FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from the Best Albums of 2024 So Far

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Tyla/PHOTO CREDIT: Annie Reid

 

Songs from the Best Albums of 2024 So Far

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FOR this Digital Mixtape…

IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé

I am going to put together songs from the best albums of the year so far. It has been a busy and fantastic year for new music. Although it is a subjective measure, I am taking songs from the best-reviewed and received albums of 2024. There will be ones that you know, though there may be a few albums and artists you might not have heard of. The playlist shows what a strong and varied year we have had so far for music. Quite an exceptional array of work from some tremendous artist. As we are now in April, we can look back at the first few months of the year. Take a listen to the exceptional collection of tracks from the best albums of this year so far. Looking at the quality in there, it bodes well for the rest of 2024. It is intriguing to thing just how many wonderful albums will be released…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Smile/PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Lebon

BEFORE the year is through.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Fabiana Palladino

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

Fabiana Palladino

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WITH her eponymous…

debut album now out in the world tomorrow (5th April), there is new attention and focus on Fabiana Palladino. The London-based artist is an exceptional talent that everyone should know. Do go and get her album. I will come to some spotlighting and attention around the amazing Fabiana Palladino. I will also include some biography. First, Rough Trade provide some details about an extraordinary album:

“Fabiana Palladino releases her hotly anticipated self-titled debut album. The UK vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer releases Fabiana Palladino via Paul Institute / XL Recordings.

Made in the wake of the end of a long relationship, the album is an intimate record that sees Fabiana Palladino confront complex questions about love, loneliness and normativity in relationships. The result is a 10-track full-length of shapeshifting sonics that draws inspiration from the big R&B, Soul, Pop and Disco studio productions of the 80s and 90s and filters them through a modern lens. Written and self-produced by Palladino, the album features performances from renowned musicians and close friends including Paul Institute co-founder Jai Paul, her father and legendary session bassist Pino Palladino, brother and Yussef Dayes bassist Rocco Palladino, renowned drummer Steve Ferrone and strings from Rob Moose.

Speaking on the new music and album, Fabiana Palladino says:

“A central theme of the album is aloneness. Whether it’s a song where I’m searching for connection with someone else, or trying to embrace the aloneness, it tends to come back to me, who I am when I’m alone, what I feel when I really look inwards. I’d say it’s a pretty introspective record overall. The songs are often about trying to go deeper into yourself, exploring your true feelings and how they then relate to and affect your relationships with others.

ARTWORK CREDIT: Nicola Delorme

“Stay With Me Through The Night” is the first song I wrote for the album. It was at the end of a tricky period where I hadn’t written music for nearly two years, and it came out in a bit of a flood, I barely even remember where or how I wrote it, but I knew it was going to be an important song for me. It ended up being the centrepiece of the album, a song that encapsulates a lot of the feeling and emotion of the rest of the record and musically it brings old together with new, which became a theme across the record…a way of combining my influences with a modern perspective.

Rhythmically the feeling of the song comes from funk and disco, I was thinking about the piano playing of Patrice Rushen and Michael McDonald, Chaka Khan’s ‘What Cha’ Gonna Do For Me’, Bernard Edwards bass playing on Chic’s ‘Good Times’, and The Bee Gees ‘Spirits Having Flown’ but we tried to take the track somewhere else in other aspects of the production to bring out the big feelings in the song. It situates us in the emotional world that I tried to create for the rest of the album.”

Fabiana Palladino first broke out in 2017 as one of Paul Institute’s founding artists after her shadowy R&B-influenced spectral pop reached Jai Paul, who founded the label alongside his brother A.K. Paul. Releasing three singles in four years, she caught the ear of critics - Pitchfork likened “Mystery” to “a scratch track from a big-budget 80s studio that’s been smuggled out on reel-to-reel tape” – but Palladino’s output remained slight. The intervening years have seen her working as an in-demand session musician for the likes of Jessie Ware, Sampha, SBTRKT and Laura Groves while intensely striving for pop perfection in her own music. Last year, she formed part of Jai Paul’s band for his live debut (which she also supported solo) on his hugely celebrated comeback tour”.

I am keen to explore Fabiana Palladino more. She is an artist that may not be known to everyone, though I feel that she will be very soon. One of our most remarkable songwriters'. A truly distinct voice. Emerged Agency give us some more background on one of my favourite rising artists. This is someone that I am very excited about in terms of how far she will go in the industry:

“For more or less a brand-new artist, Fabiana Palladino faces an unusual level of anticipation. The London musician broke out in 2017 as one of the Paul Institute’s founding artists after her shadowy, classicist R&B influenced pop reached Jai Paul, who started the label alongside his brother A. K. Paul. Releasing just three singles in four years, she caught the ear of critics – Pitchfork likened “Mystery” to “a scratch track from a big-budget 80s studio that’s been smuggled out on reel-to-reel tape” – but Palladino’s output remained slight while she worked as an in-demand session musician for the likes of SBTRKT and Jessie Ware, cycling from one tour to the next. This year, she formed part of Jai’s band for his live debut (which she also supported), the most wildly awaited performances in years. “I’m taking it one bit at a time because it is very strange and a bit overwhelming,” says Palladino.

All the while, she was intensively working on her self-titled debut album - Fabiana Palladino - in secret. Written and produced by Palladino, it has been a long time coming, partially because of her playing commitments but also because of her perfectionism. “I have a horrible fear of putting something out and regretting it,” she admits. Covid slowed things too, amplifying the sense of loneliness and isolation that runs through the album, in which she confronts how a life should look in the absence of traditional relationship and family structures. Made in the wake of the end of a long relationship, it’s an intimate, after-dark record that exudes the toughness and femininity of Janet Jackson circa Control and Annie Lennox on DIVA, exerts the classic songwriting of Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell and subverts the classic romantic Motown duets of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell to unpick normativity in relationships.

Palladino’s references are all big studio records, a sound that she strove for while self-recording at home and in the XL studio. “I wanted to push myself production-wise,” she says. “I wanted high-production value sounds because I grew up listening to music that was made in studios, played by great musicians and recorded by brilliant engineers, and I really appreciate that.” This sleek, distinctive record is testament to her growing confidence as a producer, encouraged, says Palladino, by Jai. Early on, she would send him demos and ask him to produce them. “He would say, ‘You’ve already produced it – it’s there.’ Palladino’s dad, Pino Palladino, is one of history’s most famous session men: she learned from him the integrity it takes to work on other people’s ideas, and gradually understood how to apply it to her own work. “I like creating other people’s vision, being solid and consistent,” she says. “Being an artist is a totally different headspace.”

It’s one that Palladino seems to conjure effortlessly. The self-titled album feels like a classic pop album: its nimble melodies haunting and sensual, the writing elegantly whittled down to turn complex questions about desire and satisfaction into immediate hooks. “I’m getting closer / Still it’s on my mind / What we’re all about / ‘Cos I don’t even know if I want you around,” she sings on the “Closer”, which gasps and glints as two would-be lovers dance around a grey area. “When I go to sleep I’m tired but I can’t dream any more,” she sings on “I Can’t Dream Anymore”, thrust forward by heaving bass that resonates with exhaustion and frustration at the uncertainty. “I had a significant relationship that ended followed by a period of a few years of like: what the hell am I doing?” she says. “People are getting married and having kids around you, and I was not in that at all. There’s a certain amount of pain in having to accept that that’s not the way it’s gone. But also: how can I embrace that and create power for myself? I feel amazing about it now, and so happy that my life has gone in that way.”

Fabiana Palladino underscores that push and pull. “The songwriting is relatively traditional,” says Palladino, “but the production isn’t. It’s trying to disrupt certain expectations.” Palladino’s pop career is finally taking flight but that doesn’t mean the anticipation is over”.

There are a couple of interview that I am going to bring in before closing and rounding things up. NOTION featured Fabiana Palladino early last month. Among other things, she discussed stepping out from the shadows of others, and words of wisdom with Jessie Ware. Everything I read about Palladino makes me feel that she will be releasing music for many years to come. A very special talent:

“Fabiana Palladino is a perfectionist. Since releasing her debut single, ‘Mystery’, through the Paul Institute in November 2017, the singer-songwriter from London has remained a compelling enigma. Two tracks came in the three years afterwards, ’Shimmer’ and then ‘Waiting’, before the elusive Jai Paul and his brother AK signed her to the label for a full-length album. Agonising over the intricacies of a 10 track project, the Robyn-approved artist feared putting out a body of work that felt incomplete; she found the process challenging at times, balancing her high standards with the realities of recording a debut.

From what we’ve heard so far, Fabiana Palladino has been worth the wait. ‘I Care’ emphatically introduced us to the record’s retrofuturism, which takes R&B classicisms and morphs them into something inherently their own. Of course, Jai is on hand to provide a steely feature, crooning in mumbled tones to complement Fabiana’s plaintive pleas. “What do I have to do to make you care?”, she questions on the hook, ruing the emotions of a non-committal lover. Released earlier this year, the follow-up single, ‘Stay With Me Through The Night’ is comparably upbeat, as disco funk grooves and toe-tapping drums, from Chaka Khan collaborator Steve Ferrone, take centre stage. Yet still, the lyrics mourn a romance gone wrong.

Loneliness and isolation are key themes across the project. Made after ending a long-term relationship and written during COVID lockdowns, despite the album’s wealth of contributors, composing it was predominantly a solitary experience. Having worked as a session musician, recording with the likes of SBTRKT, Sampha and Jessie Ware, stepping out into the spotlight as an artist in her own right is something Fabiana is finding hard to grapple with. Last month, she played two debut headline shows – one in London and one in Paris. For someone who’s previously remained in the shadows of others, the performances left her feeling exposed. Nevertheless, with Fabiana Palladino nearing its release, and more tour dates planned later this year, she’ll have to get used to the attention.

Talk to us about Fabiana Palladino, the self-titled debut you have coming out in April on Paul Institute / XL Recordings. Why was now the right time to release it? In an interview from 2018 you spoke about a forthcoming EP, was that scrapped or is this its more fleshed-out incarnation?

So that EP was pretty much finished by early 2020 but around that time I signed an album deal with XL / Paul Institute and decided I wanted to expand the EP into an album instead. It then took me three more years to finish the album, which was definitely not the plan – I hoped to finish it within a year but I’m quite slow, also a perfectionist, and there were various setbacks due to Covid and just general life stuff getting in the way. All that said, this really feels like the right time to release this album, it’s been a very long time coming but I feel good about the timing of it and ready to share it with everyone.

What was your proudest moment while making the record? Did anything surprise you about the creative process?

Honestly, I’m not sure I ever felt proud during the making of the record, I’m pretty hard on myself and found the process really difficult at times – I was questioning whether it was good enough pretty much all the time. I drove myself pretty nuts. Looking back though I guess I’m proud of persevering through my own neurosis and actually managing to finish it? There were some very special moments during the making of it though and I never stop being amazed and surprised by the way a song can expand from a tiny seed of an idea into a really meaningful thing, especially with the help of the collaborators I’ve worked with. So I feel really proud of what we created together.

Jai Paul features across the project, someone that you’ve worked closely with for many years now. Why do you think your sounds complement each other so well? And how do you think he elevates your work?

It’s a combination of things – partly that we have a lot of shared influences and reference points, but also that we have quite different approaches to making music that seem to complement each other somehow. I’m pretty traditional and Jai is a bit more free thinking. It’s an instinctive thing when we work together, we don’t really discuss much, there’s an unspoken understanding of what will work / not work that makes it a really natural process. Jai elevates my work beyond what I ever really could have imagined – he really is a visionary producer and has an originality that is so exciting to me.

What do you hope that people take away from the project

I hope people find ideas and feelings that they can relate to in the music. Although I worked with collaborators on the album and their contributions are super important, it was a mostly a solitary experience making it – both physically as I made a big chunk of it during lockdowns, but also emotionally – I felt quite alone at times, not necessarily in a negative way, but I was exploring the reasons for that in the music and lyrics, trying to make something that people can connect to and maybe make them feel less alone, to feel seen and heard. All my favourite music does that for me.

‘Stay With Me Through The Night’ is such a jam, but there’s definitely a plaintiveness to it. How did the single come about and how do you think it represents Fabiana Palladino as a whole?

Thank you! It’s actually the only song that made the cut from the EP. The original demo was a bit more plaintive feeling, but when it came to making the album version we just felt like it needed try and make it a straight fire groove. My dad put some bass on the original demo, which had electronic drums that Jai had programmed (some of which are still in there) but then he had the idea to ask Steve Ferrone to play live drums on it and it took the song to a whole new level. Steve played on my one of my favourite records ever which is What Cha Gonna Do For Me? by Chaka Khan. Rhythmically it’s got that old school feeling which is very much up my street but we tried to keep some sort of modernity with the production. I think it represents me because lyrically it’s vulnerable and direct, but the music is uplifting (I hope) ’cause in the end I just wanna make people feel happy and dance. It’s also got that balance of retro and modern which I love to explore.

The track comes alongside your debut music video. How did it feel putting yourself out there like that? It’s beautifully shot…

Yeah it was nerve racking for sure but I felt very supported by the team of people who worked on it who were so encouraging of my initial vague idea and developed it into something really great. I’m still trying to get my head around how I feel about putting myself out there like this. On one hand I’m self-conscious about it but on the other hand I am really enjoying this side of things, getting to create art in a new way and show different sides of myself and the music is super exciting.

Many of these artists you first connected with on MySpace. The social media site is often cited by people for its collaborative and creative forces. What do you think music today could take away from that era?

Yeah MySpace was important for a lot of us! I liked that it was super fun and creative and didn’t take itself too seriously. It didn’t feel like a ‘professional’ platform for artists, in that it wasn’t really trying to sell music or gain any sort of streaming numbers, as far as I remember. It really did feel like it was more about just sharing music and making genuine connections with people you often ended up actually meeting and collaborating with, with no real agenda, just the possibility of creating together.

What’s next for Fabiana Palladino? With this debut album around the corner, is there anything else that you’re looking to achieve in 2024?

The main thing will be performing the album live over the next few months, as well as putting out the next few singles and the visuals we’ve made for them. Aside from that I’ll be playing a few more shows with Jai which will be fun. I’m looking forward to getting back to writing with a friend who I was working with last year, as well as writing my second album which I’m thinking about a lot… My aim for this year is to just create as much work as possible”

I am going to move on to a feature from CRACK It is amazing that, in 2014, Fabiana Palladino opened her inbox and found an unexpected email. When she read the message – a request to collaborate from the elusive and revered Jai Paul – she naturally assumed it was a prank. Since then, Palladino has really made her mark on music and collaborated with some incredible artists:

“Her childhood was soundtracked by her parents’ soul and Motown records, and she’s grateful for this informal early education by Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. But it was the music on the radio that captured her attention. “I mean, I was very uncool in terms of current music,” she says, perhaps a little too earnestly. “I was into pop music, whatever was mainstream, like Craig David and Spice Girls.”

That interest in pop and R&B laid the foundations for her own material, which is built around traditional song structures and a silky falsetto, and polished off with sleek yet subtly experimental production. She’s still drawn to the superstars of those genres, most notably Kate Bush, Brandy and Janet Jackson. “I always loved everything Janet represents,” Palladino explains, wide-eyed. “She is obviously super feminine sometimes, but that 80s period was so androgynous and, musically, the production is quite hard. That feeling of strength about her was interesting and exciting to me.”

While at university, Palladino started to pursue music-making, but only tentatively. She remembers feeling nervous as coursemates began to clock on to who her dad – famous for his work with The Who, Gary Numan and D’Angelo – was. “I remember suddenly feeling very aware that people knew and then had an idea of me,” she explains. “I used to have an idea that if my dad played on anything [I wrote] people would just see me as what you now call a ‘nepo baby’.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Cosgrove

It would be easy to feel sorry for Palladino at this point. She’s sweet, self-aware, and extremely talented; it must be frustrating to live in the shadow of a (male) relative. But at the same time, nepotism is deeply entrenched within British music and arts. So I remember the instruments hanging around the house, the studio visits, the industry family friends. A week later, when I ask how she feels about her advantaged position, she explains further. “There are many ways in which having musician parents has benefitted me, [such as] instruments and recording equipment. In a practical sense, it was easy for me to explore music, and I know for most people that is definitely not the case,” she admits. “I can acknowledge the leg up I had and still be able to feel like what I do is valid and worthy on its own terms.”

It was around 2007 when Palladino started uploading her early demos to MySpace. Though it didn’t stir up much interest at the time, she says, it’s where she connected with like-minded artists such as Ghostpoet and Sampha, who she collaborated with for the former’s Survive It (2011) and her own, since-deleted track, For You (2014). Soon after, she began working as a session musician for some of London’s most talked about indie and electronic acts: SBTRKT, The Maccabees and Jessie Ware.

Between tours, Palladino would fervently write her own music. “I’d come back and be like, ‘Right, I’ve got a week.’ I’d just be locked in my bedroom making songs,” she tells me. One such song was Shimmer, a sparkling synth-pop ballad she would later tidy up and release officially in 2018. It was an important period for Palladino and she looks back on the time fondly, but after several years, she found that session work was no longer creatively satisfying. She enjoyed supporting artists she loved but lacked the time to focus on her own projects. “I could’ve carried on making individual tracks, but there’s no way I would’ve had the time or focus to make an album,” she adds.

This idea of self-progression and being at ease with yourself resonates with Palladino’s own story. Now, aged 36, she finally feels ready to release her first full-length project. The album was written after the breakdown of a significant relationship in 2019, which forced her to move back in with her parents in the suburbs and confront life’s big questions all over again. “I thought, ‘Wow, how did this happen? I’m in my early thirties and single again, and what does that mean for me?’” she recalls, more quietly now. With people around her getting married and having children “left, right and centre”, she began to ask herself, ‘How can I take ownership of that and for it not to be this sad, tragic thing? Do I want that traditional life or not? And if I don’t, what does that look like?’

PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Cosgrove

Palladino navigates these questions of loneliness and independence throughout her self-titled album. The lyrics are frank and unabashed, like on the low-lit groover Stay with Me Through the Night, in which Palladino confesses that she “never could make up ‘cos I’m bad at admitting that I’m wrong”, and pleads for “one more try”. She finds strength in being direct, she says: “I didn’t want to obscure anything. Yeah, I feel very vulnerable, but I chose to be.”

Fabiana Palladino is her most ambitious sounding release yet, drawing on the production techniques of big studio projects she has long admired to embellish her earlier, more DIY approach. With its tight, syncopated drums and steely attitude, Can You Look in the Mirror? nods to early 2000s releases by Darkchild and Rich Harrison, while the spectral slowburner I Care (featuring Jai Paul) has a cinematic sheen. “When you look back at the budgets and time these people had, you know, we had very little of that,” Palladino smiles. “It was almost a challenge of, how shiny can I make it sound?”

Taking her time to build up to the album is something Palladino is grateful for. But it’s taken a long time to reach this state of mind; though there are traces of her all over the music world, from her session appearances to recording credits in liner notes, for years she was concerned that the lapses between her releases would make her look unproductive, or unsuccessful.

"It's so much cooler to be an overnight success, isn't it? But the fact of the matter is, for some artists, it just takes ages to get to the stage where they're able to make a record"

PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Cosgrove

“There’s so much focus on your digital footprint, how it looks when people scroll through your Instagram or releases,” Palladino says, sighing. “I have these long gaps where I was off on tour, doing other things or just distracted,” she shrugs. “It’s so much cooler to be an overnight success, isn’t it? Or just to be the person of the moment. But the fact of the matter is, for some artists, it just takes ages to get to the stage where they’re able to make a record.”

She also worried that she’d missed the boat altogether. As we finish eating, she recalls an interaction with an industry figure who said he would never sign an artist over the age of 25. Palladino was 20 years old at the time and the comment stuck. “I had that in my head for years. Years,” she emphasises, pulling on her sleeves.

It’s part of a wider culture of ageism and misogyny in the music business, Palladino acknowledges now. “I bought into it because it’s just so insidious,” she says, frankly. “But now there’s Jessie, Kylie, Robyn – people who are older than me. I’d be delighted to be making that kind of music. Why is there a limit on age? It makes zero sense.” She’s still figuring it all out, Palladino admits earnestly, but she’s finally learning to enjoy the process: “It’ll only get better, I think”.

Out tomorrow, Fabiana Palladino’s eponymous debut album is going to make a big impression. I think it is going to be among the most important debut albums of the year. She is a spellbinding artist that people unaware need to connect with as soon as possible. You need to listen to what she is putting out. We have in our midst…

SUCH an extraordinary artist.

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Follow Fabiana Palladino

FEATURE: Be That Movie Queen: Kate Bush and Gered Mankowitz: A Magical and Hugely Fascinating Creative Collaboration

FEATURE:

 

 

Be That Movie Queen

ALL PHOTOS: Gered Mankowitz

 

Kate Bush and Gered Mankowitz: A Magical and Hugely Fascinating Creative Collaboration

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RESPONSIBLE for some of the…

very best and most memorable photos of Kate Bush, I have been thinking about Gered Mankowitz. Even though other photographers had a longer collaboration and working relationship with Bush – including Guido Harari and her brother, John Carder Bush -, there is something very special about Gered Mankowitz. I have included him before and written about his importance. I wanted to revisit this amazing photographer, as I am thinking back to Kate Bush’s first couple of albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart (1978), and the sort of whirlwind around her then. I am going to be returning to photographers who have made such an impact and been responsible for some of the very best shots of Kate Bush. I want to start by highlighting a book that is among the ones I really want to own. In addition to John Carder Bush’s Cathy – which is the Kate Bush purchase that is top of my list -, the amazing WOW! from Gered Mankowitz is fascinating. We get this close look at his iconic shots of Kate Bush when she was in her late-teens/early-twenties. He was shooting her when she was coming through and establishing herself as an artist. Someone who I would love to speak to one day. I don’t know if there are more shots of Kate Bush that has yet to be released that he took. It is clear that WOW! is a real treasure trove. Here is why people should get it:

“WOW! Kate Bush by Gered Mankowitz features the very best work from Gered Mankowitz’s incredible 1978 / 1979 archive of Kate Bush photographs, with the majority of photographs previously unpublished. Each copy is personally signed by Gered Mankowitz.

As with all previous Ormond Yard Press volumes, it is a book on a spectacular scale: a hardcover volume housed in its own printed slipcase and measuring 24 inches high x 18 inches wide (60x45cm) when closed, 24 x 36 inches (60 x 90cm) when open, with 96 pages of photographs. The physical scale may be large, but the edition size for WOW! is reassuringly small – just 750 individually signed and numbered copies are available to collectors worldwide.

Kate was a wonderful subject and I worked with her over several sessions throughout 1978 and into 79. She was always a delight and an inspiration to work with. I am immensely proud of the work I have done with her and will always be grateful to have been associated with such a gifted artist from the very beginning of her long and important career. I am tremendously excited to be launching WOW! and hope that it excites you too”  Gered Mankowitz

WOW! is a book on a spectacular scale: an ultra-large-format 96 page limited edition hardcover which measures 24 inches high x 18 inches wide (60x45cm) when closed. When the book is open, a double page spread measures 24 inches high by 36 inches wide (60cm x 90cm). The physical size of WOW! may be large, but the edition size is reassuringly low. Just 750 are being offered for sale worldwide.

WOW! includes approximately 250 images, and contains the very best material from Gered Mankowitz’s archive of Kate Bush photographs. The vast majority of photographs are previously unpublished. The book is housed in a handsome printed slipcase, and each copy is personally signed by Gered.

WOW! defies the normal ‘coffee table’ convention. Much larger than a traditional coffee table volume, it is slim and elegant at the same time. WOW! is housed in a beautiful custom slipcase which reproduces the front and back book cover art. All our publications seek to redefine the book as more than just a book – and as a piece of art in its own right. With this in mind, the cover of the book and slipcase have been deliberately left free of text so that nothing detracts from the power of the images”.

I think that Gered Mankowitz is one of the most important figures in Kate Bush’s career. At that pivotal time when she was emerging and her face was being seen everywhere, we had this experienced photographer charged with taking images that were distinct and different. There is a shot of Kate Bush, intended to be the cover of the Wuthering Heights single, that was scrapped because it showed her nipples. Instead of the image being cropped, it got out into the world and Bush’s family felt that it was inappropriate and maybe sexualised. Kate Bush was cool with it, though it remains one of those missed opportunities. The actual shot is amazing. The expression Kate Bush gives shows how Mankowitz was able to get the best from his subjects. In 1978 and 1979, there needed to be this steady and experienced photographer who could easily work with Kate Bush. Someone she trusted. If people like Guido Harari had a longer time working with Kate Bush, I think that Gered Mankowitz’s shots of Kate Bush are among the very best. In 2014, when Kate Bush took Before the Dawn to the Hammersmith stage, the Big Issue spoke with Gered Mankowitz about his time working with the legend. Like I have done in the past, I am sourcing the entirety of the interview, as it is too good and important to be edited down:

“Gered Mankowitz, the photographer with Kate Bush in his eyes, who shot the iconic the Wuthering Heights image and captured Kate in several photo shoots between 1978-79, discusses ‘that’ famous leotard shot, and why Kate was always in control of her sexy image…

I was brought in to create the launch image for Wuthering Heights and I think what makes Kate brilliant is her unique talent, her extraordinary energy, her vision – everything she does has a tremendous vision.

I remember her to be somebody who worked very hard. She was very young, 19, when it came out and she was wonderful to work with. Very energetic, very frenetic, quite difficult to tie down sometimes, to get her to focus on making an idea work, she wasn’t very experienced in having her photograph taken at that time, which was part of the challenge. But her individuality shone through.

I don’t think I had to draw it out of her, it was there, it was bubbling out of her. When I first went to the record company to discuss the session she wasn’t there but they played the video of Wuthering Heights that they’d made. It was quite obvious that she was a unique and special talent, not just because the music was so extraordinary but because of her individual look, her beauty and movement and style.

She had a really special quality, which stood out instantly on record and visually. I knew that I had to be at the top of my game to produce an image that was going to complement and support this extraordinary talent, and that’s what I tried to do. I always try to break these things down so that they are as simple as possible.

I had to be at the top of my game to produce an image that was going to complement and support this extraordinary talent

I only had a very loose connection with the record company. They already had a cover for the album The Kick Inside, but they didn’t have an image of Kate, it was quite obscure and it wasn’t as up-front of Kate as they wanted it to be. But I sense that they weren’t quite sure where they were going with her.

What they seemed very certain of was here was a unique and special talent and that they had somebody who was pure gold, but they were being led by her and I think that they weren’t sure who they were getting.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that she was in control of our session, but she was very much in control of the way she looked when she stepped out of the dressing room and I saw her for the first time ready for the camera I was blown away and knew it was going to be something special.

We did the very famous leotard pictures. I chose the leotards to make visual link with dance, that was the point of choosing and selecting them, I wanted to keep it extremely simple, I hope that in the portrait there would be a visual connection with dance which was clearly very important to her.

During the same session we reproduced the image of Wuthering Heights that she’d recorded for the video because everybody wanted stills of that but in those days they just couldn’t take them from the film. She did the whole dance for me. [Big Issue: “Wow!” Gered: “Wow indeed!”]. The only thing I didn’t have was the dry ice she had in the video, but it was spectacular.

