FEATURE: Stranger Things, Particular Scenes: Kate Bush and the Licensing of Her Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Stranger Things, Particular Scenes

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: United Archives/Alamy 

 

Kate Bush and the Licensing of Her Music

__________

MANY might feel that…

Kate Bush refuses people access to her music. Or she is very selective. I do feel that Bush gets sent a lot of offers, yet there are rules and boundaries. Through the years, we have seen various Kate Bush songs feature on the screen. Stranger Things in 2022 is perhaps the biggest example. However, there have been other occasions when her songs have scored various scenes. For Stranger Things, the request to use Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) went through Wende Crowley, Sony Music Publishing’s SVP of creative marketing, film and television. There was a feeling from the producers that Bush might say ‘no’ and that they could not use their music. However, as Graeme Thomson writes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, Nora Felder, music coordinator on Stranger Things, knew that this iconic Kate Bush song would be perfect. Used to convey the existential struggle of one of the show’s key female characters, Max Mayfield, there was this detail and sales pitch needed. Rather than merely asking for the song and giving a vague description, these elaborate scene descriptions were written. Kate Bush is someone who does not give her music away easily. She was shown script pages and footage. It was this process that meant she knew exactly when and how her music was being used. It is the most high-profile example of Bush’s music being used on the screen over the past five years. It took a while for Kate Bush to agree to the use, owing to the fact Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was used during that season. It was not only a case of it being used for a short time. Aired in May 2022, it has been three years since that huge moment when one of Kate Bush’s biggest songs was used on Stranger Things. Bush spoke to Woman’s Hour about the reaction to the song being used. It was a mad moment!

It did create this huge wave of new affection for her music. New fans finding her work. The process too of getting the song used was not done cheaply. The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things’ creators, were determined to get that song used. It would have been a case of multiple contacts with Kate Bush. Going back and forth to ensure that she was fully informed and was happy. I am not sure how much they paid to have Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) used. However, this is not the only occasion when her music has been used. I have said multiple times how it would be wonderful if we saw more of Kate Bush’s music on the screen. However, I have previously noted how various films and shows have used her music. Not to the extend of Stranger Things in terms of the prominence and the reaction. It is the reaction part that interests me more. You feel that there are Kate Bush songs that could get this new traction. Thinking about how difficult it must have been for the Stranger Things camp to secure Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), does that mean that other filmmakers are going to be hesitant? It brings in to focus the way filmmakers come to major artists and can get permission to use their songs. It makes me wonder how many people have approached Kate Bush and been denied. I suppose they would go via Kate Bush’s management, but then what happens after that? Is there this initial stage when they would be on the phone with the filmmakers to hear them out and get some brief synopsis?

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush received the Editors Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards at the London Palladium on 30th November, 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Alan Davidson/Rex/Shutterstock

It can’t be the case that people instantly get to write or speak with Kate Bush. I have attempted to contact Kate Bush with a view of making a film version of The Ninth Wave – the second side to 1985’s Hounds of Love. I wrote to her and never got a response. I presume filmmakers use the same address and have to go through the same situation. It is clear that many do not get as far as a communication with Kate Bush. Some films and people have. People have to be very careful about which song they want to use and how it is deployed. If the song is used multiple times, that means it can be very expensive. Also, for a song like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) that has so many streams and is well known, the cost will be more than a lesser-known song. It is this tussle for filmmakers. Maybe they want to use a Kate Bush song, though if it is one that a lot of people do not know then that could cause issues. How many filmmakers are going with smaller Kate Bush songs in the hope that it gets recognition or takes on a new life?! I have criticised those who use obvious tracks. However, it is this tricky balance. Do filmmakers have to go into real detail? Have these detailed descriptions of where they music is going to be used and then show Kate Bush footage. Maybe not every film has had to do this. However, the licensing of her music is quite complex and expensive.

That is fair enough. I do hope that we get more occasions of Kate Bush’s music being used on a huge T.V. show or film. I get the feeling Bush would be keener for a big T.V. show to use her music rather than a film. Perhaps something she has watched and is a fan of. Even though they have not got the same focus and press as Stranger Things, films like The Mother and T.V. show, The Bear, have used Kate Bush’s music. The reason I wanted to write this feature is to ask whether we will get another Kate Bush viral moment or cultural phenomenon like in 2022. It would have to be a genuine request and pairing, rather than a filmmaker trying to cash in or go for this quick fame. Asking Google and A.I. what the process would be to use Kate Bush’s music, and the following information is returned:

“To license Kate Bush's music, you'll need to contact her management or publishing representatives. Since Bush owns the rights to her recordings, you'll likely be working with Noble & Brite Ltd., her company. Specifically, you'll need to secure both mechanical and synchronization licenses if you plan to use her music in a new recording or for visual media.

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

1. Identifying the Right Contact:

  • Noble & Brite Ltd.:

This company owns the recording rights to Kate Bush's music, including her masters. You'll likely need to contact them directly for licensing information.

  • Copyright Ownership:

Kate Bush owns 100% of the recording rights, meaning she controls the use of her masters, according to Music Business Worldwide.

  • Publishing Rights:

While you may need to contact a separate entity for the publishing rights (the rights to the song itself), it's likely that Noble & Brite Ltd. also manages this aspect, especially given Bush's independent ownership.

2. Understanding the Different Licenses:

  • Mechanical License: Required for any new recording or reproduction of a song (e.g., using "Running Up That Hill" in your own cover version).

  • Synchronization License: Required when a song is used in a visual medium, like a film, TV show, or commercial (e.g., "Running Up That Hill" in Stranger Things).

  • Public Performance License: Required for playing the music publicly (e.g., in a club, on the radio).

3. The Licensing Process:

  1. 1. Contact Noble & Brite Ltd.

Find their contact information (likely through the Kate Bush website or other music industry resources).

  1. 2. Clearly State Your Intent:

Explain what you want to use the music for and what type of license you need (mechanical, synchronization, etc.).

  1. 3. Negotiate the Terms:

They will likely provide a licensing fee schedule or negotiate a price based on your use of the music.

  1. 4. Sign the Agreement:

Once you reach an agreement, sign the license agreement to authorize the use of Kate Bush's music”.

I wanted to mark five years of Stranger Things using Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and the song getting to number one in the U.K. It was a huge moment. It is pleasing that shows and films since have used her music. I was not quite aware of the reasons why Bush said ‘yes’ to Stranger Things. Nora Feldman spoke with Rolling Stone in 2022 about how she won approval from Kate Bush:

“Knowing that Bush rarely licenses her music for use in film and TV, Felder wanted the ‘Hounds of Love’ artist to have as much information as possible: “I sat with my clearance coordinator, and laid out all the scripted scenes for song uses that we knew of at that point. Knowing the challenges, we proceeded to create elaborate scene descriptions that provided as much context as possible so that Kate and her camp would have a full understanding of the uses. … When we finished, we were on edge, but excited and hopeful.”

She added: “Kate Bush is selective when it comes to licensing her music and because of that, we made sure to get script pages and footage for her to review so she could see exactly how the song would be used.”

As it turned out Bush is a big fan of the show which stars David Harbour and Winona Ryder and after understanding how her song would be used, granted permission”.

It must be quite a challenge for filmmakers. It is not as easy as picking a Kate Bush song and asking her for permission and it being green-lit. There does need to be this right set of circumstances. Quite a bit of detail being provided. It is mainly her big songs that are used. Stuff from Hounds or Love. This Woman’s Work. The Bear’s use of The Morning Fog is a deep cut, though it is from Hounds of Love. I wonder if many have asked to use a deeper cut and from an album that is not brought to the screen. Whether Kate Bush is keen or reluctant to have one of her less popular songs used. Is it about the end result and potential profit or more the creativity and how a song is used? Maybe a bit of both. It is obvious she gets a lot of offers and turns a lot of them down. You would have to get lucky to both use Kate Bush’s music and for its to be a success – and create this potential viral moment. It also shines a spotlight on an older song. Let’s hope that all Kate Bush fans can unite when one of her songs is used in film and T.V. and explodes. Maybe Stranger Things was a one-off. However, I hope that we get to see a pleasing repeat…

IN the future.

FEATURE: A Book That Everyone Needs to Read… Inside Jess Davies’s No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World

FEATURE:

 

 

A Book That Everyone Needs to Read…

PHOTO CREDIT: Zoe McConell

 

Inside Jess Davies’s No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World

__________

OVER the past few weeks…

I have been buying and reading some really interesting books from brilliant women. Women’s rights activists, campaigners and feminists, I have read The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye, Ctrl, Hate, Delete: The New Anti-Feminist Backlash and How We Fight It by Cécile Simmons, Misognynation and Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates (I have ordered her new book, The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny), What About Men? and More Than a Woman by Caitlin Moran, My Body by Emily Ratajkowski, The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall, and On Women by Susan Sontag. Every book I have read (or am currently reading) has moved and affected me in different ways. Often, what these women have written makes for shocking and eye-opening reading! Even if the book is a few years old (or older), a lot of what they are writing about regarding inequality, abuse against women and the domination of misogyny is relevant right now. When they write about their personal experiences and how they have been affected by sexism and misogyny, it is honestly so incredibly jaw-dropping and angering! What they (and so many women) have endured. Not to try and convert men out there who would not consider themselves to be feminists. I would urge you to go to your local bookstore and find the Feminist/Gender Studies section and invest in a book. And then two. And then another! The more informed and educated we are, the more allies that will create. The bigger, deeper and more united the conversation. Hopefully, and sooner rather than later, some of these issues will either disappear or lessen. I don’t think we will (sadly) ever seen an end to misogyny and abuse against women. However, we are in an incredibly dangerous and scary time where incel influencers are revered and seen as gods by young men. Where misogyny and violence against women is rising, and the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth (President Donald Trump in the U.S.) is a sex offender and misogynist – and gleefully has stripped women of their rights and body autonomy.

My most recent purchase is a book by Jess Davies I think everyone – and I literally mean every human being who has the means to buy it – should read. I could say that about so many other books but, not having even got to the end and been completely stunned, this is a book that should be on every shelf. I am going to end with some words on how No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World has inspired me and impacted me more heavily and instantly than any other I have read in the past few weeks – or years for that matter. Before that, go and follow Jess Davies on Twitter and Instagram (her TikTok account has been removed without explanation, but we all hope that it is rightly restored very soon!). I am going to move to a recent interview from Jess Davies that was conducted by The Guardian, where she talks about her new book and experiences regarding the online world (and the manosphere). How misogyny, unsolicited d*ck pics and exploitation has affected her. I will go more into that and how Davies’s word and recollections moved me. In 2021, she spoke with the BBC about how she is sent hundreds of cyberflashing images from men:

“A social media influencer said she had been the victim of cyber-flashing for the past 10 years.

Podcaster Jess Davies, from Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, said she had received hundreds of unsolicited obscene images.

Calls are growing for cyber-flashing to become a crime as part of measures to toughen laws on online safety.

The UK government said its plans would "force social media companies to stamp out online abuse".

Jess, who has 151,000 followers on Instagram, said she has become almost "numb" to the images she is sent, adding: "What's illegal offline should be illegal online."

"I am probably cyber-flashed every month, maybe more, depends really on what I share.

"This has been going on for 10 years. I've probably received literally hundreds of these images. The kind of stuff I get is close-up shots, or of them performing a sex act.

"When I receive the images it makes you feel a bit dirty and you start thinking, 'why me? Why have they sent them to me, is it something I've done'?"

Jess Davies has joined the calls for cyber-flashing to be added to the UK government's draft Online Safety Bill

She fears it has become "normalised" online, compared to what is tolerated in public.

"If you had thousands of men flashing you in the street, that's illegal, and that would be a huge problem and a huge conversation, so why are we accepting it online?”.

Jess Davies’s 2022 documentary, Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?, was used to lobby the U.K. Government to criminalise sexually explicit deepfakes in the Online Safety Act. She uses her social media presence to call out misogynistic attitudes, raise awareness of inequalities and campaign against image-based sexual abuse. Also go and watch the 2021 documentary, When Nudes Are Stolen. In addition to being this amazing talent, Davies is someone who has reached and helped so many girls and young women who have been victims of cyberflashing, deep fake videos, misogyny and abuse. A truly amazing person, I would urge everyone reading to order No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World (you can also get the audiobook version via Audible):

“Are women asking for it because of their outfits, routes home, profile pictures or social media posts? Or can we finally admit that there might be something wrong with masculinity in the digital world?
The rising popularity of misogynistic content and toxic masculinity influencers combined with a lack of regulation within social media has created a perfect storm. Our increasingly online world has opened women and young girls up to a whole new level of violence that follows them into their homes, schools and workplaces.
In No One Wants to See Your D*ck, women's rights campaigner Jess Davies reveals the shocking realities of this epidemic and what we can do to stop it. Covering everything from cyberflashing and deepfakes to the manosphere and catfishing, Jess offers practical advice and accessible language to help you understand what is happening online, what to do if you become a victim of it and why drastic change is needed now. Urgent and eye-opening, this is a vital toolkit for understanding and putting an end to violence against women”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jess Davies

That title is very apt! These images that women like Davies sent are unsolicited. The kind of these men that sent them. Thinking she would be appreciated or aroused by them! It truly is the case that no woman wants to see them. These are distributing, disgusting, abusive and relentless. With social media companies not clamping down or doing enough to ensure that these photos (and videos) are banned and those who send them have their accounts removed, it means there is this epidemic. One that is not only affecting women: it is reaching girls who are so young and are subjected to these graphic and obscene images. It should be something our Government is tackling as a priority. However, there is hardly any real progress. However, until fairly recently, it wasn’t illegal to create deepfake videos. In 2024, it was announced that it would be. Legislation introduced that meant cyberflashing and revenge porn – that Davies rightly says is a problematic term that should be called ‘image-based sexual abuse -, would be illegal. However, in 2025, there is this tidal wave of deepfakes and cyberflashing. How many of the men creating and posting this content are charged and imprisoned?! I am going to move to a recent interview from The Guardian, where Anna Moore spoke with Jess Davies. There are segments I want to include. Despite everything Davies has faced - and continues to face -, she has cause for optimism and hope that things will change:

“Jess Davies was a 15-year-old schoolgirl, sitting in an art lesson, absorbed in her fairytale project about a princess and a postman, when her Nokia phone began to vibrate with messages. “Nice pictures,” read one. “I didn’t think you were that type of girl,” said another.

To this day, she remembers the racing thoughts, the instant nausea, the hairs prickling up on her legs, the sweaty palms. She had shared a photograph of herself in her underwear with a boy she trusted and, very soon, it had been sent around the school and across her small home town, Aberystwyth, Wales. She became a local celebrity for all the wrong reasons. Younger kids would approach her laughing and ask for a hug. Members of the men’s football team saw it – and one showed someone who knew Davies’s nan, so that’s how her family found out.

Only now can Davies, the 32-year-old presenter, influencer and women’s rights campaigner, see all this for what it was. It happened in the 00s, when she was a girl – she still loved High School Musical and Hannah Montana – with a woman’s body, navigating new feelings and the male gaze. “I had boobs when I was 10 so from then on, there were comments. You quickly learn that this is the lens you’re seen through. This is who you are now.” The boy who betrayed her trust, the men in the football team, everyone who shared that picture faced no scrutiny. “I was the one shamed,” she says, “I was the first person I knew of that this had happened to, so there was no blueprint to follow. I was mortified. My response was: ‘OK, this is it. I have to try to own this as it’s not going away.’” She chose to laugh it off and front it out. By 18, while at university, she was working as a glamour model for lads’ mags. “It’s wild how one thing can change your life trajectory,” she says. “Without that image going round my school, would I have ever felt confident to go on a modelling shoot? There was already so much stigma attached to me, I thought: ‘Why not try to embrace it and be confident in my body?’” She’s quiet for a moment. “I think that’s been a plus and a negative.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Francesca Jones/The Guardian

Her book, No One Wants to See Your D*ck, takes a deep dive into the negatives. It covers Davies’s experiences in the digital world – that includes cyberflashing such as all those unsolicited dick pics – as well as the widespread use of her images on pornography sites, escort services, dating apps, sex chats (“Ready for Rape? Role play now!” with her picture alongside it). However, the book also shines a light on the dark online men’s spaces, what they’re saying, the “games” they’re playing. “I wanted to show the reality of what men are doing,” says Davies. “People will say: ‘It’s not all men’ and no, it isn’t, but it also isn’t a small number of weirdos on the dark web in their mum’s basements. These are forums with millions of members on mainstream sites such as Reddit, Discord and 4chan. These are men writing about their wives, their mums, their mate’s daughter, exchanging images, sharing women’s names, socials and contact details, and no one – not one man – is calling them out. They’re patting each other on the back.”

It has taken years for Davies to shift the blame away from herself and on to them. For most of her adult life, she says, she carried shame and stigma around like a “weighted cross” on her back. “Every time I was taken advantage of, I kind of accepted it,” she says. “I thought: ‘Oh well, you’ve opened yourself up to this. What did you expect?’ Part of me believed that this is just how the world is, and this was all I was worth.” That message was delivered in so many ways. As a model, she tried setting boundaries, never shooting topless content. When she was once asked to pose in a mesh bodysuit, she agreed on the understanding that her nipples would be edited out. She was assured they would be. A month later, the pictures appeared in a Nuts magazine summer special, nipples very clearly on display, an image that was quickly scanned and shared on the internet. (Davies remembers crying in her mum’s arms as her standards collapsed in a “pathetic heap of lost hopes”.)

In some ways, she is hopeful now. There has been progress. She cites examples – the removal by Pornhub of 80% of its content after Mastercard and Visa severed links and blocked the use of its cards on the site following a New York Times investigation that accused it of being “infested” with child abuse and rape-related videos (Pornhub has denied the allegations); the Online Safety Act 2023, which is beginning to hold tech companies accountable for content. “Of course, there is so much more that needs doing, but we’re so close to change,” she says. “We’re at the beginning of creating laws and saying this isn’t OK. I think it’s partly why there is so much backlash in the manosphere. It’s like the jeopardy just before the happy ending in a Disney movie!”

Still, on a personal level, Davies is wary – and single. She has seen too much. “I don’t go on dating apps,” she says. “I don’t date at all. It’s a bit of a joke to my friends, but it’s ruined it for me. I’d like to find someone one day but how do you build that trust back? It’s hard to say: ‘Yes, I’m going to give someone else a chance’”.

No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World should be bought by everyone for a number of reasons. Cyberflashing, deepfakes and misogyny will or has impacted someone you know. Nearly every woman you know would have experienced some form of harassment or misogyny in their lifetime. Davies writes personally and beautifully. She is open, honest, moving, funny, sharp, compelling and brave. It is a book that I have been engrossed in and constantly have to stop reading because it creates such an emotional gut-punch! Reading her words and the statistics she brings in. Can this really be true?! It makes for often harrowing reading. However, I think the more people that read the book the better. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Davies writes how sexual harassment has become normalised. 97 per cent of young women, she makes clear, have experienced some form of sexual harassment. She writes how the Revenge Porn Helpline does “God’s work” and that every woman should memorise their number – which is 0345 6000 459. There are countless paragraphs and lines that jump out and lodge in the brain and heart. Davies  provides tips to anyone whose intimate videos or pics have been leaked. “A 2024 study by Dublin City University’s anti-bullying centre tracked the content recommendations to accounts that were registered to teenage boys aged 16-18”. TikTok and YouTube Shorts. They found how all of these accounts were  “found to have been fed masculinist, anti-feminist content within the first 23 minutes of the experiment”.

Rather than wait until I have read the whole book, I wanted to write about it now. An urgent recommendation for everyone. Massive credit to Jess Davies for recounting experiences that must be traumatic. Her words will doubtless resonate with many women. So many useful numbers, links and information for any women who have been affected by cyberflashing, deepfakes and misogyny (and various evils and vile elements of the manosphere). Although I have probably not done the book full justice, I was mesmerised and stunned by No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World. It is a remarkable read that is so timely and important. I am seeing Davies speak for The Trouble Club on 20th May. If you are a member or not, I would advise you buy a ticket and get to this event! Although I am not a member of The Conduit, Covent Garden, if you are, go and book a ticket to see Jess Davies speak with Dr Jackson Katz on the role men can play in tackling misogyny in everyday life (that takes place on 29th May). That is an event I would love to be at! On 14th May, she will be at Ethical Matters: Surviving the Manosphere. I am very tempted to get a ticket for this event as it is sure to be hugely engaging, informative and challenging:

“Presenter, campaigner and activist Jess Davies has questions. Are we still asking for it because of our outfits? Our routes home? Our profile picture? Our social media posts? Or can we finally admit that there might be something wrong with… men and masculinity? James Bloodworth delved into the array of bizarre and harmful underground subcultures, collectively known as the manosphere. With it he asks why are so many men susceptible to the sinister beliefs it promotes and what can we do about it?

As the epidemic of male violence towards women and young girls reaches terrifying new heights through new and expanding technologies, women’s rights campaigner Jess Davies will help question society’s understanding – or lack of – when it comes to consent. With a toolkit to understand and tackle online misogyny, her book No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World will arm a new wave of internet sleuths to take down the manosphere, one unsolicited pic at a time.

Already there, James Bloodworth explores the uncertainties that life and masculinity has spawned in an array of bizarre and harmful underground subcultures, collectively known as the manosphere, as men search for new forms of belonging. In the course of his journey he meets incels, enlists on a bootcamp for so-called ‘alpha males’, and speaks to modern day Hugh Hefners using social media to broadcast their jet set lifestyles to millions of followers. Combining compulsive memoir with powerful reporting, fascinating international case studies, data, cultural analysis and history, his book Lost Boys: Undercover Adventures in Toxic Masculinity is a guide to the crisis in contemporary masculinity.

Join Jess and James at Conway Hall to discuss a world that is confusing for men and dangerous for women. How has this come about, how can women start to survive this, and how can we work together to make change?”

I am going to wrap up soon. Not only has No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World stopped me in my tracks and made me race to put this feature out. It has inspired me. Before talking about this, I do wonder if we will get an official Jess Davies website where we get links to her documentaries, articles and everything in one place. She is such an influential and multi-faceted broadcaster, writer and campaigner. I digress! For a long time now, I have been talking about either trying to start a charity or organisation concerning women’s rights and equality. As a music journalist, I often call myself a feminist writer, as I write about women more than anyone and often tackle subjects like gender equality and women’s rights. Reading Jess Davies’s book has stirred something inside of me. That desire to do something important; join people together – campaigners, activists and feminists – and make a difference. I know how hard it is to raise funds and get something sustainable together. I know of many women who are part of charities or are activists and have spent so much of their own money trying to get laws changed and created - but they have lost. I reached out to gender equality activist Gina Martin saying how much I loved the work she was doing and how inspired by her I was.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rhiannon Holland

These amazing women like Martin and Davis will help bring about permanent and positive change. However, I do think that there needs to be this unity. More male allyship. People talking about books like No One Wants to See Your D*ck: A Handbook for Survival in the Digital World. I am surprised how few reviews there are for the book so far. I hope that newspapers, websites and magazines read the book and explore this incredible book. It is such a powerful and important one that should be in everyone’s collection. It has affected me and I know it will cause reaction and, I hope, activation, in every person who reads it. I can see Jess Davies being invited on - I hope this will manifest something - Woman’s Hour and Off Air With Jane & Fi (I could also imagine she would be amazing on The Adam Buxton Podcast). I know Jess Davies is still most likely being sent cyberflashing images and receiving so much abuse and unwanted images. It is heartbreaking. It makes me respect her so much. That she is inundated with this (do you ever truly get numb to that?) and still is able to talk about it. I hope that this book makes men who are engaging in this rethink and change their ways. That the digital landscape does shift. That women (and girls) are treated with far greater respect. It is the very least they deserve and has been…

A long time coming.

