FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Shania Twain at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Shania Twain at Sixty

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I may have sourced…

this biography before but, as the absolute music legend that is Shania Twain turns sixty on 28th August, I wanted to return to it. I am going to end with a career-spanning playlist. To show what a phenomenal catalogue of work Twain has accrued. One of the most successful female artists ever, this is someone who has been responsible for inspiring so many other artists. Most might know her for 1997’s Come on Over. That album was a massive-selling success and spawned s string of popular singles. Shaina Twain is more than one album. She has released so much brilliant music through her career:

“Shania Twain rivaled Garth Brooks as the defining country star of the 1990s, the musician who helped broaden the sound and appeal of the genre. Where Brooks brought a pop audience to country, Twain invaded the pop charts, working with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange to marry country conventions with classic rock swagger and adult contemporary appeal. The pair unveiled this blend on The Woman in Me, the 1995 album that produced four number one country hits, but perfected it on Come on Over, a 1997 blockbuster featuring "You're Still the One," "That Don't Impress Me Much," and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman," hits that altered the course of modern pop by delivering country music with the flair and style of MTV. Twain's appeal extended far beyond American country audiences, targeting international markets with Up!, a 2002 album that marked the end of her collaboration with Lange but not her stardom. She spent the first years of the 2000s and 2010s quietly, as generations of musicians raised on her music started to become stars in their own right. After a nearly 25-year hiatus, Twain re-emerged with the reflective Now, which debuted on the top of the charts upon its release in 2017. For its 2023 follow-up, Queen of Me, Twain moved in a decidedly pop direction.

Twain was born in Windsor, Ontario, and raised in the small, rural town of Timmins, Ontario. As a child, she learned to play guitar at an early age and would spend much of her time singing, writing, and playing. Early on in her musical development, her parents pushed her on-stage, making her perform frequently around their little town; often, she would be pulled out of bed around one in the morning to sing at local bars, since as a child she could only appear in the clubs after they had stopped serving alcohol. In addition to bars, she sang on local radio and television stations and at community events. When she was 21 years old, both of her parents died in a car crash, forcing her to take responsibility for her four siblings. In order to pay the bills and keep food on the table, she took a job singing at a resort in Deerhurst. With the money she earned at the resort, she bought a house and had the family settle down.

She sang show tunes, from George Gershwin to Andrew Lloyd Webber, as well as a little country. Twain stayed at the resort for three years, at the end of which all of her siblings had begun lives of their own. When she was finally independent again, she assembled a demo tape of her songs, and her manager set up a showcase concert in Canada. Twain caught the attention of a few insiders with the concert, and within a few months Mercury Nashville had signed her to their roster. Her eponymous debut album was released in 1993, and although it wasn't a major hit, it performed respectably in the United States, launching two minor hit singles, "What Made You Say That" and "Dance with the One That Brought You"; in Europe, the album was more successful and Country Music Television Europe named her Rising Video Star of the Year.

Shortly after the release of Shania Twain, the singer met and fell in love with Robert John "Mutt" Lange, a hard rock producer known for his work with AC/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner, and the Cars. Lange had been wanting to move into country music for a while, and after hearing Twain's debut album, he decided to get in contact with her with the intention of working on an album. By the end of the year, the pair had married and begun working on her second record. The two either wrote or co-wrote the material that eventually formed The Woman in Me.

The Woman in Me was released in the spring of 1995. Its first single, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?," went to number 11 early in the year, quickly followed by "Any Man of Mine," which became her first number one single in the spring. The album's title track went to number 14 in the fall, while the fourth single, "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!," rocketed to number one toward the end of the year; early in 1996, "No One Needs to Know" became her third number one hit. By the beginning of 1996, The Woman in Me had sold over six million copies and broken the record for the most weeks spent at number one on the country charts. During the course of 1996, it would rack up another three million in sales. Come on Over followed in 1997. She spent the next two years touring the globe in support of the album; by the end of 1999, Come on Over had sold 36 million copies.

Twain took a sabbatical and returned to her Swiss home for some down time with her husband. The next summer, she and Lange welcomed their first child. A son, whom they named Eja, arrived August 21, 2001. During this time, Twain brainstormed for a fourth album. While balancing a domestic life and a career, the end result was Up!, which appeared in November 2002.Up! was released to considerable fanfare -- not only was it accompanied by a huge publicity blitz, but it appeared in three different mixes, designed to appeal to country, pop, and international audiences -- and it was initially a big success, selling over 870,000 copies in the U.S. upon its first week and debuting at number one in the Billboard charts, but despite such hits as “I'm Gonna Getcha Good!” and “Forever and for Always,” it failed to have the same kind of staying power as The Woman in Me or Come on Over. Those two albums sold over 10 million copies a piece in the U.S., whereas Up! sold 5.5 million -- an impressive number that only pales when compared to her track record. As Up! worked its way down the charts, Twain released a Greatest Hits album in the holiday season of 2004; the compilation was a great success, going triple platinum in the U.S. where it peaked at number two on the Billboard charts. In the wake of Greatest Hits, Twain released a song called "Shoes" on the 2005 soundtrack to the TV soap opera Desperate Housewives, but otherwise she slowly slid into an extended hiatus.

In 2008, she announced her separation from husband Mutt Lange, and in the following year she wrote an open letter to her fans apologizing for the lack of new music. Despite this, new music wasn't imminent from Twain. She started to return to active status in 2011 via the reality series Why Not? With Shania Twain, which culminated with the release of a new single called "Today Is Your Day"; it peaked at 36 upon its July 2011 release. A few on-record cameos followed -- she appeared on Michael Bublé's 2011 Christmas album and on Lionel Richie's 2012 country album Tuskegee -- before she turned her attention to a three-year residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Once that wrapped up, she embarked on a tour called Rock This Country in 2015. During 2016, she worked on the album that became Now, teased by the singles "Life's About to Get Good" and "Swinging with My Eyes Closed." Now was released in September 2017, debuting at number one on Billboard's Top 200 and Country Albums charts.

Twain supported Now with an international tour, which was followed by a Las Vegas residency called Let's Go! opening in late 2019. Originally slated to run for two years, it wound up being curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During July 2022, the Not Just a Girl documentary debuted on Netflix, accompanied by the hits collection Not Just a Girl: The Highlights. Shortly afterward, she preleased "Waking Up Dreaming," a cheerful preview of her sixth studio album, Queen of Me. Featuring collaborations with such producers as Adam Messinger, Mark Ralph, David Stewart, and Tyler Joseph, Queen of Me found Twain embracing 21st century pop, emphasizing big, happy hooks and a clean digital sheen”.

I am going to end things in a second. On 28th August, the titan that is Shainia Twin turns sixty. I hope that she has many more albums inside of her. The word gets overused when it comes to music. ‘Icon’. However, when it comes to Shania Twain, she very much is…

A true icon.  

FEATURE: Spotlight: Alessi Rose

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning for DORK

Alessi Rose

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RELEASED on 25th July…

Voyeur is the debut E.P. from the fantastic Alessi Rose. She is one of our brightest young artists. Someone I have just discovered but has been getting a lot of love for a while now. I will come to some interviews with this phenomenal talent. Before that, there is some biography that provides some background of Alessi Rose. I can see her dominating the music scene in years to come:

“Born in Derby, East Midlands, Alessi was drawn to the stage from a young age, enrolling in singing lessons as a child and taking an instant shine to musical theatre. Raised by a mum who loved ‘80s new wave and a dad who loved country music – “My dad put me on to Taylor Swift, which is funny,” she quips – she remembers feeling creative from a young age, entering poetry competitions in school and eventually combining her fondness for that form with the skills she was learning in singing and piano lessons. It was a strike of youthful ingenuity that led to her actually sharing her talent with the world: after seeing Gracie Abrams posting 30-second clips of herself performing to camera, and seeing some flicker of resemblance in Gracie’s conversational, casual style, Alessi decided to start posting videos of herself performing in her bedroom, too. Posting performance videos emboldened Alessi to pursue music for real. Towards the end of lockdown, a friend of her parents had found out that she was interested in music, helped her download music production software and gave her a pair of speakers to use as monitors in her makeshift bedroom studio; slowly, she began to self-produce demos and upload them to BBC Introducing. Dean Jackson started playing Alessi’s bedroom productions, which weren’t even mixed or mastered, every Saturday, an early boost that signalled to Alessi that maybe her dreams of stardom weren’t so far-fetched; she ended 2022 being one of their most played artists of the year, without ever officially releasing any songs. Alessi’s hustler instincts kicked in, and she began trawling the credits of her favourite songs on Spotify and cold-emailing producers she particularly liked, sending hundreds of emails asking if anyone wanted to work with her”.

Six months after her E.P., for your validation, Voyeur is out. There is this momentum forming. It is worth reading some interviews from earlier in the year such as this one. We get an idea of how Alessi Rose was being written about after the release of her previous E.P. Now, with this incredible new E.P. out in the world, there will be many who are picking up on her music for the first time. I am moving to an interview from DIY. From playing at small venues to playing festivals and huge spaces, it has been a whirlwind. This big leap that is richly deserve:

“Now, a mere six months on from unveiling her second project, the pop powerhouse is embracing a new chapter with her latest EP. “‘Voyeur’ is me dealing with [my] transition into being an artist and someone that people look to,” the 22-year-old explains. A body of work that sees her navigate the trials and tribulations of young adulthood while adjusting to being in the public eye, the eight-track project has already sparked discourse online. “I’ve always had a relatively young audience and I think that makes people think that I have to be palatable,” she notes, referencing the degree of controversy surrounding its title. “But I’d rather teach young girls that they don’t have to be palatable and suit everything that people want them to be.”

Deconstructing her relationships and experiences with unguarded candour, the EP lays out Alessi’s uncompromisingly bold vision. “The voyeurism is two-fold; the people who listen to my music become a voyeur in that they know all of these deeply personal things about me, but also I’m a voyeur of myself and my own decisions,” she explains. Between ‘Dumb Girl’’s visceral declaration of “Your tongue fits in my mouth / Like it’s by design”, to the aching frustration of unrequited love on angsty guitar anthem ‘Same Mouth’, or the emotional fallout of a friendship breakup on the ‘90s indie rock-infused ‘Stella’, ‘Voyeur’ finds the singer revelling in her artistic freedom.

Written over the past six months between her hometown and sessions in London and LA, the EP further marks a shift in Alessi’s creative process. “I’ve become a lot more comfortable with the label of pop,” she explains. After initially grappling with whether her lyric-focused writing style could fit within the genre, it was ultimately the time-defying classics of Britney and ‘80s Madonna that reaffirmed her mission. “I don’t think you have to sacrifice anything by calling yourself a pop artist; there’s so much scope”. It’s a statement that comes to light on EP standout ‘Take It or Leave It’, which pairs wittily poetic storytelling with an infectious, hook-driven chorus, issuing a defiant bite-back at a non-committal lover.

Paving the way for a new generation of popstars, Alessi’s confessional anthems continue to resonate on a global scale. With a run of festival dates this summer (including a set at Madrid’s Mad Cool this month) and her third headline tour scheduled for this autumn - alongside a series of dates supporting Tate McRae in North America - hers is a name that’s set to remain on the tip of everyone’s tongue. But, as the crowds proceed to get bigger, it’s the support of her fans (the self-titled ‘delulu girls’) that remain at the centre of it all. “Playing any size venue to people [who are] there for you and [are] passionate about you is the best feeling ever - they’re the reason I do this,” she grins.

Whether it’s making her Glastonbury debut opening the Other Stage or announcing her next single by projecting it onto Wembley Stadium, Alessi Rose has undeniably found her forte in transforming her innermost thoughts into huge pop moments. And, if the last 18 months are anything to go by, it looks like she’s well on her way to headlining arenas herself”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

Before moving to the final two interviews, it is interesting to note the reaction Alessi Rose got when she played Glastonbury recently. Playing the Other Stage on the Saturday, DORK highlighted an artist who sold out a U.K. and European tour and is primed for seriously huge things. I am going to end with an interview from NME. Before that, People chatted with Alessi Rose about an E.P. where she has truly hit her stride. Perhaps the most personal and authentically ‘her’ work. One that comes off of the back of these incredible sets and some big exposure this year:

"Voyeur feels like the most quintessentially 'me' project that I have released so far. My next wave of music feels self-assured, formed through the sounds I have learned to love whilst spending more and more time in the studio working with my favorite people," she says about the E.P.

"It's pop music but it's lyrically based in my most introspective, raw and sometimes uncomfortable thoughts," she continues. "It also all just feels massive to me. I remember listening to the masters of all of the tracks whilst running over Williamsburg bridge and just feeling emotional and so proud of this thing I'd made."

After supporting Dua Lipa on the European leg of her tour as an opening act, Rose is set to join Tate McRae as she plays in the U.S. this fall.

"My headline shows in New York and L.A. back in April had some of the most lively and passionate crowds I've ever performed for," says the singer, who recently played at Glastonbury.

"I felt nervous up until the very last minute, which is very unlike me but the moment I stepped out, I felt back to normal and empowered and kind of emotional," she adds about her festival set. "I've watched Glastonbury sets on TV with my parents for as long as I can remember, and now I get to perform too."

While in Madrid, Rose performed at the Mad Cool Festival, which marked her first headlining show in Spain.

"They are some of the most passionate, energetic and loving people I am lucky to call fans of my music," says Rose, who got to meet some of the fans at the UMusic Shop.

"It's the best, most special feeling in the world," she adds of seeing them sporting her merch and singing along to her music. "I am endlessly grateful that I get to be around them and understood by them. That's why touring is my favorite part of all of this. I get to see them all".

Before some exciting U.K. dates starting from November and European dates in September, Alessi Rose will play Reading & Leeds next month. You can check out her dates here. This NME cover story spotlighted an artist documenting the messiness and complexities of growing up. One of the fastest-rising artists this country has produced for years, there is a section of the interview that particularly caught my eye. One of the defining aspects of Alessi Rose’s artistry is her lyrics. Confessional and raw, it has connected with so many fans:

“Rose’s meteoric rise thus far is a testament to her deeply confessional brand of songwriting – one that’s allowed her to build a deep connection to her fanbase, who’ve dubbed themselves the “delulu girls”. Her appeal lies in a fortuitous combination of skills: Rose is both a storyteller letting you in on her most intimate thoughts (and occasionally most humiliating experiences) and an architect of endlessly catchy pop hooks – the kind you find yourself humming on your commute after hearing once on the radio. Alongside that, she has the stage presence of a born pop star, unfazed by intimidating, iconic stages.

Mostly, though, it’s an homage to the theme of romantic devotion that serves as her most consistent muse. “I have always been inspired by the relationship between worship and unrequited love,” she explains, tapping into the hivemind of a generation afraid to commit: a 2024 poll from YouGov found that 50 per cent of 18-to-30-year-olds had been in a situationship, a statistic often attributed to their coming of age in a turbulent political period and unstable economic climate.

This penchant for grasping for shreds of attention from situationships feels akin to seeking cosmic signs from a divine force, Rose thinks. “When you are so devoted to a god, you’re giving so much energy, and maybe sometimes you’re not getting the energy back. When I am going through the process of crushing on someone, there is so much energy invested into this thing, and who knows if it even exists.”

Perhaps it’s why Rose is blunt when addressing sex in her music, presenting a stark contrast to the way pop has traditionally skirted around the topic through irony and innuendo. Though infinitely more poetic, the tone of Rose’s lyrics often resembles a particularly candid voice note to a best friend, brimming with horniness, desperation and regret. On ‘Everything Anything’, from her upcoming EP ‘Voyeur’, she’s left confused over someone she “used to have sex” with who now won’t pick up the phone, while on ‘Oh My’, she laments a love interest who “gives me head while I’ve been losin’ mine.”

“It just feels nice to be completely honest,” she says. “I love metaphorical lyrics. I love cheeky, sexy pop songs, but for me, I like to revel in the discomfort and the provocative side of it.”

In some ways, her desire to be upfront comes from a sense of responsibility to her predominantly female and queer fanbase, whom she’s keen to demystify and destigmatise sex for. “I didn’t really get much of a sex education in my school. I knew nothing, and that was quite scary,” she says. “We should talk about sex more. I mean, there’s nothing unnatural about it.”

Inevitably, having a young following introduces pressure to become a role model – something Rose has been grappling with recently. Now, she says she’s keen to take on the title, but as a big sister, hoping you’ll learn from her own excruciating mistakes, rather than a saintlike figure who won’t make any at all. “I don’t think any 16-year-old wants to be spoken to like a 16-year-old, anyway,” she affirms. “When I was a teenager, I would look to movies and books and art when I wanted to feel older and more mature”.

Go and check out Voyeur and follow Alessi Rose. After festival dates and her U.K. shows later in the year, it is onwards and upwards. Not much time to rest, I hope she gets time to reflect on a massive year. Perhaps the most important of her career. The next few years are going to see her go from a promising/rising artist to someone who will stand alongside the biggest artists in the world. Worldwide success and admiration will occur…

SOONER rather than later.

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Follow Alessi Rose

PHOTO CREDIT: Bella Howard for NME

Official:

https://shopuk.alessirosemusic.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/alessirose/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/alessir0se

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6QXtidyXX0uGggafrYdktx?si=j9g-9EE2QpGTLw4sVSeMwA

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1gy4m2zFMkPZE7aKMST-CA

FEATURE: Is This Just Fantasy? Fifty Years Since Queen Started Recording Bohemian Rhapsody

FEATURE:

 

 

Is This Just Fantasy?

Fifty Years Since Queen Started Recording Bohemian Rhapsody

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I will look more deeply at the song…

IN THIS PHOTO: (L-R) Brian May, John Deacon (standing), Roger Taylor and Freddie Mercury at Les Ambassadeurs where they were presented with silver, gold and platinum discs for sales in excess of one million of Bohemian Rhapsody, which was number one for nine weeks, on 8th September, 1976 in London/PHOTO CREDIT: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

in a minute. Queen started recording Bohemian Rhapsody on 24th August, 1975, at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. The recording process took about three weeks. It is almost fifty years since the band recorded one of the best songs ever created. An epic multi-suite work of genius that the world had seen nothing like. Released as a single on 31st October, 1975, Bohemian Rhapsody reached number one in the U.K. and other countries around the world. You can read more about the track here. As it is almost fifty years since Queen started work on Bohemian Rhapsody, I want to mark its anniversary. The first single from the band’s fourth studio album, A Night at the Opera, I want to delve into the story of this classic song. A Night at the Opera was released on 28th November, 1975. Even though nothing on the album quite matches Bohemian Rhapsody, it does contain another Queen gem: John Deacon’s You’re My Best Friend. I want to start with this article from last year. An ambitious and rule-breaking song that smashed records and continues to stun listeners, this amazing work from Freddie Mercury will never be equalled in terms of its idiosyncrasy and ambition. There have been songs since that tried to match the scale and shape of Bohemian Rhapsody. However, you can never better the original:

“Queen guitarist Brian May remembers the brilliant singer and songwriter giving them the first glimpse in the early 70s of the masterpiece he had at one time called “The Cowboy Song,” perhaps because of the line “Mama… just killed a man.”

“I remember Freddie coming in with loads of bits of paper from his dad’s work, like Post-it notes, and pounding on the piano,” May said in 2008. “He played the piano like most people play the drums. And this song he had was full of gaps where he explained that something operatic would happen here and so on. He’d worked out the harmonies in his head.”

Mercury told bandmates that he believed he had enough material for about three songs but was thinking about blending all the lyrics into one long extravaganza. The final six-minute iconic mini rock opera became the band’s defining song, and eventually provided the title of the hit 2019 biopic starring Rami Malek as Mercury.

The recording of Bohemian Rhapsody

Queen first properly rehearsed “Bohemian Rhapsody” at Ridge Farm Studio, in Surrey, in mid-1975, and then spent three weeks honing the song at Penrhos Court in Herefordshire. By the summer they were ready to record it; taping began on August 24, 1975 at the famous Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. It was a moment that May described as “just the biggest thrill.”

The innovative song began with the famous a cappella intro (“Is this the real life?/Is this just fantasy?”) before embracing everything from glam-metal rock to opera. A week was devoted to the opera section, for which Mercury had methodically written out all the harmony parts. For the grand chorale, the group layered 160 tracks of vocal overdubs (using 24-track analogue recording), with Mercury singing the middle register, May the low register, and drummer Roger Taylor the high register (John Deacon was on bass guitar but did not sing). Mercury performed with real verve, overdubbing his voice until it sounded like a chorus, with the words “mamma mia”, “Galileo” and “Figaro” bouncing up and down the octaves. “We ran the tape through so many times it kept wearing out,” May said. “Once we held the tape up to the light and we could see straight through it, the music had practically vanished. Every time Fred decided to add a few more ‘Galileo’s we lost something, too.”

The references in Bohemian Rhapsody

Mercury had supposedly written “Galileo” into the lyrics in honor of May, who had a passionate interest in astronomy and would later go on to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” brims with imaginative language and is a testament to Mercury’s talents as a songwriter. Scaramouche was a buffoonish character in 16th-century commedia dell’arte shows; “Bismillah”, which is taken from the Quran, means “in the name of Allah”; Beelzebub is an archaic name for the devil.

“Freddie was a very complex person; flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood,” said May. “He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put a lot of himself into that song.”

The legacy of the song

Mercury’s ambitious song, which earned him an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, quickly became a highlight of Queen’s live show after being unveiled on the A Night At The Opera Tour of 1975 (the closing night of which is captured on their A Night At The Odeon DVD, the deluxe box set of which features the band’s very first live performance of the song, recorded during the soundcheck).

“Bohemian Rhapsody” opened their celebrated Live Aid set in July 1985 and it has remained remarkably popular. In 2004, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame, and Mercury’s vocal performance was named by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine as the best in rock history. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the third best-selling single of all-time in the UK and, in December 2018, “Bo Rhap” – as it is affectionately known among Queen fans – was officially proclaimed the world’s most-streamed song of the 20th Century, passing 1.6 billion listens globally across all major streaming services, and surpassing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” A mere seven months later, on July 21, 2019, the video surpassed one billion streams on YouTube. In 2021, it was certified diamond by the RIAA.

“It is one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it,” Mercury said. “I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them”.

The penultimate feature is from Dig! that was published in 2020. They wrote how Bohemian Rhapsody changed things. In terms of what Rock and Roll could be. It was this unique song that seemingly came out of nowhere. People knew how good Queen were, though few could see this Freddie Mercury-penned symphony coming! I wonder what people will write about Bohemian Rhapsody closer to its single release on 31st October:

“The penultimate song of A Night At The Opera is a microcosm of the album itself in the same way A Day In The Life is for Sgt Pepper, combining almost every genre imaginable. As May correctly states, A Night At The Opera is meant to be listened to as a whole album, a sensory overload of suitably royal proportions, with Bohemian Rhapsody as “the jewel in that crown”. Following that, the guitarist’s instrumental arrangement of God Save The Queen is a perfect end to a perfect record.

“The biggest single of the century”

Bohemian Rhapsody was nearly not the album’s lead single. Being six minutes long and containing a potentially uncommercial operatic section, it was a gamble and feared unlikely to be played on radio. At many suggestions, the song was cut down, but its composer led the band’s staunch position of all or nothing. No one doubted it was extraordinary; apparently their manager played the tape to his other super-talented, super-extravagant client Elton John, whose response was, “Are you fucking mad?”

After Mercury slipped a copy to Kenny Everett, the oddball DJ played it 14 times over one weekend on his Capital Radio show and the decision was set. Released on the last day of October, Bohemian Rhapsody became Queen’s first UK No.1 single, spending nine weeks at the summit before being displaced by ABBA’s Mamma Mia. Despite being a member of perhaps the only group to provide more karaoke classics than Queen, Björn Ulvaeus hailed the Queen effort as “the biggest single of the century”.

These days, a song of that magnitude requires an equally sizeable music video. But in 1975, such a thing didn’t really exist. Only movie-star crossovers could provide any form of video accompaniment to their music if they featured it in a motion picture (see Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and The Beatles). For standard artists, the only real exposure other than touring was to go on Top Of The Pops, where you would comically mime to your own music as if it were live, with the result usually called a “pop promo”. But to avoid the hassle of actually appearing on Top Of The Pops, a Bohemian Rhapsody video was made to be used instead, freeing Queen to go on tour. The equally sensational and iconic clip was essentially made up as they went along. It also brought the cover of the band’s second album, Queen II, to life, with silhouette figures giving the perfect tone to accompany such a melancholy lyric.

“It’s very self-explanatory”

It’s a lyric which tells a remarkable story, but what about? Well, on the surface, the lament of a poor boy who throws it all away by shooting a man. A potential spanner in the works is the operatic section: will you do the fandango? Um, not sure, really. Bohemian Rhapsody is best summed up by drummer Taylor, who believes “It’s very self-explanatory, there’s just a bit of nonsense in the middle.”

The song’s deeper meaning, however, is a lot more difficult to make out. Common thought is that Mercury wrestled with his demons and put his thoughts into an abstract story. We all know his troubled relationship with his sexuality, and the back and forth cries in the song suggest we are looking at the intense throes of one – or possibly multiple – relationships. What was the exact meaning? “I don’t think we will ever know,” says guitarist May. Poetry does not need a discernible source to be validated, and as Rami Malek, as Freddie Mercury, so eloquently puts it in Bohemian Rhapsody, it is simply “an epic poem”.

A lasting legacy

So why else are the song and album so critically well-revered? Essentially, because Queen were pushing boundaries in the studio. As Roy Thomas Baker said, creating such a spectacular album in the mid-70s “wasn’t easy… then eventually technology caught up with us”. The motivation for this is obvious, according to May, nothing, “The Beatles were our Bible.”