We did four big photo sessions together between January 1978 and March or April 1979 and dance was always very high up on the list and a lot of the pictures we did are her moving, her different leotards, leaping, spinning, dancing and expressing herself like that and that was so important and trying to capture that in a very graphic way.

She could just look at the camera you would melt. You sense that she was really special and felt Wuthering Heights was going to be a big hit and I know that EMI was going to really get behind it. What nobody knew was how huge she would be and how important.

I had worked with a lot of people who had become incredibly successful for one reason or another – The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, who had that same charisma and presence as Kate, as did Annie Lennox and Suzi Quattro. What you recognise is talent and charisma but that doesn’t necessarily turn into longevity.

We know you’re going to move from one single, one album to the next and hope that the artist and everything in their support structure around them is going to remain intact and supportive, and that the artist will build a fan base that is solid enough to support them.

The one thing that was very clear was here was a very individual and unique special artist. There’s always terrible pressure on people especially if your first record is a huge hit. I don’t think that any of her records have been as big as Wuthering Heights but she’s big enough, talented enough and clever enough not to be overwhelmed by the success.

She would appear to be completely in control of her career, and she’s managed to maintain her privacy. When she makes an appearance [in public] she’s thought about it, and considered it, and the response to it is always huge.

The one picture that in a way is inescapable is the pink leotard Wuthering Heights picture. It’s one of those pictures that become iconic and represents so much, and that doesn’t happen very often. It has a life of its own and it has energy. I think it’s a beautiful portrait of a very beautiful young woman. 

The Big Issue: There has been discussion over the years whether her sexuality was being exploited – depending how it’s cropped, it’s quite graphic…

Gered: It didn’t occur to me at that time that [the nipples visible in the full-length shot] would be a problem. I know that it was pretty edgy for the late ’70s but it wasn’t sort of discussed or thought about a great deal. That was how she looked and I wasn’t going to say to her “I think you should cover up”.

She looked absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking at a cropped version of it now and it still has all the power that it did then. Her breasts might have been titillating to a few young boys but her beauty and her serenity, her stillness are what really make this a special photograph.

She used her sexuality throughout her performance

She certainly knew what she was doing, that’s how she came out of the dressing room, looking like that, and there was no attempt by anybody to make her look like that. That’s what she looked like and I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. I think it’s very, very beautiful.

I’m the photographer and I took that picture, and I don’t see how I could have exploited Kate Bush. She was in control of it.

But she used her sexuality throughout her performance – look at the Babooshka video or any of the records and promotional videos and stills, certainly in those first three or four years of her career she was a very sexual person and I think that came across in the way she moved, looked and the way she sang.

For me that makes any discussion or debate about whether the picture was ‘exploitative’ redundant. She wasn’t like Miley Cyrus trying to draw attention to herself through her sexuality. She’s a very strong woman and as a strong woman you know that she’s aware of everything that’s around her and I completely reject any possibility that the pictures were exploitative, it reflects her beauty and her power and serenity, and her comfortableness with it.

The Big Issue: It’s such a direct portrait, you feel like you know her, her face looks so open but she’s not giving anything away, it gives you chills still to look at it now.

Gered: It often is the case that in the beginning when an artist makes a really profound impact it’s often their first moments that are sort of welded into the public consciousness and that’s one of the most gratifying things. Going back to my favourite image, I’m incredibly proud and thrilled to have been associated with Kate Bush at this early stage. It’s fantastic to hear you say that [above] about it”.

There are a couple of reasons to me returning to the incredible Kate Bush photos Gered Mankowitz took. I have been wondering what is left and whether there are other shots as yet unseen. I am still keen to own the fabulous coffee table book, WOW! Over forty-five years ago, Gered Mankowitz had privileged access to this amazing young artist few knew would become a huge name. These were the early days. It was a remarkable time! The range of shots that he took are so full of nuance and layers. The way Bush bonds with the camera. It is hard to select a favourite of his, though I do think that it is either the fantastic Wuthering Heights cover where she is in the pink leotard. I also love the ‘Hollywood’ photo, as it is worlds away. The pink leotard shot is Bush as a teen still. She does look very young and shy, yet there is this great look in her face. So many different possibilities. What was she thinking?! Compare that to the black-and-white shot where she looks like a Hollywood star, and it could have come years later. So mature and different! It shows how adaptable Kate Bush was and how skilled Gered Mankowitz was. Such a close and great working relationship, it is one that she would then take to other photographers. Kate Bush always invested and committed to ensuring that she was a perfect subject. With many people pigeon-holing and defining Kate Bush in 1978 and 1979, I do think that Mankowitz’s went a long way to showing how complex, stunning and awesome Kate Bush was. Many assuming she was some odd English artist that was maybe a novelty. With some amazingly eye-catching and physical shots, it did help to bring about a reassessment in some. These photos will endure for decades. I have included some here, though I would compel people to seek out as many as possible. Gered Mankowitz’s 1978 and 1979 photos are some of the very best…

EVER taken of Kate Bush.

FEATURE: You Know I’m So Good: The Amy Winehouse Biopic, Back to Black, and the Legacy of the Hugely Missed Icon

FEATURE:

 

 

You Know I’m So Good

  

The Amy Winehouse Biopic, Back to Black, and the Legacy of the Hugely Missed Icon

_________

THERE is so much out there…

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse in 2006/PHOTO CREDIT: Jill Furmanovsky

regarding how influential Amy Winehouse was. How she still is. What a legacy she left behind. We sadly lost the icon in 2011. On 12th April, a new film opens. Staring Marisa Abela in the lead role, Back to Black is going to be a passionate and sometimes emotional and hard-hitting biopic about the icon. It is a film you will want to see. I am going to get to some recent interview with Abela about her role as Amy Winehouse and taking on such a huge thing. I am going to end by looking at the influence and uniqueness of the much-missed Amy Winehouse. She is someone the likes of which we will never see again. Such a phenomenal talent! I am going to start with some news and reports about the Amy Winehouse biopic. NME. They highlight how director Sam Taylor-Johnson says Amy Winehouse’s family had no real involvement in the film. They did not dictate how the film was made and what needed changing:

“Named after Winehouse’s breakout sophomore – and final – studio album, the film will star Industry’s Marisa Abela as Winehouse herself, and outlines her years living in London, alongside her rapid rise to fame.

Speaking in a new interview with Empire, director Sam Taylor-Johnson said Winehouse’s family didn’t contribute to the film.

She added: “It was important to meet with them out of respect. But they have no involvement in terms of… like, they couldn’t change things. They couldn’t dictate how I was to shoot. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.”

The director also confirmed that Winehouse’s father Mitch has seen the biopic.“I know he saw the film. I wasn’t there. I haven’t spoken to him. I think he keeps his feelings pretty much to himself. The important thing for me was not to have any of that noise in my sphere while making the film,” said Taylor-Johnson.

“And I didn’t need the family’s approval. All the music rights were approved by Universal and Sony. So what I wanted as much as possible was the truth of Amy, and Amy’s relationship was that she loved her dad, whether we think he did right or wrong.”

Writer Matt Greenhalgh, who previously collaborated with Taylor-Johnson on Nowhere Boy, said the film wanted to tell the story from the singer’s perspective, using her lyrics.

He said: “It’s a creative film. I know a lot of people still can’t understand that, still can’t get their head around it. It’s my take on Amy’s life and then it’s Sam’s take on Amy’s life. And then it’s Marisa and Jack [O’Connell]’s take on Amy and Blake. In the end, it’s all subjective, but you hope that opinion is accepted and embraced by your audience.”

Winehouse’s parents previously stated that they approved of the film and said in a statement: “We are thrilled that StudioCanal, Focus Features and Monumental are making this movie celebrating our daughter Amy’s extraordinary music legacy and showcasing her talent in the way that it deserves.”

Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film has been confirmed for release in the UK on April 12, 2024 and on April 11 across Australia”.

I am going to get to an interview with Marisa Abela soon. First, Rolling Stone noted how Abela trained like an athlete to prepare for playing Amy Winehouse. It is also impressive that Abela took vocal training so that she could sing these classic and instantly recognisable songs. Someone who put so much of herself into this role. It is testament to the passion and commitment of Marisa Abela. Someone whose performance  is definitely going to take her acting career to a new level:

“ONE DOES NOT simply wake up one morning and embody Amy Winehouse. According to vocal coach Anne-Marie Speed, Back to Black star Marisa Abela trained “like an athlete”” to transform into the “Valerie” singer.

In an interview with The Guardian, Speed opened up about the process of preparing Abela to play the lead in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s upcoming biopic. The two worked together between September 2022 and January 2023, when shooting started for the film.

In those months, Abela had to learn to sing, play the guitar, master Winehouse’s accent and generally get in shape for the role. “It’s full-time preparation, it’s like an athlete,” said Speed. “People really underestimate how physical voice production can be. They don’t see it, but it really is. You’ve got to get the body working in the right way to truly support what’s happening and to produce the voice.”

Getting Abela’s voice to match one of the most instantly recognizable, soulful voices of the modern era was a challenge. “You want [the vocal performance] to be very close, but not an impression. Because otherwise, you might as well just mime to her recordings,” said Speed. “I was seeing her [Abela] four times a week for two-hour sessions for about three months before we started shooting. So it’s a big, big commitment.”

The first teaser trailer for the much anticipated biopic Back to Black was recently released by Canal Plus. The clip showcases Industry actress Marisa Abela as Winehouse, who intones, “I want to be remembered for just being me.”

The trailer also offers glimpses of Jack O’Connell as Winehouse’s husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, and Lesley Manville, who plays Winehouse’s grandmother, Cynthia Winehouse. It’s soundtracked by Winehouse’s 2006 song “Back to Black.”

In addition to being directed by Taylor-Johnson, Back to Black is written by Matt Greenhalgh. It also stars Eddie Marsan as Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse, and Juliet Cowan as Winehouse’s mother, Janis Winehouse-Collins. It was made with support from the Amy Winehouse Estate, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Publishing.

Winehouse, who died in 2011 following years of drug and alcohol problems, has previously been the subject of several documentaries. In 2015, Amy won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Taylor-Johnson previously said she has felt a longtime relationship to the story.

“My connection to Amy began when I left college and was hanging out in the creatively diverse London borough of Camden,” Taylor-Johnson said in a statement last year. “I got a job at the legendary KOKO club, and I can still breathe every market stall, vintage shop, and street… A few years later Amy wrote her searingly honest songs whilst living in Camden. Like with me, it became part of her DNA. I first saw her perform at a talent show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho and it was immediately obvious she wasn’t just ’talent’… she was genius.”

When the film was first announced in 2018, it was reported that proceeds from the biopic would benefit the Amy Winehouse Foundation. Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse, shared a statement at the time confirming her family and estate’s support. “We now feel able to celebrate Amy’s extraordinary life and talent,” he said. “And we know through the Amy Winehouse Foundation that the true story of her illness can help so many others who might be experiencing similar issues”.

I am going to focus on a great and detailed interview from Harper’s Bazaar. We get to know a lot more about Marisa Abela and how she took to playing Amy Winehouse. There are similarities between Abela and Winehouse. It is very clear that this role meant so much to her. Even if some have reacted negatively to the trailer or Abela’s resemblance to Amy Winehouse, it is clear that she embodies so much of Winehouse. An actor who has spent so much time getting it right. On 12th April (in the U.K.), we will see this transformation on the big screen:

“The more I got to know her, the more I felt a major connection to this spiky Jewish girl from London who had a lot to say, and was really quite unafraid," she says. As someone who also grew up in a Jewish household, Abela felt a kinship with her. "I remembered how I felt when I was young, seeing that woman who was proud and cool, wearing a big Star of David in between a cleavage and a nice bra. I understood what a Friday-night dinner would look like in her home, the humour in her family. I loved how effervescent she was, how huge a soul, how she just permeated any room she was in. But also, her relationship to her art form, and wanting to be good. That was the most important thing."

This was Abela’s starting point for getting into character: "Once I framed her in that way, I felt I was in a position to take on this role. I never wanted to trick anyone. Sometimes you audition and you say you can ride a horse, speak Spanish or sword fight, when you can’t. I was never, ever going to do that here. I was not going to put myself on the chopping block unless I knew I could do this."

So when it came to the audition, Abela was the only person who came make-up free and without Winehouse’s trademark beehive. She spotted Taylor-Johnson and Gold clasp hands as soon as she began her performance, and knew that the session had gone well.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jem Mitchell

Once the role was hers, Abela threw herself into it with almost obsessive drive. She moved to Camden for four months to immerse herself in "Amy bootcamp": working 10 hours a day with a personal trainer; singing lessons; learning to move. She physically shrank herself to mirror Winehouse, who suffered from disordered eating and an addiction to heroin and alcohol. "I had help to do it safely; I consulted a dietician and was being monitored," Abela says. "Feeling frailer and smaller helped – I hadn’t understood, before, how much that affects your tempo. During her Frank era, Amy is fast and loud and boisterous with her arms, her movements are big. Once I started to change, I realised that you can’t physically make those same movements. It’s uncomfortable to sit. You’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re more exposed."

One of the remarkable aspects of Abela’s performance is her ability to capture Winehouse’s voice; she was not originally meant to sing in the film, but ended up recording with the star’s original band. "I had no idea how close I could get to singing like Amy. But why not work as hard as I possibly could to do it?" she says. "That’s how I felt with everything: her movements; her dancing; her thought processes. How close can I get to her? How can I unravel a psychological truth that will excite people again?"

PHOTO CREDIT: Jem Mitchell

The Winehouse in the film is softer than we have seen her previously. It depicts the first time she meets her husband Blake Fielder-Civil, their relationship, and her desire to have a child. The movie also shows how witty Winehouse was. "Performing her songs sometimes felt like stand-up routines. She’s the most amazing lyricist." Abela is drawn to characters who embody huge contrasts. "Maybe the most exciting way of conveying vulnerability is finding the one place where she feels incredibly confident," she says. "Because that’s where she’ll always run to, rather than leaning into the state of being vulnerable."

She has long held the belief that self-consciousness is the enemy of good acting, and did entertain the idea of inhabiting the role at all times. "I thought, maybe I’m not going to be taken seriously if I’m not torturing myself in order to play this part. But I’m not a Method actress. I wasn’t walking around my flat as Amy. The work was enough for me."

Meanwhile, Yasmin returns to our screens in Industry season three later this year. Despite all this, Abela takes the gloss and publicity in her stride. On a normal day, she lives in her flat with her boyfriend, the actor and writer Jamie Bogyo, whom she met at Rada. "He’s smart and funny, we have a lot of fun together," she says, smiling. "He’s my best friend... and we can talk about the work... Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it hasn’t happened to me yet, but I think staying grounded is easier than people make it out to be." As her career goes stratospheric, it’s likely to be the biggest challenge she faces”.

I am going to end with an NME feature from 2021. Ten years after Amy Winehouse’s death, they collected people together to share their memories and love of Amy Winehouse. From Jake Shears to Laura Mvula, we learn why Winehouse made such an impact on others. I do not think that we will ever see anyone like her again:

“Think of the icons who have changed the shape of popular music forever, and few tower as high as Amy Winehouse and her unmistakable beehive. Breaking through in the early ‘00s like a gale-force wind that gleefully rucked up pop’s carefully-ironed tablecloth, the sharp-witted, soul-and-jazz-loving Londoner stood out in a landscape of shimmering US pop stars and perfectly choreographed girl bands. Fusing vintage sounds with her biting storytelling, Winehouse was refreshing, exciting and – above everything else – a raw and honest voice.17:34

Amy Winehouse died a decade ago this Friday (July 23), aged 27, leaving behind a huge musical legacy. Following her passing, countless artists paid tribute to an enormous talent. “Amy changed pop music forever,” Lady Gaga tweeted in 2011. “I remember knowing there was hope, and feeling not alone because of her. She lived jazz, she lived the blues.” In another post, Adele thanked Winehouse for “[paving] the way for artists like me”, adding that she “made people excited about British music again whilst being fearlessly hilarious and blase about the whole thing. I don’t think she ever realized just how brilliant she was and how important she is, but that just makes her even more charming.” The late George Michael accurately called her “the most soulful vocalist this country has ever seen.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse in 2004/PHOTO CREDIT: Ram Shergill

Now, 10 years on from her death, fans, collaborators and fellow musicians pay tribute. “I still remember the first time I heard her on the radio, I was totally hooked,” recalls Shannon, a long-time Amy Winehouse fan who became hooked on her 2003 debut album ‘Frank’ in her early teens, and went to see some of the star’s earliest headline shows. Years later, she was at V Festival with her mates when surprise guest Winehouse casually sauntered on stage to perform ‘You’re Wondering Now’ and ‘Ghost Town’ with The Specials.

Every time she watched Winehouse live was “just magic,” Shannon says, adding: “She totally allowed herself to be completely raw and vulnerable – and that voice too! She was my first proper music idol. She was just so cool, and the music blew my mind.”

That 2009 appearance with The Specials wasn’t Amy’s only unexpected link-up – she also performed with The Rolling Stones (at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2009) and Prince (in London in 2007), among others. Scissor Sisters’ lead singer and solo artist Jake Shears also recalls heading out on little-documented tour of “end-of-year college banquets” with the star early in their careers, soundtracking the dinners of a couple of hundred students each night. “I like thinking back to that time because you just just never know where everything’s going to end up – it was early days for us,” Shears tells NME. “It was such a cool time.”

A chance encounter with The Zutons’ lead singer on a night out in Winehouse’s regular stomping ground in Camden, meanwhile, led to her wildly popular cover of their staple song ‘Valerie’,  which remains one of her most popular songs 14 years after its release. “Years ago I was in Camden and I was in The Hawley Arms, drinking and all that,” recalls the band’s vocalist Dave McCabe. “And then Amy Winehouse turns up”.

Though the pair had crossed paths at the Mercury Prize in 2004, they barely knew each other, and later that night, “this lad” at the pub started bad-mouthing The Zutons. “He basically started telling me how crap I was, and how great [Winehouse] was, and at the time I was like, ‘Fair enough’”. McCabe laughs. “By about the 10th time, he was just being a bit annoying. I ended up just turning around to him, and told him to fuck off. Then [Amy] turned around to me went, ‘No – you fuck off!’’

Eventually, McCabe stormed off down the road with Winehouse in hot pursuit. “She goes: ‘Come back! I really like ‘Valerie’. I’m not really arsed about you, but you must be alright ‘causes you wrote that song.’ So we worked it out, and I went back. I think if we hadn’t had that argument… That moment was very personal. I’d like to think it’s what pushed her [to record the song herself]. Maybe something good came of all of that stupid argument?” he laughs.

Along with Winehouse’s ‘Frank’ collaborator Salaam Remi, Ronson produced half of Amy Winehouse’s landmark second album, 2006’s ‘Back to Black’. Together, they made for a formidable pairing – from the parping ‘Rehab’ to the smoke-stained regret of ‘Love is a Losing Game’, they forged a pop sound that dabbled in retro influences, and would influence the entire musical landscape after the album’s release.

Though ‘Back To Black’ was Winehouse’s masterpiece, her slightly lighter debut album ‘Frank’ still established Winehouse as a fearsomely talented songwriter. ‘I Heard Love Is Blind’ finds Winehouse’s narrator bluntly defending infidelity with increasingly creative twists of logic: “​​Baby, you weren’t there,” she insists, “and I was thinking of you when I came”. And the matter-of-fact ‘Fuck Me Pumps’ is both biting and hilarious, meticulously mocking a woman and her garish shoes.

“Her legacy is beyond comprehension,” singer-songwriter Laura Mvula tells NME. “I think people will still be unfolding it for decades to come.” The Birmingham artist, who recently melded her love of soul, jazz and blues music with bright, disco-tinged pop on latest album ‘Pink Noise’, cites Winehouse as a huge influence – “particularly her vocal style”.

Mvula explains: “I think I was subconsciously imitating her when I was younger and first started to sing – not even as a solo artist, but just when I was learning what my voice was. If you listen to ‘Frank’, that’s the music that raised me, this neo-soul expression that she managed to birth in the UK and give its own identity. That is huge – no one’s done that since; not as authentically, transcending and also celebrating race at the same time.”

While forging a new kind of neo-soul, it’s also fair to say that Winehouse rarely minced her words – and had little patience when she was compared to less innovative artists releasing music around the same time. Case in point: her slightly tongue-in-cheek dislike of Dido – which culminated in the singer pelting a billboard for the singer’s album ‘Life for Rent’ with an apple during an appearance on Popworld in 2004. When Amy Winehouse did feel passionately about a new artist’s talent, however, she supported it relentlessly.

“She was really supportive,” says singer Dionne Bromfield, Winehouse’s goddaughter and a MOBO-nominated singer. “I think she really saw a lot that I didn’t really see in myself at that age.” The best advice Winehouse gave her? “Be true to yourself,” Bromfield says. “Amy was someone who wore her heart on her sleeve. I think that is probably why she connected so well with people: people felt like they were almost talking to their friend or hearing their friend talk when listening to Amy.”

Bromfield has been working on a documentary about her relationship with Winehouse: Amy Winehouse and Me: Dionne’s Story airs on MTV UK on July 26. Though various other tributes are set to come out to mark 10 years since Winehouse’s death – the BBC are releasing Amy Winehouse: 10 Years On, while her mother Janis Winehouse has also made her own film, Reclaiming Amy – Bromfield hopes that her own personal celebration of a friend and mentor can show her own unique relationship with the singer.

“Amy was a very very funny person and I really wanted that to come across,” she says, adding with a laugh: “She was a really good cook if you could actually manage to get her to finish what she was cooking, because she always used to want to potter around a bit. She was really good at meatballs, and she used to do a really banging chicken soup. I mean, that’s a proper Jewish woman there with her chicken soup.

“She loved comedy stuff: when I watch The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air now I actually just remember all of the times watching it with her, and can almost actually hear her laughing at certain gag lines. And – oh my God – she would kill if I didn’t call her ‘Auntie Amy’. Jesus Christ! I really wanted to allow people to see this side to her.”

Bromfield sang with Amy Winehouse on several occasions, but their final performance at London’s 3,000-capacity Roundhouse – just a couple of days before the singer tragically died in 2011 – stands out as a treasured moment: “It was the last time that I actually saw her, and the last time that she was seen by the public. I really wasn’t expecting her to be there. She was at the side of the stage, and was just like: ‘I wanna come on and dance’. It was just really nice. It was the first time she’d ever actually seen me perform properly, but it was also the last time that she’d see me.”]

Pondering why Amy Winehouse continues to be so influential a decade after her passing, Bromfield puts it down to one rare quality that so few artists have in such staggering abundance. “I just think it’s the honesty,” she says. “Her personality came through with her music, and I think that is really what people love about her. I honestly don’t think we’ll ever get another Amy”.

One of the most important and talked-about music biopics of recent years will be realised and seen on 12th April. I am interested to see how critics and audiences react. The past couple of years have seen some so-so music biopics cover icons like Bob Marley. It is always a massive responsibility and hard balancing act getting a biopic right. There is no doubt Back to Black cannot do everything and please everyone. Even so, with that timeless catalogue and Marisa Abela truly committed to doing justice to Amy Winehouse, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film will be a huge thing. It will go to show, when it comes to the amazing Amy Winehouse, just…

HOW special she was.

FEATURE: Saluting the Queens: Cerys Matthews

FEATURE:

 

 

Saluting the Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Dean Chalkley

 

Cerys Matthews

_________

THERE are a few reasons…

why I want to celebrate the great Cerys Matthews. Not only does she turn fifty-five on 11th April. One of our most respected and phenomenal broadcasters, you can listen to her BBC Radio 6 Music show Sundays at 10 a.m. There is also The Blues Show with Cerys Matthews on BBC Radio 2. You can follow Cerys Matthews on Instagram, Twitter and her official website. This may have a bit of a random approach. I wanted to celebrate a phenomenal broadcaster and artist. Also, on 12th April, Catatonia’s third studio album, Equally Cursed and Blessed, turns twenty-five. One of my favourite albums of the 1990s, it features incredible tracks like Dead from the Waist Down and Karaoke Queen. I am going to drop a track in from that album. I also want to come to a few interviews with Cerys Matthews from a few years back. There have not been many recently. I would love to hear from Cerys Matthews. An incredible broadcaster whose music tastes are like nobody else’s, she is someone who I have enormous respect for. Before getting to interviews from Cerys Matthews, a quick review and nod to a very special album that turns twenty-five soon. This is what AllMusic had to say:

“Equally Cursed and Blessed is another breath of fresh pop air from Catatonia. Cerys Matthews' distinctive vocal roars and whispers are in full force throughout these tracks, and the blend of songs on this release surpasses all of Catatonia's prior collections. The first single, the weeping "Dead From the Waist Down" features a full string section, and the magnificent "Karaoke Queen" is backed by a disco beat and razor-sharp guitar hooks. Pure pop like "She's a Millionaire" helps color the album on the brighter side, while the dark, brooding "Bulimic Beats" adds depth. Closing the album is the excellent "Dazed, Beautiful, and Bruised" where Matthews sends off an abusive former lover. Equally Cursed and Blessed could easily be Catatonia's chance to break into the United States, because with music like this, you simply can't go wrong”.

I want to source a few interviews with Cerys Matthews. A few years ago, The Home Page spotlighted and celebrated a wonderful and celebrated woman. As they say, Matthews is a “ferocious talent( Cerys Matthews MBE is) celebrated musician, award-winning BBC radio presenter, composer, theatre curator, documentary writer and best-selling author. She talks to Rosalind Sack about life in her creative family home in West London and why it is community, rather than things, that give her home soul”:

“Where do you live and why?

My home is in Ladbroke Grove, West London, where I’ve lived on and off since the late ‘90s. I live with my husband and we have five children between us. Two of those are adults now but they’re in and out as well, so it’s quite busy, which I like. That’s not to say that I don’t also love chucking everyone out on a Monday morning – which I do! I love the peace but, like everything in life, it’s the contrast that really defines what everything means. My home is like a little cottage, which is unusual for London; you look out of the windows and you just see greenery. Being a bit of a country girl at heart, I love that. We have a tiny garden and I plant potatoes in pots and lots of mint and we have a cherry tree.

What makes your house a home?

My collection of books and records, and a few guitars. Apart from those, I can’t collect many things because of the sheer size of our family and the logistics of living in a cottage. So I’m quite strict in that sense. I probably wouldn’t be that strict if space wasn’t such a huge issue, but I’d never move because this is where I like living. I know everybody here; I know people who work in the area, I know the families, the schools, the postman, the shopkeepers. It’s the people you’re surrounded by everyday that give your home soul. Home is less about things and more about community.

PHOTO CREDIT: Oli Green

You recently released your book, Where The Wild Cooks Go – a glorious mix of recipes, poetry and music from around the world. Can you describe your kitchen at home…

When I’m in the kitchen I’m like the captain of my ship. When I’m cooking over the gas I can look down into the area where we all hang out and there’s a table and the garden beyond and it feels like I’m at the helm. It’s tiny, there’s only room for one, so when I’m cooking I can’t do anything else. So there’s an element of peace while doing something I love. We have a big old dining table which we eat around when we can. In fact when I first moved to this house, I found it in the garden. It’s solid oak, so I just sanded it down, oiled it and we sit around there. I like a bargain!

It’s the people you’re surrounded by everyday that give your home soul. Home is less about things and more about community.”

