for the Beatles, being all over the place was a sign of trouble. The disintegration of the group as one "thing" is reflected in every aspect of the record, from its recording history (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison sometimes worked in separate studios on their own songs) to its production (generally spare and tending to shapeshift from one song to the next) to the arrangements of the songs (which tend to emphasize the solo voice above all). Visual changes were also apparent. Until The Beatles, the group's album artwork tended to depict the band as a unit: same haircuts, same jackets, same costumes, same artist's rendering. But The Beatles was packaged with separate individual color photos of John, Paul, George and Ringo, and they now appear almost forebodingly distinct. All of a sudden, the Beatles neither looked nor sounded like a monolith. So soon after Pepper and the death of manager Brian Epstein in 1967, the writing was on the wall.

But the backstory of The Beatles, while fascinating, is inessential to the album's appeal. Yes, they wrote most of it in India on acoustic guitar, while on a pilgrimage of sorts in early 1968 to see the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Some of Lennon's songs, including "Sexy Sadie" and "Dear Prudence", are based directly on the group's disillusioning experiences there. But it's the spectral, floating mood of "Prudence" and Lennon's playful, faintly condescending vocal in "Sadie" that stay with you. And while we know that Lennon's new love, Yoko Ono, was a regular presence during the session, much to the rest of the band's chagrin (McCartney has claimed that she would sometimes sit on his bass amp during a take, and he'd have to ask her to scoot over to adjust the volume), and that her influence on him led to the tape collage "Revolution 9", the more important detail is the final one, that the biggest pop band in the world exposed millions of fans to a really great and certainly frightening piece of avant-garde art.

In one sense, "Revolution 9" almost seems like The Beatles in microcosm: audacious, repetitive, silly, and intermittently dull, but also pulsing with life. If the individual Beatles hadn't been on such a songwriting roll during this time or if the album hadn't been sequenced and edited so well, The Beatles could easily have been an overlong slog, a Let It Be x2, say. But somehow, almost in spite of itself, it flows. The iffy jokes ("Rocky Raccoon", "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", "Piggies") and genre exercises (Lennon's aggro "Yer Blues", McCartney's pre-war pop confection "Honey Pie") are enjoyable, even without knowing that another gem is lurking around the next corner.

If The Beatles feels more like a collection of songs by solo artists, they've also each got more going on than we'd realized. John is even more hilarious than we'd imagined, wanting nothing more than to puncture the Beatles' myth ("Glass Onion"), but he's also displaying a disconcerting willingness to deal with painful autobiography in a direct way ("Julia"). Paul's getting disarmingly soft and fluffy ("Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "I Will"), while simultaneously writing the roughest, rawest tunes in his Beatles oeuvre ("Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Helter Skelter"). George is finding a better way to channel his new Eastern-influenced spiritual concerns into a rock context, while his songwriting toolkit continues to expand ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Long Long Long"). And even Ringo Starr writes a decent song, a country & western number with weirdly thick and heavy production ("Don't Pass Me By"). Listening as the tracks scroll by, there's a constant feeling of discovery.

But ultimately, the thing about this record is that the Beatles sound human on it. You feel like you're really getting to know them, just as they're starting to get to know themselves. Their amazing run between the latter part of 1965 through 1967 made them seem like a band apart, infallible musical geniuses always looking for another boundary to break. Here, they fail, and pretty often, too. But by allowing for that, they somehow achieve more. White Albums come when you surrender to inspiration: you're feeling so much, so intensely, that you're not sure what it all means, and you know you'll never be able to squeeze it all in”.

On 22nd November (25th November in the U.S.), 1968, The Beatles arrived and created a bang. A year after the planet-conquering Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, we were hearing a very different band. A thirty-track album where they were pushing sonic and lyrically boundaries like never before, what they released was a masterpiece! Last year, The Independent ranked The Beatles as the fourth-best from the band. Far Out Magazine put it in the same position a few years ago. Ultimate Classic Rock put it third in 2015. NME ranked it in fifth in their 2012 feature. No matter where you place it in relation to the other album, one cannot deny the sheer gravity and importance of the album. You can read more here in regards how The Beatles was received at the time and in the years since. It is a long, long, long album…though it is one that will…

STAY in the memory forever.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Dorian Electra