It’s appropriate then that the legacy of Bohemian Rhapsody matches that of any Fab Four hit. Queen’s first UK No.1 hit helped catapult them to national stardom and set in motion the outstanding catalogue of work to follow. The song was released again following Mercury’s death, in 1991, 16 years after its initial outing, and once more topped the UK charts.

The list of accolades garnered by Bohemian Rhapsody is endless. In 2002, it was named by The Guinness Book Of Records as the top British single of all time; two years later it was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame. The song regularly comes near – and often tops – relevant newspaper, magazine and television polls, and, in 2012, readers of Rolling Stone magazine voted Mercury’s vocal performance on the song as the greatest in rock history.

According to the Official UK Charts, as of June 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody is the UK’s third biggest-selling single of all time, with over 2.5 million sales. Globally, it has sold over six million. In December of that year, shortly after the Mercury biopic was release, it was officially named the world’s most-streamed song from the 20th century, surpassing 1.6 billion streams globally across all major streaming services.

To help get a full sense of the standing of Freddie Mercury and his creation in not just rock-music history but in the very fabric of British culture, look no further than The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert For AIDS Awareness that took place at Wembley Stadium on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992. For an audience of 72,000, titans including Metallica, Def Leppard, U2, Roger Daltrey, Robert Plant, David Bowie and George Michael covered Queen hit after Queen hit”.

I am going to wrap up soon. However, before coming to that, TIME ran a feature in 2015 highlighting how critics were somewhat mixed regarding Bohemian Rhapsody. Such a challenging and unusual song, you can understand why some were a bit flummoxed or taken aback. However, it is impossible to deny the brilliance of Bohemian Rhapsody. How could anyone dislike or feel anything other than awe when reviewing this song?! It is a masterpiece. From an album called A Night at the Opera, there is something distinctly operatic about the album’s penultimate song:

“The critics never saw it coming.

“Unfortunately,” TIME opined, “Queen’s lyrics are not the stuff of sonnets.” The New York Times, reviewing a 1978 appearance at Madison Square Garden came down equally hard: “Lyrically, Queen’s songs manage to be pretentious and irrelevant. Musically, for all the virtuosity—though it was cheating a bit to turn over the complex middle portion of their ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to a taped version, with empty stage and flashing lights—the songs still sound mostly pretty empty, all flash and calculation.”

Rolling Stone didn’t mention the song in its review of the album A Night at the Opera (“The Prophet’s Song” got top billing as the best track) but later referred to the song as a “brazen hodgepodge.”

But that skepticism is long gone. Rolling Stone eventually put “Bohemian Rhapsody” on its list of the 500 greatest songs ever, and it also has pride of place on TIME’s own list of the greatest songs since 1923”.

I can’t recall when I first heard Bohemian Rhapsody. Maybe when I was a child. It must have been almost alien when I was that age! However, in years since, I have come to respect the sheer guts of the song. To release something so long as a single in 1975 was a commercial risk. Nearly six minutes long, that might not seem unusual today. However, back then, this was a gamble. Despite some critical contrasts, in years since, Bohemian Rhapsody is listed among the greatest songs ever. In terms of its legacy, this section from a Wikipedia article puts it into perspective:

“The song has won numerous awards and has been covered and parodied by many artists. At the 19th Annual Grammy Awards in February 1977, "Bohemian Rhapsody" received two Grammy Award nominations for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus and Best Arrangement for Voices. In October 1977, only two years after its release, the British Phonographic Industry named "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the best British single of the period 1952–77.  It is a regular entry in greatest-songs polls, and it was named by the Guinness Book of Records in 2002 as the top British single of all time.  The song is also listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

In 2004, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. As of 2004, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the second most-played song on British radio, in clubs and on jukeboxes collectively, after Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale". On 30 September 2007 for BBC Radio 1's 40th birthday, it was revealed on The Radio 1 Chart Show that "Bohemian Rhapsody" had been the most played song since Radio 1's launch.

In December 2018, "Bohemian Rhapsody" officially became the most-streamed song from the 20th century, surpassing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine". "Bohemian Rhapsody" also became the most-streamed classic rock song of all time. The number of downloads of the song and original video exceeded 1.6 billion downloads across global on-demand streaming services. The video surpassed one billion views on YouTube in July 2019, making it the oldest music video to reach one billion on the platform, and the first pre-1990s song to reach that figure”.

On 24th August, 1975, Queen started recording Bohemian Rhapsody. Did the band know what it would end up like and how the song would take on a life of its own?! It still sounds so exciting and grand fifty years later. You do not get songs like this today! Often topping polls of the best songs of all time, Bohemian Rhapsody deserves…

EVERY plaudit it gets.

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Beastie Boys

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins

Beastie Boys

__________

FOR this The Great American Songbook…

I want to look at one of my favourite groups. Beastie Boys formed in New York City in 1981. They comprised Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, and Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond. Their final album together was 2011’s Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. Their 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill, turns forty next year. That seems hard to believe! To show how incredible this trio were, I am going to select twenty songs from throughout their career. I do love how all of their albums are different and yet there seems to be this consistent excellence throughout. This series celebrates great American artists and their impressive songs. I am not sure who I will focus on next though, when thinking about American acts who have made a big impact, I thought naturally of Beastie Boys. Some people might know Beastie Boys for a few songs or a particular era. If you need a fuller picture of their brilliance and sense of evolution, then I hope that the mixtape at the end provides that sense of clarity and insight. This is a sonic nod to…

A phenomenal three-piece.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Five: Inside an Underrated Masterpiece

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Five

IMAGE CREDIT: @flandrepudding 

Inside an Underrated Masterpiece

__________

IT is awkward starting the…

first of a few anniversary features about Kate Bush’s Never for Ever where there are debates around the exact release date. I have seen some say it is 5th September, 1980. Others 7th September. I am pretty sure it is 8th September, but it is frustrating that there is not that clarity regarding the exact release date! We shall say 8th September, 1980 for the purpose of these features. Turning forty-five soon, I will come to a couple of promotional interviews/features from 1980. It is amazing to think how underrated this album is. Consider the brilliance of singles like Babooshka and Breathing. How phenomenal the album is and how different it is to anything else that was released in 1980. Never for Ever was the first-ever album by a British female solo artist to top the U.K. album chart, as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number one. It is such an important album. Before getting to a couple of interviews, I want to start out with some features that look inside the album. I am going to start out with The Quietus and their fortieth anniversary feature from 2020. They argued that, whilst it is not her most celebrated, it might be her most pivotal. I would agree with that:

“Listen now and you can still hear that fundamental shift Bush spoke of, the birth of some new, peculiar magic. It starts with ‘Babooshka’, in which a paranoid wife impersonates a younger woman to test her husband’s roving eye, and ends up destroying her marriage. It’s a wonderfully wicked premise: Bush based it on the cross-dressing, happy-ever-after hijinks of the traditional English folk ditty ‘Sovay’, but her revamp is less a cheeky romp than a surreal, bitter farce, pitched somewhere between Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and Tales Of The Unexpected. Most startling, though, is the way it sounds, like unearthly Russian folk music: there’s something both archaic and futuristic about its echoey keys, eerie synths and the ethereal strings of her brother Paddy’s balalaika, as uncanny as a Cossack band playing on the Mir space station. Bush sings like two different people, flitting from coy trills to operatic shrieks, and eventually her world comes crashing down in a crescendo of squalling guitars and the Fairlight’s splintering glass.

Then, before the debris has cleared, she drifts into the wispy beauty of ‘Delius (Song Of Summer)’, which recounts how Frederic Delius’s amanuensis, Eric Fenby, took down his idol’s compositions from dictation after he was waylaid by syphilis. All the same, if “moody old man” Delius was difficult, there’s no rancour in its shimmering reverie of hazy sitar and bubbling percussion: it hums with the heady buzz of the olde British countryside, and Bush’s vocal has the crisp, bucolic freshness of dandelion and burdock. Both tracks size up the album’s big themes – the push-and-pull of thorny relationships, the constant churn of emotions – but one bursts into thunder, and the other floats on the breeze.

Never For Ever is a starting point, not a zenith, and those miraculous opening six minutes aren’t as groundbreaking as her later innovations. But it is, I’d argue, the first of her LPs that’s genuinely experimental. Paddy’s greater involvement brought weird new instruments – zithers, kotos, musical saws – although Peter Gabriel introduced Bush to the Fairlight, the sonic equivalent of a Jedi being handed their first lightsaber; there were only three in the UK, and while she wouldn’t master it until later, her instant obsession speaks to how determined she was to bend her ornate style into bizarre new shapes. ‘All We Ever Look For’, her happy-go-lucky reflection on knotty parent-child relationships, mutates into several different forms by itself: it jumps between lurching, whistling synths, the koto’s fluttering strings, and a mishmash of Foley-style noises including chirping birds and hurried footsteps. “The whims that we’re weeping for/ Our parents would be beaten for,” sings Bush over its jaunty, oddball din, like the ringmaster at a baroque big top”.

I am going to come to this PROG article that talked about the diversity of the album. How it was this incredible album that was beyond a traditional Pop album. In terms of what Kate Bush was writing about. More unusual and original than what was around her:

“It was her 70s swansong, which opened up all manner of possibilities for her 80s explosion. Much as 1979’s The Tour Of Life remains legendary in the collective memory/imagination, afterwards Kate Bush avoided live concerts until her triumphant return with the Before The Dawn shows some 35 years later. She had been uncomfortable with EMI’s visual emphasis on her sexuality, and felt she’d been rushed on her previous album, Lionheart.

So after the Christmas 1979 TV special, where she’d premiered some of these Never For Ever songs, she began to ease away from promotion (thus acquiring priceless mystique) and took control, with her family, of her business affairs. In the studio, she became an auteur. The success of Never For Ever was therefore a crucial confidence boost, lighting the pathways for her subsequent transcendent work.

It was the first album by a British female solo artist to top the UK album chart (straight in at No.1), and the first by any female solo artist that wasn’t a compilation. She had a lot more up her skirt than the cats, bats and butterflies pictured on the sleeve, but here was where her swans truly took flight.

BABOOSHKA

A more bitter than sweet love story, coming from somewhere between Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Rupert Holmes’ Escape (The Pina Colada Song). Bush told Australian TV that the wife of the tale tests her husband’s loyalty by sending him “scented letters” from a young temptress, but he becomes so besotted with the fictitious creature she’s dreamed up that their relationship is ruined. (Nowadays they’d just Snapchat each other.)

The traditional English folk song Sovay, involving a woman in disguise, was another inspiration, having fascinated Kate since childhood. In the video, she played the wife, while the double bass symbolised the man (John Giblin’s fretless bass was a key element of the track). The sound of glass breaking at the end (she smashed up crockery at Abbey Road, later apologising with chocolates to the studio’s kitchen staff) was an early use of a sample made on the spanking new Fairlight CMI synth to which Peter Gabriel had introduced her. (There were only three in the UK at the time.)

The song became a UK Top Five hit, and thus her biggest since Wuthering Heights. Kate’s admitted that she didn’t realise that ‘babushka’ is the Russian word for grandmother, and many shared her misapprehension that the word signified a series of dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. ‘Matryoshka’, the technically correct phrase for that, wouldn’t have scanned or been half as catchy.

ARMY DREAMERS

This insistent waltz decries the effects of war, centring on a mother, rattled
by guilt as she grieves for the loss of her son who was killed on military duty. She wonders if he could’ve been a rock star or a politician, if she’d been able to afford him a guitar or ‘a proper education’. Weirdly, the single was longer than the album track (which fades). Insanely, it was banned by the BBC during the 1991 Gulf War. Bush rocked camouflage gear in the video. The song’s been covered in numerous languages, from Hebrew to Finnish.

“I wanted the mother to be a very simple woman who’s obviously got a lot of work to do,” she told Flexipop! at the time. “She’s full of remorse but has to carry on, living in a dream. Most of us live in a dream.” She also told interviewers that it wasn’t “specifically” about Ireland. “I’m not slagging off the Army,” she said to ZigZag’s Kris Needs. “It’s just so sad that there are kids who have no O-levels and nothing to do but become soldiers, and it’s not really what they want. That’s what frightens me.”

BREATHING

An eerie, thoroughly prog trip back to the womb was a curious choice as the first single and teaser for a new project (it stalled at No.16), but uncompromisingly confirmed that Bush was now taking a firmer hand in decision making. Again her telly watching played a part as she cited a documentary she’d seen on the perils of nuclear fallout (fragments of spoken word describing the flash from a nuclear bomb can be heard). It’s interwoven with fears that the mother’s smoking may also damage the foetus (as if the kid didn’t have enough to worry about, with the apocalypse and all). No wonder Kate, in the video, wants to get out of that rather low-budget plastic bubble. ‘We’re all going to die!’ cries a background voice.

Upon release, in the fan club letter, she called it “a warning and plea from a future spirit to try and save mankind and his planet from irretrievable destruction”. She told ZigZag it was “the best thing I’ve ever written, the best thing I’ve ever produced – my little symphony”, while Smash Hits elicited the quote, “We’re all innocent. None of us deserve to be blown up.”

Roy Harper had a backing vocals credit. Talking to Melody Maker’s Colin Irwin, Bush said, “When I heard Pink Floyd’s The Wall I thought there’s no point in writing songs any more because they had said it all. When something really gets you, hits your creative centre, it stops you creating… After a couple of weeks I realised that [they] hadn’t done everything […] Breathing was definitely inspired by the whole vibe I got from hearing that album, especially the third side. There’s something about Floyd that’s pretty atomic anyway”.

I think I might move to the interviews now. However, I would advise you read this fascinating article that provides some different perspectives and angles that highlight the importance of Never for Ever. I think it may be Kate Bush’s most underrated albums. In the second anniversary feature for Never for Ever, I shall go deeper with the production and the finer details. In September 1980, the Evening Standard ran an interview with Kate Bush. It is interesting reading the print interviews that came out around the release of Never for Ever. Whilst few are insightful or anything beyond empty and somewhat inane, it is beneficial providing this sort of context. Promotion was a big part of the album process. Trying to sell it to people. It is a shame a lot of the interviews are not better:

“KATE BUSH would be less than human if she did not sometimes marvel at the attention she has received over the last three years.

She says: "Sometimes I see myself in the paper and it's hard to associate with the name Kate Bush. She is this well-known person who has almost become like a brand name like Maxwell House coffee or something. Meanwhile, I'm just working on my music and my life."

Somehow she remains an awkward personality to categorize. One newspaper has described her as Britain's top pop sexpot while a new, unauthorized biography about her life opted for the title Suburban Princess.

Even now she comes over in person as part pop star and part ordinary girl from East Welling in Kent, firmly in the south London commuter belt, while her conversation ranges between traditional pop world cliches to perceptive comment.

Her guilelessness and insistence on being eager to please almost offers a challenge to find some kind of hidden dark secret to her life. However, nothing rarely emerges.

"I often think people are looking for something in my life that they can't find," she comments. "A number of performers, I suppose, come from working-class families or their parents were divorced, perhaps that gives them the urge to go out and struggle for something.

"But basically I have always had a normal, very happy life with my family. I never went out and beat up old ladies or became an alcholic at school.

"I think the public have become conditioned to want to know who is sleeping with who, or how many marriages somebody has had, but as far as I'm concerned it's totally irrelevant. I'm really very normal and there is nothing sensational to uncover. I wouldn't talk about some private things to my mother so why should I to anybody else."

Nevertheless one still feels impelled to broach the subject of sex, especially as many of her songs seem to incorporate underlying sexual themes.

According to Kate: "I think music and love are very similar. They're both natural energies, they have the same kind of all-embracing freedom, the elation.

"The communication of music if very like making love. If you play a piano, for example, you're so united it's really a beautiful thing."

Now 22-years-old, the singer has accomplished almost everything the pop world has to offer except in the U.S.A. as yet. She has performed at the Palladium, made frequent appearances in the charts, and been given almost every major award available.

POWER PLAY

A new album due out next week has been held back for three months by EMI since they regard it with such importance that they did not want it's appearance to clash with other major releases this year by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones.

When we arranged to meet this week one could feel the power-play of the record business grinding into action as a car whisked one off to her hotel to meet the singer on her return from a television appearance in Germany.

While she remarks that she has felt more grown up of late, she has always appeared untouched by the pressures and difficulties that can accompany fame and fortune.

"I can see why people do have nervous breakdowns and so on, but it all depends on the person rather than what you happen to be doing.

"Sometimes I have felt that I'm losing control and that it's all running away with me, but all I have to do then is say to myself 'well leave then, give it up' and I know I never would because my life is really music and I love it so much.

"I would like to survive like people like Cliff Richard or Paul McCartney. If you look at them they're so strong and solid and happy, they'll be able to go on for as long again as they have already. They're happy because they're doing exactly what they want."

One particular buffer against the outside world would seem to be the Bush family. Her father, a former family doctor, and her three [three?] brothers are involved in different levels of her career.

FAMILY AFFAIR

One brother, Paddy, plays an assortment of instruments on her new album, while Novercia Ltd., the company that has been formed to look after her interests, has no fewer then five Bush family members as directors.

"I'm lucky to have a family I love who can give me advice when I need it. I like to think of myself as director of the force, but I'm not a business woman, for example, and when it comes to legal jargon I need some help.

"They're obviously people I trust and not just motivated by money, because if they wanted some, I'd give it to them anyway.

"Right at the beginning they weren't that involved, though they were always interested. It's just been something that's evolved as there has become a need for it.

"My parents weren't keen on me giving up school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it they gave support.

"I was quite stubborn about my decision and in the end they realised it was for the best”.

Before wrapping up, I want to actually source a weeklong diary Kate Bush wrote for teen magazine, Flexipop, around the release of Never for Ever. It is a really interesting piece where we are getting this personal account from Bush and what her week consists of. Perhaps more useful and illuminating than a lot of the interviews from that year:

“Friday

One hell of a day. I get up at about half ten. I don't have breakfast--I never do. Just a cup of tea. The first thing on the agenda is an interview with Paul Gambaccini. Before I leave I read my post, which is mostly business. Most other mail goes to my fan club, which is really well organized now. Fantastic. My driver picks me up at about noon. We go to a small studio in Soho. I can't drive. Apart from my driver I go everywhere unaccompanied. The reason I use the driver now is that it was getting ridiculous with cabs, it really was. It's so much easier now, it's just wonderful. [Actually Kate did obtain a drivers license, after one failure, in 1976.]

About three o'clock we go from Soho to Round Table at the Beeb, which Gambaccini also does. [This is a radio programme in which celebrity musicians and critics sit around to listen to and review new records.] We get there about four-thirty. A couple of kids outside--one who's always there every time I go to the BBC. His name is Keith. Must be in his early twenties. He always shows me things I've never seen before, like posters out of record shops. Old magazines. A picture of Pink Floyd before Gilmour was in it--I went WOW. I was really surprised, you know--they were all autographed and everything. I sign a few things, and then go in.

I don't have a go at anyone on the show. There's never any reason to do that. After, I have to go down to Abbey Road studios to re-mix the new single. We get there at about eight-fifteen. About this time I have my first bite to eat of the day--a toasted sandwich and chips. And of course, lots of cups of tea. The only way I can tell if I need food is when I feel sick. I smoke more at night, but I still usually get through less than twenty a day. John Player Special at the moment. We're still at it at three a.m. and I feel fine, but the engineer wants to call it a day. He's a great engineer, and I know he can finish it tonight, so I talk him into it. Come seven a.m. I'm not exactly perky, but I'm still not at all tired. I'm very much a nocturnal creature. My driver picks me up and I get to bed about seven-thirty a.m.

Saturday

I live alone--in southeast London--and today I don't get up until late: perhaps one or two p.m. A friend of mine from the Hare Krishna temple rang me up about eight-thirty, but I was too tired to natter much. About three o'clock I go over to my parents'--they live twenty minutes' drive away, in Kent. I'm doing a TV show in Germany on Tuesday [the programme was RockPop, and the taping was in mid-September, 1980] and my Mum's got some clothes to lend me. I'm going to do two numbers for the show. Army Dreamers is one, and I want to dress up as a cleaning woman. My mother lends me a headscarf, an old apron, and lots of my old jumble clothes. The song is about a mother who lost her son overseas. It doesn't matter how he died, but he didn't die in action--it was an accident. I wanted the mother to be a very simple woman who's obviously got a lot of work to do. She's full of remorse, but he has to carry on, living in a dream. Most of us live in a dream

I stay round my parents for a few hours--after all, you can't just go round, take all the clothes you want and rush off--drink lots of tea and eat chocolate eclairs and sandwiches, the sort of things that mothers like to fill you up with. I feel absolutely delightful after that, and I go back to start work on my routines for Tuesday.

What I do is have a little cassette machine with the mixes I'm going to work on, and I go into my back room where I have four mirrors propped up against the wall, and I rehearse in front of them. It's all very well to work out the routine for Army Dreamers, but the two dancers I work with [Stewart Avon-Arnold and Gary Hurst] are busy--one's in Godspell and one's in France. So I needed people who would be able to perform. Paddy, my brother, he does pretty well. And the guys from the band, who are natural performers anyway. I am pretty wiped out still, and I don't get as much done as I could have. After working out for a while I don't feel too good, so I have a bath and try some more. I work out for two or three hours, then cook a meal for myself.

I'm not a bad cook. I love making bread. It's such a wonderful thing to do. So I watch the telly--the late-night movie: guys having their eyes pulled out, or something really awful. Paddy has come back by now, so we have a long chat and I get to bed about three o'clock. [Apparently Kate was still sharing the family's Lewisham building of flats with her two brothers. She has since moved to a house of her own, situated nearer her parents's home in Kent, and she uses a third building as a private dance studio.]

Sunday

Sunday is definitely the day that I have to physically work out. When I get up I can hardly stand up. My calves are beginning to feel sore from the night before.

Again, I get up around early afternoon. I don't bother buying Sunday newspapers--I don't read newspapers much at all, though if there's one around I'll read it. I don't read books very much either. I have a big guilt thing about that--I'm missing out so much, I read fact rather than fiction, usually when I'm on holiday. I tend to read religious things or theories on the universe. [This sounds like an early reference to Stephen Hawking, whose book, Kate has since explained, partially inspired her 1989 recording, Deeper Understanding. Another example of the long gestation periods typical of Kate's work.] I love Don Martin (of Mad magazine), he cheers me up. And if there's a Beano around, I've just got to look at it. When I was a kid that was really my thing. The illustrations are really great.

I spend all the day working out the routine for Babooshka. All Sunday is working out--dancing and miming. For miming you have to get the inflexions exactly right. I don't do that in front of mirrors, though. I hate watching myself sing. It's really weird. I also do more work on Army Dreamers. Gary, the dancer who's in Godspell, rings me up--and I've been sending out messages for him to ring me all day. We have this weird telepathic thing with the telephone. Whenever I want him to ring and whenever he wants me to ring him I get these 'messages'. So he rings up and says, 'I've been getting these messages all day, what's the matter?' I tell him that we've been trying to work out these routines, and quite honestly it would be useful to know what he thought of them. He says he wants to see me anyway, so he comes around at about midnight. He gets home at about five or six in the morning. I have a bath and go to bed.

Monday

I have to get up early because the single is being cut. I have to be at Abbey Road at two o'clock, and while I do the cut, the band go off to get their army gear for Army Dreamers. Then we all go over to my parents' to rehearse--there's no room for full-scale rehearsal in my flat. We do it in the garden. That song is pretty well tied up by the evening, so I go home. I generally get stuff ready for the trip. I don't take huge amounts of stuff with me, just hand luggage. Waiting for luggage at the terminal roundabouts is such a drag. Again, I get to bed around four a.m.

Tuesday

The car for the airport leaves at eight-fifteen, so I'm pretty wiped out. No one hassles me at the airport. A few years ago there used to be loads of photographers, but they don't bother me anymore. It makes things a lot easier, not having to walk up a corridor with everyone going 'OOOH LOOK'.

We arrive at about half one, and go straight to the TV station. I'm not very successful in Germany, and it's a big market, so it's an important show for me. Problems straight away. The stage has three tiers, which are going to get in the way. It has a big glass section they want me to work on--I work ninety-nine per cent of the time in bare feet, and there's this huge chunk of broken glass in the middle. I say, 'no way, you'll have to get rid of it'. It takes them half an hour to take it apart, and then I notice all these huge staples sticking out of it, so I ask this guy to pull them out.

The show starts at about eight--I fill in the time doing my make-up, sewing up little bits and pieces of my costumes that are falling to bits. I like to do that myself, it saves time. I'm so pleased when the show is over, and it went well. We go for a lovely meal courtesy of the record company. Things like that normally aren't lovely but I enjoyed this a lot--really nice. Leave the restaurant about one, go to the hotel, have a FANTASTIC bath and go to bed about three.

Wednesday

We have to be ready downstairs by half eight, and go straight to the airport. Flying doesn't bother me too much--only when I fly a lot in a short space of time, because then the odds seem to get higher. I try to be philosophical about it--once you're in the plane there's not too much to be done. Arrive in London later than morning. Do an interview at the Heathrow Hotel, and have some photos taken. Then I go home and feel wiped out again, so over to my parents' to sit in the sun. I recuperate, and go home again. I slob around, clean the flat up--it's in awful shape...I feed the cats, Zoodle and Pyewacket. Even when I'm that tired, I still don't get to bed till three or four. I spend a lot of time on the phone.