What was your childhood home like?

I was born in Cardiff and we lived there for the first few years of my life in a house that was really similar to my home now. It was a ‘70s new build development, terraced, with young families in each of the houses that spilled out of the front door onto a communal lawn area. In a strange way I’ve kind of regressed with my house in London to the same kind of mass-produced houses for young families that we grew up in in Cardiff. There’s this idea that the kids can use any of the terraced houses as their home, and they do. It is really is quite idyllic in that sense. It’s very ordinary, but I like ordinary.

What’s on your bedside table?

Books. I love books, and music obviously as well. Because of the nature of my radio show I’m sent a load of books on a load of subjects and I’m always behind on my reading, I can never read enough.

Can you describe your front door?

It’s bright red. The housing community where I live was built by the architect Terry Farrell. It’s ex local authority originally built for artists who didn’t have enough money, that then reverted into private housing in the ‘80s. It comes with its own committee and because Terry Farrell painted the doors red you have to keep them all that colour, which I don’t mind. We have one of the only defibrillators in the area so there’s this idea that we can, to a certain degree, self-care. There’s a lot of elderly people (I don’t like the word ‘elderly’ any more, I’ll say ‘people of experience’) who live here alone and there’s a really lovely element of co-caring. So if someone breaks their hip, we take them to hospital, pick them up, make them soup. This kind of model should be looked at by central government when they build houses and housing communities, because it makes a huge difference to safety and love and contentment.

What’s the first thing you did to your home when you moved in?

I ripped out the kitchen and moved it from the front of the house, which is the darkest part, to where it is now, right in the middle of the house. We have a record player, so there’s almost always music playing and there’s lots of wood, so it looks and feels more like I have my hob and my fridge in the lounge. I’m fussy with my food and I try to buy sustainably where I can. I’m also passionate about knowing the nuts and bolts of dishes so I don’t buy readymade pastes or readymade spice mixes, which also allows you to eat with less plastic and less packaging as well. I like to know how it works, even it is quite basic, because I also like to cook quick.

What are some of the most memorable things that have happened in your home?

We used to have discos when the kids were really young. They’d love them. They could happen at any time of the day; we’d dim the lights, whack up the volume on the music and have dance competitions on the rug. I loved those times.

If the objects in your home could speak, which would have the best story to tell?

My father’s family were lead miners and somehow my father’s great grandparents stopped mining and opened a hardware shop in Abercynon. They must have earned quite a lot of money because they had a huge photograph taken of themselves, which must have been extortionate at the time. I’m talking maybe 90cm by 60cm and it’s framed on the kitchen wall. They’re dressed in their glad rags; so she’s wearing this gorgeous long-length, corseted, high-necked, low-sleeved, jet black dress with severe pulled back hair and little round wire glasses, and he’s stood up with a big old moustache, his gold pocket watch and one hand on her shoulder. It’s quite a stern black and white portrait and sometimes it feels like their eyes follow you around the room. My mum felt it was too spooky and used to keep it in the attic, but I love it”.

Rather than source interviews where Cerys Matthews talks about her music influences and relate that to her broadcasting, there are these interesting insights into her home. Her cultural influences. A more rounded impression of the wonderful broadcaster. Elle Decoration interviewed Cerys Matthews in 2020. If you have not heard Matthews’ shows on BBC Radio 6 Music and 2, then I would thoroughly recommend that you do. She is one of the most passionate broadcasters out there. Someone who is essential listening:

“As frontwoman of indie outfit Catatonia, Cerys Matthews was at the forefront of 1990s Welsh cultural renaissance Cool Cymru. Now a beloved broadcaster on BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music, she’s a staple of the summer festival circuit as both presenter and performer, and was awarded an MBE for services to music in 2014.

That same year, Matthews co-founded wild craft, food and music weekend The Good Life Experience – ‘a festival for curious types like me’– and has since penned Where the Wild Cooks Go (Penguin, £25), a collection of recipes, cocktails, music and poems that delves into the folklore of fruit and vegetables. ‘It’s like a history of the world through the prism of tomatoes.’ Here, she shares her, typically eclectic, cultural influences…

Growing up in Wales, in the heart of a minority culture, makes you realise early on that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I try to throw the net as wide as I can when looking for great recordings, regardless of origin and language.

I’m currently listening to guitarist and singer Snooks Eaglin – his voice is like velvet. One of my career highlights was interviewing New Orleans musician and performer Allen Toussaint (right) just before he died. He told me stories of being in a band with Snooks when they were teenagers and the image of these brilliant musicians, young and carefree, will stay with me forever.

It’s impossible to pick out a favourite guest from my 6 Music show – it’s the smorgasbord of people that I enjoy best. One minute I’ll be chatting to Stephen Fry about Greek myths or astronaut Helen Sharman about being the first Briton in space, then we might enjoy poetry with Michael Rosen and a chat with one of the engineers behind The Shard, Roma Agrawal. I like to think of the show as the Sunday papers in radio form.

My most memorable travel adventure was trekking to the Everest base camp in Nepal last year with my two sons. The terrain changes, the plants change, the weather changes on a sixpence, and then you see your first glimpse of the elusive Everest – unbelievable. The Nepalese and Sherpa culture is beautiful. I totally recommend doing it – it is doable, we saw an 81-year-old walking the trails.

A recent cultural highlight was a trip to see our 3.2 million-year-old ancestor, ‘Lucy’, at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. During my stay, we ate great vegetarian and vegan food, drank tej – local honey wine – and visited the cultural hub Fendika on a Friday night for some of the best live music I’ve seen.

If I won the lottery, I’d buy a Picasso for my house – Le Rêve would be nice – and a massive indoor hammock in which to lie and look at it.

I’m looking forward to the end of this most peculiar chapter, but thus far it’s been okay. We’ve been trying to do those slow things at home – sowing seeds, reading, cooking to Spotify playlists and just spending time with each other”.

I am going to finish off with yet another 2020 interview. I would like to see some new chats with the amazing Cerys Matthews. She is someone who has a lot of fans and dedicated listeners. The Guardian spent some time with Matthews in 2020. I was keen to highlight her ahead of her fifty-fifth birthday. I know we will be hearing years (and decades) more of Cerys Matthews on the radio:

“What’s your Sunday morning ritual? 

I sneak downstairs at 6am while everyone’s sleeping. I curate my radio show myself and sometimes I’ll hear something on a Saturday night and want to make last-minute changes. It takes me two seconds to get dressed. The joy of radio! I chuck on a bobble hat, puffer jacket and trainers and head to work.

What does Sunday feel like? 

Wide-eyed and free- form. I think of the day like a Sunday paper – you go from one topic to the next. It’s why Sunday morning is such a wonderful time to be on air. People are pottering, enjoying their hobbies – so I can turn down the tempo.

How do you wind down? 

At 1pm – show over – the team and I prepare for the following week, and then I head home to my kitchen. Cooking is my second passion – and eating sustainably. Cutting down meat is one thing, but we also need to see where our veg and fruit comes from. How does Yorkshire puddings with vegan haggis sound?

What’s playing? 

Early blues: Jimmy Smith, Mississippi John Hurt and John Coltrane. It’s always jazz for me on a Sunday – it’s moody and thought-provoking.

A favourite spot? 

La Bodega on Tavistock Square in Notting Hill, where you can eat delicious chorizo, tortilla and paella and watch Spanish TV.

A perfect evening? 

Vintage films: Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel.

Do you miss the day off? 

I spent the 90s as a touring musician, rolling from gig to gig with no weekends – that was hard. But music is my passion. So my show isn’t just work – it’s part of my ritual. It’s less arduous than making sure the homework is done. The rest of Sunday is sacrosanct”.

I shall end it there. Even if I have not touched on her broadcasting start and favourite music much, I hope the above gives you a better understanding of and inside into Cerys Matthews. She celebrates her birthday on 11th April. I wish her many happy returns! It has been a pleasure discovering more about…

A broadcasting queen.

FEATURE: Commitment to Fans or a Cash Grab? Why Billie Eilish’s Comments About Artists Who Release Multiple Vinyl Formats Rings True

FEATURE:

 

 

Commitment to Fans or a Cash Grab?

PHOTO CREDIT: Jorge Fakhouri Filho/Pexels

 

Why Billie Eilish’s Comments About Artists Who Release Multiple Vinyl Formats Rings True

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I can appreciate…

IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish photographed in 2024/PHOTO CREDIT: Gilbert Flores/Getty Images

that artists want to provide options to their fans and there is this attractiveness when it comes to vinyl. There are options to release multiple vinyl formats and colours. You can have a standard black vinyl. We have so many colours and designs that artists can utilise. The issue is, at a time when we need to be sustainable and think about the environment, should artists be putting out various versions of the same album on vinyl?! Unless you are releasing it on recycled vinyl and something that is quite responsible when it comes to environmental impact, we need to be economic and sensible regarding these multiple formats and reissues. Billie Eilish recently revealed in an interview how she finds it frustrating when artists put out multiple vinyl formats. NME give us the details:

“Billie Eilish has criticised artists who release multiple vinyl formats to boost album sales, calling the practise “really frustrating”.

The artist made the comments in a new interview with Billboard, where Eilish and her mother Maggie Baird discussed their history of environmental activism – and in particular, their work towards making vinyl more sustainable.

“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging,” Eilish began, “which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money.”

After Baird interrupted to point out vinyl sales “counts toward No. 1 albums”, Eilish responded: “I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is.

“It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right,” she added, “and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.

“It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that sh-t.”

Artists producing multiple vinyl variants to increase album sales is a common practise; Swift’s 2022 LP ‘Midnights’ was sold in five different variants, eventually becoming the first album to sell better on vinyl than on CD since the 1980s.

Eilish’s own second album ‘Happier Than Ever’ contained eight vinyl variants of the record; however, each vinyl was made from 100% recycled vinyl with sugar cane shrink wrap. Mst vinyl releases will typically use “virgin vinyl”, which contains plastic resin, along with single-use plastic shrink wrap”.

It does tend to happen with the bigger artists. Not only will they put out a new album on multiple vinyl formats. There will then be the reissue shortly after where there are extra tracks. Taylor Swift might be one of the most prominent artists who is culpable when it comes to repackaging an album and putting out a ‘new’ version shortly after the original. I do hope that artists reflect and there is a bit more awareness of the wastefulness.

PHOTO CREDIT: Juan J. Morales-Trejo/Pexels

I do realise that artists might be reacting to demand. Vinyl sales are continuing to climb. There is that temptation to exploit that somewhat by putting out multiple vinyl options. It can seem like a cash grab. If you have a new album out, by all means have a few vinyl options. A few different colours that means you are producing the same amount but giving some flexibility in terms of the look of it. Many artists also release on C.D. and cassette. That gives fans enough option. I think one of the biggest worries is when you get excessive amounts of vinyl options when an album is initially released and then there is a new version of the album shortly after. It means that fans are not really getting too much for their money. They might buy this reissue or expanded edition to support the artist. It does seem like a quick and easy way of making money. How do you restrict this?! You can’t really limit artists or say that they should only release one version of an album and then not have a reissue. It does seem quite opportunistic when you get these deluxe or expanded editions. Artists do need to be aware of the impact this has. Of releasing so many vinyl options. Billie Eilish is right when she points out how damaging it is. Even if vinyl sales rising is a great thing, the effect that mass production has on the environment is huge. Until a recyclable or more sustainable version of vinyl can be realistically rolled out and replace what we have at the moment, there is this conflict and awkward situation. It is angering when larger artists are thinking about their numbers and using vinyl reissues as a way of boosting sales. Having a run of colours and options initially. Then putting out an expanded version. Maybe an anniversary release will come out a year or so later. There does need to be this awakening. With Billie Eilish’s comments in mind, artists do need to be conscious about the environment and stop using vinyl as a way of increasing sales. Give fans options but not take advantage. Let’s hope that this warning…

PHOTO CREDIT: Maria Varshavskaya/Pexels

SINKS in.

FEATURE: The Retour of Life: Almost Ten Years Since the BBC’s Kate Bush Documentary, When Will We See Another?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Retour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

 

Almost Ten Years Since the BBC’s Kate Bush Documentary, When Will We See Another?

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IT is almost a decade…

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Jon McCormack

since the last television documentary about Kate Bush. The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill was made and released around the time of her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. A perfect opportunity to focus on a music icon, it featured contribution from fellow artists, fans and those who collaborated with her or were instrumental in terms of career – such as Del Palmer, Elton John and David Gilmour. I am going to come to a positive review for that documentary. I am glad something was made around Kate Bush, though it felt lacking. At only an hour, no true fan of Kate Bush can say it was either authoritative or comprehensive. It skimmed the surface and gave new fans a taster and insight. Apart from that, there were definite drawbacks. Entire albums are largely skimmed over. It wasn’t really a deep dive or provided any surprises. There were some good contributors, though there were some odd inclusions, omissions and decisions (including leaning too heavily on Steve Coogan!). Songs from Kate Bush were played by people on their phones rather than speakers. Baffling considering how committed to great sound quality Bush is and how lousy all music sounds through phones! The whole documentary had a distinct low-budget and televisual feel. It is okay for an easy watch, though it is hardly visually interesting or has anything in it that stands in the mind. There has been nothing since for those who want more. For those who want a proper and authoritative representation of Kate Bush. No matter what the BBC or anyone else says, The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill was not comprehensive or  complete. So limited and full of gaps – with some problems and a rushed feel – I do worry that the BBC will stubbornly feel their 2014 documentary is complete and there is no need for another. Why should Kate Bush only have one documentary made about her?! It  made me think about how something different and properly passionate needs to come to the screens.

PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith

I am not completely down on the documentary. It did give you a glimpse into Kate Bush’s career. Some big names got to speak about her. I have covered this before though, with each year that passes, there seems to be this urgency and notable gulf. I will start with some information about The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill. This is what the BBC said:

“Documentary exploring Kate Bush's career and music, from January 1978's Wuthering Heights to her 2011 album 50 Words for Snow, through the testimony of some of her key collaborators and those she has inspired.

Contributors include the guitarist who discovered her (Pink Floyd's David Gilmour), the choreographer who taught her to dance (Lindsay Kemp) and the musician who she said 'opened her doors' (Peter Gabriel), as well as her engineer and ex-partner (Del Palmer) and several other collaborators (Elton John, Stephen Fry and Nigel Kennedy).

Also exploring their abiding fascination with Kate are fans (John Lydon, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) and musicians who have been influenced by her (St Vincent's Annie Clark, Natasha Khan (aka Bat for Lashes), Tori Amos, Outkast's Big Boi, Guy Garvey and Tricky), as well as writers and comedians who admire her (Jo Brand, Steve Coogan and Neil Gaiman)”.

I want to finish this section with a review for The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill. It has its plus points for those who want an overview and more general look at the career and influence of Kate Bush. Although it does feel dated now, it is good that there was a celebration for Kate Bush. The Guardian had their say:

“When Kate Bush got her £3,000 record deal from EMI at 16, she used some of it to pay for dance classes with the legendary choreographer Lindsay Kemp. In last night's The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill (BBC 4), a documentary about the singer-songwriter broadcast on the near-eve of her first tour in 35 years, he remembered how he had to coax her forward from the back row – . "She was as timid as hell … but once she started dancing, she was a wild thing" – and a few months later found an LP pushed under his door.

It was Bush's first album, The Kick Inside, released in 1978, with the song Moving dedicated to Kemp. "I didn't know she had any aspirations to be a singer," he says. "She never talked about herself." Fellow contributor Elton John called her "the most beautiful mystery", and recalled how at his A-lister-stuffed civil partnership ceremony she was the only person anyone wanted to speak to.

Guests, contributors and soon even formerly ignorant viewers like me were in awe of the talent displayed and then intelligently discussed and dissected by John, Kemp and other respected experts, such as David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, John Lydon, Tori Amos and Del Palmer, Bush's bandmate and partner from the 1970s to 1990s. Neil Gaiman was on hand to hymn her fearlessly literary inspirations and lyrics, from – of course – Wuthering Heights (from which she derived her first single, in March 1978) to Molly Bloom's soliloquy from Ulysses in the title track of her 1989 album, The Sensual World.

Bush herself appeared only in old interview footage – so young, so fragile, so shy, but full of the sureness and certainty that only talent brings – but what emerged was a wonderful, detailed portrait of that talent. Although it gave her precocity its full due (she had written The Man With the Child in His Eyes by the time Gilmour came to listen to her when she was 14), it also gave proper weight to her evolution and her later, less commercial, still astonishing work. Why it chose to close on a stupid jarring joke by Steve Coogan, I do not know. But the rest of it succeeded in making Bush and her work less of a mystery but no less beautiful for that”.

It is maddening that there has been nothing more expansive on the screen about Kate Bush since 2014! Since then, Before the Dawn has taken place. She has reissued her studio albums more than once. There has bene a lyrics book, a number one success with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) – thanks to Stranger Things –, in addition to her being announced as this year’s Ambassador for Record Store Day. New artists are influenced by her and carrying on her legacy. There is scope for established fans like Björk and Big Boi to join the likes of The Last Dinner Party and Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine) who can unite to express why Kate Bush means a lot to them. It seems a lot since 2014 has happened that could be added to a documentary willing to give Kate Bush more than an hour! It seems unlikely that a British broadcaster or production company would want to commission anything. They may want involvement from Kate Bush. Whilst not impossible, it is less likely that she would be involved. It would not be visual anyway. A best-case scenario is her providing audio interview so that this can be integrated into the documentary and narrate important parts of her career. Maybe a Netflix or Apple TV+ production. With more money and investment from the U.S., it would afford opportunity to create something visually impressive and expansive. Include more of Bush’s music.  A new documentary would not to be a multi-part thing. Maybe a feature-length documentary. Running between two and three hours. Even though it would seem restrictive or not quite as long as it could be, it would give much more time to explore all of Bush’s albums, her live work, her influence and so much more. Not only could the singles and interview/live footage get HD remastering. We could gave songs or hers represented through animation and different visual techniques. I have been thinking about the recent video for The Beatles’ I’m Only Sleeping and how that gave new insights and nuances to the classic song.

I know there have been audio documentaries and various bits about Kate Bush since 2014. When you add it all up, there has not been too much! Considering how she is reaching new generations and she is very much inspiring so many people and very relevant, the reluctance to finance a genuinely and inarguably compressive documentary that is impressive, visually brilliant and goes deep is beyond me! I know most Kate Bush fans would like something new. There would be the money out there. Plenty of people would want to contribute. Maybe a chance to get members of Kate Bush’s family like her brother John (Jay), son Albert (Bertie) and Paddy (her brother). Getting Kate Bush on board now might not seem as hard and implausible as it would have been in 2014. She has been in more retrospective mood and is keen for her music to reach new audiences. I also feel like, if she does not want a big part in the documentary, she at least would give her permission for her videos to be used. For a filmmaker to produce something magnificent and enduring. An artist like Kate Bush warrants more than she has got. In terms of putting something on the screen. Next year sees some big anniversaries. Hounds of Love turns forty. Aerial is twenty. Never for Ever turns forty-five. It is a big year that provides perfect excuse to put together a new Kate Bush documentary. One that has different angles and structure to ones that have come before. A unique selling part in terms of the narrative, depth and detail. Mixing animation and different visual aspects. Incredible and varied contributors speaking in between these legendary tracks and some remastered and HD clips. It would be passionate and complete! As we look ahead to the tenth anniversary of Before the Dawn – which compelled the BBC’s 2014 Kate Bush documentary -, we must consider the fact nothing since has come to light in terms of a television documentary. It begs the question as to…

WHY has it not happened?!

FEATURE: Live Through This: Courtney Love’s Women and An Important Spotlighting of Female Artists Through the Years

FEATURE:

 

 

Live Through This

IN THIS PHOTO: Courtney Love/PHOTO CREDIT: Victor Boyko

 

Courtney Love’s Women and An Important Spotlighting of Female Artists Through the Years

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I wanted to spend some time…

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholas Hunt

looking at a new series that will be on Radio 6 Music and BBC Sounds very soon. It features a host of amazing female artists played and discussed by the incredible Courtney Love. The Hole lead will explore women who have meant a lot to her. Those who are influential and deserve recognition. Before getting to that, there is also another series. One that features her late partner, Kurt Cobain. The BBC has more details:

“On Friday 5th April, BBC Radio 6 Music will remember Kurt with Kurt Cobain Forever. 

Each hour from 7am-7pm, presenters Nathan Shepherd (sitting in for Chris Hawkins), Deb Grant (sitting in for Lauren Laverne), Mary Anne Hobbs, Craig Charles and Emily Pilbeam (sitting in for Huw Stephens) will play a track by the lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of Nirvana. 

The songs will be introduced by voicenotes from famous fans of Kurt, including musician and producer steve albini, Michael Azerrad (author of Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana), Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai, Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses and 50FootWave, musician Nuha Ruby Ra, painter and author Billy Childish, Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy Warhols, Carlos O’Connell of Fontaines D.C., Lia Metcalfe of The Mysterines and more.

A collection of programmes dedicated to Kurt Cobain will also be available on BBC Sounds from Friday 5th April, including: the Kurt Cobain Forever Playlist; Nirvana Live, featuring recorded live tracks performed in Seattle, Reading and New York (first broadcast in 2023); The First Time With…Dave Grohl, in which the former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman shares his musical milestones with 6 Music’s Matt Everitt (first broadcast in 2015); Nirvana at the BBC, featuring Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Butch Vig in conversation from the BBC archives (first broadcast in 2023); and Deep Dive into Nevermind, in which Butch Vig, Bat For Lashes, Teenage Fanclub, Breeders, Wu Lu and many more share their memories and passion for Nirvana’s seminal LP, with the album played in full (first broadcast in 2021). 

On BBC Radio 2, Jo Whiley will be playing tracks from Nirvana’s album Nevermind and sharing listeners’ memories in her show (from Tuesday 2nd to Thursday 4th April, 7-9pm) and Dermot O’Leary will mark the anniversary by playing a Nirvana track in his Saturday show’s weekly vinyl slot (Saturday 6th April, 8-10am)”.

It is a coincidence of timing, though it is quite moving that we are remembering Kurt Cobain and his legacy whilst also featuring Courtney Love as she explored artists who have made a difference to her. I think that Courtney Love’s Women is a series that everyone needs to hear. The BBC press release lets us know what we are in store for:

“This April, BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Sounds present Courtney Love’s Women (8 x 60m) – a candid and raw new music series, in which the legendary Courtney Love shares the ultimate soundtrack to her life as she reflects on the women in music who have shaped her journey, her sound and her next chapter.

With incredible access to one of music’s true icons, Courtney Love’s Women is an unique and personal glimpse into Courtney’s life as she celebrates women in music - the music they made and the music that made them.

Across eight episodes, the founder and lead singer of Hole takes listeners on an intimate and unfiltered, era by era journey through her life and the music that made her, alongside her friend and renowned music-podcaster and writer, Rob Harvilla.

Samantha Moy, Head of BBC Radio 6 Music says: “Courtney Love is an icon and a trailblazer - her influence on music and culture over the decades is undeniable. At 6 Music, we invite artists to share their stories directly with their fans and our listeners and I’m very proud that Courtney will be hosting a series of incredible shows for us in April. Halfway through the series, on Friday 12th April, we’ll celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of Courtney’s most powerful works – Hole’s ‘Live Through This’ - by dedicating the schedule to her music, the music that influenced her and the artists she’s inspired in Courtney Love Forever.”

IN THIS PHOTO: BBC Radio 6 Music’s Deb Grant

Throughout the series, Courtney recalls: her formative years, in which she discovered disco through the record collection at a childhood care home; reciting Sylvia Plath poetry for a Mickey Mouse Club audition; her love of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone; her time at an all-girl boarding school in New Zealand and in juvenile detention; couch-surfing across America; her struggles with drug abuse; her acting career – which resulted in a Golden Globe nomination for her role in The People vs. Larry Flynt in 1997; how she attempted to creatively matchmake Stevie Nicks and Billy Corgan; hanging out with Debbie Harry at a Limp Bizkit album launch at the Playboy Mansion; Gwen Stefani; her relationship with Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain; taking pandemic guitar lessons with The Big Moon’s Juliet Jackson and much more.

Courtney Love’s Women is not just the perfect listen for music fans or fans of Courtney and Hole - it’s also a varied soundtrack across musical eras, championing female artists along the way.

Episodes 1-4 will be available on BBC Sounds from Monday 8th April and broadcast on 6 Music on Monday 8th – Thursday 11th April, 11pm-12pm.

Episodes 5-8 will be available on BBC Sounds from Monday 15th April and broadcast on 6 Music on Monday 15th – Thursday 18th April, 11pm-12pm

To listen search Courtney in BBC Sounds.

6 Music’s celebration of Courtney Love continues on Friday 12th April with Courtney Love Forever.

On the 30th anniversary of Hole’s second album, Live Through This (which was released on 12th April 1994 on DGC Records), 6 Music will be celebrating Courtney Love throughout the day (7am-7pm).

Presenters Emily Pilbeam (sitting in for Chris Hawkins), Deb Grant (sitting in for Lauren Laverne), Mary Anne Hobbs, Craig Charles, Huw Stephens will play one track per hour by Courtney Love: Celebrity Skin, Doll Parts, Violet, Malibu, Miss World (from Reading Festival 1994), Miss Narcissist, Mono, Awful, Petals, Olympia (from a John Peel session in 1993), Starbelly and Plump. Tracks will be introduced by voicenotes from musicians and other famous fans of Courtney including Lambrini Girls, Sprints, The Last Dinner Party, the producers of Live Through This – Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade – and Kate Nash.

All tracks played throughout the day on 6 Music will be from artists who have influenced Courtney, her riot grrrl contemporaries, and acts that have been influenced by her.

A Courtney Love Forever collection of programmes, featuring performances and interviews with Courtney will be available on BBC Sounds from 12th April”.

It is going to be an amazing celebration of some wonderful women. I think it is quite a timely moment. There are not many series where female artists are highlighted. Giving over that amount of time to their influence and importance. The music industry is still one dogged by sexism and misogyny. Not giving enough opportunity to women. We are also in a moment when women are dominating music. Producing the best music around. The landscape is slowly shifting. We hope there will be equality and proper recognition very soon. I hope that people tune in. Such an icon herself, it will be fascinating to hear about the women who have made a big difference to Courtney Love. There will be some new discoveries and some familiar names. I am really thrilled and intrigued to see and hear these wonderful women being celebrated. I also hope that we get similar series in the future. An opportunity to hear female artists at the front. In an industry that has always been so male-focused and heavy, it is justified and encouraging that some truly amazing women are…

GETTING the recognition they deserve.

FEATURE: Saluting the Queens: Tiffany Calver

FEATURE:

 

 

Saluting the Queens

  

Tiffany Calver

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IT has been a while since I last…

PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

did an edition of this feature, though I am compelled to return to Saluting the Queens to recognise the incredible D.J., Tiffany Calver. One of the most talented and respected D.J.s and broadcasters in the country, I am going to spend a little bit of time spotlighting and exploring this amazing human. Before getting to some interviews, I want to bring in some biography regarding Tiffany Calver:

“It’s about supporting what I believe in, the people I’m a fan of,” she says of her mission statement. “I’m more of a specialist, I’m not a party DJ. I’m picky, I’m selective, I’m credible.”