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Dorian Electra

_________

THERE are those artists…

making consistently interesting and amazing music who maybe do not get the exposure that they deserve. That is certainly the case when it comes to Dorian Electra. They are a Houston-born singer and songwriter. Their debut studio album, Flamboyant, was released in 2019. That was followed by their second studio album, My Agenda, in 2020. The stunning Electra is known for their non-conforming fashion, Queer aesthetics, and original and memorable Pop sound. Electra is genderfluid and uses they/them pronouns. I am going to get to some recent press around the album, Fanfare. That was released on 6th October (the vinyl is available to pre-order). Whilst it has won a smattering of very positive reviews, I feel more people need to hear the album and offer their thoughts. Before that, I feel it is important to go to that debut album and some of the interviews around that. In fact, I will bring in The Guardian’s talk with Dorian Electra from July 2019. They had released their amazing debut. Getting a lot of people talking. Quite right too. Flamboyant was definitely one of the key debut albums from 2019:

“Invariably, queer pop stars worship David Bowie, and Dorian Electra is no different. “My dad got me into Bowie from a really young age,” they say. “I looked up to androgynous rock stars.” What’s less common is worshipping Bono. “He was one of my heroes as a kid. I know, funny: everyone hates him. But I really loved him, and used to dress up as him. That was one of my first experiences in what I guess you could call drag, but I would call dressing up. I performed the song Vertigo, just for my family – I drew on a little beard with my stepmom’s eyeliner.”

And so, with a home performance of a U2 song, Electra set off on the way to becoming the most lively and witty new pop star of 2019. Assigned female at birth but now defining as gender-fluid, they are about to release their debut album: a brilliant collection of ultra-synthetic, cartoonishly masculine pop, delivered wearing a perfect pencil moustache.

Dorian and Electra are the first two names on their birth certificate, along with two more that they ask me not to divulge (along with their age). “I’ll tell all about everything else!” And boy, do they – their diagnosed attention deficit disorder triggers more than 10,000 words down the phone during our conversation, sentences constantly interrupted with a newer, even more interesting thought.

Electra grew up in Houston to an artist mother and a father who performed covers in a rock band after work: “He’s not the best singer, but he’s got the moves.” The couple split when Electra was five; after that, their mother dated women. “When I was eight, I was like: ‘So this friend of yours is always staying over, are you a lesbian?’ She was like: ‘Yeah, honey, I am.’ And I was like: ‘That’s OK.’ I knew those other options were open to me.”

As a kid, they felt “really androgynous: I wasn’t into the things girls were into, but I hated sports, or playing with GI Joe. I always identified with the word kid more than girl or boy.” In high school, they would have crushes on boys, “but I didn’t feel like a girl liking a guy. Love stories in movies were very alienating to me.”

One of their teachers, an out, “Oscar Wilde type figure” who also worked as the coach of the debating team, beguiled Dorian and the group of “nerdy boys” they fell in with. “We were … I’m hesitant to say the word brainwashed, because that takes away my agency, and he did come from a good place. But basically I was brainwashed to think the state was evil, that you can’t use government to do anything good, because it is an institution of force.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Dorian Electra in concert at Elsewhere, New York, May 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: Adela Loconte/REX/Shutterstock

The teacher was a libertarian, and his politics shaped Electra’s whole youth: one of their earliest viral hits was a song called I’m In Love With Friedrich Hayek, a ballad to the economist who influenced Reagan and Thatcher’s free-market ideology. “I watch a lot of documentaries about people coming out of cults, because I really relate to that,” Electra says. “Where it’s a charismatic leader, of young impressionable people, who are all very passionate and want to change the world. And then being led by this charisma into these ideas that now I’m really embarrassed by.”

For Electra, flamboyance is a symptom of camp, an “inherently queer” state. “Camp sees outside of the status quo, and also has a sense of humour, to cope with it, that’s knowing but also sincere.” No wonder they are about to go on tour with Charli XCX, another pop star who walks that line. Electra recently appeared in a music video by one of the masters of modern camp, Paris Hilton, and they celebrate Hilton’s “over-the-top self-awareness, in a camp way: her being a parody of herself, but a really savvy businessperson in her branding. The coolest thing about her is that she still has the finger on the pulse of where she stands culturally, whereas you see a lot of people like that lose touch, and think they are still perceived as the person they were back then.”

