FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Eight: And Dream of Sheep

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the shooting of the video for And Dream of Sheep, a song that is part of her suite, The Ninth Wave/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton 

Eight: And Dream of Sheep

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I am going to come…

to Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 book, Hounds of Love, and what she says about Kate Bush’s And Dream of Sheep. I am embarking on a twenty-feature run to mark Hounds of Love’s fortieth anniversary on 16th September. I have written about every song on the first side. Now, we flip the record over and look at the first song from the second side: the majestic and cinematic The Ninth Wave. One of Bush’s most-streamed and popular songs, And Dream of Sheep, has been performed live. It was actually filmed. A filmed piece that was shown on a screen during the 2014 Before the Dawn residency shows, she was filmed from the point of view of an overhead camera. Bush slips under the water at the end of the song. This article from The Guardian provides more details:

“In the lead-up to her 22-date run of sold-out Before the Dawn performances in 2014, Kate Bush spent three days submerged in a tank filled with water. Not for some new-age cleansing ritual, but to create a sense of authenticity while shooting the video for And Dream of Sheep, a song about a woman who is lost at sea.

This realism however, became more tangible than Kate had initially imagined. According to a spokesperson for the artist, she spent so long in the water during the first day of filming that she contracted mild hypothermia, but recovered after a day off and carried on filming. “Everyone agreed it had added to the authenticity of the performance,” they said.

Recorded at Pinewood Studios, the video for the track – which features the musician strapped to a lifejacket, hoping to be rescued – was created for her unexpected return to the stage, during which she performed The Ninth Wave, her 1985 song cycle that the Guardian described as “disturbing, funny and so immersive that the crowd temporarily forget to applaud everything Bush does”.

For And Dream of Sheep, Kate Bush travelled to Dublin in the spring of 1984 for some amazing sessions. Also part of those sessions was given up to Jig of Life (a song that features later on The Ninth Wave). Dónal Lunny later recollected how Bush asked him to play the single whistle note at the end of the track over and over again for three hours as she was searching for just the right ‘bend’ in the note.

Prior to getting to Leah Kardos’s interpretation and analysis of And Dream of Sheep, below are some interview examples where Kate Bush talked about a hugely important song. One that opens The Ninth Wave. The heroine adrift and wanting to be somewhere cosy and safe where she can fall asleep. Little does she know that her experience being stranded in the water is about to endure and get much worse:

“[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ is about them fighting sleep. They’re very tired and they’ve been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it’s starting to get dark and it doesn’t look like anyone’s coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they’re trying to keep awake; but they can’t help it, they eventually fall asleep – which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

An engineer we were working with picked out the line in ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ that says ‘Come here with me now’. I asked him why he liked it so much. He said, ‘I don’t know, I just love it. It’s so moving and comforting.’ I don’t think he even knew what was being said exactly, but the song is about someone going to sleep in the water, where they’re alone and frightened. And they want to go to sleep, to get away from the situation. But at the same time it’s dangerous to go to sleep in water, you could drown. When I was little, and I’d had a bad dream, I’d go into my parents’ bedroom round to my mother’s side of the bed. She’d be asleep, and I wouldn’t want to wake her, so I’d stand there and wait for her to sense my presence and wake up. She always did, within minutes; and sometimes I’d frighten her – standing there still, in the darkness in my nightdress. I’d say, ‘I’ve had a bad dream,’ and she’d lift bedclothes and say something like ‘Come here with me now.’ It’s my mother saying this line in the track, and I briefed her on the ideas behind it before she said it. And I think it’s the motherly comfort that this engineer picked up on. In fact, he said this was his favourite part of the album. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 21, 1987)”.

I will end this feature by including the live version of And Dream of Sheep from the Before the Dawn residency. Leah Kardos opens her section about And Dream of Sheep by noting how The Ninth Wave opens in the same tonality as the final song from the album’s first side, Cloudbusting. It is fascinating how Kardos talks about the notes and gets deep into the music and composition. For example, “The melody across the opening lines is marked by the distinctive upward interval of a perfect 5th; the words leap up from E to B (‘Little Light’), the vocal melody underlined by bright, ringing, [piano octaves. The 5th is immediately restated (‘shining’), from a lower B up to F#”. Kardos writes, regarding one of Hounds of Love’s most beautiful and important songs, how, throughout, there is this “upwards extension of the melody is the urgent blink of wakefulness; the sloping, softened melodies that curl downwards to the tonal resolution are the figures that lull Bush’s protagonist to the irresistible comfort of slumber”. I have always though that And Dream of Sheep is a dream in itself. Maybe a woman who is having this dream about being lost at sea. Or the song in which our ill-fated heroine is taken by the water and everything that goes after is a dying thought or did not happen. That sounds grim, though The Ninth Wave compels each listener to provide their own interpretation. Leah Kardos continues by saying that the “harmonic progressions waver between minor energy in the ‘A’ phase, circling around the similar chord relationships of ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’, C#m7 to A6 then B (i- VI -♭VII); in the ‘B’ phase, the music feels comfortable and assured with grounded harmonies that are vaguely familiar to what we’ve heard on ‘Hounds of Love’ and a similar pedal point tethering the emotion firmly in position: E (flashes of E6), F#m/E then B/E”. That sublime and soothing magic is observed by Kardos.

It is interesting that in the breaks between verses that there are various voices. The radio transmission of a coastguard. Bush’s family appear in various moments on Hounds of Love. Hannah, her mother, can be heard saying “come here with me now”. This soft and reassuring line is what she would say to her young daughter whenever she had a nightmare. I love learning more about the notation and compositional elements. A real depth and forensic look in the way few other people have provided. It shows songs like And Dream of Sheep in a new light. Kudos to Leah Kardos! She writes how the “arrangement is led by piano, and the texture is predominantly organic, with a brief flash of orchestration that swells dramatically through the words ‘sound of engines’”. Bouzouki and multitracked whistles are “tender and reassuring”, whilst Bush’s vocal is “delicate and dramatic, wrapped in artic Quantec reverb; you can almost feel the chill mist on her breath”. This feels like one of her most personal songs. A genuine fear of being on the water and not knowing what is beneath. You will roll over if you fall asleep and drown, so this is her trying to stay awake against impossible odds and a lack of hope. Rather than neatly segueing into the next song on The Ninth Wave, Under Ice, Bush sings with “a descending, wilted voice, the music stalls on the dominant B7 over E – the song has no ending, but rather it connects directly to the nightmare hallucinations of ‘Under the Ice’”. As I move to Under Ice next in my look inside Hounds of Love, its songs, the album cover and aspects around its legacy, I reflect fondly on And Dream of Sheep. It is a track that connects with so many listeners. And Dream of Sheep is the starting point of…

A brilliant, nerve-shredding and emotional suite.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: Madonna - Ray of Light

FEATURE:

 

 

Beneath the Sleeve

Madonna - Ray of Light

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THERE are three reasons…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna photographed in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Peggy Sirota

why I am including Madonna’s Ray of Light in this Beneath the Sleeve. Well, four, actually. Not only is it one of the best albums ever; one that was very important in 1998. I was a teen then and absolutely love this album. My favourite Madonna album. Veronica Electronica was released on 25th July. Madonna always thought of this as a companion remix album to her seventh studio album, Ray of Light. However, unfortunately, Veronica Electronica was put on hold due to the ongoing success of Ray of Light and its singles. Now out in the world, Veronica Electronica features rare and previously unreleased remixes by several of Madonna's collaborators from the Ray of Light era, including Peter Rauhofer, William Orbit, Sasha, BT, and Victor Calderone. There are two other reasons for spotlighting Ray of Light. It is Madonna’s sixty-seventh birthday on 16th August, so this is a chance to celebrate that by focusing on a masterpiece of hers. Also, a couple of recent articles – around the release of Veronica Electronica – write why Ray of Light is guiding the sound of Pop in 2025. However it is perhaps at its most relevant now, some twenty-seven years after its release. Released on 22nd February, 1998, Ray of Light hit the number one spot in many countries, including the U.K. A different sound and direction from 1994’s Bedtime Stories, Madonna worked with producers William Orbit, Patrick Leonard and Marius de Vries. Iconic singles like Ray of Light, Frozen and The Power of Good-Bye are among Madonna’s best songs. With this new sense of spiritualism that moved away from perhaps the more sexual and liberated sound of her previous work, this was not Madonna entirely looking inward. Ray of Light’s title track is as euphoric and extravert as anything she would ever release! I would advise people go and get this album on vinyl. I am going to explore some features. That give us insight and depth. Take us beneath the vinyl sleeve and into the grooves.

I am starting out with The Quietus and their thirtieth anniversary feature in 2018. Lucy O’Brien has written about Madonna and published a book about her (2007’s Madonna: Like an Icon). She shared her thoughts on Ray of Light three decades after it took Madonna’s legacy and brilliance to new heights. One of the most influential albums ever:

“The album came at a crucial time for Madonna. After the high octane success of the 1980s, her 1990s were testing and difficult. Slut-shamed over her Sex book and the Erotica album, Madonna engaged in angry attention-seeking exercises like saying “fuck” 13 times on Late Show with David Letterman. She had lost confidence, and the tentative R&B of 1994’s Bedtime Stories felt like marking time. Veering off into musical theatre with the Evita project took her into safe MOR territory, but, ironically, rather than turning her into a 1980s pop has-been, those strenuous theatrical songs sung with a full orchestra gave her voice depth and tone. By then Madonna was in her late 30s and re-evaluating life, casting around for answers in study of Yogic philosophy. The birth of her daughter Lourdes in 1996 knocked out some of that infamous ego, so that when she returned to the studio in 1997 for the Ray Of Light sessions she had discovered a more intense, personal voice than the so-called “Minnie Mouse on helium” of earlier years.

Ray Of Light was created in old school prog rock fashion – with mainly one producer, over a period of months, in an intensively collaborative process. “She produced me producing her,” said William Orbit. Recorded in a modest studio in an unfashionable part of LA, the album was intentionally un-industry. Early sessions with Babyface were shelved, and Madonna’s longtime producer arranger Pat Leonard was sidelined in favour of an awkward English eccentric whose hardware kept breaking down. Although Orbit’s perceived amateurism made her nervous, Madonna knew from his dancefloor remix of 1990’s ‘Justify My Love’ that he could create the futuristic tone she craved. With Bass-O-Matic’s Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Bass (named after a Pink Floyd album), and the rave anthem ‘In The Realm Of The Senses’, Orbit had already declared an interest. Kabbalah and new motherhood opened Madonna’s mind, but it was the alchemy between her and Orbit – his trippy underground vibe and her willingness to experiment, that triggered her transformation of consciousness. With Ray Of Light they created the sonic space and musical textures for the sparse poetry that’s embedded in her songwriting. Previous hit-driven albums, with the exception of moments on Like A Prayer and Erotica, hadn’t allowed room for that potential to emerge. For the first time she could express herself in-depth.