Thursday

Radio all day. I was meant to start with Luxembourg, but they pulled out, so I go straight to Capital. [Capital Radio is the independent station that broke Kate in 1977 by playing Wuthering Heights months before its official release date.] There for three, a very short chat. Then I do Radio One, then hang around a bit to do Brian Matthews on Radio Two. I leave about nine, and go home. On the way I pick up a Chinese takeaway. I don't need a bodyguard or anything for stuff like that. If people do recognize me they're not too likely to smother me in kisses or anything. Get home about ten, look through some photos with my brother [this would be John Carder Bush], and natter about odd bits of business. If I've got nothing to do I have a quick tinkle on the piano, which I try to get to all the time. Bed as usual three a.m.

Kate Bush (1980)”.

I am going to end things there. On 8th September, it will be forty-five years since Never for Ever was released. This record-setting third studio album from Kate Bush, I do hope it gets written about a lot soon. It is a terrific album that contains some of Bush’s best material. I am looking forward to writing the second anniversary feature. From 1980, Bush’s continued to layer and change her music. It would become more ambitious and change shape. In some ways, Never for Ever was that bridge between her first two albums – The Kick Inside and Lionheart of 1978 – and The Dreaming in 1982. Anyone who has not heard this stunning album needs to…

EXPERIENCE it now.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Florence Road

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Florence Road

__________

THIS is a band…

that everyone should know about. I listen to BBC Radio 6 Music a lot and they have been mentioned by the station. Although they are near the start of their career, there is every reason to believe that Florence Road are going to be making music together for years to come. Their E.P., Fall Back, was released in June. I want to come to a few interviews with this wonderful Irish band. I am going to start out with their chat with Golden Plec from last month:

“It’s been like a whirlwind” vocalist Lily Aron admits, when she sits down to discuss the dramatic rise of her band Florence Road over the past 18 months. Surrounded by bandmates Emma Brandon (guitar), Ailbhe Barry (bass), and Hannah Kelly (drums) backstage in The Grand Social ahead of a sold-out headline show in celebration of the release of their five-track mixtape 'Fall Back'.

Since they released their debut single ‘Another Seventeen’ in 2022, the Wicklow quartet have gone from strength to strength, signed with Warner Music, played shows across Europe in support of US act Sombr, played Boston as part of Dermot Kennedy’s Misneach festival alongside the likes of Mick Flannery and Sorcha Richardson, and next week will support worldwide superstar Olivia Rodrigo in both London’s Hyde Park and Dublin’s Marlay Park. Taking it all in, whirlwind seems like an understatement.

“It’s been everything we’ve expected and more” Lily continues, “Even doing a music video was a huge dream of ours, and we did the ‘Goodnight’ music video two months ago and the whole experience was phenomenal. We’re all into the creative side of music so to be able to explore than has been amazing”.

“I feel like I went in with no expectations because I didn’t want to get my hopes up” drummer Hannah Kelly adds,” but everything has been great.”

The members of the band all first met in school, some already deep into their musical education while others were still fresh. The band first began life as Panorama, with Lily Hannah and bass player Ailbhe, before guitarist Emma approached Lily one day asking to work on a song together.

They did, performing a cover of ‘Happier Than Ever’, at which point it became clear to everyone (though Emma took slightly more convincing) to continue as a four-piece. They very quickly won a talent competition, with first prize being recording time, which they used to record ‘Another Seventeen’.

Whilst the band’s musical output is undeniably catchy, with single ‘Caterpillar’ in particular being one of the best new Irish songs of the past year, one of the major driving force behind their success to this point has been their social media presence, in particular on TikTok, where they have garnered over 900,000 followers and 30 million views.

Their experimentation with video all started as a joke between friends, when one of them got an ealry iPhone 0.5 camera. “We just got together and made a video for fun, posted it, and it didn’t do well in the first day or so” Lily recalls of one of their early viral hits, “but then it gradually began creeping up and it’s getting bigger ever since”.

“It was again a case of us going in with no expectations” Emma adds,”People were just loving the big blue eyes and freaky angles, and we just went “great, lets do more”.

Despite the growing numbers online, the band recognise the importance of knowing when to take a step back.

“It can be easy to get swept up in that online validation but we have such a good team around us, our family and friends, and we know that that’s just not real” Lily explains, “We recognise it’s been so important in helping us get to this place, but if we get a nasty comment or video doesn’t do as well, we know ourselves it doesn’t reflect our work or hold weight as long as we’re proud of it”.

“Performing live is really our main focus at the moment” Ailbhe adds, “I feel like social media is just used to boost that really. I’ve definitely taken a step back from looking at the numbers and reading comments, it’s really helped. There was a while there when we were getting so much hate comments we had to just log out and disconnect, in particular when working on new stuff”

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning for DORK

I am going to move onto a great interview from DORK that was published last month. Whether you see Fall Back as an E.P. or mixtape – I am not sure of the distinction myself to be honest! -, it is one of the best releases of this year. Stunning stuff from a band that started out with no plan, a single song and a shed. It will not be long until Florence Road are performing in the U.S. and further afield. They have some dates coming up, including a stop in London on 20th August. Go and catch them if you can:

“Coming this spring is Florence Road’s debut mixtape, ‘Fall Back’. Spearheaded by their knockout debut single ‘Heavy’, the mixtape sees the girls get in the room with big-name producers faster than they could’ve ever imagined.

Where ‘Heavy’ was produced by John Hill (whose best work includes contributions to Charli xcx, Florence + the Machine, and MUNA tracks), their follow-up, the delicate and pensive ‘Caterpillar’, had Dan Nigro’s magic wand waved over it (a name that’s been wafting around since the 2020s kicked in, thanks to his collaborations with Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan). Also making an appearance in the credits of ‘Fall Back’ is Dan Wilson, whose roster of hits includes work with a couple of small artists; maybe you’ve heard of Taylor Swift and Adele?

“We went over to LA for the first time, which was kind of bonkers,” says Lily. “We worked with Dan Wilson, who we love, and Dan Nigro, of course, that was very cool. I had to be like, I’m not thinking about this. Going in with these producers who we know are, you know, really well renowned, there’s that tiny bit of subliminal pressure to perform well. Honestly, I find it helpful.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

“I think because it’s still so fresh, and we’re so grateful and amazed to be there, that’s why we’re so quick,” adds Hannah. “It’s like, okay, let’s go and be able to come out with a demo because it’s just incredible to be there at all.”

There’s a wide-eyed optimism about Florence Road that seems to stop this whole rollercoaster from derailing. It’s only the very beginning, and with everything exciting so far only happening behind the scenes, being so close-knit helps the four stay grounded.

“When we started doing those first sessions, we very quickly had a lot of meetings, and we were meeting with kind of every single record label in the UK. It was the coolest thing ever, but also kind of scary. Everyone does tell you what you want to hear,” Lily explains.

“It had never crossed my mind until it was like, okay, now you’re meeting with the three big names. I was like, surely not?” adds Ailbhe.

“There’s a lot of imposter syndrome,” says Lily. “It kind of feels like there was a lot of being in the right place at the right time with this whole thing. I do believe that we’re very talented, but also so are a lot of other musicians. You can do a lot of why me and why us, you know, but I think we kind of take everything as it comes. I’m constantly grateful for everything. I’m constantly pinching myself. Even today, it’s so cool.”

It helps that the girls are so giddy, because Dork has been putting them through their paces today. Several hours scaling the woods in the rain and icy winds would’ve been enough to put any band off ever agreeing to an on-location photo shoot again, but they take it like real champs.

As grounded (and bewildered) as Florence Road are, when the boring side of the internet catches wind of a young female band who are doing well, accusations of being ‘industry plants’ feel poised to end up knocking on their door.

“If someone says we’re industry plants, we can be like, look at us two years ago, do you think they planted that?” says Ailbhe.

“The internet is a terrifying place,” adds Lily. “You always have to be on your toes with it and take everything with a grain of salt, because people are going to say the most egregious shit.”

“I think because we have such a digital footprint,” says Emma, “it would just be silly”.

There is a review of Fall Back that I want to finish with. Before that, I am going to source some of this NME interview from earlier in the month. If you do not know about Florence Road, then you need to rectify that now. Go and check out their phenomenal music! I have really high hopes for this band. I would love to go and catch them live one day. I might try and get a ticket for their London gig if there are any left. NME spotlighted a band who have already supported Olivia Rodrigo and have released this stunning and complete mixtape/E.P. One that sets them aside from their peers:

“‘Fall Back’ moves through a lot of different genres – how does it introduce Florence Road’s sonic world?

Aron: “I think what’s nice is that we never overthought it. ‘Caterpillar’ is very different to ‘Figure It Out’, and you could say the same about every single song. There are definitely crossover points, but it was never a discussion. The feeling was there, and we knew each song had its own moment. Having different musical influences, we have a lot of range in our songs, and they take you up and down. That’s something I love about our music – I don’t listen to one genre, I love music in all forms, and that’s why it comes out in what we do. I don’t see a reason for a box, or to say we can’t have piano cos we’re a rock band.”

Naming yourself as a rock band feels integral – are there other women in that space who’ve been influential?

Aron: “Wolf Alice are so cool, and Beabadoobee – the way she can do rock but also the lighter stuff. I listened to her a lot growing up, and that definitely influenced me.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jan Philipzen

You’re now all 20, what does this EP say about being that age?

Aron: “I think it’s definitely a very emotionally-driven project. That transition from being a teenager to adulthood – even though we don’t feel like adults at all – there’s that feeling, and a lot of it for me is about being anxious and trying to get over that. It’s been really helpful for me to write about it and get it all on a page, and then getting to sing them all the time is very therapeutic. And then ‘Figure It Out’ is a yearning song of ‘I like you, like me back please!’ which is very common at this age.”

What’s coming up next – are there plans for an album in the works yet?

Kelly: “From day one, we’ve known that ‘7563’ is going on the album, and there are at least four or five others that are certain, so now it’s about trying to fit them together in a way that feels cohesive.”

Ailbhe Barry: “We’re writing all the time, so it’s exciting to see what we’re gonna do next and see what we haven’t touched on and maybe find new sounds and find what doesn’t exist yet.

Aron: “We just have so much fun together. When something big happens, I always say, ‘If this is it, then this is amazing’, and my expectations keep getting blown out of the park. We just have a blast, and it is so fabulous to do it with these three”.

I am finishing with one of the many positive reviews for Fall Back. Still Listening praised a work where Florence Road established their sound. A magnificent release filled with “angst, tenderness, and grunge-pop charm”. For those who have not heard Fall Back yet, do go and spend some time with it. It is evident that Florence Road are going to be huge very soon. So exciting to see a band who came from humble foundations rising and winning such plaudit. Their music needs to be heard by everyone:

“It seems that 2025 is the comeback year for indie bands - and placing themselves firmly within that category is the four-piece girl band Florence Road, who have just released their highly anticipated debut EP, Fall Back, via Warner Records last Friday.

The band features Lily Aron on lead vocals, Emma Brandon on guitar, Ailbhe Barry on bass, and Hannah Kelly on drums, all childhood friends from Wicklow in Ireland. Initially gaining popularity through their TikTok covers, the band are slowly making a name for themselves; having just finished opening for Sombr around Europe, as well as securing an opening slot for Olivia Rodrigo at BTS Hyde Park and Dublin this year.

The group's sound teeters between multiple subgenres - indie, soft-rock, grunge, and alt-pop - and combines these styles to create something new and refreshing. Lily's vocal delivery throughout the EP is particularly strong; it's emotional, raw and completely untamed, which only adds to the candidness of the lyrics.

The EP opens with Hands Down, a soft-rock ballad with a heavy electric guitar chorus. Lily's vocals ring throughout, her voice breaking and full of feeling, yet never too much or uncontrolled. The instrumentation and production follow suit: it's messy in nature, which I think it should be, given how early the girls are into their careers and the nature of the topics that they're writing about: navigating youth in all of its chaos.

Goodnight is next, possibly the most Olivia-Rodrigo-coded song, with a strong beat and bass line, and an angsty and catchy chorus and bridge. Lily chants lyrics 'this time, I'm gonna get it right, I'll leave the past behind, and your bags outside' / 'I'm sorry that it didn’t end well, but you never were a good pretender. I'm sorry that it didn’t end well, but you didn’t help yourself'. Whilst being a great sing-along tune, this might be the most predictable track on the EP in terms of melody and production, and not as sophisticated as the other tracks.

The EP swiftly moves on to showcase some of the band's strongest lyricism - an acoustic guitar ballad Caterpillar. Lily's delivery is soft to begin with, singing of the ever-so-familiar feelings of anxiety, with lyrics such as 'know that I'll feel better with the tap on, something about the water running down my side' / 'caterpillar hatching in my chest'. The chorus continues: 'is there something inside of me? / 'making me believe, that black is white' / 'is there something I can't defeat?' / 'maybe I should try and sleep tonight, sleep tonight'. As the instrumentation builds, with swelling strings, so does the rawness and emotion in Lily's voice.

Figure It Out jumps straight back into the grunge-bitten vengeance Flo Ro are known for: catchy guitar, lots of distortion, and a carefree vocal delivery. Closing the EP is Heavy, with lyrics 'tell me, tell me it's not that heavy, lie to my face and beg me not to cry, say it's alright, and we'll let it slide'. A whirlwind of a track with impressive production, the song finishes with just piano and Lily's unfiltered vocals.

Fall Back sees Florence Road firmly establishing their sound - and at such an early point in their career, it's impressive. With a range of styles being explored whilst simultaneously maintaining an artistic identity, it's exciting to see what the band will do next”.

Go and follow Florence Road. A tremendous young group who are going to be festival headliners very soon, I do really love what Florence Road are doing. They may be unknown to some. I would strongly suggest that you go and check out this band. They are an exciting and hugely promising name that you…

SHOULD not live without.

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Follow Florence Road

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/florence.road/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@florence.road

Twitter:

https://x.com/Florence_Road

YouTube:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0zzKEeF2bAVKrWeKc9CyJV?si=Uml1PyXbT2GI65tXm8Fq0A

FEATURE: That Golden Ticket! Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn Residency at Eleven

FEATURE:

That Golden Ticket!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing at the Eventim Apollo in 2014 during her Before the Dawn residency/PHOTO CREDIT: Gavin Bush/Rex

Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn Residency at Eleven

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ONE of the biggest regrets…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush captured during the first night (26th August) of her Before the Dawn residency in 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex

of my life is not being able to get a ticket for Kate Bush’s Hammersmith residency in 2014. Or not being fast enough getting on the phone to buy one! The run of twenty-two wonderful nights began on 26th August, 2014. As we are almost at the point of marking the eleventh anniversary of Before the Dawn, I wanted to return to it once more. I am going to bring in a review about the residency. I have written about it quite a few times, so I will not go over stuff I have covered before too much. Although the cheapest tickets were not that cheap, think about gig tickets for major artists today and what you get. Unless it is a huge performance and very long, are you getting value for money?! Kate Bush delivering this incredible production with these wonderful sets and scenes, you would happily pay loads to witness that! Demand was so huge for the initial fifteen dates that tickets sold out in fifteen minutes. Seven additional dates were added. Bush won the Editor's Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. It was also nominated for two Q Awards in 2014: Best Act in the World Today and Best Live Act. Thinking back, if I could have got a ticket, I would have been as close to the front as possible. I would have snapped up some merchandise and made it a night to remember. Not to revisit regret and a missed opportunity, for the thousands that did get to see Kate Bush at the Eventim Apollo in 2014, that must have been simply unforgettable! In many ways, her son Bertie helped persuade her to get back on the stage. Thirty-five years after her first big live undertaking, The Tour of Life, Bush made an announcement few thought that she ever would. There was not a great deal of coverage around the tenth anniversary last year. Given it is one of the most significant live shows in the past few decades, why was there this absence of features and celebration?!

One cannot rule out Kate Bush doing this again. In previous features, I have asked what another residency would involve. Which albums and songs would go together. Perhaps, after an eleventh studio album is released, that would give her more inspiration and possibility. In terms of the setlist and musicians who played, you can read more here. When it came to the songs included, it was mainly fusing Hounds of Love with Aerial. Only two tracks from the former were not included (The Big Sky and Mother Stands for Comfort); a few songs from Aerial were missed out to give chance for songs from The Red Shoes and 50 Words for Snow to feature. Even though Bush did not have to travel too far from her home to Hammersmith, the idea of doing twenty-two dates must have been daunting. That is a massive undertaking! The live album for Before the Dawn was released in 2016. I will end with a review of Before the Dawn. I am surprised that there has not been an entire book about the residency. Providing context, reviews, details and documentation of being there. The famous faces that were in attendance from the world of film, radio, literature and beyond. How there would have been this incredible anticipation in the air. On 26th August, 2014, this was this excitement and electricity around the Eventim Apollo! Though Kate Bush was nervous before coming onto stage every night, her performances were outstanding. She and her team mounted an unbelievable stage experience. I think a lot of massive artists today who produce these spectacles with set changes and visual elements are inspired by Kate Bush. In terms of turning a live performance more into a film or this multimedia experience. One of the major reasons for Before the Dawn was to finally see The Ninth Wave realised. The second side of 1985’s Hounds of Love, it was initially going to be turned into a film. That is what Kate Bush had in mind. That never happened (though I think that it should).

I keep thinking how I missed out on something life-changing. In terms of how everyone I know who got a ticket said it was one of the most emotional nights of their lives! There will never be a DVD release of one of the performances. I will wrap up shortly. When the press attended Before the Dawn, I guess they had no ideas what to expect. Most would not have seen Kate Bush perform live. This was an artist in her fifties delivering an awe-inspiring performance that was worlds away from what other artists were producing. So much more immersive and ambitious. This is what DIY observed when they were in attendance:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during her Before the Dawn residency in 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Gavin Bush/Rex 

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

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

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

Before the Dawn was a seismic moment in music history. Few thought that Kate Bush would return to the stage, let alone in such spectacular fashion! A residency in London where she focused on two of her best albums. It is hard to believe that, on 26th August, it will be eleven years since that first date. To have been there to witness something so transcendent. All these fans from around the world together to see Kate Bush deliver her first solo live performance in thirty-five years. Though we can never say never, maybe 2014’s Before the Dawn was the final live chapter. If it is, then it was a very special way of signing off! Today, we marvel at artists like Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Charli xcx who give these epic and grand live performances. Ones that take live music to new heights. I think people need to look back to 2014 and what Kate Bush did for Before the Dawn! Surely her inspiring artists of today. Her residency ranks alongside the most important and finest live performances…

THAT we have ever seen.

FEATURE: Dua Lipa at Thirty: What Next for a British Pop Queen?

FEATURE:

 

Dua Lipa at Thirty

PHOTO CREDIT: David Sims for British Vogue

What Next for a British Pop Queen?

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IT may seem too restrictive…

PHOTO CREDIT: David Sims for British Vogue

labelling Dua Lipa as purely ‘Pop’. Like Kylie Minogue, Charli xcx or any other queen on the scene, her music encompasses different genres and sounds. Hard to categorise. However, it is clear that Lipa is the jewel in the British Pop crown. Someone who has released three remarkable albums, a series of incredible tours and she has also picked up awards and done so much more. Whether that is producing documentaries, acting in films or running her own book club, Service95 Book Club. Dua Lipa says that reading has been “an anchor through every phase of my life”. As host of the podcast for the book club, she has interviewed the likes of George Saunders, Emma Cline and Patti Smith. In the midst of a series of tour dates, the rest of this year is going to be very busy for Lipa. The reason for doing this feature is that she turns thirty on 22nd August. Her most recent album, Radical Optimism, was released last year. It came seven years after her eponymous debut album. I want to use this feature to source from some recent interviews with Dua Lipa. Three albums in and with this incredible reputation as a globe-straddling superstar, you wonder where she will head next. In fact, I think I will return to an interview that I used in a recent feature about her. In June, British Vogue spoke to Dua Lipa about her career, finding love (she is getting married shortly), turning thirty and playing Wembley (which she did in June). I am going to end this feature with some live reviews:

“At 18 she was working in clubs and posting covers online when she was cast in an ad for The X Factor. She played a fresh-faced star-to-be who sings along to “Lost in Music” on her headphones while pinning laundry on a line. In the advert, everyone within hearing distance flocks to listen. In life, a similar thing happened. The allure of Dua’s voice became undeniable, and the rest, with a few twists and turns, is pop history.

On the short drive to the stadium in Madrid, the tinted windows are up for privacy, the air conditioning off to protect Dua’s vocal cords. She doesn’t mind – she says she’s prepared to “roast”. When we get there she’ll go into vocal exercises, sound check, hair and make-up, dance warm-ups: everything timed to the minute.

After her last tour in 2022, for Future Nostalgia, when she listened back to the album she preferred the live versions of the songs. This time she’s planned them that way: the songs on Radical Optimism were “written for live”, and she hopes they show more of her range as a musician, not just as a pop star. On this tour, she’s added a new cover version each night for the country she’s in. She likes a little added risk: feet dangling off the edge, as she puts it – and she’ll get that in spades when she plays Wembley this summer.

Dua’s daily schedule is “full, full, full, full, full”. She’s up at 6.30am and in bed by midnight and in between she does yoga, reformer Pilates, weight training, dance rehearsals. She looks after her body, she says, “like an athlete”, and thinks of her voice as a muscle. She has a singing coach as well as a speech therapist, to train her not to run her voice ragged by speaking in a raspy tone (“I love a chat”). When not on tour she’s in the studio with a producer and a fellow songwriter. She’s learning Spanish with a tutor three times a week, she reads (her friends get all their book recommendations from Dua) and when she is on tour she builds in time to explore cities and new restaurants. She loves to cook – even when just off a plane she makes pesto from scratch, not from a jar – and she eats healthily (“I never try and restrict myself from anything”). She looks after her skin, diligently washing her face three times after taking off her make-up, and once a year she sees a facialist in New York. All this, of course, while embarking on several high-profile collaborations in the worlds of fashion and beauty. In the past she has worked on a collection of clothes for Versace, been a brand ambassador for Tiffany & Co, and is a face of YSL Beauty. Notably this year she is front and centre for Chanel, both at the house’s shows and in launching the Chanel 25 handbag this past spring.

Dua’s appetite for life can’t be contained within the span of an ordinary human day – she needs every minute she can get just to meet the demands of her own curiosity. Her friend Mia laughs about this: “Maybe – a theory – she can stop time?”

“She’s been organised her entire life,” Anesa reflects. “She’s ahead of everything. The rest of us have to keep up.”

So what do Dua’s 30s hold for the Radical empire? “I think I’d love to expand Service95 and the book club,” she says. “I’d love to publish authors. I would love to help produce them into film and TV.” She recently executive produced a documentary about the music scene in Camden for Disney+, and would like to do more. She’s keen to see the music festival she set up in Kosovo grow. And at some point she wants to look after other musicians, “maybe have my own record label, maybe represent other artists”. Overall, she’s thinking: “How can I be of service, literally, to other artists, whether that be in film, TV, books, music?” You get the impression she doesn’t so much want to conquer the world as invite it to join her.

“Can you do all that?” I ask. She throws me an “are you kidding – I got this” look. “Yeah,” she says. “Nothing’s impossible

Twenty-two songs and five costume changes into her show, Dua has sung from a suspended platform, danced in the middle of a ring of fire, sprinkled autographs and taken selfies with tearful fans. She’s worn Valentino and Balenciaga. By the time the deep, familiar beat of her hit single “Houdini” comes on, the crowd has mutated into a single ecstatic organism.

“This is our last song!” Dua cries out. “So this is our last chance to dance! Are you ready?” The crowd goes wild. I think back to her telling me: “I feel so strong and I feel sexy and I feel kind of invincible when I’m on stage.”

With one last round of extraterrestrial energy, she launches into the precise and dauntless motions of the dance, gold chains shaking on her black Chanel bodysuit, lifted knee setting hips and shoulders rocking. This is music as physics – she has transformed the energy, changed the air, telegraphed the rhythms of the past two hours direct to the seat of our souls.

Backstage, Team Dua gathers, jaws slack with awe. Though they’ve seen her shows dozens of times before, they all agree that tonight she has transcended what you’d expect of mortals. In her dressing room, amid a joyful cluster of family and friends, Dua has shrunk in record time to a relatable scale. She’s changed back into her jeans, red Courrèges tank top and Puma Speedcats. It seems impossible that this and the giant I’ve just seen onstage are one and the same person.

“Are you human?” I find myself asking her. She laughs, and gives me a hug. “Did you have a good time?” she asks.

Perhaps that’s as much as you can ask of life. If so, Dua’s gift is to make it possible: for her friends, for her followers and for throngs of thousands, night after night. Anyone who thought radical optimism was just an album title hasn’t lived in Dua Lipa’s world”.

I will finish with a live review of a recent London show. Though Radical Optimism did not get the same hefty reviews as 2020’s Future Nostalgia, I think that it was among the best albums of 2024. Dua Lipa pushing her music forward and not repeating what went before. Houdini, Training Season and These Walls are among her best songs. I shall try not to duplicate too much of what I wrote about recently. Another reason for coming back to Dua Lipa is that she is someone who goes beyond the Pop world. In the previous feature, I mentioned her book club and podcast. I also put in a mixtape featuring some of her best songs. I feel there are artists who have or had the potential to be great actors. Gwen Stefani is one artist who should have been in a series of films! Dua Lipa has made some screen appearances. I don’t think she has been given the right roles yet. She has the potential to kick ass in a thriller or spy film or be the lead in a romantic comedy. Or a straight comedy. She could star in a music biopic or slot into a comedy-drama about life in Camden during the 1990s. At a very interesting time for music, focusing on this story that utilises some of the tracks of that time. She is so adaptable and talented, I would love to see her on the screen more. However, at her busiest right now, maybe this is something that will wait. She is getting married and priorities might shift! Also, there is that demand for a fourth studio album. Even though she took four years between her second and third albums, I feel a fourth might come sooner. New themes and subjects might inform the lyrics. Marriage and new love. Will it return to the sounds heard on Future Nostalgia or will she go in a completely different direction?