FEATURE: Spotlight: PUNCHBAG

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

PUNCHBAG

__________

IN terms of dynamics…

when it comes to duos, trios or groups, one of the most fascinating is the sibling combination. There are examples of brothers and sisters working together (including HAIM), but it does seem to be rarer than it used to be. Maybe I am not looking in the right places! However, I have discovered the brilliant PUNCHBAG. Their incredible debut E.P., I’m Not Your Punchbag, came out on 2nd May. I love the cover and lettering. It is very eye-catching and memorable. The four tracks on the E.P. are the work of a duo that everyone should know. In order to recruit more to the wonderful PUNCHBAG, I am dropping in a few recent interviews. I will end with a review for I’m Not Your Punchbag. Before getting to some interviews, here.is some biography a duo that so many people are buzzing about:

“Colliding the raw unfiltered energy of punk, with the overflowing ecstasy of pop, emerges PUNCHBAG. A new electrifying brother-sister duo, from South London. With fierce tempos and ferocious energy, their music is an explosively cathartic release of raw intensity and unapologetic fun.

This is the sound of today’s tough realities, transmuting personal and collective life material into an earthquake of alternative-pop. PUNCHBAG propels listeners into a collision of chaos and catharsis, with music that wrestles with change, realisation and recovery.
In 2025, it was announced that Punchbag has signed with Mute Records”.

I am going to start out with an introductory feature from February that When the Whistle Blows published. Undoubtedly one of our freshest and most promising acts, I think that PUNCHBAG will put out tremendous music for many years. Their debut E.P. is fully-formed. No doubt they are a very special talent. One that everybody should put their weight behind:

“Swinging between dizzying extremes, where unapologetically sugar-sweet pop hooks clash with radical leftfield production; where emotional overwhelm can be purged in the space of a single throwaway lyric; where lines are blurred and redrawn between aggression and joy, softness and toughness, PUNCHBAG (consisting of Clara and Anders Bach) are a compelling proposition.

Debut single 'Fuck It' introduces the duo with a grand wash of entrancing synths and piercing beats. Vocalist Clara sings of a life buffeted by anxiety and the fear of wasting time, as instrumental momentum builds and builds. Then, just short of escape velocity, everything flips on its head. Guitarist and producer Anders' overdriven punk guitars attack in plunging dives as the vocal suddenly flips in tone; sharp, snippy and unabashed. “We might as well just say go fuck it!” Clara exclaims. “’Cos we’re all gonna die, die, die!”

They took a moment to talk to us about their music.

Hey there PUNCHBAG- how are you? So your track ‘Fuck It’ is out now - can you tell us what it is about?
We’re fab thanks! This song is about right now, it's about 2025 and the feelings we have about the world. It's about the anxiety of wasting time but using that as a catalyst to DO things. “We might as well just say go fuck it” “Cos we’re all gonna die die die” we make a point of these lyrics not being nihilistic, its more like we only have so much time so say the thing you wanna say, kiss the person you wanna kiss. Aggressive but joyful.

Where are you from and what are your favourite things to do there?
We’re from south-east London. We make all our music at home, so that’s usually what we’re doing. Getting really into tracking planes when walking around the park. Riveting stuff south the river!

What are the key influences when it comes to your music?
It's a big mixing soup of eavesdropping people on the tube, being overly self observational, The Pixies and Katy Perry.

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never listened to your music before?
Aggressive Hopecore. It's sweaty, noisy pop that you can purge your feelings too. It's brutal reality with a cathartic release which in turn is fun and joyful.

Now the track is out there - what next for you? 
There is a new kebab place around the corner we’re about to go out and try. And also loads more music and shows. Woop”.

Before getting to an interview from NME, I want to come to a great one from DORK. Published at the end of March, DORK declared PUNCHBAG are “The sibling duo of Clara and Anders Bach slice through the thick fog of modern irony while maintaining the playful spirit of those who know precisely when to take things seriously – and, more importantly, when not to”. I am really excited by their progress and I realise just how far they can go:

“In PUNCHBAG’s world, the roles are clear but fluid, a creative process that is thoroughly collaborative. “We both write and produce everything together,” they explain. This partnership has yielded more than just music; it’s become a lens through which to examine the peculiarities of the world around them.

Their evolution into PUNCHBAG is almost a reaction to making art in an age of endless scrolling and context collapse. “We like to describe it as ‘Aggressive Hopecore’, which feels relevant to right now. It’s about 2025,” Clara reflects. “We live in an irony epidemic, and everything is meme-able, but alongside that, things in the world are pretty serious, and peoples’ heads are in complex places. We worry about that.”

This tension between digital absurdity and genuine human emotion runs through everything PUNCHBAG create. “We think those two things can be connected, that contrast, and it sonically sounds like that too, the softness and also the toughness,” Clara continues. “This music isn’t about chasing the news, we are chasing what people’s thoughts and emotions are because of what is going on and being able to do that also with joy and catharsis.”

The resulting EP emerged from sessions split between Berlin, Whitstable and their London home base, working alongside collaborators Michelle Leonard and Dee Adam. “We recorded everything at home together, just sitting in front of a laptop for weeks, going a tad mad until it was finished,” they reveal. “The main challenges are just trying to get the mic stands to fit in Clara’s wardrobe where we record all the vocals.”

That DIY spirit pervades the four-track collection, which they describe as “a nice big soup of subjects spanning from the tumultuous relationship you have with your phone to someone making a snide comment to you at the dinner table.” Each song captures a specific moment in PUNCHBAG’s evolution: “‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’ was the song that helped us work out our name. ‘You Used To Be So Sexy’ was the first ever session we did. ‘Pretty Youth’ was one of the first songs we made that felt like this is PUNCHBAG.”

The tracklisting was assembled with characteristic directness. “We wanted to be straight to the point, like BANG, here ya go, here is a lil crash course into PUNCHBAG,” they explain. “We want each song to feel like they could stand alone strongly and they are all intense in different ways. It was very important that each song you could move or jump to, obviously.”

This emphasis on physical release through movement feels particularly vital in our increasingly screen-mediated world. As Clara notes, “Joy is important and jumping up and down in a sweaty room is important but I think you can do that in a non-escapist way too, without the floweriness, the petals. Although we do wear a lot of pink on stage.”

Their approach to personal development mirrors their musical evolution – equal parts determination and playful absurdity. Currently, they’re “working on our mind, body and soul,” with Clara quite specifically “working on being able to do the splits again.” This physical preparation accompanies their ongoing musical development, having “just came back from Berlin and wrote a bunch of new songs, keeping it exciting, keeping pushing our music and most importantly getting our live set to be spectacular, pyros pending.”

Looking ahead, PUNCHBAG’s ambitions range from the practical to the playfully absurd. When asked where they’d like the EP to take them, they respond with deadpan humour: “To the darts championship.” More immediately, their 2025 calendar is filling up with promise: “Ooooof, a lot of fun things including some festivals, our first ever headline, and just more music for people to jump to or laugh to or cry to?”

Perhaps that’s the greatest promise in PUNCHBAG’s wardrobe-recorded missives: turning the everyday tumult of the present moment into something raw, urgent, and oddly uplifting. And if they can keep doing it with no rules, so much the better”.

One of the most recent interviews with the duo, NME spoke with PUNCHBAG at the end of last month. With so much momentum behind them already, you wouldn’t bet against them touring around the world soon enough. If you can catch them at Bermondsey Social Club on 29th May – and there are still tickets available – then you I would advise that. A stunning duo who are also a brilliant live force:

“They channel such physicality both in the studio and on stage. “Often when we’re writing, we’ll be standing up and it’s like ‘go, go, go!’” Clara explains. They’ll spend months perfecting a verse, and hours on finding the right kick drum. “It’s so guttural and honest and raw and fun to make.” Their frenetic, infectious performances have gone down a treat on the London live circuit – and beyond, thanks to YouTube videos – and started building word-of-mouth hype even before they released any music.

“For us, the live element is the most important thing, and it always will be,” Clara declares. Anders agrees: “you can’t argue with a live show – it’s raw and there’s literally nothing that can compare.” They value the “honest feedback” that comes from playing in front of people too; some formative sets (one of which saw Norwegian pop artist Sigrid in the crowd) inspired the duo to tweak some demos afterwards. “We learned so much,” Clara adds. “Even if you can’t see a single person’s face, you feel uncomfortable if something doesn’t work,” Anders says.

“With everything we write, we’re always trying to push it and be uncomfortable” – Anders Bach

While they always hoped their songs would connect with people, something felt distinctly different when they started performing as Punchbag. “We’re always making sure that we’re having as much fun as possible on stage,” Anders says. “It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but anywhere we play, it’s about finding the people in the audience that get it.”

For anyone yet to experience a Punchbag gig, prepare to get sweaty. “I scream at people until they’re jumping at the end,” Clara says, describing their energetic performance as “really heavy and, hopefully, joyful. We want people to feel able to laugh and cry at the same time. There can be anger in catharsis, but being truthful and brutally honest about things is important.” Anders continues: “It’s like we’re saying to the audience ‘this room is your emotional punching bag’ – it’s a place where people can get things out of their systems”.

All this comes to a boil in their razor-sharp debut EP ‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’, whose lyrics satirise social media obsession (‘Pretty Youth’) and fight back against toxic relationships (‘You Used To Be So Sexy’). “It’s a very quick crash course into Punchbag, no pun intended,” Clara laughs, adding that the four-tracker is just a taste of what’s to come. “We’ve got tons of music, we’re overcooking,” Anders teases. Adds Clara: “We want to keep people on their toes”.

I am finishing with a review of I’m Not Your Punchbag from God Is in the TV Zine. Such a phenomenal E.P. from the sibling duo, for anyone who has not discovered them, do make sure that you check them out. Even if these are the early days for PUNCHBAG, you know that they are going to be huge very soon. Their music so original and instantly engaging. Nobody with their mix of sounds and sensations:

“Siblings Clara and Anders Bach, who make music as PUNCHBAG, describe their music as Aggressive Hopecore. Citing influences such as LCD Soundsystem and Björk provide further clues as to the origins of their creativity, the fruits of which can be heard on their debut EP I’m Not Your Punchbag, released on 2 May via Mute Records. Anders explains further:
“We want to be the most pop thing we can in a left-field context, and be the most left-field in a pop context. We’re constantly playing with the idea of how far we can take each direction”.

Opening track ‘Fuck it’ unequivocally throws down a statement of intent. The electronic opening gives way to Clara’s vocal which is strong and on point. Thematically she sings of a life buffeted by anxiety and the fear of wasting time“as I try to figure who I am”. The intro gives way to an explosion of energy, a burst of dynamic positivity as she exclaims:“We might as well just say go fuck it!”. This sentiment is followed by a shot of perspective, don’t sweat the small stuff: “’Cos we’re all gonna die, die, die!” . Clara expands on the lyrical content: “it’s not nihilistic. It’s more like, we only have so much time, so do the thing you want to do. Kiss the person you want to kiss, say that thing you want to say.” This is patently obvious in the utter bouncing joy of the track, and there’s no doubt there is a catharsis in yelling “We might as well just say go fuck it” at the top of your voice.

Title track ‘I’m Not Your Punchbag’ grew from a remark made to Clara at a dinner table. Indeed it also goes some way to explain the band name and ethos. The quality of Clara’s vocal cannot be over stated, and this message of defiance is emphatic due to her delivery. Words can be hurtful and cut deep. There is a need to hold firm when confronted with such behaviour. The pulsating beat replicates the theme and as Clara shares: “From this small seed, if you like, the song grew into a kind of anthem for fighting back – a refusal to let people dump their shit on you.” It was after writing this song they realised that PUNCHBAG was obvious as the band name.

‘Pretty Youth’ then lifts the pace, a wild combination of manic synths and guitars, and punctuated with Clara’s chants: “Scammer! Con-er! thief thief thief!” . This rapid fire assault on the senses is an anti-coming-of-age anthem. Clara explains: “We’re sold that this is the most romantic time of your life, but really a lot of it is spent in the dark suffering.” . The twitchy exuberance of youth, especially as young adulthood is looming, gives way to this realisation that the idyllic notion of youth is not realistic, but that’s ok. The all-consuming liberation in ‘Pretty Youth’ is its fire and self-belief. “I won’t stop living if nothing is happening.”

Final track ‘You Used To Be So Sexy’ reframes phone addiction through the lens of a toxic relationship. Whip smart lyrics combine with bouncing club beats end the EP on a high. It is sprinkled with beeps, bleeps, distorted vocals and a thumping undercurrent but the outro is a euphoric finish, which is entirely fitting. Overall PUNCHBAG recognise and acknowledge the challenges of reality and in their words: “we’re making music that is about people’s reactions to what’s going on. Their feelings, emotions and thoughts,” It’s an effervescent response, so beware as it will have the listener bouncing, wherever they may be!

PUNCHBAG’s first ever show was at the Brixton Windmill less than a year ago. From the off they had an infectious energy which saw the iconic venue invite the band to Rotterdam’s Left of the Dial festival, before any music releases.“We take it seriously,” says Clara. “We’ve thought about it a lot, and it was important that from the first time we performed it was fully formed. We’re Virgos. We’re perfectionists.” 

There will be plenty of opportunity to see the band live over the coming months with a support slot for Zimmer90 taking them to London, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham. There are also festival dates including Brighton’s The Great Escape and Paris’s Supersonic Block Party, and a headline show at the end of May at London’s Bermondsey Social Club”.

PUNCHBAG are definitely here for the long-run. Their debut E.P. is astonishing. Even if I am quite new to their work, I can appreciate why they are so hyped and popular. We are going to be talking about them for a very long time. For anyone fresh to Clara and Anders Bach, go and follow the mighty PUNCHBAG. A duo that…

ARE on fire right now.

___________

Follow PUNCHBAG

FEATURE: A Lifeline for So Many Women and Children… Why I Am Raising Money for Refuge

FEATURE:

 

 

A Lifeline for So Many Women and Children…

PHOTO CREDIT: MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

 

Why I Am Raising Money for Refuge

__________

THIS is not the first time…

that I have engaged in fundraising for Refuge. They are a charity that are very dear to my heart. I am going to take information from their website before coming to my fundraising event and important reasons for supporting Refuge. I would urge people to also follow Refuge on Instagram. Not only do they post useful information and links. They also highlight people who are fundraising for them. The work they do is invaluable! They are saving lives. If you look at their page that looks at how your (people who donate to Refuge) support helps, the statistics are moving. Among the figures is how 96% of those who leave Refuge’s services feel safer. It is very clear that this is a charity that is making a difference! I will move on in a minute. However, I have combined information from various sections of their website to give you an overview:

“We opened the world’s first safe house for women and children in 1971.

It was in Chiswick, West London. Women and children escaping domestic abuse flocked to our doors because, for the first time, someone was saying it was wrong to beat your partner. Back then, domestic abuse was seen as a “private matter”, to be dealt with behind closed doors. Society turned a blind eye.

Since 1971, Refuge has led the campaign against domestic abuse. We’ve grown to become the country’s largest single provider of specialist domestic and gender-based violence services.

We believe a world without violence and fear is possible.

We provide the highest quality services for survivors.

Refuge provides a range of life saving and life changing services. We put the experiences of survivors at the heart of our work and help amplify their voices. Our specialist staff understands the diverse and complex needs of women and their children – and we are experts in the dynamics of domestic abuse and gender-based violence.

  • We helped design the first National Occupational Standards for domestic violence, which set out the specialised knowledge and skills needed to deliver the highest-quality support. We then developed these standards into Ofqual-accredited qualifications, demonstrating what best practice looks like on the ground.

  • Everything we do is evidence-led. We use survivor feedback, knowledge and experience to continuously learn, improve and innovate our services based on what we know works.

  • We provide comprehensive specialist training to our own staff and volunteers on a wide range of issues, and also train professionals in their local communities — including police officers, teachers, and GPs — on how to respond appropriately to domestic abuse.

We protect survivors by helping to drive policy change.

Refuge advocates for changes to policy, practice and legislation that will better protect survivors of domestic abuse and prevent future abuse. That includes driving policies to ensure the sustainability of life-saving domestic abuse services.

We also build partnerships with other organisations doing vital work in this area, sharing and growing our expertise to expand our impact. This includes organisations with deep knowledge of specific marginalised groups of women, to understand how we as a society can meet the specialised needs — and overcome the unique challenges to access — faced by certain groups.

We prevent future abuse by shifting perceptions.

Refuge believes that domestic abuse is a gendered crime that will not end until we have radical culture change which addresses gender inequality. We know that we need to challenge and change public attitudes, and raise awareness of the different forms domestic abuse can take. That’s why we:

  • Run national, award-winning awareness-raising campaigns, which educate the public on domestic violence and show women experiencing abuse that they are not alone

  • Train professionals who come into contact with abused women, including police officers, doctors, social workers and midwives

  • Work to end gender inequality, which is the root cause of domestic abuse”

As I am fundraising for a forthcoming event (in June), I am being supported by the charity. In terms of suggestions to get my total hit and make an impact. Those who work for Refuge are so dedicated to making a difference. Helping so many women and children affected and displaced by domestic violence. Among Refuge’s Ambassadors are Billie Piper, Dame Helen Mirren and Chanita Stephenson. Their Champions include Aisling Bea, Richard Herring and Flo Finch. Why should anyone, including myself, support Refuge? 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. That is startling. 25% of all women will be the victim of domestic violence. We will all probably know a woman who has experienced it (I certainly do).Every 30 seconds, the police receive a call relating to domestic abuse. Refuge work to empower women to live a safer life. To be free from the fear and control of domestic abuse. However, there is still work to be done. Recent news reports that Londoners are less likely to report domestic abuse compared to other areas of the country. Refuge’s CEO Gemma Sherrington responded to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report on babies, children and young people, Victims in their own right? Some very sobering and powerful words:

“All survivors of domestic abuse have the right to tailored support, and children are no exception. Refuge has been working closely with the UK Trauma Council to develop a holistic, trauma-informed support model, but this must be matched by increased, long-term funding for lifesaving children’s services.

“Supporting children effectively requires a multi-agency approach, so we echo the report’s call for a shared language framework that places the onus on the perpetrator and fully considers the child’s needs.

“Every child has the right to live free from fear. Refuge calls for the report’s recommendations to be implemented by all relevant Government bodies without delay. And with the Spending Review on the horizon, now is the time to commit to sustainable funding for specialist organisations. Children’s wellbeing – and lives – depend on it”.


If you are experiencing domestic abuse and need help, the number to call is 0808 2000 247. That number is free and open 24 hours a day. This link also provides advice to anyone who is experiencing abuse. Signs to watch out for when it comes to domestic abuse. Refuge are delivering such vital help at a moment of crisis. A recent survey revealed three-quarters of U.K. adults are unaware of the scale of domestic abuse. Not only are women murdered by their partners. Many are taking their own lives. In fact, suicides as a result of domestic abuse have overtaken homicides. That applies to England and Wales. That is sickening to realise. The true extent of domestic abuse. How many women are so in fear and trapped that they take their own lives. We are living at a time when toxic masculinity and the influence of popular incels and misogynists are contributing to the rise in domestic abuse cases. So many women and children subjected to unbearable and heartbreaking abuse and violence. Many made homeless and forced from their homes. This is something that is very much present and needs to end! It is horrifying that domestic violence is such an issue in 2025. It is even more important that we all do all we can to fundraise and support Refuge. As they do such tireless and amazing work. There are a couple of reasons why I am fundraising for them. On 21st June, I am embarking on a walk from East Wickham Farm in Welling to Oxford Circus in London. June 2025 marks fifty years since Kate Bush stepped into AIR Studios in Oxford Circus to record her first professional recordings (in a professional studio rather than with professionals necessarily) under the mentorship of David Gilmour. She was sixteen, and it was a monumental and important moment. I have recently published my 1,000th Kate Bush feature, so I wanted to tie that together and mark an anniversary and a milestone.

On social media, I follow people like David Challen. He is a domestic abuse campaigner and often publish news stories, statistic and quotes around domestic abuse (and he has a book coming out soon). Its affect and scope. Something that is affecting so many women and children in the U.K. I am going to end with a quote from Ikram Dahman, Refuge’s Interim Director of Fundraising, Communications & Policy: “We’re really grateful to Sam for choosing to support Refuge as he marks this milestone in his music journalism career. Commemorating his 1,000th article with a Kate Bush-themed walking challenge is a creative and heartfelt tribute - and a powerful act of allyship. Violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels, and every two minutes someone turns to Refuge for help. We’re honoured that Sam is walking in solidarity with survivors and using his platform to help raise both awareness and vital funds. It’s thanks to supporters like him that we can continue providing life-saving services and campaigning for a world free from domestic abuse”. It is touching that Ikram provided that quote! I am not alone. So many others are doing incredible fundraising events to help raise awareness of and funds for Refuge. This is a charity that are as essential now as ever before. I will continue to work alongside them for years. I am already planning another fundraising event for next year. Maybe a yearly thing I will do. However, as I look ahead to a very special walk next month, I was eager to discuss Refuge and why people need to urgentlysupport them. I have not quite hit my fundraising target yet, so any additional support would be gratefully received! It will be an emotional day, but I am very much looking ahead…

TO 21st June.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Something Like a Song: All the Love (The Dreaming)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Something Like a Song

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pierre Terrasson

 

All the Love (The Dreaming)

__________

TO break up…

my Kate Bush features, I am going to start a new series. I am not certain how many I will publish. It is me looking inside particular songs. I am starting out with a song of hers that is not discussed much. From 1982’s The Dreaming, All the Love is one of my favourite tracks of hers. One that has an interesting story to it. In terms of the inclusion of answerphone messages that we hear. Perhaps the most affecting and haunting part of the song, it is interesting how they wound up included in the mix. I am going to come to an article from Dreams of Orgonon. I will finish by look at some of the lyrics. However, first – and something I have included before –, is Kate Bush talking about the song. One that I don’t think she ever performed live. It is one of those great what-ifs. Especially when it comes to songs from The Dreaming, not everything was performed live by Bush. You wonder how she would have mounted a song like All the Love:

“Although we are often surrounded by people and friends, we are all ultimately alone, and I feel sure everyone feels lonely at some time in their life. I wanted to write about feeling alone, and how having to hide emotions away or being too scared to show love can lead to being lonely as well. There are just some times when you can’t cope and you just don’t feel you can talk to anyone. I go and find a bathroom, a toilet or an empty room just to sit and let it out and try to put it all together in my mind. Then I go back and face it all again.
I think it’s sad how we forget to tell people we love that we do love them. Often we think about these things when it’s too late or when an extreme situation forces us to show those little things we’re normally too shy or too lazy to reveal. One of the ideas for the song sparked when I came home from the studio late one night. I was using an answering machine to take the day’s messages and it had been going wrong a lot, gradually growing worse with time. It would speed people’s voices up beyond recognition, and I just used to hope they would ring back again one day at normal speed.
This particular night, I started to play back the tape, and the machine had neatly edited half a dozen messages together to leave “Goodbye”, “See you!”, “Cheers”, “See you soon” .. It was a strange thing to sit and listen to your friends ringing up apparently just to say goodbye. I had several cassettes of peoples’ messages all ending with authentic farewells, and by copying them onto 1/4” tape and re-arranging the order, we managed to synchronize the ‘callers’ with the last verse of the song.
There are still quite a few of my friends who have not heard the album or who have not recognised themselves and are still wondering how they managed to appear in the album credits when they didn’t even set foot into the studio. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982”.