Like a vaping Freud, it is tempting to do some armchair psychology: when Electra dresses up as a matador, a gladiator and a boxer for the song Man to Man, is it to hide their vulnerability? “I wonder how much of me loving these masculine things – dressing up like a knight or a cowboy – how much of these things are not good, and maybe a product of my own internalised misogyny,” they ponder. “But I do feel very empowered and strong. I’m always so grateful for the support system I’ve had emotionally, and being able to be who I am. Maybe my work offers that to other people – maybe it resonates because they are finding strength in reclaiming the things they were bullied by, or were told they couldn’t be a part of. I can be a gladiator in a cultural sense.” In that sense at least, Dorian Electra is slaying”.

Before coming to a review for Fanfare, I want to look at one interview that was released in 2020. Dorian Electra was talking about their second album, My Agenda. Someone who was on a lot more people’s radar – compared to their debut a couple of years before -, this METAL interview is really interesting. We learn some really interesting things about Electra. I have selected some parts of the interview that particularly caught my eye:

“You are an artist who has seen great success in this digital era thanks to your playful hyperpop and immersive music video worlds. How has the Internet influenced the birth and life of Dorian Electra?

I started making music videos online in high school and uploading them to YouTube. It was really on MySpace that I first felt I could make music videos, have an audience and online community. Having that audience and connection to people through the Internet gave me a sense of purpose. Otherwise, it was just making a video on my dad’s camera with some friends when I was in middle school or earlier.
Audience and purpose play a large part in the work that I do and in feeling like it’s connected to a community. The Internet absolutely has been a huge part of that. As an independent artist too, the Internet has been so powerful to get my work out there totally independently, to distribute it, have it reach people, and for them to share it.

Awesome. Watching your videos, I felt like you expressed a political activist side from when you were very young. I guess you are tired of talking about the “I’m in love with Friedrich Hayek” video that launched your career. But I can see your opinions have changed a lot since then, and I’d love to hear you talk about that.

I don’t believe in a lot of the same politics that I used to believe in. I used to identify as libertarian and I was brainwashed by a teacher in high school into that ideology. Since then, I went to college, read Karl Marx and a whole bunch of books that opened my mind. Now I identify as a leftist, and the educational aspect is still something that’s core to my work as an artist. That’s something that’s always interested me: how to take complex ideas and put them into a catchy, accessible format that is potentially accessible to anybody. My work about the history of the clitoris, sexuality, gender – all of those videos were also early work that I think of as ‘before,’ but it was influential for me. I still think about my music in a lot of the same ways even though it’s not as explicitly educational.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Rutherford (SN37 Agency)

That’s cool. So, your new deluxe version of the album My Agenda made me think of this linguistic slip, a mistake, that cisgender people make when they’re talking about trans and non-binary people’s gender by saying agenda rather than gender, which I find really funny. I don’t know if that was something that you’re referencing, but I want to move our conversation towards talking about whether this album is potentially a response to anti-trans discourses, despite the fact your music and art go far beyond gender identity. I want to know more about this activist side of you that comes out in the new album.

Definitely, this album is about a lot of things, but it is also about gender, sexuality, and particularly masculinity, like my previous album, Flamboyant. It also extends beyond that and goes more political. It explores the manosphere that includes men’s rights, incels, men going their own way – those kinds of online communities that reject modern feminism and want to see a return to traditional gender roles and traditional masculinity, who feel like their identities are somehow under attack. That often gets coupled with other forms of reactionary politics. These things are present in our culture but are often swept under the rug, misunderstood or written off rather than analysed. Yet, those strange political strains helped allow Donald Trump to be elected.

These cis white heterosexual men feel disenfranchised, disempowered, and like the world is against them. The solution is to stop and think why those people feel that way, what is causing them to take on hateful ideas like anti-immigration or racism, or other forms of right-wing populism. The left could be better at this. We need to look at the causes of those ideologies in order to be able to combat them. It has to start from a place of empathy and understanding in order to be able to reach out and ultimately hope to heal, or convert people. I think that it’s actually very important to face head-on the things we don’t agree with rather than staying in echo chambers. Right now we’re seeing increasing political polarisation and social atomisation, where we all feel separate and fractured as a culture.