I also think her Service95 Book Club could get even bigger. In terms of side projects and new opportunities. Doing live episodes or recommendations and books featured appearing in their own section of book shops. I will get a feature that talks about that book club/service. I will come to it now, in fact. Another possibility beyond podcasting is Dua Lipa as an interviewer. Here is someone who could have a role in politics. She is an incredible interviewer and is hugely knowledgeable. She has such humanity too. The Guardian ran a feature in May and asked if Dua Lipa is the best literary interviewer ever:

“Firstly, Lipa seems to read a lot: in a keynote speech on the power of reading at the 2022 Booker prize, she mentions learning about the Albanian spirit of resistance through the work of author Ismail Kadare as a teenager. Her interviews are part of the book club she runs through her lifestyle website Service95, and while a cynic might suggest they’re a way to build a personal brand while pocketing a bit of affiliate-link cash (Reese Witherspoon, Dakota Fanning, Natalie Portman and Fallon himself are just a few of the celebrities to have their own clubs along with, of course, Oprah), she started her first book club with some close friends back in 2019.

She was posting recommendations on Instagram long before Service95, and her own bookshelf, tantalisingly visible in most of her interviews, is stuffed with an impressively esoteric mix of books, from Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men to Joe Coscarelli’s Rap Capital. Maybe, as someone who’s given hundreds of interviews in her time, she also understands what makes a good interview: the questions artists love and hate, the sorts of things they wish they were asked, and the things that make them open up. It’s unclear if she alone writes the questions – her reps didn’t respond to a request for comment – but she clearly knows the material: she’s always familiar with side characters and subplots, and never seems caught off guard by an unplanned author aside.

Beyond all of that, perhaps Dua Lipa is a good interviewer because she reads the books the way authors hope they’ll be read: diving into their characters and worlds for the sheer joy of the experience. It’s obvious she reads thoughtfully and deeply, bringing her to an understanding of each work that naturally leads her to want to know more. Listen to enough of her interviews, and her enthusiasm is so infectious that it’s difficult not to want to read more, or read more broadly, or just read better. All of that, and she also wrote Houdini. Time to step it up, Fallon”.

Dua Lipa is also one of the greatest live artists in the world. In the past few years alone, she has performed around the world and headlined Glastonbury last year. When Lipa played Wembley Stadium in June, DIY were among the many who awarded it huge praise. We are in a moment where Dua Lipa is going to join the greats of Pop. She is an artist that we should be so proud of:

“For a long time, it’s felt as though Dua Lipa’s been simmering just below the pinnacle of pop icon status. Perhaps that’s because, between her book club and accompanying podcast, lifestyle newsletter, YSL Beauty ambassadorship (there’s a pop-up for the brand set up at the foot of the stadium’s front stairs), and non-stop run of globe-trotting holidays, music is just one of several projects and side hustles she’s turned her hand to. Don’t be deceived, though: like a very sparkly magician pulling an endless string of silk handkerchiefs from her sleeve, her second sold-out night at Wembley Stadium delivers two hours of back-to-back hits to rival any pop juggernaut.

PHOTO CREDIT: Samir Hussein/Getty Images 

Beyond a smattering of glitter, it’s true that this tour hasn’t inspired the same cult dressing as contemporaries who have passed under Wembley’s arch. (That could just be a meteorological issue, to be fair - it’s hard to serve an extravagant look when a heatwave has turned London’s air to treacle-thick soup). Dua more than compensates with her own outfits, anyway - there are five, to be exact, each one heavily bedazzled and two involving fur, which can’t be fun in this temperature. On top of the costume changes, she also has chair-ography, burlesque feather fans, confetti, streamers, lasers, flames, fireworks, and a levitating C-stage. Make no mistake: this is a no-expense-spared spectacle in the truest sense.

Possibly the biggest spectacle tonight, though, is the reveal of her special guest. After last night’s somewhat unexpected Jamiroquai duet, the crowd are on more familiar ground - and predictably lose their minds - when Dua welcomes “the biggest brat” she’s ever met to join her onstage. Although Dua does feature on Charli’s remixed version of ‘Talk talk’, they opt instead for a storming rendition of ‘360’ that’s received with utterly unsurprising fervour.

Despite admitting to feeling nervous, Dua has the 70,000-strong crowd in the palm of her hand from the moment she appears tonight, performing like this is her 20th headline show here, not her second. Debut album singles ‘IDGAF’ and ‘Be the One’ receive just as much love as newer favourites ‘Training Season’, ‘Hallucinate’ and ‘Levitating’, while everyone merrily joins in with the mock fitness video intro for ‘Physical’. The hit parade slows down only when she takes a walk along the barricade - allowing her band to set up downstage - to compare nail art, hug, and take selfies with the front row, most of whom have travelled internationally to be here.

As the marathon show finally dances to a close with shimmering dancefloor-filler ‘Houdini’ (accompanied by even more fireworks, of course) it’s hard to deny that, when she’s not reading books or sampling restaurants on holiday, Dua can turn out a stadium-headlining set like it’s the most natural thing in the world”.

Because the superstar Dua Lipa turns thirty on 22nd August, I wanted to get in early when it comes to marking that. As she enters her fourth decade, what comes next?! A fourth studio album and more tour dates. I hope bigger acting roles and a chance for her to become more involved in politics as an ambassador and spokesperson. I can also see her interviewing more people, either for her podcast or in a different context. In terms of the affect and influence she can have on culture and status, Dua Lipa can match Madonna in years to come. Given her sheer talent and how she is influencing and touching people all around the world, that declaration is definitely not…

AN exaggeration.

FEATURE: Have a Cigar: Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

Have a Cigar

Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here at Fifty

__________

THERE is debate…

as to which album is the absolute best from Pink Floyd. Many might go for 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Others might say 1979’s The Wall. There are others who will go for 1975’s Wish You Were Here. I think this is my favourite Pink Floyd album. It turns fifty on 12th September. I wonder whether there will be a vinyl reissue or anything planned for the fiftieth anniversary. Before getting to a couple of reviews for Wish You Were Here, I want to bring in some features. I will start off with Classic Rock History and their feature that looks inside one of the biggest albums of the 1970s. One that has gone six-times platinum in the U.S. It is a remarkable listen:

“As anyone who has listened to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here throughout their entire life knows, side one of the record only contains two titles. The album opener “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (Parts I–V)  and side A’s closing number “Welcome to the Machine.”

The opener “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (Parts I–V) was written by Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Richard Wright. The lead vocals on the epic piece was performed by Roger Waters. This was a stunning piece of music that really defines the entire album more than any other piece of music on the record. The suite runs over thirteen minutes long and continues on side two as the album closer in parts (Parts VI–IX) which runs close to another thirteen minutes. The albums total running time comes in at forty four minutes and eleven seconds. The “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” suites takes up a total of twenty five minutes and sixty seconds making up for over half of the albums running time.

“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” presents rock and roll fans with such a daunting listening experience. Rock fans had never heard anything like it before. Its slow haunting beginning entraps you instantly as Richard Wright’s synthesisers portrayed a cinematic landscape that everyone’s own individual imagination could shape as they wished. The only limitations  were one’s own creative visions as a listener. The arrival of David Gilmour sparse but brilliant guitar riffs further enhanced the visual and mild altering experience. And then there it is at about the four minute mark when that metallic guitar riff takes the band into the heart of the song as David Gilmour continues to perform like he is from another world. Nick Mason and Roger Waters are in such a locked hypnotic groove surrounded by Richard Wright’s synths that it all just perfectly becomes music of legend.

Side two of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here  album closes with the intense track “Welcome To The Machine.” The song’s opening effects set up a scene where the listeners knew they were in for something pretty special. The opening guitars chords lay the ground for the chilling vocals by David Gilmour. Richard Wright’s synthesisers surrounds David Gilmour’s vocals line with mechanical sounds of doom. This is music that’s as rare as its gets. The lyrics  “Its alright we told you what to dream,” offers insight instantly to what this albums is all about. It’s in the heart of this song where we discover the rage that Pink Floyd has in their souls against the destructive forces of corporate entities on artists and human life itself. This is once again rock and roll rebellion. But it’s done for the first time in a deep progressive rock manner with a futurists almost 2001 Space Odyssey musical design.

Continuing with our look back at Pink Floyd’s classic album Wish You Were Here album here we take a listen to the album’s opening track on side two entitled “Have a Cigar.” The great Roy Harper sang lead vocals on the song. Pink Floyd continues with their lyrical rants against cooperation as they focus in empty promises by record company executives and other unscrupulous music industry individuals. While we could hear the point of these lyrics even at a young age, the music was just so entertaining and brilliant it pretty much completely overshadowed the meaning of the lyrics for many of us who were just floored by the band’s playing on the track. David Gilmour’s guitar playing is more on fire on the song than the dude on the cover of the album.

The title track of the album Wish You Were Here  followed “Have A Cigar,” on side two. This was the outlier on the album. The song opened up like it was being played out of a old beat up transistor radio until the magnificent guitar playing of David Gilmour infiltrates your space with such brilliant production. High School guitar players like my friend Danny Sobstyl jumped on this one as they performed the song in coffee houses and cafes everywhere. It was just one of those perfect accessible songs that musicians could play with an acoustic guitar. A spectacular composition that sounds just as strong and important in 2021 as it did in 1975.

As we stated and covered earlier, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album closes with the second half of the “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” suite. This classic Pink Floyd album was the band’s ninth studio album release. The album was released on September 12, 1975. The album cover was once again created by the art firm known as Hipgnosis. We covered Pink Floyd album Cover Art in a very detailed article. Pink Floyd recorded the album at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London made famous by The Beatles. The album has become known as one of the greatest classic rock albums ever released as it has sold over twenty million copies. Many Pink Floyd fans claim Wish You Were Here as their favourite Pink Floyd album. Even David Gilmour and Richard Wright have said it was their favorite Pink Floyd album they ever released. That pretty much sums it all up right there”.

Apologies if there is any repetition. However, I think that it is important to highlight the relatively few features written about this album. Wish You Were Here should get a wave of celebration and investigation on its fiftieth anniversary. The Boar published a feature earlier this year that heralded a classic album that shines bright (like a crazy diamond) fifty years after its release:

“Wish You Were Here opens with its longest track, a prolonged lament for an absent friend: ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-5)’. The song is centred on a haunting guitar refrain which has since achieved iconic status, only interrupted by Waters’ sombre vocals at the nine minute mark. This leaves plenty of time for Gilmour’s tastefully restrained yet expressive guitar playing, which is noticeably free from the soaring majesty of the solos on ‘Time’ or, later in 1979, ‘Comfortably Numb’. The song ends with a passionate saxophone solo by Richard Parry, who also played on The Dark Side of the Moon, most notably on ‘Money’. On any other album, this would be the standout track.

‘Shine On’ segues smoothly into the desolate industrial soundscape of ‘Welcome to the Machine’ and quickly establishes the emotionally charged politics of Wish You Were Here. The private tragedy of Syd Barrett becomes a public commentary on the insatiable exploitation of the music industry; Barrett’s own breakdown becomes symbolic of the musicians chewed up and spat out by the ‘machine’. The track’s initial ambience is then punctured by heavily layered, futuristic synthesisers and Waters’ talented lyricism once again comes to the fore. He comments on the commodification of artistic creativity: “What did you dream? It’s alright, we told you what to dream” (‘Welcome to the Machine’, Pink Floyd).

In an abrupt yet thematically cohesive change of tone, ‘Have a Cigar’ brings the listener into the office of a music executive, who tells the band: “You gotta get an album out / You owe it to the people”(‘Have a Cigar’, Pink Floyd). This allusion to the music industry churning through artists in a bid to hit the charts is accompanied by disquietingly upbeat instrumentalism, with a bass groove and energetic guitar solo. Voiced by folk musician Roy Harper, the executive asks, “Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?” (‘Have a Cigar’, Pink Floyd), assuming that ‘Pink Floyd’ is the name of one of the band members. Pink Floyd’s vision of the industry feels distinctly dystopian, dominated by an unsavoury combination of ignorance and greed.

After a brief burst of radio, the album’s most famous song, ‘Wish You Were Here’, opens with another memorable riff from Gilmour, this time played on a twelve-string acoustic guitar. The popularity of ‘Wish You Were Here’ is unsurprising, given that this song above all captures the emotional devastation wrought by Barrett’s absence. Not to be outdone by Gilmour’s guitar, Waters’ lyrics are particularly poignant here; he suggests that “we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year” (‘Wish You Were Here’, Pink Floyd). Sure enough, the album takes the listener on a cyclical journey, beginning and ending with ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’.

‘Wish You Were Here’ ends with the sound of wind blowing, which continues seamlessly on the album’s final track ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6-9)’. This is in many ways the perfect outro, featuring the most dramatic solo on the album. Gilmour’s lap steel guitar shrilly mimics the rising and falling cry of a mourner before the vocals return for one final time, telling the absent Barrett “we’ll bask in the shadow of yesterday’s triumph / And sail on the steel breeze” (‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6-9)’, Pink Floyd). In the dying moments of the track, a brief snatch of melody from one of Barrett’s songs, ‘See Emily Play’, can faintly be heard, one last tribute by Wright before the album reaches its conclusion.

With Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd set the gold standard for introspective and politically astute rock, with a legacy that extends into the 21st century. The album’s bleak view of the music industry now appears to have been worryingly prescient. By the time of Syd Barrett’s death in 2006, companies had already begun to shift towards a streaming model with the creation of Spotify, and the exploitation of the ‘70s has continued in the form of streaming giants’ cynical underpayment of artists. In many ways, Wish You Were Here is deeply rooted in time and place, but its intimacy and provocative politics remain undiminished, even half a century later”.

It is amazing that Wish You Were Here was made at all. The Dark Side of the Moon almost ended the band. On 13th January, 1975, Pink Floyd set up Abbey Road’s Studio 3 to start work on their seventh studio album. Sessions took place either side and between two tours of North America. That created extra tension and issues. The slightly fragmented and uneven recording. Their focus and powers being pulled and stretched. Although the tour of North America was a success, there were issues with the police being heavy-handed with fans. I am going to pick up on a Classic Rock feature from 2022. They provide a detailed and fascinating history and background leading up to Wish You Were Here:

“Back at Abbey Road in May, Waters was keen to carry on working, despite obvious tensions. “We pressed on regardless of the general ennui for a few weeks and then things came to a bit of a head,” he recalls. “I felt that the only way I could retain interest in the project was to try to make the album relate to what was going on there and then – the fact that no one was really looking each other in the eye, and that it was all very mechanical.” Waters’s vision was cemented at a band meeting. “We all sat round and unburdened ourselves a lot, and I took notes on what everybody was saying. It was a meeting about what wasn’t happening and why.”

Waters extended further still his ideas of general themes of absence and detachment by opting to write yet more new material.

“I suggested that we change it,” Waters continues. “That we didn’t do the other two songs [Raving And Drooling and Gotta Be Crazy], but tried somehow to make a bridge between the first and second halves of Shine On, which is how Welcome To The Machine, Wish You Were Here and Have A Cigar came in… Dave was always clear that he wanted to do the other two songs – he never quite copped what I was talking about. But Rick did and Nicky did, and he was outvoted so we went on.”

With Gilmour and Waters – the principal players in the band – at complete cross purposes, recording carried on, even if Gilmour wasn’t convinced: “After Dark Side we really were floundering around. I wanted to make the next album more musical. I always thought that Roger’s emergence as a great lyric writer on the last album was such that he came to overshadow the music.”

Even by agreeing to disagree there was also a sense they were being held back by general lethargy, promoted by an alarming divorce rate within the band. Although his own marriage had hit the skids very recently, Waters was able to divert his energies into songwriting. But in Mason’s case his impending split “manifested itself into complete, well, rigor mortis. I didn’t quite have to be carried about, but I wasn’t interested. I couldn’t get myself to sort out the drumming, and that of course drove everyone else even crazier.”

Having finally settled on what it was they were now going to record, they set about putting it all down on tape. Shine On was to be split into two halves: Parts 1-5 and 6-9. Part 5 eventually featured their tour saxophonist Dick Parry, who switches between baritone and tenor sax. Particularly problematic were Waters’s vocal sessions. “It was right on the edge of my range,” Waters recalled. “I always felt very insecure about singing anyway because I’m not naturally able to sing well. I know what I want to do but I don’t have the ability to do it well. It was fantastically boring to record, cos I had to do it line by line, doing it over and over again just to get it sounding reasonable.”

Consequently further tensions surfaced as the boredom of the process took its toll and band members became increasingly disinterested in turning up for sessions at all. “Punctuality became an issue,” Mason recalled. “If two of us were on time and the others were late, we were quite capable of working ourselves up into a righteous fury. The following day the roles could easily be reversed. None of us was free from blame.”

Little changed when they came to record Have A Cigar, and again Waters’s singing was showing its limitations. This time though, their friend Roy Harper was drafted in to sing. “Roy was recording in the studio anyway,” recalled Waters, “and was in and out all the time. I can’t remember who suggested it, maybe I did, probably hoping everybody would go: ‘Oh no, Rog, you do it’. But they didn’t. They all went: ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.’ He did it, and everybody went: ‘Oh, terrific!’ So that was that.”

It was an instantly regrettable decision, and although Waters reluctantly conceded a credit on the album, there was certainly no question of payment. Tape engineer John Leckie recalled Waters saying to Harper that they must make sure he get paid for his efforts. “And Roy said: ‘Just get me a life season ticket to Lord’s.’ He kept prompting Roger, but it never came. About 10 years later, Roy wrote a letter to Roger and decided that, due to the success of Wish You Were Here, £10,000 would be adequate. And heard nothing at all.”

Have A Cigar is Waters’s cynical take on the music industry, and contains the immortal line: ‘Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?’ “We did have people who would say to us: “Which one’s Pink”’ and stuff like that,” Gilmour recalled. “There were an awful lot of people who thought Pink Floyd was the name of the lead singer, and that was Pink himself and the band. That’s how it all came about. It was quite genuine.” In many respects Waters was biting the very hand that was feeding him.

On the eve of their departure from England to begin their second tour of North America, Syd Barrett made his aforementioned appearance at Abbey Road. It was the last time the band ever saw him. Part 9 of Shine On You Crazy Diamond includes the melody from See Emily Play as the track fades out. An afterthought? Perhaps”.

I will wrap things up with a couple of reviews for the epic Wish You Were Here. I am going to go back to last year and a review from Pitchfork. It is a compelling review of a “mournful, emotionally charged mood piece that grounded a historically cosmic band”:

“Nearly 50 years and 20 million in sales later, it’s safe to say this theme resonated far beyond the cloistered world of rock stardom. It didn’t replicate the culture-defining ubiquity of Dark Side nor the feature-length conceptual heft of 1979’s The Wall. But, fitting for a record born from growing pains and adult disillusionment, its legacy is somewhat more understated. There is an apocryphal legend that this is the album that convinced Gilmour to quit smoking, after he heard his unsuppressable cough somewhere low in the mix during the staticky intro of the title track. It also inspired one of the coolest packaging designs in music history, from the band’s loyal collaborator Storm Thorgerson at Hipgnosis, who talked the record company into selling the album with an opaque black sleeve so that serious collectors might own the album without ever actually seeing the real cover. (“Brilliant,” he says in a 2012 documentary, snapping his fingers at the camera: “That’s really absent!”)

But the most famous story about Wish You Were Here is a more troubling one. On a late spring day in June 1975, Barrett wandered into the recording studio, physically transformed, eyes vacant, unrecognizable to his former bandmates. Everyone present has retold the story the same way over the ensuing decades: No one could believe it was him. He had no response to the new music they played for him. He seemed to be in another world entirely. It was the last time most of the band saw him before his death in 2006. Gilmour has said he thinks about him every time he sings the title track, a staple of the band’s catalog that he’s since referred to as a “very simple country song.” Its imagery of a heaven indistinguishable from hell, of heroes traded for ghosts, have become so ingrained in our FM radio subconscious that it can be hard to remember how gutting it must have felt from this band who achieved everything they wanted and still found themselves haunted, hardened, beaten down by where their dreams had led them. After all, Wish You Were Here is what it says on postcards from somewhere beautiful. But it also means you’re alone”.

The final piece I am going to highlight is a review from the BBC. I wonder if we see albums like Wish You Were Here today. One that starts out this amazing suite, then we get a few standalone tracks and the album ends with another suite. A concept album I guess. Maybe some bands do this sort of thing, thought you hope that more can go beyond the traditional and do something as ambitious (or risky) as delivering their own Wish You Were Here:

“As the follow-up to the Floyd’s iconic, record-breaking 1973 concept album The Dark Side Of The Moon, this album is often unfairly overlooked. With the benefit of hindsight, Wish You Were Here has the same faultless pacing and sequencing of its predecessor, but a more coherent musical narrative, structure and tone, as well as greater lyrical sophistication. Here, the ‘concept’ is more down-to-earth, since much of the record is an extended tribute to the late Syd Barrett ­ the genius behind their early works, who flew too high and burned too bright, becoming one of rock’s most infamous drug casualties before Pink Floyd emerged from London¹s psychedelic underground scene to become one of the biggest success stories of the 1970s. It’s also the last great album by a band that would produce something as adolescently puerile as The Wall by the end of that decade.

Barrett is the subject of the epic “Shine On You Crazy Diamond, parts One and Two” of which take up more than half the playing time and bookend just three other shorter tracks. Despite some questionable keyboard tones from Richard Wright, the majestically unhurried instrumental intro is a triumph of suspense. It¹s nearly nine minutes before Roger Waters starts singing and the effect is startling, as are the words: ‘Remember when you were young?/ You shone like the sun / Shine On You Crazy Diamond!/ Now there’s a look in your eye / Like black holes in the sky’. It’s debatable whether the ‘iPod generation’ will get all of the eerie, almost visual sound detail in the more melodramatic “Welcome To The Machine”, which presages some of the pomp of their later work. Guest vocalist Roy Harper is a gritty presence on the music industry-bating “Have A Cigar” and the breathless title track finds Waters’ lyrics at their most soul searching. Some may baulk at Dave Gilmour’s long, bluesy guitar workouts, which form the backbone of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and crop up throughout the album. Hey, these were the dying days of prog. rock. Punk was just around the corner and it’s easy to see why, but mid-seventies post-psychedelic angst seldom sounded so chilled”.

On 12th September, it will be fifty years since Wish You Were Here was released. If you see it as the best Pink Floyd album or one of their classics, there is no denying that it is a work of genius. It still sounds mind-blowing and cosmic half a century later. I hope that it does get some new love and inspection closer to the anniversary. Some might feel this is an album only a certain generation can appreciate. Older listeners. That is not the case. This is a spellbinding albums that will reach new generations…

ALL around the world.

.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Chuck D at Sixty-Five: Public Enemy and Beyond

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Chuck D at Sixty-Five: Public Enemy and Beyond

__________

ON 1st August…

PHOTO CREDIT: David Levene/The Guardian

one of the most influential figures in Hip-Hop history turns sixty-five. Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour) was born in Flushing, New York on 1st August, 1960. Leader of the iconic Public Enemy, this is the group he co-founded with Flavor Flav in 1985. Without doubt one of the most important lyricists of his generation, Chuck D received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as a member of Public Enemy. I am going to end this feature by collating his best cuts with Public Enemy. I will also include some tracks from his group, Prophets of Rage. Also some solo material. Before getting there, AllMusic have some useful biography of Chuck D. For anyone who does not know about his career and incredible impact on music and society as a whole. We cannot underestimate his importance:

“As the founder of Public Enemy, Chuck D is one of the most colossal figures in the history of hip-hop, not to mention its most respected intellectual. He redefined hip-hop as music with a message, and his strident radicalism ushered in an era when rap was closely scrutinized for its content. His booming voice and revolutionary lyrics provided a sober counterpart to the exuberant comic relief of bandmate Flavor Flav, and as part of the Bomb Squad, he helped pioneer a chaotic, sample-heavy production style that greatly influenced numerous styles of hip-hop and electronic dance music. A decade into his career, the rapper made his solo debut with the 1996 full-length Autobiography of Mistachuck, which found him rhyming over more streamlined funk rhythms than the densely packed collages of his work with PE. While the group remained active, Chuck formed other projects such as the Impossebulls, and released material through his SLAMjamz and Spit Digital imprints, later combined as SpitSLAM Record Label Group. He also recorded and performed with members of Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill as the rap-rock supergroup Prophets of Rage during the late 2010s. He revisited busy, Bomb Squad-esque production with his Def Jam-issued 2025 solo album Radio Armageddon.

Chuck D was born Carlton Douglas Ridenhour in Roosevelt, Long Island, on August 1, 1960. His parents were both political activists, and he was a highly intelligent student, turning down an architecture scholarship to study graphic design at Long Island's Adelphi University. While in school, he put his talents to use making promotional flyers for hip-hop events, and went on to co-host a hip-hop mix show on the campus radio station with two future Public Enemy cohorts, Bill Stephney and Hank Shocklee. Under the name Chuckie D, he rapped on Shocklee's demo recording, "Public Enemy No. 1," which caught the interest of Rick Rubin at Def Jam. In response, the now-named Chuck D assembled Public Enemy, a group designed to support the force of his rhetoric with noisy, nearly avant-garde soundscapes.