Madonna did her background reading – everything from JG Ballard to Anne Sexton to Shakespeare’s sonnets were inspirations here – and did lengthy songwriting sessions with Leonard and Rick Nowells (“her lyric writing was poetic and intelligent,” the latter says, “she knows how to channel a song”) before she set foot in the studio. Once there, little Lourdes was installed in a playroom, and Madonna focused on the tracks that would eventually piece together a story. “I traded fame for love/ Some things cannot be bought… Now I find/ I’ve changed my mind,” she sang on opening track ‘Drowned World/Subsitute for Love’. The apocalyptic dreamscape of JG Ballard’s Drowned Worlds sets the tone. From there she moves into ‘Swim’, a low-slung electro song where Madonna delves into the religious themes of her pop past as the Sin-eater, carrying “these sins on my back”. ‘Ray of Light’ then provides a giddy moment of reawakening, with Orbit pushing her to sing a semitone higher than her comfort zone in order to stretch out that sense of hedonist abandon. This is the song, with its accompanying Jonas Akerlund video – all speeding lights, winking urbanscapes and fast motion skies – that relaunched her career, that married techno beats to cranked-up oscillators and wall-of-sound pop, and begged the question, did Madonna neck a zesty pinger?”.

Prior to getting to those two new articles about Ray of Light’s influence today, I want to bring in an archive interview from 1998. SPIN shared this feature of their interview that was originally published in April. A couple of months after Ray of Light was released. It is interesting reading interviews with Madonna at that time and what she says about the album:

“As much as she’s perceived to be pop’s shrewdest businesswoman, Madonna has rarely taken he most direct route to the bank. Working deviance-phobic nerves with the queer boys and girls of her Sex Book was not exactly playing it safe. There has to be a surer way of getting paid than creating a decade and a half’s worth of gay nightlife soundtracks. She’s obviously made a few unpopular cinematic choices. So the only real option for the sole ’80s icon still thriving in the ’90s was to make the kind of record she puts on her boom box — a blend of haunted singer/songwriter introspection and beat-savvy electronic exotica that may not play in Topeka, if U2’s Pop is any indication.

In doing so, Madonna still pushes buttons. Just as she once sang that she wasn’t sorry for sharing her erotic fantasies, Madonna does not apologize for turning inward and employing the language she’s learned while journeying to the center of her still-firm chakras. On her new album, Ray Of Light, she sings about karma, quotes mystics, changes Sanskrit as she would in her yoga class, kisses emotionally stunted lovers good-bye, and croons a lullaby to daughter Lourdes as if her warble breathed butterfly kisses. Her brazen vulnerability is destined to be someone else’s touchy-feely-trendy hogwash: Madonna has not lost her ability to endear and annoy, and in its digitized, navel-gazing way, Ray Of Light is Madonna’s most radical, mask-free work.

The comparatively sexless tunes take their time to generate heat, but the sonic bacchanalia crafted by William Orbit (and, on four tracks, by Massive Attack associate Marius DeVries) is as propulsive as her newly bolstered vocal chops are controlled. Despite Ray Of Light’s aural hipness, Madonna asserts sincerity to the point of occasional — and affecting — awkwardness. When she sings to baby Lourdes, “You breathe new life into my broken heart,” she turns shamelessly sentimental syllable into the spine-tingly stuff of which sweet pop dreams are made.

“If it looks like I just got out of bed,” Madonna announces as she arrives at her neighborhood coffee shop without a bodyguard, assistant, or publicist, “I did.” She’s dressed in a nondescript black knit shirt, black pants, and chipped black nail polish. Brown roots inches long lead to a tangled mess of brassy blond. At the end of the interview, Madonna politely refuses the reporter’s request for a snap-shot. “Maybe next time when I don’t look like and old sea-hag,” she suggests. Throughout the interview, she remains candid, but rarely does the club-queen who would be king lapse into her infamous dis-intensive talk-show persona. She even tried to be kind about Yanni. Sometimes, I miss the old Madonna.

Why make another album?

Why breathe? Because I love it. Because I love making music. It’s what I do.

When I got this assignment, I wondered, “What can I possibly ask Madonna that hasn’t been asked?” And then I thought, “Music! I’ll ask her about music!” So, for starters, how was making Ray Of Light different than making your other records?

Well, my daughter came to visit me every day in the studio so there were lots of baby interruptions; that’s new. Mostly, though, I look at more musical chances. I let William [Orbit] play Mad professor. He comes from a very experimental, cutting-edge sort of place — he’s not a trained musician, and I’m used to working with classically trained musicians — but I knew that’s where I wanted to go,so I took a lot more risks Oftentimes the creative process was frustrating because I wasn’t used to it; it took a lot longer than usual to make this record. But I realize now that I need that time to get where I was going.

What’s the songwriting process like between you and your collaborators?

Well, it happens differently every time. In William’s case, he would often given me tapes of snippets he was working on — eight-bar phrases, 16-bar phrases, stripped-down versions of what you hear on the record. And I’d listen to them over and over and it would just inspire lyrics. I’d start writing a little bit and then I’d go back to William say, “Okay, let’s expand on this musical idea.” And as we’d expand on this music, I’d expand on the lyrics. That was true for most everything except for the album’s last track, “Mer Girl.” I decided I would write a song to the music as given to me, and when William asked me if I wanted to do something with it, I said, “I want it just like it is, I want you to put the tape up right now and I’m gonna sing to it.” And did it in one take. For “Frozen,” a song wrote with Pat Leonard, I was obsessed with the movie The Sheltering Sky and the whole Moroccan/orchestral/superromantic/man-carrying-the-woman-he-loves-across-the-desert vibe. So I told Pat that I wanted something with a tribal feel, something really lush and romantic. When he started playing some music, I just turned the DAT on and started freeassociating and came up with the melody.

How has you approach to vocals changed with this album? You seem to be going for a more European approach to singing, almost operatic, less colloquial.

I studied with a vocal coach for Evita and I realized there was a whole piece of my voice I wasn’t using. Before, I just believe I had a really limited range and was going to make the most of it. Then I started studying with a coach. God bless her. My secret dream is to sing Italian at songs, so at the end of my lesson my teacher would let me sing Italian operetta. Maybe that affected me unconsciously.

Ray Of Light is a very soulful record, but it sounds nothing like contemporary soul, à la Mary J. Blige. Have your feelings about black culture and black music changed?

I don’t think that a lot of soul searching is going on in soul music these days, so in that respect it’s pretty disappointed and uninspiring. There are definitely artists whom I respect and admire, but for the most part R&B is not what it used to be.

Why do you think that is?

There seems to be a certain kind of formula that is getting over right now. No disrespect to Puff Daddy — he’s a real pioneer in a lot of ways — but constantly recycle other people’s music is not very inspiring. You’re just hearing things you’ve already heard before. It makes you want to sing along but you’re not really going to another place with it. As I was driving over here, I was listening to the radio and there was this Stevie Wonder song. Where is somebody who writes like that now? It’s so sad. I guess Babyface comes closest, but I consider his stuff more pop. I can’t think of anybody who’s as deep and as layered as Stevie Wonder. Instead we get the cartoon version of life: being powerful, rich, and having beautiful woman. I don’t think they’re setting out to push the envelope or take music to another level. It’s about intention.

How do you pick who you’re going to collaborate with? I’m sure you could have anyone you want

Well I could, but I always go for the cook in the kitchen [laughs]. I like to work with people who take chances. Usually they’re undiscovered, because once people are successful they don’t like taking risks.

But you’ve worked with Patrick Leonard all along.

Yes, on songwriting, but no production. We write great songs together, but from the production point of view, the music that I listen to comes mostly from England and France, and there’s a certain European sensibility that I couldn’t have gotten from an American producer.

Why is that?

There’s a greater acceptance of cutting-edge things there. That goes for fashion, film, music. There is a real competitive thing going on in England about who can sell the most records, who can have the biggest box-office receipts. I’m much more inspired by the stuff coming out in Europe than i am out of America.

Like who?

Bjork, Everything but the Girl, Trickly and Martine.

What about Bjork attracts you?

She’s incredibly brave and she’s got a real mischievous quality about her. I find her very compelling, really daring.

How about Everything but the Girl?

There’s a plaintive quality to Tracey Thorn’s voice that I really respond to. And that song, “Missing”? I know they’ve played the shit out of it and I ‘m over it and everything, but it was such a brilliant song”.

The first of this year’s features that looks at the modern relevance of Ray of Light is from The Independent. Back in April, Madonna responded to a comment on her Instagram page. It concerned how many modern artists seem to be following in Madonna’s footsteps in terms of their sound and stage presentation:

“Did you see so-and-so copied you?” Madonna is asked, in this hypothetical but presumably factual exchange – one as likely to have taken place in 1992 as it is 2025. “God forbid a woman takes inspiration,” Madonna coolly replies. The dialogue, pasted on top of an image of the star strutting down a London street in shades, was accompanied by a further caption: “I see you, I love you. You’re doing great sweeties.”

Madonna has thawed over the decades, both when it comes to her own back catalogue (her 2023 greatest-hits tour would have been unthinkable a handful of years earlier) and her relationship to the many artists who’ve cast themselves in her image. But there’s still a glint of prickly, passive-aggressive menace to how Madonna views the pop world – a kind of “I know, adore and support the fact that you’re ripping me so brazenly off” – that feels uniquely, hilariously her. Case in point: the announcement, just a few weeks after her Instagram post, of a long-rumoured collection of remixes locked in the Madonna vault since the late Nineties, each of which feels like a sonic blueprint for the exact kind of music currently being produced by music’s most outré pop girlies, from FKA Twigs and Addison Rae to Arca, Caroline Polachek and Erika de Casier. Jade, Britain’s next big pop hope, even threw out a cover of Madonna’s stark ballad “Frozen” in March. God forbid a woman takes inspiration.

Veronica Electronica, which is released tomorrow, takes its name from an alter ego Madonna teased in 1998 during the promotion for Ray of Light – her sensual, nocturnal dance record that housed hits such as “Frozen”, as well as “Drowned World/Substitute for Love”, “Nothing Really Matters” and the still-dazzling title track, with its twisting, twirling techno melody and euphoric vocals. A remix album bearing the Veronica Electronica title was mooted for release a year later, until Madonna grew distracted by sessions for her 2000 record Music – an album that would build upon her work with Ray of Light’s key producer, the spacy genius William Orbit, as well as the French electronica pioneer Mirwais Ahmadzaï.