So, I think that that’s my political calling – to look at things critically but also with empathy, even towards something that is hateful and you don’t agree with. We have to understand the causes to be able to combat it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Rutherford (SN37 Agency)

That’s so important. Thank you so much for going into detail about that. I’m going to try and intersperse slightly more light-hearted questions as we also cover the more political side of your work. So, do you think that humour is a good way to introduce change?

Absolutely, I think humour is one of the most powerful political tools. It can be used for good and for bad. And it’s very important to be aware of how we’re wielding that irony. It can be used as a political tool on a personal level to talk about gender identity, sort of poking fun at things that have been viewed as sacred, and sort of showing the historical social contingency of some of these things that are thought to be natural or permanent, like gender identity and so forth. I think humour is a healthy way to challenge people with the same ideas and introduce them to new ones.

There is a lot of ambiguity around the similarities and differences between you as a person and the characters you perform. Talking about your song Career Boy, you admitted you can overwork yourself to some extent. Did the pandemic aggravate that?

Yes, I think that my relationship with work has changed a lot in the past year and a half. When you’re forced to slow down and your work is reduced to what’s on the computer screen in front of you, it makes you look at it in a different way. Particularly when your work includes running around, travelling, doing errands, etc. – all of those were cut out of everyday life. I’m still feeling the effects of it and readjusting whilst also trying to find ways that I can relax and do things that are good for me that I didn’t do before the pandemic. But I was extremely busy for the majority of 2020, I didn’t take any time off. I was working on getting my album out and doing music videos. So, I definitely still relate to the stuff I said about Career Boy. But I’m trying to change that and challenge myself to look at things in a healthier way.

What are the things that you’re finding useful to unplug and relax at the moment?

I started listening to audiobooks, which is funny – I never did that before. I’ve joined a reading group but I keep questioning what I did with my time before.

I read recently that young people, my age, in their early twenties, are starting to get botox because of the way it is talked about on TikTok. It made me think of the conflation of youth, rebellion and the future – these contemporary ideas make it appear so normal. Where do you stand?

It’s a hard one to say. I think people should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their bodies. But also, the mounting pressure can be unhealthy. I’ve thought about the same things. To me, trans people undergoing feminisation surgery put it in perspective. You should have the power to use technology to shape your body but do it with an awareness of the social pressures. Josh just wrote an amazing article. He’s been doing an experiment on himself that’s very 4Chan, to boost testosterone levels. He chews this gum and does exercises to define his jaw called mewing. It’s like he’s transitioning, but he’s transitioning to be more masculine as a cis male. He’s mansitioning.

I wholeheartedly support all of my trans friends who make use of those services. I am lucky I can disconnect from those social pressures, particularly because my face is not on my work. My final question is: I love the artistic trajectory of the film director Jean-Luc Godard, who started by renewing the art form and then went incredibly experimental aged 80. Is this what we can expect from you?

I hope that I am always changing and evolving as an artist and pushing myself forward. I want to try my hand at more pop before delving into the more experimental, although to me that is a false dichotomy. Personally, I find [myself in] that happy medium. Pop is catchy or memorable – it can be experimental production-wise, but it’s more of an ethos than a sound. I want to break down the dichotomy”.

I can’t find any print interviews with Dorian Electra about their new album. In any case, the reviews are all very positive – and they give you an idea of what the album is about. This is what The Line of Best Fit noted in their review of the fabulous Fanfare:

“Though, to be fair, their first two albums had already made that pretty clear. 2019’s Flamboyant was a thumping, glittering pickaxe to masculinity, paving the way for the opulent absurdity of 2020’s My Agenda. Their eclectic sound earned them the slightly ham-fisted term ‘hyperpop’ alongside the likes of Charli XCX and SOPHIE, but really their sound is resistant to any such labelling. Spanning time, space, and several sticky dance floors, their music offers a cutting social commentary set to a miscellanea of noise cranked up high. On Fanfare, it is parasocial relationships and internet-inflicted brain rot on the chopping block for dissection.

One thing that’s always been impressive about Electra is their range: their discography is a racket of oscillating vocal contortions thrashing against snarling guitars, glitching production and stomach-punching bass. Fanfare is much the same story, with Electra able to keep a strong enough grip on all the disparate parts to stop true chaos ensuing. “Sodom and Gomorrah” is the undeniable standout, channelling all the sultry power of Spearsian 00s pop with added guitar crunch. Inspired by the divine destruction of two sinful cities, the track is a hymn to queer reclamation – or, in Electra’s words, “a bratty, slutty, sexy song.”