I would take issue with what Dreams of Orgonon say. Calling this a song that a dirge that is unloved. A holdover and maybe a filler track. I am going to include some of their observations. However, I wanted to highlight the article as I would refute the claim it is a weak track on The Dreaming. It is an incredible song that has not got the love it deserves. In terms of what Kate Bush said about All the Love: “I wanted to write about feeling alone, and how having to hide emotions away or being too scared to show love can lead to being lonely as well”. This is something we can all identify with. She articulates these feelings and emotions perfectly:

“Sonically, “All the Love” sounds like a callback to Never for Ever, to the point one wonders if the song is a holdover. The song’s centering of melody over rhythm is an aberration on the rhythm-preoccupied Dreaming, with Stuart Elliott’s drums quietly accentuating things rather than taking a “lead instrument” role. The relatively high position of Del Palmer’s bass playing in the mix also feels superannuated and reminiscent of “Blow Away (For Bill)” or “Egypt,” some of the oldest songs in Bush’s studio career. “All the Love” has some flourishes characteristic of the mid-80s — the sampling of phone conversations is the sort of thing Pink Floyd or The Smiths did around the same time (see The Wall, “Rubber Ring”). Nonetheless, “All the Love” sounds old, an adscititious swan song for Bush’s early style.

There’s certainly a callback to the subject matter of Never for Ever, nominally catastrophes that damage and alienate families. While Never for Ever’s songs are largely narrative, The Dreaming deals with Modernist techniques of abstraction, dissociation, and stream-of-consciousness, shifting the dramatic arena to the human mind. “All the Love” is social, even amusingly caustic in its distance from human living. Its lyrical triumph, “the first time I died…”, setting up an account of a person whose deathbed experience includes “good friends of mine” who “hadn’t been near me for years.” Where the hell have you been? Why are you doing this performative fraternal visitation now? The answer comes as “we needed you/to love us too/we waited for your move.” We’re given a set of people (or perhaps just one faction) who struggles to love people and relate to them properly.

There seems to be some concession of wrongdoing, admitting she wasn’t the most forthcoming to her friends (“but I know I have shown/that I stand at the gates alone”). But she tempers this with an admission that the emotional distance was mutual: “I needed you to love me too.” There’s even a sort of “if I could start again” concession, as the character asserts the inevitability of reincarnation (or afterlife?) with “the next time I dedicate/my life’s work to the friends I make/I give them what they want to hear.” Its grief for a lost, atemporal past binds itself to the effluvium of old and new styles “All the Love” embodies. In the words of Bauhaus, “all we ever wanted was everything. All we ever got was cold”.

I am going to come to some more positive words regarding the gem that is All the Love. Pitchfork said the following when they reviewed The Dreaming in 2019: “All the Love” is the stunning aria of The Dreaming—a long snake moan on regret. Here she duets with a choirboy, a technique she’d echo with her son on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. The lament trails off with a skipping cascade of goodbyes lifted from Bush’s broken answering machine, a pure playback memento mori”. Graeme Thomson, in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, notes how All the Love opens with the “casually brilliant, almost quintessential Bush line, “The first time that I died…”. He observes how the songs ends with a “heartbreaking litany of warm, familiar voices saying ‘goodbye’ on the telephone”. The singles and successful songs gets plenty of attention. However, when we think about the lesser numbers from Kate Bush, they are not talked about and played that much. I am going to end with a feature from Far Out Magazine from back in March. They wanted to shine a light on a very underrated Kate Bush track. In fact, they named All the Love as her most underrated:

“Beginning with an audible sigh from Bush and a tumbling piano hook, the track’s secret melodic weapon sets out its stall early. Del Palmers’ snake-charming fretless bass almost works as the track’s lead instrument, decorating the song with enchanting melodic phrases as Bush mourns the fact that we often don’t express our love for others until they’re gone. It’s an all-timer vocal performance from Kate as well, demonstrating her astonishing control without ascending to the histrionics she can sometimes be guilty of.

Then, from time to time, everything drops out, and the first of two avant-garde masterstrokes make themselves known. A choirboy with a soprano purer than driven snow vocalises those who’ve been lost, singing “We needed you to love us too” in a manner just as haunting as Cathy’s ghostly pleading on the Yorkshire moors. The second takes up the last third of the song in a slightly more conventional way but leaves you just as shaken.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing copies of The Dreaming in September 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Still/Redferns

Bush herself put it better than I ever could in a 1982 essay she wrote for her fan club’s newsletter. She said, “I was using an answering machine to take the day’s messages and it had been going wrong a lot, gradually growing worse with time. This particular night, I started to play back the tape, and the machine had neatly edited half a dozen messages together to leave ‘Goodbye’, ‘See you!’, ‘Cheers’, ‘See you soon’.”

She had the bones of ‘All the Love’ written, but suddenly, she had the perfect ending to a song about missing loved ones. She went on to say, “It was a strange thing to sit and listen to your friends ringing up apparently just to say goodbye. I had several cassettes of peoples’ messages all ending with authentic farewells, and by copying them onto 1/4” tape and re-arranging the order, we managed to synchronize the ‘callers’ with the last verse of the song.”

What a song it leaves. One that has since been overshadowed by the majesty of The Dreaming as a whole, but in my opinion, deserves a place right at the top of the charts”.

If you have not heard All the Love then I would encourage you to do so. The whole of The Dreaming too! It is a magnificent album featuring ten eclectic and engrossing numbers. Not as odd and out-there as some tracks, All the Love is one of the more accessible moments. However, this being Kate Bush, there is always something distinct and genius that elevates it above the ordinary! The chorus, or refrain, that is sung by choirboy Richard Thompson is striking "We needed you/To love us too/We wait for your move”. My favourite verse from All the Love is the following: “The next time I dedicate/My life’s work to the friends I make/I give them what they want to hear/They think I’m up to something weird/And up rears the head of fear in me/So now when they ring/I get my machine to let them in”. I love the different goodbyes that we hear at the end. The versions of that word (goodbye/by); the intonations and inflections. Those different voices are ghosts in the machine. It is a really emotional thing to listen to. One of those pearls of a Kate Bush song that does not quite get enough credit. I wanted to start this new series by looking at this undervalued masterpiece. From the sublime The Dreaming, this song is…

AMONG her absolute best.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: KT Tunstall at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

 

KT Tunstall at Fifty

__________

AN artists I have admired…

PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Faulks 

since her 2004 debut album, Eye to the Telescope, was released, I wanted to mark the fiftieth birthday of KT Tunstall on 23rd June. I will include a playlist featuring a collection of wonderful Tunstall tunes to end things. However, as I often do for features like this, I am including some biography from AllMusic:

“With a guitar and an effects pedal, Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall showcased her musical creativity and endearing energy with a breakthrough television performance that helped propel her sparkling 2004 debut album, the Mercury Prize-nominated Eye to the Telescope, onto the global charts. As she evolved, Tunstall would incorporate more rock edge (2007's Drastic Fantastic) and synth production (2010's Tiger Suit) to the mix, while her hook-heavy songwriting remained at the heart of each effort. Following 2013's melancholy, folk-based Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon, she kicked off an ambitious, multi-year album trilogy focused on the soul, body, and mind, which included 2016's KIN, 2018's WAX, and 2022's NUT.

Born to a Chinese-Scottish mother, she was adopted at birth by a university professor and his primary school wife in the town of St. Andrews. As a child, her imagination and creative side flourished, especially since her physicist father would take her and her brothers into the St. Andrews observatory to look at the sky, thus fueling her youthful love for space and sci-fi. It wasn't until discovering hair metal through her brother that music really started to become important to her, and when it did, her affection for spacy things was reflected in her favorite album, David Bowie's Hunky Dory. She soon picked up playing piano and flute, learned to sing by listening to Ella Fitzgerald, and began writing her own songs in her mid-teens. At 16, she taught herself the guitar and continued to hone her writing skills with sentimental love songs. A scholarship to the Kent School, a private prep academy in Connecticut, brought her experiences outside of St. Andrews and Scotland. There, she formed her first band, the Happy Campers, and enjoyed going to shows by 10,000 Maniacs and the Grateful Dead. Later, she enrolled in a music course at London's Royal Holloway College before heading back home and immersing herself in the local grassroots scene that birthed outfits like the Fence Collective and the Beta Band. Around this time, she was also listening to Billie Holiday, Lou Reed, and James Brown, among others, and soon formed a group with the Fence Collective's Pip Dylan.

Years later, Tunstall returned to London and began writing more songs, many of which would appear on her first album. She entered a backwoods Wiltshire studio with minimal instruments in tow and Steve Osborne (U2, New Order) at the controls. The end result was her wide-eyed debut, Eye to the Telescope, released in the U.K. in late 2004 on Relentless. Highlighting her soulful voice, sassy attitude, and earthy songwriting approach, comparisons to Dido, Fiona Apple, and Katie Melua soon sparked. Following the record's release, Tunstall toured throughout Europe, including shows supporting Joss Stone and singing with Oi Va Voi. Feeling an acoustic guitar was sometimes too limiting, her live show incorporated the use of an Akai Headrush foot pedal that allowed her to spot-record multiple times (loop each section continuously), thus turning her into her own one-woman backup band. This calling card would prove fortuitous when a performance of her single "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland became a hit that launched her international career.

The buzz surrounding her performance pushed a reissue of Telescope in the U.K., though it wasn't until 2006 that it was released in the U.S. In addition to winning Best British Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards, she was nominated for a Mercury Prize and a Grammy. Meanwhile, singles "Black Horse & the Cherry Tree" and "Suddenly I See" continued to fare well on American adult alternative radio. The album was later certified multiplatinum and sold millions of copies worldwide. That fall, KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza was issued; it included acoustic tracks (both new and old) recorded the previous Christmas along with a bonus making-of DVD.

In 2007, Tunstall kicked off another album cycle with her sophomore effort Drastic Fantastic, home to "Hold On" and "If Only." In addition to peaking at number three on the U.K. chart, it also marked Tunstall's highest showing to date on the Billboard 200 at number nine. Three years later, she returned with her pop-friendly third album, Tiger Suit, recorded at Berlin's famed Hansa studio, the same place where Bowie recorded Heroes. Notably funkier and upbeat, Tiger Suit added layers of synth and production effects to Tunstall's sound, heard on tracks such as "Lost" and "Glamour Puss." She followed the set with Live in London, March 2011, and later in the year with an EP titled The Scarlet Tulip, which was recorded in her home studio with co-producer Luke Bullen.

After a break from touring, Tunstall reentered the studio in late 2012 and recorded her country/folk-influenced fifth album, Invisible Empire/Crescent Moon, which arrived in June of 2013. The introspective effort, inspired both by the death of her father and the dissolution of her four-year marriage, marked an inward turn for Tunstall, comprising mainly acoustic and lo-fi numbers such as "Made of Glass" with Andrew Bird and lead single "Feel It All." Her second live album, Live Islington Assembly Hall, was recorded on the June 20, 2013 stop of the supporting tour and included a cover of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" and a rare deep cut, "Alchemy," from the Scarlet Tulip EP. At the conclusion of touring, Tunstall pressed pause on her solo career and began composing soundtrack cuts for films such as Winter's Tale, Million Dollar Arm, 3 Generations, and Bad Moms.

In June 2016, Tunstall released the four-song Golden State EP, an upbeat affair that included the single "Evil Eye." It was the precursor to that September's KIN, a bright, colorful album produced by Tony Hoffer. The first of a proposed trilogy that centered on the themes of soul, body, and mind, KIN peaked at number seven on the U.K. charts and included "Two Way" with James Bay. The second installment, WAX, arrived in 2018. Focused on the body, the album's physicality and dance-friendly synths came courtesy of producer Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand. While touring for the album, Tunstall lost all hearing in her left ear, which would impact all that followed. Once promotion for that album concluded, she continued in that upbeat vein on 2020's electronic dance anthem "Starlight & Gold," a collaboration with producer Molella. Later that year, as the COVID-19 pandemic became international headline news, she teamed with Grace Savage and the Freelance Hellraiser for the cheeky single "Wash Ya Hands." That November, she joined an illustrious list of female voices for the inspirational Goodnight Songs for Rebel Girls, contributing "Hymn to Her."

2021 was a very busy year for Tunstall. She unveiled the massive Drastic Fantastic Ultimate Edition, which bundled the original album with B-sides such as "Bad Day" and a cover of "La Vie en Rose," as well as a full disc of live and acoustic performances, including fan favorite covers of the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" and Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody." The Tiger Suit (Untamed Edition) was also released that year, with the original album repackaged with demos and session versions recorded at Hansa studios. While completing the third piece of her ongoing album trilogy, she remained busy with multiple collaborations with artists such as Alan Cumming ("Caledonia"), Tep No ("Heartbeat Bangs"), and Ilan Eshkeri (the Chasing Wonders soundtrack). She continued into 2022 with Gilbert O'Sullivan ("Take Love") and Frank Turner ("Little Life").

That year, the Soul, Body, and Mind trilogy was finally completed with the last installment, NUT. Named after Scottish slang for the mind/brain (as well as being synonymous with "seed"), the lively set featured the singles "Canyons" and "I Am the Pilot”.

One of our very best artists, it is a pleasure to dive into the catalogue of KT Tunstall ahead of her fiftieth birthday on 23rd June. Below is a selection of her distinct and phenomenal music. Even if you are not a major KT Tunstall fan, there will be tracks in there that you recognise and can bond with. This is a very happy birthday to…

A tremendous artist.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Bernie Taupin at Seventy-Five

FEATURE:

 


The Digital Mixtape

 

Bernie Taupin at Seventy-Five

__________

ONE of the greatest…

IN THIS PHOTO: Bernie Taupin with Elton John

and most prolific songwriters in history turns seventy-five on 22nd May. I am going to end this feature with a mixtape including many of the wonderful songs that he wrote. Most know him best for his work with Elton John. Bernie Taupin’s partnership with Elton John is one of the most successful in music history. Before getting to a playlist with those amazing Taupin-penned songs, here is some biography about this genius talent:

“The lyricist behind many of Elton John's most memorable pop hits, Bernie Taupin was born May 22, 1950, in rural Lincolnshire, England. The product of a farming family, his primary musical influence was the gunfighter ballads of Marty Robbins, marking the beginning of a lifelong fascination with the American west that surfaced as a recurring theme throughout his work as a songwriter. Taupin quit school at 16 to accept a job with a local newspaper, followed by a stint at a chicken ranch; at 17, he responded to a Liberty Records advertisement seeking new talent and although the label turned Taupin down, A&R exec Ray Williams suggested he team with aspiring singer/composer Reg Dwight, who months later adopted the name Elton John. Although the duo soon began writing for Dick James Music, they originally collaborated solely by mail and did not meet face-to-face until nearly half a year into their partnership; early efforts were recorded by pop singers, including Lulu, Roger Cook, and Brian Keith, and although John recorded several of their songs as a solo act as well, his 1969 debut LP Empty Sky failed to generate much interest.

John's self-titled 1970 album was the turning point; highlighted by the classic "Your Song," it made the singer an emerging superstar and although Taupin received comparatively little notice for his efforts, that same year he cut an eponymous solo LP of his own. Although John's 1971 record Tumbleweed Connection reflected the outlaw themes that so fascinated Taupin as a boy, 1972's Honky Chateau was the team's true commercial breakthrough, topping the American charts on the strength of the smash hits "Honky Cat" and "Rocket Man." Throughout the mid-'70s, John reeled off a remarkable series of Top Ten hits, including "Crocodile Rock," "Daniel," "Bennie and the Jets," "The Bitch Is Back," and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"; the first album ever to enter the American charts at number one, 1975's Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy featured Taupin's most autobiographical lyrics to date and launched the chart-topping "Philadelphia Freedom." However, relations between he and John were becoming increasingly strained and in the wake of 1976's Blue Moves, the singer began working with other lyricists.

Apart from John, Taupin relocated to Los Angeles and in 1980 issued his third solo album, He Who Rides the Tiger; that same year, he and the singer reunited for 21 at 33, although John continued collaborating with other writers as well. 1983's Too Low for Zero restored their partnership in full, yielding the hits "I'm Still Standing" and "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues." Still, despite subsequent chart entries like "Sad Songs (Say So Much)," "Nikita," and "Sacrifice," the duo's later work largely failed to recapture the spark of their creative peak. Independent of John, Taupin returned to the top of the charts in 1985 as the co-author of the Starship smash "We Built This City," and two years later issued the solo Tribe; in 1988, he also published his memoir, A Cradle of Haloes: Sketches of a Childhood. Taupin subsequently formed the Farm Dogs, a roots music-inspired group that issued a self-titled debut album in 1986. In the wake of Princess Diana's death the following year, he also rewrote the lyrics of the perennial "Candle in the Wind" in her honor; performed by John at the royal's funeral, the resulting single became one of the biggest chart hits of all time”.

To celebrate the upcoming seventy-fifth birthday of Bernie Taupin, I have selected a number of the songs he has written. On 22nd May, this master turns seventy-five. One of the greatest songwriters ever, nearly everyone would have heard one of his songs. In case you need a reminder, below is an example…

OF his brilliance.

FEATURE: Stronger: Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again at Twenty-Five: Spotlighting a Record-Setting Album

FEATURE:

 

 

Stronger

 

Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again at Twenty-Five: Spotlighting a Record-Setting Album

__________

ON 16th May, 2000…

IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Imago images/ZUMA Wire

Britney Spears’ second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again, was released. Its twenty-fifth anniversary will be celebrated by fans. This is an anniversary vinyl reissue that is well worth investing in. Her second studio album was broadly similar to her 1999 debut, ..Baby One More Time. However, there is this sense of bringing in new genres like R&B and Funk. Tougher and cooler perhaps. A huge chart success and one of the most popular and biggest albums of the early-2000s, it has undoubtable inspired so many artists since. You can look at modern Pop artists like Charli xcx and Dua Lipa and there are definite shades of Britney Spears in their work. I remember when Oops!... I Did It Again came out. Its titular single was released before the album - and it created a storm. That said, the title track of ..Baby One More Time created even more attention! That video makes me feel a bit uneasy, as you get the feeling Spears was being exploited and there was this slightly uneasy aspect. It has not dated that well. However, there was definite growth on Oops!... I Did It Again. Its ballads are largely impressive and its biggest numbers, such as the title track and Stronger, are among the defining Pop songs of their day. Even though Britney Spears has not released new material for a long time – and might never release another album -, I know that she is very proud of what she created in 2000. An amazing artist who I was a big fan of, there is more than one reason why I wanted to spotlight the album. Even though, amazingly, it is twenty-five, it does sound contemporary! So many artists embodying elements of Britney Spears’ second studio album.

Also, Oops!…I Did It Again debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 and quickly became the fastest-selling L.P. by a female solo artist in chart history. Maybe not a surprise but, as Spears was only nineteen when the album came out, it was perhaps a lot of pressure. This expectation on her shoulders. Oops!…I Did It Again soon passed the ten million mark. That made Britney Spears the youngest artist to earn multiple Diamond certification. Think about many of the trailblazing and record-setting female artists today and they owe a debt to Britney Spears. In terms of how she opened doors. An icon and inspiration for them. Even if many are mixed towards Oops!…I Did It Again, you cannot deny the legacy and importance of the album. It is amazing to think of those achievements! I was seventeen when Oops!…I Did It Again came out. I could see how the Pop scene was changing and evolving. There was this exciting wave of talent. Britney Spears was very much at the forefront. I think her second studio album is really strong and deserved all of its commercial success. Critics were perhaps not as consistent and kind. However, there are some positive reviews I want to highlight. I will start out with AllMusic and their four-star take on Oops!…I Did It Again:

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

I am going to wrap up soon. However, I wanted to bring in an NME review. Perhaps you might feel they would be predisposed to take against an artist like Britney Spears, they do concede how she is a massive star that many people, whether they like to admit it or not, are fans of. I think that her early albums, though a little patchy, are still brilliant. It is good there has been a twenty-fifth anniversary reissue. It will give old and new fans a chance to experience an album that conquered the world and broke records:

“Against cynical opinion, the reason why [a]Britney Spears[/a] has sold 28 million albums across the globe is because she’s modern-day pop perfection realised in a, nearly, human form. Like it or not, the songs penned for Britney by Swedish producer Max Martin, the man behind the even more successful Backstreet Boys, get into your brain like ketamine. An all-encompassing, horrendously realised high – once it’s inside you, there’s little you can do to stop it, you must give in. In its own sick way, Britney is drug music.

Case in point is album opener and comeback single ‘Oops! I Did It Again’. Essentially a harder, carbon copy of ‘Baby One More Time’, it’s easily as good as her breakthrough single. You get your fix in a second of the song opening – the taut ’80s Michael Jackson riffs, the squeals, the killer chorus, the uplifting middle bit, it’s all in there. Did you really think she’d let you down?

There’s the deranged helium synth pop of ‘Stronger’ with the huge ABBA chord change in the chorus that sounds scarier and more robotic than the Backstreet Boys. The 21st-century R&B of Timbaland is bastardised, beaten and strangled to within an inch of its life with ‘Don’t Go Knockin’ On My Door’ while the Mutt Lange-penned ‘Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know’ takes the riff from Iggy/Bowie‘s ‘China Girl’ and puts it over schmaltzy cocktail-hour bass and love film strings. It’s absolutely frightening.

So, the long-awaited – and ill-advised – cover of the Stones‘ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ is a letdown, but soon-to-be-single ‘Lucky’ is perhaps Britney‘s finest moment. The ultimate mallrat, bittersweet teenage symphony. It’s Britney‘s ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’. A heart-rending tale of life at the top of the teen pop tree, transformed into an anthem for dramatic, moody 12-year-old girls everywhere by Max Martin‘s scary talent for teenybop lyrics. “If there’s nothing missing in my life/Then why do these tears come at night?” sounds pretty fucking heavy when you’ve just been dumped and Britney‘s [I]Mickey Mouse Club[/I]-trained falsetto is reaching its peak.

Sorry, but she’s done it again – the difficult second album proved to be a piece of piss. Whether the fickle world of the Top Ten will let it happen again remains to be seen, but in the absence of anything else (hello, Christina Aguilera) Britney‘s going to walk it.

On the sly, you know you love it”.

Although a lot has been written about Oops!… I Did It Again’s title track, there has not been too much written album the album. How it changed the Pop landscape and how instrumental it was in 2000. At the start of this new century, an artist who broke through at the end of the previous one put out this incredible work. Classic Pop reported on the release of the anniversary reissue of an album that Britney Spears recalls fondly. Even if it was a crazy time where her image was everywhere and she had all this press attention – still being marketed as a sex symbol and there were some questionable motives from her label and management -, it is a massive success that announced her as a modern Pop titan:

“In 1999,  Britney reached international superstar status with the massive chart-topping commercial success of her debut album, …Baby One More Time. With all eyes and ears on the evolving young artist, Oops!… I Did It Again proved a musical bridge into the new century, with Britney Spears building on the foundation of her debut.

Oops!… I Did It Again was a massive commercial success worldwide, debuting at No.1 in over 20 countries, except the UK where it was kept from the top spot by Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits. However, the title track topped the UK singles chart on release in May 2000 and follow-up singles Lucky and Stronger also broke the Top 10.

Exciting Times

On the release of Oops!… I Did It Again (25th Anniversary), Britney said: “Thank you to my fans. This album was recorded at such an exciting time in my life, and I’m so grateful to my incredible fans for keeping the legacy of this album alive!”

Available in digital and 2LP 12″ vinyl formats, the newly-expanded 25th anniversary edition of Britney’s sophomore LP contains the original album in its entirety and offers 10 collectible bonus tracks including rarities and two new remixes Stronger  (Adamusic Remix) and  Oops!…I Did It Again (Pessto Remix) – created especially for this release”.

A salute to the mighty and phenomenal Oops!… I Did It Again. It is, in my view, one of the most important Pop albums ever. The fact that it became the fastest-selling album by a female solo artist in chart history was not just because of her popularity and hype. Millions of people connecting with the music. All of these years later and you can see and feel how it changed Pop. Following her hugely popular debut album, ...Baby One More Time, with its mega-selling follow-up, Britney Spears proved that brilliance and success…

WAS no fluke.

FEATURE: Changing the Narrative: Why Are Some Subjects Largely Being Left Out of New Music?

FEATURE:

 

 

Changing the Narrative

PHOTO CREDIT: SHVETS production/Pexels

 

Why Are Some Subjects Largely Being Left Out of New Music?