But whether it’s truly new or not, Veronica Electronica feels like an attempt to root the pop sounds of 2025, as if to remind modern listeners of the inky, plaintive dance music from whence they came. It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in pop music sounds like Madonna, because Madonna is more or less all pop music, or at least the template for everything we recognise as female pop stardom today. But it’s been more pronounced than usual lately, with the year’s two best pop records – FKA Twigs’s Eusexua and Addison Rae’s Addison – both fusing traditional pop hooks with a chilly, introspective, ambient gloom, much like Madonna did on Ray of Light and Music.

On January’s Eusexua, a portmanteau of “euphoria” and “sexuality”, Twigs shifts out of the eerie midtempos of her earlier material and into full-blown experimental pop. There is an almost cyborgian eroticism to the record, her vocals warped into metallic purrs, the production bubbling and curdling underneath her toplines. “Girl Feels Good”, a slinky celebration of female sexuality co-produced by Ray of Light’s Marius de Vries, is a clear highlight, shifting from a sparse oddity into a busy lab experiment full of dramatic strings and glitchy synths. It could be lifted from turn-of-the-century Madonna – which Twigs herself has directly acknowledged, performing the track on her tour with choreography borrowed from the video of Madonna’s 2000 folktronica masterpiece “Don’t Tell Me”.

Six months on from Eusexua came Rae’s full-length debut Addison, which traded the Britney-aping power-pop of the former TikTok star’s early EPs in favour of lush trip-hop and sensuality. It’s partly out of necessity: Rae is not a powerhouse of a vocalist but a 24-carat whisper singer, Addison’s soundscape matching the limitations of its star’s pipes. But it helps evoke a gorgeous airiness across the record’s 12 tracks (its producers have stated Ray of Light was a key influence). Rae’s lyrics are often abstract and opaque, like dream logic, or what comes out when you pop a foreign language into Google Translate (“Tell me who I am, do I provoke you with my tone of innocence?”).

While Madonna is known for her steeliness – that sense that she’s almost infallible when it comes to criticism or emotional setbacks – Ray of Light was itself born of pain. She called the period prior to its recording her “rock bottom”, in which she faced relentless backlash over her sexually provocative output, questions about her marketability and relevance in an increasingly busy pop landscape, and a resulting crisis of confidence. “I think Madonna’s been of the opinion that it’s self-indulgent to admit sadness and loneliness,” her friend, the filmmaker Alek Keshishian, told Vanity Fair in 1998. “Before, it was always, ‘I have no regrets.’ This time it’s [quoting ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love’] ‘...now I find I’ve changed my mind.’ That, to me, takes a great amount of courage.”

Ever a magpie, she sought to replicate sounds on the pop fringes – Bjork, Massive Attack, Everything But the Girl, Tricky – and blow them up to their most commercially viable. (As if something was in the water, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue both released their most sonically interesting albums to date – 1997’s The Velvet Rope and Impossible Princess, respectively – around the same time.) Ray of Light touches on grief, faith, depression and nascent motherhood – Madonna had given birth to her first child just over a year earlier. The record was a smash, selling 16 million copies worldwide and netting Madonna four Grammys. Orbit was himself transformed into pop’s go-to producer for a time, too, working his magic in the studio for No Doubt, Blur, Melanie C and – most satisfyingly – on All Saints’s “Pure Shores”, arguably the most serene piece of Y2K ear-candy put to record.

And now we’re here. Why the resurgence of this particular Madonna sound? Call it a kind of musical reset, perhaps, from the wordy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan or the maximalist, Eighties-tinged pop of Dua Lipa or the non-industrial segments of this year’s middling Lady Gaga comeback record. Or maybe it’s even a response to the newfound, post-Covid allure of sweaty, underground nightclubs and dancing with strangers. The “Ray of Light” video concludes with Madonna losing her mind, all by herself, on a crowded dancefloor – just one restless speck of humanity in a massive universe beyond any of our comprehension. Haven’t we all felt that way at least once in the past few years?

Whatever the reason, Veronica Electronica is here to remind us of who dove into this terrain first. Or if not first, at least the most successfully. And where’s the harm in that?”.

I will end with a brilliant article from BBC. They argued how Ray of Light is 2025’s hottest album. With Veronica Electronica released, it did get journalists considering the power and endurance of its sister album, Ray of Light. I do think that Ray of Light is one of the most important albums ever. One that many did not expect Madonna to release following Bedtime Stories. That album was a reaction to 1992’s Erotica and the criticism it got from many due to its sexual nature and ‘controversy’. Ray of Light marries her innate ability to write instant Pop classics. Motherhood and spirituality enforces many of the 1998 album’s best moments:

“Madonna's varied discography is a mother lode of musical inspiration. With her early albums such as 1984's Like a Virgin, 1986's True Blue and 1989's Like a Prayer, she helped to invent the concept of the instantly recognisable, clearly delineated pop "era". But, during the past year or so, a slightly more recent Madonna album has become a touchstone for a new generation of musicians – 1998's Ray of Light, a cutting-edge collection of swirling electronica, which she largely crafted with British producer William Orbit.

"It's the perfect blend of pop sensibility and electronic innovation: it manages to deliver both, which is rare," Welsh electronic musician and producer Kelly Lee Owens tells the BBC. Owens, who cites Ray of Light as a major influence on her 2024 album Dreamstate, believes Madonna's masterpiece feels like "something that was fated to be made" in that "it was created at exactly the right time and place and has now become timeless".

British singer-songwriter Mae Muller also drew from Ray of Light while working on her new EP My Island, which was released earlier this month. Muller says the album's euphoric title track helped to put her in "a magic place of nostalgic melancholy" that made her "want to dance", which is her "favourite place" musically.

The album's spin on 90s electronica – beautifully fluid and flecked with techno and trip-hop – is disarmingly contemporary once more

This year alone, music critics have detected Ray of Light's sonic legacy in acclaimed albums by British avant-pop alchemist FKA Twigs (Eusexua), Portuguese-born Danish R&B musician Erika de Casier (Lifetime) and US TikTok creator-turned-pop singer Addison Rae (Addison). The album's aqueous-sounding spin on 1990s electronica – beautifully fluid and flecked with techno and trip-hop – is disarmingly contemporary once more. In March, former Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall (now known as JADE) released a suitably dramatic cover of Frozen, Ray of Light's chart-topping lead single. She said she was drawn to Madonna's haunting ballad because "it feels like a mix of genres" and "isn't your typical pop song". In a way, this cuts to the crux of Ray of Light's enduring appeal: because the album was such a cultural disruptor when it came out, it retains a rare cachet more than 27 years later.

IN THIS PHOTO: Addison Rae is among the contemporary artists whose work displays influences of the 1998 Madonna album/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Now, Madonna herself is revisiting the Ray of Light era with an accompanying (if somewhat belated) remix album called Veronica Electronica. Just released, it collects seven club-centric reworkings of songs from the original LP alongside one previously unreleased demo: the resilient break-up song Gone Gone Gone. When Madonna announced Veronica Electronica's release in June, a post on her website explained that it was "originally envisioned by Madonna as a remix album in 1998", but the project was "ultimately sidelined by the original album's runaway success and parade of hit singles that dominated the spotlight for more than a year".

No self-respecting pop star undersells their achievements, but this isn't hyperbole. When Ray of Light was released in February 1998, it debuted at number one in 17 countries and at number two in the US. In the UK, it spawned no fewer than five top 10 singles: Frozen, the pulsating title track, the reflective ballad Drowned World/Substitute for Love, a touching double A-side of The Power of Good-Bye and Little Star, and the existential club anthem Nothing Really Matters. Ray of Light would go on to sell 16 million copies globally: an especially impressive total given that Madonna released the album when she was 39, a challenging age for female performers who refuse to narrow their ambitions”.

Ray of Light's intoxicating sonic cocktail wouldn't pack such a punch if the album didn't contain some of Madonna's most ruminative and revelatory songwriting. She celebrates the birth of her daughter Lourdes on the lovely Little Star, but also confronts the death of her mother on the astonishingly stark album closer Mer Girl. "And I smelled her burning flesh, her rotting bones, her decay," Madonna sings in hushed tones. "I ran and I ran, I'm still running away." Owens says the overall effect is "so emotionally raw and sonically intimate" that what Madonna is singing about, a devastating visit to her mother's grave, "feels almost tangible somehow".

IN THIS PHOTO: Ray of Light's influence can be heard on EUSEXUA by FKA twigs/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Elsewhere, Madonna explores the essential emptiness of fame on Drowned World/Substitute for Love, social unrest on Swim, and her yearning for human connection on standout album tracks Skin and Sky Fits Heaven. Frank believes Ray of Light's spiritual streak is another reason why it chimes with so many contemporary artists. "A sense of the spiritual and introspective is all over pop music now," he says. "When you listen to Charli XCX's [2024 album] Brat or Ariana Grande's most recent album [last year's Eternal Sunshine], they're soundtracking their journey of spirituality and self-care – their search for meaning – on top of a foundation of electronica."

On one occasion, Madonna takes her quest for spiritual enlightenment a little too far. The album track Shanti/Ashtangi, which she sings in the ancient Indo-European language Sanskrit, sets lines from an Indian hymn, the Yoga Travali, to a rattling techno beat. It's doubtless well-intentioned, but also feels like crass cultural appropriation coming from a world-famous white woman.

In a way, though, Ray of Light's occasional flaw only adds to its appeal. "The album feels 100% authentic to Madonna, which is what people have always wanted from music, but maybe even more so today," Muller says. Owens agrees, saying that while "the electronic landscape Orbit created is timeless", Madonna's "vulnerability still resonates deeply" too. For this reason, Ray of Light's influence seems unlikely to wane. It's an album that redefined, and continues to shape, the kind of music that pop stars can make and achieve success with”.

I will finish here. No doubt a seismic album in terms of Pop history and the impact it is still having, Ray of Light is one that everyone needs to own. Though Pop artists today are not copying Madonna, it is clear they are compelled and moved by Ray of Light and want to show their love for it. When you hear the amazing music right through the album, then it is pretty…

EASY to see why.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Blusher

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight 

Blusher

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MAYBE I am…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Brianna Da Silva

a bit late to this wonderful trio. An Australian group who released their E.P., RACER, earlier this month, they are on my radar now. I am going to end with a review of the E.P. I want to start out with an interview from last year from The Line of Best Fit. They shone a light on the amazing Blusher. This is a trio (Miranda Ward, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Lauren Coutts) that you need to have in your life. They are going to go places:

“Formed in reaction to the isolation of pandemic, the camaraderie of the three members is the propelling force behind Blusher. Completed by Lauren Coutts and Jade Ingvarson-Favretto, they began writing in bedrooms as lockdown lifted, before signing with Atlantic off the back of their first ever show. Their ascent has been something of a whirlwind ever since, taking in international headlines, a wealth of new music, and a slot supporting homeland queen Kylie.