Her impressive list of achievements include her position as the first ever female host of the Rap Show on BBC Radio 1, Drake’s UK & Europe Tour DJ, launching her own record label ‘No Requests’ (via Polydor), performing at Paris Fashion Week and winning a number of awards such as: Music Week Women In Music – Rising Star (2019), DJ Mag – Best of British – Best Radio Show: BBC 1Xtra Rap Show with Tiffany Calver (2020), Urban Music Awards – Best DJ (2017), ARIAS Radio Academy Award – Best Specialist Music Show – Bronze.

Be it holding down a festival stage with an energy packed DJ set, interviewing the world’s biggest artists or tastemaking and sharing new music via her weekly radio show, Tiffany brings an unparalleled commitment to her craft and a unique ability to build strong connections with artists from all corners of the globe”.

You can follow Tiffany Calver through her official website, via TikTok or on Instagram. For those not in the know, she hosts the must-hear The Tiffany Calver Show on Radio 1Xtra Fridays, between 9 and 11 p.m. In addition to recently appearing on cover of DJ Mag, she also has some great gigs coming up. As we can see from her Instagram, there is a pretty big one happening in April:

“Surprise! I’m headlining Earth Hall on April 27th and you need to be there! I’m so excited to bring @norequests back to the ends in London and the first one of 2024 is going to be a real vibe. Jump on the link in my bio to have access to tickets first when they go live on Friday!! 🎉

Dalston is literally where it all started for me as a DJ hustling for gigs and to get on flyers so to be coming back to it with something so special means everything. I’ve been dreaming of playing at this venue. Might have to run a couple 2015-2016 alibi/visions throwbacks just to pay homage!”.

@tiffanycalver Replying to @𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐒 ♬ original sound - Tiffany Calver

I want to mix in a few interviews to give you an idea of where Tiffany Calver came from, who she is, plus a little about her life away from the decks and microphone. I want to start with an interview from Culted. Published earlier this year, Calver discusses how she became a D.J. Even though she is still so young, her C.V. is one of the most impressive out there. A major talent who is going to go on to be recognised as one of the most import ant D.J.s and radio voices of her generation. I would advise anyone who has not heard her Friday evening show or seen her D.J. to correct that at some point this year:

“I want to take it back to the beginning with you. Was music something you grew up surrounded with?

I always say this but my baby tapes genuinely have the best soundtrack. Biggie, En Vogue, Busta Rhymes, Lil Kim, SWV… My mum and dad were really into their music. They were young and grew up in the rave/UKG era. Dad had a whole DJ set up that I used to drool over. Literally. Everything from R&B, Garage, Jungle and Hip Hop. You name it, they played it to me so I’ve always been into most genres thanks to them.

By the age of 17, you moved to London to experience the city life and its music scene. Do you remember any venues and/or artists you were instantly drawn to?

When I first came to London I remember just having a ridiculous amount of access for the first time to go to an unlimited amount of live gigs. I’d never had that before,  so I was pretty obsessed with going out and getting in the crowd at things. I’d manage to get in for free because I’d review them for some of the music blogs I wrote for at the time which at that age, was everything! When I started going out and experiencing the nightlife world it was all about Dalston. Visions, Birthdays, Alibi, then maybe you’d catch a bus to Oval Space for the Livin Proof parties…man. You just had to be there.

It wasn’t long until you made your way into the industry, blogging for MTV and SB:TV. Was there a moment where you realised that music was, professionally, for you?

Oh I knew from around 16 that this was the world I wanted to be in. One thing about me is I always have to know what I’m doing. Serious Virgo. I didn’t know just how far I would go by any means but I just wanted a piece of it. I wanted to be immersed in it, and to contribute to pushing it forward however I had the access to do it. I never in a million years saw just how far back the curtain would get pulled for me, back then.

How did you make that step from being a music writer to music maker, by way of DJing?

I started using Virtual DJ because I didn’t have the money to buy a controller let alone CDJs! I would post mixes I made on my computer to SoundCloud and one of them took off and hit around 50,000 plays which was massive for me at the time.

I really wanted to be on radio since I was a kid. When I came to London I’d tried my hand at getting an internship or apprenticeship at BBC, Rinse FM and all the local stations to no avail. I studied and tried to follow all of the blueprints that you’re taught to follow and it didn’t work.

Having worked alongside massive artists such as Drake and Beyoncé, you still make it a point to highlight and support emerging artists. Who are some artists you would recommend our readers to tune into?

Everyone starts off as an emerging artist and I think people have to remember that. Instead of looking at the shiny things, sometimes look at the diamonds in the dirt. That’s far more rewarding, exciting, and fulfilling and if we want to keep this thing going – we have to pour into the future superstars from the beginning.

The underground scene has always been such an exciting space to listen to and support because it depicts what is really going on in the world as opposed to what “trends.” I think that listeners love to feel like they are discovering someone on their own nowadays – and with more music being released day by day and apps at everyone’s fingertips that becomes more of a reality for the world.

I’m really into Humble The Great, BXKS, Cristale, and P-rallel and watching their individual rises at the moment. I think this year will be the year of the producer/DJs too. It’s going to be a great year for Publishing. Africa is still in such a strong position to hold more and more space.

I’m into artists who add something unique in flavour to their music and don’t follow the algorithm. That’s what the world needs more of”.

Let’s move to GQ now. This takes us back to last year. One can only imagine how hectic and intense it can be for a world-class D.J. Someone who spends a lot of her life on the road or in the radio studio at least. GQ were at home with Tiffany Calver. We got to discover a bit about how she relaxes, and what she does to recharge away from the crowds and the intoxicating energy she must get from her D.J. gigs:

“Let’s begin with the bedroom, sleep, and anything to do with winding down and relaxing in the evening. What do you use?

I think that I’ve come to terms with the fact that, with my job, I’m never going to have the perfect sleep or nighttime routine, because even when I get myself into a good routine I have a 3am DJ set in Bristol or something and it’s completely out of whack again. I’m constantly on jet lag and trying to fight that.

When I come in after a night out working and the adrenaline is high I have to smother myself in lavender spray or something to try and chill out. I have a lot of essential oils and a Neom diffuser, and I just absolutely drench it in lavender oil. I've always wanted to be one of those people that reads a book in bed, but I get stimulated way too easily — I’ve even implemented a no TV rule and we don’t have one in our bedroom anymore. I’ve also started listening to ocean sounds on a timer on Spotify when I can't sleep.

I got a new sleeping mask from Drowsy and it’s insane. When I say it wraps around your entire face…it’s completely black out, you can’t see anything. It’s like a pillow for the face. I have this terrible habit of falling asleep on my stomach and I’d wake up and have lines on my face, but this has been helpful.

I also remember how important it was for me to invest in a good set of pillows and a really nice duvet from Dusk. I love Dusk. I’ve been traveling so much DJ'ing and I just wanted to come home and have it feel like a hotel bed. We also got a new mattress which has changed the game as well: it’s a Nectar Hybrid. I just need all the help I can get.

 What is your skincare routine? How do you stay looking fresh after the late nights?

I’m such a massive fan of products that leave my skin feeling well moisturised and hydrated and hopefully getting rid of the impact of the club. I have a lot of fun with my skincare. It was something I didn’t pay much attention to in my early 20s, especially things like SPF.

I’ve just started using and am obsessed with Dr Dennis Gross' Dewy Deep Cream: that is amazing. You can use it day or night, but I use in the day because it has a citrusy smell. I’ll always go in with a serum before that as well. I have a Dr Barbara Sturm Vitamin C one that someone recommended. My favourite serum brand is Skinceuticals: I’m obsessed with the B5 serum. And then for SPF I use SuperGoop SPF50 Everyday Lotion and I really love it; it doesn't hurt my eyes and it doesn't affect the colour of my face.

On my lips, I use the Laneige sleeping mask in lemon sorbet. My face wash is also a constant staple: Zo skin health. I was recommended them by Clara Amfo and Mabel; their skin is great. I also love my new perfume which is Louis Vuitton Spell On You. I did not realise how expensive it was until I got to the till but I'm making it work!

What about the living room. How do you chill out? Are you a home workout person?

I think I’ve touched my Peleton twice…it's so painful! I don’t understand! It’s just not comfortable…but also I’m just making excuses.

I spend a lot of time in the living room. It's the one place where I get complete escapism. I’m obsessed with my Erewhon candle in Neroli Sandalwood, and it is gorgeous. I’ve been back two weeks from the US and it's nearly gone. I’ve always got a candle lit.

We’ve also got this gorgeous Soho Home dimmable lamp, I put that on low with a candle. It’s where we relax and go to the depths of Netflix. I’m loving Disney Plus at the minute, too: they have such good documentaries. Tonight we’re watching the Spencer Matthews documentary Finding Michael. I can’t shout enough at the moment about the Ryan Reynolds documentary [Welcome To Wrexham], it’s the best doc series I’ve ever seen. They did such a great job.

What DJ essentials do you have in your home?

So at the minute I have a CDJ 2000 and a DJ 900 Nexus mixer and that's essentially what I use in the club. It took me ages to save up for that. I think I used the money from the Drake tour, but now I’m dying to upgrade to the CDJ 3000 because the tech on those is unreal. And then I have the classic KRK speakers. They do the job and don't piss off my neighbours too much. I also have an Ableton MPC Push: it’s very dusty right now because I’ve been in L.A., but the plan is to eventually release some original music and remixes. I'm heavily into Ableton and how aesthetically gorgeous it all looks but also the production software and the little accessories that can help with producing.

You always need some Sennheiser headphones too, but I keep it quite simple and cute. On my show I get to play whatever I love… it’s such an incredible opportunity and it's a privilege to be on a station like the BBC and have that freedom where they trust me to be a tastemaker. So I’m making sure I have taste!

What else is on the cards at the moment what with your record label as well?

I've definitely got my head down with the record label: there's some incredible new signings that we’ve got and we’re developing. Being within Universal I’m not trying to have a major label, but something small and niche and boutique that looks after and develops new talent. And that's what I want to provide, something a bit different sonically. I feel that's needed, especially in this world of AI and algorithms. It’s nice to find risk takers who want to challenge themselves and make something a bit rebellious”.

When researching for this feature, I came across this interview from NOTION. They spoke with Tiffany Calver at London’s Tate Britain. She explained how artist influences everything. That it is a universal language. Calver discussed, among other things, the beauty of creativity, and the female artists who influence her. It was another intriguing and arresting side to a major talent and someone who is inspiring a lot of D.J.s and broadcaster coming through:

“Tastemaker Tiffany Calver meets us at Tate Britain to discuss the beauty of creativity, the renaissance of hip-hop culture, and the female artists in whom she finds solace.

“How does art help to inspire your creative process?

I don’t think that a creative process exists without art. There’s always this thing about originality, but I’m not sure originality really exists because we are constantly influenced and inspired by things around us – especially creativity. You can’t escape it, it’s the thing that connects everyone, a universal language. You know, you don’t have to speak the same language as someone else to feel something – and that’s the beauty of art. It’s a feeling. It’s not something you have to say, but something you can project.

How do you think that galleries spark inspiration?

I think that people can find gallery spaces and museums quite intimidating because there can be this seriousness around them. For me, the way I got into going to galleries was through my job and travelling. I’d be in a city and would want to see something different – without the intimidation of ‘this is a serious thing to do’. So me and my friends would go into museums and make it our own experience – it could be as childish or mature as we wanted it to be. We’d make humour out of it, we’d smile, we might cry sometimes, we might have a conversation around a piece of art. And I think that’s the beauty of museums. It’s being able to see something from the 1700s or the 1400s and there’s still something in it that inspires you.

In your opinion, how can art influence and connect everyone?

You have to take the pressure away from it. I think places like the Tate are really special when you don’t look at them through such a serious lens. When you just come here and be, stand, look at something and think about how you feel. It’s also the fact that these spaces are available to us and free. You can come and get inspired in ways you never thought you would. I’m inspired being here today, and you can look back and be like, how would I even connect with a room like this? You know, I’m a 90s baby, I’m in 2023, how can I connect? But you do, and I think that’s why these places are really special.

PHOTO CREDIT: Serena Brown

Is there a specific period of art that you’re interested in?

I’m not really stuck to one time period. I like walking into galleries and looking at all walks of life and all periods of time, because you connect in ways you never thought you would. These aren’t things you’re reading in a history book, or being taught in class. These are reflections of how somebody felt in a moment of time that we will never be able to visit. We get to visit through these pictures, instead, and feel those feelings.

What type of art inspires you?

I love all kinds of art. Everything is art to me. Anything that brings me peace and lets me escape from the world for a minute, whether it’s a song I love, a photograph, a film. There are so many different varieties of art that just help you to breathe for a second and find peace. Or maybe not, maybe it’s finding anger, finding sadness – but you find something in it.

Do you find yourself particularly influenced by female artists?

Oh, 100%. I think that’s literally what has raised me. And in all forms, whether that’s Tracy Emin and how outrageously unapologetic her art is, literally heart on her sleeve. I think that’s beautiful. Whether that’s going back to musicians I was raised on, through my mother, through my grandmother. You know, I love someone like Nina Simone; one of my favourite samples in history is “Sinnerman” and I think that’s something that was passed down to me. That’s art. The art by women that most connects to me is the outspoken art, the rebellious art of the time. The people that chose to stand up or be unapologetically themselves, and do what they wanted to do. That’s what inspires me the most.

How do you think the worlds of art and music collide?

I come from the world of hip-hop. The thing I loved and that got me obsessed with hip-hop from when I was a kid, was the fact that it meshes so many different worlds without meaning to. When hip-hop first started, there was dance, there was street style, there was sneakers. All of these exciting elements make you who you are, and I think there’s been a renaissance of that in recent years.

Like, there’s Slawn, who’s connected to Central Cee – [Cee]’s got Slawn painting a double-decker bus and posting it on Instagram and these kids are seeing it and getting inspired. I’ve got a 14-year-old brother who tells me how cool it is, and it brings art into the conversation in a less forced way – because sometimes it can feel like it’s forced on the younger generation to be interested in art”.

@tiffanycalver I hear this is what u gotta do to get bookings nowadays #content ♬ original sound - Tiffany Calver

I am going to finish off with a recent NME interview. The D.J. discussed why it is important to fail – in terms of some actual constructive and wise advice -, imposter syndrome, and finding her own tribe. When she was being interviewed, Calver was speaking on a panel in celebration of International Women’s Month:

“Tiffany Calver has shared her advice to aspiring music industry creatives, encouraging them to “fail as much as you can.”

Speaking on a panel in celebration of International Women’s Month, the UK rap trailblazer collaborated with Sondr to host a talk with fellow DJs and UK club titans Bossy LDN founder Izzy Bossy and Hannah Lynch of Girls Can’t Sync. The event was held at east London creative hotspot BeauBeaus and was part of the Telford native’s Tiffany Calver & Friends series – in which she highlights her talented peers.

told the audience that the internet has made it so “there is so much at your fingertips” that can give you a fighting chance to succeed no matter where you’re from. “You have the opportunity to really self-promote yourself,” she said, “really put yourself out there.”

There was always a need for Calver to “find [her] own tribe,” and she did eventually in London. Speaking to the panel, she reiterated the importance of community: “Don’t look too high, sometimes look forward, look around you, look at what the people around you are building. Genuinely, those are the relationships that will keep you going, the people championing you now will take you higher and further, they’re just as important.”

IN THIS PHOTO: (From left to right): Tiffany Calver, Hannah Lynch and Izzy Bossy at Tiffany Calver & Friends International Women’s Day panel talk/PHOTO CREDIT: FilmsByEks/Press

Calver eventually learned to DJ on the Virtual DJ app and then had various radio shows on NTS, KISS FM and the controversial Radar. She also put on her events at the London nightclub Birthdays where she flew in international DJs with her retail salary and had the likes of Little Simz freestyle there. “I used to get all these people down to London with my little Topshop money and let them sleep on the floor of my dad’s flat,” she revealed.

All the exposure led to her being handpicked to be the face of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Rap Show in 2017, becoming the first female presenter to host the show. Calver said the opportunity came from a random X/Twitter DM.

Speaking about when she took on the role, she told the crowd that she felt pressure to excel. “The hosts before were [Tim Westwood] and Charlie Sloth,” she said. “They were just two guys with massive egos and there is that thing, especially in rap, of that bravado you have to put on and I’m some neeky girl.

But she decided “not to create a persona or a character or have this bravado” and sought advice from Annie Mac and Clara Amfo, who both present primetime shows on the BBC. “In terms of me, there wasn’t really a woman to look at in the hip-hop space here that embodied that show,” Calver said. “It was great I had women to speak to who had already started in the career I wanted to get into”.

An undeniable queen of the music industry, Tiffany Calver is a wonderful D.J. and modern icon. Someone who is one of the most important voices on the airwaves. A tremendous D.J. who is among the very best out there, I feel everyone needs to know about her. Countless people do. In years to come, I can see Tiffany Calver going from strength to strength. Worldwide gigs as  D.J. More radio opportunities and so many honours will surely come her way. I was very keen to show my respect for…

THE simply brilliant Tiffany Calver.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Karin Ann

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

Karin Ann

_________

A tremendous artist…

PHOTO CREDIT: Cameron Lindfors

that I am quite new to but would recommend to everyone, Karin Ann is in my sights. She is a Slovakian Pop singer-songwriter of Czech descent. The New York Times described her as the voice of generation Z in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2020 and 2021, Karin Ann performed as a support during the NoSory Tour of the Polish singer, sanah. In August 2021 she also became the first Slovak ambassador of the EQUAL campaign of Spotify - thanks to which her single, in company, was promoted in Times Square in New York. I am going to come to some interviews with this incredible young artist. Someone that should be on everyone’s radars. Last September, Numéro Netherlands featured the wonderful Karin Ann. It was a year that saw her put out wonderful singles such as favourite star and put me back together:

“Hello Karin Ann. For our readers who haven’t had the luck to get to know you yet, could you please introduce yourself and describe your musical style?

That’s quite an interesting question. I’m not very good at this, but I’m an artist. I sing and write songs, and I also try to get involved in the visual aspects of my work. In terms of my musical style, I’ve experimented with various genres over the years because I’ve been pursuing this for a while. I’ve dabbled in everything from pop to rock and pretty much anything and everything in between.

I enjoy exploring different musical avenues, but currently, I’m leaning more towards a folk-inspired direction with some influences from the 70s. Right now, I’m really focusing on honing my lyricism.

Where does your passion for music come from, and when did you know exactly you would become a singer?

I’ve always had a deep love for music. It’s been a part of my life since I was a child.

My mother is Czech, and she’s a big fan of musicals. So, growing up, I was introduced to Czech musicals along with music from iconic bands like the Beatles and Queen. I’ve always had this passion for music, but I never really considered pursuing a career in it, especially because it’s not strongly encouraged or supported in Slovakia.

Originally, I thought I’d pursue visual arts. I was passionate about drawing and various forms of arts and crafts. I even went to school for graphic design. However, I encountered an injury that forced me to leave art school. It was a lifelong dream, and suddenly, I couldn’t pursue it anymore.

When you have a means of self-expression that’s taken away from you, it’s natural to seek alternative outlets. That’s when I started writing songs. There wasn’t a specific moment when I thought, ‘This is becoming serious; this is my path.’ It began as a way to express myself and have fun, and over time, it developed into something more significant. It’s a wonderful coincidence and a beautiful artistic journey that I’m currently on. It was a challenging time, but it ultimately led to something different, and I genuinely appreciate what I’m doing now. I suppose everything negative can have a silver lining. 

In an interview, you described yourself as an introverted person, even though you address taboo topics in some of your songs, like in ‘looking at porn’. How do you reconcile your introverted personality with your willingness to tackle such bold and provocative subjects in your music?

I think it’s just that I don’t really think about people hearing my music when I’m making it. I’m never writing with the thought in my head, ‘Oh, this is how many people are going to hear this.’ I’m just writing whatever comes to my head and whatever I’m experiencing and whatever I’m seeing and whatever that eventually turns into is what I end up putting out.

I don’t realise that people hear my music until I am performing it live. Even when you see a number on social media your brain can’t comprehend that until it’s 3D.

You have been described as Europe’s version of Billie Eilish. How do you feel about this comparison, and what distinguishes you from her?

I’ve always admired her. She’s been a favorite artist of mine since 2015. I love her music and her art. However, when people draw comparisons, it can turn into unnecessary competition. I believe every artist is unique, and I don’t want comparisons to taint my appreciation for her or other artists. I’m subconsciously inspired by her, but I’m focused on my own path and style. I hope people can see that and view any comparisons as compliments rather than competition

You’ve been a prominent advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, even making waves on Polish state broadcaster TVP. What are your experiences as an activist in Eastern Europe, and what challenges have you faced in promoting LGBTQ+ equality in the region?

It’s been challenging, especially growing up as a queer person in Eastern Europe. However, I’m optimistic that things might be improving, thanks to the efforts of many young people advocating for change. The more these issues are discussed in mainstream media, the greater the chance for change. I’m using my platform to address important matters, and I see many young artists doing the same. It’s essential to remember that even one person’s actions can have a ripple effect when they share their message with others. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still much progress to be made.

Your lyrics touch on a wide range of topics, from gender equality to mental health. Could you elaborate on your songwriting process and how you approach these themes in your music?

I don’t have a specific formula for writing songs. I usually write about what’s on my mind at the time, as it helps me process my thoughts and feelings. I draw inspiration from life experiences, observations, and conversations with friends. Sometimes, I start with random notes on my phone, and other times, a song can come together in just a few minutes if something is weighing heavily on my mind. There’s no one way I write songs; it varies each time. When I’m in a session, I’m focused on songwriting, but when I’m on my own, it’s more about letting the words flow naturally”.

I am going to end with a couple more interviews. The first is from Gay Times. It was published back in October. I round up with a more recent interview. Gay Times spoke with Karin Ann around the release of favourite star. She said how she wants to create a safe space for queer people:

“With her profile on the rise, Ann has used her platform to speak out on behalf of the community and uses her songs to address topics of mental health, belonging and gender equality.

The singer’s activism extends past her powerful lyrics too. During a live performance on the Polish state broadcaster, TVP, the singer brought onstage a pride flag in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. “It was very difficult for me to be who I am where I grew up (Čadca, Slovakia). I just want people to have something to relate to and to feel safe in,” she says.

Now, following the release of her new alt-pop single, ‘favorite star’, we caught up with Ann to hear more about her musical style and making her mark in Europe and beyond.

Your new single ‘favorite star’ is out now. What inspired the story behind the song?

I wrote this song recently in London and it’s about how you don’t fully realise the effects that somebody had on you. Whether in relationships or friendships, when you spend a lot of time with somebody and you learn about them. Sometimes, you don’t realise how it affects you and what you end up carrying from that person even if you don’t talk anymore

What inspired the queer premise of the ‘favorite star’ music video?

I’ve filmed two music videos for my songs (‘a stranger with my face’ and ‘favorite star’) back to back. We saw similarities between the songs and how we could show a story that relates to both songs. From the beginning, I didn’t want to do a straightforward idea. We ended up playing around with the idea of a 1950s Hollywood spy story. And, through that, we ended up going down the queer route and taking inspiration from real-life events.

Who are your favourite LGBTQIA+ artists right now?

There are so many! Lately, it’s been Renee Rapp, Halsey, Phoebe Bridgers, Maya Hawke, and Ethel Cain

You speak out about LGBTQIA+ rights in Eastern and Central Europe. For you, why does it feel important to address these topics?

I am a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and, naturally, it is important to me to talk about these issues in mainstream media so the conversation can reach groups outside of the community, which is the only way change can happen. I also grew up in Eastern Europe where it’s not widely accepted to be a part of the community, and I want to create a safe space for [queer] people.

Would you describe this as your creative mission as an artist?

Growing up, I knew how I felt and [I want to create] a safe space for anyone who doesn’t feel like they belong. I always found comfort in music and in the community surrounding musicians. As much as people find community and comfort through my music, it works both ways. They find a community through me and I have a community through them”.

I will end with a new interview from NME. Her debut album, through the telescope, is out on 10th May. It is an exciting new chapter for her. An artist who has faced a challenging past few years or so. There are a few parts of the interview that I want to bring in, as they give us more insight into Karin Ann. We also get to know a bit more about her upcoming debut album:

“It is difficult to pin ‘Through The Telescope’, Karin’s debut album (released May 10), to a specific sound, though it shares the pillowy, barely-there instrumentation of Clairo’s ‘Sling’ era, with vocals that veer from whispering to jazz-inflected singing but never lose a sense of intimacy. Through explorative songs that discuss losing faith (‘I Don’t Believe In God’) to the unfamiliar thrills and frisson of a new love (‘She’), the record represents Karin’s teenage state of being: articulate, outspoken and extremely online.

A true child of the internet, she attests her broad worldview to being able to speak directly with other young, LGBTQ+-identifying musicians online; Karin says that, when she was younger, she connected with Norway’s Girl In Red via Facebook. “I found these artists around the time I started questioning my sexuality,” she says. She grew up in the shadow of the queer pop explosion, dubbed ‘20gayteen’ by Hayley Kiyoko – think: the mainstream breakthroughs of Troye Sivan, Halsey, Kehlani. “They spoke of liberal ideas and going against the system – things that I didn’t always see back home.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Keeler for NME

Karin was raised in Žilina, a mountainous region in northwestern Slovakia. She grew up in an environment that allowed her to explore any sport she put her heart to, from figure skating and ballet to archery, while also pursuing other creative endeavours like theatre and music. There’s a throughline to be found between the freedom of her childhood and her earlier material, which sounds like a musician exploring a multitude of avenues – from unabashedly dramatic riffs to pop gloominess à la early Billie Eilish – in order to figure out her identity. “I’m just chasing this feeling / The one that I see on silver screens,” she sang on ‘Almost 20’.

In 2021, on one of the latter’s largest television channels, TVP2, Karin made a statement against eastern Europe’s storied resistance towards queer rights. “I would like to dedicate this to the LGBTQ+ people here, because I know you don’t have it easy. You deserve to feel safe,” she said, wrapping the Pride flag around herself as she performed her single ‘Babyboy’. The speech made headlines across Poland, resulting in TVP2 firing their breakfast programme editor and claiming Karin “[caused] discomfort to many viewers”. This controversy had a “big effect” on her, she affirms today: it finally made Karin feel more comfortable not just in her own skin, but her mission statement.

One of Karin’s key touchstones while working on this album was Maya Hawke, who’s been releasing beaming, ambient folk songs when she’s not starring in Stranger Things. Having “obsessed” over her 2022 LP ‘Moss’, Karin requested that her team put her in touch with producer and Hawke collaborator Benjamin Lazar Davis; the pair clicked “instantly” while working together, and Davis went on to connect Karin and Hawke via FaceTime.

“At first, I didn’t even want to make an album. I have always been headstrong but I was struggling to handle the pressure and was in a shit position with my health. I was thinking about quitting music – the stakes were that high,” says Karin. “But then I got on this call with Maya, and she really changed my perspective on songwriting. She got me out of a rut.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Keeler for NME

Behind the scenes, Karin’s personal life had been unravelling. Following the release of her high-octane ‘Side Effects Of Being Human’ EP, she slogged through the summer of 2022 on a schedule that was “locked down minute-to-minute”. She had to push through dozens of performances and press commitments while quietly battling tetany – a condition that results in involuntary muscle cramps, which for Karin could last up to an hour at a time.