__________

MAYBE it is a particularly…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kneecap

heated time in music that means addressing certain subjects is quite risky. With Irish group Kneecap recently in the spotlight for their views and things they have said at gigs relating to killing M.P.s. They have had gigs cancelled and come under fire. Their political views relating to Palestine and the genocide there has also drawn division and criticism. Even though some artists have spoken out against Israel and what they are inflicting, very few are bringing this into their music. I have written about this before, but is it too risky for artists to write about something like warfare and genocide? It is not the case that nobody is addressing it. However, at a time when you would expect so many to have a say and talk about the atrocities happening, there is a lot of silence. The same goes for other subjects too. At a moment when women’s rights are threatened and there is this rise in misogyny and influential incels, I do wonder why this too has not been documented more in music. I have been considering all the ways in which music can make a difference. From the rights of trans people through to misogyny and women’s reproductive rights right through to an increase in division and toxicity in the world, there does seem to be a fringe of artists who write about this. They are in a definite minority. I have said before how it used to be the role of Hip-Hop and Rap artists to bring this in. Punk artists also had a political edge. However, right now, there does seem to be an absence and void. Is there this risk of backlash and fans not accepting it? I know it can be risky for artists to take a position that might stand against what others feel. However, this is a point in history where music can make a difference. It is definitely down to artists to have their say. Though to an extent I guess. We can talk about freedom of expression and how artists like Kneecap are arguing this. Is what they said freedom of expression or was it reckless?

Also, if you alienate some fans with various views then that can have a big impact. I am caught between this idea that artists really do need to do more but also this danger that can occur. Social media backlash and the negativity they might face. It is a pity. When artists do make statements in interview and speak about important issues it is really important. It can lead to conversation and change. People might say that fans won’t want to listen to songs that talk about political divides, violence around the world and misogyny. That is can be hard-going and like being lectured to. It does not have to be the case. For the artists who already do bring this into their music, they can do so in an accessible manner. It provokes a deeper and wider conversation. Not only why many artists stay away from very important and timely subjects of discussion. What are the results going to be if they do go ahead and use their music as a platform to tackle these areas? I look around music now and there are so many phenomenal artists out there. Most of the music I hear tends to be personal or it revolves around that artist’s personal life and love. It rarely goes outside of that border and addresses big themes. It is a very scary and troubling time. You get the feeling that things might get a lot worse before they get better. I do wonder if there is too much at stake. Is there another reason why music largely does not go into a more political direction? People reading this might say that there is plenty of music out there that does go into these important areas. I am going to wrap things up in a minute. I was thinking about the Kneecap furore and weighing up all sides. If they had talked about Palestine and members of parliament in their music and done so in a different way then would they have been getting respect instead of attack? Is it a balancing act and hard thing to judge? Artists like Self Esteem and Kae Tempest are examples of artists who can balance the more political and personal. The former’s new album, A Complicated Woman, addresses sexism, misogyny and the patriarchy alongside heartfelt and revealing tracks. Kae Tempest’s latest music is among his best. Challenging and thought-provoking.

One cannot deny that it is really important that music makes its voice heard. Artists need to call out genocide, political fracture and the rise in misogyny and how women’s rights are being removed. In terms of mainstream artists and the biggest radio stations, most of that music is personal and does not really tackle politics in a meaningful way. I hope that this changes. I can see women releasing great albums that talk about the patriarchy and sexism. Not many men do that. Artists in certain genres singing about genocide and violence but then that being isolated. Others might spotlight sexual assault and women’s rights (there are more subjects that I could mention but I am using these as examples) but then there is not great unity and consistency. It does seem to be concerning. You can go about things and not enflame a situation. Especially when it comes to trans rights, how many artists are talking about this through music? Not many right now. It is easy for me to say but you do need to consider the bigger picture. There might be some blowback from fans and people having their say on social media. Think about the people these songs would help and support. I think that matters a lot more. Such a minority of artists looking around and people who are being marginalised, killed, abused and having rights taken away. There should be an army of artists joining together right now. I can see those musicians out there who are using their music in a way that others are not. Going beyond their own lives. Don’t get me wrong. Artists talking about their romances, struggles with mental health issues and personal issues is really powerful. However, there is more to be done. A very tense time that requires more musicians to step up. I do hope that this happens…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

BEFORE too long.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Cortisa Star

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Diego Urbina

 

Cortisa Star

__________

THERE are some new interviews…

PHOTO CREDIT: Voltoio

with Cortisa Star that I am eager to get to. She is an artist that has already been tipped as one of the names to watch this year. Her E.M.O. (EVIL MOTION OVERLOAD) extended E.P. confirms her as a supreme talent to watch. The American teenage rapper is awe-inspiring. I am going to start out with an interview from NME. A rising artist whose debut E.P. (it is more of an album in terms of length but is being labelled an E.P.) is about being “young, lit and turnt”, she has gone from being this TikTok sensation to walking the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week:

“It’s only taken three years for Cortisa Star to go from making messy beats in her bedroom to teetering on the edge of being music’s next “it” girl. The 19-year-old artist first started making her blown-out, distorted internet rap as an escape from the isolation of rural Delaware, a place where she felt like “the most different person in the room 90 per cent of the time”.

Seeking solace in the internet’s limitless realms helped Star construct the person she is today. It wasn’t long before she was mining samples from looperman.com and uncovered a world of female underground rappers like Skypearleddat, whose fuzzy distortion and bratty aggression informed her own delivery. “Her song ‘SHE AIN FWM!!!’, that really just woke me up,” she tells NME. “I was like ‘wait, I’m a girl, I’m angry, and I can rap: let me do that’.”

Hot off her track ‘Fun’ blowing up on TikTok in 2024, Star has since dropped five singles and is determined to bring permanence to this nebulous virality. Cosigns from Charli XCX, Doechii, Kim Petras and Lil Nas X – with whom she is manifesting a collaboration – have increased her velocity and determination tenfold. “I’m an outcast in this scene,” says Star. “There’s no trans rappers nowhere out front, and having the support is just so important, especially cuz they’re so open about it.”

Chatting with NME shortly after her runway debut for luxury brand Miu Miu’s AW25 show at Paris Fashion Week, she still can’t quite believe that it happened at all. In true Star-style, she topped it off by dropping her own hype track inspired by the moment. “[‘Paris’] was very much a ‘I’m here bitch’ type of song – I’m not going anywhere.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Voltoio

One of the lyrics on ‘Paris’ is “don’t like the track, so I had to adjust.” How did this sentiment inform the creation of your EP, ‘E.M.O. (Evil Motion Overload)’?

“It was pretty spontaneous. My team set up a six-day recording trip in New York and I recorded 12 songs and was like, ‘This could make a cute little EP’. I had this random vibe because it was the first time I was in the studio that I could scream and be as loud as I could, musically.

“I worked with a lot of producers. Getting to see how everybody works differently and how everyone – even my friends – put their inputs on the beat and how something should be changed is so beautiful. There was boys from Jersey, trans girls who love hyperpop. MsChickenSandwich made ‘Bad AF’, so she was there the whole time. And this is a very umru EP.”

The EP feels like a real homage to being a club kid.

“Just being young and going through this crazy shit and living my life, that was what I was really pouring out onto [‘EMO’]. I’m just young, lit and turnt – and that’s a lot of people. Everybody young and turnt, even the 50-year-olds.”

“I love creativity so much and artistry will always be my centrepoint”

Your song ‘Fun’ blew up on TikTok last year. Did you find people on your wavelength off the back of that song?

“I got more followers the second I started posting my music, because I used to just post dumb videos of me trying to be funny, and then the music got so serious. It’s such a random array of people that like my music, people from everywhere.

“Social media is awesome. I was basically raised on the internet because I grew up in a small town of Sussex County, Delaware which was farmland, beach. So, the internet was a beautiful escape, like my fantasy world.”

‘Misidentify’ is a track that is especially queer-affirming. As a transgender woman in the music industry, how has your journey shaped your artistry and the messages you convey through your music?

“I was gender-fluid, non-binary when I was in high school… I really, truly did believe that gender did not benefit a single person on this Earth, not even my dog. Just realising that my identity and how I am perceived by others, and even how I perceive myself, it does not matter when it comes to the cleaner’s process. I love creativity so much and artistry will always be my centrepoint. Once I realised that, I could just focus on that.

“It came to a point where I literally can no longer conceptualise the perception of myself from other people’s view, because it just does not matter to me. It is [liberating]. People tell me all the time, ‘If I got your comments or if I got the same DMs you would have, I’d kill myself’. And I’m like, you don’t have to do that. You can turn off your phone and go outside. It’s OK.”

As a trans woman and a rapper in a genre that has been historically misogynistic and discriminatory to the queer community, what has your experience been creating music in that genre and community, as well as a young person navigating that?

“It’s been crazy because, even when older people jam me and they’re like ‘You’re a pioneer’, ‘You inspire me so much’. This is a crazy life we live because I don’t even feel like I’m inspiring anybody. I’m just moving, I’m just doing what I feel like I want to do every day.”

“I used to have the worst social anxiety. Now, I’m in New York yelling in the deli for my sandwich”

Your lyrics are often confrontational and sexual, meanwhile your delivery is relentless. How does each of these things help with your freedom of expression?

“I like to put the thoughts [from] the backest part of my mind on the song, but also the ones at the front – never the ones in the middle. I don’t really care about anything anymore, anything anybody says. I used to have the worst social anxiety. Now, I’m in New York yelling in the deli for my sandwich”.

I am going to move to an interview from FADER. A star of Rap’s underground, Cortisa Star is undoubtably a role model to so many out there. With very few transgender rappers being spotlighted, Star’s rise and projection is going to give strength and voice to so many people out there. I am really interested to see where she heads next. Once she bursts into the mainstream, I can see Cortisa Star changed the scene and starting conversations:

“Her rave-ready raps position Cortisa as a perfect after-hours MC, dictating the terms of the moment: no lore, no future, just the present throbbing at 160 BPM. Her charisma oozes through speakers in frenetic, ecstatic bursts, like on combustible 2023 cut “Menace” or 2024’s “choke” by skaiwater, where Cortisa’s guest verse catapults #gigi to a delirious peak.

Swag you can hear is a prerequisite for any rapper, but Cortisa’s charm is extra apparent on LCDs and OLEDs, ideally blasted on Friday night minutes before the Uber arrives. A December 2024 From The Block performance of her single “Fun” immediately went viral, racking up thousands of enthusiastic and disparaging replies overnight. The initial comments were mostly confused and focused on her complexion and bleached fro to label her a knockoff Ice Spice. But as the footage continued to trend, hip-hop social media aggregators began reposting the video as transphobic outrage bait, honing in on one bar from the song: “Hundreds of bands put that bitch in my panty/ He like my body he know I’m a tranny.”

Though Cortisa’s upbeat, I get the sense she’s had to develop a thick skin from an early age. Born in Baltimore, Cortisa mostly grew up in a small town in Sussex County, Delaware, where the nearest fast food place is 30 minutes away. She started recording music in late 2022, sometime after dropping out of school due to bullying. “I posted a little TikTok saying I’m pretending to be the rap princess and people grabbed it and started running.”

Her early songs were punched in over type beats from YouTube or loops she would add drums to herself. These tracks were recorded into BandLab on her Chromebook, either in the basement or her bedroom surrounded by her sisters and best friend. They quickly garnered the young rapper a seriously invested 250K+ TikTok following.

Over 2023, Cortisa steadily built her skills, developing her flows and honing her lyrics. She says she’s inspired by Rico Nasty and Chief Keef (she calls “Bitch Where” “diva-coded”), but is also quick to cite Valee and Skypearleddat as inspirations for their flows and intensity. Even with her vocals pitched up and layered over themselves (“I like them pretty punchy, more extreme”), her outlandish personality was conspicuous from the get-go: “Feeling really crazy I’ma stalk her with a drone,” she warbles on “100Cherries.” “It's taking your deepest thoughts, and putting it all out,” she says of her verses. “That's the menace side of me that I never got to express.

“My whole thing was, I don't care about how people perceive me, I'm gonna do whatever I want.” she adds of her first songs. “What's changed is definitely the mixing and organizing and just making it more clean-cut, because the mixes was crazy, I can't lie.”

Cortisa is otherwise coy with details about the new songs she’s recording for her debut EP. She teases collaborations with hyperpop producer Umru — “a generational talent. He was cooking something very serious y’all,” she says — though when I ask about guest verses, she demurely deflects. “There’s some girls on there.” Over email, Umru tells me he wanted to make sure the sound of “recording on a Chromebook in Bandlab… wasn’t totally lost in the music even though it was recorded in a studio,” adding that he “loved her energy.”

She enjoys making music in a space where she can be really loud and more freely experiment. On the new project, she says she sings, has a “little R&B moment,” experiments with tempo, and switches up her flow and cadence. “I never knew I could do that before,” she says. “Just trying to make things a little different for me and the bitches.”

Her vocals are still raw and intense, but deliberately so. On the new single “MISIDENTIFY,” Cortisa’s Auto-Tuned flow surges and soars over a roiling sea of bass. The midtempo instrumental focuses attention on Cortisa’s flow, “mastering rap high up in the mountains with a samurai.” The shift from self-recording has helped her bars land harder and punchier: “Call me man but I don’t give a fuck / ‘Cause I’m that fucking guy,” she flexes on the bigots.

“At the end of the day, trans people are always going to be here,” Cortisa says. “We’re never going to leave. And I just want to stay close with my community, and make sure everybody knows what resources you have, where you can go and be safe, where it’s not safe.”

I am going to end with an interview from W Magazine from March. That is when Cortisa Star made her Miu Miu debut in Paris. Someone who is very stylish and has their own look, it is interesting knowing more about their outfits and favourite spots to shop. For anyone who has not discovered Cortisa Star yet then I would advise you to check her out:

“Much of Star’s charisma lies in her uniqueness; her personal style, which she describes as “maximalist junk,” is influenced by everything from rave culture to digital mood boards, plus the hyperpop world of which she’s part. After her appearance on a freestyle video series went viral a few months ago, Star experienced a barrage of fickle online takes (she tweeted, “Straight people found out about me, and they are losing their damn minds, OMG?”). Despite backlash from those who couldn’t wrap their heads around a trans rapper, Star also received lots of encouragement, including cosigns from the likes of Charli xcx and Doechii.

She credits growing up with a sense of alienation for her current bombastic style. “It really started when I was younger, in high school,” she tells W. “I was an outcast, and I was just like, I need to really show that off.” The experience also gave her a sense of humor that’s apparent in her playful lyrics. “You could say I was a class clown growing up,” she says. “The mug wasn’t always there, so I had to be funny.”

Now working on her “very dramatic” debut EP, Emo—which includes a secret feature—Star says it’s going to be “a very big year for Cort.” Below, she talks walking in Miu Miu, her favorite places to shop, and why people’s opinions of her just don’t matter:

How has life changed since you first went viral?

I still feel the same, but yesterday I was eating at a pizza place, and someone knocked on the window and was like, “Hi, I love you so much.” It’s awesome meeting so many new people.

How did your Miu Miu moment come about?

I went to the casting with Ashley Brokaw, and once I got confirmed, obviously I was gagging so bad. It was my first time out of the country in Paris. I got to walk around and shoot a little music video. And everybody at the show was so nice: all the makeup artists, hairstylists, nail artists, and other models.

When you’re putting an outfit together, what’s the inspiration?

It’s really about where I am and who I’m around. I take a lot of inspiration from my friends, my sisters, the Internet. A good Pinterest board always helps me.

Where are some of your favorite places to shop?

I’m a real thrifting enthusiast. In Baltimore, I love to go to Savers or any local thrift store. I like finding those creepy shops that you’re a little scared of.

Do you have a style pet peeve or something that you hate to see?

Honestly, I like to see everything. With the right mind-set, you can make anything beautiful.

Now that you’ve walked in Miu Miu, are there other designers you’d like to work with?

I really love classic ones, like Ed Hardy and New Rock. And of course, now that we’re up in that realm, I love me some Valentino, some Chanel.

You’ve gotten some big shoutouts from artists like Charli xcx. Has anyone else reached out that made an impression on you?

Yes, Arca is the sweetest girl in the world. That’s the one thing I learned: all these girls are so sweet, and they love seeing people win.

Might you be working with any of them soon...?

If God is good and the universe is willing.

How are you staying grounded now that your career is blowing up? How do you manage all the feedback, good and bad, you get online?

Ever since I was younger, the way I conceptualize people’s perception of me, I just put it completely aside. Unless you’re in my spaces or you have a direct input on my life, whatever these people say, I just do not even think about it. It doesn’t even see me”.

I will end there. A remarkable and powerful artist who I was moved by the first time I heard her, I would recommend that everyone check her out. Maybe still coming through, it is not going to take too long until she is at the forefront. I am going to sign off, but I would compel people to seek out Cortisa Star. This amazing artist is going to be a major star…

VERY soon.

___________

Follow Cortisa Star

FEATURE: Brothers in Arms at Forty: Inside Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing

FEATURE:

 

 

Brothers in Arms at Forty

 

Inside Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing

__________

ON 17th May…

it will be forty year since Brothers in Arms was released. On 28th June, Money for Nothing came out. A huge single that went to number four in the U.K. and number one in the U.S., I wanted to focus on it ahead of the fortieth anniversary of the album. One that will get a lot of new celebration and praise. I am going to come to a few features about Money for Nothing. One of the divisive things about the song is the lyrics. The homophobic slur that is used in the song might not be coming from songwriter Mark Knopfler. Although he was writing from the point of view of a character, it has not aged well. Not that it was acceptable in 1985, though there was perhaps less stigma and censorship then. Now, it is one of the unfortunate things about Money for Nothing. However, in terms of the song’s impact and importance, that cannot be understated. There are features that discuss the song’s meaning and background. I am going to start with a feature from American Songwriter and a video that both celebrated and attacked MTV:

“The band and its management decided they wanted something bigger. And writing a song that would make for a good MTV video was the best way to do it. Dire Straits weren’t exactly the types that stepped out into the spotlight like that. They didn’t appear on album covers, and their live performances were more about capturing their outstanding roots-rock chemistry and Knopfler’s virtuoso guitar-slinging than raising the Q ratings of the band members.

Luckily, Knopfler stumbled into an appliance store one day, and the song that would do the trick was laid out for him on a platter. He explained it all in an interview with Bill Flanagan, which was included in the book Written in My Soul: Conversations with Rock’s Great Songwriters:

“The lead character in “Money for Nothing” is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He’s singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real. It just went better with the song, it was more muscular.”

The Police-Man and the Video

Knopfler took those overheard words and crafted the track, which he then turbocharged with one of the fiercest guitar riffs of the era. Since the song mentioned MTV several times, he decided that a sarcastic refrain of I want my MTV, the network’s catchphrase, would be appropriate. Sting was contracted to deliver the line throughout the song. Because he delivered it with a melody that somewhat resembled The Police hit “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” he was awarded a songwriting credit, even though he had nothing to do with writing any other parts.

To further court MTV, even with a song that was questioning the whole notion of video stars, the band went all-out with a video that featured novel (for its time) computer animation depicting the TV movers from the song, with cutaways to the band in performance. To their credit, MTV got the joke, and helped turn the song into Dire Straits’ first and only No. 1 hit in the US. (Brothers in Arms, the album that contained the song, also topped the charts.)

What Is “Money for Nothing” About?

Some would point out the irony of the title of the song and the fact that Knopfler didn’t have to do a lot of composing (lyrically anyway) to create a smash that helped his and the band’s financial status more than a little. However, discovering those words is one thing. Turning them into coherent, affecting lyrics is another.

The key to the success of the song is the juxtapositions. The narrator/appliance-store worker has to keep interrupting his complaints about the rock stars who play the guitar on the MTV with his own workday drudgery of installing, delivering, and moving TVs and refrigerators. I should have learned to play the guitar, he moans, implying he could have enjoyed a more benign fate.

But Knopfler isn’t afraid to suggest that the store worker is a bit of a lunkhead, with shortsighted beliefs about what goes into the music. Not to mention that he’s somewhat hypocritical: That ain’t working, he whines, all while he’s taking a little break to watch the TVs instead of move them.

Knopfler manages to take the stuffing out of the myth of rock star genius, while also suggesting that maybe it isn’t quite as easy as it looks to the untrained eye. After all, a lot of folks can play the guitar, but few can turn out the pyrotechnics he turns out on “Money for Nothing,” the song where Dire Straits both encapsulated MTV’s golden era and mocked it”.

I will move to a feature from The Guardian. In a very recent chat, we get some fresh insight regarding Money for Nothing and its aftermath. Ahead of the fortieth anniversary of the globe-straddling Brothers in Arms, I have been thinking about a hit that is still played to this day. Even though it needs an obvious radio edit, it has endured forty years. The video is dated and looks rubbish, though the song itself has endured and reaches new generations:

“Mark Knopfler, guitar/vocals/writer

I was in an appliance shop in New York and there was a big bonehead in there delivering gear. All the TVs were tuned to MTV and I overheard this guy sounding off about the rock stars on the screens. He had an audience of one – the junior at the store – and some of his lines were just too good to be true.

Things like: “That little motherfucker’s got his own jet airplane!” And: “He’s banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee!” And: “That ain’t working!” That was just the way he spoke – and in that New York accent too. The bells were going off in my head but I didn’t have a pen with me, so I borrowed one, got a bit of paper and I actually sat down in the window display area of the store and started writing out the lines to Money for Nothing as he said them.

The guitar lick is just a stomp, a two-fingered boogie. It comes from the clawhammer style and it’s got its own rhythm. It was just fun to do. But there were a whole bunch of fortunate incidents that collided with each other to create the song. For instance, I’d seen the Police on the MTV channel saying the phrase: “I want my MTV.” But they also had a song called Don’t Stand So Close to Me, so I put “I want my MTV” to that melody and included it at the start.

While we were recording the Brothers in Arms album at Air Studios on Montserrat, I remember thinking: “Wouldn’t it be great if I could ask Sting to sing that line?” We were on this tiny speck in the middle of the ocean but suddenly someone said: “Sting’s here on holiday! He’s on the beach!” So he came up to the studio and when he walked in, the first thing he said was: “What’s wrong?” I said: “What do you mean?” And he said: “Nobody’s fighting …” [unlike in the Police].

Brothers in Arms was huge. So many people wanted to see the band live. After we played Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, we ran across the car park to Wembley Arena where we were playing that night. In fact, one of the reasons why it felt like I had to scale things back was going into catering and not recognising the crew. That’s when I realised the size of it.

John Illsley, bass

We’d already had four successful albums, so the expectations for Brothers in Arms were pretty high. Thankfully Mark’s writing was sharp as a tack. At that point, we’d convene in a mews house in west London, just with guitars, an acoustic bass and a keyboard, and run through material Mark had been working on.

The Money for Nothing chords and lyrics were already there – and obviously there was Mark’s riff, which was pretty extraordinary. It’s funny: when other guitarists try that riff, they play all the right notes but don’t get the feel. We took our time, and it went from being a Mark Knopfler song to a Dire Straits song. I played the bass in a simple way, happily sitting on the chords, putting down that engine room.

Its title is ironic, because we’d been working solidly for years to get to that point. But everybody viewed us from the outside. Like: “Oh, look at them, that ain’t working, that’s just money for nothing – and they get the chicks thrown in for free.” But it was a bit like Picasso, when he’d do a quick drawing for someone and people would say: “That only took you 10 seconds.” And he’d say: “No, it took me 40 years.”

Brothers in Arms was the first record we’d made with Guy Fletcher, who was a very technical musician. He knew how to work these modern keyboards, while Alan Clark was a wonderful piano player. The two of them created that Money for Nothing intro, and Terry Williams played the most explosive drum solo I’ve ever heard. Then the riff comes in. The guitar tone you hear on the record happened by accident: a microphone got knocked to the floor in front of the speaker and it changed the sound completely”.