Although based in Melbourne, it’s only Ingvarson-Favretto, who is part-Swedish, that grew up in the city, playing in an ABBA tribute band with her family. “My parents are still in it and that's been their career for my whole childhood and life up to now. I perform in it with my siblings as well. I would play the part of Agnetha and we would do the accents and the outfits and everything,” she says. “I used to force my dad to play piano for hours and I would make up gibberish songs as a kid with him. That was kind of my first taste of music and writing.”

As they’ve progressed, their creative process has become more collaborative, working with outside songwriters and producers in sessions around the world, and collaborating fluidly in the studio. “We all do a little bit of everything. We all play multiple instruments a little bit, we all have a hand in the top lines,” says Ward. “We do fall into creative patterns sometimes, but a lot of the time we just see what happens. I guess we have the things that we gravitate towards; Jade's very melody-focused and Lauren’s really production and lyric-focused and I love a good bassline. But also we all do everything.”

Their recent releases are an explosive rush of slick production and instant songwriting, platforming their combined talents and sugar-rush delivery. Tracks like “24 Hours in Paris” tread a sophisticated line of feeling familiar yet idiosyncratic, while previous offering “Rave Angel” glows with sass, clever construction and inventive hooks.

Blusher also individually worked on their own versions of the singles, bringing different aspects of their own sonic identity to the music. “We got the stems for ‘Accelerator’ and I was like, ‘God these stems are good,’” laughs Coutts. “I think that was just a bit of a passion project for me, I didn't really think anything would necessarily come of it and then it became something quite special. We talked about releasing it and then I think it was also just a really good opportunity for us to showcase our production skills.”

With a sold out London headline behind them and headline dates in Australia awaiting their return, Blusher are ready to continue their breakneck progression, still developing and expanding while keeping that formative connection at their core. “We're working on a remix for another artist altogether at the moment, which is something we haven't done, but maybe the next step is a Blusher remix where we all collaborate on it,” says Ward. “We're just experimenting a lot at this point and writing in different ways and who knows what is gonna be the vibe for singles coming up. We are collaborating a lot but we're also just bringing it back to the three of us a lot as well. Just bringing it back to how the band started, in the room with the three of us”.

There is quite a lot to cover when it comes to Blusher. There were a lot of interviews from last year and there is some stuff from 2023. They have been out there for a little bit, though I think this year is their biggest and most important. Wonderland. included Blusher in their New Noise feature. I have heard them on the radio here, though I don’t think they are been giving enough airplay. Blusher are pushing Pop boundaries:

“Congrats on your new EP, “RACER”. How are you feeling about the release?

Miranda: I don’t think we’ve ever been more excited for a release. RACER feels like the perfect combination of our three individual tastes and experiences coming together to make something that is so us, but also so much bigger than us. We’ve been working on the EP in one way or another for more than a year, and it’s pretty surreal at the moment to think that we get to see how everyone else connects to it. The best feeling is hearing peoples’ stories of our songs helping them get through a breakup, or pumping them up when they feel terrible, or that they’ve made their new best friend at a Blusher show. We’re hoping these songs lead to more of those moments.

What’s the story behind the project’s title?

Jade: Being a RACER is a state of mind where someone is their boldest, brightest, most magnetic and unapologetic self. They’re their own stunt person, they’re the ones starting the dance floor while the rest of the party is trying too hard to be cool. Being the most authentic possible version of yourself is very “RACER”.

What inspired the thematic direction of the EP?

Lauren: The camaraderie we share with each other through all of our experiences being a band — from the start it’s felt like we’re a tight knit team encouraging each other to be our most RACER selves. The energy you have when you’re in the ‘getting really into fitness’ part of a breakup. Girlhood, confidence, and clubbing as a team sport. The first song we wrote for the EP was about taking your best friend on a marathon night out to help them through their breakup, and the concept snowballed from that moment. 

Across the project, you flirt with the expectations of what pop is and has been — is that intentional or emblematic of your fluidity as musicians?

Miranda: I think that’s unavoidable with us, to be honest. We’re all total music nerds at heart. We all have a lot of respect and love for our elders. We’re always listening to ABBA, The Beach Boys, Madonna, Kylie. We’re also obsessed with futuristic, boundary-pushing pop and dance music. One thing we basically never do is reference something that’s big or trending at the moment. We’re super fluid with what we listen to and what we’re inspired by, but creating through the venn diagram of the three of us means it will always turn out quintessentially Blusher.

You’re hitting the road once again later this year. What can attendees expect from a live show?

Miranda: Bangers, bubbles, bass, choreography, remixes, covers, new merch, CD’s, energy, afterparties.

You’ve previously toured with Sugababes, Tove Lo and played with Kylie Minogue — what did those experiences teach you?

Lauren: These shows were such a dream come true. We definitely took many notes from each of their shows from choreo to band set up to fashion – but I think the most inspiring thing for me is just to see these women having long, sustainable, fun careers in the music industry. Our job is made a lot easier by the path that these women have forged.

What else is to come from you — this year and beyond?

Jade: We’re so excited for the RACER era and we have big plans for remixing the EP and touring and travelling a lot. We love writing when we travel and we find a lot of inspiration from whichever new city we’re in at the time. We want to write for the next project, make as many new friends all over the world as we can, and find some matching vintage Adidas boxing boots”.

The final interview I am including is from The Honey Pop. It is great that Blusher have some U.K. dates coming soon. It is going to be an opportunity for fans here to see the trio being their new E.P. to the stage. That will be some experience! Go and follow them on social media if you have not done so already:

“One thing we’re obsessed with is how every part of the band has a creative voice—from something as simple as ‘mp3’ in your Instagram handle to Jade’s iconic ribbon fishnet tights. But to really get to know you as individuals: if each of you had to pick one thing as your personal brand—a signature move, look, or vibe—what would it be?
Impossible! Artists are complex creatures with way too much going on under the hood to be able to explain themselves like that – it’s why we have to keep writing songs. But okay, we’ll try our best

Miranda: violin nerd turned bass-drop fiend

Jade: dorky fairy who shreds omnichord and does the worm at weddings 

Lauren: golden retriever with headphones on

‘Racer’ is the perfect opener for the EP—the name alone sets that wild, handkerchief-flailing kickoff for the whole body of work, especially ending with ‘Running To You.’ What was it about that track that made you want to grab listeners by the collar and hook them right from the jump?

Jade: Thank you! We wanted this song to feel like your best friend bursting into the room, convincing you to come on a night out and filling you up with chaotic energy. It feels like it’s daring you to be the boldest, most unstoppable, and fizzy version of yourself. Like a lot of the songs on the EP, it was inspired by the bond the three of us share and how we bring out the RACER in each of us. The RACER ethos is about being the person to start the dance floor while everyone else is worrying about what other people think.

We love the lyric “The track is fading out, you know the feeling” on ‘Marathon’—it captures that wistful moment of something ending, both sonically and emotionally. Is there a closing lyric on the EP—whether literally the final line or just one that feels like a full-stop—that you’re especially proud of? Something that really lands the plane for you?

Miranda: “Crying in the club, yeah, I’m so cliche. But I’m crying in the club in a cool new way” – really sums up how I feel about writing pop songs. There’s always an interesting new perspective to explore on the classic topics of pop like heartbreak or love.

Lauren: “We’ve got matching blisters now, they call us sisters, wow” – this is a special one to me because it’s a direct window into our friendship, which is the heart of RACER and everything we do.

Jade: “I do it for the love of the sport” feels like it captures our passion and grit completely. We formed this band because we wholeheartedly love making music. As long as we can say we have put every ounce of sweat and conviction into the art, who cares if anyone else likes it or not?

Supporting Kylie Minogue at British Summer Time in Hyde Park is a massive moment, but it also feels like two eras of Australian pop colliding. What kind of wisdom do you think you can take from how she broke out in 1988, and how does that merge with what you’ve learned navigating 2025—where handing someone a cassette has turned into chasing virality on socials?

Lauren: Supporting Kylie was such an unbelievable moment for us; even now, it’s hard to believe we did that! She’s such an icon and an inspiration for us. There’s obviously a lot to take from her and her performance, but for me, I think it’s the everlasting nature of great songwriting. The music industry is always changing, whether we’re burning CDs or becoming video editors, we’ll be adapting with it for our entire careers – but the thing that doesn’t change is the power of a great song, a great performer, and their ability to bring people together. It’s really inspiring to see the way Kylie has sustained this incredible pop stardom for decades, plus she seems to be really happy and healthy, which we love to see!

And finally, because Aussie music deserves all the love, who’s an Australian artist you’re really vibing with right now? Someone you think more people need to have on their radar?

Jade: Memphis LK

Lauren: Phoebe Go 

Miranda: Sycco”.

NME were among those who shared their views on the sensational RACER. There have been some incredible E.P.s. released this year. Blusher’s is among the best. I am excited to see where the group goes from here. One of the brightest names in new music:

“In a post-‘Brat’ world, it’s easy to draw a line between Charli XCX’s culture-shifting record and any project of hard-hitting, bittersweet club sounds that comes after. While shades of the British popstar’s impact can certainly be found on Blusher’s second EP ‘Racer’, the Australian band have been drawing from a similar well of influences since their sublime 2023 debut EP, ‘Should We Go Dance?’.

The pop-minded trio – made up of Lauren Coutts, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Miranda Ward, who all trade roles as producers, singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists – recommit to the dancefloor on the six-track ‘Racer’, where they’ve sharpened their sound and, more importantly, their hooks. Take the cheeky ‘Don’t Look At Me Like That’, where the chanted cadence of the chorus ( “Don’t make it / Ro-man-tic / Don’t look at me like you’re in love / Don’t make it / Dra-ma-tic / Don’t look at me like that”) is an inescapable earworm.

The same stickiness can be found across most of the EP. High-octane title track ‘Racer’ is a gorgeous cross between ‘Tension’-era Kylie Minogue and ‘Brat’’s rave energy. Meanwhile, ‘WHATEVERWHATEVER’ might be light lyrically (“I wanna go out, I wanna stay in / I want to get delirious and do it all again”), but the breezy synth-driven anthem about brushing off pressure is great for setting the mood for a night out.

Not every song can be a banger, though. The melody of ‘Marathon’ is instantly familiar, even if you can’t put your finger on it – but once you realise it’s reminiscent of the children’s tune ‘Camptown Races’, the song is ruined for good. Pair that with lyrics that are more cringe than cool (“Crying in the club, yeah I’m so cliche / But I’m crying in the club in a cool new way”), and you have the EP’s only skip.