She recalls having to run out of an interview before a show in Rome in order to manage a severe flare-up. “I didn’t even make it back to the green room. It felt like a mixture of a panic attack and a seizure; I couldn’t walk, nor barely breathe. My tongue went numb. Afterwards, I knew I was at breaking point.”

It would be weeks before she would actually find out what was happening to her. During this period, Karin took a break from all work and social media, and returned home to spend time with her dogs, taking each day as it came. She knew the first step to recovery was to momentarily stop thinking about music altogether.

“I had to get better at saying ‘no’ and setting boundaries,” she says. “I had to ask myself questions like, ‘How much am I willing to do before I sacrifice my health entirely?’ ‘How far do I really want to push myself this time?’”

And yet, here she is, smiling. Karin beams as she discusses how she has managed to channel the emotional toll of her illness into her most expansive music yet. Still wearing a full face of makeup from our photoshoot (bar the heart-shaped lip paint), Ann’s laughter is warm and frequent. The pain is still raw, she says, but she is ready to move on.

Karin is now gearing up to play live again, starting with two offshoot shows at SXSW here in Austin. She is feeling reflective and ready to tell her story. There is an autobiographical thread through both her songwriting and the way she expresses herself; she wants people to see her struggles as well as her triumphs”.

If you have not checked out Karin Ann, then make sure that you do now. An artist who is like no other, I hope that we see her added to festival bills in the U.K. There are fans here that would love to see her live. I am quite new to her work, yet I am compelled to follow her. An inspiring, empowering and wonderful artist, in Karin Ann we have…

A singular talent.

____________

Follow Karin Ann

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life at Forty-Five: Merchandise, Memorabilia and Artefacts

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life at Forty-Five

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing live onstage on The Tour of Life/PHOTO CREDIT: Jorgen Angel/Redferns

 

Merchandise, Memorabilia and Artefacts

_________

I have written…

a couple of features about The Tour of Life, as it turns forty-five on 2nd April. That was the warm-up gig at Poole. On 3rd April, 1979, the first official night took place. It was a phenomenal and groundbreaking tour that received huge reviews and adulation. The crowds packed in to see Kate Bush perform her magnificent songs. Mixing theatre, mine and poetry, this was a Pop/Rock concert like nothing else. I have been looking at the build-up and preparation for the tour. How it all came together and how it was received. In the final feature to mark the forty-fifth anniversary of The Tour of Life, I am looking more at the memorabilia and merchandise. I am not sure how much is available on sites like eBay and other auction places. To get a sense of what was available in 1979, you can look at this website. I have been thinking to The Tour of Life and what fans were buying at the various dates. In addition to the programme, there were posters and a sweatshirt. It would have been amazing to snap up this merchandise to commemorate witnessing a live extravaganza. Although there is more merchandise out there to buy from 2014’s Before the Dawn than 1979’s The Tour of Life, I do wonder how much of the original memorabilia from the tour is still out there. I would give anything to have a crew jacket or sweatshirt in my possession! There are the tour posters and, if you want something rarer, set/floor designs and costume designs. One reason why I am discussing memorabilia and merchandise from The Tour of Life is because there is not a great deal in terms of archive. You can see various videos from particular nights of the tour, though the quality is not good. I would love to think that, someday, there will be a 4K/HD official release from Kate Bush. A chance to see one of the sets in all of its glory!

Also, in terms of audio releases and available options, we do not really have that much out there. I have been asking around and looking on websites to see if there is anything available to buy. It is quite rare to find anything from forty-five years ago. I think The Tour of Life is one of my favourite times and events from Kate Bush. So fascinating. I feel one of the criticisms for Before the Dawn was how expensive the merchandise was. Of course, if I was at one of the dates in 2014, I would have bought quite a few bits. It would have been wonderful to have some physical proof that I was at the gig. I could keep it for  years and remember being there. Despite the merchandise being expensive, I feel it would be worth it in the long run. One reason why I want The Tour of Life merchandise and artefacts is because I could not be there. The tour happened years before I was born, so I can never get a sense of what it was like. I wonder how many people are going to mark the anniversary. Such an important moment in Kate Bush’s career, it would introduce The Tour of Life to new generations. I have said before how, in addition to the official merchandise, how there is a whole other level of memorabilia and artefacts. I know there have been Kate Bush auctions before. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think anything From The Tour of Life has been auctioned. Think about the costumes and set that would have been taken across the country and Europe. How magnificent it would be to have something like that. If you think about the effort and planning that went into The Tour of Life, there would be something magnificent and very special owning a small piece of it.

I have seen on social media a few people who were at one of the dates for The Tour of Life. Forty-five years later, it still resounds and resonates. I think that it changed what a Pop concert could be. In terms of its scale and scope. Mixing various forms of art. Having the wireless head mic (which was designed and pioneered for The Tour of Life). If you watch clips of the songs performed, there are so many different costumes and props. I guess the actual set has been destroyed and there is nothing available. To have a collectable like a staff pass or sweatshirt would be popular with fans. If anyone knows if there is anything available, then do let me know. I do know that tour posters have been put onto eBay but, aside from that, there is not a lot. You feel it must be out there somewhere. I am not sure how expensive it would be to reproduce the tour posters and clothing, though it would be an investment many fans would be willing to make. Perhaps I am dreaming. Maybe there is nothing remaining from The Tour of Life in circulation. Regardless, we are approaching forty-five years of The Tour of Life. With a warm-up gig on 2nd April, 1979 and the first night happening the following day, Kate Bush and her crew delivered something extraordinary. Magnificent and immaculate, this was a massive moment in her career! After a couple of studio albums – 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart -, I feel many still perceived Kate Bush as being odd and inexperienced. Someone who was this stranger artist. She was being parodied and subjected to ridicule. The Tour of Life firmly announced her as this serious and ambitious artist who was also one of the finest live performers of her generation. I envy anyone who got to see her perform in 1979. Looking at the merchandise that was out there for the tour, I am not the only one who would love to own a piece of that. To have a connection and something I can keep for years. I have not lost hope that out there somewhere, there is precious reminder…

FROM The Tour of Life.

FEATURE: Empty Cans: Ahead of The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free Turning Twenty, Will It Get a Vinyl Reissue?

FEATURE:

 

 

Empty Cans

  

Ahead of The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free Turning Twenty, Will It Get a Vinyl Reissue?

_________

AN album that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Mike Skinner (a.k.a. The Streets)/PHOTO CREDIT: Edd Westmacott

reached number one in the U.K. upon its release, The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free turns twenty on 17th May. Its first single, Fit But You Know It, is twenty on 26th April. I wanted to look at some reviews for the album, but also ask whether there will be an anniversary edition reissued to vinyl. One of the most acclaimed and spectacular albums of the early-'00s, it is a Rap opera/concept album that follows a protagonist's relationship with a girl named Simone. This goes alongside the mysterious loss of £1,000 from his home. It is an intriguing story and arc that has a wonderful and dramatic end. At the moment, you can get the album on vinyl, though it can be quite expensive. I wonder whether Mike Skinner (the man behind The Streets) might be planning to reissue the album. One of the most extraordinary aspects of A Grand Don’t Come for Free is how it differed from U.S. Hip-Hop of the time. A more slick and polished sound, the songs often featured quite fascinating and glamorous characters. The Streets, on A Grand Don’t Come for Free, had these rather ordinary and relatable characters. With quite simple and D.I.Y. production – Skinner explained how he worked on his own and didn’t have expensive kit or engineers -, it is a working-class and British album that still resonates to this day. I have said before how there should be a short film around the album. It has not really been visualised or brought to life yet. Twenty years after its release, there is something ageless and oddly timely about the album. I hope that it comes to vinyl and there are options maybe of a cassette and new CD release. DIY looked back on A Grand Don’t Come for Free in 2017:

“As he writes in his book The Story of The Streets, Skinner says that “the reason I decided to write ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ as episodes from a single unfolding narrative was because I’d got so into my songwriting manuals and books by Hollywood screen-writing gurus – not just Robert McKee by Syd Field and John Truby as well – and I wanted to try and put what I’d learnt from them into practice.”

Clearly, he’d learned from the best, because what Skinner packs into less than the time it takes to finish an episode of Making a Murderer is astonishing – the nightclub scene in ‘Blinded By The Lights’ that captures the sense of dread and despair we’ve all had before; the dodgy ‘Fit But You Know It’ holiday saga we’ve all actually hopefully well avoided. For every well-written sketch about weed and not knowing a thing about football, there are real gut-punching moments about affairs, break-ups and getting kicked out of the house.

Has any British artist since even dared to attempt the rap opera?

Lyrics and plot are all well and good, but none of this would’ve mattered if it didn’t stand up musically. Luckily for Skinner, he smashed it out of the park. Where ‘Original Pirate Material’ asserted him as one of UK garage’s most iconic figures, ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ – and excuse the pun, here – pushed things forward. Skinner’s delivery is awkward and charming, only furthering his characterisation, and the sounds scattered throughout are wild visions of a thoroughly British pop landscape – the chugging indie guitars of ‘Fit But You Know It’, the slow-motion euphoria of ‘Blinded By The Lights’ and beautiful balladry – yeah, it’s beautiful, alright? - of ‘Dry Your Eyes’ tapped into a sound that was grin-inducingly fun and very of its time.

‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’ exists solely in its own space – has any British artist since then even dared to attempt the rap opera? – and in doing so rightfully earns its place alongside any of the best film scores, soap operas (yes, it topples Neighbours) and indeed, concept albums. There’s not enough fresh storytelling being told in new music these days – everything’s all very doom and gloom right now as we all know – so why not revisit an incredibly fun, emotional yet uplifting fable about a silly git who lost his football winnings? Let’s just hope Dan and Simone have bucked their ideas up in the ensuing years”.

I want to come to some reviews. Pitchfork rated it highly in their review. I think that a concept album can be quite risky and backfire. A truly great one has this filmic quality that stays long in the mind. The masterful A Grand Don’t Come for Free is one of the best ever released:

“Whether it's a reaction against the MP3's pending usurpation of the album format or just simple coincidence, the concept record is enjoying a small comeback at the moment. But perhaps careful not to echo the supposed sins of bloat and misbegotten puffery that characterized the psychedelic and progressive rock eras, many of the artists responsible for the best recent concept records-- Sufjan Stevens' Greetings from Michigan, the Magnetic Fields' i, and The Fiery Furnaces' upcoming Blueberry Boat-- share a willful intimacy that borders on the quaint.

On A Grand Don't Come for Free-- the follow-up to his internationally acclaimed debut, Original Pirate Material-- Mike Skinner audaciously weaves an 11-track narrative over an often bare and inert musical backdrop, one that acts more like a film score than the foundation of a pop record. The plot is pretty bare-bones: boy loses money, boy meets girl, boy loses girl. But by focusing as much on the minutiae of life as on its grand gestures, the impact of Skinner's album-- essentially a musical update of "The Parable of the Lost Coin" peppered with Seinfeld's quotidian anxiety and, eventually, a philosophical examination of Skinner's lifestyle and personal relationships-- transcends its seemingly simple tale.

Cynics and/or detractors could sneer that Skinner's sonics are too slight and that his flow is too rigid-- particularly when compared to "other" hip-hop artists-- without being entirely off the mark: Skinner's awkward, sometimes offbeat delivery is even more charmingly/frustratingly clumsy here than it was on Original Pirate Material, and the record's beats and melodies are subservient to its story. But while those perceived weaknesses may make A Grand a non-starter for those who disliked Skinner's debut, trying to place his square peg into the round holes of either hip-hop or grime/eski seems a mistake. After all, this is a record that starts with its protagonist trying to return a DVD and ends with him chastising himself for improperly washing his jeans. In between, he spends time at an Ibiza burger stand, smokes spliffs on his girlfriend's couch, grumbles about a broken TV, sorts out his epilepsy pills, philosophizes about the nature of friendship, and grumbles about the failures of mobile technology. Clearly, Skinner is on a singular place on the pop landscape.

Echoing his ability to compensate for his own musical weaknesses, Skinner manages to turn his character's personal shortcomings into A Grand's strengths: Communication failures, both technological and human, allow Skinner to deftly examine body language and small gestures. His character's lack of prospects and disconnect with work and family highlight the importance of friendship (especially, perhaps, to young urban adults). His crippling self-doubt (at the record's start, any hiccup in his day is proof that he should just spend it in bed) and need for approval from others makes his solipsistic epiphany all the more heart-wrenching. The album's ultimate contradiction may be that while Skinner's life is seemingly driftless, his understandable attempt to tether it to another human being-- any other human being-- often causes him more harm than good.

Considering that Skinner showed such a gift for post-laddish humor on Original Pirate Material, the most surprising aspect of A Grand may be that, here, he's at his best when he's at his most sentimental. His love and/or relationship songs overflow with melancholy and the inability to express emotion at crucial moments. In short, they're pretty truthful and sometimes painfully familiar. Along with the drug haze of "Blinded by the Lights", A Grand's best moments are a pair of tracks that bookend the story's main boy/girl relationship: The first-date track "Could Well Be In" ("I looked at my watch and realized right then that for three hours we been in conversation/ Before she put her phone down, she switched to silent and we carried on chatting for more than that again") and the dissolution of that same relationship on "Dry Your Eyes", a tongue-tied, heart-in-throat ballet of non-verbal expression.

That Skinner is able to coax so much from a cliché-heavy, 50-minute examination of solipsism and self-pity is a tribute to his ability to reflect and illuminate life's detail. By stressing his paranoia and doubts ("It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them," he blubbers as he loses a domestic dispute), he deftly avoids the melodrama of today's network reality TV. Instead, his approach echoes the faux reality of The Office (which shares a non-ending ending with A Grand) and the me-first neediness of its "star" David Brent (whose final-episode self-actualization echoes Skinner's). Like The Office, Skinner's anthropological humanism typically focuses on either the mundane or disappointing-- and, let's face it, life is most often one or the other--- but he does so with such endearing intimacy and bare honesty that it's easy to give yourself over to the album's narrative on first listen and, perhaps just as importantly, to want to revisit it over and over again”.

I am going to round up in a minute. Secret Meeting dove into the wonderful A Grand Don’t Come for Free. Anyone who has not heard this album really needs to check it out. Following The Streets’ 2002 debut, Original Pirate Material, Mike Skinner released another masterpiece:

“After disbanding in 2011, it felt like the right time for Mike Skinner to put The Streets to bed. Their later albums, despite the odd good song, paled in comparison to the first two records. This week in a rainy Berlin, The Streets made a triumphant return to stage, playing a set lifted heavily from those first two albums. Original Pirate Material is now rightfully considered a modern British classic. A genre-warping guide to the life of working-class young people in early 2000s Britain, it read like a manifesto to the disenfranchised youth of the day. Its follow-up looked at the same world, but where Original Pirate Material gave provided the overview, this record took an in-depth look at one of its stories. That record was A Grand Don’t Come For Free.

It follows our narrator as he tries to recover the eponymous ‘grand’, mysteriously missing from his house, while tracking his star crossed relationship with Simone. A concept album in the truest sense, this ambitious project flexed both Skinner’s storytelling ability, as well as his knack for creating interesting beats to provide the backdrop.

It Was Supposed To Be So Easy sets the scene as our narrator spends the day trying to get his life in order, but he seems to fail at every step. After returning home, he finds that not only has his TV broken, but the £1000 he left there had gone missing. Layered over a rich, horn-laden beat, it creates a cinematic introduction for the story we are about to hear transpire.

Documenting the start of his relationship with Simone, Could Well Be In is a first person account as our narrator’s date unfolds – sometimes second guessing himself or letting his neuroses get the better of him. The visually rich lyrics make it hard not to picture the scene as he “Looks at the ashtray, then looked back up/Spinning it away on the tabletop”. While its refrained hook offers an opportunity to empathise with Skinner as he questions whether his date is interested- “I saw this thing on ITV the other week, said, that if she played with her hair, she’s probably keen/She’s playing with her hair, well regularly, so I reckon I could well be in.” Singing in the vernacular may not be a choice for Skinner, but it certainly helps you connect with this character more acutely.

Not Addicted finds him tying to recover his grand by gambling on football. After several wins, he needs to get to the bookmakers in time to throw all his winnings on one final all-or-nothing bet. He doesn’t make it and his frustration starts to spill over before seeing that, fortuitously, his prediction was wrong and he dodged a bullet. Obviously nowadays, with online and in-play betting, he would have put the bet on and lost it all. Despite the dated detail, there is a universal truth to the way it describes a vice slowly creeping in and taking over.

Set in a nightclub, Blinded By The Lights tells the tale of Skinner taking ecstasy while waiting for Simone. He is stood up but, before he can dwell on it, the pills kick in and his state of euphoria takes over.  Usually songs about drugs either have to be written metaphorically or carry an air of tedium. Here though, Skinner is very matter-of-fact about using the substance use. He doesn’t sugarcoat it or try any sort of grandstanding – instead offering an minute by minute account of his experience. As is often the case throughout the record, his ability to paint vivid pictures with his words is on full display, backed only by beats and minimal synths that ebb and flow metronomically.

Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way adds emphasis to the romantic side of this concept album. He focuses on the epiphany that spending time in Simone’s house is better than hanging out with his mates. But things start to decline in Get Out of My House. After a row, Simone (voiced by C-Mone) kicks him out in this satirical look at petty arguments between couples.

Lead single Fit But You Know It is probably The Streets’ most recognisable song. The Parklife-evoking beat underpins this tale of Skinner contemplating trying to pull a girl in a kebab shop queue while on a lads’ holiday, before deciding that while she is ‘fit,’ she knows it- emphasised through her aloof manner. This, the album’s answer to Don’t Mug Yourself on Original Pirate Material, saw The Streets crossover into the mainstream, reaching number four in the UK Singles Chart (when that was a detail that was still relevant).

Such a Twat’s guilt is metaphorically backed by heavy horns, with the beat adding to the ludicrous drama. What Is He Thinking?, in true soap opera style, feels like the dark soundtrack that was written for the ‘boss’ level on a 90’s video game, as Skinner’s tension continues to build towards breaking point.

Dry Your Eyes moves the narrative on, with the narrator trying to cope with the betrayal of Simone, as well as with his own conflicting guilt. The lush strings that kick off the song make way for a two-chord acoustic guitar part, before returning to lift the chorus. Evocative, emotional words make your heart break for this flawed character as his world falls apart- ‘Dry your eyes, mate. I know it’s hard to take but her mind has been made up. There’s plenty more fish in the sea’ – as it plays on the empty cliches that friends offer in the hope that they’ll be of comfort after a loss. This is an incredibly mature and accomplished piece of songwriting- one which gave Skinner his first number one single.

Empty Cans is a bittersweet tale that utilises two parallel story arcs, with both a bitter and happy ending to the story. In the former, our narrator gets in a fight with the TV repairman over the his fee, and in the latter he reconciles with his mates and finds the £1000 that had fallen down the back of the TV. As the soundtrack changes during the second half, you can visualise the light flooding in as the weight disperses from his shoulders and he’s right back where he started.

Bringing down the curtain on this tale of love, loss, friends and British nightlife also feels bittersweet for other reasons. There is only so long you can successfully write about these subjects without it feeling contrived. Sellout tours and platinum albums mean that your problems change. Skinner was acutely aware of this and his subsequent records focused on issues that he now faced. At this point though, it felt like a moment had passed. He no longer connected with his audience in the same way because they had fewer shared experiences. It is to Skinner’s credit that he didn’t try carry on writing in a way that would have felt contrived given his success. Arctic Monkeys are another act who had to change their lyrical content once they became successful as they became disconnected from the social commentary of their first LP. They, however, were able to develop their sound also and find a new audience, whereas Skinner could not.

Let none of this take away from the fact that he created two albums that perfectly captured the zeitgeist of a period which saw huge changes in the world. The internet’s effects on the music industry were just starting to be felt as technology took over our lives. Since the birth of the iPod around this time, we have continually fallen deeper into a dystopian lifestyle, where technology is deciding the outcome of elections and always to hand. Music in this period was starting to come to grips with this new world. Few captured this transition like The Streets. Original Pirate Material may rightfully be considered a classic album, but A Grand Don’t Come For Free is sinfully overlooked by many, despite being every bit as good”.

I do hope, before the twentieth anniversary on 17th May, that there is a reissue or some sort of celebration of A Grand Don’t Come for Free. One of those albums that should be handed down through the generations, let’s hope there are plans for The Streets’ second studio album. Revived and going to this day – last year’s The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light is among the best -, I do hope Mike Skinner marks two decades of a wonderful album. A Grand Don’t Come for Free…

STILL holds currency.

FEATURE: TEXAS HOLD ‘EM BACK: Is Country Music a Genre That Embraces Black Women?

FEATURE:

 

 

TEXAS HOLD ‘EM BACK

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter (out on 29th March)

 

Is Country Music a Genre That Embraces Black Women?

_________

THERE are contrasting points…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

though there is this struggle for Country music to accept Black women. In fact, Black artists altogether. It seems still very much like a landscape that excludes them. It needs to change. I mention this, as Beyoncé has been in the news. Her recent single, TEXAS HOLD ‘EM, is taken from her new album, Cowboy Carter (out on 29th March). A U.S. radio station refused to played TEXAS HOLD ‘EM. The truth is, as Beyoncé was raised in Texas, she grew up around Country music and the culture. That was confirmed by her dad. Their opinion from many is that Beyoncé does not belong in Country music. This elitism still persists. That you have to be genuine. Beyoncé definitely is. It will be exciting to hear her new album. There are questions around Country music and whether it has a problem with race and gender. Although women are slowly getting more airplay and acceptance, there is still discrimination that is holding women back. In spite of a few Black female Country artists getting recognition, there seems to be a real lack of celebration. Last year, PBS wrote how Black women have deep roots in Country music:

“Rissi Palmer, independent country music artist, songwriter, storyteller, entrepreneur and mother, is a Grammy-nominated performer who has worked at her craft since she was 17 years old, and left college in her freshman year to come to Nashville to make a living making music. Under the loving watch of three generations of mothers, Palmer grew up listening to and loving country music women like Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline, as well as gospel, soul, hip-hop and blues. She has made music in all of these genres, but country music is where she’s made her home, despite the gatekeeping of an industry that often made her feel like she was running in place. After landing a recording contract with a label in Nashville, Palmer experienced tight control and surveillance, from the kinds of stories she could tell in her lyrics to how she should wear her hair.

This feeling of running in place was one that many Black women artists navigating country music have experienced, historically. From Linda Martell, Palmer’s biggest inspiration, to Dona Mason, the Black country artist who had been the last Black woman to chart a country hit 20 years before Palmer, Black women have fought to find a place in an industry that is only recently beginning to shift.

Black women have deep roots in country music, and are among the originators of the genre.

The banjo is, after all, an instrument with African origins, cousin to the current West African instrument, the akonting. Black people are said to have brought their banjos (and the knowledge of how to make them), with them during the Middle Passage. The first string band performers were enslaved people, and this music was appropriated to form Blackface minstrelsy, the United States’ first successful commercial music. A major country music guitar and banjo picking style originated in the Piedmont region’s blues, exemplified by virtuoso Black woman musicians Elizabeth Cotten and Etta Baker.

Some of the erasure of this history of origins can be explained by the ways that from the 1920s on in the record industry, recorded music was segregated into “Hillbilly” records  (which was eventually called country and western, or just country music, and was marketed specifically to white audiences), while “Race” music (including blues), was marketed as “Black” music. But both performers and fans crossed these racial lines, despite the rules, and despite the idea that this segregation was “natural” and grounded in the body. In this way, country music, like other American musical genres have reflected the informal, but sometimes deadly laws of Jim Crow. The segregation of country music continues today, upheld by many of the ways that country music is sold, marketed, distributed and written about, with very few exceptions”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Miko Marks/ PHOTO CREDIT: Lelanie Foster for The New York Times

Going back to 2021, The New York Times spoke with five female songwriters - Mickey Guyton, Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, Reyna Roberts and Brittney Spencer – about the challenges they face in a homogeneous genre. It does seem that the successful Black female artists in Country music have gained recognition and acclaim because they have carved their own path. Straying away from what is accepted and traditional:

“Black artists were foundational to the roots of country music, but the industry has been famously inhospitable to Black performers. Outside of the success of Charley Pride, a giant of the genre who died in December from Covid-19, and the harmonica ace DeFord Bailey, there were few other high-profile Black performers in Nashville until Darius Rucker of Hootie & the Blowfish pivoted to country music in 2008. More recently, Jimmie Allen and Kane Brown have made inroads with a radio-friendly sound.

In the past decade, women were increasingly pushed to the genre’s margins as the heavily male bro-country aesthetic dominated. The disparity has played out on country radio, which is still largely responsible for breaking acts and maintaining their status. In the infamous “Tomato-gate” uproar of 2015, a male radio consultant asserted in a salad analogy that women should be akin to tomatoes — sprinkled into the mix. A 2019 study examining data from Mediabase, a service that monitors airplay, found that between 2002 and 2018, male solo artists received 70 percent of spins at country radio.

IN THIS PHOTO: Rissi Palmer/PHOTO CREDIT: Lelanie Foster for The New York Times

Guyton, Marks, Palmer, Roberts and Spencer stand at the intersection of two marginalized communities in country music at a pivotal moment — as the genre, and the wider world, re-examines itself in light of the protests for racial justice in 2020. Just this month, Nashville got its first high-profile test, when the star Morgan Wallen was captured on video using a racial slur. Guyton tweeted a challenge to her peers — “So what exactly are y’all going to do about it. Crickets won’t work this time.” — and as other artists reacted online, the industry rebuked Wallen, pulling his songs from radio and playlists.

All eyes will be on the Texas native Guyton, 37, on March 14 at the Grammy Awards, where she is nominated for best country solo performance for “Black Like Me” — a first for a Black female artist. But all of these musicians have earned a spotlight. Roberts, 23, had her first single, the raucous “Stompin’ Grounds,” adopted by ESPN for “Monday Night Football.” The veteran indie artist Marks, 47, will release “Our Country,” her first new album in over a decade, later this year. Spencer’s cover of the Highwomen song “Crowded Table” led to a writing session with the group’s Maren Morris and Amanda Shires. (Spencer and Roberts were also both recently named members of the 2021 class of CMT’s “Next Women of Country.”) And Palmer, 39, has drawn high marks for her Apple Music radio show “Color Me Country,” which explores the genre’s Black, Indigenous and Latino beginnings. (The title was inspired by the Black country pioneer Linda Martell.)

The five musicians gathered on an animated and emotional video call in December. There was roof raising, finger snapping and tear dabbing as they discussed something sacred to them — country music — and the challenges and outright racism they’ve faced trying to break into a notoriously homogeneous segment of the music industry.

But above all, they are determined to be true to themselves and support each other: “These white men at these record labels, they’re not going to do it for us,” Guyton said. “These white men at these radio stations, they’re not going to do it for us. But Black women will do it for each other, and that is literally the only way.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Mickey Guyton/PHOTO CREDIT: Lelanie Foster for The New York Times

When did you each decide to let go of trying to fit in?