Public Enemy debuted in 1987 with Yo! Bum Rush the Show, a dry run for one of the greatest three-album spans in hip-hop history. Released in 1988, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was acclaimed by many critics as the greatest hip-hop album of all time, and was instrumental in breaking rap music to rock audiences. Fear of a Black Planet (1990) and its follow-up, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, consolidated Public Enemy's position as the most important rap group of its time. There were storms of controversy along the way, most notably Chuck D's endorsement of the polarizing Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan, and group member Professor Griff's highly publicized anti-Semitic slurs. But on the whole, Public Enemy's groundbreaking body of work established Chuck D as one of the most intelligent, articulate spokesmen for the Black community. He became an in-demand speaker on the college lecture circuit (much like his peer KRS-One), and was frequently invited to provide commentary on TV news programs.

Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age (1994) wasn't as well-received as the group's previous albums, and the following year, Chuck put PE on hiatus while planning their next move. In the meantime, he released his first solo album, Autobiography of Mistachuck, in 1996, and published his first book, Fight the Power: Rap, Race and Reality, the following year. He reconvened Public Enemy for the soundtrack to Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, and the following year left Def Jam over the label's refusal to allow him to distribute the band's music through free Internet downloads. Signing with the web-based Atomic Pop label, Chuck became an outspoken advocate of MP3 technology, and made 1999's There's a Poison Goin' On... one of the first full-length albums by a major artist to be made available over the Internet (it was later released on CD as well).

Having previously made a notable guest appearance on Sonic Youth's song "Kool Thing," Chuck made his first full-fledged venture into rock music with Confrontation Camp, a group with Professor Griff and Kyle Jason, which issued the album Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear in 2000. He also formed the underground rap group the Impossebulls, who debuted with a self-titled 2001 effort on Chuck's SLAMjamz imprint. Following collaborations with Henry Rollins, Common, Z-Trip, and others, Chuck put together Tribb to JB, a salute to James Brown, in 2007. Public Enemy was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. He continued issuing solo material independently, often credited as Mista Chuck, with releases such as 2014's The Black in Man and 2018's Celebration of Ignorance. He also formed Prophets of Rage with three members of Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill's B-Real. The rap-rock supergroup released the EP The Party's Over (2016) and a self-titled 2017 full-length, disbanding in 2019 when RATM reunited. Chuck also continued publishing books, including 2017's Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History.

Public Enemy were honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, and the group made a surprise return to Def Jam with the guest-heavy What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down? Chuck followed it with a solo single, "It's So Hard to See My Baseball Cards Move On," in 2021. The track later appeared on We Wreck Stadiums, a full-length of baseball-themed songs originally written as MLB-TV promos, in 2023. The title track featured appearances by fellow Rock & Roll Hall of Famers DMC and the Furious Five's Rahiem and Kidd Creole. Backed by pianist JP Hesser, Chuck released The Writings of Barbara Dumas Francis, an EP of poems written by his aunt, in 2024. His first Def Jam full-length as a solo artist, Radio Armageddon, arrived in 2025. Returning to the noisy, experimental production style of Public Enemy's early work, the album featured appearances by Daddy-O (Stetsasonic), Schoolly D, Jazzy Jay, and others”.

I am going to end things there. An artist responsible for some of the most powerful songs ever committed to tape, I do hope that there will be more material from Chuck D in years to come. Whether Public Enemy release another album (Black Sky Over The Projects: Apartment 2025 was released this year) or there is another Prophets of Rage album. This mixtape celebrate a pioneer ahead of his sixty-fifth birthday on 1st August. Huge respect and admiration for…

THE mighty Chuck D.

FEATURE: Groovelines: All Saints – Black Coffee

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

All Saints – Black Coffee

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THERE are a few reasons…

why I want to feature this song in Groovelines. A classic from All Saints, it is from their 2000 album, Saints & Sinners. There is a reissue coming out on 19th September. Released on 16th October, 2000, it is the second studio album from Melanie Blatt, Nicole Appleton, Natalie Appleton and Shaznay Lewis. Following their eponymous debut album of 1997, Saints & Sinners was a different direction. Produced by William Orbit, some felt Saints & Sinners was too similar to the work of Madonna and Spice Girls. Orbit did produce Madonna’s Ray of Light. There are similar touches between All Saints’ second studio album and Madonna’s Ray of Light. What critics did approve of is the singles released from the album. The second single, Black Coffee, was released on 2nd October, 2000. Turning twenty-five soon, it is one of the very best songs from All Saints. Black Coffee is a piece of music that I can listen to on repeat for ages. It does not get a lot of coverage, so I wanted to spotlight it here. I will get to some critical reaction for this dingle. One that I think ranks alongside the best singles of the early-2000s. Black Coffee was written by Tom Nichols, Alexander von Soos and Kirsty Bertarelli. It is distinct because is the only All Saints original single not to be written by group member Shaznay Lewis. The song has this catchiness that is hard to explain. The harmonies are incredible. Its video is also really memorable. Directed by Bo Johan Renck, it features the group singing as an arguing couple are seen around them. The video was shot in bullet time in a high-rise apartment block. Black Coffee did go through change and evolution. Originally titled I Wouldn’t Wanna Be, after the success of the previous single, Pure Shores, William Orbit, Melanie Blatt and Shaznay Lewis began working on a new arrangement. The song then became Black Coffee. Recording in Los Angeles and London, this direction was new for All Saints. Going more into Electronic and Dance, Black Coffee have the group more freedom and a chance to experiment with new sounds.

What we hear as the single was completely different to the original version. That was recorded by co-writer Kirsty Bertarelli and it was D.J. Gary Davies who believed that it would be perfect to launch her career. Or at least take it to the new level. It was taken to record companies but there was a feeling that it would be better recorded by All Saints. Davies took the demo of the song to Swiss entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli. All Saints were his group, so he could see its potential in terms of what they could do with it. Black Coffee is rare in terms of the lead vocals. In terms of singles at least, Shaznay Lewis took lead. Or she had the bigger role. Maybe as one of the songwriter, she felt like leader of the group. Natalie Appleton was frustrated during recording, as she hoped it would be a chance for her and Nicole Appleton to sing lead. However, Shaznay Lewis turned up early for sessions and made her presence felt. Melanie Blatt sang lead on Pure Shores, so maybe she felt her power was waning and that she needed to exert more control. It must have been more intense than it should have been. However, the final arrangement does sound amazing. Black Coffee’s B-side was Don't Wanna Be Alone, which was written by Shaznay Lewis, Ali Tennant, Wayne Hector and K-Gee. In 2018, All Saints released Testament. It saw All Saints reunite with producer William Orbit. DAZED spoke with the group and asked about working with Orbit. It was interesting what they said about working on Black Coffee and how that came about. Twenty-five years after its release and you can see how it is has inspired artists. Aspects of that song being picked up by others:

“The fans are going to freak out about you working with William Orbit again.

Shaznay Lewis: I've seen and spoken to William here and there throughout the years. The contact has never completely been lost. But Nicole and I ran into William one night, and he was like, 'I've heard you guys are doing new music and shows and it's going really well, so when are we going to do something again?' We were literally like, 'Okay yeah, let's do it.'

Nicole Appleton: Honestly, it was like working with an old friend. Things just happened really naturally and fell into place.

Shaznay Lewis: At the end of the day, he's old-school and we're old-school. We come from the school of doing another take, and another take, and another take, until we have a vocal that works. With us, it's not about chopping up the vocals and piecing them together.

Were you apprehensive about working with him again, because “Pure Shores” and “Black Coffee” are such iconic pop songs?

Shaznay Lewis: I know what you mean – but I hate to think that we could never have gone back in the studio with him because we were too scared. We can't make another “Pure Shores” – we'd be mad to try. But at the end of the day, it's about evolving. William is someone who's renowned for a certain sound,  so there's always going to be inflections and reminders of past songs. But as long as what we're working on now is good, and we all like what we're creating, it definitely feels right.

How did “Pure Shores” originally come about? Obviously you recorded it for the soundtrack to The Beach.

Shaznay Lewis: It was really Danny Boyle allowing me to see about a minute or so of The Beach. I just saw the scene where they're under the water. William's music was on it already and I went away and wrote to that. I really enjoyed the process because you don't really have to dig too deep into your own thoughts.

Shaznay, “Black Coffee” is one of the few All Saints singles you didn't write. How did that song come to you?

Shaznay Lewis: Someone at London Records played it to us. And it wasn't anything like the version we recorded. But I remember we all thought it was a good song.

Natalie Appleton: Originally, it was almost like a rock ballad or something.

Shaznay Lewis: I think it was definitely the right song to get handed to William to work his magic on. He's quite good like that – he'll take a part that you may have thought was a verse and make it into a chorus, and generally just swap things around. He definitely messed around with that song and made it what it was”.

The reception for Black Coffee was largely positive. It is a track I remember in 2000. I was already a fan of All Saints and I was hooked right away! One of the standout songs from Saints & Sinners, I hold out hope that All Saints will record more music together. 2018’s Testament is their most recent album. Wikipedia brought together critical reaction to Black Coffee. A huge chart success in several countries, this song is one that I really love and would encourage everyone to listen to:

“Black Coffee" received acclaim from music critics upon release. Simon Evans writing in the Birmingham Post described the song as a "beautiful slice of haunting, hypnotic pop". John Mulvey of The Scotsman praised its "sleek, scrupulously mature sound", while AllMusic's Jon O'Brien regarded it among All Saints' most accomplished and mature work, highlighting its "lush electronics". David Brinn of The Jerusalem Post found the song wistful and radio-friendly. In the Sunday Herald, Samuel McGuire characterised the track as "a gem of a truly wonderous lustre"; the newspaper's Graeme Virtue hailed it as one of "the best pop singles ever". BBC Music's Nigel Packer chose the song as a highlight on Saints & Sinners, while Russell Baillie of The New Zealand Herald said "Black Coffee" along with "Pure Shores" and "Surrender" "put [most of the album] in the shade." The Sunday People's Sean O'Brien gave "Black Coffee" a rating of eight out of ten.

In the NME, Siobhan Grogan called the song almost perfect, writing that "it's wistful in all the right places and makes sadness sound rather alluring like only the bitterest love songs can." Grogan also compared it to "Pure Shores" saying that it "has the same mellow, glossy haziness to it, as if they recorded it lying down." Similarly, Eva Simpson of the Daily Mirror wrote that the track "brought the same high-gloss sheen" as "Pure Shores" and cited it as a curtain raiser for Saints & Sinners. A Western Mail reviewer viewed the two songs as "equally tremendous", while The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan found "Black Coffee" superior, describing it as "beguiling treatment of a domestic scenario" and "easily the most alluring depiction of a bleary-eyed morning routine ever recorded." Sullivan also said All Saints "lend radiance to [Orbit's] twinkling fairy lights.” Lindsay Baker from the same newspaper deemed it Saints & Sinners' "particularly infectious" track, while R.S. Murthi of the New Straits Times called it the album's most endearing song, likening it to releases by the Cocteau Twins”.

I will end with a little about the influence of Black Coffee. Before getting there, I want to come to this review. It argues that there is warmth and escapism in the song. However, there is also bite and a harder edge. It is a perfect combination that meant it was always going to be a massive success. Alongside Pure Shores, it was this remarkable sound that we did not really get on the All Saints album of 1997:

“All Saints’ final number one is their most oblique, their most grown-up, also their finest. The song barely glances at its title – a pair of words out of a hundred in the lyric – but the whole record is a glance or a quiet smile, a celebration of tiny satisfactions, and of finding yourself with someone who conjures them so easily. “Each moment is cool / freeze the moment”. It’s a song, most of it, about feeling contented – a rare subject for pop, which prefers to nose out conflict (the video finds some anyway, staging “Black Coffee” as a post-Matrix bullet time break-up drama). There are songs – cousins to this, like “I Say A Little Prayer” – that capture the way love makes the everyday blush with significance, but “Black Coffee” is after something more comfortable. A day with your lover, as casually sweet as all the other ones. Nothing’s perfect, but “Black Coffee”’s rippling, overlapping melody lines make even the quarrels sound blissful.

It’s a lovely record, two late 90s takes on pop meshing and peaking: All Saints’ idea of a British female harmony group, and William Orbit’s gorgeous dissolve of pop into ambient bubbles and flows. (Both now disappear: All Saints split, to largely unsuccessful ends; Orbit, jilted by his primary collaborator, stepped back from the charts.) The combination, as on “Pure Shores”, is irresistibly of its time: unlike that record, “Black Coffee” isn’t pure escapism. Around the edges of this playful song snaps another, one with a harder bite. The opening and breakdown of “Black Coffee” – crunching drums, radar synths – is like a more unforgiving world which our couple spend the mid-song cocooning themselves away from.

The snap and turn of those opening beats makes me think of catwalk photography; the video feels more like a magazine shoot than a relationship. Probably more than anyone since the early 80s, All Saints were a band who felt like they belonged in fashion, a style press imagining of what pop could be like. They always looked the part, but often the music strained too hard to live up to its references. Finally, with the Orbit collaborations, they got there, and “Black Coffee” is the greatest realisation of the All Saints concept – their most perfectly glossy exterior, and only warmth inside.

Score: 9”.

It is clear that Black Coffee paved the way for artists like Girls Aloud and Sugababes. The production on the track definitely influenced these groups. I feel even artists such as Charli xcx are channelling some of Black Coffee’s sound. A certain blend and attitude that has moved and influenced some huge artists. As a track, it is timeless and I don’t think it will ever lose its brilliance. Unforgettable and intoxicating, Black Coffee is…

A perfect pick-me-up.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Maeta

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Sonali Ohrie for NOTION

Maeta

__________

I am revisiting…

someone that I spotlighted in 2023. The incredible Maeta is Maeta Hall, a remarkable artist known for her alternative R&B sound. Growing up in Indianapolis, she released her debut album, When I Hear Your Name, in 2023. She released Endless Night last year. At seven tracks, would we class it as an E.P. or mini-album? In any case, there will be many wondering if another album will arrive. I will get to all the positives. I did read how Maeta supported Chris Brown on tour a while back. An abuser and artist who should not be playing and given any freedom, it is disquieting when artists collaborate with him and perform on the same stage. However, I shall step away from that and focus on Maeta and her stunning music – as Chris Brown does not warrant any of my time and anger. Last year was a busy one for Maeta. This is a moment when I can feel her gearing up for her next chapter. That is why I want to come back to her now. I am starting out with a Billboard interview from last year. We get to learn more about her musical upbringing:

“From the moment she could crawl, Maeta was immersed in music. Spinning her father’s CDs on the living room floor wasn’t just a hobby—it was an obsession. “I’d sit there every day, pick a random CD, and just listen,” she recalls with a sheepish smile, hinting at her young age. But in that childhood ritual, a lifelong passion ignited. At seven, Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” left a lasting mark, solidifying her path. “I thought I was the best singer in the world at seven—I was so trash,” she laughs, reflecting on her early confidence.

Growing up in Indianapolis, a city she fondly calls “a breeding ground for dreamers,” Maeta was fueled by an unwavering determination. Despite limited access to a vibrant music scene, her imagination thrived. School choirs and after-school projects became her first taste of songwriting and recording. “It was bad,” she admits, “but it was the closest thing to the music industry in Indiana.” Even when her dreams felt unattainable, Maeta never wavered and her passion to be a musician was her compass.

Her journey into music wasn’t just about discovery—it was about persistence and vision. At 18, she left Indiana for Los Angeles, diving headfirst into the industry. “I spent four months in the studio, working with so many producers, every single day,” she says. It was overwhelming but formative, helping her find her sound. Even now, she remains fluid, saying, “I just did a dance project, but I’m about to go back into my R&B ballad bag. It’s fun to not always know where you’re headed.”

Her creative process is as unpredictable as her musical direction. “Sometimes I cry, sitting in the dark for hours. Other days, I’m in a good mood,” she explains. For Maeta, the studio is a sacred space. “I like the lights off. I don’t even like to see my engineer half the time. I want to be in my little cave,” she says, describing the intimacy and solitude she needs to create.

But the path hasn’t been without its challenges. Maeta speaks candidly about the power dynamics in the industry, especially with men. “I’ve dealt with men in power trying to take advantage… that’s been happening since I was 13,” she says. Yet, she’s found a team that supports her fully. “I love my team so much… they’ve been so loyal. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

Her journey is a testament to imagination, grit, and the unwavering pursuit of dreams. “Imagination is everything… but you need the determination to make it happen. I’ve wanted to give up so many times, but you just have to come back to it,” she admits, highlighting the resilience that has carried her through the highs and lows of her career. It’s this blend of vision and persistence that defines not only her artistry but also her personal growth. Now, her music carries a profound depth rooted in lived experience and emotional truth. “I don’t even like songs unless I feel something,” she reflects, emphasizing how her creative process has evolved. “I used to sing whatever I was told. Now, it has to mean something to me.”

This evolution mirrors her alignment with Honda’s ethos of determination, resilience, and the power of dreams. Much like Honda’s commitment to turning bold ideas into reality, she embodies the spirit of pushing forward despite challenges, finding purpose in the journey, and crafting something meaningful along the way. It’s this shared sense of vision and perseverance that makes her a natural fit for this year’s Honda Stage, a platform dedicated to highlighting artists who reflect these ideals through their stories and their music. Her performance becomes a celebration of not just her talent, but the grit and heart that have defined her journey.

Her latest song, “Back,” performed exclusively for Billboard and Honda Stage, delves into self-sabotage, an emotional vulnerability she openly shares. “It’s about when you’re your own worst enemy, especially in love. You overthink, hate yourself, and take it out on the person trying to love you,” she confides. It’s this raw honesty that resonates deeply with her audience.

Her music, much like her creative process, is a blend of spontaneity and intent, where every song carries “little pieces of me.” Maeta remains a chameleon, who finds joy in experimentation but is determined to leave an unmistakable stamp on her music. “You’re not gonna hear my song and not know it’s me.” For Maeta, collaboration isn’t just a part of her career—it’s the lifeblood of her artistry, keeping her inspired and pushing her creativity to new levels. “Artists and musicians are crazy. Creatives are just so inspiring… every time I work with somebody new, there’s just something weird about them that I love”.

Someone who is among the artists who will redefine and rewrite R&B, eyes should be cast her way. I think another positive is the cover for last year’s Endless Night. Such a stunning shot in terms of the composition and colours, it is rare to find an album cover that stands out. However, Maeta’s definitely does! Even though NOTION write in their headline that Maeta is preparing to release a debut album (what do we class When I Hear Your Name as?!), they do note how she is getting rid of “the sad-girl narrative, she’s diving headfirst into a new era where love and self-discovery reign supreme”:

“Still learning as she goes, Maeta understands more than ever the importance of believing in herself and taking control of her career. “When I started out, I had 400 people critiquing my music, what I wore, how I looked and how I did interviews. When you constantly hear criticism, you lose yourself. I went through that recently. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to trust yourself. I’m the artist. We are here because of me,” she says with sincerity. This bold declaration showcases Maeta’s laser-focused ambition that has taken her to the apex of the R&B scene. Now, she’s taking back her power firmly and assuredly setting her sights on one goal: to dominate the global stage. “I want to be a damn pop star. However, I get there, I get there. I don’t plan my way, I just know I’ll get there no matter what. I want to stamp my name on this world and make sure my art and music outlive me.”

And what better way to announce herself and her trajectory than dropping her debut album? Still tweaking the final touches, the record marks a new chapter for Maeta, a chance to tear up the rulebook and declare who she truly is. “Instead of singing about relationships, I’m singing about me. I’m ready to own myself, own what I’ve been through, and own who I am.” Now that she’s done with mapping out old scars, asserting her agency has made Maeta step into “grittier” soundscapes, experimenting with darker and heavier realms that dig deep into the soul. But don’t expect a total mood shift, Maeta is still embracing that lover-girl energy she’s known for. “I want people to listen to the album and really feel how love hits me. I’m a lover-girl. Love drives me. I’m bringing back feel- good love songs. Right now, everything feels so toxic and petty. I want the album to feel like a warm hug.”

Right now, Maeta is chasing more than just musical heights, she’s seeking a deeper kind of fulfilment. After years of living in overdrive, she is finally realising that hitting pause is sometimes part of the journey. “I was like 10 years old worrying about my damn singing career,” she laughs reflecting on how “career-obsessed” she’s been from day one. She interjects, “This whole interview’s going to be all about astrology, but readers keep telling me how my career is my life. I couldn’t change it if I wanted to. But I’m working on living a little more.” How is she living life to the fullest? “My career and love are two things that drive me, so I’m trying to date more. I love love. I want something serious for once, something healthy.” And that’s not all, she’s also got big travel plans that do not involve work. “Every time I travel, I freak out as I feel like I’m wasting my life not working. I want to experience things without feeling guilty for it.”

Call it fate, call it manifestation, or just straight-up cosmic energy, it was clear from the get-go that Maeta’s path would always lead to this. She’s building her own world, where heartbreak, growth and love coexist, raw and unapologetic. And in this next chapter, she’s taking full control, making her mark, all while love rides shotgun. Because after all, what’s life without a little bit of love?”.

I am going to finish off with a CLASH interview from last summer. I think there will be new chats with Maeta very soon. After a busy past couple of years, it is clear that she is settling in for a very long and successful career. An artist that is not yet at the peak of her powers, I do hope that she spends more time in the U.K. I am not sure whether she has any dates in the pipeline:

“Maeta fully immerses herself in her art. As a songwriter, a vocalist, a performer, there are no half measures – her music and her life are intimately intertwined, like the double-helix in her DNA. Rising to prominence on the back of those early SoundCloud demos, the Indianapolis-born singer’s talents were evident from the start – soulful in the deepest sense of the word, each note felt bonded to her heart.

Yet new project ‘Endless Night’ rips up the rulebook. Swapping R&B introspection and lovelorn balladry for something steeped in club energy, the Kaytranada production pushes Maeta into a different space. And you know what? She’s loving every minute of it.

“I’m naturally a deep-lover-girl. I love to cry. I love to be in love. And I love those kinds of feelings,” she tells CLASH. “But I think that this was a nice break from that.”

Much of Maeta’s previous work focussed on love lost; 2023’s ‘When I Hear Your Name’ for instance was a scorching evocation of betrayal and grief born from giving your heart to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Now, though, she’s done with mapping out old scars. “I’m ready to let that go and just own myself and who I am and take control of my life. I feel like I gave myself to another person and I just lost who I was. This project is just me.”

“I just want to have fun. It’s summer, I want to fucking date and be single and have fun and not be stuck in this dark place. I just want to embrace newness and fun and change and freedom and all that.”

An oasis of calm in her life, the studio sessions with Kaytranada were initially only meant to birth a few songs, but it quickly became something more. “One thing that I like about myself, I guess, is that I’m very good at adapting to different things. I get bored easily, so I like trying stuff out.”

“It kind of became such a bigger thing that it was supposed to be, which I’m proud of, and I’m happy with… We just all loved it so much that we made it more of a deal than it was supposed to be.”

With the energy flowing, and with Kaytranada’s creative support, Maeta finally felt able to put the past behind her.  “I think spiritually, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me because I was in a very dark place like six months to a year ago… I was seriously in a horrible place. And right now I’m so happy!”

“I’m working on my next album already, and it is definitely going to be soulful… there’s a lot of ballads, a lot of love and those kinds of things. But this was the perfect break for me, emotionally speaking. It all happened for a purpose –  but the purpose was that there wasn’t really a purpose, in a way”.

Two years after I included her in my Spotlight feature, a lot has changed for Maeta. After releasing a new E.P./album last year, she has accrued a legion of new fans. Highlighting the fact that she is among the most talented and innovative R&B artists of her generation, there will be a lot of success and riches in her future. Someone who knew from a young age that music was her calling, Maeta is…

HERE for the long run.

__________

Follow Maeta

PHOTO CREDIT: Sonali Ohrie for NOTION

Official:

https://www.maetasworld.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/maetasworld/

Twitter:

https://x.com/maetasworld

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2EwyKG76iX4Pp5HhAD6SKO?si=qzWg_IDeR5Sml5h6UhFpNQ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCQkT25-JCnoa60ePGf6wsw

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Five: Mother Stands for Comfort

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Five: Mother Stands for Comfort

__________

REACHING the quarter-point…

of my twenty-feature run about Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, it takes me to the penultimate track on the album’s first side. As Hounds of Love turns forty on 16th September, I am doing it justice and focusing on its amazing tracks. Like I am doing with all the tracks, I will bring in some interview archive from Kate Bush and also some analysis from Leah Kardos and her book, Hounds of Love. From the 33 1/3 series, this book is essential and so fascinating. I am focusing on Mother Stands for Comfort now. This is both the most under-discussed and perhaps most important track on the album. I said how important its predecessor, The Big Sky, is. I shall expand on that. I will also bring in a feature about the song. Not much is written about it. The only of the five songs from Hounds of Love’s first side not released as a single, it has never been performed live – the only track from the album with that unfortunate honour – and was not selected as one of the songs for Before the Dawn in 2014. No music video or much in the way of podcast coverage (I am bringing in the only one I could find), this song is a bit of an anomaly. If you see song ranking features, it occasionally features relatively high up, but I don’t think I have ever heard this song played on the radio. I do hope that someone talks about Mother Stands for Comfort ahead of the fortieth anniversary of Hounds of Love. Tonally different to the other tracks on the album’s first side, it is chillier and more unsettling. Think about its siblings – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Hounds of Love, The Big Sky and Cloudbusting – and Mother Stands for Comfort stands out. One feels it could almost fit on The Ninth Wave. However, I really love the track and feel that it has a fascinating inspiration. One that adds new dimensions to Hounds of Love and what the album means.