A better surprise is earnest closer ‘Running To You’. At first, it comes off as lovely but quite typical – like one of those label-mandated ballads you’d find on almost every K-pop album. But, just as it’s winding down, the lasers and synths start swirling and the hi-hat kicks in, transforming the song into a euphoric Boiler Room-esque instrumental as their vocals loop in the background.

It’s Blusher themselves who best encapsulate the EP on the joyous, ABBA-coded disco tune ‘Last Man Standing’, where they sing “And I do it for the love of the sport, and I do it ’cause I just want more” over a driving bassline and shimmering synths. Both the line and song sum up the band’s entire vibe and ethos: turning the dial up to 10 and giving it their all just because they love pop that much. It comes through in droves on ‘Racer’, where they’ve turbocharged their fun-loving electro-pop sound, bringing it to the next level”.

Anyone who has not heard of Blusher, go and check them out. They are primed for big things. Even if I am slightly new to them, I will make up for a bit of lost time. I am definitely invested now. Following the release of RACER and some tour dates in their diary, the group will grow and build their fanbase. There is no doubt that Blusher’s Miranda Ward, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Lauren Coutts are trhe real deal. This year has been busy for Blusher. I am looking ahead to see what is in store…

IN 2026.

____________

Follow Blusher

Official:

https://www.blusherband.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/blusher.mp3

Twitter:

https://x.com/Blusher_mp3

YouTube:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7AZm56bjPk0tYl6LTyJu9N?si=zZrwLXZ1S_aSQD8tE4S2xQ

Facebook:

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FEATURE: Groovelines: The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson) - To Build a Home

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson) - To Build a Home

__________

A name that some people might not know…

Patrick Watson is a remarkable artist with this beautiful and entrancing voice. Some people know about his solo career and tracks like Je la laissierai des mots (that has over a billion streams on Spotify). Watson is a Canadian artist whose debut album, Waterproof9, was released in 2001. Actually, that is technically his only solo album, as everything past that was from his group, Patrick Watson. One of his most well-loved moments was singing with The Cinematic Orchestra on their album, Ma Fleur. The opening track on that album was To Build a Home. It was released as a single on 29th October, 2007. It is a gorgeous and spine-tingling track I wanted to explore more for this Groovelines. Although there were mixed reviews for Ma Fleur, many highlighted To Build a Home as an especially captivating moment. I will go more in depth with this track. I want to start out with Wikipedia and their section regarding the critical reaction to the track:

“To Build a Home" had a positive reception from music critics. Critics often saw Watson's vocal performance as a highlight on the song. For The Observer, Stuart Nicholson wrote that "Swinscoe transforms three- and four-chord vamps into something special." For Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro regarded the vocals as "bellowing [and] haunting", while Tyler Fisher of Sputnikmusic said that Watson "nearly steals the show". Maggie Fremont of Vulture called it "one of the most emotional songs ever performed."

"To Build a Home" has been used in several different television shows and films, including This Is Us, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, Friday Night Lights, and Orange Is the New Black”.

I want to move to an interview from Red Bull Music Academy. Jason Swinscoe from The Cinematic Orchestra. He was invited for a talk about “his career at the RBMA Bass Camp in Vienna before a performance later that night”:

“Can you tell us about this song? It has a different approach to rhythm, because there are no drums. For a guy coming out of club culture, it must have been quite a step to leave out the drums completely.

It was definitely a considered thought. I was in clubs a lot at that time, and what I think was happening around Ma Fleur was that I was actually losing interest in the club scene. And so I wanted to write a record which was a little less beat-oriented. For me, it got to the point where it was just all about the beat, it’s like, “Where’s the music?” I was consciously trying to do more songwriting stuff.

Music is such a strong language, and it’s one that I’m just going to continually explore.

With “To Build a Home,” I had a chord progression in Paris, and I went to Montreal, where my manager Dom put me in touch with Patrick Watson. Patrick was introduced to this guy Jeff, who was running Ninja Tune in Montreal at the time. He used to be on the same hockey team. Yes, because they’re Canadians. They love their hockey. Patrick was, I think, quite a pathetic hockey player. He was the goalkeeper, that’s why he got the shit position. But Jeff heard this guy singing occasionally, and he was like, “You should check this guy out.” I got in touch with him and he was doing his own music at the time, writing music to short films.

I just went to Montreal for five days, and we sat down and just wrote that tune. We did it in the first couple of days really. It was a very collaborative experience. I was like, “Patrick, I’ve got these piano chords,” and he just came up with the melody and we wrote the lyrics together. It was just one of those magical combinations of right time and right place”.

There are not that many reviews for To Build a Home. However, it is a song that a lot of people love. Drowned in Sound awarded the track eight out of ten in 2007. This was a track I first heard in 2007 and instantly was affected by it. I still listen to it now and am moved every single time. It is a stunning song that is so evocative and dreamy. You can close your eyes and picture yourself inside of it:

“That was worrying, back there: the piano keys were dabbed gently and Jason Swinscoe’s vocal arrived, angelic, offering a sweet melody. Oh no - it’s going to sound like Keane. The Cinematic Orchestra have lost the plot.

But that was about 20 seconds into this six-minute long, download-only single - the first taster from new album, Ma Fleur. Yes, this is sensitive stuff, but it’s saved from soppiness by its artistic vision: while strings start to swell up, crescendo-ing, ‘To Build A Home’ never fully takes flight. Instead, it toys with you, undulating up and down, devoid of percussion, light as an eddying breeze. The combination of dainty music and themes of love, loss and feeling safe at home could become twee and over sentimental, but Swinscoe’s turn of phrase and cracked, world-weary cry makes ‘To Build A Home’ reminiscent of Elbow’s ‘Scattered Black & Whites’ in tone, or some of Nick Drake’s more plaintive material, skirting the line between simple shite and simple genius, and fainting onto the right side.

As a sign of things to come from Ma Fleur, this is very promising indeed”.

It is strange highlighting and praising a song that is not particularly liked by either The Cinematic Orchestra or Patrick Watson. Jason Swinscoe said he feels shackled to the song and sort of feel that it defined them - and regrets that. Patrick Watson was not hit by the song and feels others are a lot better. However, millions of people do love the song and it is a sublime and stirring work. Before finish up, I want to bring in this Patrick Watson interview from last year:

“While many have offered heaps of money to license the Montreal musician’s acclaimed work over the years, he says there are certain ethical lines he refused to cross.

In the case of “To Build a Home,” his 2007 piano-string ballad with the Cinematic Orchestra, one corporation with a history of what he calls “reasonable ethical doubts” wanted to license his song for an internal marketing video. Watson said he flatly declined their request.

“We were offered half a million,” he said in a recent conversation from his Montreal home.

“I’m not anti-corporation. I just think there’s a difference between corporations.”

Watson said he wrestled with similar moral quandaries numerous times early in his career, concluding that musicians sometimes have to pick their “evils” and settle on rights deals that allow them to sleep at night.

“To Build a Home” has appeared on TV shows spanning “One Tree Hill” to “Schitt’s Creek” and an array of live sports montages.

“CP: You didn’t have a previous working relationship with Cinematic Orchestra before “To Build a Home,” so how did that come about?

Watson: I got the gig in the weirdest way possible. I was a goalie when I was a kid. And Jeff (Waye, former North American label manager of the U.K. record label) Ninja Tune was my coach. I was on their team at the Exclaim! Cup (a longtime charity Toronto hockey tournament consisting mostly of musicians). I played this great game and Jeff was a competitive hockey coach in a really funny way. He’s like, “All right, since you played such a good game, Cinematic Orchestra is looking for this singer for a song.” Which was good for me because I was a nobody. They sent me the tune and it was this four-on-the-floor house track with the chord progression in it. And then Cinematic Orchestra’s Jason Swinscoe came to Montreal to work with me on a piano version. It was a demo and it was not supposed to end like that. I thought they would chop it up and do s–t to it because they’re an electronic band. But instead, they’re like, “We’re releasing it like that.” And I’m like, “You guys are nuts”.

I always think that there is another music video that could be made for the song. Not to say the one out there is bad. However, I always imagine scenes when I hear the track. Something about a child growing into adulthood. Starting out in this home that was once full of life and a place for adventures. That child now an adult and seeing scenes projected on the wall. Now, the house left and is collecting dust. The tree in the garden one of the only things remaining from those early days. I feel, about eighteen years after it was released as a single, there have been that many songs that are as affecting and transcendent. I am not bothered that its creators are not kind to the song. It is for the public and is not theirs anymore. To Build a Home is this startling and gorgeous piece of music I think connects with people for different reasons. Maybe it is something universal about home and memories. Looking back to the past or recalling childhood. I am not surprised it has been used so much on the screen, though it is best heard without other people’s visuals. Having this solitary experience. It has not aged at all. You can listen to it a hundred times and it does not lose its beauty and atmosphere. For anyone who does not know the song, I would strongly encourage you to listen to it. A gem from The Cinematic Orchestra’s Ma Fleur, I will always love this song. It is why I wanted to spotlight it. A wondrous piece of music that will always…

STIR emotion in me.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Spiller (ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor) – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 Spiller (ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor) – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

__________

THIS single is one I remember…

IN THIS PHOTO: Cristiano Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released/PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock

coming out and I was instantly hooked! On 14th August, 2000, this incredible song came out. Written by Cristiano Spiller, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Rob Davis, Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) is one of the biggest songs of the 2000s. Arriving in the first summer of that decade, it is this blissful track that takes me back twenty-five years. I was seventeen when it came out and I was transfixed by it. Such a catchy and evocative song, it was the first time I had heard of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She has gone on to enjoy this incredible career. Spiller was also new to me. Though less prolific than Ellis-Bextor, he cannot be called a one-hit wonder. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) went up against Victoria Beckham’s debut single, Out of Your Mind. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) won the battle! I am going to get to some information about the song soon. It was a track that started as an instrumental. Fearful that it was tor repetitive and would not be played on radio, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, formerly with the band Theaudience, was brought in to write lyrics and sing. Rob Davis slightly reworked the lyrics and came up with the song’s subtitle. Ellis-Bextor’s hook was “And so it goes... how does it feel so good?". Davis replaced it with “If this ain't love... why does it feel so good?".

On 8th September, twenty years after the song was released, Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor discussed the making of Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with The Guardian. As is mentioned in the article, this classic was “the first song ever to be played on an iPod. But, as its creators reveal, the demo was left in a car – then tossed on to a floor and forgotten”:

“Cristiano Spiller, DJ, producer and songwriter

This was one of the fastest tracks I ever produced. It was 1999, the night before I was due to fly to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, where all aspiring DJs and producers went. I was trying to stay awake for my early-morning flight and put on an unreleased version of Carol Williams’ Love Is You. I ended up sampling it and, in a couple of hours, I had Groovejet more or less written.