PALMER It actually was in the boardroom before anybody had ever heard me. I remember us sitting around — and this was Black and white people — arguing about whether or not my hair was going to be offensive to people. I remember wanting so badly for everybody to love me and be OK. So, I did this photo shoot and I wore these wigs. One was a straight shag, like soccer mom hair. And they were just like, “That’s it.” It looked crazy, and it wasn’t me. I remember saying, “Can we just do one photo shoot with my hair?” And those ended up being my promo pics and my favorite pictures of me that I’ve ever taken. But I had to fight just to be me.

MARKS I didn’t start fighting until much later. I had the kind of manager that was like, “Sometimes you’ve got to get in the box to get out the box.” I had the cowgirl hat, the weave, the boots. I had the whole box. A little while after that, I shaved my head, because I forgot who Miko was. Something about that hat and that weave and them boots, it just had me so I couldn’t breathe. And so I was like, “Well, I still love the music, but this is me right here. This is it.”

Mickey, once you stopped trying to please people, you felt like your music became more authentic?

GUYTON Yes. I wrote a drinking song called “Rosé” about three years ago. And I was just like, “What girl doesn’t love rosé? If there’s a song that country radio will finally accept from me, it would be this one.”

I played it for the label. Crickets. Some white radio promo guy said, “Yeah, but I don’t know if this song is going to bring back Mickey,” and derailed everything. It put me into the deepest, darkest, scariest depression that I’ve ever felt in my entire life, because I realized that no matter what I did, it was never going to be enough. Because surely if a white girl presented this song, they would have had a music video and a pink hotel with drinks and the whole thing.

At that point I was just so done trying to please these people. I heard of a woman at Capitol Records, and I was going to talk to her about this. We were at a restaurant around the corner from the record label, and the hostess said, “Would you like to sit in our rosé lounge today?” I was like, “As a matter of fact, I sure [expletive] would.” We sat there, and I made up my mind. I’m going to write my truth. And not only that, I’m going to find every Black female country singer that there is, and open that door too, because the only way that this will ever work is if we find each other and we bring each other up.

I released “Black Like Me” myself. And I only did it because I saw unjust deaths happen, just like everyone on this call did. I put it out there for no other reason than to maybe make a couple of people feel hope. And it took on its own life.

And now you have a Grammy nomination.

GUYTON Right. It’s our Grammy nomination, by the way.

Here’s where it gets complicated: Hopefully, the day will come where we can’t name all the Black country artists because there are so many. But you also don’t want to lose that powerful element of identity that informs a song like “Black Like Me.” How do you balance making sure being Black is part of your music but not the only story?

SPENCER Well, I’m the new kid on the block. I’ve released an EP, and I wanted four songs that I felt talked about the whole me. I just write about anything, sing about everything. And hopefully that puzzle makes sense to people. But for me, it’s just been important to talk about the things that I want to talk about, and that does include being a Black woman. People will have to understand that no artist in general is just one thing”.

In spite of some inspiration and wonderful Black female Country artists challenging the genre and tackling racism and sexism, it is clear that there is still a massive issue. Following on from the fact that Beyoncé made history on the U.S. country charts by becoming the first Black woman to score a number one single - with TEXAS HOLD ‘EM -, the BBC spoke with Black female Country artists about the state of the genre. Beyoncé follows up 2022’s RENISSANCE with Cowboy Carter. That will be the second act in a trilogy of albums:

“Rissi Palmer, 42, from Missouri is one of them. She broke a 20-year wait for a black woman to appear on the country charts with her 2007 single Country Girl. Before her, it was Dona Mason in 1987.

Speaking about Beyoncé's achievement, Rissi told the BBC World Service's OS Conversations documentary: "I'm glad that a black woman has finally had a number one.

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous that in the history of having this chart, there's only been eight of us. That's not a good thing, it's not a happy thing.

"She's a Houston girl. She's just as southern as anybody else that makes country music. One of the great things about this Beyoncé moment is that it has dispelled this myth that country radio has always tried to teach artists that you have to do things in a certain way for your music to be played."

It comes after a station in Oklahoma went viral for refusing to play Beyonce's song - saying it didn't consider her new material to be country. After a backlash from fans, the station later added Texas Hold 'Em to the playlist.

But it cuts to the heart of the country music experience for black artists, longing to be accepted into the genre.

Enter Holly G, from Virginia. She's the founder of Black Opry - an organisation dedicated to creating connections between black artists in country and Americana.

"For somebody who loves country music so much, to go so long and not see yourself in it, I just got to a point where I got frustrated with that," she says.

"I kind of had a decision to make, I could either stop listening to it or try to figure out a way to make it better. And I decided to stick around and see what we could do.

"I think the way that Beyoncé is being celebrated should be the rule for all of the black women that are trying to work in this space. They're being more tolerated recently than they have been in the past, but they're still not being celebrated." 

"They're still not being included in meaningful ways. And Beyoncé topping the chart changes nothing structurally," Holly says.

Black Opry now tours across the US to champion the work of black artists and the change they want to see.

Holly expresses a sense of urgency about the cause, adding: "There's not going to be another black woman at the top of the country charts, if they behave the way they did before Beyoncé entered the space."

Rissi chimes in with her agreement, knowing the struggle all too well.

"I was on a radio tour for nearly a year trying to get Country Girl to go up the charts," she recalls. "I wanted to talk about being black, and was kind of told not to do that. So instead I put black girl Easter Eggs in the song.

"I think country means something different to white and black people in America. We don't necessarily long for the good old days, because what were the good old days for us, you know? It was Jim Crow, it was slavery.

"We tend to look toward God, the future and black joy," says Rissi.

After a lengthy legal battle, Rissi lost the rights to her master recordings and parted ways with her record label in 2010. She now releases music independently, deciding to move away from the hub of Nashville to North Carolina as she felt it was the "healthiest thing for her".

Beyoncé has nodded to the traditional sounds of the genre on Texas Hold 'Em - featuring Grammy Award-winning Rhiannon Giddens playing the banjo, who has been credited for highlighting that black people created and played the banjo before it was popularised by white country artists.

"It's ancestral," points out Taylor Crumpton, 28, on the influence of country music in her life. As a black woman from Texas, just like Beyoncé, she reflects on how the genre is connected to her identity.

"I come from a proud line of sharecroppers and cowboys. My grandfather was buried in his cowboy boots," she shares.

As a writer, part of her job is to be analytical about the country universe. But for the most part, she says, the connection comes naturally.

"I think it feels more like a warm embrace and a hug from an elder who has passed - or maybe when I spent summers at my grandmother's farm and I'm running from chickens and there's hogs."

"I've grown up hearing stories from my family members about how they were made fun of for their accent. I think people forget that when Beyoncé first debuted, she was made fun of for her accent in the press.

"In this moment, I've been getting messages from black woman about how they feel like they can come back into a wholeness of self”.

To further add to the debate, Azealia Banks called out Beyoncé. Accusing her of selling out or venturing into a genre that she is not meant to be in, NME reported on Banks’ remarks:

“Beyoncé announced that she would be turning her sights to a country direction last year, and recently shared the cover and title of her upcoming album, ‘Cowboy Carter’.

However, rapper Azealia Banks isn’t too happy about the finished product, and has taken to social media to slam the ‘Love On Top’ singer as being in “white woman cosplay”. It also comes after she claimed the singer is “setting herself up to be ridiculed” by venturing into the country genre.

Writing on Instagram stories, Banks first took aim at Beyoncé for the album’s title, writing: “Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title?”

She then shared her issues with the cover and overall aesthetic of the LP, saying that she was “ashamed” at how the singer “switch[ed] from baobab trees and black parade to this literal pick me stuff.” The comments refer to the Grammy Award-winning single from The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack, which Beyoncé executive produced back in 2019.

Later, she went on to accuse Bey of “reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form” and “subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism, segregation, slavery, violence, theft, massacres, plagues, manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like ‘proud to be an American,’ or ‘god bless the usa”.

I think he inevitable success of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter will help shine a light on the role of Black women in Country music. Whilst there are small steps forward, there is still a massive issue with race and gender. A genre that still is still homogeneous and struggles to celebrate Black women, it is clear that something needs to change. It is clear that Country music really needs to…

SHINE a light on their importance and talent.

FEATURE: Here’s To The Troublemakers! Looking Ahead to My First Year with the Club

FEATURE:

 

 

Here’s To The Troublemakers!

IN THIS PHOTO: Eleanor Newton in conversation with Marina Hyde (who was speaking about her book, What Just Happened?!: Dispatches from Turbulent Times) at The Ned on 21st November, 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Lubbock

 

Looking Ahead to My First Year with the Club

_________

THE first event…

I attended with The Trouble Club was about ten months ago when She's In CTRL author Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon spoke about women's erasure in tech. That was held at The Ned in London. Until that point, I did not know much about The Trouble Club and what they did. I was intrigued to join and, as a first event, that was a pretty good and memorable one! Since then, I have seen some truly incredible women in conversation for The Trouble Club. One of the most memorable was journalist and author (and podcaster) Marina Hyde back in November. First started in 2014, the Trouble Club celebrates its tenth anniversary (I am not sure the exact week/month they were founded, but we are close!). Run by Director Eleanor Newton, The Trouble Club hosts a number of fascinating speakers across beautiful venues in and around central London. From politicians, authors to activists, there have been so many incredible talks and events held since their inception. Growing in stature and popularity, they just recently announced 10,000 Instagram followers. You can also follow them on Twitter. With Francesca Edmondson (Marketing & Events Coordinator) working alongside Eleanor (Ellie) Newton at these events, there is this formidable and renowned club whose members, Troublemakers, are growing in numbers. There is talk that events will be taking place in Manchester soon. I wonder when the official tenth anniversary is and whether there will be a special event. Alongside talks, there are a range of social events and book clubs available. Also online events so that people can watch from home. I am going to look back at the events I have not covered yet since my previous feature about The Trouble Club. That was at the end of January. A couple of months later, there has been a lot packed in. So many fascinating and wonderful events!

You can look at what is coming up. You can become a member. To be honest, when I look back at events from the past two months and point to what is coming up, you will definitely want to! There are so many benefits. You get a free complimentary ticket to an event every month. There are these social events and two guest passes to each Trouble event at the members price. There is also Access to networking opportunities at pre-event drinks and members dinners. It is an inclusive, safe and welcoming space where you feel included and embraced. Tomorrow, Monarchs, Mistresses & More. A Guided Her-story Tour of Mayfair takes place at 2.00 p.m. It is going to be amazing: “If you are tired of walking in the footsteps of the male, pale and stale then join us for a guided history walk that will focus solely on London’s most brilliant women”. I am going to start off with the start of February and what was happening with The Trouble Club. On 9th February, the powerful and important Surviving Playboy with Crystal Hefner and Pandora Sykes took place at Soho’s Century Club, it was a moving and hugely honest conversation: “In 2008 the Playboy mansion became Crystal Harris's sanctuary - a shimmering vestige of opportunity. Within months she had ascended its hierarchy to become Hugh Hefner's top girlfriend. But her new home came at a cost. Forced to follow strict rules that governed everything from her appearance to behaviour, she began to lose her identity”. Crystal Hefner was discussing her time married to the late Hugh Hefner and her time at the Playboy Mansion. Hefner has written Say Only Good Things where she reveals what it was like being in a very strange, toxic and coercive environment. She and Pandora Sykes took us inside life inside the Playboy Mansion. I am glad that Hefner now seems in a happier place – and is in a loving and trusting relationship – and can tell her story.

On 13th February, Conversations From Calais with Mathilda Della Torre and Hiba Noor took place at  Mortimer House. I would recommend people get Della Torre’s book, Conversations From Calais: Sharing Refugee Stories. Another amazing event – “Conversations From Calais aims to re-humanise those affected by the refugee crisis by using public space to share conversations volunteers have had with migrants met in Calais. It is a way of bearing witness for the thousands of displaced people stuck in Calais and trying to reach the UK” – there was so much emotion in the air. Especially raw and moving was Hiba Noor - a trans Muslim filmmaker and director – talking about her experience as a refugee. The horror and abuse that she faced coming to this country. How she literally had members of her family murdered. Because she was trans and seen as somehow immoral and evil. It was a very gut-wrenching interview/talk that was among the most potent and unforgettable I have witnessed. It raised so many questions and issues. Another reason to buy Conversations From Calais: Sharing Refugee Stories. I would advise people read this 2023 interview with Mathilda Della Torre.

An event that was perhaps a polar opposite was A Year In Sex with Emma-Louise Boynton. That was on 15th February at AllBright. Let’s do some Boynton admin. Check out her amazing Sex Talks podcast. As we read here, “…inspired by Emma-Louise’s personal experience doing sex therapy, Sex Talks exists to engender more open and honest conversations around typically taboo topics including sex, relationships and the future of intimacy”. You can visit her website and learn more about her writing and presenting. She is someone who would be fascinating to hear interviews from (is the grammar there is correct?!). Getting to hear more from her. I also think she would have a book in her. Reading is sacred to her , and I do think there would be a huge audience for any book she wrote. Whether it was based on he podcast or her experiences of dating and sex, it would be fascinating! Although there were not too many other men at the event at AllBright (two others), it was really eye-opening, informative, open and beneficial.

IN THIS PHOTO: Emma-Louise Boynton with Francesca Edmondson/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Lubbock

I did forget to say that all the speakers who are invited to Trouble Club events are women. The members, Troublemakers, are predominantly women…though it is open to all genders – though you can appreciate the majority of events see a female majority. I am excited to see what the rest of the year holds. Guests I would definitely love to see speak in the future. From filmmaker Greta Gerwig (though that may be a huge and expensive booking!) to Caitlin Moran, there are women that members would put on a wish-list. That said, the people that speak for The Trouble Club are so diverse and amazing. Kudos to the pull and passion that The Trouble Club has. How it has this reputation and name. How Ellie Newton can get so many inspiring and awesome people! Moving towards the end of February, Trouble Comedy Night! happened on 22nd February. The Museum of Comedy housed Blank Peng, Nikola McMurtie, Hannah Platt and MC Vix Leyton. Hosted by Funny Women, it was a brilliant night of comedy from three very different but excellent acts.

On 27th February, back at the Century Club, Mad Woman with Bryony Gordon was witnessed by an excited and receptive Trouble Club crowd. It was a phenomenal evening. As The Trouble Club describe: “A decade on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effect it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help - and that connection with other unwell people - taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in?”. Bryony Gordon’s Mad Woman was being discussed. A fabulous and inspiring guest, you do need to go and get this book:

“From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place. Is it simply a chemical imbalance, or rather a normal response from your brain telling you that something isn't right?

Mad Woman explores the most difficult of all the lesson she's learned over the last decade - that our notion of what makes a happy life is the very thing that's making us so sad. Bryony Gordon is unafraid to write with her trademark blend of compassion, honesty and humour about her personal challenges and demons, which means her books and journalism have had profound impact on readers. She founded the mental health charity, Mental Health Mates, which has become a vast online community”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Cathy Newman (with Eleanor Newton)/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Lubbock

Coming into March, on 11th, the fabulous Cathy Newman came to The Ned. At a regular Trouble Club venue – which is one of the most beautiful and luxurious -, Newman was discussing her book, The Ladder: Life Lessons from Women Who Scaled the Heights & Dodged the Snakes. It was brilliant, often very funny and compelling hearing Newman speak. One of the biggest guests The Trouble Club has hosted, I would recommend people check out her new book:

“The Ladder brings together discussions between women – about work, love, growth, challenge, the big decisions and the stories of their lives.

Offering inspiration and wise counsel from some of the world’s most acclaimed and influential women, this book is an insight and a trove of solidarity, turning over ideas of change, anger, illness, imposter syndrome, self-knowledge, purpose, how to not panic in a crisis and how to stop worrying you’re boring when there isn’t one.

Amidst these pages are discussions with women who have achieved extraordinary things in their fields and pursuits, from politicians like Nicola Sturgeon and Angela Rayner to scientists like Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, activists like Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, film-makers like Waad Al-Kateab, religious leaders like Rose Hudson-Wilkin and broadcasters like Joan Bakewell”.

The past couple of weeks has been busy for The Trouble Club. This Is An Emergency with Lynne Jones OBE followed two days after the Cathy Newman event. On 13th March, at Mortimer House, we were very fortunate to hear Jones speak: “In the 1980s, Lynne Jones joined thousands of other women at Greenham Common to protest against nuclear weapons. Today she stands with Extinction Rebellion to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Lynne will join us to share her compelling, ground-level account of the last five years of UK protests”. She was also talking about her book, Sorry for the Inconvenience But This Is an Emergency: The Nonviolent Struggle for Our Planet’s Future. Talking about the diversity of guests and the range of subjects/issues discussed, it is another major reason as to why The Trouble Club is expanding. On their tenth anniversary, their social media following is growing. There is a Manchester branch coming; an opportunity to see events there. Also, when it comes to the options of social events, great speakers and chances to meet other members, the choice and variation is amazing! Prior to moving to an event I attended on Thursday (21st March) and looking to what is coming, I wanted to mention a great example of a social event that provided great unwind and community. I saw a lot of new faces at Trouble’s ‘70s and ‘80s Disco night at The Star of King, Kings Cross. That took place on 15th March. “Do you love to dance but find nightclubs sticky and crowded. Us too! We're teaming up with Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet a night out that's been featured everywhere from Stylist and The Guardian to Time Out & the i. It's been described as Mamma Mia meets Saturday Night Fever in a glorious mash up and they are throwing a party just for The Trouble Club”. With dance routines where we all got to move together, to classic and great tracks from the 1970s and 1980s that compelled people to dance and get together, it was a really fun event to end the working week!

On Thursday, The Hearth welcomed Alice Loxton. I shall come to her book in a moment. “Alice Loxton knows how to make history fun! The historian, presenter and author has over two million followers across social media and she'll be joining us to talk about her passion for the subject and specifically her research into the thrilling and hilarious satirists from the late Georgian period”. The brilliant Alice Loxton took us inside her book, UPROAR!. She was a magnificent and hugely engrossing speaker. As a history graduate and fan, I am compelled to pick up her book:

“London, 1772: a young artist called Thomas Rowlandson is making his way through the grimy backstreets of the capital, on his way to begin his studies at the Royal Academy Schools. Within a few years, James Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank would join him in Piccadilly, turning satire into an artform, taking on the British establishment, and forever changing the way we view power.

Set against a backdrop of royal madness, political intrigue, the birth of modern celebrity, French revolution, American independence and the Napoleonic Wars, UPROAR! follows the satirists as they lampoon those in power, from the Prince Regent to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Their prints and illustrations deconstruct the political and social landscape with surreal and razor-sharp wit, as the three men vie with each other to create the most iconic images of the day.

Alice Loxton's writing fizzes with energy on every page, and never fails to convince us that Gillray and his gang profoundly altered British humour, setting the stage for everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Private Eye and Spitting Image today. This is a book that will cause readers to reappraise everything they think they know about genteel Georgian London, and see it for what it was - a time of UPROAR!”.

There is a lot to come at The Trouble Club. I shall cover off the events I have booked. If you are interested in what you have heard so far, go to the website and look at the events that are approaching. It is amazing and there will be something for everyone! I am looking forward to Neurodiversity Discussion with Jess & Mia. They are Jess Joy and Charlotte Mia:

“The lack of information around how ADHD and autism shows up in adults means that many of us have been assuming we were anxious, not working hard enough, or just entirely failing altogether.’

Dynamic neurodivergent duo, Jess and Mia are the founders of the fast-growing Instagram platform I Am Paying Attention and they are on a mission to make work more neurodivergent-friendly.

They will join us at Trouble for a group discussion where they will share their experiences of autism and ADHD and listen to the thoughts and feelings of our members.

Whether you are neurodivergent yourself or have loved ones who are, this will be an open space for discussion and conversation.

Unlike other Trouble virtual events, you will be able to turn on your mic and camera to take part in the conversation”.

I am interested in their book, How Not to Fit In: An Unapologetic Guide to Navigating Autism and ADHD. It is something that really connects and resonates with me. Something I can relate to. I am interested in the Zoom event and being able to be part of the conversation. This book is very important because, as we see in the synopsis from Waterstones, “The lack of information around how ADHD and autism shows up in adults means that many of us have been assuming we were anxious, not working hard enough, or just entirely failing altogether.’ – Jess Joy and Charlotte Mia”.

Before getting to the next event, a quick nod to Group Coaching on Emotional Intelligence with Laura Simpson. That takes place on 27th March at The Hearth. I think the only reason I did not book this is because I am with The Trouble Club tomorrow (24th) and Tuesday (26th). Just a night off really! Anyway. People should book a ticket if they can:

“In this group coaching session, we’ll discuss what we mean by emotional intelligence, its relevance to us personally, and why it matters now more than ever. We’ll look at the ‘Path to Action’, which reveals how our emotional responses dictate our behaviours, and how we can work with our brains to make better decisions. We will learn to look at emotions not as directives, but rather as data - data that if interpreted accurately, can signpost us to what we need.

Central to this process is looking at emotions with curiosity, not judgement, and understanding that whilst some emotions feel easier and others feel harder, we need to shed the labels ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. We’ll look at 5 key skills to develop greater emotional intelligence, and how to maximise authenticity, trust and credibility by harnessing ‘selective vulnerability’.

Laura Simpson is the Founder of Altura Coaching and a certified Executive & Team Coach and leadership development facilitator. Laura has coached people from a wide range of organisations including Microsoft, The Financial Times, Stephenson Harwood, and Mayer Brown. She is a qualified Mental Health First Aider, Board Trustee for Mind in Kensington and Chelsea, and a pro-bono coach and mentor for numerous charities”.

There are lots of cool and really interesting workshops and other events. It is not only talks and interviews. There are social evenings, dinners, book clubs and workshops that make The Trouble Club’s diary so eclectic and interesting! There is a Sewing & Upcycling Workshop at The Hearth on 3rd April:

“It's time to pick up a needle! Fast fashion is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, and one of the best ways we can combat the problem is by mending and upcycling our own clothes.

Every adult should possess at least the basic ability to mend their own garments and if you have no idea where to begin, this is the event for you!

We've teamed up with Isifiso to bring you a beginner sewing and mending workshop. We will learn to upcycle an old T-Shirt (be sure to bring one along) using scrap fabrics for unique appliqué designs! You will leave this hands-on session - focused on sustainable fashion and easy to master sewing techniques - with the skills needed to mend and sew your favourite clothes so that they continue to last for years to come”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Angela Saini

On 9th April, How Men Came to Rule with Angela Saini takes place at AllBright. You can find out more about Saini via her Instagram and official website. I was instantly compelled by the description for the event:

“By thinking about gendered inequality as rooted in something unalterable within us, we fail to see it for what it is: something more fragile that has had to be constantly remade and reasserted.’

Award-winning science journalist Angela Saini has gone in search of the true roots of gendered oppression, and has uncovered a complex history of how male domination became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.

Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, analysing the latest research findings in science and archaeology, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she's overturned simplistic universal theories which show that what patriarchy is and how far it goes back really depends on where you are.

Despite the push back against sexism and exploitation in our own time, even revolutionary efforts to bring about equality have often ended in failure and backlash.

Saini will join us to talk about her research and share what part we all play – women included – in keeping patriarchal structures alive, and why we need to look beyond the old narratives to understand why it persists in the present”.

Her new book, The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule, is one I am definitely excited and interested to read. It definitely looks like a must-own book:

“SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2023

A WATERSTONES BOOK OF YEAR FOR POLITICS 2023

‘I learned something new on every page of this totally essential book’ Sathnam Sanghera

‘By thinking about gendered inequality as rooted in something unalterable within us, we fail to see it for what it is: something more fragile that has had to be constantly remade and reasserted.

In this bold and radical book, award-winning science journalist Angela Saini goes in search of the true roots of gendered oppression, uncovering a complex history of how male domination became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.

Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, analysing the latest research findings in science and archaeology, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she overturns simplistic universal theories to show that what patriarchy is and how far it goes back really depends on where you are

Despite the push back against sexism and exploitation in our own time, even revolutionary efforts to bring about equality have often ended in failure and backlash. Saini ends by asking what part we all play – women included – in keeping patriarchal structures alive, and why we need to look beyond the old narratives to understand why it persists in the present”.

On 12th April, I am going to be at Good Girls with Hadley Freeman. Such a tremendous and respected journalist, Hadley Freeman will be at Century Club. It is going to be another wonderful event that promises many highlights. Her book, Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, is going to be discussed. Getting extensive and passionate reviews from The New York Times and The Guardian, it will be moving and powerful hearing Freeman speak:

“Hadley Freeman is one of our favourite journalists, not just because of her brilliant columns and juicy celebrity interviews, but because she's not afraid to speak about her struggles and her life with anorexia.

"This is how the Anorexia Speak worked in my head:

'Boys like girls with curves on them' - If you ever eat anything you will be mauled by thuggish boys with giant paws for hands.

'Don't you get hungry?' - You are so strong and special, and I envy your strength and specialness.

'Have you tried swimming? I find that really improves my appetite' - You need to do more exercise.

Hadley will join us to talk about the trigger that sparked her illness and four hospitalisations as well as offer extraordinary insight into her struggles.

Hadley Freeman is a staff writer at the Sunday Times. She worked for more than 20 years at the Guardian and her writing has appeared in many publications. Her previous book, House of Glass, was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been published around the world. Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia was a ‘Best Book of 2023’ in the Times, Guardian and Wall Street Journal”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Jenny Kleeman

Before highlighting the final two events I am going to next month, there are a few other events that might interest people. The Price of Life with Jenny Kleeman. Hosted at Home Grown on 17th April, Jenny Kleeman will talk about The Price of Life. It sounds like such a relevant and important event that you will want to be a part of:

“How much do professional hit men charge? How much debt would you need to be in to fake your own death? We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice.

In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it’s just part of the job. Journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman will join us at Trouble to introduce us to the people who decide what we’re worth.

What does it mean for our humanity when we crunch the numbers to decide who gets the expensive life-saving drugs, and who misses out? What do we learn about ourselves when philanthropic giving by the effective altruists in Silicon Valley is received by some, while others are left to suffer? Are some lives really worth more than others? And what happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Does it make for a fairer decision-making process – or for moral bankruptcy?”.

On 18th April, via Zoom, there is Let's Talk Fertility with The Evewell Clinic. You can find out more about The Everwell Clinic and what they do. It is going to be an essential event. As you can see from the event description, women’s health will be put in the spotlight – something not often done. It is amazing that, in 2024, there women’s health is often ignored and seen as non-important. We are in a moment when many women are left to suffer in silence:

“Women’s health is desperately overlooked, and a lot of women suffer in silence with gynaecological pain and discomfort because they think their experience is “normal” or only find out that there are fertility concerns when they are struggling to conceive.

Enter The Evewell, a platform committed to fertility and gynaecology education. In this Zoom session, we’ll hear from a fertility consultant and two members of The Evewell patient services team, who will be discussing:

Why it’s important to understand your fertility and general gynaecological health, things to look out for; what’s normal, what isn’t normal, and when you may need to seek help.

Fertility investigations and tests; what they all mean and when you might need to think about doing these.