I am going to end with an extensive and in-depth analysis of Money for Nothing from Stereogum. Even if the features cover similar ground, it is interesting reading different perspectives and quotes about this giant song. One I remember hearing when I was a child. One of the standout songs of the 1980s, it might have younger listeners wondering what MTV was. Very much of its time in terms of the allure and popularity of that channel, one cannot deny the catchiness of the track and that incredible introduction:

“One day, Knopfler was at a New York appliance store, where a wall of TVs was showing MTV. One of the store’s employees was watching those TVs and talking shit about what he was seeing. As Knopfler saw it, that appliance-store guy had a sort of grudging admiration for the rock stars he saw on that TV. Talking to Rolling Stone after “Money For Nothing” blew up, Knopfler said:

The singer in “Money for Nothing” is a real ignoramus, hard hat mentality — somebody who sees everything in financial terms. I mean, this guy has a grudging respect for rock stars. He sees it in terms of, well, that’s not working, and yet the guy’s rich. That’s a good scam. He isn’t sneering.

When Knopfler heard that guy talking, he grabbed a pencil and a sheet of paper and wrote down everything he was hearing, an impulse that Knopfler has credited to his days as a reporter. Knopfler has said that many of the lines on “Money For Nothing” came verbatim from what he heard in that appliance store. The appliance-store guy never got a songwriting credit. If you’re ever talking shit and you see someone taking note of what you’re saying, pay attention. I wonder if that appliance-store worker ever found out how much money his money-for-nothing rant earned for other people.

But here’s the question: Did Mark Knopfler agree with the appliance store guy? Did he sympathize? I’m not sure. Knopfler has said that “Money For Nothing” is satire, that it’s him writing from the point of view of a character and not his own. He’s said that people take the song too literally, that people smart enough to write about the song should understand that he’s clowning the stupidity of the narrator. But Knopfler also hated music videos. You never saw him with an earring or makeup. There’s a real generational divide between Knopfler and most of the musicians who were benefitting from MTV. Maybe Knopfler had a problem with younger artists who, he might’ve thought, didn’t have to work as hard as he had.

There are a lot of divides at work in “Money For Nothing” — between the appliance-store worker and the people on MTV, but also between the appliance-store worker and Knopfler, and between Knopfler and the people on MTV. There are class divides and generational divides. There might be racial divides, too. (Knopfler has never mentioned the race of the guy working in the appliance store.) And then, of course, there’s the divide caused by the use of one particular word — an anti-gay slur that I don’t really feel like typing out here.

I’ve been wrestling with the idea of how to address this side of the song. Even if you’re just singing in character, that word isn’t really the type of thing that a straight white rocker should play around with. This isn’t a case of 1985 being a different time; plenty of people were mad about the “Money For Nothing” lyrics in the moment. Using that particular lyric, in character or not, is a dick move. (A bunch of early-’00s rap hits that I really like also use that slur, and those ones definitely can’t make the argument that the word’s use is satirical, but I guess I’ll wrestle with those ones when this column gets to them.)

I keep talking about the lyrics because they’re so striking — a huge MTV hit comprised of nothing but a guy complaining about MTV hits. But the lyrics aren’t the only thing striking about “Money For Nothing.” Musically, the track is a pretty amazing example of mid-’80s studio-rock excess. The intro — the falsetto “I want my MTV,” the eerie synth pulses, the shattering drum noises, the way the riff enters the song and kicks everything over — is enough to blow your hair back.

That riff rips. Most of the time, Mark Knopfler was more of a tasteful guiter-hero type — a guy who liked doing flowery and lyrical finger-picked solos. But the “Money For Nothing” riff sounds like a dial-tone coming to life and attempting to eat your face. It’s monstrous, and it kicks ass. I love it, and I love the way Knopfler surrounds it with expensive, discordant synth noises. Production-wise, “Money For Nothing” is grimy and futuristic at the same time, like one of the broken-down spaceships from Star Wars.

Knopfler co-produced “Money For Nothing” and the rest of the Brothers In Arms album with Neil Dorfsman, the engineer who he’d worked with on the Local Hero score. At the time, Knopfler was obsessed with ZZ Top, the baby-boomer blues-rockers who’d somehow figured out how to tap right into the MTV zeitgeist. ZZ Top were sillier than Dire Straits, and they had a more indelible image, but they also figured out a way to convey processed grit with their ’80s guitar sound. ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons has said that Knopfler once called him up to ask him how he got that guitar tone. Gibbons didn’t tell Knopfler anything, but Knopfler figured it out anyway. That dog-howling bit late in the track is a total ZZ Top move, too. (ZZ Top’s two highest-charting singles, 1984’s “Legs” and 1985’s “Sleeping Bag,” both peaked at #8. “Legs” is a 8, and “Sleeping Bag” is a 7.)

Dire Straits recorded the Brothers In Arms album on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. While they were recording, Sting was on vacation, windsurfing on the island. He came to the studio and had dinner with Dire Straits, and they played him “Money For Nothing.” Sting loved it, and he jumped into the booth to sing backing vocals. Sting’s a great addition to the track. He sings the high-falsetto “I want my MTV” intro, and his more melodic voice makes a great counterpoint to Knofler’s in-character shit-talk.

Sting recorded his vocal in about an hour, and he ended up getting songwriting credit on the song. When he sang the “I want my MTV” bit, he did it to the tune of the Police’s 1980 single “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” (“Don’t Stand So Close To Me” peaked at #10. It’s a 6.) Sting later told Dire Straits that he didn’t actually want songwriting credit but that his label insisted on it. You might even say that Sting got his money for nothing. In any case, there was no beef. Sting sang the song with Dire Straits at Live Aid in London. (As a solo artist, Sting will eventually appear in this column.

The people at Warner Bros. thought MTV might be upset about “Money For Nothing,” but MTV loved the song and wanted a video. Knopfler had to be talked into making one. Steve Barron, the early-MTV titan who’d already done the clips for hits like the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me?” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” wanted to use new computer-animation toys, and he convinced Knopfler that it could work. A few years ago, Rob Tannenbaum and my former boss Craig Marks wrote an early-MTV oral history book called I Want My MTV — there’s that catchphrase again — and they got Steve Barron talking about the video’s intent:

The song is so damning to MTV in a way. That was an ironic video. The characters we created were made of televisions, and they were slagging off television. Videos were getting a bit boring, and they needed some waking up. And MTV went nuts for it. It was like a big advertisement for them.

In the same book, Adam Ant complains about the “Money For Nothing” video, saying that it changed the MTV landscape. Dire Straits were a visually boring band, but they had the budget for computer animation. If an act had enough money, then, they could get away without putting much work into their performance. They could get over on flash. I don’t know if that’s true or not; visual flash was always important to music videos, regardless of budget. But it’s true that MTV went nuts for “Money For Nothing,” ironic or not. When MTV Europe launched, “Money For Nothing” was the first video it aired. (Adam Ant’s highest-charting US single, 1982’s “Goody Two Shoes,” peaked at #12.)

GRADE: 8/10”.

Because Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms turns forty on 17th May – though some sites say 13th May -, I wanted to return to Money for Nothing (a song I write about a while ago). I cannot forgive or overlook the homophobic lyrics. However, because it is a song that I love and was a huge commercial success, I felt it important to discuss it. If you have never heard the song then listen to it now. From that epic introduction on, you are hooked in. An epic moment in music history that will be played and loved…

DEACDES from now.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Viagra Boys

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Fredrik Bengtsson

 

Viagra Boys

__________

GO and see this band…

PHOTO CREDIT: Fredrik Bengtsson

if they are playing near you. For this Spotlight, I am highlighting a band I thought I have covered before. It is a bit of omission on my part. However, I am rectifying that now. Viagra Boys are a group that you need to follow. A phenomenal Swedish punk band formed 2015. Their current line-up consists of lead singer Sebastian Murphy alongside Linus Hillborg (guitar), Elias Jungqvist (keyboards), Henrik Höckert (bass), Tor Sjödén (drums), and Oskar Carls (saxophone). Viagra Boys’ lyrics are known for using satire and dark humour to criticise hypermasculinity and far-right conspiracy theories. I am taking that off of their Wikipedia page. I think I avoided them for a bit because there was not a load of current interviews. However, they have just released their fourth studio album, viagr aboys. I am going to get to some recent interview with the band. However, for the first one, I am going back to late last year and an interview from NME:

“Viagra Boys have revealed to NME that they have a new album on the way, with its release expected “maybe next year”, according to frontman Sebastian Murphy.

The Swedish post-punk band met NME backstage at Reading Festival, with Murphy joined by the band’s bassist Henrik ‘Benke’ Höckert.

Viagra Boy’s previous album, 2022’s ‘Cave World’, saw them incorporate electronic elements into their sound, while its predecessor, 2021’s ‘Welfare Jazz’, bore a distinct country flavour. This time, explained Murphy, the band will include “a little bit of everything, hopefully”.

He added: “We’re gonna see where it ends up. I think there’s a little bit of all sorts of genres in there, hopefully – excluding maybe R&B and stuff like that.” With a laugh, he clarified: “There’s a lot of rock.”

When NME commented that it seems the Viagra Boys sound could go anywhere, Murphy replied: “Yeah, that’s kind of the vibe we want. We want people to not really expect what’s coming.

“And who knows? Maybe it does sound exactly like it has before, but in my head it doesn’t. Hopefully there are new sounds in there and we’ve definitely taken different approaches to songwriting.”

Höckert, describing the record, said: “It’s like the older stuff, but just a little bit better.”

In an interview earlier this year, Kings of Leon told NME that their latest recent album ‘Can We Please Have Fun’ was inspired by post-punk bands including Viagra Boys. Informed of this, Murphy exclaimed: “What! No way! That’s insane.”

Asked if Viagra Boys are KOL fans in return, Murphy replied: “I listened to them growing up a little bit. I mean, when I was 13, 14 – they were getting huge on radio and stuff like that. I didn’t know they were still making music.”

He added: “But that’s cool! That’s awesome. I can’t believe that, really. I wanna hear their new album and see if it sounds like Viagra Boys.” He then imitated his band’s signature guitar sound: “Der-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner!”

Last month, it was reported that Viagra Boys had engaged in a jokey online war of words with fellow Swedish band The Hives. On Instagram, the Hives dubbed Viagra Boys “punk rock losers”. In response, Murphy’s band shared a clip in which they called their supposed rivals “corporate suit rock”.

The joke was a means of publicising their appearances at Sthlm Fields Festival, which was held on July 6. In our interview, Murphy joked, “Fuck those guys!” before confirming: “I don’t wanna keep going – the beef is squashed!”

Conversely, ‘Cave World’ featured ‘Big Boy’, a collaboration with Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson. Murphy told NME that Williamson is his “spirit animal – my British spirit animal”.

He added: “He’s very wise and I just look up to him a lot. I loved what he’s done with his music and his life, and I love how articulate he is and how angry he is. I just love the guy.”

Murphy teased ‘Cave World’ in a 2021 interview with NME, telling us that the band had recorded the album in “six days”. Now, though, he confessed this was untrue: “I must have been lying, trying to flex. Definitely not. There was a lot of back and forth, but everything changed substantially along the way. The whole process was probably over a year.”

Lana Del Rey is scheduled to release her country album, ‘Lasso’, next month, while Post Malone released his own country album, ‘F-1 Trillion’, on August 15. When NME pointed out to Viagra Boys that country music is having a moment and they were ahead of the curve with ‘Welfare Jazz’, Murphy replied: “Yeah, it is, right? That’s why we’re not doin’ it anymore!”

He then discussed his love of the genre, which was apparent in the band’s cover of John Prine’s ‘In Spite of Ourselves’, a collaboration with Amyl and the Sniffers’ Amy Taylor that appeared on ‘Welfare Jazz’.

“I’ve always been a huge country fan,” he said. “I listen to country every day. I wanted to incorporate it into our music before and then it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re kinda: ‘Been, there done that.’ We’ll see – it might come back [to us] someday”.

Although it may sound like I am pretty late to this particular party, the point of this feature is to highlight artists who might not be known to everyone. That deserve to be better know. Viagra Boys have a footing in the U.K. and are played by stations such as BBC Radio 6 Music. I really love what they are doing. Their latest album is among their best work. I am going to move to an interview with Viagra Boys’ Sebastian Murphy and Henrik Höckert:

“Waterboy’ – You’ve got the lyric in this song which says, “Congratulations on your new job.” What’s the worst job you’ve ever worked?

S: I worked at a Quiznos. It was like kind of like a Subway sandwiches place in California. It was my first job and it was absolutely horrible. Now, I can’t even go into a subway. It’s just the smell.

Did you quit or were you fired?

S: Fired, thank God

What did you do?

S: I was just bad at my job. I think I was bad at every job I’ve ever done. I’m just lazy and I’m a daydreamer. I’m just the worst employee. I’ve always been. I’ve had several people tell me this. The first tattoo shop I worked at, the guy told me I was the worst shop assistant he’d ever had.

B: I had a job here

S: In London?

B: In London, sorting mail in the night time.

Did you quit or were you fired?

B: I quit, yeah (laughs)

‘Store Policy’ – Tell me something you’ve stolen from a shop before that you still have? Or your biggest heist?

S: I used to steal all my clothes and then I got caught and I stopped doing it. But me and my buddies would just walk in places and get a big old pile of clothes. I don’t think I have any of those clothes anymore ‘cause I’m much fatter than I used to be. I used to be a small. Now I don’t really steal things anymore, to be honest, but you know.

Are you just saying that because it’s on record and you’re like, “I don’t steal anymore”.

S: I’m actually a lovely little boy. No, I’ll steal, I’ll steal an apple maybe.

Like scrumping!

S: Is that what it’s called? Is that why it’s called Scrumpy?

Yeah! What about you Benke? What’s your stealing stories?

B: I’d steal candy, that kind of stuff, candy and food and spray paint like graffiti. We’d take the spray cans.

Yeah, see, spray cans, that’s a cool answer.

S: I used to go to house parties in high school, and the first thing I would do was go to someone’s medicine cabinet and just steal all their medicine hoping that it would be something I could get high off. But once, I’m pretty sure it was my buddy Nick Hinman (he lives here in London). I’m pretty sure it was at his house, but I stole somebody’s dog’s cancer medicine and I don’t remember it. I was blackout drunk and then I woke up at my house and I had a bunch of missed calls and there was this guy like, “Hey man, did you steal my dog’s cancer medicine?”

I checked my jacket pockets and was like, “Ah yeah, that was me” (laughs). I hope the dog survived.

Shit. Did you give it back?

S: I gave it back for sure. I do care about dogs a lot.

B: Our friend stole a dog (laughs). On his way home, there was a car with a dog in it so he took one of the dogs. Then he came home as he lived outside Gothenburg and the police were already there.

S: The police knew it was him? (laughs)

B: Yeah, they knew it was him (laughs).

‘Medicine for Horses’ – At surface level, this song’s about a horse breaking your neck. What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had/have you ever broken any bones?

S: Yeah, I got I got ran over by a rollerblader in a skate park once and I broke both my wrists and I got a concussion and it was pretty bad. I squealed like a pig. Other than that, I’ve never had any real injuries, probably broken a rib. But I did that on purpose so I could, you know (laughs). No, but, yeah, just broken my wrist. What about you Benke?

B: Nope. Nothing!

Touch wood! ‘You Need Me’ – What’s one thing you need (recreationally) that you will never give up?

S: Beer. No, actually I need to give up beer! What do you mean by recreationally?

Something you can technically live without but you chose to do/take?

S: Video games. Or fast food.

Like Max’s in Sweden?

S: Eurgh, no. I like McDonalds. It’s one of the finest establishments.

B: I’d give up working out.

‘Best Show’ – What’s one TV show you love or loved?

B: Game of Thrones or The Wire.

S: I couldn’t watch The Wire. I thought it was boring, but I like this new show called Silo.

‘River King’ – If you could be king for a day, what is the first thing you’d change about the world or do?

S: I think I would hang a lot of politicians probably. Public hangings.

I think you’d have a lot of support with that as well.

S: And then I would probably introduce a strict socialist regime.

B: Put women in charge.

S: Yeah, and no one over 60 is allowed to be in office”.

I will end with a review of viagr aboys. Before that, The Guardian spoke with Sebastian Murphy last month. A band very much getting all this deserved buzz and hype, I do hope anyone who does not know about them checks them out. They are a fantastic band that continue to build on an army of fans:

“Viagra Boys’ 2018 debut single Sports was an addictively funny satire of hypermasculinity (their name drew from similar inspiration); their debut album Street Worms, released that year, railed against Sweden’s growing rightwing populism with wit and muscle. But the band’s steady rise has been built chiefly on relentless, riotous touring. Murphy, shirtless and tracksuit-trousered, stokes the crowd into rising levels of derangement – at their 2023 Glastonbury set, someone in the crowd was tossing their toddler into the air – as saxophone player Oskar Carls writhes around the stage in outrageously short shorts.

In an uptight world, a group dedicated to getting loose like this – so loose Murphy has the word tattooed on his forehead in Swedish – has major appeal: last year Viagra Boys played US arenas supporting Queens of the Stone Age. Their biggest world tour yet began this month at Coachella and will end 60 dates later at London’s Alexandra Palace. Murphy surmises that a lot of the fans “are just freaks, you know. Freaks recognise freaks. It’s freeing for a lot of people to see some dude that has clearly no muscles and is just letting his gut hang out have a good time.”

There was a time when Murphy wouldn’t get on stage without taking amphetamines first. But as his bandmates started having kids and settling down, the pace had to slow to remain sustainable. Murphy credits bassist and de facto bandleader Henrik “Benke” Höckert with gradually tightening things up. “I would always be so pissed off at him if he decided to stay sober for a tour,” Murphy says. “I was busy with doing drugs and thinking about myself; he was busy planning shit. Making it work as a viable source of income. Which would not be possible if we were fucked up every day.”

At the same time, the crippling hangovers and attendant anxiety started to become too much. “I still know how to party for sure,” says Murphy. “But I definitely know my limits now.” Drugs will never be entirely off the menu – “I can’t really help it when I’m on tour,” he admits – but these days he mostly sticks to beer (just the 30 or so a week). He goes to the gym and plays squash to try to stay in shape. He’s even stopped getting tattoos because he says he can’t take the pain any more. “These days if I stub my toe I’ll be crying for a week.”

In 2021, the band’s founding guitarist Benjamin Vallé died aged 47, shaking them all hard. They supported each other through the loss: where some men struggle to discuss difficult emotions, Viagra Boys have no such problem. “We talk to each other about everything,” says Murphy. I ask him if a newfound respect for death prompting him to change his lifestyle. He prefers to think of it as not wasting a good thing. “I’ve got a great fiancee, I’ve got an apartment,” he says. “I can afford things. Life is really easy and really good. I don’t want to fuck it up.”

His visual artist fiancee Moa Romanova, who did the artwork for their third album, 2022’s Cave World, has a studio next door to Shrimptech. At one point she drops in with their dog Uno – both are subjects of songs on Viagr Aboys. Uno II is a strange tale of conspiratorial anxiety seen through the eyes of an Italian greyhound with chronic dental problems. River King is a piano ballad in which Murphy croons with charming imperfection about Chinese takeaways and calming domesticity. It’s a disarmingly gentle end to the album: have Viagra Boys finally gone soft? Murphy smiles a gold-toothed grin. “We’ve always been soft. That’s been the problem all along”.

I shall wrap things up with a review for viagr aboys. One of the most urgent and incredible albums of the year, I would encourage everyone to listen to it. I am relatively new to Viagra Boys, but I feel like I have made up for some lost time. I will try and catch them live if I can at some point. They are simply phenomenal and they are getting all this success at the moment. Let’s hope that this continues for years to come:

“Viagra Boys’ previous full-length ‘Cave World’, a hyperactive and hilarious takedown of incels and conspiracy theorists, closed with enthusiastic instructions, courtesy of ‘Return To Monke’: “leave society, be a monkey.” While the track satirises the regressive worldviews of the aforementioned lost souls, in typically nuanced Viagra Boys fashion, it also acknowledges the widely felt appeal of abandoning society in a world where “everybody’s worried about the future”.

The Stockholm band’s latest album ‘viagr aboys’ sees them attempt to follow their own advice. According to frontman Sebastian Murphy, their fourth LP is a “simple and stupid” album, led from the off by the title’s linguistic chaos. He explained that “the whole political thing was exhausting”, implying that these 11 new tracks represent his lyrical voice turning inwards, away from socio-political madness and onto the simple stupidity of day-to-day existence.

However, much like how life today all-too-often feels, Viagra Boys’ new album is unable to ignore contemporary anxieties. Numerous tracks see Murphy set up a mundane, first-person situation, such as a trip to the vets on ‘Uno II’, or a health scare on ‘Pyramid of Health’, but digress into thoughtful, always-funny musings on western privilege and social media health fads, respectively.

Opening track and album highlight ‘Man Made Of Meat’ encapsulates Murphy’s contradictions. The punk-funk anthem features extraordinary lyrics that oscillate between hilarious and serious, arch and honest, and even personal and political. References to “your mum’s OnlyFans” are laugh-out-loud funny, but matched by lucid insights into modern-day malaise such as “if it was 1970, I’d have a job in a factory”.

Matching Murphy’s career-best lyrics are some of the rest of the band’s most eclectic compositions. The likes of the spacious ballad ‘Medicine For Horses’, the anthemic electro-rock of ‘Waterboy’ and indescribable jazz-punk of ‘Best In Show Pt.IV’ are evidence of a band as curious and contradictory as Murphy’s lyrics. They’re constantly searching, with similarly admirable zeal, for new ideas, but sometimes revert back to what they know best; manic, bass-lead, post-punk pit-starters in the form of ‘The Bog Body’ and ‘You N33D Me’.

The lush ‘Medicine For Horses’ surmises the very human complexities of ‘viagr aboys’. “Kiss my wife, tell her I love her,” Murphy croons, before confessing that “tell her she was the only thing that made me stop thinking about the plains, the great plains of North America.” Perhaps this is the simple and stupid philosophical truth that Viagra Boys are getting at: love is the only thing that will stop us losing our minds in the face of reality’s horrors”.

I think this is a good place to finish. Go and check out Viagra Boys. A stunning band who are in a league of their own, viagr aboys is an album that everyone should have. I am a little late spotlighting the band, though there are people who have not heard of them, so I was keen to get this feature out now. Even if they are strong and have a solid fanbase, you know that Viagra Boys will continue to get…

BIGGER and better.

____________

Follow Viagra Boys

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Mick Hucknall at Sixty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

 

Mick Hucknall at Sixty-Five

__________

I will come…

to a 2022 interview from Classic Pop very soon. It is relevant because the person they interviewed, Mick Hucknall, turns sixty-five on 8th June. The lead of Simply Red, his voice is like nobody else’s. Such an evocative and consistently brilliant songwriter, he is one of the most soulful and spellbinding voices the U.K. has produced (this feature about his favourite albums is especially illuminating when it comes to Hucknall’s influences). I will end with information about a cinematic experience that has just passed. One that marked forty years of Simply Red. Their debut album, Picture Book, was released in October 1985. Before then, I want to highlight some sections from that 2022 interview:

“Mick’s earned the right to kick back. At a time when music biopics have never been so popular, his story has a Hollywood flavour to it. Abandoned by his mother, aged three, brought up by his dad, the working class lad falls in love with soul music as a teenager, but goes to that infamous Sex Pistols Manchester concert and forms his own scratchy punk band, The Frantic Elevators.

Aged 17, he writes Holding Back The Years, a personal cri de coeur which takes five years to be released by the Elevators, then another four to become a transatlantic hit for his next venture, Simply Red.

“It was the first thing I wrote that felt real, you know?” he remembers. “I didn’t know at the time it was going to be important, it was just very sincere. It was about me, being on that cusp of leaving home and yet being slightly fearful of going away – ’cos at 17 you’re still effectively a child in many ways.