I was picked up at Miami by my friend Boris Dlugosch, who was always looking for the next smash. I put the track on, but we started talking and didn’t pay much attention to it. He dropped me at my hotel, but I forgot about the CD – my only copy – and left it in his car. That night, he was DJ-ing at a club called Groovejet. When I arrived, he had just played it and the place had gone crazy. Everyone wanted to hear it again – and again. Based on the incredible reaction, it felt natural to name the track after the club.

I knew it had to have lyrics, though. I had no money to get the sample cleared and the labels didn’t want to risk paying the advance because they didn’t think it would recoup the cost. So I sent promotional copies to the best record shops in Europe, and soon all the tastemaker DJs were playing it. Suddenly, all the labels wanted to pay the advance.

I signed to EMI’s Positiva Records and we started talking vocals. I wanted an original, charismatic voice, not the classic disco-diva singer, which was so over-done. From a pile of demos, Sophie’s beautiful voice immediately stood out.

I was really into house and underground clubbing. I had no idea how the pop world worked. I didn’t understand how important the charts were or what Top of the Pops was. It was a completely crazy time but also a dream come true: I ended up DJing at the best clubs and parties around the world.

Groovejet gave me so much freedom – it meant I never had to do another pop hit. I could just keep on making music for clubs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Roney/Getty Images

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, , singer and songwriter

When I first listened to the instrumental track, I stopped it halfway through and thought: “Why have they sent me dance music? I don’t like dance music!” A couple of weeks later, I was tidying my flat and found the CD on the floor. I played it again and this time I thought it really had something.

I’d just come out of my band, theaudience. We’d been part of the whole NME/Melody Maker indie scene, but elements of that world were tough, especially the press. I was only 19 but they were always quite nasty and never particularly supportive. Groovejet was a breath of fresh air, a brilliant way of turning the page. The dance world didn’t intimidate me – it was welcoming and I felt at home.

‘Everyone was talking about who would be No 1’ …Spiller and Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet was released. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock

I agreed to sing on the track and went into the studio with my own ideas and wrote the verses quickly. Eventually, they spliced my verses with a brilliant chorus by Rob Davis. Mine was rubbish in comparison! The track’s magic is in his chorus and Spiller’s instrumental. I was so happy to be the voice on it.

The song was everywhere. It was on heavy rotation on Radio 1 months before release. Things really blew up when it got the same release date as Victoria Beckham and Dane Bowers’ Out of Your Mind – Victoria’s first release post-Spice Girls. Suddenly we were on the front pages and even the Six O’Clock News. Everyone was talking about who would be No 1.

The day before the result came in, I was waiting for a bus and thinking about rushing into Woolworths to buy a copy because I’d heard there were only 500 copies in it. In the end, Groovejet reached No 1, outselling Out of Your Mind by 20,000. I never did make that trip to Woolworths!

Having a song that people are really fond of is a gift. I’m still really happy to sing it. It gave me the confidence to genre-hop. When my son discovered it was the first song ever to be played on an iPod, he finally looked impressed by something his mum had done”.

This feature from 2021 is fascinating. We get to learn more about a track that has endured for quarter of a century. Sophie Ellis-Bextor has a good relationship with it. Not sick of it, like some artists who always get associated with songs and have to live with that, she is good friends with it. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) still sounds so fresh and sun-kissed. It is one of the ultimate summer tracks:

“The finishing touches

It wasn't just a vocal track that Ellis-Bextor signed herself up for. She also had the opportunity to help write the song's vocal melody.

"They were looking for someone to sing the track, but they were also looking for a top line: they didn't have the song yet," she says.

"So, I wrote a song. I think another four or five writers had also written pitches for the song.

"In the end, they took a chorus from this really brilliant songwriter called Rob Davis. They put his chorus with my verses, sort of spliced together.

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That brilliant chorus was always the best option and Ellis-Bextor has no ill-feelings about her option being shunned.

"It wasn't very good," she says of her idea for the refrain.

"They picked a much better chorus. I think Rob's chorus is brilliant. His one was definitely stronger."

Though, at the time, the singer did have one reservation about that chorus, and she ain't afraid to admit it.

"I was quite uncomfortable about the fact that the 'if this ain't love' had the word 'ain't' in it," she says.

"Because it was not part of my normal vernacular. I mean, that's so ridiculous, but I was 20 and I just had lots and lots of rules.

"You know when you're younger and you just live like that. 'These are things I like, these are things that are cool, that's not me'… I guess it's also figuring out what kind of artist you want to be and what's important to you.

"It shows you that you can think things are important and they're just really not. You've got to learn these lessons."

Cristiano Spiller, the Italian producer who crafted the track, was not a huge part of the creative process by the time Ellis-Bextor became involved.

"To be honest, I didn't spend a lot of time with Spiller," she says. "He came for that week to record and do some press shots. Then he came for a week just before the song came out.

"He seemed alright! He was friendly enough. He didn't have tons of English, but he seemed very well meaning.

"I think what he did with the track is really clever."

What he did with the track was to breathe new life into an old disco jam. It's not an uncommon way to make dance music, but it does require a deft touch.

"The song that 'Groovejet' is taken from is a song called 'Love Is You', which was released in 1977 by a singer called Carol Williams.

"It's a really beautiful song, but he took some really clever bits to sort of create the track of 'Groovejet'. He's a talented guy, Spiller."

YouTubeCarol Williams Love Is You

"It is a really cool song. I did a cover of it a couple years back, I quite liked this sort of weird circular nature of it. There's a nice serendipity there.

"It's a real puppy dog of a disco song. It just wants to be liked."

As for the name? It comes from the name of a Miami nightclub. Ellis-Bextor finds it as curious as you do.

"Spiller had a friend that was DJing at this big club called Groovejet," she says. "They played it there and there was a big reaction from the crowd. So, he's like, 'Let's call it Groovejet'.

"I mean, to be honest, to me it's quite weird. because I've got such a massive relationship with the song, but I've got zero relationship with Groovejet itself. I've never been there. I don't even know what it looks like.

"Does anyone even know it's called that? Or do they just think it's called 'If This Ain't Love'? It's quite funny if you think about it. The word Groovejet is not featured in the song at all."

What came next

'Groovejet' was massive.

In fact, 'Groovejet' is still massive. It sold bucketloads upon its release and has had tens of millions of streams across all platforms. It remains an iconic reflection of what dance and pop music sounded like at the turn of the century.

"That song just sort of changed everything," Ellis-Bextor says.

"I mean, there's the obvious stuff, like the fact it was commercially very successful. It ended up going to number one in I don't even know how many countries: like 11 or 12 countries.

"It was extraordinary for me to go from one summer with my indie band that was falling apart, and then the next summer I'm going to Ibiza and singing at end of season parties in front of thousands of club goers, and just being introduced to that whole world.

"It's the first time I'd had a song go to places that I'll never go to. That was that was an extraordinary idea to me, like I could fly somewhere new and they'd be like, 'Oh, we know that song'."

Commercial success was grand. But it's the personal growth that Ellis-Bextor considers the greatest gift the song gave her.

"Most importantly, it shook up and changed the way I saw myself and the possibilities and options that I had.

"I thought, 'Right, you know what, if I trust my instinct, I can actually embrace a lot of different genres. I don't have to stick to indie music'.

"I love guitar music. It is still part of the map of how I make music most of the time, but it basically made me embrace the fact that, if you peel back my layers, I'm basically a pop kid.

"From then I thought, 'Okay, it's open season. I can dip my toe in lots of different water now'”.

DJ Spiller · Sophie Ellis Bextor's first demo - Spiller  - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)

You can find out details about Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s demo for the gem of a song. It has this amazing story, and I think the collaboration with Spiller works really well and they have this chemistry. I think the video is one of my favourite things. Ellis-Bextor and Spiller never meeting until near the end. Them both in Bangkok and never crossing paths until late on. This feature is Spiller revealing the complete story. He discusses the video and how that came to be:

“When it was time to decide what to do with the video, I honestly had no idea, so Positiva commissioned a bunch of different treatments from production companies, most of them were a bit too serious, but the script that stood out was titled Big in Hong Kong as a reference to Big in Japan, it was much more down to earth as it was basically making fun of my height, which is something I’ve always been comfortable with, also Sophie’s role was nicely balanced with mine.

The final location became Bangkok. I was, of course, excited for filming my first ever music video in such a beautiful city but honestly it was also kind of shocking, it was July during the rainy season, incredibly hot, wet and polluted by the heavy traffic. The first day I got stomach flu probably from the water used for ice cubes and I was especially surprised by the amount of sex tourism I witnessed around the streets during those few days. Thankfully our German director (Frank Nesemann) focused on the city's brighter side, with the whole crew, he did a great job.

Fun fact #1: To go to Thailand I met in Paris with Stefano, my Italian manager, we had to take a direct flight to Bangkok with Air France during the final match of UEFA Euro 2000, ITALY vs FRANCE. Stefano was really into soccer and on the plane, it was 300 French versus us 2 Italians, the pilot (also French) was receiving updates via radio and was giving commentary during the flight, Italy pretty much dominated the whole game and were ahead by one goal, I played it cool but my manager could barely contain himself, at minute 90 he was already celebrating, then France scored so we went into extra time and they won it in the 103rd minute with a golden goal. The plane went crazy, everyone doing chants to our faces, so my manager wasn’t in the best of moods for the next 48 hours.

Fun fact #2: the director had asked me to bring over my favourite clothes for the video. So, I travelled with a big suitcase full of clothes (mainly t-shirts), we then met in my hotel room and I showed him everything. He didn’t like one single piece, so we only kept my shoes and they sent someone shopping for clothes for a 2.08 m (6.8 ft) tall dude… in Bangkok!

Fun fact #3: when I ask the taxi driver to turn the music up in the taxi, if you read my lips it looks like I am swearing in Venetian dialect, for 20 years I get asked by my Venetian acquaintances for confirmation about that, so once and for all: NO, I was just asking him to turn up the music!”.