What fertility treatments are available (covering: non-invasive treatments, IVF, genetic testing, egg freezing and donor conception)

Options for LGBTQ+ or those wishing to pursue solo parenthood

Egg freezing: things to consider, what happens in a cycle and how to fit it into your life

Maybe you want to understand more about your general fertility, or perhaps you’re already on a path to parenthood and want to understand your options or find out what’s next if it’s not going quite as planned….This session will help to provide some of those answers”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bay Garnett

On 23rd April, Style and Substance with Bay Garnett takes place at Ladbroke Hall. I am not hugely familiar with Bay Garnett, although I am interested in the event. I have not booked my ticket yet, yet I may well do so very soon:

“Maya Angelou's perfectly fitting dress made her feel like a sunbeam. Zadie Smith's wardrobe differs depending on whether she's in London or New York, while Joan Didion always followed the same packing list. Beau Brummell and Luke Edward Hall consider colour in an outfit like an artist does a painting; Nora Ephron knows that 'everything matches black, especially black.'

Bay Garnett has over two decades’ worth of experience in the fashion industry and she'll be joining us to discuss why what we wear really matters, the favourite pieces of our icons and why the sustainable choice is always the best choice.

Bay was Contributing Fashion Editor at Vogue and her current roles include being the Senior Fashion Advisor to Oxfam. Bay is the co-founder of the influential Cheap Date magazine, hosts the podcast This Old Thing and is a pioneer of the thrifting trend (Bay was the first fashion editor to include vintage pieces in luxury shoots)”.

On 26th April, Trouble Club’s Book Club features Meg Mason’s Sorry and Bliss. It is taking place at MUCCI’S, Chelsea. In 2021, Meg Mason spoke with The Guardian about Sorry and Bliss:

“And yet here she is, ready to tell me about Sorrow and Bliss, the novel that emerged from the wreckage; the novel that has amassed “must read” pre-publication quotes from Gillian Anderson and Ann Patchett, whose protagonist, Martha, has been compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, and which looks set to be filmed by the company behind the Oscar winners Birdman and 12 Years a Slave. To adapt the well-worn anecdote of the waiter delivering champagne to George Best, where did it all go wrong?

It was the going wrong, Mason explains to me via Zoom from Christchurch, New Zealand, where she’s visiting family for the first time since the start of the pandemic, that started her on the road to things going right. Chiefly, it allowed her to feel her way into the character of Martha who, we learn at the beginning of Sorrow and Bliss, has just turned 40 and just split up with Patrick, her husband of eight years. But from those opening paragraphs, we are aware that there is more going on than the end of a relationship: “An observer to my marriage would think I have made no effort to be a good or better wife. Or, seeing me that night, that I must have set out to be this way and achieved it after years of concentrated effort. They could not tell that for most of my adult life and all of my marriage I have been trying to become the opposite of myself.”

The story that follows includes depictions of intense and frequently painful family dynamics, most notably between Martha, her sister and their mother; the long tail of parental loss and transgenerational trauma; the innumerable false starts of a stalled career; and the emotional demands of both having and not having children. But at the centre of it all stands the reality of Martha’s mental illness, a condition that catapults her into periods of intolerable sadness, epic self-destruction and terrifying isolation. And, for much of the novel, it is an illness that is kept hidden not only from the reader, but from Martha herself. Even when she is finally diagnosed, the narrative refers only to her condition with two dashes (“‘I wonder’,” a new psychiatrist asks her, “‘has anyone ever mentioned —— to you, Martha?’ I moved my hand and said no, thank goodness”)”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lucy Worsley

There are two further events I want to highlight. One is in May and the other in June. On 7th May, at The Conduit. Lucy Worsley is in conversation. She is an amazing historian and writer who I am sure will be talking about her 2023 book, Agatha Christie. This is going to be a packed event. I am really looking forward to it:

“Lucy Worsley is one of the most famous historians in the country! The joint chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces can regularly be found presenting fascinating shows on the BBC, and she’ll join us to talk about her favourite women of history, including Agatha Christie.

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.

So why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure?

Lucy Worsley's recent biography, Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was. Truly fascinating and truly troublesome”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lucy Webster

The most far-away event announced so far happens on 6th June. With the venue still to be announced, The View From Down Here with Lucy Webster is going to be another terrific and thought-provoking event. Lucy Webster will chat about The View from Down Here:

“Lucy Webster is a freelance journalist and writer known for her coverage of disability rights, with four years at the BBC, contacts at all the London broadsheets and bylines in the Guardian, Prospect, BuzzFeed, Tortoise, the Times, and the New Statesman.

The incredible journalist and advocate will be joining us at Trouble to discuss her powerful, honest, hilarious and furious memoir, which looks at life at the intersection; the struggles, the joys and the unseen realities of being a disabled woman.

From navigating the worlds of education and work, dating and friendship; to managing care; contemplating motherhood; and learning to accept your body against a pervasive narrative that it is somehow broken and in need of fixing, The View From Down Here shines a light on what it really means to move through the world as a disabled woman”.

I am really looking forward to hearing Lucy Webster speak. I would also recommend people check out and read her book if you can. It is a very important and honest book that should spotlight how she and so many other disabled women are viewed in society:

“Women's lives are shaped by sexism and expectations. Disabled people's lives are shaped by ableism and a complete lack of expectations. But what happens when you're subjected to both sets of rules?

This powerful, honest, hilarious and furious memoir from journalist and advocate Lucy Webster looks at life at the intersection; the struggles, the joys and the unseen realities of being a disabled woman. From navigating the worlds of education and work, dating and friendship; to managing care; contemplating motherhood; and learning to accept your body against a pervasive narrative that it is somehow broken and in need of fixing, The View From Down Here shines a light on what it really means to move through the world as a disabled woman”.

There is a lot going on with The Trouble Club. Ten years after their formation, this growing and loving community of Troublemakers is somewhere you need to be. If you have thought about membership or only just heard of The Trouble Club, I would encourage you to join. Starting its life running pop-ups club and evenings in and around Soho, it is expanding and can look back and see how far it has come. With passionate and endlessly hard-working and dedicated people like Ellie Newton helming and welcoming in every member, I am always pleased and proud to write about The Trouble Club. I have been a member less than a year, yet I have been to so many events and always look forward when something new has been added to the schedule. Surrounded by so many friendly and wonderful fellow members, getting to sit in some amazing venues around central (and north) London, and privileged to witness some incredible women speak, The Trouble Club is somewhere…

EVERYONE needs to be!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: April Songs

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Saliha Sevim/Pexels

 

April Songs

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SPRING is upon us…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

and we are a day away from April. A month that will welcome warmer weather and a more pronounced and obvious experience of spring, I wanted to compile a playlist of April songs. It is one of my favourite months. Of course, not all of the songs will relate to the weather or spring. Instead, we get an assortment of tracks with April at their heart. I think we have all had enough of winter and are excited about spring. Today is Easter Sunday, so we get to enjoy that and also look ahead to a month that is gig to be a lot brighter and warmer. For this Digital Mixtape, I have assembled April-titled songs. There are a few songs that you would have heard of, though there are likely quite a few that are new to you. Enjoy this playlist as we bid farewell…

PHOTO CREDIT: Lisa Fotios/Pexels

TO March.

FEATURE: And This Curve Is Your Smile…. Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

And This Curve Is Your Smile….

 

Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes at Thirty

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I keep forgetting that…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

the title song for The Red Shoes includes lyrics that form the title of Kate Bush’s 1993 short film, The Line, The Cross and the Curve. Near the start of the song, these lines are sung: “And this curve is your smile/And this cross is your heart/And this line is your path”. That film was released on 6th May, 1994. I will look more closely at it ahead of the anniversary. Eight songs from The Red Shoes were used in the film. The Red Shoes is the third song included in the film. It followed Rubberband Girl and And So Is Love. Even though some of the videos used in the film were not released as singles in the U.K. (such as Lily), we got visual representation. I wanted to focus on The Red Shoes. The fourth single from the album of the same name, it came out on 5th April, 1994. Technically, it was the third U.K. single.  Rubberband Girl came out on 6th September, 1993. The day after, Eat the Music was released in the U.S. A song that should have been a single here too, Kate Bush is actually reissuing the song for this year’s Record Store Day. She is also the Ambassador for Record Store Day. Moments of Pleasure was the single that preceded The Red Shoes. The chart positions were okay but not brilliant. Rubberband Girl reached twelve in the U.K. Moment of Pleasure got to twenty-six (in the U.K.). Before the final single, And So Is Love, released on 7th November, 1994, The Red Shoes reached twenty-one in the U.K. It was a moderate success. I wanted to feature it here, as it is coming up for its thirtieth anniversary. A terrific title track with a great video. It is one that I feel should get a 4K remaster (there has been a fan HD remaster but nothing official). Such is its importance, not only in terms of the album it came from, but its place in The Line, the Cross and the Curve, it warrants a re-release.

The single was accompanied by different B-sides. The one that was on the 7-inch and cassette versions was You Want Alchemy. I shall include that track in here. It is an intriguing B-side that a great companion to The Red Shoes. Another reason why I wanted to look at the song is because it is not played enough. I guess the whole album is pretty under-represented and not discussed that much. I am going to go into more depth about The Red Shoes. The reaction from critics was, to say the least, a bit mixed:

“Chris Roberts from Melody Maker said, "'The Red Shoes' meets its jigging ambition and sticks a flag on top, making her dance till her legs fall off." Another editor, Peter Paphides, commented, "Only as a grown-up will I be able to fully apprehend the texture and allegorical resonance of the themes dealt with in 'The Red Shoes'. Until then, I'll content myself with Tori Amos and Edie Brickell." Parry Gettelman from Orlando Sentinel wrote, "The mandola, the whistles and various curious instruments on the driving title track really recall the fever-dream quality of the 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes, the album's namesake." Mark Sutherland from Smash Hits gave it two out of five, adding that "loads of spooky 'ethnic' noises and tribal beats make for a very weird single, but not a very good one”.

It is a shame that there was not a bigger and more passionate embrace of The Red Shoes. The singles from it didn’t get a lot of love. Apart from Moments of Pleasure. An underrated album from Kate Bush, I feel like it is worthy of reappraisal. The Red Shoes is a terrific song that should get more acclaim and respect.

There are some interviews from 1993 and 1994 that are well worth reading. Del Palmer was a musician and engineer for The Red Shoes. He talked to Sound on Sound about the recording process and the songs. One of the most exciting and pivotal moments on The Red Shoes and The Line, the Cross and the Curve, there does need to be this fresh interest and inspection of this song. There are a few different versions of The Red Shoes. We have the album version - which was also used on the single released -, in addition to Shoedance. That is a ten-minute remix by Karl Blagan of The Red Shoes, featuring excerpts from dialogue from the short film. Finally, there’s the version from Bush’s album Director’s Cut in 2011. That is my least favourite version, though I can appreciate why Kate Bush wanted to readdress it. The Red Shoes is one of her most energetic singles. It reminds me a bit of Hounds of Love’s Jig of Life. For Director’s Cut, she stripped it back a bit. I like the more frenzied version. You get so much life and energy from it. I am going to wrap up soon. I will come to an interview from Rock World that was published in October 1993. Paddy Bush’s, Kate’s brother, spoke about The Red Shoes, the creative process and the range of sounds that go into it. Paddy played quite a big part in the title track. In addition to backing vocals, he provides mandola, tin whistle and musical bow:

“To my mind the quality of the music justifies everything. People imagine Kate is this terrible paranoid creature, neurotic and full of hang-ups, but she's not like that at all. They think she's reclusive because she doesn't do a lot of press and promotion and isn't seen out and about, but she leads a regular life and believes the only thing interesting about her is the music. That's the only thing that sets her apart from anybody else and it's the one part of her life she feels comfortable discussing in public. I know this may give her a mystique and make the press all the more curious about her, but that's not the intention, it's not 'a ploy to get her more attention. She genuinely doesn't see why people should be interested in her personal life and she certainly doesn't like going out to clubs or trendy restaurants, it's just not her. So you never see anything about her in the gossip columns or much about her between records.

That's just the way it is with her, and that's partly the reason why it seems there are long periods when she's not doing anything. She doesn't really spend any longer on albums than anyone else, it just seems that way because she doesn't go off on big promotional tours like most artists, so it looks like she's completely disappeared. She just prefers to spend that time on her music. Believe it or not she actually writes very quickly. Once she has an idea for a song she writes fast - she's brilliant like that. What takes the time is all the other bits that go with it, realising what she has visualised in music in the studio - and that can be a slow process. She will never settle for second-best.

She is open to suggestions and ideas, however. As well as playing, I'm an instrument maker and I'm interested in lots of different kinds of music. Using the Trio Bulgarka on the last record came about after I'd started playing her that stuff. They're on the new one too. She's always interested in using different styles and cultures...like the aborigine influence on 'The Dreaming', on which we had Roll Harris playing didgeridoo. He was lovely, too, one of the nicest guys I've met and a great talent - that whole idea of being able to draw and then play a tune to go with it is fantastic. He taught us to play didgeridoo! Roger Whittaker's another lovely guy, and a great whistler, though it's hard to get him to whistle - he seems embarrassed about it. And I've fallen in love with music from Madagascar and I've been playing a lot of that stuff to Kate, and we've got that influence on the new album 'The Red Shoes'.

We always had music all around us since we were kids. The family is Irish so we'd always be going across to Ireland and we had Irish music in the house all the time. I went on the road with the Irish fiddle player Kevin Burke and Kate moved on to the piano and started writing songs. I always knew she was special and the songs were great. She was signed to EMI for a couple of years before the first album came out and that was a very exciting time for all of us and, of course, it all took off from there. And we did the live dates, as well, which were brilliant”.

All of Kate Bush’s songs are oriignal and interesting. Always taking inspiration from sources other songwriters were not, The Red Shoes is one with a cool background. Concerning a girl who puts on a pair of enchanted ballet slippers and can't stop dancing until she breaks the spell, it was inspired by a character from the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film The Red Shoes. That film was released in 1948. There is a snipper from an interview with Melody Maker of 1993 where Bush discussed The Red Shoes’ title track:

“Coincidentally, the title track of "The Red Shoes" hymns the trance-dental power of dance - an obsession that also inspired Bush's directorial debut, "The Line, The Cross, The Curve". Currently in the final throes of post-production, the hour long film stars Miranda Richardson and mime Lindsay Kemp, (with whom Bush studied dance in her early days of stardom).  It's based on the same fairy story as Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger's classic movie "The Red Shoes".

"It's just taking the idea of this shoes that have a life of their own," Bush says of both the song and her film.  "If you're unfortunate enough to put them on, you're just going to dance and dance.  It's almost like the idea that you're possessed by dance. Before I had any lyrics, the rhythm of the music led me to the image of, oh, horses, something that was running forward, and that led me to the image of the dancing shoes.  Musically, I was just trying to get a sense of delirium, of something very circular and hypnotic, but building and building."

With its mix of acoustic instruments (mandola, whistles, valiha) and synth-like keyboard textures, "The Red Shoes" immediately made me think Bush was trying to make a link between ancient and modern ideas of dance, pagan rites and techno-pagan raving. The way that these primal modes of ecstatic trance-endence have resurfaced in an ultra-modern hi-tech context --lasers, strobes, 50 K sub-bass sound--suggests that these impulses lie dormant in our collective unconscious or even genetic code.  People have instinctively reinvented these rituals despite, or perhaps because, our culture in impoverished when it comes to forms of communal release. "Something very similar was on my mind, the idea of trance, delirium, as a way of transcending the normal.  Maybe human beings actually need that. Things are very hard for people in this country, maybe they instinctively need to transcend it. It's very much that ancient call”

On 5th April, The Red Shoes turns thirty. Taken from the album of the same name (released in 1993), it is one of these songs that should get a lot more attention. If you have not heard The Red Shoes in a while then make sure that…

YOU play it now.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Sophie Ellis-Bextor at Forty-Five: The Hits and Deep Cuts

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

  

Sophie Ellis-Bextor at Forty-Five: The Hits and Deep Cuts

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AN incredible artist…

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Lewis

whose best-known track, Murder on the Dancefloor, was recently used in the film Saltburn, there is a lot of new attention around the brilliant Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She is an amazing artist who has enjoyed this wonderful career. I first came across her when she was the guest vocalist on Spiller’s song, Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love). That was way back in 2000. Since then, Ellis-Bextor has established herself as one of the most distinct and talent artists in music. As she turns forty-five on 10th April, I wanted to mark that with a playlist of her music. Some bigger hits sitting alongside deeper cuts. Prior to getting to the playlist, I want to get to some biography from AllMusic:

“One of the biggest British pop artists to emerge in the 2000s, Sophie Ellis-Bextor soared to the top of the U.K. charts with her glossy, disco- and '80s-synth-pop influenced dance sound. Initially gaining buzz as the lead singer of the jangly Brit-pop band theaudience, Ellis-Bextor established herself as a pop diva with her chart-topping anthem "Murder on the Dancefloor," which helped take her 2001 debut, Read My Lips, to number two on the U.K. Albums Chart. She remained a chart favorite in the U.K. and Europe, hitting the top 20 with 2003's Shoot from the Hip and 2011's Trip the Light Fantastic, before rounding out her dance-pop period with 2011's Make a Scene; the first on her own EGBG label. While dance music remains a core aspect of her work, she has expanded her sound, collaborating on a series of folk and orchestral pop productions with acclaimed singer, songwriter, and producer Ed Harcourt, including 2014's Wanderlust, 2016's Familia, and 2023's Hana.

Born in 1979 in London, Ellis-Bextor grew up in a creative household, the daughter of BBC presenter Janet Ellis and producer/director Robin Bextor. Along with her early appearances alongside her mother on the children's show Blue Peter, Ellis-Bextor became interested in performing and sang with the W11 Opera children's opera in her teens. By age 17, she had joined the Brit-pop outfit theaudience, appearing on the group's eponymously titled debut. Released in 1996, theaudience reached number 22 on the U.K. Albums Chart and spawned several singles, including "I've Got the Wherewithal" and the Top 30 track "A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed." A sophomore album never materialized and by 1999 theaudience had broken up.

After the group split up, Ellis-Bextor embarked on a solo career, emerging as a major star alongside Italian DJ/producer Spiller on the single "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)." Though already popular in the clubs as an instrumental, the track picked up steam after Spiller added Ellis-Bextor's vocals in August of 2000, eventually topping the singles charts in the U.K. and several other countries. A year later, she again topped the U.K. singles chart with "Take Me Home," before serving up another chart-topper in the ultra-cool disco anthem "Murder on the Dancefloor." Produced and co-written with the New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, the song was a smash throughout Europe. All of these singles anchored Ellis-Bextor's 2001 solo debut, Read My Lips. Showcasing a blend of '80s-influenced synth-pop and disco, the album proved a significant hit in the U.K. where it reached number two. It also performed well in Europe, hitting the Top 20 in several countries.

In 2003, the singer delivered her sophomore effort, Shoot from the Hip, another dance-oriented album which again featured production and co-writing by Alexander, as well as Matt Rowe, Jeremy Wheatley, and Damian LeGassick. The album spawned two Top Ten singles in "Mixed Up World" and "I Won’t Change You." It also included the song "I Am Not Good at Not Getting What I Want," co-penned by Ellis-Bextor and founding-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. As the album was gaining traction, peaking at number 19 on the U.K. Albums Chart, Ellis-Bextor took some time off to give birth to her first child.

She returned in 2007 with her third album, Trip the Light Fantastic. Showcasing a sleek, electronic dance-pop and disco aesthetic, it found her working with a handful of name producers, including Greg Kurstin, Xenomania, and Dimitri Tikovoi, among others. Heralded by the Top Ten hit "Catch You," the album reached number seven in the U.K. and spawned several more singles in "Me and My Imagination" and "Today the Sun's on Us." The deluxe edition of the album also featured the tracks "Can't Have It All," co-written with Eg White and "Supersonic," featuring backing vocals by the B-52s' Fred Schneider.

On the heels of the album's release, Ellis-Bextor joined George Michael on tour, before also joining Take That on their tour. Several collaborative singles followed, including appearing on the Freemason's "Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)" in 2009 and Junior Calderone's "Can't Fight This Feeling" in 2010. Both tracks eventually paved the way for and were included on her fourth album. Released in the summer of 2011, Make a Scene was her most dance-oriented album yet, again featuring production by a bevy of producers, including the returning Kurstin, Calvin Harris, Richard X, Hannah Robinson, Metronomy, the Sneaker Pimps' Liam Howe, and others. It reached 33 on the U.K. Albums Chart and marked her first album released under her own Universal imprint EGBG.

By 2012, she was back in the studio to work with British indie hero Ed Harcourt, who had already collaborated with her on the song "Cut Straight to the Heart" off Make a Scene. Harcourt ended up co-writing and producing what would become Wanderlust, which appeared in January 2014. Released on the heels of Ellis-Bextor's appearance on BBC TV's Strictly Come Dancing, the album debuted at four on the U.K. charts on its way to silver certification; it was her biggest hit since 2003's Shoot from the Hip. With Harcourt's creative input, the album found Ellis-Bextor moving away from the electronic dance-pop of her previous work and embracing blend of folk and orchestral-tinged indie-pop.

She returned in 2016 with Familia, an album that reunited her with Harcourt and featured a blend of folk and pop with some Latin American and disco-influences. Buoyed by the singles "Come with Us," "Crystallise," "Wild Forever," and "Death of Love," the album hit 12 on the U.K. Albums Chart.

Another collaboration with Harcourt, The Song Diaries, appeared in 2018 and featured reworked renditions of some of the singer's past releases, including orchestral versions of the tracks "Take Me Home" and "Murder on the Dancefloor." 2020 saw Ellis-Bextor issue the greatest-hits collection Songs from the Kitchen Disco, which included a newly recorded cover version of Alcazar's "Crying at the Discoteque."

The singer's fourth Harcourt-helmed album, Hana, arrived in June 2023. Inspired by a trip to Tokyo and named after the Japanese word for "blossom," the album featured a more organic, synth- and prog-rock-style sound. A Top 10 hit on the U.K. and Scotland charts, the album included the singles "Breaking the Circle," "Lost in the Sunshine," and "Everything Is Sweet." That year, she also collaborated with composer David Arnold on Mog's Christmas with the song "As Long As I Belong" and joined Robbie Williams' electronic side project Lufthaus on their track "Immortal." Ellis-Bextor closed the year on a rather unexpected note, carried by the popularity of her 2001 single "Murder on the Dancefloor," which experienced a pop culture resurgence after appearing in 2023's cult film Saltburn. The song surged on streaming platforms, while rising on the U.K charts and giving the singer her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100”.

A very happy birthday on 10th April to Sophie Ellis-Bextor. With her most recent album, 2023’s Hana, reaching the top ten in the U.K., it is clear there is a lot of love out there for the music. This amazing artist who has enjoyed a long and distinct career. Let’s hope that we enjoy many years of Ellis-Bextor’s work. She truly is…

ONE of a kind.

FEATURE: Feel Free: Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Feel Free

  

Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One at Thirty-Five 

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I want to spend some time with…

IN THIS PHOTO: Jazzie B and Caron Wheeler in 1989

an album that turns thirty-five on 10th April. The debut album from Soul II Soul, Club Classics Vol. One ,went to number one in the U.K. In the U.S., where it was titled Keep on Movin, the album went to fourteen on the Billboard 200 chart. It found strong success with R&B fans in the U.S., as Club Classics Vol. One hit the top of the R&B chart. It is worth marking thirty-five years of a classic debut from the London group. There are a few features out there concerning the album and its huge legacy. I would recommend people check this one out. I am going to mix them up a bit. Include some reviews for one of the best and most important albums of the 1980s. Let’s start with a Rolling Stone review for Club Classics Vol One. After all of these years, the album still sounds utterly entrancing. Like nothing else that has ever been made:

"The future of Soul II Soul: A happy face, a thumping bass, for a loving race," proclaimed Jazzie B on "Jazzie's Groove." Who would have predicted that recipe would prove to be the future for a generation of boho-soul musicians? When it first appeared in 1989, Soul II Soul's Keep On Movin' seemed less of an instant classic than a hip tour of the black music diaspora. Soul II Soul's vital sound danced between styles, often in the same song, with self-conscious purpose: The booming bottom end of reggae sound systems (which is what the group began as) melded with Sade's Nigeria-via-London smoky lounge vibe; Motown-worthy lush orchestration and diva vocals from Caron Wheeler percolated next to hip-hop rhythms on songs such as the title track's effortlessly funky groove (lifted from Eric B. and Rakim). "Feeling Free" featured doo-wop harmonies, while the piano-driven house beats of "Happiness" oozed London club culture.

Jazzie B served as the master of ceremonies of this mix, dropping inspirational aphorisms in a casual spoken-word style. The music was the truly inspiring part, though, as the next decade would prove. The scatty, organic vocals in "Fairplay" and the Zulu chanting in "Holdin' On" still echo in neo-soul singers like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. Trip-hop avatars Massive Attack even made their first recorded appearance on "Feeling Free"; the album's unabashedly multicultural approach also opened the charts to similarly inclined artists who followed, from the Fugees to Shaggy. Keep On Movin's biggest single, "Back to Life" - with its indelible "however do you want me, however do you need me" hook - has become a soul standard of sorts (most recently, Mary J. Blige had an R&B; hit with her soaring interpretation, and a two-step version of the song is a U.K. club smash). Nellee Hooper would leave the group in 1992 to produce hits for Bjork and Madonna, and Soul II Soul would never reach these highs again. But the prescient group's first album sounds as fresh today as it did in 1989, and their legacy just keeps on moving”.

Soul II to Soul have not released an album since the 1990s. Their most recent appearance was in 2017. With Jazzie B and Caron Wheeler – who appeared on Club Classics Vol. One – being among the only permanent members now, you feel that we might not hear anything else from them. Regardless, we can look back at a mighty debut album. Albumism wrote about Soul II Soul’s Club Classic Vol. One in 2019. Marking its thirtieth anniversary, we  get some useful background to a sensational and hugely impactful work:

“We're a sound system / An amalgamation of good dance music / There is, um, three of us from the north side / And two from the east / And through our style, you know / People just came to recognize us / As the funki dreds

Seldom has a band’s musical manifesto been so accurately articulated as it was back in the spring of 1989 by the one and only Trevor Beresford Romeo OBE, more affectionately known as Jazzie B. Indeed, Jazzie’s declaration of Soul II Soul’s identity as “an amalgamation of good dance music” couldn’t have been more spot-on and the group’s debut long player Club Classics Vol. One was the grand embodiment of his cross-cultural, genre-fluid vision.

Curiously sequenced as the album’s final track, as opposed to its intro, “Jazzie’s Groove” found the Soul II Soul founder conveying his fellow funki dreds’ sense of creative purpose as a bridge connecting the collective’s past, present and promising future, priming listeners for their next chapter. Beyond its lyrical proclamations, the track also left a lasting impression upon eager ears through its inventive sampling of the horns heard on Stevie Wonder associate Gary Byrd’s relatively obscure 1973 track “Soul Travelin' Pt. I (The G.B.E.),” which Nas and producer Large Professor would lift a few years later for the then-aspiring emcee’s 1992 debut single “Halftime.

Though Club Classics surfaced in 1989, the seeds of Soul II Soul predate the album’s arrival by a handful of years. Born to Antiguan parents in London in 1963, Jazzie B, at a young age, was inspired by his brothers who had fervently embraced the dynamic of the sound system, appropriating and adapting the DJ and street-party collectives that originated in Jamaica in the 1940s and 1950s for their native UK audience. By the early 1980s, Jazzie formed his own London-bred sound system whose tentacles expanded beyond music-based events alone into fashion and retail, with the “Funki Dred” moniker and logo becoming the collective’s recognizable brand and core aesthetic, from which all of their artistic adventures emanated.