“But it really set me off. It was there in the background with all these other songs that I was writing. I’ve known Neil [Smith, the Elevators guitarist who got a co-credit on the song] since I was three years old.

“We used to hang out every Friday night before going down the pub. We’d get together in my bedroom – he’d show me a song that he’d written and I’d show him one of mine. We’d work on them and then go down the pub. Then we would spend the rest of the evening talking about Beatles songs, analysing every chord and endlessly talking about music.”

Mick Hucknall (centre) with Simply Red

Fame, initially, was problematic for him. “I have to confess I don’t think I handled it well. I’m better at it now, but I wasn’t then. I’ve always been musically ambitious and stardom and all that business is something that is part of that, but I didn’t know really how to deal with it.

“I’m a working class boy from East Manchester, had been on the dole for four years and all of a sudden I’m standing on a stage with some of the biggest artists in the world and it was all a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.”

Nevertheless, fame did open doors. For Simply Red’s second album, 1987’s Men And Women, Hucknall wrote a couple of songs with Lamont Dozier; a dream come true for the young Motown devotee. “That was just fantastic. I love Lamont. He’s very different to me in how he approaches writing in that he’s very workmanlike.

“He’ll sit down and write pretty much every day, just sitting in front of the piano. Whereas I just wait until a song comes into my head. But I feel very honoured to have written with him. We did four together – two each for Men And Women and A New Flame. It was a great experience.”

A peak you reach

In his homeland, Mick’s big album was Stars, which shifted some nine million copies worldwide and was the UK’s best-selling album of both 1991 and 1992, spawning no less than five hit singles.

This was the band’s commercial peak: it’s no exaggeration to say that during those in-between years, post-acid house but pre-Britpop, Simply Red were the sound of Middle England. Mick, though, seems unable to put his finger on why that album, more than any other, connected with so many people.

“I don’t know, I think it’s one of those things with an artist’s career you build up to that point – The Beatles built up to Sgt Pepper. Each artist has their own individual moment – Van Morrison had it with Astral Weeks. Each one has this moment where everything comes together at the right time and I guess Stars was that one for me.”

He admits that following it up wasn’t easy and even though 1995’s Life included their first (and so far only) UK No.1 single, Fairground, it didn’t fare anywhere near as well commercially.

“You just think, ‘Well, I’m just going to do the best I can’, and that’s all I’ve ever really done. We did enjoy success with Life – it sold a lot of copies, but well, you know I don’t think ’The White Album’ is as good as Sgt Pepper.

“But I think the one thing that we have had across the decades is consistency. Every album we’ve ever made has gone Top Five and that’s the thing that stays in my mind more than anything.” Indeed, even when the band went independent after 1999’s Love And The Russian Winter, releasing via their ‘simplyred.com’ label, their core audience still remained loyal.

“We had the biggest independent album in the world for two years running. It wasn’t the same as being with a major ‘cos we couldn’t get the distribution in the same way, but we did enjoy success with it. It was a great thrill.”

Family comes first

In 2007, Mick appeared to draw a line under Simply Red and ‘retire’ the band. He claims it was for one reason only: his family.

“I had a father who, when I was growing up, completely dedicated his life to me and that had a major impact on me. When my daughter was born I was very much aware that if I signed a deal with a record company I would be obliged to make an album every two years and go out on the road; I’d be one of those dads who were never at home.

“I just thought, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ So I told my manager I was going to stop. I wanted to be at home bringing up my kid. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’ve been there every day in her life and I’m sure it’s had a positive impact on her to have both of her parents around to help and support her as she learns how to deal with this world.”

For a few years, Mick’s only musical activity was a pair of solo covers albums – one a tribute to the soul legend Bobby Bland and a short tour with the reformed Faces.

Then in 2015 he revived the Simply Red name and signed once more to a major, BMG.

“I had been writing songs and my daughter was old enough to understand that this is my job. Also I have to remember that I am an artist with a career – I gotta go out and work! I just feel that I’ve been lucky to have been able to stop.

“Most people, even very successful people, work their arses off every day. And most dads don’t even get to see much of their kids, except at the weekends and maybe a couple of hours when they come home from work.”

So, with no original members left other than the frontman, is Simply Red now just a brand for whatever he’s doing musically? He sidesteps the question. “Well, I’ve always been the principal songwriter. Nobody else has – in any formation – consistently come up with any songs!

“I, like many people, had a very romantic vision of what a band should be, growing up with The Beatles. But then again these bands are all acrimonious – they’ve all fallen out! They all sue each other, they all hate each other and, you know, I get on great with the guys I work with so… what’s the problem? I never did get to have my Paul or my John.”

Mick insists he has no musical ambitions left – there’s not a duets album or memoir lurking uncrossed on his bucket list. But one wonders how he feels about Simply Red’s status as a band these days. Apart from a brief period around their debut album Picture Book, they have never exactly been trendy.

Fashions come and go but it’s hard to think of another multi-million selling British act that remain so resolutely unheralded, at least by critics.

Put it like this: their records don’t often crop up on those ‘100 Best 80s/90s Albums’ lists. They’ve yet to be the subject of a BBC4 documentary. That biopic will, in all probability, never be made. Does he feel they’re undervalued in 2019?

“Sometimes I do,” he admits. “And then other times I think, ‘I’ve done stuff on my own terms and been in control of what I do.’ The industry itself wants to be in control of the artist and when they don’t have that control they don’t like it.

“When you consider the control that we’ve had over the years then I’m happy with our success – we’re still selling records and we’re still putting bums on seats whenever we do a tour. If people don’t regard us in the same way as other acts, well that’s up to them! But really I don’t have any complaints,” he insists, sounding utterly serene and at ease, both with himself, and the world”.

I am going to end very soon. Before that, and from the Simply Red website, fans recently had the opportunity to watch something very special on the big screen. A group that have endured for forty years, this screened performance was quite an experience by all accounts! Even though I am not a diehard, I recognise their brilliance. How distinct and talented Mick Hucknall is. Someone whose political voice is just as important as his musical one. I hope we see and hear more work from Simply Red:

“We’re thrilled to announce that Simply Red’s spectacular performance from their recent 40th Anniversary Tour will be coming to cinemas worldwide from May 15, 2025.

“Holding Back The Years: 40 Years of Simply Red – Live from Santiago” captures the band’s electrifying performance at the Movistar Arena in Chile, where they played five consecutive sold-out shows to rapturous audiences as part of their Latin American tour leg, which saw them perform to over 140,000 fans.

This special cinema event will give fans the opportunity to experience the energy and emotion of Simply Red’s 40th Anniversary Tour on the big screen, featuring stunning performances of their greatest hits and fan favorites spanning their entire career – from their 1985 critically acclaimed debut ‘Picture Book’ right through to their latest releases

Mailing list members will receive exclusive early access to tickets 24 hours before general release – watch your inbox for the presale link!

The concert film showcases why Simply Red remains one of the UK’s most successful and beloved bands, with Mick Hucknall demonstrating why he’s still considered one of the great vocalists in contemporary music. As the band continues their global tour throughout 2025, playing almost 50 arena shows including two nights at London’s O2 Arena and one night at Wembley Arena in October, this cinema event offers the perfect opportunity to celebrate their remarkable 40-year journey.

Don’t miss this chance to see Simply Red’s spectacular performance on the big screen”.

On 8th June, the incredible Mick Hucknall turns sixty-five. A titan of the music industry, his music has influenced so many people. It has touched hearts and souls! A phenomenal live performer, I wanted to take a moment to recognise his talent with a Simply Red mixtape. Featuring their best-known songs and some deeper cuts, this is the iconic Mick Hucknall at his best. Settle back for a….

SPECIAL Simply Red experience. 

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Nadine Coyle at Forty: A Girls Aloud Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

  

Nadine Coyle at Forty: A Girls Aloud Playlist

__________

I am flipping ahead…

IN THIS PHOTO: Nadine Coyle with her Girls Aloud bandmates (left-right) Kimberley Walsh, Nicola Roberts, Sarah Harding and Cheryl Cole

to 15th June and the fortieth birthday of Nadine Coyle. A member of Girls Aloud, alongside Cheryl Cole, Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh and the late Sarah Harding, she has been responsible for a string of anthemic and iconic songs. One of the best girl groups of their generation, I hope we may see another album from them. Even though Sarah Harding is no longer with us, I would like to think the quartet could honour her and continue. To mark Nadine Coyle’s fortieth birthday, I am ending with a mixtape of great Girls Aloud singles and some deeper cuts. Before I get there, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“Nadine Coyle followed in Cheryl Cole's footsteps to become the second member of the hugely successful group to launch a solo career. Born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1985, Coyle began singing at an early age and, encouraged by her parents, recorded a demo tape that she sent to Boyzone manager Louis Walsh. In 2001, she auditioned for the Irish series of Popstars, where she landed a place in the boy/girl band Six. However, she was replaced when it was discovered that she was 16, two years younger than the minimum age limit for contestants.

Encouraged by Walsh to try out for Popstars: The Rivals, a show that aimed to manufacture both a successful boy band and girl group, she reached the live stages, where her performances of "Fields of Gold," "When I Fall in Love," and "Show Me Heaven" made her a favorite to land a place in the band. Surprisingly, she was only the third member to be selected in the final, but two weeks later, the newly formed Girls Aloud scored a number one hit with "Sound of the Underground," beating the show's other creation, One True Voice. The group became one of the biggest pop acts of the noughties, scoring 20 consecutive Top Ten hits and two number one albums and winning a Brit Award for Best British Single for "The Promise."

After the group members announced they were taking a hiatus in 2009, Coyle began working on her own solo material and recorded as yet unreleased tracks with Boyz II Men and Jay Sean. She made her first solo appearance a year later, when she performed "Love Me for a Reason" at a TV tribute show to Stephen Gately. Despite initial reports that Coyle had signed with Geffen Records, she announced an unexpected deal with grocery chain Tesco's new record label, which would see her debut album sold exclusively in their stores, a tactic that had worked earlier for Faithless and Simply Red. Insatiable, which features contributions from Lucie Silvas, Tiësto, and William Orbit, and includes the Guy Chambers-penned title track, was released at the end of 2010. Coyle also created her own label, Black Pen Records; owns a pub, Nadine's Irish Mist, in Los Angeles; and appeared in the video for Natasha Bedingfield's "I Wanna Have Your Babies”.

I am going to end things there. An amazing artist and part of this hugely influential and important group, ahead of Nadine Coyle’s fortieth birthday I am going to celebrate with a great Girls Aloud mix. The hits you know but some deeper cuts thrown in there. Whether you are a huge fan of Girls Aloud or only know a few of their songs, this playlist should give you a great overview of this legendary band. Nadine Coyle very much at the centre. A fitting tribute to…

THIS incredible artist. 

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Samia

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Sawyer Brice

Samia

__________

HAVING recently…

stopped off in the U.K. for some dates, the brilliant Los Angeles-born Samia is someone I want to revisit. Initially including her in Spotlight in 2022. As she has released two studio albums since then, I thought it was worth coming back. Her news album, Bloodless, was released on 25th April. It is one of the most acclaimed albums of the year. I am going to end with a couple of reviews for that album. Before that, I will feature some interviews with this phenomenal artist. I am going to start off with an interview from i-D. They write about an artist who imagines “herself as a canvas for other people’s projections”:

“The first time I met Samia Finnerty––that’s her government name––she was with an old actor boyfriend in London in 2017. We were taking photos of him, while she spent time, perfectly pleasantly, on the periphery. We maybe exchanged niceties but I didn’t know who she was beyond, well, being His Girlfriend. Then several years later, she wrote one of my favourite debut records: a piercing and anxious piece of work about the need to be coddled in fear of falling apart. It was called The Baby. I spoke to her about it at the time, and remember, most of all, that she rejected the idea of her songs belonging on ‘Badass Women’ Spotify playlists. “I don’t often write from a place of empowerment,” she said, 23 and already very smart. “Usually, when I’m writing it’s from a place of desperation.”

On 2023’s Honey, critics caught up (The Guardian: “raw, deliciously sad, five stars”). It was an album that opened with a lethal acoustic offering “Kill Her Freak Out,” about watching an old flame meet someone new, and hating the prospect so much that you want to “fucking kill her” and “fucking freak out.” The album was a hit, as far as indie records go, carrying a kind of unexpected buoyancy to balance out its lyrical melancholy. But after it was out there, Samia’s proverbial shit hit the fan. “Everyone warned me about second albums, and I didn’t obviously want to believe it, but it was tough,” she says. The good thing? “It ended up giving me a little bit of a metamorphosis.”
When Samia gets into a pit of depression, she temporarily becomes a new person. After the whirlwind of Honey hit hard, “I developed this really spontaneous, sort of like open minded, reckless personality.” She started saying yes to hanging with strangers, took four-hour flights to rural forests for friends’ birthdays, whereas before, she would have stayed at home. “I went swimming a lot. In, like, bodies of water.” That inspired a lyric on “Bovine Excision,” the album’s lead single, which hearkens back to moments spent “picking leeches off white underwear.” 
She had tested out living in Los Angeles, where she was born, after spending time in New York and Nashville, but found the city too steered by the music industry. “There are people who make LA feel like living out the back of a truck somewhere,” she says. But she knew she wasn’t one of them. So Minneapolis came calling, where many of her friends and collaborators lived, and she found it to be a “wellspring for song stuff.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sawyer Brice

“My instinct is full-on bridge troll, Rumpelstiltskin, riddles and rhymes, you know?”

samia on writing lyrics

Like The Baby, Bloodless started with poems that she’d take to the piano and try to figure out the melodies for, helped by her allies in life and music, the artist Raffaella, Caleb Wright, and Jake Luppen of the indie rock group Hippo Campus. She has worked with other songwriters and producers before, but “I was sitting on their couch, worried about the clock ticking, so I didn’t write what I wanted to,” she says. This trio knew her well enough to call out her bullshit with her lyrics; telling her when the surgical, somewhat submissive energy of the music, these grandiose reckonings with a higher power, had slathered itself too thickly over the songs. “My instinct is full-on bridge troll, Rumpelstiltskin, riddles and rhymes, you know?” Samia says, laughing. “And I wouldn’t want to lose that, because I know it’s true to me––but between the three of them, they can be like: we can find another word there that people know and use.”
The “unsolved mysteries” that make up the tapestry of Bloodless started to make sense to Samia when she wrote “Proof,” about a year after Honey had come out. On the record, it’s maybe the most conventional Samia song: acoustic guitar and her voice, speaking words simultaneously fatalistic––“The girls bleed and drape over the recliner”––and almost comically plain, the constant refrain of “You don’t know me, bitch.” 
The album is laden with gorgeous, enduringly colourful takes on standard singer-songwriter self reflections like this––simultaneously profound and disarmingly simple. On “Pants,” the video for which features The White Lotus star Fred Hechinger dancing in a tent, Samia contemplates the time spent trying on a different personality through the trousers she wears on a flight. “Who was I when I bought these pants?” she questions, following it up with the quip: “They’re non refundable”. 
It’s music for the feral, for the nuisances. For the type of person who’s willing to embarrass themselves. It also––despite cutting through its big questions with wistful, loose-living imagery: think drinking piss, flirting with the idea of ruining parties, and Lime-flavoured Lays––feels like the work of a grown up.

Samia thinks that’s a new-found confidence. “I’ve always had this problem where I won’t say anything with my chest unless it could be argued in a court of law,” she says. Her songs have gotten her in trouble with her subjects in the past; at least that way she knew she was right. “I play the tape all the way through, [getting] everyone’s perspective. But on this record, I was like, I don’t know if that’s the best thing for art, you know?” So she just said it this time. “There’s a really crazy, almost surprising theme of acceptance and acquiescence on this album that I didn’t see coming”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Shervin Lainez

I am going to move to a fascinating and illuminating interview from The Line of Best Fit that was published in April. Having followed her music for years now, I can see how she has evolved. One of the most remarkable songwriters in the world. A sound that is so distinct. Bloodless is an album that Under the Radar said was “angrier, stranger, and more ambitious—less a diary and more a myth, refracted through elliptical metaphors, religious allusions, and a theatrical distance that skilfully enhances the album's raw intimacy”:

“For Finnerty, songwriting has always been a form of therapy. “I started writing because I was angsty and upset as a pre-teen. It was a puberty outlet, and that’s how I learned to process my feelings,” she explains. That tone earned her a cult following and critical acclaim. Audiences came to love her cutting, honest, and masterful vignettes. Her debut, The Baby, now sits in the indie coming-of-age canon; the follow up, Honey, a formidable companion. But if those first two records saw an adolescent become an adult, Bloodless sees an adult become themself.

“I was thinking about a tendency I had to try to make myself incredibly small, or to give as little information about myself as possible so that I could become whatever someone else wanted to project onto me,” Finnerty says. This album was born of trying to unpack and unlearn that tendency, one she says she’s carried most of her life. “I tried to sustain an existence as an idea. Whether that be their dream girl or their worst nightmare, I would just be whatever anyone wanted me to be at all times. And I was like: That’s gotta stop. It’s good for connection. It doesn’t foster real relationships.”

Album-mode for Finnerty is all encompassing. She’s the type, she says, to pull her hair out over every word, flicking through each song line by line to make sure she’s saying exactly what she means at every turn. Early on in the Bloodless process, she adopted an intensive writing routine, treating it like a nine-to-five and not allowing herself to stop writing until the end of her workday. Every day, for a month, she’d sit down for hours on end and not let herself stop. “It was pretty torturous, but I think it actually helped a lot,” she says. “I’d do it again.”

Her supplementary reading diet – in addition to Butler – included Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Roxanne Gay, Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andrea Dworkin. She searched their texts like scriptures, explaining her journey as an endless seeking that she thought might make her feel whole. I follow up on this and ask if she’s religious at all – the album’s spiritual and metaphysical otherworldly underpinnings might lend themselves to theological interpretation. I wonder also about this connection she’s described wanting with some greater purpose or path or meaning. She shakes her head no. She reiterates: “But, I’m a seeker.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Shervin Lainez

Bloodless itself oscillates between emptiness and completeness. If “North Poles” is two halves joining together in a chaotically perfect union, “Hole In A Frame” is its foil, exploring what’s left when there isn’t even a singular whole but a celebrated lack thereof. Inspired by a framed hole that Sid Vicious punched in the wall of Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Finnerty mythologizes emptiness. Or, more accurately, riffs off a famously already-immortalised emptiness. “When I was trying to write about being complicit in my own emptiness and trying to be as barely there as possible, I was like: Oh, I feel like a framed whole. A framed absence. It’s like a celebrated thing that’s gone,” she says. The song was the last track she wrote for the record, and it’s maybe the most complete articulation of the concepts she was trying to parse through at the time.

“I think with this album, I tried to let myself be angry,” Finnerty continues. To date, much of her catalogue has leaned unfettered into sadness, making her a standard bearer for the somewhat patronisingly-titled ‘sad girl’ genre. Sadness, especially for women, is often more palatable, easier to accept for listeners and critics. But writing anger – allowing yourself to feel it – requires coming to the table from a place of strength, one that’s often harder to tap into and one that’s also often discouraged. Bloodless, for Finnerty, was about unshackling herself from those ideological chains.

“I have this thing where I won’t get angry unless it could be justified in a court of law,” she tells me. “I go through the whole thing in my brain and I measure everyone else’s opinions and I won’t open my mouth until I’m absolutely certain I’m right. But with this one, I tried to let some things fly. And I listened to a lot of Fiona Apple, so that helps.”

In the end, after grappling with it all, she arrived at acceptance. The record’s closer, “Pants,” isn’t some triumphant overcoming but instead a higher form of self-understanding. This, Finnerty tells me, proved to be all she really needed in the first place. “I’m always going to be a little bit all of these behaviours,” she says. “I think all you can really do is look at it and try to have awareness.”

As she wrote, Luppen helped her bring her visions to life in studios across Minnesota and North Carolina. In Minnesota, their space was set up in a distillery, which Finnerty says gave her a constant headache that helped motivate her to actually finish the record. She’s the type, she tells me, to spend months tweaking, often coming back to songs months later when she’s finally processed the events they’re about. While this gives her writing expansive perspective, it’s not always helpful for knowing when to put the pen down. That’s where the alcohol-smell-induced daze stepped in. Intermixed with those sessions were trips down to North Carolina, where Wright recently moved with his family. There, they stayed a Betty’s, a studio space built by Sylvan Esso in the woods near Chapel Hill.

“I think we really figured out what the album was in North Carolina,” she says of one of the early pilgrimages out there for Bloodless. “We did a bunch of mushrooms and figured out the North Star.”

Sonically, Bloodless escapes genre. For every finger-picked guitar there’s a whirring synth, autotuned vocal embellishment, or blissed-out drum. If there’s any production throughline, Finnerty tells me, it would just be “eerie.”

“I hate genres,” Finnerty says. “It feels really restrictive. So, I like trying to push that a bit. And working with Jake and Caleb, their palettes are so complicated and even contradict each other, so it’s fun to see what that creates”.

Before getting to some reviews, there is an interview from Rolling Stone where they note how she “searched for her true self, shook off sexist expectations — and made her boldest album yet”. Bloodless is a truly remarkable album. If you have never heard Samia and are not sure whether to commit or not, there are few artists I rate as highlight. Someone I was really keen to return to for this Spotlight: Revisited:

“For Bloodless, Samia realized she had to turn away from the need for outside approval. “It doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m not one of those people who’s like, ‘Fuck what you think,’” she says. “I was really on a mission to shed that part of myself, because I thought, ‘The only way I’ll ever be happy is if I learn to believe in my choices and ideas.’”

Since this past December, Samia has lived in Minneapolis with her boyfriend and fellow musician Briston Maroney. Before that, the couple spent time in Los Angeles, where she was born to actor parents Kathy Najimy and Dan Finnerty, and in Nashville, where Maroney was based. But she says the new album’s Americana feel and folk-pop leanings came into focus on a pivotal recording trip that she took in August 2023 to western North Carolina. “I think the spirit of it was born there,” she says. “That’s when I sort of understood what I was trying to say.”

Samia had begun formulating the poems that would become Bloodless earlier that year, starting with a concept revolving around historical muses like Kiki de Montparnasse, an early-20th-century artist’s model for surrealist painter Man Ray and others. But she found herself changing course to write about how she, herself, was perceived by the world.

It started with the party Samia sings about on “Lizard” — a night that was ruined by the presence of a “no-contact person in my life,” she says. “We had a conversation to try to remedy the situation, and the next day, we had to go to a party together with all of our mutual friends, mostly his friends, and it was horrible.”

Samia says that painful encounter helped her tap into one of the new album’s central themes. “When you don’t talk things through, there’s just a lot of fantasy being created,” she says. “I was feeling the consequences of being made into a fantasy and not being able to have a chance to explain myself and be a human being.” She felt like a mythologized monster, and it pissed her off

Samia soon realized her frustration extended beyond that specific conflict. “I started thinking about my experience with womanhood on a larger scale,” she says. “I had so much shame about being worried about men and maybe having altered myself in some way because of it.”

That’s a theme she’s been working through for years: Some of her earliest singles, like “Someone Tell the Boys” and “Lasting Friend,” boldly called out mansplainers and handsy young men, cementing the singer-songwriter as a feminist voice.

As she continued writing Bloodless, Samia saw how universal her feelings were, and how often women have to shape and contort themselves to appease men. “Even if you don’t like boys, you just have to make men not kill you,” she says. “You have to appeal to men in some way.” Samia makes sure to clarify that she’s not talking about one man in her life: “I keep calling it this conglomerate, patchwork, abstract idea of a man.”

Throughout the LP, Samia deals with the horrific realities of a patriarchal society by poking fun at the unattainable expectations put on women. “Picking leeches off white underwear … I want to be impossible,” she sings on the lead single, “Bovine Excision,” subverting the idea of virginity by claiming she’s so incredibly, unrealistically pure that even leeches sucking on her skin wouldn’t draw a drop of blood.