14th August, 2000 was a big date in music history. Not only because Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released and took people by surprise. It also was in this chart battle and won. Still so popular and played to this day, I know we will be discussing this single for many years to come. Put the track on today and…

PLAY it loud!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs of Singlehood

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Darkshade Photos/Pexels

Songs of Singlehood

__________

ONE of the bittersweet things…

PHOTO CREDIT: Vlada Karpovich/Pexels

about being single – permanently in my case! – is that it can provide a lot of freedom and space. There is also that independence. However, there is also a loneliness and sense of being an outsider. There is nothing wrong with being single. However, so many songs focus on love, desire, sex and relationships. If you have not been in one or are single, it can be isolating or jar slightly. However, there are songs of artists either writing from singlehood or saying that they are fine and happy being single. It can be empowering. The dynamic and narrative has changed a lot when it comes to love and relationships in music. I find a lot more artists are writing about the transience of sex and relations. Maybe more focused on themselves and fulfilment rather than what is expected and common. For this Digital Mixtape, I have compiled an assortment of tracks from artists writing about their single status – whether happily or a as a slight lament. Loving yourself and being confident in the face of a toxic relationship. Embracing self-worth and moving on from negativity. Many might be able to relate to that! For those newly-single or those who have had that status for a while, these are songs that I hope speak to you. Or that at least give you some strength and solace! Unlike decades past, when it comes to singlehood and its ups and downs, today we have…

PHOTO CREDIT: Designecologist/Pexels

MORE artists talking about it.

FEATURE: I’m So High: Kylie Minogue's Light Years at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

I’m So High

 

Kylie Minogue's Light Years at Twenty-Five

__________

EVEN if…

IN THS PHOTO: Kylie Minogue in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Burmiston

its album cover is not as eye-catching and striking as its follow-up, Fever (2001), there is no denying how important Kylie Minogue’s Light Years is. Spinning Around is probably the best-known single from the album. Minogue’s seventh studio album, it came three years after Impossible Princess. That 1997 album remains one of her most underrated. Released on 22nd September, 2000 in Australia and three days later in the U.K., it was a big success. Following the commercial dip of Impossible Princess and some mixed critical reviews, this was a definite statement. A very different-sounding album that embraced Dance and Disco, it is one of her greatest albums. Pure joy from start to finish. 2001’s Fever might be even better, though some would say Minogue’s most recent work is her best. She is one of those artists who is consistently brilliant. Light Years was Kylie Minogue going back to her Pop roots but working with different producers. Fresher, edgier and more compelling than her albums of the 1980s and 1990s, this was Minogue entering a new century with a new purpose. Embracing music from the 1970s and the Disco/Dance from that time, one cannot deny how phenomenal the songs are! Even if some critics were not sold on the lyrical content - there are songs of female empowerment, desire and sex -, others did note how this was a revitalised and powerful album from Kylie Minogue. Light Years has not aged. Inspiring so many of today’s Pop artists, Minogue is touring and playing songs from Light Years to this day. She will no doubt salute twenty-five years of a breakthrough album, at a time when many had written her off. I will get to some reviews of Light Years and some insight into the album and why it is so remarkable and important. Light Years won the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist and Best Pop Release in 2001. Reaching number two in the U.K. and one in her native Australia, Minogue hit a new career high and was undertaking this new phase and chapter.

I want to move to a feature from Albumism that was published in September 2020. They marked twenty years of Light Years. I could not include the whole thing here, but I have selected different parts that give us some background to the album and information about the tracks and songwriters. A bit about the critical reaction to Light Years:

“For two decades, the twin narratives around Light Years—Kylie Minogue’s seventh studio album—have been predicated on restoration and course correction.

Concerning the former aspect, Light Years brought Minogue back to commercial prominence with its many platinum returns and a hot streak of singles—of the eventual six it yielded, “Spinning Around” and “On a Night Like This” stood the tallest among the sextet.

Regarding the latter element, Light Years was a supposed referendum on the experimentation that anchored Kylie Minogue (1994) and Impossible Princess (1997), Minogue’s fifth and sixth sets, respectively. Taking her leave of Stock-Aitken-Waterman—the British production trio who guided the first act of her singing career—in 1992, Minogue’s post-Stock-Aitken-Waterman ambitions were boldly actioned on those two aforesaid albums which marked her transition from pre-fabricated pop vocalist to fully realized recording artist. Yet, the specter of her cherubic Smash Hits past lingered.

Consider the piece that ran in Outrage Magazine—an Australian LGBTQ publication—in their November 2000 issue at the height of the promotional blitz for Light Years. The feature was titled “Kylie’s Disco Needs You! The Comeback Queen Camps It Up in the Interview You’ve All Been Waiting For!” Although Minogue was warm throughout her exchange with the interviewer, one cannot help but notice her polite discontent at being tagged as a proxy for all things froth and fluff.

Even with all the accolades won by Minogue up through to Light Years, upon its unveiling, many critics erroneously pegged the project as some sort of retreat into non-substantive fare—they couldn’t have been more wrong. Neither a retreat nor a course correction, Light Years was a soft reset that allowed Minogue to apply everything she had learned toward the practice of generating a chart friendly collection that was also creatively centered. But additional context is required to understand the story of Light Years, which begins with its predecessor, Impossible Princess.

Embraced in Minogue’s native Australia upon its release there, Impossible Princess met with very mixed fortunes in the United Kingdom. Today, the alternative esoterica of this outing has been retrospectively—and rightfully—lionized in many of the same British publications that once derided it. Sadly, in the aftermath of its fraught reception at that moment, Minogue and deConstruction Records—the imprint she onboarded with in Britain in 1993—amicably parted ways at the top of 1999. This left Minogue without a record deal in one of her largest markets for the first time; her contract with Mushroom Records in Australia remained untouched as it had been since 1987.

Tentative blueprinting for Light Years had already commenced before an opportunity to join the ranks of Parlophone Records presented itself. As one of the most venerated majors in the U.K., it was quite a boon for Minogue to receive an invitation to sign on with them given all of the negative trade chatter that her career was on a so-called “downward spiral” in that country. The business relationship between Minogue and Parlophone was soon to be mutually beneficial for both entities; her stay there (up through to 2016) was to become her longest label residency rivaled only by her Mushroom tenure.

All parties involved decided that a lighter touch—thematically and sonically—was the order of the day for Light Years. Having had the space needed to give voice to her darker passions and ruminations on Impossible Princess, Minogue was eager to focus on a bit of flirtation, fun and romance without undercutting her previous growth as an artist. Tasking closely with Parlophone’s A&R team, Minogue petitioned them to forage for material that she would consider recording if it met her standards. This was how “Spinning Around” and “On a Night Like This”—the two eventual smash singles that propelled Light Years into the stratosphere—came about.

The first composition had been drafted by Osborne Bingham, Kara DioGuardi, Ira Shickman and Paula Abdul for Abdul’s sequel to her criminally overlooked third effort, Head Over Heels (1995). When Abdul’s comeback was aborted sometime in 1998 or 1999, “Spinning Around” languished until it was routed to Minogue by Parlophone.

The second selection had come from the collective imagination of Brian Rawling, Graham Stack, Mark Taylor and the late Steve Torch—trackmasters of international dance-pop repute from the late 1990s and early 2000s. “On a Night Like This” had renditions serviced by two singers of Swedish and Greek persuasion, Pandora and Anna Vissi, in 1999 and 2000; the songwriting/production quartet were unmoved by those iterations. They opted to solicit Parlophone to help find “On a Night Like This” a home and with Minogue it found one—her version became the definitive take.

Despite Minogue mining some pre-penned song stock, she did not abdicate her role as a writer. Her pen touched ten of the fourteen tracks to comprise Light Years in a principal or co-writer capacity. Sessions with the likes of Johnny Douglas, John Themis, Richard Stannard, Julian Gallagher, Mike Spencer, Mark Picchiotti, Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams pointed to a generous cross-section of decorated songsmiths, producers, and artists to answer Minogue’s collaborative hails. However, there was also the return of one notable figure more than ready to aid the Princess of Pop on the LP: Steve Anderson.

Numerous critics raved about the escapist airs of Light Years while lazily consigning the tag of “camp” to the record too. “The key words for Light Years were “poolside,” “disco,” “cocktails,” “beach” and loveboat...,” this description of the long player came from the woman behind the tunes as documented in 2002’s  La, La, La—Minogue’s second career retrospective coffee table book co-conceived with (now former) creative director William Baker. But this elucidation from Minogue laid bare a sharply drawn line between knowing kitsch and shallow novelty—that line was ignored by the press along with the actual musicality contained on Light Years due to its playful surface.

Minogue put on her best face to counter the microaggressions of the music columnists—after all, she had a lot to celebrate: Light Years elevated her sales numbers to levels not seen since her Stock-Aitken-Waterman salad days. “Kids,” “Please Stay,” “Your Disco Needs You” and “Butterfly”—the last song restricted to promotional distribution—carried Light Years up through to the incipient half of 2001 with the accompanying “On a Night Like This” Tour kicking off in March of that year; and just on the horizon, an even more unimaginable triumph awaited Minogue with her follow-up to Light Years: Fever (2001).

An integral part of Kylie Minogue’s continued stylistic strength is that there is always something more to discover than what a surface level interaction can reveal. Underneath the carefree exterior of Light Years exists an unrecognized compositional breadth and vitality that affirms Minogue’s ongoing commitment to music excellence—this key tenet to her ever-enduring appeal deserves to be formally championed.

Quentin Harrison recently published Record Redux: Kylie Minogue, the fifth book in his Record Redux series. The ambitious project traces the rise of the Australian pop vocalist from soap actress star to international pop powerhouse by examining every single and studio album in her repertoire. Record Redux: Kylie Minogue follows previous entries from the Atlanta, Georgia based author centered on Carly Simon, Donna Summer and Madonna. Order Record Redux: Kylie Minogue here (digital) and here (physical). An overhauled version of his first book Record Redux: Spice Girls will be available in early January 2021”.

I remember when Light Years came out. I was seventeen and in sixth-form college. I was already a Kylie Minogue fan, though I was not expecting Light Years and how brilliant it was! Fever came out in 2001, when I was in my first year of university. I want to bring in a feature from Dig! that was published in 2022. They highlight how Light Years reset and recharged Kylie Minogue’s career. An ultimate comeback album. Not that her career was in danger! I don’t think she could have released another album like Impossible Princess – as brilliant as it is! In 2000, different Pop sounds were in vogue. She perfectly adapted and reacted:

“Roaring out of the blocks in June 2000, the first taste of Kylie’s new album fulfilled exactly that promise, and immediately became one of her classic singles. Spinning Around may have had a complicated genesis – American Idol judge and former pop draw Paula Abdul had co-written the track for herself – but the demo was passed to Kylie, who was then searching for fresh material. Producer Mike Spencer coated the pop track in a smooth 70s-influenced nu-disco sheen and it topped the charts in both the UK and Kylie’s homeland – a feat she hadn’t managed in Great Britain since 1990’s Tears On My Pillow, and in Australia since 1994’s Confide In Me. Spinning Around’s iconic promo video, directed by Dawn Shadforth, featured Kylie in a pair of second-hand gold lamé hot pants, and it arguably did more to reset her appeal than even the song did. The girl next door had finally grown up, and those hot pants became so famous they later appeared at London’s Victoria And Albert Museum as a critical pop-cultural reference-point.