By 1988, Soul II Soul had adopted a more formal group lineup with Jazzie B at the center, along with Caron Wheeler, Doreen Waddell (a.k.a. Do’reen), Rose Windross, Daddae, Aitch B, and Jazzie Q. However, harking back to the sound system ethos, the band’s structure was always intended to be flexible and adaptable, and its roster would ultimately morph and evolve through the years following their initial breakthrough. “Technically, Soul II Soul is a sound system rather than a band per se, which is why we have a rotating lineup of different singers,” Jazzie explained to Wax Poetics in 2014. “This goes back to the origins of the old sound systems as well, because in a sound system, you would also have many different MCs or DJs. All of these things combined to form Soul II Soul.”

While new jack swing and hip-hop were beginning to flourish as the dominant urban musical forms across the Atlantic in the US as the 1980s approached their conclusion, British dance music was concurrently coming of age in various forms and locales throughout the UK. Manchester emerged as a dominant reservoir of talent in the form of genre-bending acts such as New Order, the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, while Bristol witnessed the emergence of another dominant sound system, The Wild Bunch, which would morph into Massive Attack. Meanwhile, UK-bred songstresses Mica Paris, Neneh Cherry and Lisa Stansfield blurred the lines between pop, soul and dance to glorious effect.

Collectively, these pioneering artists—including Soul II Soul as the premier London contingent—would developed and refined the sonic blueprint that would enable British dance music to thrive for years to come, well into the 1990s. And while their specific musical dispositions and output were nuanced, the unifying thread between all of these acts—and indeed an essential quality that would truly define and distinguish UK dance music during this period—was their openness to incorporating a multitude of influences in shaping their respective sounds.

In the case of Soul II Soul, this involved merging hip-hop beats and sampled drum breaks, reggae/dub soundscapes, and soulful vocals, along with African and West Indian rhythms—all of which worked in concert to form a universal sound unbeholden to any one cultural or musical mooring.

Prior to Club Classics’ release in April 1989, the group unveiled two singles that met with lukewarm reception, at least commercially speaking. Co-produced by Jazzie B’s fellow Brit soundsmith Nellee Hooper (who would later collaborate with the likes of Björk, Madonna, No Doubt and U2) and featuring the Brand New Heavies’ Andrew Levy on bass, the percussive funk of their debut single “Fairplay” served as an invocation of the Soul II Soul ethos and invitation to join their community, as manifest through Rose Windross’ lines, “Soul II Soul is the place where you should be / On Sunday night we’ll expect you and Jazzie B / Cause it’s all about expression”.

Bolstered by Graham Silbiger’s steady bassline, the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra’s symphonic pulsings and Do’reen’s distinctive vocal style, the group’s second single “Feel Free” found Soul II Soul embracing its more ruminative dispositions and contemplating visions of the future.

Undeterred by the modest chart showings for the initial pair of singles (neither managed to crack the UK Top 50), Soul II Soul’s breakthrough moment arrived soon enough, in March 1989. Invigorated by Caron Wheeler’s soaring vocals atop a stirring confection of deep bass and piano flourishes, the simple messages of patience and perseverance encapsulated by “Keep on Movin’” exemplified the group’s recording career up to that point, whilst offering a more broadly applicable clarion call to those in need of a little motivation in their lives.

As the story goes, Wheeler originally offered her vocals for the single as a one-off collaboration, but on the strength of the recording, she was invited to join the Soul II Soul fold as an official member. It’s also worth noting that the US version of Club Classics was actually titled Keep on Movin’—a testament both to the track’s undeniable appeal and the fact that club culture did not figure as profoundly in America as it did abroad”

I am going to round things up pretty soon. I thought it would be useful to bring in a feature from CLASH. They looked inside the biggest two songs from Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One: the mighty Keep on Movin and Back to Life:

“‘Keep On Movin’’

– – –

Initially based at a studio on Camden Road, the group consisted of a multitude of creatives, models, musicians and fashion designers who had already established a distinct DIY community vibe. Under the charismatic leadership of frontman and former sound engineer Jazzie B, it amalgamated house music, R&B, dub and funk into a post-rave dance meditation and direct precursor to the trip-hop movement. No surprise, considering Jazzie’s right-hand man and mixing partner was legendary figure Nellee Hooper of Bristol’s Wild Bunch, who would later metamorphose into Massive Attack.

Opening track ‘Keep On Movin’’ sets the tone for the whole album, celebrating that ecstatic 5am sunrise when you’re piling out of a club and all you want to do it keep the vibe going forever. Even at the time of release there was a halcyon element inherent to this music: it was the heat and high spirits of summer captured on vinyl. Over a slow groove and smooth production, Caron Wheeler’s vocal is like caramel. The call to revel in uniqueness and self-expression on ‘Fairplay’ propels the listener into a grittier, urgent sound. Carried by Rose Windross’ feral, funky vocal, it’s an unequivocal English recording.

– – –

It’s a peerless summer soundtrack, which provided a blueprint for how things could be done: homogenously and uncompromisingly.

– – –

The collective was always message based. ‘Holdin’ On’, with its rough and ready spoken-word moments, provided a unifying sentiment to the masses in the style of Gil Scott-Heron, but despite bringing a singular UK flavour to the table, elements of what was happening across the Atlantic couldn’t help but creep in. ‘African Dance’ fused the sounds of the African continent with the hedonism of New York clubs by way of Detroit and Chicago house. Its sister track ‘Dance’, a breeze of chilled-out beats and flutes, also feels like a new dawn.

– – –

‘Back To Life’

– – –

Originally featured only as an a cappella track, ‘Back To Life’ is dizzyingly infectious and instantly recognisable from its first few bars alone. It continues to fill dancefloors wherever it’s played. Over fat beats and a portly piano riff comes sweeping strings and a heavily harmonised chorus. Independent of its global iconic status, it was a personal record for many, introducing them to their first taste of British R&B while altering the musical landscape forever.

Soul II Soul were at the vanguard of a revival in urban black music in the UK, questionably unprecedented since reggae’s heyday in the ’70s. It’s a peerless summer soundtrack, which provided a blueprint for how things could be done: homogenously and uncompromisingly. It’s an album about community, co-operation, cross-fertilisation, immense optimism and, ultimately, dancing. Never has a record been so well named”.

I will move to a 2009 review from BBC. Almost impossible to dislike, one cannot refute the power and wonder of Club Classics Vol. One. It is such a phenomenal album that has not aged at all. It sounds so fresh and fascinating now. I hope that more people will mark the approaching thirty-fifth anniversary:

“Soul II Soul's pivotal debut album is 20 years young. Make anyone feel old? 1989's Club Classics Vol. 1 has firmly cemented itself in UK soul music history. With their funky anthems, unforgettable lyrics and signature beats, appreciation for the group’s unique twist on classic soul can be found from America (where Soul II Soul hit top 10) to Australia (where they still tour today).

Chunky, ballsy single Fairplay was both Soul II Soul's first official release and the reason major label Virgin signed Jazzie B's groundbreaking group. Having already created major hype on the underground with their street party soundsystem (Notting Hill carnival still hosts the collective), Fairplay was proof that the Londoners could cut it in the mainstream.

Twisting voluptuous female soul vocals (Caron Wheeler, Rose Windross, the late Do'Reen Waddell) with rare groove-styled dance beats gave Soul II Soul a niche that would see them win a broad array of fans worldwide. Back To Life (However Do You Want Me), their best-recognised hit, is a classic example of this musical melting pot.

Keep On Movin' –another key anthem- was the group’s first real mainstream success (Fairplay only made it to 63 in the UK charts) and came at a time when American artists saturated the R&B scene. Founder Jazzie B made his record label more than happy as the track hit number five in the UK and number one on the US R&B chart.

Much like Bristol's trip-hop supergroup, Massive Attack, Soul II Soul have had a huge and important effect on black British music. Like Massive Attack's Blue Lines, Club Classics Vol. 1 is one of those rare albums that make you want to listen to every single track, over and over, again and again. Something most musicians can but dream of”.

I am going to end with this feature. Again taking us inside a classic album, we get to see why Club Classics Vol. One was so meaningful and acclaimed. It was indeed a major success. Anyone who has not heard the album definitely needs to check it out. It turns thirty-five on 10th April. I think that I first heard the album when I was a child. I was instantly hooked! Big singles like Keep on Movin has a real impact on me:

“Those two chart-topping singles were plucked from the group’s debut album, Club Classics Vol. 1, a landmark release that altered the landscape of R&B at a time when the brash, hip-hop-influenced swingbeat sound had been America’s dominant sound. After Soul II Soul’s arrival, many R&B records aped the distinctive drum loop and string arrangements that had defined the group’s two biggest singles; and Jazzie B and his partner in crime, the band’s keyboardist Simon Law, were also in demand as producers and remixers, working on tracks for a variety of artists, ranging from US house music queen Kym Mazelle to R&B star Jody Watley, and even the reggae group Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers.

Offering an assortment of different musical styles, Club Classics Vol. 1 reflected the musical eclecticism of British club culture and stayed true to the band’s motto: “A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race!” Its tracks ranged from minimalist electro-funk (“Fairplay,” featuring vocalist Rose Windross) to bubbling house music (“Holdin’ On”), sampladelic hip-hop (“Feelin’ Free”), and jazz-infused dance cuts (“African Dance”). Though it covered a lot of different musical bases – and sometimes sounded like it featured several different bands – the LP was given a sense of cohesion by Jazzie B’s groove-conscious production that gave each track an addictive dance pulse.

On its release in April 1989, Club Classics Vol. 1 (which was retitled Keep On Movin’ for the US market) rocketed to the summit of the UK albums chart during an incredible 60-week stay in the hit parade. It also topped the US R&B charts and rose to No. 14 in the Billboard 200. In 1990, two tracks from the album brought the group a couple of Grammy awards: “Back To Life” won Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal, while “African Dance” grabbed the Best R&B Instrumental Performance. Quite an achievement for a debut album that more than lived up to its title”.

On 10th April, we celebrate thirty-five years of a seminal album. One of those all-time great debut albums, Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One is truly magnificent. It went on to be certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales in excess of two million copies. A happy thirty-fifth anniversary to…

AN extraordinary debut album.

FEATURE: Remembering Kurt Cobain: Thirty Years On: A Nirvana Hits and Deep Cuts Mix

FEATURE:

 

 

Remembering Kurt Cobain

PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

 

Thirty Years On: A Nirvana Hits and Deep Cuts Mix

_________

I have assembled a Nirvana playlist a couple…

PHOTO CREDIT:  Jesse Frohman/Trunk Archive

of times before, though there is good reason to revisit. On 5th April, it will be thirty years since we lost the great Kurt Cobain. As the lead of Nirvana, he was the voice of a generation. Someone who connected with many who felt like outsiders. One of the greatest songwriters of his time, I feel like he is both celebrated and underrated. I know there will be a lot of tributes to Cobain on 5th April. His loss is still being felt. I will end with a playlist of Nirvana’s biggest tracks and some deeper cuts. Demonstrating Cobain’s songwriting brilliance and magnificent and unique voice. First, AllMusic wrote a biography about the hugely loved and influential legend:

“As the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain's musical success began in his twenties and was heightened when he formed the band Nirvana. Hits such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Heart Shaped Box" helped the group achieve international success.

Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington. Hyperactive as a youngster, he was given Ritalin to help him concentrate in school and sedatives to help him sleep at night. At the age of seven, his parents got divorced. He became so difficult to live with that his parents sent him to live with relatives. This period in his life is reflected in songs such as "Sliver." With a dislike for school, Cobain spent his time painting and singing. He listened to the Beatles and the Monkees, but changed to bands such as Kiss, Black Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash in 1979. On his 14th birthday, Cobain bought his first guitar and started experimenting with different musical styles. He also was a roadie for a Seattle group called the Melvins. He dropped out of high school a few weeks before graduation to get a job, but his efforts were unsuccessful because he couldn't hold a job for very long.

In 1986 the group Nirvana was formed with Cobain on vocals and guitar, Krist Novaselic on bass guitar, and various drummers. Their first album, Bleach, was released in 1989. They toured the U.S. and had their first international concert in Newcastle, England. Their second single was unsuccessful, so they changed record companies. After signing with Geffen Records in 1991, and adding permanent drummer Dave Grohl, they produced their second album, Nevermind, which received rave reviews with the hits "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium." Their popularity grew after the group made appearances on MTV's Headbanger's Ball and NBC's Saturday Night Live. The success of the band was intimidating to Cobain, who liked the intimate setting of nightclubs; it was the money that guided them to do concerts and shows in the rock arena. It was in the early '90s that Cobain began doing heavy drugs such as morphine and heroin, but in 1992 his personal life brightened as he married Courtney Love in Hawaii, and their union brought a daughter, Frances Bean. With a wife and daughter, Cobain calmed a bit, and the group released Incesticide.

Things took a turn for the worse in 1993 when Cobain overdosed on heroin. After seeking rehabilitation for a time in a center, he left without completing the program. During this time the band played on. In 1993, the band released In Utero, their last studio-recorded album. Nirvana played an MTV Unplugged concert and a concert in Munich in 1994. One week after the concert in Munich, Kurt Cobain was hospitalized in a coma. After waking up and leaving voluntarily, he was reported missing and was found three days later in his house, dead of a gunshot wound.

Over the next two decades, Cobain's legend only grew, thanks in part to posthumous Nirvana recordings. The live albums MTV Unplugged in New York and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah appeared in 1994 and 1996, respectively, and in 2002, an eponymous greatest hits album appeared. Two years later, the rarities and outtakes box With the Lights Out saw release and that was the last major archival release until 2015, when Brett Morgen directed the documentary Montage of Heck. The film was accompanied by the release of a soundtrack album, containing home recordings and demos by Cobain; it was the first-ever album to be credited to Cobain alone”.

Looking ahead to 5th April, the world will remember Kurt Cobain thirty years after his death at the age of twenty-seven. A remarkable talent that left us too soon, I think that Cobain’s lyrical (and literal voice) and music will inspire for generations to come. Since he left us, the music world has not seen…

ANYONE like him.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Taylor Swift – Blank Space

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

  

Taylor Swift – Blank Space

_________

I wanted to focus on this Taylor Swift song…

PHOTO CREDIT: Mario Testino for British Vogue

for Groovelines - as the album it is from, 1989, turns ten later in the year. Following Shake It Off, Blank Space was the second single from the album. Swift’s most acclaimed album to that point, Blank Space remains one of her most popular and accomplished moments. Written with producers Max Martin and Shelback, it was inspired by the media scrutiny and obsession with her love life. At that point, as I guess now, there is this girl-next-door image of Taylor Swift. The way she was being portrayed back in 2014 was as someone who different to that. He way she was being talked about by some in the media was quite awful. Released to U.S. radio on 10th November, 2014, Blank Space became one of the biggest-selling singles of 2015. It topped the charts in many countries. It spent seven weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In terms of its acclaim and legacy. Blank Space received three GRAMMY nomination (including Song of the Year). It is considered one of the greatest songs of the past twenty years. Rolling Stone recently placed it inside their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time feature. One of the defining songs of the 2010s, it was a huge moment for Taylor Swift. I want to start out with an article from Billboard. They provided essays on the hundred songs they felt defined the 2010s. It is interesting learning more about the wonderful Blank Space:

“I had more fun writing ‘Blank Space’ than any song I’d written before,” Swift tells Billboard over email. “I had, over time, compiled lists of lyrics, zingers, and potential Twitter comebacks to criticisms and jokes people had made at my expense. When I finally came up with the chorus and hook for the song, I just went through that list on my phone and one by one slotted them into the song. It was the first time I had ever used songwriting as a humorous coping mechanism for an overly harsh depiction of me in the media, but it wouldn’t be the last.”

You know the one-liners she’s talking about: “You look like my next mistake.” “Love’s a game, wanna play?” “I can make the bad guys good for the weekend.” “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream.” They’re all T-shirts and memes waiting to happen — oh, and speaking of memes, there’s one lyric from Swift’s list that took on a life of its own. The line in the chorus “Got a long list of ex-lovers” was widely misheard as “All the lonely Starbucks lovers,” leading Swift to write the Feb. 14, 2015, tweet “Sending my love to all the lonely Starbucks lovers out there this Valentine’s Day…..even though that is not the correct lyric,” with the coffee chain cheekily responding, “Wait, it’s not?”

So what made this song stand out from Swift’s already-remarkable catalog? For starters, “Blank Space” — which Swift co-wrote with pop superproducers Max Martin and Shellback — seemed to fully cement her transition from core country to pure pop. Where “Shake It Off” announced Swift’s pop-star reintroduction, “Blank Space” just naturally fit right in on top 40 radio without any explanation. On top of that, the song utterly dismantled and then re-engineered the media’s perception of the singer/songwriter as a serial dater with a musical track record of kissing-and-telling.

She leaned into this concocted character in an over-the-top Joseph Kahn-directed music video, which begins with a picturesque love story set on a palatial estate complete with horseback riding and champagne picnics only to end with Swift throwing flaming clothes off a balcony and swinging a golf club at her ex’s priceless sports car. Oh, and just as her jilted lover peels out of the driveway, a beautiful new boy drives up to start the whole cycle anew. The video clearly resonated with fans and critics alike, racking up north of 2.5 billion views on YouTube to date.

While a lot of coverage of the song and video at the time referred to Swift being “in on the joke,” in hindsight, it feels like “Blank Space” rewrote the joke entirely, making clear how ludicrous the pop star’s public persona was and re-routing the focus back to her music. Just as Swift had made a name for herself with very specific, autobiographical musical storytelling, she continued that trend with “Blank Space” — but this time, she was commenting on her own public narrative by consciously framing it in real time through song, setting the standard for a new, self-aware pop star in the 21st century.

“In reality, I was a 24-year-old young woman who was meeting people and dating the way everyone should be allowed to,” Swift tells Billboard, “but because I’m also a songwriter and in the public eye (and because this was five years ago when the conversation around double standards against women was less of a mainstream argument), people were allowed to shame me, joke about me, and make me feel like I was doing something wrong. I used ‘Blank Space’ as a way to show people that I knew what they were saying, and that the way they were portraying me (a serial man eater, volatile, dramatic, petulant, immature) wasn’t breaking me…it was actually an inspiring character they had drawn up”.

If Swift’s 1989 didn’t much sound like the music of 1989 – instead, Taylor Swift was born in 1989; the album came out shortly before her twenty-fifth birthday – it was this remarkably varied and strong album that changed her from this Country artist to a fully-fledged Pop icon. Someone who was here for the long run. Appropriately, there are comparisons with Madonna. She released Like a Prayer in the year 1989. That was an album that was seen as confirmation of her status as the Queen of Pop. Taylor Swift, in some ways, is very similar to Madonna. With the acclaim and celebration came increased media attention and intrusion. In December 2014, Slate wrote why Blank Space was number one:

“Blank Space,” Swift’s current electropop smash and the new No. 1 single on Billboard’s authoritative Hot 100 chart, is a case in point. Built atop airy, chilly synths and a heart-pulse beat, it would have sounded right at home on the radio of mid-to-late ’85, sandwiched between hits from Tears for Fears and Icehouse. Swift’s chirping vocal slots into this same frosty pocket, her staccato syllables percolating like a metronome. If lyrics websites were truly faithful to her delivery, they would print the song’s words at just one or two per line: “Nice to/ Meet you/ Where you/ Been? … Magic/ Madness/ Heaven/ Sin … New/ Money/ Suit and/ Tie … Ain’t it/ Funny/ Rumors/ Fly … ”

Swift is well served by her co-writer–producers, the Swedish pop masterminds Max Martin and Karl Johan “Shellback” Schuster. Those guys know a thing or two about the value of open space punctuating sharp hooks and lockstep vocals driving the rhythm. So expertly do Martin and Shellback employ that bag of tricks on “Blank Space” that the song is almost avant-garde in its parceling of morsels of pop pleasure. It’s rare that a chart-topping hit’s title actually alludes to what the song itself sounds like—imagine if “When Doves Cry” were titled “Bass-less Confessional” or “Faith” called “Stuttering Rockabilly.” But “Blank Space” is in fact all about its blank spaces, a glorious echo chamber of romantic deconstruction.

Speaking of romance, have I mentioned? The song is funny. The lyrics to “Blank Space” chronicle the boom-and-bust cycle of an obsessive love affair, churning through the dizzy-infatuation, jealous-recrimination, and rapid-devolution phases in under four minutes: “So it’s gonna be forever/ Or it’s gonna go down in flames/ You can tell me when it’s over/ If the high was worth the pain.” However lovelorn these words sound when sung, the song is clearly sardonic, poking fun at starry-eyed romanticism with the wryness of a Tinder veteran. The titular “blank space” in the song is where the man-eating singer will “write your name.” It’s satire for the age of Conscious Uncoupling—baking in the end of a relationship before it’s even begun.

Beyond its merits as a wry and unconventional pop hit, by reaching No. 1, “Blank Space” is also something of a chart milestone for Swift, Martin, and Shellback—as if they haven’t set enough records lately. As I did a couple of weeks ago when Swift’s album dropped and obliterated everything in its path, I’ll run down these achievements in increasing order of remarkableness. First, “Blank” is this trio’s third No. 1 hit together. Swift’s numerous Country No. 1s were mostly coproduced by Tennesseean Nathan Chapman and written by her alone, but since she’s crossed over to the big pop chart Swift has only reached the top with her Martin/Shellback collaborations, starting with 2012’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” For Max Martin, “Blank” is his 19th U.S. No. 1 hit as a writer, solidifying his third-place rank behind Paul McCartney and John Lennon. For Swift, who’s coming off the early-fall smash “Shake It Off,” “Blank” is her second straight No. 1 hit from 1989—the first time she’s scored back-to-back pop chart-toppers.

But the last feat is the most impressive: Swift didn’t just score two straight No. 1s, she actually replaced herself in the top slot. “Blank Space” ejects “Shake It Off” from No. 1 after the latter spent four total weeks on top. This is some serious diva shit. Knocking yourself out of the penthouse is the perfect game of Billboard pop chart achievements. Only a handful of acts have done it, starting with the two biggest of the Rock Era: Elvis Presley (1956’s “Hound Dog”/”Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender”) and the Beatles (the still-unequaled 1964 trifecta of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You”and “Can’t Buy Me Love”). In the SoundScan Era, when songs began to linger at No. 1 longer, the feat has gotten somewhat easier, but it’s still rare enough to be special. In the last two decades, a small circle of hip-hop and R&B acts have pulled it off at their peak moments of pop crossover: Boyz II Men in 1994, Nelly in 2002, Usher in 2004, T.I. in 2008 and the Black Eyed Peas in 2009; if you include featured credits, two more rappers did it—Sean Combs (then Puff Daddy) in 1997 and Ja Rule in 2002. Notice anything about all these acts? No solo women (only Fergie in the Peas). Swift is the first woman to replace herself at No. 1 in the history of the pop charts.

One other, subtler achievement for “Blank Space” is that it’s the second straight Swift chart-topper to poke fun at her own persona. As I noted back in August when it went to No. 1, the lyrics to “Shake It Off” read as broadly populist, but were at least half about Swift herself: chewing out her “haters” who were “gonna hate” the way she goes “on too many dates.” “Blank,” too, is very much about the public profile of Taylor. She’s said so herself: Even before the song was chosen as 1989’s second radio single, Swift offered that the whole point of the song was to write a parody of her serial-monogamist, obsessive-crush, boyfriends-as-expendable-songwriting-fodder persona”.

I want to end with the entirety of an article from The Guardian. They highlighted the amazing video for Blank Space. Perhaps Taylor Swift’s moist striking video to that point. Maybe one fans had been waiting for. Now, there is still so much focus on Swift’s love life. She is dating NFL star Travis Kelce at the moment. Still unable to have a private life, there was all this sort of obsession nearly a decade ago. The Blank Space video is a poke at and a reaction against that:

“Taylor Swift has been called a prodigy, a “feminist’s nightmare,” and – most annoyingly and most often – boy-crazy. People are so obsessed with Swift’s supposedly too-active dating life that there’s an entire wiki dedicated to her ex-boyfriends. Timelines of her relationships have been published by Billboard, Business Insider and Glamour magazine. Any song that Swift releases immediately sparks speculation about which famous ex is featured therein – her creative output always somehow ends up tied to a list of men.

It can’t be fun for a young, talented, wildly-successful woman to constantly have her music bonafides attached to her love life. So when a Vanity Fair reporter asked the singer-songwriter last year if she was “boy-crazy”, Swift called her out:

For a female to write about her feelings, and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that’s taking something that potentially should be celebrated – a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way – that’s taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.

And now, in her new Blank Space video, Swift performs the very unflattering image that the public has foisted upon her, as if to say: You want boy-crazy? I’ll give you boy-crazy!

This is the Taylor Swift we’ve been waiting for: the Taylor Swift who smiles while she offers up a hearty “fuck you”.

The video for Blank Space is a sort of dystopian feminist fairy tale: Swift is surrounded by woodland creatures and dressed in gorgeous gowns. She has picnics of champagne and sweets, all while in the company of a generically handsome, if unremarkable, man. (Blank Space, indeed!)

But things swiftly go awry in fantasy land with her Ken-doll boyfriend – he texts someone else, the bastard. Swift goes full-on Fatal Attraction: she screams and cries with a mascara-streaked face, throws a plant at him, cuts up his shirts, tries to chop down a rather large tree upon which she had carved their names, bashes his expensive car with a golf club and wields one very large knife in a crime against pastry.

“Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insane,” Swift sings in the middle of her meltdown. Finally, when her prince is passed out in the driveway – we don’t see why – she doesn’t wake him up with a kiss but with a firm bite to the lip. He then drives off in a rush ... and another generically handsome man drives up to take his place.

Swift has made no secret that Blank Space is about the media depictions of her relationships with men. “There’s been sort of a sensational fictionalization of my personal life”, Swift said in an interview about the song.

They’ve drawn up this profile of a girl who is a serial dater, jetsetting around with all her boyfriends and she get them but she can’t keep them because she’s too emotional and she’s needy. Then she gets her heart broken because they leave and she’s jilted, so she goes to her evil lair and writes songs about it for revenge.

Swift sings in Blank Space that she’s “a nightmare dressed like a daydream”, and indeed, this video – where the men are interchangeable, the girlfriend is crazy (and crazy hot), and the joke is on anyone who takes her image too seriously – is a certain kind of feminist daydream. It’s a world where the narrow and sexist caricatures attached to women are acted out for our amusement, their full ridiculousness on display. And for those who would try to pigeonhole Swift as little more than the sum of her dating life, the real nightmare is the woman behind the character: a woman who has full creative control over her image and isn’t afraid to use it to mock your efforts to stereotype her”.

On 10th November, Blank Space turns ten. On 27th October, 1989 is ten. I am sure the album will get a reissue and a lot of new words written about it. A song celebrated for its lyrical maturity and experimental in terms of new musical styles, it also won Song of the Year at the 2015 American Music Awards. At the 2016 BMI Awards, the song was one of the Award-Winning Songs that helped Swift earn the honour Songwriter of the Year. It truly was…

A pivotal moment for her.