Let’s move to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia and part of an interview where Bush spoke about a part of her most acclaimed album that a lot of people do not know about. I hope that this remarkable piece of music gets more love and affection. It remains pretty much ignored. I shall come to some reviews that mention Mother Stands for Comfort:

“Well, the personality that sings this track is very unfeeling in a way. And the cold qualities of synths and machines were appropriate here. There are many different kinds of love and the track’s really talking about the love of a mother, and in this case she’s the mother of a murderer, in that she’s basically prepared to protect her son against anything. ‘Cause in a way it’s also suggesting that the son is using the mother, as much as the mother is protecting him. It’s a bit of a strange matter, isn’t it really? [laughs] (Richard Skinner, ‘Classic Albums Interview: Hounds Of Love’. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)”.

There have been various takes on Mother Stands for Comfort. Medium say this: “Bush takes a more solemn tone with “Mother Stands For Comfort.” She takes an otherworldly ominous tone through the use of spacey synth samples, thick bass lines, and the shattering of glass samples taken from the Fairlight against her melancholy piano melody. This rather warped sound reflects the complexity of a mother’s love and protection. The implication here is that her child has committed some terrible crime, and now the mother feels the need to protect her child from the law, “Mother stands for comfort/ Mother will hide the murderer/ Mother hides the madman/ Mother will stay mum.” It’s a very interesting dichotomy that Kate has written about. You get a sense that the child knows that the mother will shield them, so they do not need to fear”. Also, Smash Hits mentioned Mother Stands for Comfort in their Hounds of Love review: “No, they don't! "Mother Stands For Comfort" is about nothing of the sort! It's a love song to mom. Perhaps the other four songs could be described that way, but I would say that they are more about being scared of love and overcoming this problem. I'm not sure how "Mother Stands For Comfort" fits into this theme”.

I am going to move to some interruption and dissection from Leah Kardos regarding Hounds of Love’s scariest moment. Kardos notes how Mother Stands for Comfort is more austere than tracks before it. “Around a simple, rocking chair LinnDrum beat, Bush’s expressive piano figures creep and wrap around dark, yearning chords”. This is a skeletal track that does not have the same richness and warmth as other songs on Hounds of Love. It seems more sparse because it needs to contrast this distinct mood. One of tension and murder. A mother protecting her son. Icy and almost filmic, Bush would have approached the composition different to other Hounds of Love tracks. Composing at the piano, it sort of nods back to her earlier albums and her sitting at the piano and writing. I am not sure whether there was a particular film or book that provided her inspiration. I love when Leah Kardos talks about chords and shifts on the song: “The verse descends from Am7 to Fmaj9, then temporarily pauses on a hamstrung resolution of Am7 over an E bass. In the reciprocal phase, it makes a hopeful move to D9 (suggesting dorian mode), then a melancholy pivot to B♭aug4/D, affecting a twisted phrygian model cadence back to the tonic (Am7) to go around again”. Eberhard Weber’s bass is particularly important and pivotal. Leah Kardos notes how his “upright five-string electric bass provides a lower melodic counterpoint in warm, supple movements”. The counterpoint to Kate Bush’s vocal. The lyric is about a son who has killed but his mother protects him without question. This protection of someone who has done something terrible. Bush’s Hounds of Love, if it has an overarching theme or concept, it about exploring different sides of love. Every song connects with that.

Smashed glass from the Fairlight CMI and the sharp tom hits from Stuart Elliott add this sense of menace and violence. Bush also uses the Fairlight CMI in the chorus. This strange and cold whistle sound. Kardos observes how “The harmonies of the chorus cycle around a progression of minor chords – Am, Dm/F, Dm, Em7 – a bleak swirl that underpins the primary lyrical sentiment: ‘Mother stands for comfort, mother will hide the murderer’”. The clash between the calm and almost nurturing lead vocal and backing vocals (from Bush) that are pained, anguished and almost hysterical. Maybe representing her inner thoughts and what is in her head. Some might see Mother Stands for Comfort as the loner from side A of Hounds of Love. Not a single or a song that has been played a lot of written about in any real depth (apart from when I write about it!), there is connection with the other songs on that side. Leah Kardos talks about the comfort of family and the “primal nature of love”. Hounds of Love’s title track addresses the more frightening and intense sides of love and desire. Compared to many of her contemporaries, Kate Bush was addressing and examining love and approaching it from different sides and exploring its layers and multiple sides – as opposed the traditional and one-dimensional nature many of her peers stuck to. I did cover this song recently and have repeated parts of that feature here. It warrants repetition. The darkest and most psychologically deep song arguably, we do need to talk about Mother Stands for Comfort more. When you listen to it, you realise that it is…

A really moving and compelling song.

FEATURE: First, Last, Everything: Spotlighting and Celebrating the Great Matt Everitt

FEATURE:

 

 

First, Last, Everything

Spotlighting and Celebrating the Great Matt Everitt

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THIS is someone…

IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt alongside The Cure’s Robert Smith

who has interviewed the three musicians I would most love to interview. Two of them, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, were, of course, part of The Beatles. For so many reasons – chief among them being my lifelong obsession with the band -, it would be fascinating to talk with them. Matt Everitt has interviewed them both more than once. Also, in 2016 – that horrible year where we lost several music icons –, he sat down with Kate Bush to chat about the live album for her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. If that was the only three artists he had interviewed, then he would be the envy of most diehard music fans. As it is, they are the tip of a big iceberg of incredible artists! His The First Time with… series is one where he speaks with artists about their ‘firsts’. Whether that it is a gig or record or whatever. It is hugely illuminating and a great concept that goes beyond the standard music interview. I have written about him a few times. Everitt recently stood in for Tom Robinson on his BBC Radio 6 Music show. He is a natural presenter and someone I would love to see get more slots on the station. He has worked there for many years and presents the New Album Fix. Having previously presented the music news (and been part of Shaun Keaveny’s much-missed show) he contributes and chats about everything from the Glastonbury Festival to Oasis’ reunion and tour. Someone who was part of the Britpop scene himself – as drummer for Menswear and The Montrose Avenue -, he has this incredible perspective and passion. He also covers events such as the Mercury Prize, and is a key component of BBC Radio 6 Music.

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One of the main reasons I am celebrating him as his birthday is on 13th September. I would publish this then but, as that is the date Kate Bush’s The Dreaming turns forty-three, I may be busy focusing on that. He would understand! Instead, I will bring in a couple of interviews with him. Matt Everitt has appeared on several podcasts through the years. I really miss him on Chris Shaw’s I Am the EggPod. That Beatles podcast is hugely missed! It ended last year. He featured several times. His chemistry with Chris Shaw was amazing and a big reason to tune into his episodes! A The Beatles’ Rubber Soul is sixty later this year, it would be good for them to revisit that album – one that Everitt spoke about during his first appearance on the podcast. Alas, there are so many sides to his career. Highlights that you envy! Chatting with two Beatles. Kate Bush. Brian Wilson. A galaxy of inspiring artists have all faced his questions. Everitt has written books. Including The World's Greatest Music Festival Challenge: A Rockin' Seek and Find (2018) and The First Time: Stories & Songs from Music Icons (2018), I do wonder if he has another planned. Even though there have been over two-thousands books about The Beatles written, there are fresh perspectives to mine. His BBC Radio 6 Music colleague Stuart Maconie recently published his Beatles book that looked at associates and people in the band’s lives that made a difference and were part of their history. What about a book about Ringo Starr and his drumming? I do hope that he does write another book. Though he might be booked solid for a while! As he turns fifty-three very soon, this is also a thank you to him. I have met him a few times before – including the second live show and final episode of I Am the EggPod at Opera Holland Park last summer –, and he is always so encouraging and supportive. Encouraging me to do a Kate Bush podcast. As I live in a noisy flat and I would prefer to record out of a studio, I will do that as soon as I can get money together. Maybe try and sneak into a BBC studio in New Broadcasting House one day!

I want to bring in a couple of interviews with Matt Everitt before I wrap things up. I am starting out with the first of two from Headliner. This is from 2022. Talking ahead of BBC Radio 6 Music’s yearly T-Shirt Day, there were some important questions raised and answered. In terms of sporting these T-shirts can raise awareness for various acts. Also, how vital merchandise is at a time when artists struggle to make money from albums and streaming services:

“As well as being a celebration of band t-shirts, the importance of t-shirts and merch has become so vital, particularly for up and coming or independent artists. What difference can they make to such artists?

An album is unlikely to make you a lot of money these days, unless you’re a mega artist, so one way of making money is through touring, and a part of that is selling swag, as they call it in the industry. That money could be the thing that enables you to make another album, or it could be the difference between being able to stay in a B&B on tour or sleeping in a van. It’s really, really vital, and it’s a way for fans to support their favourite artists. And artists put a lot of love and time into creating the designs for those t-shirts. It’s similar to artists and their relationship with artwork and album covers. It’s making a statement.

Can days like T-Shirt Day highlight the importance of supporting artists, particularly to those who have only grown up with streaming?

Yes, absolutely. And it can help introduce people to artists as well. Some people make a big thing about, let’s say, people wearing Ramones t-shirts who have never listened to The Ramones. I don’t mind that. I think it’s fine. I love the fact that there is a potency in those logos and designs, and if five in every 100 of those people who buy the t-shirts do then go and listen to the music, that’s great.

And for those who do buy a t-shirt of a band or artist they love, it can also be about much more than the design. It says something about them. It represents something about that person, and that carries meaning. It’s like carrying a friend around. People don’t do that with politicians [laughs]. It’s very rare you see someone wearing a t-shirt with a politician’s face on it saying, I’m with this person and I share their beliefs [laughs]. But if you’re wearing a PJ Harvey or a Pixies t-shirt, that’s saying something. It’s a sign of confidence in that artist’s integrity.

Do you have any favourites in your wardrobe?

I always wear the same one on T-Shirt day because it used to be called ‘wear your old band t-shirts day’, and my old band was Menswear, so I would wear it every year – the same joke every year [laughs]. I have a Dolly Parton one that I bought at a Dolly Parton gig in Nashville, I love that one. I have a Power, Corruption and LiesNew Order t-shirt, which doesn’t have the name of the band anywhere, which is great - if you know, you know, and if you don’t, it still looks great. I’m sure I have loads more as well. I also had a bunch of Nirvana t-shirts from Nirvana gigs, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails… and I don’t know where any of them are. They’ll be worth an effing fortune!”.

I am going to come to an interview from earlier in the year. Ahead of the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in Greater Manchester. In another chat with Headliner, we learn more about Matt Everitt’s feelings towards BBC Radio 6 Music. This is a station he has been with almost two decades now. I know that he will be with them for many more years to come:

“After a few years enjoying success with bands Menswear and The Montrose, broadcasting veteran Matt Everitt found his true calling in radio on XFM and then his long-term home of BBC 6 Music. He chats to Headliner about the upcoming 6 Music Festival 2025 and its phenomenal lineup and his show The First Time, which has seen him interview Noel Gallagher, Yoko Ono, David Gilmour, and more.

Everitt can be found in Manchester, at the Victoria Warehouse for the 2025 edition of the 6 Music Festival, where he will be joined by BRIT Award and Mercury Prize-winning jazz act Ezra Collective, rising indie stars Fat Dog, acclaimed writer and musician Kae Tempest, English Teacher (who scooped last year’s Mercury Prize for their debut album), unlikely chart-toppers and Glaswegian noise-act Mogwai, and more.

The Festival had moved around a fair amount in its earlier years but is once again returning to the city of Manchester. Seemingly finding a home in the city, it prompted the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, to say last year that “We are delighted to welcome the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival to Manchester. There is a rich musical heritage in Greater Manchester and a real pride in the independent music scene, and as BBC Radio 6 Music has always supported new and alternative artists, it’s a perfect fit for the festival to have its permanent home in the city for the years to come.”

Did your experiences in Menswear and The Montrose as a drummer help you when interviewing musicians — having experiential knowledge of touring, the financial side of being a musician, and all the rest of it?

Or the lack of a financial side of it! I think that definitely there's empathy, but there's an understanding of how it works when you've done it. There is a knowledge and understanding of some of the nuts and bolts of it. I don't often get intimidated when a I interview well known or famous musicians; because, no matter how famous you are or how big the stadium you're playing these days is, at some point, you were probably sat in the back of a rubbish van, living on terrible service station pasties, and playing to no one. And I don't care if you're Muse or David Bowie or Florence Welch, it doesn't matter. You probably did that, which means there's a certain down-to-earthness. Even the most egomaniacal musicians, you've probably all done that bit. It's a great leveller.

All bands have probably slogged it out and played to two people and a dog in Carlisle and made a loss. So I understand what that's like. I think it kind of takes the edge off the hero worship for me. And just sort of understanding the difficulties that there are in being a musician. And the joys as well.

 In 2007, you found your spiritual home of BBC 6 Music, where you’ve presented the music news, and your show, The First Time With… with some huge guests. But to start with a philosophical question, as 6 Music means so much to so many people, could you talk us through your connection to the station and what it means to you?

I remember when the station was first getting started, and it was where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be at 6. I was thinking, ‘Listen to what they're doing. Listen to how diverse this is. Listen to how connected they are to all different kinds of music, and genuinely care. I was overjoyed when I got the job. And I love the familial nature of it. It does feel like there's a shared ethos, even if the music taste is varied. I think it's enormously important. I think, as a platform for breaking new artists, it's still vital. Radio is still really, really important. It can make a difference. Going back to when I interview people, older musicians all talk about the first time they heard their track on the radio.

And it's still like that even for new artists, even when there are thousands of platforms, countless different ways of communicating to people and communicating to your audience. Hearing it on the radio, and especially, hearing it on 6 Music means something. I believe it’s the biggest digital station in the UK. Every single one of those people who listens cares about music and will tell you they’ve discovered so much music by listening to the station.

How are you feeling about the 6 Music Festival 2025, and what will you be up to over the weekend?

I'll be doing what I normally would, just interviewing people and reporting from backstage and front of house. I’m trying to communicate what's going on in the audience to the listeners. You don’t want people to listen to it and it to come across as ‘Hey, we're at a great thing, and you're not, isn't this great for us?’ Whereas with Glastonbury and the 6 Music Festival, it's like, the BBC gets to go really deep and play whole sets, and then get them up on BBC Sounds. You can hear them again. It's not just a blink and you’ll miss it clip. And then we get that access where we can really take you backstage, we can talk to those artists.

6 Music isn't just like, ‘Hey, artist, when did you get your name from, what's the new album about?’ We've got a chance to dig deep in those interviews and really find out more about the motivations behind the artists and why they do what they do and how they do what they do. And I think with everyone playing, Ezra Collective, Fat Dog, Mogwai, English Teacher, and Kae Tempest, there is an existing relationship with 6 Music. I think one of the reasons they do the festival is because it’s not just a trusted place, but a place where their music will get heard and get heard properly”.

I will end it here. I wanted to spend some time shining a light on the brilliance of Matt Everitt. You can follow him here. Someone who has been hugely helpful and supportive to me and so many other people, he can be heard on BBC Radio 6 Music. As I say, I hope that he gets opportunities to present on the station and there are other opportunities. It leaves me to wish Matt Everitt a very happy birthday…

FOR 13th September.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Four: The Big Sky

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

Four: The Big Sky

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BECAUSE Kate Bush’s…

Hounds of Love turns forty on 16th September, I am embarking on a twenty-feature run that looks inside the songs and around the album. I am moving onto the third song on the album. The Big Sky is my favourite track from Hounds of Love. It is one that does not get as much love as some of the bigger singles from the album. The Big Sky was the fourth and final single from Hounds of Love. Its intoxicating and busy music video was directed by Kate Bush. A gem from her masterpiece fifth studio album, The Big Sky was released as a single on 21st April, 1986. It reached thirty-seven in the U.K. Not as big a hit as Cloudbusting, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) or Hounds of Love, I do think that The Big Sky is underrated. I am going to come to Leah Kardos’s interpretation of the song. For the tracks on the album, I am looking into her book, Hounds of Love from the 33 1/3 series. For more general features, I will bring in Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Before getting to some analysis of The Big Sky, there is some useful interview archive that is worth bringing in. Thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia. I want to start out with their words about the video for The Big Sky and the fact that a select group of fans were involved:

“The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the ‘crowd scenes’. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted”.

‘The Big Sky’ was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I’m writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

‘The Big Sky’ gave me terrible trouble, really, just as a song. I mean, you definitely do have relationships with some songs, and we had a lot of trouble getting on together and it was just one of those songs that kept changing – at one point every week – and, um…It was just a matter of trying to pin it down. Because it’s not often that I’ve written a song like that: when you come up with something that can literally take you to so many different tangents, so many different forms of the same song, that you just end up not knowing where you are with it. And, um…I just had to pin it down eventually, and that was a very strange beast. (Tony Myatt Interview, November 1985)”.

Critical reaction for the song was very positive. A natural single that warranted a better chart position, there was almost universal love from U.K. critics for Hounds of Love and its singles. Despite the fact The Big Sky is not ranked and rated as highly as other Hounds of Love songs, it is one of the most important tracks on the album. Leah Kardos has some interesting perspectives on the song. Maybe it is appropriate that The Big Sky, like the clouds Bush sings about in the song, kept changing shape and size. It is a huge and joyous track. I think that these types of songs can be a lot harder to realise. That does not mean that The Big Sky deserves any less credit and respect than other cuts on Hounds of Love. Leah Kardos writes how vital it was to get The Big Sky right. It is a lynchpin. The rainmaking and weather of the song nods to Cloudbusting (the fifth track on the album). Bush singing about a cloud that “looks like Ireland” is a reference to her ancestral heritage. It also links to a track from The Ninth Wave, Jig of Life. The ominous nature of some of the clouds that can bring a flood – “This cloud says, “Noah, c’mon and build me an ark” - looking ahead to The Ninth Wave. All these connections and foreshadowing. Kardos writes: “’Hello Earth’ might be referring back to the moments in ‘The Big Sky’ when Bush songs of being ‘there at the birth’, ‘out of the cloudburst, the head of the tempest’. The song draws its power from the forces that drive Hounds Of Love; big weather and big rhythms”. There is so much musical richness throughout the song. “Morris Pert’s rumbling percussion” is one example. “Wide, jangly acoustic guitar enters at 0’36”. The fact that Bush adds in “tambourines and Paddy Bush’s droning didgeridoo, and it’s a party”. There is also the layer of Kate Bush voices (the song refers to them as ‘sisters). Leah Kardos writes how Bush delivers her vocal with “charming childlike innocence”.

I love discovering about the compositional and production details. “Significantly, the main hook is built around a perfect 5th (upwards from F to C, and back down to F again, ‘the big sky’)”. Kardos observes how in the ad-libbed sections over the coda, “Bush pulls a range of surprisingly uninhibited noises from her body, and that’s saying something for a vocal made in the wake of The Dreaming”. There are shrieks, screams, giggles, choirs and a sense of ecstasy. These aspects and sounds connect with childhood glee, the expanse of nature and the weather, religion and spirituality.  Leah Kardos notes how Noah, his ark and deal with God, has this brightness and positivity. It is a vast contrast to the darkness and terror of Waking the Witch from Hounds of Love’s second side. The video, which Bush directed, is a full sky in itself. In terms of the characters and scenes she includes. Bush stands on a rooftop holding binoculars whilst the weather changes behind her. Family are involved in the video. Bush’s brothers Paddy and John appear in the video. One hundred fans. Two giraffes, Superman and jet fighter pilots among the huge cast! It is a joyous video that perfectly brought to life all the imagination and fever of the track. One of two songs from Hounds of Love not performed during Kate Bush’s 2014 Before the Dawn residency – the other was Mother Stands for Comfort -, The Big Sky was considered for inclusion but nixed. Maybe the fact the residency had plenty of sun, sky and weather throughout (as Aerial’s A Sky of Honey was brought to life) meant that The Big Sky could sit it out.

I did not know that SLUG covered The Big Sky in 2015. There is not a whole lot written about the song. Even though it did not get performed live a lot and it is played less than other tracks from Hounds of Love, it is a clear gem that is hugely important in terms of the rest of Hounds of Love. How it talks about weather and nature. Common themes that run throughout Hounds of Love. Lyrics and aspects of the song that looks to what is to come. You can connect The Big Sky with other tracks. The relationship between it, Cloudbusting, Jig of Life and even Hello Earth. I will end with some reviews for The Big Sky. This is what this website had to say about a moment of pure gold from Hounds of Love:

“And while “Running Up That Hill” is indeed probably the best Starter Kate Bush song out there — there’s just so much drama in it — allow me to suggest “The Big Sky” as a follow-up for the folks who don’t know if they want to commit to a whole album just yet. “The Big Sky” is, as they kids say, a whole bop: relentless but not unrelenting drums, bouncy rather than thundering, hammer on while Bush sings a paean to the glories of the huge bowl of the universe opening up above you. It’s not about much, but does it have to be? No! It can be about clouds looking like Ireland, and maybe people being confused about why Bush is so darn pleased about that. Be happy with Kate! Dance with her! Pause for the jet! Then dance again! Maybe it’s possible not to be happy when this song is playing, but I think you really have to work at it”.

Going back to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia article from earlier, they collated some critical feedback for the fourth single from Hounds of Love. My favourite song from this remarkable album that gains new fans every year. One that turns forty on 16th September:

“The Big Sky is a moment of real, mad bravado. The best and most threatening thing that this bizarre talent has ever done.

Richard Cook, Sounds, 3 May 1986

She has with her every release managed to maintain a uniqueness. She always sounds like herself and she never sounds the same, and that’s a difficult trick.

The Stud Brothers, Melody Maker, 3 May 1986

Another gem from the utterly brilliant LP, this has more hypnotic pounding rhythms and chants, the orchestra sawing away as if their lives depended on it…

Ian Cranna, Smash Hits, 7 May 1986”.

Continuing in my run of features, I will move to track four from Hounds of Love: Mother Stands for Comfort. Cloudbusting ends the first side and, before looking at all the tracks from The Ninth Wave, there will be a slight detour as a break. It has been great showing love for The Big Sky and getting to know more about it. If you do not know much about The Big Sky then go and listen to it. In my view, it is one of Kate Bush’s…

BEST tracks.

FEATURE: Madonna at Sixty-Seven: The New Immaculate Collection

FEATURE:

 

 

Madonna at Sixty-Seven 

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1990/PHOTO CREDIT: Jean-Baptiste Mondino

The New Immaculate Collection

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ON 16th August…

PHOTO CREDIT: Madonna

Madonna turns sixty-seven. One of the most famous and influential artists ever, she definitely remains the Queen of Pop. I don’t think anyone will ever take that crown! In other birthday features, I am going to highlight one of her classic albums and a single celebrating an anniversary soon. I write about her quite a bit. With good reason! She was one of the first artists I remember listening to as a child. An introduction into Pop music in many ways. To honour that, in this first birthday feature, I am going to assemble a mixtape of her best songs. A sixty-seven-song salute to the one and only Madonna. I am not sure whether we will get a new album this year or whether anything else is planned. There is always talk around a biopic. Madonna toured last year. It has been a busy past few years. I know that we will see her release music for years to come. You can see artists like today such as Charli xcx and Sabrina Carpenter who are definitely influenced by her. So many artists look up to her. Her back catalogue is one of the strongest and most precious in all of music. You may not be a mega-fan or know everything about her, but I can guarantee there is an album of hers that you hold dear. An artist impossible to ignore or dislike! As Madonna turns sixty-seven on 16th August, this mixtape is my nod to her. A selection of prime cuts from…

THE incomparable Madonna.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: PinkPantheress

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Elliot Hensford for MixMag

PinkPantheress

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I will end…

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Engman

with a review of the new mixtape from PinkPantheress. Fancy That is among the best releases of this year. The moniker of Victoria Beverley Walker, she released the album, Heaven Knows, in 2023. Fancy That is her latest mixtape. I want to come to some interviews with a tremendous artist that I have spotlighted before but have not written about for a while now. I want to revisit her here. I will start out with MixMag. They spoke with her in March. On her new project, she is blending new genres such as Trip-Hop and House. This is an artist striking a “balance between being a popstar and experimental, only expressing emotions when it suits her, and dealing with the friction between public perceptions and her authentic self”:

“Pink launched herself into the music world when her breakbeat-infused pop songs went viral on TikTok in 2021, with her tracks such as ‘Break It Off’ and ‘Just for Me’ doing rounds on the app and introducing global audiences to the UK underground sound. She was born in Kent, but moved to London to study film at UAL and found herself bored in lockdown and experimenting with music making. While initially releasing the music in short snippets onto the app completely anonymously, mostly in hopes of getting feedback on what types of sounds people were interested in, she later put the pseudonym ‘PinkPantheress’ to her tracks, got noticed, and eventually released her debut mixtape in October 2021 and dropped out of university. “In a weird way I kind of did [expect my music to blow up],” she admits. “I’m a manifester so for me there was no option of it not working, it was just a matter of when. I expected to blow up but not to the height that it did, I didn’t expect to be here right now at all.”

In 2022 she released the three-track EP ‘Take me home’, and in 2023 she dropped her debut album ‘Heaven Knows’. Since her breakthrough, she has worked and collaborated with the likes of Central Cee, Kaytranada, Overmono, Skrillex and Trippie Redd. Pink also took home the Best Female Act MOBO Award in 2022, the BBC’s Sound of 2022 title, and was Billboard’s Producer of The Year in 2024. But all roads have led her to making her upcoming project, something that she feels proud of and a representation of the lessons she’s learned in the music game over the past few years.

Though details of her new project are firmly under wraps, with only a May 9 date announced, fans can expect the continuation of her genre-bending style, reimagining elements of jungle, breakbeats and 2-step garage with ethereal vocals. This time, however, she was also inspired by trip hop, house, big beat, and older electronic music, as the selections in her Cover Mix playlist indicate. It’s evident in the tracks which contain crackles of the heavy distortions synonymous with bass music, and the elements of the orchestral and cinematic-side of old-school house music. At the time of making the project, Pink was listening to music by the likes of Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada. “I loved the size of the music,” she says. “All the music sounds so big and grand and present, and I really wanted to make music where it sounds like a statement is being made with the songs. I feel like that was what appealed to me, and it’s something that I wanted to take on board.”