On album highlight “Hole in a Frame,” Samia finds there can be power in being an empty vessel for other people’s ideas of what you represent, using a piece of music history as a metaphor: the framed spot in Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Sid Vicious punched a hole in the wall in 1978. “It was just the most perfect fucking metaphor … the frame around nothing,” she says. “It was this absence that he created.”

The six-minute spiral of an album closer, “Pants,” explores a similar idea as Samia contends with her identity. “Who was I when I bought these pants?/They’re nonrefundable/Now I’m questioning everything I am,” she sings breathlessly over a steady drumbeat before the track transforms into a moody meditation. “Wanna see what’s under these Levi’s?/I got nothing under these Levi’s,” Samia repeatedly taunts as the song ends. Get it? “There’s no woman under the pants,” she tells me, laughing”.

I will come to a couple of the positive reviews for Bloodless. NME. There is a lot to love about this breathtaking album. I think the lyrics are the standout. Nobody writes like Samia. This is an artist that is going to continue to  release these year-best albums. There is no doubting the brilliance of Bloodless:

“Since the release of her debut album ‘The Baby’ in 2020, Samia has become known as a songwriter with a knack for the diaristic and the vulnerable; an artist who is profoundly relatable by being highly personal, distilling the complexities of young womanhood into lines that sear. Second record ‘Honey’, released in 2023, only reinforced that notion, infusing more dark humour into songs full of pain and poignancy.

On ‘Bloodless’, she takes all that and applies it to her loftiest topics yet – the idea of the dream woman as an unsolved mystery, whether our true selves are just a social construct and the emptiness that’s left when you remove all the experiences that have shaped you, how she’s constructed herself in response to what she thinks men want. Those all combine on opener ‘Bovine Excision’, Samia desiring to be “drained bloodless” like the titular unexplained phenomenon of cattle being found mutilated, but not one drop of blood spilt; an urge to remove everything but remain inscrutable.

At the opposite end of the record, she uses a pair of jeans to dissect who she is now, who she once was and who, beneath it all, she really is. “Who was I when I bought these pants?” she ponders. “They’re non-refundable / Now I’m questioning everything I am.” Later, she reveals her conclusion over discordant twangs: “Wanna see what’s under these Levi’s? / I got nothing under these Levi’s.” It’s not a flirty come-on, but a concession that, perhaps, the idea of a true self doesn’t really exist.

“You don’t know me, bitch,” she sings just above a whisper on ‘Proof’, but ‘Bloodless’ at least gives us glimpses at Samia as she dismantles her character song-by-song. On the whirring ‘Lizard’, she fights the urge to be destructive and cause a scene; ‘Craziest Person’ finds her seeking out those messier than her so she can look better. And on ‘Fair Game’, she’s dazzling – a firefly with “no shortage of brilliance / If you can catch me in a clear cup”.

‘Bloodless’ doesn’t just signal huge growth in Samia’s lyrics, but in her music too. It’s an album that’s grand, warm and rich, whether in its most stripped-back, stark songs – like ‘Proof’, which features just the 28-year-old’s voice and a finger-picked guitar – or the thundering eruption of ‘Carousel’ that borders on claustrophobic. It’s also stuffed with ideas. ‘Pants’ could be three different songs, morphing from melancholy indie-rock atmospherics to experimental fragments to a shuffling, Americana outro.

With all that going on, it would be easy for the album to collapse under its own weight; its ambitions proving to be its own downfall. Impressively, though, Samia sorts ‘Bloodless’ into something that not only keeps it together but thrives on its complexities and intricacies. We already knew Samia was a sublime songwriter, but on her third album, she sets a new bar – and then some”.

I am going to finish off with a review from DIY. I am so excited to see how her career blossoms. When I first heard her several years ago, I knew that Samia is an artist we’d be talking about for many more to come. That definitely seems to be the case. Bloodless is an album you will listen to but be compelled to listen to and over and over:

“A delayed shuffle kicks in after the first chorus of ‘Bovine Excision’, the opening track of Samia’s third album ‘Bloodless.’ A simultaneous guitar stab and drum hit highlights the drum’s previous absence, and - akin to the first verse of its opener - ‘Bloodless’ finds comfort in absence, whether it’s referencing cattle mutilation or Sid Vicious’ framed fist print in ‘Hole in a Frame’. Seemingly, Samia has never been one to shy away from a complex theme or a darkly- outlined metaphor: her 2023 breakout and award-winning record ‘Honey’ touched on themes of nihilism and murder. Sharp, vivid songwriting is central to Samia’s craft, and with ‘Bloodless’, her superpower lies in her curiosity for the unknown, and an ability to turn herself inside out, facing the raw, uncomfortable, and deeply human parts of herself head on.

On ‘Lizard’, she compares the likes of men and God and how both are bolstered by uncritical acceptance, noting “peace is a double-locked door, I’m the whore with the extra key”. Then, turning love into indifference like the flip of a switch, ‘Sacred’ concisely describes the emotional whiplash of a breakup (“you never loved me like you hate me now”). In terms of production, the album mostly takes a no-frills approach, often just vocal and acoustic guitar lending itself to the album’s overall message; if you give less of yourself, you’ll appear bigger. Consequently, Samia’s words have never been so profound”.

Go and follow Samia. Listen to Bloodless and revisit 2023’s Honey and 2020’s The Baby. I hope that Samia comes back to the U.K. soon and plays some more dates. I really love her music and would recommend it to everyone. If you do not know about her yet then go and check her out. An artist who is going to be putting out wonderful albums for years to come. A hearty and impassioned salute to…

THIS Los Angeles genius.

_________

Follow Samia

 

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Ivor Novello Nominees

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Lola Young/PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Osborn for NME

 

Ivor Novello Nominees

__________

I am slightly delayed coming to this…

IN THIS PHOTO: Liang Lawrence

but, as the Ivor Novello Awards take place on 22nd May in London, I wanted to recognise that with a playlist featuring most of the artists and songwriters and composers nominated. Before getting to that playlist/mixtape, I will drop in an article from The Guardian that gives us the lowdown and lists the nominees. Recognising the most outstanding and notable songwriting. When it comes to the Ivor Novellos, it is the only accolade in the industry judged by songwriters and composers, for songwriters and composers. Because of that, there is something special about the nominees. The Very best of the best. All of the nominees so richly deserving:

“Lola Young, breakthrough hitmaker with Messy, tops Ivor Novello songwriting nominations

London singer-songwriter picks up three nominations, with her collaborator Conor Dickinson earning two alongside Ghetts and Raye

Singer-songwriter Lola Young tops the nominations for the 2025 Ivor Novello awards, which recognise the best in British and Irish songwriting and composition for the screen.

She receives three nominations in her first year of recognition by the Ivors Academy: best album for This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, best song musically and lyrically for Messy, and the rising star award.

The Brit School alumna released Messy in May 2024, but after going viral on TikTok it eventually reached No 1 in January, spending four weeks at the top. Messy also topped charts in Australia, Ireland and beyond and peaked at number 14 in the US.

It has been streamed more than 500m times on Spotify, with listeners drawn to Young’s frank assessment of her own failings, and her compelling (and quite sweary) tale of a toxic relationship: “And I’m too perfect ’til I show you that I’m not / A thousand people I could be for you and you hate the fucking lot,” the chorus concludes.

Despite the east Londoner’s seemingly overnight success, she has been in the UK music scene for years, performing gigs around the capital since around 2018. Her soulful sound caught the attention of Nick Shymansky, Amy Winehouse’s former manager, and Nick Huggett, who first signed Adele – the two became her managers.

Her cover of Together in Electric Dreams was featured in the 2021 John Lewis Christmas advert, and she also featured on Tyler, The Creator’s 2024 Chromakopia album.

Young’s collaborator Conor Dickinson earns two nominations for his contributions to her work.

Also nominated for best song musically and lyrically is Orla Gartland with her first nomination at the awards (for Mine), Laura Marling (Child of Mine), Fontaines DC (In the Modern World) and Raye, last year’s winner of songwriter of the year (Genesis).

Up for best album this year alongside Young is Charli xcx for her cultural phenomenon album Brat, which reached No 1 in the UK, Australia and Ireland and No 3 in the US. It dominated summer 2024, leading to the trend of “Brat Summer” and a viral dance craze to its song Apple. Other best album nominees are Berwyn (for Who Am I), Jordan Rakei (The Loop) and Ghetts (On Purpose, With Purpose), the latter also nominated in the best contemporary song category for that album’s Sampha collaboration, Double Standards.

Rap is well represented in that category, with Pa Salieu and Bashy joining Ghetts, plus singer-songwriter Sans Soucis and pop star Jade, who won the Brit award for pop act at 2025’s awards.

Nominees for most performed work, acknowledging commercial success, are Harry Styles (As It Was, which won two years ago and is in its third year of nomination), Dua Lipa (Houdini), Cassö, Raye & D-Block Europe (Prada), Myles Smith (Stargazing) and Wham! (Last Christmas) – 21 years after George Michael was last nominated in that category.

Music from The Substance, Kneecap, Rivals and The Casting of Frank Stone has been acknowledged in the film, TV and video game categories.

The awards are celebrating their 70th year on 22 May at Grosvenor House in London.

The Ivors 2025 nominations

Best album
Charli xcx – Brat (written by Charli xcx, AG Cook and Finn Keane)
Ghetts – On Purpose, With Purpose (written by Ghetts and TenBillion Dreams)
Jordan Rakei – The Loop (written by Jordan Rakei)
Lola Young – This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway (written by William Brown, Conor Dickinson, Jared Solomon and Lola Young)
Berwyn – Who Am I (written by Berwyn)

Best contemporary song
Pa Salieu – Allergy (written by Felix Joseph, Alastair O’Donnell and Pa Salieu)
Jade – Angel of My Dreams (written by Pablo Bowman, Jade, Steph Jones and Mike Sabath)
Sans Soucis – Circumnavigating Georgia (written by Sans Soucis)
Ghetts – Double Standards (ft Sampha) (written by Ghetts, Emil, Sampha Sisay and R-Kay)
Bashy – How Black Men Lose Their Smile, written by Bashy, Toddla T and Linton Kwesi Johnson

Best song musically and lyrically
Laura Marling – Child of Mine (written by Laura Marling)
Raye – Genesis (written by Rodney Jerkins, Raye and Toneworld)
Fontaines DC – In the Modern World (written by Grian Chatten, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan, Thomas Coll and Carlos O’Connell)
Lola Young – Messy (written by Conor Dickinson and Lola Young)
Orla Gartland – Mine (written by Orla Gartland)

Most performed work
Harry Styles: As It Was (written by Kid Harpoon, Tyler Johnson and Harry Styles)
Dua Lipa – Houdini (written by Caroline Ailin, Danny L Harle, Tobias Jesso Jnr, Dua Lipa and Kevin Parker)
Wham! – Last Christmas (written by George Michael)
Cassö, Raye and D-Block Europe – Prada (written by D-Block Europe, Obi Ebele, Uche Ebele, Jahmori “Jaymo” Simmons and Raye)
Myles Smith: Stargazing (written by Peter Fenn, Jesse Fink and Myles Smith)

Rising star award
Bea and Her Business
Liang Lawrence
Lola Young
Lulu.
Nia Smith

Best original film score
Fly Me to the Moon – Daniel Pemberton
Hard Truths – Gary Yershon
Kneecap – Michael “Mikey J” Asante
The Substance – Raffertie
The Zone of Interest – Mica Levi

Best original video game score
Empire of Ants – Mathieu Alvado and Mark Choi
Farewell North – John Konsolakis
Flock – Eli Rainsberry
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II – David Garcia Diaz
The Casting of Frank Stone – Boxed Ape

Best television soundtrack
Black Doves – Martin Phipps
Mary & George – Oliver Coates
Rivals – Jack Halama and Natalie Holt
True Detective: Night Country – Vince Pope
Until I Kill You – Carly Paradi”.

It is a stellar list of songwriters and composers. The absolute best of the best, it will be interesting seeing who walks away with an Ivor Novello on 22nd May. Such a competitive field, they will be competing for a sought-after award! I was keen to include as many of the nominees possible. You may have heard many of these artists/composers. If not, there will be some nice surprises. Sit back and enjoy…

MUSICAL excellence.

FEATURE: We Know All Her Lines So Well… The Impact of Kate Bush on Directors

FEATURE:

 

 

We Know All Her Lines So Well…

  

The Impact of Kate Bush on Directors

__________

IT is perhaps not surprising…

IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Norman Jean Roy

that Kate Bush, as a visual and imaginative songwriter, would have an impact on the film world. Apart from directors who have used her music in their films to those who are inspired by her music and work that into their films, it is hard to tell exactly how far and wide her influence spreads. Kate Bush herself has been influenced by films. Building these cinematic and original songs that go beyond the ordinary, that has been reflected when it comes to filmmakers through the years. I was interested reading an article from Far Out Magazine, where they look back at a 2015 interview where Greta Gerwig mentioned Kate Bush. A particular song that she was moved by and affected her:

“In a 2015 interview, the director gushed over the song ‘Hounds of Love’, taken from Bush’s 1985 album of the same name, and said: “I find her lyrics mysterious and evocative – almost like poetry – and there is a real spaciousness to her music that feels cinematic to me. But specifically with this song, ‘Hounds of Love’, I had really been obsessed with it for a long time.”

Reflecting on the tune’s theatricality, Gerwig explained how it bore relevance to her own work, continuing: “I did a play last summer – it was called The Village Bike – and in the play a women is taken over by irrepressible, destructive lust and there was something about this song that really tapped into that for me.” But on the whole, the filmmaker also felt that Bush’s songbook is permeated with an element that lends itself so easily to the screen.

She added: “I’m a person who lives with very vivid emotions that feel like they often can only be expressed in heightened states of either music or poetry or films or theatre, and I think that she makes the kind of music that feels like she is always at a ten, emotionally. That level of just sheer emotion and excitement, and it taps me into probably the reason why I make art.”

While Bush is no stranger to her music having inspired a litany of other pop and rock stars who have followed in her ethereal wake, the palpable influence it also has on Gerwig in the filmic realm speaks to its transcendental quality across the breadths of creative output in the world, branching across forms to cast her spell in every possible corner of the world.

There’s no denying that for Gerwig, whenever the cameras start rolling, music is still never far from her mind. It is the pace and depth and heartbeat of every movie and, in many ways, her filmmaking would be nothing without it. With the electric current of Bush’s back catalogue spurring Gerwig on to new heights, there’s really no telling where the end point is – because in everything she has ever done, the singer has never known the meaning of a boundary”.

Greta Gerwig is perhaps my favourite filmmaker. Even though she has not brought a Kate Bush song to her films yet, reading what she had to say about Kate Bush is so interesting. Rather than a song being used to heighten a scene or create this viral moment, there is an essence or emotional aspect to the music that Greta Gerwig channels. As a director and writer, Kate Bush’s music has pushed her to new levels. I can see one of Bush’s songs appearing in a Gerwig film soon. However, what Far Out Magazine say about the transcendent impact of Kate Bush’s music. It is clear that Gerwig is not the only acclaimed director who acknowledges the importance of Kate Bush. Bush herself cites and admires directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Nicolas Roeg, Terry Gilliam, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Francis Ford Coppola and Francois Truffaut. When we think of Kate Bush, we look at her influence among musicians. It is clear that authors and actors are as influenced by Kate Bush as artists. The difference is that we can hear and feel something different through music. Perhaps a more direct link to Kate Bush, Greta Gerwig is not alone in commending Kate Bush. The emotions and energy she puts into her music. The sheer scale of her brilliance and imagination. Many songs that are short films or epic scenes. Much more compelling that ordinary and commercial Pop songs, I would be fascinated to compile a list of modern films that definitely have some of Kate Bush’s D.N.A. running through them. From films in Horror through to smaller independent productions and big-budget epics, one can look at various scenes and moments and draw that to Kate Bush. Directors such as Taika Waititi have been mentioned when it comes to Kate Bush and having similar styles and storytelling aspects – or are simply fans of her music.

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

Not much has been written about the way Kate Bush has impacted cinema. From record-setting directors like Greta Gerwig to those rising or less well-known, I would love to see more filmmakers coming out and expressing their love of Kate Bush and how her music has guided them. We can understand how various films and directors have affected Kate Bush. Nothing really the other way around. Though you can feel and see her essence and genius making their way through various genres and decades of cinema. The dramatic way Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was used in Stranger Things in 2022 is a contemporary example of how Bush’s music came alive and defined not only a scene but went deeper. It wasn’t just a case of a song being used because it was recognisable. The lyrics and meaning of that track playing a wider role. Among those projects that have yet to be realised, it would be fascinated and overdue to see not only directors and filmmakers but actors talking about Kate Bush and how her music has challenged and changed them. There are going to be so many examples in contemporary and classic cinema. Think about the way Bush’s music continues to reach new generations. Artists coming up who name-check Kate Bush. Authors and writers sharing their love of Kate Bush. Thinking about some of the brilliant films I have seen this past few years, I can see Kate Bush on the screen. In these scenes. It speaks to her ongoing and multi-dimensional influence. How the way she works and writes resonates with a range of filmmakers. I would love to hear testimony and feedback from filmmakers who bring a bit of Kate Bush…

INTO their work.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: A Modern Club Mix

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Carly Wilford/PHOTO CREDIT: Abby Cohen

 

A Modern Club Mix

__________

FOR most of my…

PHOTO CREDIT: Isabella Mendes/Pexels

mixtapes, I tend to focus on mainstream artists or particular types of music. In terms of going beyond that, what about songs played at the club? Whether that is a club in the city, by the beach or a great D.J. mix at a small club, I do not spend enough time exposing that type of music. For this Digital Mixtape, I am going to source some modern-day bangers. Those that get the body moving or bring us together. A few songs that are a little darker and cooler. It has been interesting researching for this playlist and listening to some of the tracks out there. Maybe people can guide me in the direction of others. Whether for a late-night club-night or something in the afternoon heat surrounded by wonderful views and the sea, this mixtape should get the blood running. Get this mixtape started and…

IN THIS PHOTO: Georgie Riot

TURN the volume up.

FEATURE: Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill at Thirty: Inside the Iconic Ironic

FEATURE:

 

 

Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill at Thirty

IN THIS PHOTO: Alanis Morissette photographed in Cologne, Germany in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins/Getty Images 

 

Inside the Iconic Ironic

__________

THERE is a whole…

Wikipedia section that argues whether the lyrics in Alanis Morissette’s Ironic are, in fact, ‘ironic’. You know the scenarios: rain on the wedding day; a free ride when you’ve already paid; a cutlery conundrum. Taking away from the brilliance of the song, this argument and quibble has not really done a lot to emphasise the brilliance of Ironic. Alanis Morissette herself knows that the situations are ironic – though people didn’t quite grasp the type of irony and how clever the lyrics are. I will address some of that debate but, as the album the song is from, Jagged Little Pill, turns thirty on 13th June, I wanted to focus on its – in my opinion – most popular and standout song. Released as a single on 27th February, 1996, it was the fourth (of six) singles released from the album. I want to actually start out with something from Wikipedia. In terms of the reaction the linguistic debate. That was all people talked about when the song came out. Rather than discuss the quality of the music, they were talking about whether Ironic has any irony in it:

“The song's usage of the word ironic attracted media attention; according to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, it gives a distinct "unironic" sense in its implications. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, irony is "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected; an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations". From a prescriptivist perspective, lyrics such as "It's a free ride when you've already paid" and "A traffic jam when you're already late" are thus not ironic.

Morissette said: "For me the great debate on whether what I was saying in 'Ironic' was ironic wasn't a traumatic debate. I'd always embraced the fact that every once in a while I'd be the malapropism queen. And when Glen and I were writing it, we were not doggedly making sure that everything was technically ironic." In 2014, Michael Reid Roberts wrote a defense of the song for Salon, saying that it cites situational ironies: the "state of affairs or event[s] that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result". Michael Stevens of the YouTube channel Vsauce devoted time to the discussion of irony in the 2014 episode "Dord". In this video, Stevens considers the difference between the typically cited "situational" irony, versus "dramatic" irony. According to him, the irony of the song may not necessarily be in the situations themselves, but rather in the dramatic irony – when someone is unaware of the significance of the event while others are: the situations aren't ironic themselves, but life itself is ironic”.

I am going to end with a couple of features that, for once and all, write why Ironic is actually filled with situations that are ironic. The fact people have misinterpreted the song and falsely taken against it. Is that ironic?! It is hard to find a feature about the song that does not solely focus on its lyrics and whether they are ironic. I guess it is important to highlight them. Before that, I want this review of Ironic:

“One of the things that surprises me most on returning to it with fresh ears is Morissette’s tuning, which is wayward enough that I’d expect almost any producer these days to correct it almost by reflex. However, the reason why it never bothered me at the time, and why a knee-jerk corrective impulse would have been particularly misguided in this instance, is that I really think that the tuning supports the performance. The unvarnished vagueness of the pitch centres in the ‘hai-ai-ai’ introduction and verses really cements the mood of whimsical cynicism there, for instance. Highlights in this respect include the wobbly pitch-rise of “Chardonnay” (0:26), the mocking exaggerations of “afraid to fly” (1:05), and the tetchy meandering of “cigarette break” (2:23). Furthermore, I think her general tendency to drift sharp in the choruses works well too, because it’s something many singers (and indeed instrumentalists) naturally do when they’re pushing the volume into straining territory, so I’d argue that it significantly reinforces the emotional intensity in this context.

Such beautifully judged manipulation of pitch is only one aspect of what is quite simply a phenomenal vocal performance. Just the variety of vocal deliveries used is tremendous, from the softest of head voices through to hard-edged belting, with moments of speech, whispers (“don’t you think” at 0:36), a fatalist half-laugh (2:37), sudden falsetto switches (1:08), and that trademark turbulent, whistling exhalation at the end of “thought” (1:48) thrown in for good measure. She even turns a breath into a hook, for heaven’s sake, when her big lungful at 2:43 mugs you into thinking the last chorus is coming two bars earlier than it actually does.

There’s some interesting panning during the first verse, with the lead vocal well to the right — solo the individual stereo channels and you’ll hear she’s at least 12dB down on the left side. However, given that the only other instrument in the mix is the acoustic guitar, which is panned in opposition, the only real casualty in terms of mass-market translation would be anyone hearing only one side of the mix. Even under those circumstances, though, mix engineer Chris Fogel’s sensible decision to avoid hard panning means that the left-side listener doesn’t lose the lyrics entirely. And the scheme isn’t without its pop-sensibility benefits either, because the sudden movement to the centre of the panorama for the first “It’s like rai-ee-ain…” flags up the switch to Alanis’s more powerful vocal delivery for stereo listeners, while single-speaker listeners get an additional level hike at the same point by virtue of the stereo-to-mono conversion”.

It is interesting how Alanis Morissette was not especially attached to Ironic. She did not want to put it out. This happens with many artists. They get this huge hit and then years later recall how they were not keen and wanted to leave it off an album. In a 2020 Rolling Stone Music Now episode, Morissette talked about Ironic and her feelings towards it at the time:

“In the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Alanis Morissette discusses her powerful new album, Such Pretty Forks in the Road, 25 years of Jagged Little Pill, and much more, including a moment when she laughingly addresses years of “shaming” over those dubious examples of irony (a black fly in your Chardonnay?) in her hit song “Ironic.” To hear the entire episode, press play below or download and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify.

In the hit Broadway musical version of Jagged Little Pill (now shuttered indefinitely due to the current health crisis), the show’s characters echo years worth of mockery of the song: “That’s not irony,” one says. “That’s just, like, shitty.” Morissette says Diablo Cody, who wrote the show’s book, “nailed it” in that scene. The songwriter is hopeful that the musical will finally put the topic behind her: “Until the next generation kicks my ass! Until the next onslaught of shaming!”