It’s followed by “Puppet”: a characteristically bawdy cut, its acutely left-of-field instrumental burying a slightly mangled rendition of Beethoven’s “Für Elise” that, somehow, actually works. Later, the five and a half minute epic “Yes Man” laments the blind, mindless praise feeding parasocial relationships. At the outset it appears comparatively stripped back – but fear not, it soon descends into a bouncing echo chamber of sinister laughter and Electra’s pleads to “cut the fucking fanfare.”

Lyrically, Electra has an established practice of running sentiments of various sincerity through a Gen Z translator. It’s how we’re left with “touch grass / shake that ass” on their anthem for the chronically online (“Touch Grass”); on “Manmade Horrors,” the ruin of man is summarised with similar derision (“bought a Che Guevara shirt from Zara / on sale”). While, for the most part, Electra has happily rejected the trend for putting a thousand fried voice notes on an album, “Lifetime” does offer an aggrieved tip on the most ecologically conscious way to dispose of coffee grounds.

Their satirical, ludicrous sense of humour runs throughout the record, informing more than just the lyrics. For instance, the outro on the otherwise swaggering “anon” bravely asks the question, “what would happen if you put a drum beat in a blender?” Elsewhere, “Warning Signs” ends with Electra singing in the round over a building instrumental and marching drums, an unexpected recall to the emo classics. At almost every turn this record has a new surprise to offer, showing off an artist that can truly turn their hand to anything.

Fanfare is technically a matured sound from Electra’s sophomore outing, if only because there’s less literal screaming this time round. Nothing quite reaches the visceral, brain-rattling energy of “Ram It Down,” for instance, but that still leaves more than enough scope for Electra’s kaleidoscopic vision. Their third album is a triumph of creativity and organised chaos, confirming their status as a cult sensation”.

A truly remarkable album from an artist that everyone should know about. I am going to keep an eye on Dorian Electra, as I think they are primed for mainstream success! It is hard for gender-fluid artists to get as much visibility at the front as other artists. It is quite difficult to break through in that sense. The media not paying as much attention to gender-fluid and non-binary artists as they perhaps should. Let’s hope that this changes! I only recently discovered Dorian Electra. I have been hooked on their music. I love the interviews and live performances. I know they have an L.A. show soon. After that, or into next year, maybe Electra will come visit the U.K. There are fans over here that would love to see them! One of the most compelling artists of the modern times, more focus needs to be on them. Fanfare is one of the best albums of this year without a doubt. One that you are hit by on the first visit. When you pass through after that, different moments and songs reveal treasures and new layers. In any case, the wonderful Dorian Electra is a sensation that is very much…

WORTHY of your time.

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Follow Dorian Electra

FEATURE: #BlackHistoryMonth 2023: Songs from the Best Black British Albums of the Past Twenty Years

FEATURE:

 

 

#BlackHistoryMonth 2023

IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Mvula/PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Kasirye

 

Songs from the Best Black British Albums of the Past Twenty Years

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FOR this feature…

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

around Black History Month (#BlackHistoryMonth), I wanted to put together a playlist of songs from the best Black British albums of the past twenty years. These are the acclaimed albums that have highlighted some of the most extraordinary artists of our time. These modern icons whose albums will go down in music history. I am writing a few more features around Black History Month. Delving more into this year in music, alongside a feature around Beyoncé and her upcoming concert film. I am also going to spend some time saluting great Black British talent coming through. Here, I have assorted an extensive playlist with a prime cut from albums released in the past two decades from some exceptional Black British talent. I may have missed some important artists. If anyone does notice any, I will definitely add them to the playlist. With modern British leaders like Little Simz and Stormzy inspiring the next generation, let’s hope that the industry reacts to this. In the past, there have been surveys and findings that show Black creators have been discriminated against or find they need to change their appearance to get noticed. This is something that happens today! Something that impacts even more Black women. To celebrate the extraordinary Black British talent we have in this country, I am pleased to share a playlist of some truly amazing songs – from some world-class albums. These are artists that simply…

CAN’T be ignored. 