The project is also laden with samples, a PinkPantheress music staple. It features some musical references from her previous songs, Easter eggs for the “real fans” as she says, including sampled vocals from ‘Starz In Their Eyes’ by Just Jack, a song that she used the beat from in her 2021 track ‘Attracted to You’.

“Sampling is funny because everyone has their opinions about it. Some people think it's stealing or unoriginal, which is something I dealt with a lot when I was starting. But for me sampling is my way of sharing a love for something and reinterpreting it. I would only sample something I love, I would never sample something for the thought of it having nostalgia-bait or whatever reason. I do it because I want to reinterpret something I love to different audiences”.

When she first released music and became known for her breakbeat-pop, she says she encountered tensions from dance music purists who were questioning the authenticity or genuineness of her intentions to make electronic music. “It was a bit annoying…getting questions as to why I’m making art, some people were questioning if I knew the genre and did my research, I guess because I’m young,” she starts to explain.

“But I spoke to one of these jungle purists - and it was very interesting hearing his side of things and how he felt about drum ‘n’ bass and jungle and his introduction to me. [He spoke about how] drum ‘n’ bass is still not a mainstream genre, globally, and it’s not one that’s understood by the majority of the world. It was something that was honed in the UK, and with us as a nation where maybe some of our music was overlooked in the past, it makes these genres extra special to the people who have loved it. Some people don’t feel the need for these genres to be spread around the world or on a platform like TikTok, because they see it as something we birthed here so we want it to stay here. But they understood that music has always spread, but now because of social media it's making it easier to spread. Those purists have now accepted the situation for what it is.”

Keeping the Black, British history of genres such as jungle, drum ‘n’ bass, and garage credited and acknowledged is imperative for Pink. She wants to make it clear who she is sampling, which acts she takes inspiration from, and, during interviews and online, she shouts out the pioneers who came before her and made these genres exist and usable in different contexts — whether that be Adam F, Shy FX, or Wookie. She even makes a point of acknowledging her contemporaries such as Nia Archives, who she calls a “great inspiration”, due to their influence on the way dance music is moving in the 2020s.

Beyond finding her place within dance music, Pink has had to come to terms with becoming a global popstar. While she started making her dance-laced pop music out of her love for the UK legends she’s been naming throughout our conversation, from Lily Allen to Shy FX, her global audience and their perception of who she is was an unexpected weight on her shoulders. “Being a ‘popstar’ or being in the public eye can definitely make you lose yourself,” she admits. “I am somebody who knows myself down to the bone but I’m telling you, being a singer makes it so easy to think about what people think or want to hear and it makes you lose elements of your beginnings”.

I am moving onto an interview with Billboard. Speaking with the Billboard Women in Music's 2024 Producer of the Year, PinkPantheress was asked about the new mixtape. She spoke about a tour with Olivia Rodrigo and why she is not an arena artist:

“I don’t like saying it in my accent,” PinkPantheress timidly says of her mixtape title, which was later revealed to be Fancy That, during her late March visit to Billboard.

Rocking a plaid top dress, dark navy jeans and black flats that could’ve been on an Aeropostale mannequin circa ’07, the U.K. native gushes about house artists like Basement Jaxx and early Calvin Harris influencing her nine-track mixtape.

“I feel like nobody’s really tapped into these fully since the eclipse of [their] genre. I was like, ‘Let me try to do it and see what I can do here,'” the 24-year-old says. “Just because I’m such a fan of it and I was very inspired by it. I haven’t felt really inspired in a long time.”

Holed up in her London home, PinkPantheress got to work as the project began to take shape over the course of two months. After some back-and-forth file transferring and tinkering with producer aksel arvid, Pink’s skittering production met her plush vocals while still maintaining her signature DIY raw experimentation.

She dug through the crates while pulling on samples from the aforementioned Basement Jaxx to Panic! at the Disco and even Nardo Wick’s “Who Want Smoke??” for her most sonically potent work to date. “I made something that kind of incorporated my two projects into one super project,” the Billboard Women in Music 2024 Producer of the Year adds.

PinkPantheress is reserved yet charming in conversation as she opens up about learning she wasn’t “an arena artist” after touring with Olivia Rodrigo, being the subject of plenty of memes, her global crossover appeal and acting aspirations.

How did you end up in Jack Harlow’s “Just Us” video?

Jack messaged me and asked me if I could be in the video. I asked if I could hear the song and he was like, “No, you can not.” I don’t really do cameos or anything, especially not for bigger artists because I get worried and scared of public perception. But he was like, “You need to trust me that I’ll make you look cool.” Then I just did it and it was really fun.

How did you get in the zone for this mixtape? What did you set out to do?

I wanted to create a project that reflected my progress as a producer. I made something that kind of incorporated my two projects into one super project. I produced a lot of it in London in my house. I listened to a lot of U.K. music. A specific era, a lot of Basement Jaxx, a lot of Calvin Harris.

I created the beats on my laptop and then I sent them to this producer I was working with from Norway called Axsel [Arvid]. We went back-and-forth and made the beats and I recorded really quickly. It was done in like two months.

Being a perfectionist in the studio, do you have to go back in and tweak stuff or once it’s done, it’s done?

Figuratively and physically and always literal, I am a tweaker. I am always going back and [asking], “What can I do here that I want to change?” I was actually fairly chill on this project because the more you perfect something, for me as an artist, people definitely prefer when I sound more DIY and raw. So I was trying to keep it as raw as possible.

I love how you flipped Nardo Wick’s “Who Want Smoke??” on “Noises.”

I love that song. I really like Nardo Wick and 21 Savage. I wasn’t even trying to use it until I was writing my song. I was like, “Oh, it would be cool to have a break in the beat where it’s the bass going [hits table].” They do the same thing. I was like, I might as well pay homage and put his voice in it. I actually wonder if he’s heard it and I wonder what he thought. He probably thought it was ass. I wanna know what he thinks. I wanna personally find out what he thinks. Obviously, it’s drum and bass now. It’s a whole different genre.

What do you think about your crossover popularity? How do you gauge it as far as your fans in the U.K. and your fans in the U.S.?

Even though my music is more genre-based in the U.K., I’d say I have more fans in America. I think in a weird way, the U.K. is more hip to drum and bass and the music I make, so me coming out after we’ve had a history of women that I’m influenced by — like Lily Allen and Imogen Heap, that’s where they were most respected and adored. I’d say the majority of British people are more used to my sound, so it’s probably not as much, “Whoa, what is this!,” as Americans are. [American] People in general speak of me as more an innovator or pioneer, whereas people in the U.K. will celebrate the fact I’ve been able to cross over and get the features I have. America’s just different”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Engman

Before getting to a review of Fancy That, I am moving to an interview from Vogue. This is someone who was not going to be boxed in. An artist who does not want to be famous or a huge star, she is authentic and focused on producing the best and truest music. I think she will continue to grow and evolve as an artist for many years:

“For her Fancy That era, she wanted to stay true to that spirit, and reflect how she really wears clothes in her daily life. “I actually think I dress very normal—I just don’t dress in a way that people think a pop star should dress,” she says. “One thing about me is I don’t do glam. I don’t know how to do glam. I don’t look good in a long dress or anything skimpy, and I don’t feel comfortable in anything sexier. I just haven’t realized that in myself yet—I think I’ll get there, but I’m still growing. So pretty much everything you see me wear is what I wear all the time.” Including, she explains, the tartan pattern that recurs across the mixtape’s visuals—and which, true to form, she’s wearing on a tank top when we speak. “Aesthetically, I led with that pattern, which ended up leading into some other British motifs—you’ve got some telephone boxes here and tea parties. The real word, I’d say, is kitsch. I tried to make it as kitsch as possible.”

Bottom of Form

Just take the video for “Tonight,” which sees PinkPantheress cavort through a stately home in a Marie Antoinette-worthy ruffled gown and stacks of pearls, the ringleader of a raucous house party—she describes it, accurately, as Bridgerton meets Skins. “I’ve just always really wanted to dress up like that,” she says, laughing. She also notes that the song and the video reflect the more self-assured state of mind she’s in now. “I’ve written so many songs about love, but a lot of them in the past have been from a mindset where the ball is in the other person’s court and I’m the one left in the lurch. Whereas with this one, I wanted to be like, No, I’m the one in control. You need to come to talk to me.”

Part of that newfound self-possession, it seems, is a result of having had the time last year to meditate on what she wanted from her career. One important goal? To show other young women—and especially young women of color—that they, too, can forge a career in electronic music. “The only woman of color I remember really seeing [doing that] was M.I.A.” she recalls. “There wasn’t really anyone at a very high level I could look at and say, oh, this is an alternative electronic woman who’s Black or biracial, and is also being recognized as such, and not boxed into this R&B category or boxed into a powerhouse soul vocal category. I think we’re set to this extremely high standard when it comes to genre and what we should stick to.”

Earlier that day, on the street in New York City, a teenage fan had come up to PinkPantheress and told her she was the reason she started producing. “I know it sounds cliché, but I do want to represent for those girls. Who want to do what I do and don’t feel like they need to feel pressured to be able to be perfect at dancing, look amazing all the time, have a curvaceous build, dress a certain way, have your wigs look amazing all the time…”

She pauses, before breaking into a glowing smile. “That’s why I want this project to reach new heights—because I want to be here for the alt girls who like me.” She may be a reluctant pop star, but that’s exactly what makes her one of the most interesting ones we have”.

I am finishing with a review from The Guardian. Providing their take on Fancy That, if you have not heard the mixtape from PinkPantheress, then you really do need to check it out now. An essential work from one of the U.K.’s most important artists. A big reason why I wanted to include her in this Modern-Day Queens feature. Someone I have been a fan of for years now:

“There’s something telling about the fact that PinkPantheress launched the first single from her second mixtape with a video boasting that it was 2:57 long. “Ion [I don’t] wanna see no more song length jokes,” ran the caption accompanying a brief video of her dancing to Tonight, a track that throws together a mass of musical reference points: a sample from US emo-rockers Panic! at the Disco stitched to a speedy four-to-the-floor house beat, a candy-sweet pop melody, a hefty bassline that suggests the influence of UK garage or drum’n’bass and a lyric that alludes to both Avril Lavigne’s Complicated and Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire.

Since the English singer-songwriter-producer first came to public attention in 2021, by posting snippets of the tracks she had made on a laptop in her halls of residence to TikTok, brevity has been her calling card: most of the songs that caused her commercial breakthrough lasted barely 90 seconds; one, Attracted to You, was over and done in 67. They garnered hundreds of millions of streams. Moreover, they were the first steps on an impressive commercial ascent that’s involved a major label deal, a succession of gold and platinum awards, a place on the Barbie soundtrack and invitations from Olivia Rodrigo and Coldplay to support them on tour. Perhaps inevitably, they also attracted criticism from people who viewed her less as a success story than a symptom: wilfully insubstantial, attention-deficit music befitting an era in which pop has lost its place as the basic substance of youth culture, an age when its primary function is just to burble briefly in the background of videos offering makeup tutorials and wellness tips.

There are definitely points during Fancy That where you wonder if PinkPantheress’s approach isn’t occasionally a little flimsy for its own good, most obviously on Stars, which borrows from Just Jack’s 2007 pop-house hit Starz in Their Eyes – a track she previously sampled on Attracted to You – and features a childlike vocal that smacks of irksome affectation. But far more often, you find yourself wondering whether her detractors’ criticisms might have less to do with her actual music than with sexism and snooty condescension. (If you want to survey PinkPantheress’s main audience, check out her 2022 Boiler Room appearance, which finds her performing surrounded by cameraphone-wielding teenage girls.)

Her bricolage approach to songwriting is fairly obviously that of someone raised with streaming’s decontextualised smorgasbord as their primary source of music. You can hear it in the way she leaps from one source to another, unburdened by considerations of genre or longstanding notions of cool, like someone compiling a personal playlist. Despite her tongue-in-cheek protestations about Tonight, Fancy That has a brief running time, dispatching nine tracks in 20 minutes. But during that short spell, she pilfers from Underworld’s brainy electronica and 00s pop star Jessica Simpson. She puts an obscure William Orbit track featuring vocals by the Sugababes next to rapper Nardo Wick’s US trap hit Who Want Smoke? and Romeo by UK house duo Basement Jaxx, who have acted as mentors to her.

There’s something infectious and gleeful about the way she stitches together her disparate influences into the frantic, neon-hued Noises or Nice to Know You, but her real skill lies in her ability to imprint her own identity on the results: the songs on Fancy That seldom feel like the sum of their parts. For all she’s fond of lifting other people’s immediately recognisable hooks – Stateside steals from Adina Howard’s Freak Like Me – PinkPantheress is fully equipped to craft earworm melodies of her own, as on the fizzy sugar rush of Illegal. Regardless of whether it was born out of a desire to attract an audience whose attention span has been shot by swiping, the succinctness of her songs seems less like evidence of insubstantiality than of a sharp writing talent: there are no longueurs, little room for indulgence, nothing extraneous.

It all hurtles by, so fast that you barely notice the odd song that doesn’t quite click, or that slips over the line that separates sweet from saccharine. The music on Fancy That feels simultaneously boiled down yet packed with ideas, fleeting but not lacking, familiar but fresh, focused less on making grand statements than with immediacy and unforced fun: all perennially good things for pop music to be. Clearly, PinkPantheress is a product of the current moment, with the accompanying concern about what happens when the current moment passes. But there’s something oddly timeless about her innate understanding of pop that suggests she might be fine”.

Go and follow the amazing PinkPantheress. If you are new to her music or are familiar with her, I cannot recommend her highly enough. This is a major talent who has decades ahead of her. Fancy That is the latest example of her distinct brilliance. It is going to be interesting to watch her next move. She will be seen as a future icon for sure. When writing those words, I type them…

WITHOUT a doubt.

_________

Follow PinkPantheress

PHOTO CREDIT: Elliot Hensford for MixMag

Official:

https://www.pantheress.pink/

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https://www.instagram.com/pinkpantheress/

TikTok:

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

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https://open.spotify.com/artist/78rUTD7y6Cy67W1RVzYs7t?si=NLJZLjaGQgqfThnlmKNNIA

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCufuq24Cef6-CdmEiZmXTBg

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: What Is the Icon’s Best Ever Interview?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

What Is the Icon’s Best Ever Interview?

__________

THIS is a subject…

that I have covered by referencing Kate Bush interviews. When thinking about all of the interviews that she has conducted through the years, which one is the absolute best? It is a subjective thing, but I always love the ones that she did around 1978. When The Kick Inside was released. There are some great interviews around 1985’s Hounds of Love. In terms of the types of interviews, there are those in print, in addition to those on radio and T.V. I know there are websites that collate Kate Bush websites but, in terms of prosperity and archiving, I do think there should be something more expansive and up to date. All the interviews from throughout the years. This brilliant website is invaluable when it comes to great print interviews. I am going to source one that is a particular favourite. I have been thinking of all the interviews Kate Bush has given. It must have been exhausting for her! Think how many she gave up to and including 1985. Bush was travelling all around the world and being pulled here and there. There are fewer long-form radio interviews in the earliest years. Some of the most expansive and deep ones were from 2005 and 2011. You get something from radio interviews that you can’t from print. Listening to Bush speaking with Mark Radcliffe in 2005 about Aerial. Or when she chatted with John Wilson and Lauren Laverne about 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. One thing that is common through the interviews is Kate Bush’s warmth, hospitality and intelligence. Always such an engaging interview subject. Maybe the very best are later ones where Bush gets to speak from her home.

She did not give a tonne of interviews for Aerial. There were more for Director’s Cut in 2011. Even more for 50 Words for Snow. When deciding which are the best interviews, I guess you have to take a lot of things into consideration. With Kate Bush, there is not going to be controversy or anything highly charged and confrontational. In terms of surprise moments or revealing big secrets. Instead, it is that bond between her and that interview. The types of questions that were asked. I am surprised there has not been a feature listening some of Bush’s best interviews. There were so many in 1978. It was her first professional year and things were pretty hectic. As an interviewee, I think Bush had this period where she was getting used to the media. How they behaved and the interview experience. Maybe she did become more guarded the more attention that came her way. Between 1982 and 1989, I think there was this growth. I have sourced so many interviews from that period. I am going to end with one from 1982 that, whilst not my all-time favourite, is a perfect example. Where Bush is confident and gives great answers. Maybe not all the questions are especially insightful or original. However, it was an important period where many had written her off. The Dreaming was almost a gamble in terms of its sound and the fact it arrived two years after Never for Ever. However, I am compelled to look harder and wider to find perfect interviews. I think, if I was to rank then, her chat with Mark Radcliffe in 2005 would be top three. There are some great ones from 1985, however, I think I would put a couple of print interviews from 1980 and 1989 in the top three too.

I am going to wrap up after dropping in this interview from Melody Maker conducted by Paul Simper. Such a vital year and one of so many interviews she was involved with in 1982, I do love reading some of the chats from that time. Having completed one of the most intense albums in terms of commitment and personal sacrifice, it must have been hard detaching from it:

“To some people Kate Bush has almost ceased to exist. Usurped on the bedroom walls young upstarts like Clare Grogan and Kim Wilde, she is now a much more private lady who rarely goes out and seems quite content to concentrate on her singing and dancing.

It's been two years since her last LP, Never For Ever, and though the single that followed "Sat In Your Lap", reached number 11, the recent commercial failure of "The Dreaming" has seen the undertakers beginning to shuffle and murmur impatiently.

Her new LP, The Dreaming, should keep the vultures at bay however. Drawing on far greater depths of emotion and a much wider range of cultural references from Australian art to forties B-movies - it is an indication of her coming of age, both artistically and professionally.

"I think it's the album I'm most happy with that I've completed. I went through all the problems and depression during the album and then ended up feeling quite pleased with it. In the past it's worked the other way around."

In every way it is a much more sharply focused and arresting LP. The cover, shot in autumnal shades of brown and gold, shows Kate clasping the head of a man bound in chains. In her mouth lies a tiny gold key.

"The idea of that image and the phrase on the back of the album, 'with a kiss I'd pass the key', is very much connected to the song "Houdini." That song is taken from Mrs. Houdini's point of view because she spent a lot of time working with him and helping with his tricks. One of the ways she would help was to give him a parting kiss, just as he was off into his watertank or whatever, and as she kissed him she'd pass a tiny little key which he would then use later to unlock the padlocks.

"I thought it was both a very romantic and a very sad image because, by passing that key, she is keeping him alive - she's actually giving him the key back into life."

The LP differs greatly in presentation to the fairytale ghouls and ghastlies of Never For Ever. What was the starting point this time?

"The last album was very much the starting point for this one. Perhaps the art work and some of the idea of Never For Ever were misconstrued because although they are very fairytale; on the cover they are meant to depict positive and negative emotions that are very much a part of human beings - that's really what a lot of my songs are about."

The Dreaming is an LP that mutates at an alarming rate. One minute you're playing walkabout in the outback, the next it's Vietnam and you're fighting for your life. But through the images are diverse and at times oblique, the sound - principally driven by menacing, pounding drums - is more consistent. It certainly owes much to Peter Gabriel's third LP which housed such resounding nightmares as "Biko" and "No Self Control".

"I'd been trying to get some kind of tribal drum sound together for a couple of albums, especially the last one. But really the problem was that I was trying to work with a pop medium and get something out of it that wasn't part of that set-up."

"Seeing Peter working in the Town House Studio, especially with the engineers he had, it was the nearest thing I'd heard to real guts for a long long time. I mean, I'm not into rhythm boxes - they're very useful to write with but I don't think they're good sounds for a finished record - and that was what was so exciting because the drums had so much power."

Another influence you're quoted before is Pink Floyd's The Wall, did you see the film?

"Yes. I've been very much influenced by The Wall because I like the way that the Floyd get right into that emotional area and work with sounds as pictures. I think the problem with the film though is that, although as a piece of art it is devastating, it isn't real enough. The whole film is negatively based. No once during Pink's life is there a moment of happiness which I know in every human's life there is. Even if you have the shittiest life of all there is always one little moment where you smile for a second or you fall in love with someone and feel happy - maybe only for ten minutes.

"In The Wall there is no compassion and no objectivity at all and I actually think that certain areas of that are destructive."

Although you've often written romantic songs - "Babooshka", "Wuthering Heights", "The Wedding List" [romantic??] - they've never been happy boy-meets-girl-and-lives-happily-ever-after affairs. Is that because of some private perversity?

"For me that's how real situations are? Whenever I've experienced a relationship, or the people around me have, it's always ended up being incredibly complicated because that's the way human beings are. Nothing is simple, it always ends up being something else or dying and that's what I find so interesting - the drive behind human beings and the way they get screwed up."

Like "Get Out Of My House"?

"The idea with that song is that the house is actually a human being who's been hurt and he's just locking all the doors and not letting anyone in. The person is so determined not to let anyone in that one of his personalities is a concierge who sits in the door, and says 'you're not coming in here' - like real mamma."

Listening to The Dreaming and Never For Ever the night before my interview with Kate the two LPs gradually revealed many lyrical similarities - the anti-war theme of "Breathing" and "Army Dreamers", which is continued on "Pull Out The Pin", for instance. One track, though, left me utterly bewildered - "Suspended In Gaffa"...

"Lyrically it's not really that dissimilar from "Sat In Your Lap" in saying that you really want to work for something. It's playing with the idea of hell. At school I was always taught that if you went to hell you would see a glimpse of God and that was it - you never saw him again and you'd spend the rest of eternity pining to see him. In a way it was even worse if you went to purgatory because you got the glimpse of God and you would see him again [??? but you] didn't know when. So it was almost like you had to sit here until he decided to com back.

"I suppose for me in my work, because it's such a sped up life and so much happens to you and you analyse yourself a lot, you see the potential for perhaps getting to somewhere very special on an artistic or a spiritual level and that excites me a lot. And it's the idea of working towards that and perhaps one day, when you're ready for that change, it's like entering a different level of existence, where everything goes slow-mo... it's almost like a religious experience. That's basically what the song's about."

Are you very religious or do you simply have a strong belief in yourself?

"I think I very much believe in the forces and energies that humans and other things which are alive can create. I do feel that what you give out sincerely then karmically you should get it back."

Time seems to have changed your thirst for knowledge. While in "Rolling The Ball" [sic - "Them Heavy People] you were overbrimming with the joys of gathering wisdom, on a track like "Sat In Your Lap" you appear a lot more impatient - "I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a scholar./But I really Can't be bothered, ooh just/Gimme it quick..."

"I think it's also about the way you try to work for something and you end up finding you've been working away from it rather than towards it. It's really about the whole frustration of having to wait for things - the fact that you can't do what you want to do now, you have to work toward it and maybe, only maybe, in five years you'll get what you're after.

"For me there are so many things I do which I don't want to - the mechanics of the industry - but I hope that through them I can get what I really want. You have to realise that, say, you can't just be an artist and not promote. If you're not a salesman for your work the likelihood is that people won't realise that it's there and eventually you'll stop yourself from being able to make something else. There's no doubt about it that every album I make is really dependant on the money I made from the last one."

Do you do a lot of reading?

"No, not really, because I just don't get the time. But whenever I do it really sparks things off in me. The last book I read was The Shining and it just blew me away, it was absolutely brilliant, and that definitely inspired "Get Out Of My House" because the atmosphere of the book is so strong."

Apart from the use of sound to conjure up very simple images you've also used list of names, like Minnie, Moony, Vicious, Buddy Holly, Sandy Denny on "Blow Away" and Bogart, Raft and Cagney on "There Goes A Tenner". Are they people you particularly admire or do you just like the strong images they create?

"They are people I like. For me, Cagney is one of the greatest actors that has ever been. I just couldn't believe his acting in White Heat.

"He's always played the boy who grew up in a hard time and in a way he was only ever bad because of the things that had influenced him. He comes across as a very human person who had the potential to do something great but was always misled."

"In that song the idea is that everyone's amateur robbers..."

Like the old Ealing comedies?

"Yeah, that's right. So it's like maybe they get a bit cocky... I dunno, I've never done a robbery, but I think that in a situation like that you'd almost try to be like the person you admire so perhaps they'd be like Cagney and George Raft. They idea was nothing like deep - it was just handy! The real challenge of that song was to make it a story but also keep it like a Thirties tune."