In any case, Morissette was never particularly attached to “Ironic,” which largely stood apart from the autobiographical narrative of the Jagged Little Pill album. “I didn’t even want it on the record,” she explains. “And I remember a lot of people going, ‘Please please, please.’ So I said, OK. That was one of the first songs we wrote, almost like a demo to get our whistles wet. But people wound up really liking the melody, and I wasn’t that precious about it. And I came to realize later that perhaps I should have been,” she admits, laughing. “Whoops!”

“I guess one of the things that is the scariest for us in terms of our collective shame is being [seen as] stupid or uneducated or ignorant,” Morissette adds. “I can embrace, ‘I’m stupid,’ I can embrace that I’m really brilliant. It just depends on when you catch me!”.

I am going to finish with a couple of interesting features around the lyrics for Ironic. A classic written by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard, it was a huge chart success. Number one in her native Canada, it was a big success in the U.S. and U.K. I am going to move to the first of two features from Salon. Last year, they dissected the philosophy of Alanis Morissette:

“We don’t know whether Alanis read or cared about the Greeks, but she’s made hundreds of mentions of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung and how his pioneering theories of analytical psychology deeply influence her songwriting. Jung died in the early '60s before irony began trending as a fundamental human relation. Although he had no explicit definition of irony, he theorized that humans are strongly influenced by symbols expressed through myths and dreams or other cultural touchstones. In his emphasis on the gap between our surface words or actions and their deeper psychological meanings or feelings, Jung would probably say that irony questions and subverts normative cultural narratives. He would understand irony as an archetype drawn from our collective unconscious.

This is the way in to grasping how Alanis does effectively utilize irony. She has a deep understanding of and a postmodern comfort with cognitive dissonance, with lyrics that describe the affective landscape of the gap between our gestures and expectations. Sadly, one of the best defenses of “Ironic” comes to us from Vince Vaughn. The opening sequence of the 2013 film "The Internship," which Vaughn wrote and starred in, has “Ironic” blasting in a convertible with the top down as Vaughn and Owen Wilson head out for a night on the town. Wilson is dismayed that this song is on Vaughn’s “get psyched” playlist and they debate it. “I defy you to crush this chorus and not get psyched,” Vaughn says. Wilson does so and then is indeed psyched. One hundred percent of the examples given in “Ironic” are bummers, and yet the lyrics close with a reminder that life has a funny way of helping you out.

"Irony does not involve the simple substitution of the opposite for the literal meaning."

That’s Barthesian irony. Roland Barthes was a French literary critic who worked in semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, just as Jung did. Compared to the Greeks’ understanding of it, Barthesian irony is less concerned with opposites. He simply defined it as a rhetorical device involving a double meaning. The discrepancy between the two meanings generates ambiguity and this ambiguity can push a listener to interpret the lyrics of “Ironic” in a new way. You can sing about all the bummers in “Ironic,” but do so joyfully, embracing even the hard parts of life as inevitable or necessary. Our struggles help us out. Framing something bad as somehow yielding something good is a subversive move when it allows multiple, conflicting interpretations of a song at the same time. It offers ten thousand spoons instead of one knife. This multiplication of meaning is a form of linguistic play, a turning to imagine what one might do with the unexpected bounty of ten thousand spoons. When critics dismiss “Ironic” as made up of a failed set of literal opposites, they miss the point: irony is a rhetorical whirlwind that disrupts language and undermines normativity.

Dualistic dismissals of “Ironic” foreclose its vivacious, nonbinary complexity. “Irony does not involve the simple substitution of the opposite for the literal meaning,” said Barthes in "Elements of Semiology." “It is a form of semantic pivot which overturns the hierarchy of language, bringing into play the signified and the signifier, the explicit and the implicit, the internal and the external, the present and the absent.” By Barthesian standards, “Ironic” is ironic. This is especially true when Alanis questions whether life can be a little too ironic. The Greeks conceived of irony as pass/fail, but Alanis considers irony to be a spectrum, and she slides from side to side across the examples in the song in a manner that is definitely akin to Barthesian play. The most critics can really claim is that she didn’t do so on purpose.

Diablo Cody knew she wanted to directly address the decades of controversy about “Ironic,” especially given that Alanis consistently has a playful attitude about the criticism. Cody writes that Alanis was “always open” to poking gentle fun at the song and “there is such a discourse around the inaccuracy of that song.” The use of “inaccuracy” here is telling, as if a rhetorical device could be objectively correct or not. She set the debate in an English class because it absolutely does belong there. “I would not have taken that meta approach unless I had felt that the song demanded it,” she wrote. Rather than make fun of the song, Cody forthrightly admits she wanted to “make fun of the song’s critics.”

Celia Rose Gooding relates to the way criticism is deployed against her character, to shut her up in a grand sense just as critics tried to quiet Alanis. “People don’t like it when women speak their truth,” Gooding says in the musical book. “When you can find a little piece of something almost fractionally incorrect, it’s so easy to just say, ‘You’re wrong. You’re stupid. You don’t know what you’re talking about, girl.’” There’s the feminist seedling. We’ve covered why the broader French mode of irony that makes space for “Ironic” is superior to the Greek mode that excludes it, but we have not yet tied the irony issue to a larger conversation about sexism in the dismissal of Alanis’ work.

For this, we turn to the work of Lauren Berlant. Berlant was one of the most influential 21st century American cultural critics, known for pioneering the field of affect studies. Though they didn’t build upon Jung directly, their examination of how emotions are socially constructed is well aligned with Jung’s notion of how archetypes format human experience. Berlant theorizes that women’s feelings are simultaneously expressed and constrained by sentimentality. The portrayal of intense emotional states tied to women’s experiences is certainly a main mission of Alanis’ body of work and could also be considered a Jungian archetype. "Jagged Little Pill" is exemplary of the psychological landscaping Berlant is interested in as a cultural expression operating at the intersection of emotion, gender and power in public life. To silo or deride the mission of Alanis is to file it away as “female complaint”.

I am going to end with an earlier Salon feature. One that came a decade before the previous one. If some feel Ironic’s lyrics contain no irony, then retrospection and examination has proved otherwise. This is what Salon wrote in 2014. A song I first heard in 1995, I have loved it ever since. It never gets boring or loses any of its brilliance:

“First, let’s get this out of the way: calling Alanis Morissette’s lyrics unironic is wrong. From “irony” in the Oxford English Dictionary:

3. A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected; an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations.

This accurately and uncontroversially describes almost all of the song’s situations. For everyone I know, rain on one’s wedding day would indeed be cruelly, humorously, and strangely at odds with expectations. This sort of irony is usually called “situational irony,” and while I’m usually opposed to breaking irony apart into discrete kinds, the phrase works pretty well here to describe the many ironic examples that Alanis describes. Both that 98-year-old-man and Mr. Play-it-Safe possess fates that are truly ironic; they struggle to create a meaningful narrative in the face of a world that thwarts their intentions. The only moment in the song that doesn’t easily fit into this definition of irony is one of the last, with the “man of my dreams” and “his beautiful wife.” There is certainly a contrast there, but it doesn’t seem to be one of expectations; I’ll get to that later. In general, though, the song evokes the disparity of meaning that comes from the difference of expectation and actuality. Just because no one is being sarcastic doesn’t mean the song isn’t ironic.

But let’s not stop there. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that in writing this Alanis has a much deeper, more radical, and philosophical concept of irony. It seems to me that Ms. Morissette is remarkably well versed in the theories of irony from Erasmus to Paul de Man; if she hasn’t read their works herself, then she has certainly internalized much of the theory of irony not only as a trope but as a question of philosophy.

Take, for example: “It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take.” This is the vaguest line in the song, and it seems to pose a challenge to the ironist. Presumably the situational irony here is that the listener didn’t expect the advice to apply, whereas it did indeed. But why didn’t “you” take the advice? It’s possible that you thought the advice-giver was being ironic, and didn’t intend for you to heed the advice. Or you simply thought that the advice wasn’t “good” when it was; either way you don’t take it “seriously.” In fact that word, “seriously,” haunts the end of the lyric; the irony here is one of (mis)interpretation. Paul de Man addresses this difficulty of interpretation in his essay “The Concept of Irony” (not to be confused with Kierkegaard’s book of the same name): “what is at stake in irony is the possibility of understanding, the possibility of reading, the readability of texts, the possibility of deciding on A meaning or on a multiple set of meanings or on a controlled polysemy of meanings.” Doesn’t Alanis provide the perfect example of living in a world where we’re unsure of what to take seriously, and what not to? And who, really, would have thought it figures?

A more global question: what is “Ironic” really about, anyway? I turn to the bridge/outro: “Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you / Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out” What is she talking about here? How is life helping her out? It seems to me that this song, like so many songs on Jagged Little Pill, is describing the wistful emotional reflection that a Gen-Xer feels when distanced from her own life experience. Think Daria, think Reality Bites. It’s telling that the music video features three Alanises taking a road trip: Alanis sees herself from the outside. A friend once described this popular 1990s attitude as “the meaningfulness of meaninglessness.“ Come to think of it, that describes the poetry of T.S. Eliot pretty well too.

Or, put another way, Alanis is describing the affect of Kierkegaardian irony. From the philosopher’s book The Concept of Irony:

In irony, the subject is negatively free, since the actuality that is supposed to give the subject content is not there. He is free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject, but he is negatively free and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him. But this very freedom, this suspension, gives the ironist a certain enthusiasm, because he becomes intoxicated, so to speak, in the infinity of possibilities…”.

It is a shame more people have not properly talked about Ironic! As a piece of work and how it sits alongside other songs from the 1990s. Most of the features zone in on the debate around Ironic’s actual irony. I think that Ironic is one of the many genius tracks from Jagged Little Pill. As that album turns thirty on 13th June, I was keen to spotlight its biggest track. I may do another feature around the album but, for now, I am sticking with Ironic. A superb track that continues to be played around the world, I think it is important everyone…

SHOWS it some love.

FEATURE: Feminist Icons: Caitlin Moran

FEATURE:

 

Feminist Icons

PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Harrison 

 

Caitlin Moran

__________

SOMEONE who I have…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jay Brooks/The Guardian

discussed a fair bit recently, I am including Caitlin Moran in my Feminist Icons feature. You can find her books here. I am going to bring some interviews with her. Finishing off with promotion around her latest book, 2023’s What About Men?, I want to start out with some interviews from an interview from 2012. Apologies if this is a little scattershot and random. What I aim to do with this series is introduce people to feminist writers and provide links to their work - and drop in a few interviews. I will start with an interview Published in 2012, when Caitlin Moran spoke with NPR. They write how Moran “says that most women who don't want to be called feminists don't understand the term”. This is a writer, author and feminist whose words and work has really inspired me:

“GROSS: (Laughter) OK, great.

MORAN: (Reading) So here is the quick way of working out if you are a feminist. A - do you have a vagina? And B - do you want to be in charge of it? If you said yes to both, then congratulations. You're a feminist, because we need to reclaim the word feminism. We need to reclaim the word feminism real bad.

When statistics come in saying that only 29 percent of American women would describe themselves as feminist, and only 42 percent of British women, I used to think, what do you think feminism is, ladies? What part of liberation for women is not for you? Is it the freedom to vote, the right not to be owned by the man that you marry, the campaign for equal pay, "Vogue" by Madonna, jeans? Did all that stuff just get on your nerves, or were you just drunk at the time of survey?

These days, however, I am much calmer, since I realize that it's actually technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism. Without feminism, you wouldn't be allowed to have a debate on a woman's place in society. You'd be too busy giving birth on the kitchen floor, biting down on a wooden spoon so as not to disturb the men's card game, before going back to hoeing the rutabaga field.

GROSS: Thank you for reading that. That's Caitlin Moran, reading from her new book "How To Be A Woman." So why do you think so many people, so many women, don't want to be associated with the word feminism?

MORAN: I think it's simply because they don't know what it means. When - one of the reasons that I wanted to write a whole book about feminism, rather than just endlessly wanging on about it in a bar - which had previously been my technique in order to spread the word for the sisterhood - it was because I was meeting a lot of younger women. And I would kind of confidently say oh, well, you know, we're all feminists here.

And they would, with a look of horror, as if I had just banged them on the knee with a fork, go no, I'm not a feminist. And you go, what do you mean? And, you know, you kind of - you run through kind of, you know, what being a feminist means, sort of like voting and, you know, rape being illegal and not being a legal possession of your husband.

And they go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we're into all of that. I said, well, you are a feminist then. Women are feminist by default. And you live in a feminist world. The first world is feminist. You are educated equally to boys. You're expected to go into equal employment with boys. In a marriage, you are legally equal. So, you know, you cannot deny we live in a feminist world.

GROSS: What made you realize that?

MORAN: I never didn't realize it. I was, I mean, I was brought up in a kind of, you know, very hippie, liberal family. And it was just always automatically assumed that men and women were equal and indeed superior. I mean, when you've got a mother who's given birth to eight children, you know, often without any kind of medical intervention - just she gave birth to one of my brothers sort of on the bedroom floor in front of all of us -you know, you see that women are fairly capable.

So that was why it was always weird kind of, you know, whenever we did have a television - our possession of a television was sporadic because we were quite poor, and they would often be repossessed. But whenever we did have a TV, and you'd see the women on television, you'd be like, why are these women kind of pretending to be stupid or just kind of - just being all blonde and giggly and kind of only operating as an adjunct to the male characters? You know, why aren't the women as important as the men?”.

The mother of teenage daughters, in 2020 for The Guardian, Caitlin Moran wrote how she marvels at some of the things she got wrong in How to Be a Woman. However, there is a lot she got right! I guess things changed and shifted in the years after that book was released (2011). I would urge everyone to read all of her books. Even if some observations are not quite accurate or Moran things they it is dated, they are essential reading. Moran speaking about her experiences as a woman:

“What are the key changes since I wrote How To Be A Woman? Mainly, they are incredibly positive: when I see what my teenage daughters are listening to, reading or watching, whether it’s Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You staring at a menstrual blood clot on her bed, Lizzo singing about body positivity, the Broad City girls hustling for their dollar in NYC, Jameela Jamil showing off her stretch marks, Janelle Monae singing about bisexuality, or Queenie hitting the clubs, living her best life and surviving the asshats, I think, with great satisfaction, how this is the the best era for joyous, mainstream feminist role models young women have ever had. In 1985, I had the choice of Margaret Thatcher or Miss Piggy. Back then, young women really had to make do.

The only thing I would do, as someone who is now officially an Old Crone – these are my Hag Years, and I am proud of them – is caution all these amazing, strident young maids: don’t eat your sisters. While feminism’s online call-out culture stems from good intentions – to accelerate progress, to hold people to account – it is noticeable that there is barely a feminist of the last 10 years, whether it be a pop star, comedian, academic, businesswoman, politician or activist, who hasn’t, at some point, been brutally hauled across the social media coals for getting an aspect of feminism “wrong”.

These days, there is hypervigilance around talking about being a woman that makes “being a woman” feel like something a bit effortful, and perilous, and something you could publicly fail at – which is a miserable climate to be young in. One enduring aspect of being young is believing in moral absolutism. We’ve all done it: I remember thinking I would never be friends with someone who preferred the Stone Roses over Happy Mondays. But this is, undeniably, a far more inflexible and judgmental era than when I was a teenager, or young woman.

So many young feminists I meet are in such a state of anxiety about accidentally saying the “wrong” thing – so terrified of making a mistake on social media, despite wanting, desperately, to be kind and good – that they would prefer to remain silent on various subjects. This puts the future of feminism in a risky position because online activism is, like love and care, unpaid work. And when women shame each other for free, for months on end, the patriarchy simply sits back smoking a big cigar, touching its genitals, and murmuring, “Yes, ladies, yes, keep fighting. Could some of you – the younger, sexier ones – maybe put on a bikini? And do it in this pool of jelly?”

From my 45-year-old Witch Throne, where I have seen feminism ebb, flow and ebb again, I feel I should croakingly remind everyone, once more, about the most crucial, brilliant, sometimes frustrating thing about feminism: it’s really not a science. It has no rules. It’s still just an idea, created by millions, over centuries, and it can only survive if the next generation feels able to kick ideas around, ask questions, make mistakes and reinvent the concept over and over, so we can build the next wave of feminism. And the next. And the next.

Feminism is at its best when it looks like freedom. When it remembers that you must never underestimate the importance of progress looking like it could, among other things, be fun. When it’s the place where women can feel relaxed, and hopeful in their bones. When they feel so connected with each other that, sometimes, they can go up to strangers on a train at 10am on a Tuesday, happily shouting about how they have just discovered another new, brilliant thing about being a woman”.

Caitlin Moran has started new conversation about feminism. For What About Men?, she turned her focus on men. Realising how there isn’t a positive men’s movement. It is a really fascinating book that got a lot of unfair backlash and criticism – mostly from men! I want to move to an interview with GQ. Again, I am quoting various bits from interviews to give you a broad overview of Caitlin Moran. I would urge people to read further and definitely seek out her books:

“One of the tricky things Moran has to navigate is that her talking points about why men are in peril put her in strange company with those bogeymen currently stalking our classrooms: Tate, Jordan Peterson and a thousand imitators of their psuedo-intellectual schtick who ooze down TikTok’s FYP like an oil spill, coating our teenage boys’ brains with muddled convictions about “body counts” and the “proper” role of women alongside dubious advice about stock trading and how to bench press. Anyone who has been longing to read a proper, funny takedown of either charlatan will find much to enjoy in What About Men?; Peterson in particular brings out the ferocious best in Moran’s writing.

"Whenever Peterson hits on a truth, it’s usually someone else's" In this exclusive extract from her new book What About Men, Caitlin Moran takes aim at the Canadian author and his 12 Rules for Life

“I didn’t go to university, but when Time magazine is calling [Peterson] the most important intellectual of our time, I’m reading his book going: ‘No! This is either stuff pulled from other people or stuff your Mum would say!’” she says, “undercut with the fact that he's a very depressive, fundamentalist Christian whose Twitter feed just tells you where he's at now – it's all climate denial, rampant, really awful transphobia and this belief that Justin Trudeau is somehow the Antichrist.”

We return to her original point, about who has paid the price while the conversation around men has soured. “The stakes in this are teenage boys. To men and women of my generation, it’s a recent corrective that feminism is so positive – women are the future! Beyoncé! Feminist clubs and vagina merchandise on Etsy! We don’t realise that for 15-year-old boys, that’s all they’ve grown up with. For them, they’re going ‘When was the last time anyone said anything good about boys?’”

Nothing visits misery upon the world like a young man who hates himself. In the end, if there’s a self-esteem crisis developing among men, people of all genders will bear the load of it. In the suicide epidemic, for example, which is the biggest killer of men under 50, it is often female relatives who are left to pick up the pieces. Over the past decade, it has sometimes felt like we’ve lost sight of how interconnected our fates are. Men have benefitted hugely from women becoming more empowered over the past decade. It’s resulted in better conversations, stronger workplaces, plenty of great art. If we can find a positive narrative for men – a way to make just being a man something to celebrate, without leaning into the regressive cruelty of Tate – maybe we can start to return the favour.

For what it’s worth, the dog line made me laugh out loud

Moran suggests the answer isn’t to reverse feminism but to be inspired by it: for men to get our own adjacent little thing going. “Feminism isn’t a set of rules about women,” she says. “It's a set of tools for understanding gender. So if we want to reinvent men, you go and look at these tools that we invented that allow you to go: is this because of my gender? Why is this a problem? I don't like these clichés about my gender.”

Moran’s attempts to kickstart this positive narrative around men make up the bulk of the book. While some sections feel more aimed at providing eureka moments for middle-aged mums – chapters on “The Cock and Balls of Men” and pornography cover ground we’re pretty familiar with, thanks very much – What About Men? ends with a list of characteristics she has decided, with the help of her Twitter followers, are typical of men when they are at their best. It includes things like “nonjudgmental”, “protective”, “brave”, “joyous” – before Moran realises she’s been describing a dog.

This passage – which recently ran as an extract in The Times – has already attracted a backlash to the book, an early sign of the choppy water Moran is about to swim into. For what it’s worth, the dog line made me laugh out loud, and realise how much we’ve desperately needed some levity in the conversation around masculinity. It’s all become so loaded, so tense, so joyless.

Since How To Be A Woman, Moran has, in her own words, been “cancelled 20 times”, her politics found wanting by younger generations. Others this week have already pointed out that not all well-meaning men have spent the past decade sitting on their hands – many have started organisations and charities aimed at tackling the crisis facing young boys. Moran is not inventing the idea of a positive conversation around men any more than she invented feminism in 2011. But what her book does, I think, is give a green light for the discourse to get a little lighter, a little more human, a little less po-faced and uptight and – frankly – scared.

“Women are at peak ‘Don't give a fuck’ at the moment,” Moran says. “You are so richly rewarded if you find a taboo and bust it. Women have found the perfect tone to that, which doesn’t hurt anyone. Men haven’t found that yet”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Lane

I am going to end with an interview from TIME. I am going to write more about Caitlin Moran in future features. Do her proper justice. However, as a modern feminist icon and one of our most important writers, I did want to revisit her work. In terms of where she goes next, I am fascinated to see what she will cover. I think Moran will focus on positivity and serotonin. Writing about women and their experiences but bringing joy into the mix:

“How worried should women be about plight of modern men? What with overcoming the imbalance in leadership, eliminating the gender wage gap, and figuring out how to address sexual assault, women have quite a lot on their plate already. Then again, it's hard to deny that men are struggling. They are more likely to be imprisoned, to be homeless, and to be unemployed and less likely to graduate from college. Recently a new (and unexpected) champion added her name to the list of people officially concerned about men's predicament: the feminist writer Caitlin Moran.

“You just described something as feminism which feels more like just women being supportive of each other. Are they the same?

The feminist movement goes, "Let's collectively not just change our own lives and solve our own problems, but let's change legislation. Let's change business. Let's change the structure." Each chapter in my book is a problem that men face that is specific to their gender. About half of their problems are things that could just be solved by brotherhood, you know, talking to each other and helping each other. But the other half do need some kind of systemic change, whether it be an education, in employment, in medical care, in mental health.

Moran's Rule No. 2 is that the patriarchy is screwing over men as hard as it's screwing over women. Is it patriarchy or is it changes in technology and global trade?

I think all men presume they're in the patriarchy, and they're winning. And it's like, no, no, no. There's 10 guys at the top of this tree, who are doing OK, but you're being f-cked over as well because you're the guy that’s scared he’s about to be punched when you go to school. You're the one that's been told not to cry. You're the one that doesn't have paternity leave. The advantage women have is that we talk about the patriarchy, and we know how it disadvantages us. Men haven't yet started the conversation. So they're only about 50 years behind us in terms of talking about gender.

Did writing this book you change your mind about men?

If you're a 15-year-old boy, in the last 10 years, [female empowerment] is all you will ever have heard. Their dads know that this is a very recent and mild corrective to 10,000 years of patriarchy because they can remember a childhood of rampant sexism everywhere. The boys just don't have that perspective. And so they are angry.

I'm wondering what you think your chances are, as a noted feminist, of getting young men to read your book?

My favorite thing is to find an area that's taboo, shameful, dark, difficult, and awkward, anything that's usually hard to start a conversation about, and to find a way of starting a conversation about that, where you can basically blame me. Mums can read this and they can find a sort of modern, relaxed, humorous, realistic way to talk to their sons about things like violence and extreme online pornography, which would otherwise be a difficult topic to raise in the middle of Christmas Day”.

Someone whose work I really love and someone whose books I think everyone should own. If you are not familiar with her work then go and seek her out. I am going to end things there. An incredible writer whose work has touched and inspired so many girls and women, I also think many men have connected with her words – I most definitely have! I cannot wait to follow her career going forward. Even though she is a journalist who writes regularly for The Times, there is something about her books that is especially compelling. I love the way she writes. For those with very little Caitlin Moran in their collection, go and…

ADD her to your bookshelf.