FEATURE: Live Support: Aside from the Main Act, Why Gigs Offer So Much More

FEATURE:

 

 

Live Support

 PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Stanley/Pexels

 

Aside from the Main Act, Why Gigs Offer So Much More

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I have been to a few gigs recently…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Anchoress/PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Warring

and three very different brilliant venues. Perhaps the biggest gig I went to is when The Anchoress played Union Chapel, London on 6th October. It was the final night of her autumn tour. She played songs from her 2021 album, The Art of Losing. A few from the new covers album (or ‘album 2.5’ as she said on stage), Versions. I don’t get to many gigs because of budgeting and being quite busy, but when I do I usually go to those in small venues (not in arenas). I usually find that there is a lot to love beyond the main act. You get more of an experience. This all enforces the importance of preserving venues and assuring that we do not lose the incredible variety that we have in this country. In the case of The Anchoress gig, there was a great support artist, Leoni Jane Kennedy. She was also part of The Anchoress’s band. Also brought in for one song was Eaves Wilder. In a fantastic set, not only did I get to see the splendour of The Anchoress. I also got to see so much more. In a historic venue, it was a real experience. It was a great social experience too. Meeting and interacting with fans of hers I had never met. Sharing great stories and musical tastes. I tend to find that louder gigs at larger venues tends to offer fewer social opportunities. The sheer noise and scale of the spaces means it is quite intimidating and lacks something.

That said, you still get a new dynamic when you see mainstream artists on big tours. In addition to the set itself and any support acts, there are visuals and bespoke sets. A real visual and audio experience. What I also think is great about gigs is that they can be a vital outlet for those who might not otherwise be sociable or go out. High ticket prices and travel considerations can mean it is a limited activity - though it something many people look forward to. When it comes to live music, many assume that it is all about that artist and the music they play. I find that there is so much more to going to a gig. Even queuing to get into the venue can provide a lot of connections and conversations. The merchandise stands allow you the chance to support the artist and, in some cases, meet them personally. Less common with huge acts, it is always quite humbling that many acts stay behind after a gig to sign stuff and staff the merchandise table. I do like that gigs offer the chance for people to back and discover a support act. I have seen Iraina Mancini a few times this year and those who have supported her. It is always exciting watching the support artist play and hearing music that you might not have already considered. In addition to the unique and personal benefits and rewards of live music, whether that is discovering new bonds with fans and artists, in addition to the joys of going to a new venue and somewhere that provides real character. It is a chance for fans to hear an artist talk about their songs and personal experiences in a very direct and moving way. You get the music in its most primal and direct way too. There is not the filter of streaming and devices. Music as the great and communal communicator!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Vishnu R Nair/Pexels

There are psychological and physical benefits with live music. Some of which I have experienced recently. At such a stressful time, I have found going to gigs has been a great release and rewarding break. I am going to bring in a couple of features to finish that discuss why live music is so important – and why we really need to support it. A real life support, In 2021,  The Conversation wrote about the magic behind live music:

“For months, fans were relegated to watching their favorite singers and musicians over Zoom or via webcasts. Now, live shows – from festivals like Lollapalooza to Broadway musicals – are officially back.

The songs that beamed into living rooms during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic may have featured an artist’s hits. But there’s just something magical about seeing music surrounded by other people. Some fans reported being so moved by their first live shows in nearly two years that they wept with joy.

As a music theorist, I’ve spent my career trying to figure out just what that “magic” is. And part of understanding this requires thinking about music as more than simply sounds washing over a listener.

Music as more than communication

Music is often thought of as a twin sister to language. Whereas words tend to convey ideas and knowledge, music transmits emotions.

According to this view, performers broadcast their messages – the music – to their audience. Listeners decode the messages on the basis of their own listening habits, and that’s how they interpret the emotions the performers hope to communicate.

But if all music did was communicate emotions, watching an online concert should’ve been no different than going to a live show. After all, in both cases, listeners heard the same melodies, the same harmonies and the same rhythms.

So what couldn’t be experienced through a computer screen?

The short answer is that music does far more than communicate. When witnessed in person, with other people, it can create powerful physical and emotional bonds”.