A couple of the songs on The Dreaming seem to draw heavily from film noir. "Night of the Swallow", the female is straight out of the awesome Barbara Stanwyck mould of Double Indemnity. She's a domineering, passionate woman who not only doesn't want her lover to risk his life trafficking refuges because of the danger to him, but because she wants him. At the end he pleads - "Would you break even my wings/Just like a swallow/Let me, let me go...”.

katebushnews.com · Radio 1 Paul Gambaccini Kate's Favourite rock and pop 31st December 1980

Everyone will have their own opinion regarding the ultimate Kate Bush interview. Perhaps it is impossible to distil it down to one. This year, we celebrate forty-five years of Never for Ever and forty years of Hounds of Love. Twenty years of Aerial. A chance to spotlight great interviews around those albums. I still have big affection for those 2011 interviews. The longer audio ones. I think that 1978 provided quite a nice range of interviews. However, thinking about the questions asked, perhaps not as standout as ones from years later. 1980 and 1982 especially interesting years. The T.V. interviews from those years must have been really exhausting. I never feel like Bush was comfortable on T.V. doing interviews. There were a few good examples. Her appearing on Multi Coloured Swap Shop in 1979. Her appearing on Terry Wogan’s chat show more than once. A lot of the earlier radio interviews were pretty brief or throwaway. Some rare nuggets like this 1980 interview with Paul Gambaccini is one that is brilliant as it allowed Bush the chance to talk about some of her favourite music rather than answer the same questions about her new music. I even think there is a book in it. One that focuses on the interviews and promotion. It would be amazing going chronologically and immersing ourselves in how Bush was interviews and how much she had to do. It would be good to know if anyone has a particular favourite Kate Bush interview. Looking through the years and how many interviews Kate Bush gave, it is clear that there are…

SO many to choose from.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation

FEATURE:

 

Beneath the Sleeve

The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation

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SOME might argue…

that there were better albums that was released in 1994. It was such a competitive and phenomenal year. However, the second studio album from The Prodigy reached number one in the U.K. and contains some of the best music from the band. I would advise people to buy the album on vinyl. I will end with a review for one of the defining albums of the '90s. I am going to start out with a few features about Music for the Jilted Generation. Thirty-one years after its release and this album is still inspiring artist and being shared. It is such an important work. I am going to start out with a CLASH feature from 2019. Marking twenty-five years of Music for the Jilted Generation, they heralded and ambitious and genre-busting classic:

“When ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’ was released in 1994, UK rave’s heyday was already waning. While hardcore splintered into clubs and subgenres, ‘Jilted’ instead revisited and re-energised the sound’s origins in hip-hop and punk rock. Producer Liam Howlett and dancer-MCs Flint and Maxim Reality promised not a return to the underground but an unholy matrimony of rave’s anarchic spirit and, well, everything and the kitchen sink.

Over 13 wildly different tracks, ‘Jilted’ swerves between the cinematic (on adrenaline-infused chase sequence ‘Speedway’) and the stadium (on rock-rave manifestos ‘Their Law’ and ‘Voodoo People’). Elsewhere, its final, three-part ‘Narcotic Suite’ finds Howlett furthest from his comfort zone, stretching rave tropes to urbane electronica (‘3 Kilos’) and sci-fi mind-benders ‘Skylined’ and ‘Claustrophobic Sting’.

End to end, the record tests the limits both of hardcore experimentalism and its original CD format – Howlett himself later regretting its 78-minute running time. Ambitious, yes. Interesting throughout, absolutely – though judge the flute solos on ‘3 Kilos’ for yourself.

Really, the power of the record shone through not on these high-minded outliers but on its string of hits – arguably the Prodigy’s finest, where Howlett’s craft reached new heights. ‘Jilted’ was packed full of hooks, even though few of them were what you’d call melodic.

Sure, there are tunes: the pitched-up vocals on ‘Break And Enter’ and ‘No Good (Start The Dance)’, the stadium-worthy shredding on ‘Their Law’. But take standout ‘Voodoo People’ for example: borrowing a two-tone riff from Nirvana’s ‘Very Ape’, it barely shifts from one note, and is the better for it. Even its anthemic synth part is more squelch and distortion than melody, as can also be said for the chainsaw-synth on ‘Poison’ – a slow motion sledgehammer blow of a record that squeezes endless musicality from a juggernaut breakbeat chassis.

It’s this weird alchemy of muted melody, texture and production tricks that stick in the brain. The magic of the Prodigy lies in these staccato, concentrated bursts of noise and energy, neatly described by Maxim’s refrain on ‘Poison’: a “pulsating rhythmical remedy”. But a remedy for what? Who jilted this generation? Sharp as edges, this album undoubtedly deepened rave’s affinity to anti-authoritarian punk”.

I am going to move to a feature from VICE. Writing in 2014, they marked twenty years of The Prodigy’s Music for the Jilted Generation. I remember when it came out in 1994. Launched at a time when music was arguably at its peak, it was like nothing I had heard before. Even now, the album takes me aback (in a good way). Maybe it is not as deep an album as many that was released at that time. However, it brought people together and captured imaginations. A unifying and startling brilliant album, we will be dissection and celebrating it for many years more:

“This is the world that Music for the Jilted Generation was precision-tooled to soundtrack. The Prodigy had already come punching and kicking into the dance world, both perfecting and satirising the sound of hardcore, “killing rave” (as an early Mixmag cover story had it), proving that performance and bolshey personality still had their place among the faceless DJs, and delivering an absolutely shit-hot album in The Prodigy Experience. But Music for the Jilted Generation was the perfect divestment of any last fucks given, a willfully uncool thrash-about that didn’t rely on allegiance to any of the micro-scenes now proliferating, but somehow provided some weird sort of negative unity across the whole proverbial generation; perfectly expressing the skunk-paranoia, vodka-swilling, bad-E’s collective “UGGGGHHH” that came after all the “Woo yeah, c’mon, let’s go!” of rave’s peak years.

They weren’t the first act to realise that to expand they’d need to break out of the scenes and habits of the dance world – bands like The Orb, Orbital, Fluke, The Shamen and even Aphex Twin were taking it to the arenas with big son-et-lumiere shows – but The Prodigy were the ones who really went at it like a big, bastard rock band. By bringing Pop Will Eat Itself (one of the few bands who’d really honed rock/dance crossover) on board for ‘Their Law’ they gave themselves a leg-up, but probably Liam Howlett could have set mosh pits churning anyway.

Early tracks like ‘Charley’ and ‘Everybody in the Place’ showed the first glimmers of an instinctive understanding of The Big Riff that was not about the hypnosis of techno, or even the hyper-stimulation of hardcore, but about dragging the music back into the fist-pumping, chant-along experience of rock music. For better or worse, they and their shows preempted everything that is big and brassy in 21st century EDM. Every new superstar DJ with huge LED shows, massive riffs and vertiginous drops, and most of all Skrillex, owes them a very substantial debt. 

Just like a lot of new EDM, Music for the Jilted Generation is basically very ugly. The pop-hardcore of The Prodigy Experience is still there: teeth gritted as tightly as ever, rock riffs expressing hard guitar music as full fat cheese, heading back towards the trash of Mötley Crüe and co. that grunge self-righteously decided to save us from, and the electronic elements all reach for the shiniest, most instant rush effects. If you listen now to ‘Start the Dance (No Good)’ you’ll hear how, for all its hardcore tempo and breakbeats, it sits as close to Faithless and Felix ‘Don’t you Want Me’ as anything you could describe as underground. Everything is on the surface. There’s nothing subtle from beginning to end – and that includes the disaffection that it expresses, which for all the pontificating about injustice of ‘Their Law’ is nothing more than that aforementioned “UGGGGGHHH” than any more sophisticated articulation of what it was to be alive in 1994.

All of which is precisely why it works. Nobody wanted political analysis or fine detail from Liam and his gang of dark clowns. We wanted to mosh. We wanted a racket that drowned out our tinnitus and picked us up in the same way that a bag of cheap speed did. And for all its negativity and steam-hammer unsubtelty, Music for the Jilted Generation created good times. The first time I ever saw The Prodigy live at a festival, I was in a bad mood. Darkly stoned and paranoid, I surrounded by a right old mix of people but notably a large contingent of football hooligans, banging back the lager, coke and GHB”.

Before getting to a review, I am going to get to a feature from Kerrang!. Writing in 2019, it is a brilliant feature that I would advise people to read in full. An album that you will definitely want to grab on vinyl, I wanted to go beneath the sleeve, as it were, an get the background and detail about one of the seminal albums of the 1990s. Music for the Jilted Generation is a work of genius:

“Rock music, you see, was pretty damn healthy in 1994, but it was evolving, as it always has. Around the mid-’80s the barriers between punk and metal came down, and thrash was born. Crossover, whatever the hell you want to call it. Two tribes that had previously been enemies in a very literal sense had come together, and by the ’90s more barriers were falling. The unthinkable was becoming, well, thinkable. This is especially true of the Judgment Night soundtrack of 1993, which saw such improbable collaborations as Slayer and Ice-T, Biohazard and Onyx, Faith No More and Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E, Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill, metal and hip-hop colliding in the most unlikely ways, to result in something that was undeniably brilliant. Opening doors that were impossible to close again.

And then there was the dance/techno scene waaay off over there in a field of its own, perhaps best summed up by the cartoon in Viz magazine of Ravey Davey dancing around a car alarm. Granted, the field in which they resided was the cause of national headlines and moral outrage due to illegal raves, which ultimately led to the so-called Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, a knee-jerk reaction that prohibited such gatherings, restricting – among other things – the right to freedom of assembly, with bizarre references to 'repetitive beats'. But while this was a concern to any right-minded rock fan, the music was not.

The Prodigy, meanwhile, were massive on the dance scene. Their 1992 debut album Experience is considered a classic of the genre, but songwriter Liam Howlett, having conquered that scene, was growing bored with it and looking for fresh challenges. Due to the eclectic nature of European festivals, they had shared stages with the likes of Rage Against The Machine, Suicidal Tendencies, and Biohazard, and they wanted some of that energy. As MC Maxim Reality put it, “We're used to parties where kids get carried over the barrier now and again, but suddenly there's a sea of people jumping around and stage diving! It was unbelievable!”

So began the change to a heavier sound, Liam sampling rock guitars and recruiting guitarist Jim Davies, a Pantera fanatic who would beef up the live sound on tracks like Voodoo People and Their Law. But still the rock world was clueless. Maybe a handful of rock fans – literally a handful – were aware that something cool was going on, but to the rest The Prodigy were assumed to be little more than a joke, if we're completely honest.

That The Prodigy somehow ended up being championed by Kerrang! was almost entirely accidental. In June ’95, a full year after the release of Jilted Generation, I went to Glastonbury festival pretty much on a whim. It was hot and sunny that year. Skunk Anansie and the Black Crowes were playing... it seemed like a good idea at the time. By Friday night, having imbibed a few substances, my friends and I were in party mode. A couple of them wanted to check out The Prodigy and I didn't want to watch Oasis, so I went along with them. What I witnessed for the next hour was utterly mind-blowing!

“Who came here to rock?” demanded Maxim. Well, 'I did,' I thought, 'But it's not going to happen with you lot.' Oh, how little I knew. And then this punk rock nutter, later known to all of us as the late and very great Keith Flint, came charging across the stage in a hamster ball, the band kicked into Break And Enter, and the place went fucking nuts! By Monday morning I was demanding that we put them in Kerrang!.

In hindsight, The Prodigy were still very much a dance band, yet to make the full transition to rock, and Jilted Generation is a dance album, albeit a very good one, with just a couple of rock tracks. It's no wonder we got death threats for covering them. But, also in hindsight, there are elements here that are not too far from the trance vibe of Hawkwind, and, in some ways, it was inevitable that the energy of dance music would eventually seep into the rock scene. Killing Joke had flirted with dance beats on the Pandemonium album of ’94 and they were not alone. The big difference was that The Prodigy had the audacity to do it the other way around and to do so entirely on their own terms.

“I don't look at the music as techno, anyway,” said Liam at the time. “It's Prodigy music, ’cause we don't limit ourselves.”

Music For the Jilted Generation is still groundbreaking, and The Prodigy remain one of a kind”.

I will end with a review from the BBC. There are some many positive reviews for Music for the Jilted Generation. I don’t know if I have done it justice, but I would once again encourage anyone reading to go and listen to the album. Own it if you can. There are other great features like this that give more detail and insight into the album. In 2003, David Bowie named it (the album) among his favourite music from the 1990s. Music for the Jilted Generation has been voted among the best albums ever by several publications:

“It was their chart-topping 1996 single, “Firestarter”, that first took up lighter and aerosol and burnt the name of The Prodigy – and the piercing-covered gurn of Keith Flint – onto the national consciousness. But if you want to mark the point this gang of Essex ravers first learnt to unite the chemical rush of acid house and the anti-authority attitude that had hitherto been the preserve of black-clad anarcho-punks like Crass and their ilk, not loved-up glowstick twirlers, look back a couple of years to their 1994 album Music For The Jilted Generation.

Recorded against the backdrop of the Criminal Justice Act, the ’94 legislation that effectively criminalised outdoor raving – ‘How can the government stop young people from having a good time?’, reads a note on the inner sleeve –Music… simmers with righteous, adrenalised anger, rave pianos and pounding hardcore breakbeats augmented by gnarly punk guitar, wailing sirens and on “Break And Enter”, the sound of shattering glass. At no point is this merely a band coasting on edgy vibes and bad attitude, though; rather, this is a record that saw Prodigy mainman Liam Howlett maturing as a producer, increasing his palette of sounds and instruments without diluting The Prodigy’s insolent rush, and simultaneously smash ’n’ grabbing from a diverse range of influences that would be neatly integrated into the band’s design.

On “Their Law”, a guesting Pop Will Eat Itself supply a vitriolic vocal aimed at the powers that be. The knuckle-scraping guitar riff from Nirvana’s “Very Ape” forms the scuzzy chassis to the flute-augmented ‘Voodoo People’. And “No Good (Start The Dance)”, with its Kelly Charles vocal hook, proves that despite The Prodigy’s punk snarl, their pop impulse remained intact.

Best track here, though, is the immortal call-and-response track “Poison”, marking MC Maxim Reality’s on the microphone. And in a surprising nod to the emerging phenomenon of the chill-out room, Howlett divides the album’s final three tracks off into “The Narcotic Suite”, a spacey, synthesiser-powered closing stretch that closes the album like a valium comedown. Anyone who called The Prodigy a one-trick pony clearly never heard this”.

I am not sure which album I am going to focus on for the next Beneath the Sleeve. It will be very different to Music for the Jilted Generation! An album that came out when I was eleven and definitely made an impression on me, a whole new generation are discovering it. When it comes to this 1994 sonic explosion and revolution, there are few other albums…

THAT equal it.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Hannah Laing

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Hannah Laing

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THE incredible…

Dundee D.J. and producer Hannah Laing is getting a lot of love right now. And quite rightly! One of the biggest and brightest talents around, I am a little late to her wonder. For this Spotlight, I will end by bringing in a couple of recent interviews. Before that, a little bit of biography before getting to an interview/feature from last year. Let’s get some background for this superstar-in-the-making:

“Having cemented herself as a true maven of the peak time banger via a series of high-energy features on the likes of Solardo’s Sola, Patrick Topping’s TRICK, Jax Jones Presents and Spinnin’ Records, a succession of sell-out club nights under her own outfit, plus upcoming shows at the likes of DC10 and Warehouse Project — it’s hard to look away from Dundee born-and-raised DJ and producer Hannah Laing’s unstoppable trajectory to the top. Rapturous new single ‘Climax’ on WUGD joins a slew of big room, blissed-out anthems spanning house, techno and everything in between — including her knockout 2019 bootleg of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s iconic 2001 hit ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’, a rework that earned Laing global acclaim and the notice of some of the biggest names in the business, including FISHER who dropped the track during most sets in 2019. Having caught the attention of BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong, Danny Howard, JAGUAR and Sarah Story, she made her BBC Introducing debut at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in May 2022. She has still found time to develop her own podcast and club night: Hannah’s Choice — with guests such as Hannah Wants, Marc Kinchen, Jax Jones and Ben Helmsley. Hannah credits her prowess as a DJ to her time hustling as an Ibiza resident, having landed her first regular spot at a Scottish bar in San Antonio at the tender age of 19 — going on to play at island institutions DC-10, Amnesia and Hï. This daily grind as DJ — bringing in guests and keeping the energy high no matter how many bodies were on the dancefloor — has given her a keen ability to stretch and manoeuvre a room, ensuring every performance is unique and reactive. Having been raised on a diet of Paul Oakenfold, Roger Sanchez and a treasure trove of Hedkandi cassette tapes — all from archives of her rave-loving parents, Laing doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t surrounded by dance music. Her first encounter with the club was at age 15, an experience that fundamentally affected Laing’s musical outlook; she recalls watching on eagerly as Dave Pearce dropped trance classics such as Delirium’s ‘Silence’. From that day on, Hannah had caught the bug, gaining her first ever DJ gig at 18 at a tiny pub in Arbroath attended by a coach load of her friends and family — from here, she took every opportunity to show off her skills with both hands: weddings, baby showers, birthdays… you name it. Her move from mixing to making music came about through a mixture of opportunity and dedication, first by chance having heard about a fellow Ibiza worker who was giving lessons to budding producers on Ableton — becoming so engrossed in her tuition, she dedicated every day off she had on the island to learn the new skill. Once back in Scotland, she signed up for a course at Escapade Studios and also works with longtime friend Erskine Audio — transitioning from looping basics to full-blown breakdown ecstasy, all with a dancefloor destination in mind”.

Fifteen Questions spent some time with Hannah Laing last year around the release of their E.P., Into the Doof. Despite the fact I am relatively fresh to Laing and her work, it has been important looking back at interviews and her previous work. So many eyes are on her right now. It is clear that she is conquering the world:

“Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in DJing?
For sure. Every time I would go to a rave, I would always wonder what it felt like to be on the other side. So it was inevitable that sooner or later I was gonna get my first set of decks!

I have always loved club music, but I was not initially a dancer very much. What was this like for you? How does being – or not being – a passionate dancer influence the way you deejay?

For me being a raver first helped me massively. I still rave on the dancefloor as much as possible.
Knowing how people behave on the dancefloor influences me for when I’m creating tension when DJing. I love being able to create long build ups or play those ‘ moment ‘ tracks at the right time.

How would you describe the experience of DJing, physically and mentally? Do you listen – and deejay - with your eyes open or closed?

DJing is the only time I feel fully switched off from the noise of the outside world. It is truly the best feeling in the world for me. Everyone connecting through music. I love knowing what I’m going to play next and seeing the reaction of each track on the dancefloor!
I always play with my eyes open as I love engaging with the crowd and watching everyone having fun.

Collaboration is a key part of almost every aspect of music making, but it is stil rare in DJing. Do you have an idea why this is? Tell me about your own views on back-to-back DJing, interactions with live musicians or other forms of turning DJing into a more collective process.

I think back to back DJing is great, there’s nothing better than seeing artists you love being their own sound and style of DJing together. This brings a fresh, unique vibe to the dancefloor. I also love seeing the energy of the DJs bouncing off each other”.

In the first of two interviews from The Skinny, we get to know more about Hannah Laing’s past. How she was a dental nurse that became a D.J. However, it was not a case of her being a success right away. There was this transition and progress. She is definitely going to inspire others who want to be a D.J. or producer and perhaps do not have a background in music or are taking the unusual path:

“For anyone needing a much-needed shot of adrenaline this summer, you should seek out Laing’s latest EP, Into the Bounce, which is the first in a trilogy of EPs dedicated to the genres that have helped shape Laing's sound. The focus of the three-tracks on Into the Bounce is techno, with Laing’s Pedicure Princess the record’s synthetic, gurgling centre-piece. Bookending Pedicure Princess are Love Is A Drug, made with in-demand London DJ Charlie Sparks, and OMG, made in collaboration with French producer Shlømo. We're told the next two EPs in the series will explore hard house and trance.

Laing has a busy couple of days coming up. Into the Bounce is released on Friday 4 July and Doof the Park, Laing’s dance festival in Camperdown Park near Dundee, takes place the following day, with Laing in the headline slot. Ahead of all that, she tells us more about her love for techno, her collaboration process and her previous career as a dental nurse.

Your career has been pretty well documented thus far. I’m fascinated by the fact you used to be a dental nurse – how has the career change been suiting you? Is there anything you miss about life before you were working full-time in music? Or is there anything you’ve found particularly hard/amazing since making the transition?

The change has been mad, but amazing – I’ve worked so hard for this, and I’m really grateful to be doing what I love full time now. I have to say I do miss the structure of a "normal" job sometimes, though! When I was a dental nurse, I had a proper routine and a set finish time. Now it’s 24/7 - especially with touring, producing and running Doof stuff. It’s intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. The best part is meeting fans all over the world who connect with what I’m doing – that’s the bit that makes it all worth it.

For a lot of people, it seems like you were an overnight success story, but that’s simply not the case – you’ve grafted and grafted. What advice would you give to others trying to make the same transition into a full-time career in music?

Yeah, people might only see the last year or two, but this has been like a decade of graft. My advice would be: don’t wait for someone to give you permission. If you love it, go for it and be relentless. Find your sound, build your own community and stay consistent. Also – be a good person. So much of this industry runs on trust and relationships. Talent’s important, but how you treat people matters just as much.

You’re just about to release Into the Bounce, the first in a trilogy of EPs celebrating techno, hard house and trance. On Into the Bounce you celebrate the relentless world of techno. How did you get into techno? What is it about the genre that you love so much, and who are some of the techno artists that have inspired you over the years?

Techno was honestly one of the first genres I fell in love with. I remember hearing it for the first time and just being like – what is this?! It’s music you feel in your chest. Artists like Amelie Lens, Dax J, Nina Kraviz and I Hate Models were big influences early on. I also love the newer wave like Charlie Sparks and Shlømo, which made working with them on the EP even more exciting”.

I will end with a new interview from The Guardian. However, I will come to another feature from The Skinny. The more we learn about Hannah Laing, the more fascinating she is! Someone who has so many sides to her. If you have not followed her or checked out any of her work, then make sure that you do so now. The future is going to be long and bright for her:

“Who was your hero growing up?

Avril Lavigne. She was such a huge inspiration to me when I was younger. Her music spoke to me in a way that no other artist did at the time. I loved how she stayed true to herself and didn’t try to fit into a mould. Her songs were full of emotion and authenticity, and I still listen to them now with so much nostalgia.

Whose work inspires you now?

Amelie Lens, not just because I love her music, but because she’s such a good mum while still holding down a crazy touring schedule, which blows my mind! She proves that you can be successful in music while also maintaining a personal life, which is something I really admire. Her sets are always top-tier, and she has an incredible energy that makes her stand out. I also love how dedicated she is to her craft, constantly evolving and pushing boundaries.

What’s your all-time favourite album?

Definitely Maybe by Oasis. It never gets old, no matter how many times I listen to it. There’s something timeless about it – the attitude, the raw sound and the lyrics all just hit perfectly.

What’s your all-time favourite album?

Definitely Maybe by Oasis. It never gets old, no matter how many times I listen to it. There’s something timeless about it – the attitude, the raw sound and the lyrics all just hit perfectly”.

What’s your favourite plant?

Cactus.

What’s one item you wish you could take to a music festival?

An Oodie for when it’s freezing at night. Festivals are amazing, but once the sun goes down, it can get so cold, and there’s nothing worse than shivering when you’re trying to enjoy the music. An Oodie would be a game-changer!”.

Even though Hannah Laing has played around the world and it is important to reach out to fans abroad, there is nothing as rewarding as giving back to her community. Recently, the D.J. curated a festival in her hometown called Doof in the Park. It was an amazing occasion by all accounts. The Guardian caught up with a major talent. Her new E.P., Into the Bounce, is tremendous. Among the best of this year:

“While hard dance is often derided or ignored in the media and polite society, Laing’s music – insistent, almost aggressively euphoric – has a large and committed following: 2.7 million people listen to her each month on Spotify and Doof in the Park sold out its 15,000 tickets within a week. Across the festival site there are hundreds of fans in merch from her Doof record label, as well as bootleg efforts including handmade Doof earrings and customised Uniqlo crossbody bags; one man has “Doof” shaved into the side of his head.

Laing wryly describes her rise as “10 years of overnight success”. Even after landing her first Ibiza residency in 2014, she was juggling DJing with her day job as a dental nurse. “I was playing at the weekend then going straight to work on a Monday,” she remembers. “There came a point when I was doing interviews with the BBC in my surgery. I was getting a lot of gigs but still doing lots for free, and I never thought I could make a living from it.” She eventually quit her job in 2022, after a breakthrough set at Creamfields. “I was on first on Sunday at 2pm and didn’t know if anyone would show up, but there were over 10,000 people there and tons of Scottish flags,” she says. “I’d been building up this reputation in Scotland, and when I got that big opportunity, everyone came out to support me.”

“She’s one of us,” says Lisa, who has travelled to the Doof in the Park from Aberdeen with her friend Shona. Like Laing, Lisa is in her early 30s and grew up going to raves. “She’s been brought up like us. She’s a normal girl who’s done well for herself.”

In 2024, Laing launched her label, named after the “doof doof” rhythm of her music. This summer, she’s playing a residency at one of Ibiza’s most sought-after clubs, Hï, and releasing her techno-influenced Into the Bounce EP.

She credits her taste – “hard house, trance, music that really makes me feel something” – to her parents, 90s ravers whose generation make up a significant part of her audience. “It’s a great feeling when people who properly know their stuff come and say: ‘You got me out of retirement!’” she says. “Also when my mum comes to see me, she doesn’t feel old.”

This is very much the case at Doof in the Park. “I’m 53 and I thought I’d be the oldest here, but I’m not,” says Claire from Johnstone, accompanied by her 20-year-old daughter. “I’m 51 and I’ve been doing this for years,” adds Natalie from Aberdeen. “There’s such a mix of ages and everyone’s so friendly.” Natalie’s niece Carla has been following Laing for years, and emphasises the inclusive community she is building, which extends to the access support at the festival. “Sometimes, if you’re sick like me, you can’t go to stuff, but the accessibility team have been fantastic,” she says. “They gave me a direct phone number if I needed anything on the day. It’s all been thought out”.

I am going to finish up now. I have so much respect for Hannah Laing. I love her story and where she came from, but I love more her sheer passion and drive! We are going to see her go from strength to strength for years to come. I was really excited and keen to spend some time bringing in some great interviews with Hannah Laing. Putting this incredible D.J. and producer…

UNDER the spotlight.

____________

Follow Hannah Laing

 Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/hannahlaingdj

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/hannahlaingdj

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1QEd635szhierW6gzRiS1o?si=pPB186gHSd-8bBMgdwESFQ

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