The pandemic and lockdown really changed how we experienced live music. With most venues closed and artists anchored, they turned to online gigs and trying to deliver something as close to ‘the real thing’ as they could. It was needed and essential – for their financial stability and a way to keep their music out there -, though it made it very clear that you could not replicate all the layers and nuances of a live gig online. It reinforced then and now why live music is so essential. Not only for venues and artists but for society as a whole. This multi-part experience I have talked about witnessing recently is one that thousands have at different gigs. Fly Paper also wrote about the vitality and vitalness of live music for their feature in 2021:

“As live events came to a screeching halt over the past year and half, the benefits of these events and interactions have become more and more apparent. In fact, research shows that regularly attending live music events provides much-needed social encounters, lowers stress hormones, contributes to positive mental feelings at even higher levels than activities like yoga or walking your dog and can even increase your life expectancy by up to nine years.

In this article, we’ll explore the social and physical benefits of seeing live music, and why it’s such an important part of many of our lives.

Social Benefits of Live Music

Live music is, by nature, a shared experience. When you enter a venue to see an artist, you automatically find yourself in a group of people you have something in common with. The lights and the noise of the world outside the venue dim and for that moment, all that matters is you and the people in this room, singing and dancing along to your favorite songs.

Think about the feeling you get when the band or DJ plays the first few notes of your favorite song at a show. The excitement and energy in the air are palpable for everyone in the room. Your sense of self starts to slip away, and for a few moments, you become one with the crowd. You feel energetic and almost giddy as you sing and dance with complete strangers. This contagious sense of euphoric connectedness is called “collective effervescence,” a term coined a century ago by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim.

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Stanley/Pexels

These effervescent experiences fill a human need for belonging in a way that we tend to overlook. Historically, humans met this need for connectedness with groups of others through events like feasts or celebrations, many of which included live music or entertainment. There’s just something about being in a space where art is being created and enjoyed by others that allows one to connect with others on a different level.

Of course, live music is just one example of the ways humans meet this need, some others include protests, attending professional sports events, or interest-based conferences such as ComicCon or DragCon. From ancient customs such as pilgrimages and feasts to more modern methods such as concerts and pro sports, these collective effervescence events help people to lead happier, connected, and more personally meaningful lives by connecting with others.

PHOTO CREDIT: luizclas/Pexels

Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Live Music

Live music helps us to connect with others, but it also improves our physical and mental health in some pretty surprising ways. A scientific study by O2 and a behavioral science expert from Goldsmith’s University revealed that just 20 minutes at a concert resulted in a significant 21% increase in feelings of well-being. Since scholarly research directly links high levels of well-being with an increased lifespan, that means that attending gigs regularly has the potential to increase your life expectancy.

In the same study from O2, they found some key markers that were drastically improved included increases in feelings of self-worth (+25%), closeness to others (+25%), and mental stimulation (+75%). Accompanying research also showed a positive correlation between the frequency of concert attendance and well-being.

Those who attend live concerts more frequently were the most likely to score their happiness, contentment, productivity and self-esteem at the highest levels. This suggests that regularly attending live music events could be key to improving our well-being.

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

Another study by researchers Daisy Fancourt and Aaron Williamon from Imperial College London found that attending a concert lowers stress hormones like Cortisol. Cortisol is produced when the body is under physical or mental stress, and prolonged exposure to this hormone has been associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and impotency.

So, lowering these levels is pretty important. Interestingly, researchers found that it didn’t seem to matter how musical the participants were, or what their background was — the concert appeared to have a pretty similar effect on everyone. They all saw the same show, and regardless of age, experience or whether they were familiar with the content or not, nearly everyone saw decreases in their stress hormones.

Why We Need Live Music

From sold-out stadium tours to an acoustic artist at the farmer’s market, live music allows us to feel connected to others in a unique and beautiful way while lowering our stress hormones and making us feel good about ourselves.

The truth is, we need live music because it’s good for us. It’s good for our communities and relationships with others. It makes us happier, healthier, and more connected people. All of which makes our world a better place to be. So, the next time you’re feeling guilty about indulging in a show, remember you’re just doing your part to make the world a better place”.

If not an activity that I undertake as much as I’d like, the clear and long-lasting benefits of live music are multiple and deep. Away from the obvious satisfaction of watching the artist that you came to see, you also get the social interactions; the chance to explore a new area and discovery a venue you have not been to before. There are also those mental health and physical benefits. More and more, we hear that grassroot venues especially are under threat. Think of all the memories they hold and how many people they have housed through the years. Losing those is a tragedy. The importance of live music is not only about the music. The whole experience can be…

TRULY life-giving.