A credible club act on a hot new winning streak

Later issued as a single alongside the parent album, September’s On A Night Like This was a contemporary electro-pop cut written by the team behind Cher’s mega-hit Believe. It was another Australian chart-topper and made it to No.2 in the UK, consolidating Kylie’s winning streak. On A Night Like This hadn’t been written for Kylie, either, but that didn’t devalue its effectiveness in repositioning her as a credible club act.

There were three further singles issued from the Light Years album, though the knowing masterpiece Your Disco Needs You was considered a step too far by her UK label. Despite only seeing widespread release in Germany (it was also given a limited release in Australia), this camp, Village People-inspired classic has enjoyed an outstanding afterlife, and it is now firmly established among the best Kylie Minogue songs.

Issuing the album’s Robbie Williams duet, Kids, was a more predictable choice for a single, given the former Take That singer’s huge success at the time. The song’s earthy, light rock production made it something of an outlier of the 14 tracks on Light Years, but it performed strongly, and the pair made several live appearances to promote it. Light Years’ final single, Please Stay, leans on hooky flamenco flourishes to lift a charming Richard “Biff” Stannard composition, but the album could have spun out yet more singles, such was the strength of its material.

Defying the critics and outpacing expectation

Of the singles that could have been, Butterfly is a frenetic and convincing club anthem, while the frothy Loveboat (which, like Kids, was penned by Robbie Williams and his then songwriting partner, Guy Chambers) is another highlight. Elsewhere, So Now Goodbye amps up the album’s Studio 54 styling, and the slinky Koocachoo is a kooky delight that might have ended up on an Austin Powers soundtrack. Disco Down is a hypnotic club-pop banger of the highest grade, while the new-wave-styled I’m So High offers a brief break from the glitterball glare. The accomplished cover of Barry White’s Under The Influence Of Love was a genuine revelation at the time, hinting at Kylie’s growing confidence at making a wider range of material her own”.

I am going to end with two different reviews. The Guardian had their say upon Light Years’ release. Even though a lot of the language does date things a bit – and it is a bit condescending in places -, they awarded Light Years four stars. One of the biggest albums of 2000. It still sounds so listenable and phenomenal twenty-five years later:

“One thing you can't accuse Kylie Minogue of is not trying. We've had the permed pop Kylie, followed by the good-girl-turned-bad phase, initiated by a sexual awakening at the hands of Michael Hutchence. Next up was a brief fraternisation with the darker world of indie-pop, which spawned the sublime Some Kind of Bliss, penned by James Dean Bradfield of Manics fame, but very little else. And finally the credible dance diva moment, which led to a less than earth-shattering album (originally called Impossible Princess, but changed to Kylie Minogue) for Deconstruction followed by the sound of silence. The pop world held its breath to see what the second queen of reinvention would come up with. When Madonna, Kylie's blueprint, gave us the techno scribblings and scary warblings of Ray of Light, it could only be a matter of time before Ms Minogue hit back. On the similarly named Light Years, she's finally done just that.

Armed with skimpy hotpants and ironic phrasing, Minogue has recreated disco for the new century and made an album that celebrates being a girl. Not since the Spice Girls has the capacity to fill a dress been so celebrated. Which is why it's strange that Light Years has been packaged with male hormones in mind. Every wannabe pop princess that opens up the cover to relish the wry lyrics inside will be greeted with a soft-focus, head-to-knees pic of Minogue wearing nothing but a towel. Chances are, though, her feet are wearing the sparkliest, sexiest pair of kitten heels in the world, because ladies, behind the FHM mentality, all she really wants to do is dance.

Spinning Around sets the tone, with a giddy dancefloor hedonism that doesn't sound out of place next to Minogue's 1989 hit, Hand on Your Heart. And that's the point. For while she's singing "I'm not the same" one second, the next she's admitting to discovering her rightful place in the world. Because, for all her other musical dabblings, Minogue is pure, unadulterated pop, and where once she saw this truth as her weakness, now she's realised it's her strength. "And did I forget to mention/That I found a new direction," she sings, "And it leads back to me."

On a Night Like This and So Now Goodbye keep up the tempo and disco antics - you can feel the heat from the swirling multi-coloured lights as you listen to them - adding empowering notions of grabbing the best looking man in the club, then ditching him when you feel like it. But Minogue knows better than to think she can do it all alone. It was the less than subtle tweakings of Stock-Aitken- Waterman that gave her success and now she has turned to some more male musical heavyweights to get her back on track. Spice Girls collaborator Richard Stannard adds some polish to the flamenco flavoured Please Stay, while the songs co-written by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers give Minogue the best lines.

There's the fantastic Kids, a duet with Williams also featured on his new album, and Loveboat, a homage to the 1970s TV show of the same name. The latter is a female response to Williams's Millennium - it sounds very similar but has a less cynical approach to love. The familiar references to martinis, bikinis and 007 are all there - Williams really should try joining a new video club - but so too are the verbal come-ons that'll either make you squirm or laugh out loud. "Rub on some lotion," Minogue pleads breathily, "the places I can't reach." More amusing still is Your Disco Needs You, a call to arms that the Village People would be proud of. Minogue has her tongue firmly in her cheek for this camp slice of epic disco that will doubtless become the obligatory soundtrack to every Christmas office party.

It's only when Minogue deviates from the fun that the album falters. Bittersweet Goodbye is an overblown ode to love that seems like an excuse for a video featuring satin sheets, while the title track is suitably spacey, though it still left me singing Brotherhood of Man's Angelo at the end. Ultimately, Minogue shines brightest in the blinding lights of a club and Light Years is an album that should be played as you force your boob-tube into place and drain the remnants of that can of hairspray before you go out. This time round Kylie's got it right”.

I am going to end with Attitude and their feature/review from this year. They revisited Light Years. Future nostalgia from the year 2000, they asked why wasn’t Your Disco Needs You released as a single. It is a good question! It was never released in the U.K. as a single as it was seen as too gay and campy. The sort of homophobia and stupidity that was present at that time. It was a really unpleasant time in terms of attitudes towards women and the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. Your Disco Needs You It is a highlight from an album that I feel has no weak spots:

“In every pop diva’s career comes an album that changes everything thereafter. For Madonna, it was Ray of Light; Cher, Believe. At the turn of the millennium, Kylie Ann Minogue was at her own crossroads. After ditching the brand of bubblegum pop that had made her a star in the 1980s, Minogue radically reinvented herself for the 90s and began to explore a more alternative sound. It was a bold but brave move. The press dubbed it her ‘indie’ phase, but it would fail to eclipse the success of her earlier hits with super-producers Stock Aitken Waterman (‘I Should Be So Lucky’, ‘Better the Devil You Know’). Following the lukewarm success of 1997’s Impossible Princess, the singer took a hiatus. She had a choice: reinvent once again or leave the music business indefinitely.

Closing a chapter by shedding ties with her previous label was vitally needed in order to start over musically. Freshly signed to Parlophone in the UK, a territory that quickly adopted Minogue as one of its own, the singer returned to the studio with a renewed sense of self. Her vision for ‘the new Kylie’ was clear and instinctive. She was ready to embrace her pop past again. Speaking on the album’s inception, Minogue gave writers and producers clear instructions as to what the album should feel like: poolside, disco and cocktails. Fabulous!

The lead single alone, ‘Spinning Around’, achieved her mission statement. “And did I forget to mention that I found a new direction / And it leads back to me”, she declares over sparkly disco production. The track was co-written by singer and American Idol judge Paula Abdul for her own album, taking inspiration from a recent divorce. When Abdul’s project failed to materialise, the song found a new home with Minogue. The synchronicity of the track’s theme of reinvention and Kylie’s own rebrand was a lucky coincidence. The single, paired with an equally legendary video featuring an infamous pair of gold hot pants, rocketed to number one in the UK and Australia. Minogue’s instincts to return to her musical roots had been on the money, with the general public and critics alike embracing her new era.

Second single ‘On a Night Like This’ saw continued success, leaning more into the futuristic and ethereal Europop of the early 00s. The track proved the singer didn’t need to rely on nostalgia to make her mark as a credible pop star of the new millennium. Third single ‘Kids’ further cemented this. The pop-rock number saw Minogue collaborate with former Take That member Robbie Williams, who was in the middle of his own imperial phase. The decision to put the two former teenyboppers together would prove ingenious.

But it was a song that was never released as a single in the UK that would help to reinstate Minogue with one of the highest honours: gay icon status. ‘Your Disco Needs You’ is an over-the-top, giddy dance romp that expresses the power of the dance floor to fix a broken heart. Minogue herself described the track as one of the “campest songs of all time”. It’s laden with queer references — so much so that the record label pulled it from being released in the UK for fears of it being “too gay”. But that didn’t stop the pop princess from filming a music video and making it a staple in her setlist thereafter. Now, that’s allyship.

Light Years was a full circle moment in Minogue’s career. The multi-platinum album reached the top spot in Australia and just missed out on a number one in the UK. It saw the singer return to her roots with a newfound sense of maturity and self-assurance. It was the Kylie the world knew and loved, reimagined for the year 2000. The tunes were confident, sexy and undeniably catchy. Furthermore, it laid the foundations for an even bigger moment waiting around the corner: 2001’s Fever.

Minogue continues to inspire today’s generation of pop girlies, including Dua Lipa and Kim Petras. She also remains as one of music’s most enduring gay icons.

In an interview with Olly Alexander (Years & Years) in 2021, Minogue said of her affinity with the LGBTQ+ community: “I didn’t set out to do that [be inclusive]; it is just naturally how I feel. There is so much talk about inclusivity, and I felt I always had that from the beginning. I used to say, I loved to be able to look out at my shows, and there are just all walks of life. There has never been any judgement”.

On 22nd September (the date it was released in Australia), we spotlight Light Years. This was the start of a wonderful new phase for Kylie Minogue. Following up with Fever a year later, it was a successful and productive time where some of her best music was made. Now, one could say she has taken the sounds of Light Years and Fever and updated them for the modern age. Listen to 2023’s TENSION. Though she always has one foot in the past and golden days. I hope that Light Years gets a load of new features published on its twenty-fifth anniversary. An album that has influenced Pop artists that followed, Kylie Minogue’s 2000 album showed that she was light years…

AHEAD of her peers.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Into the Mystic: Van Morrison at Eighty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Into the Mystic: Van Morrison at Eighty

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ONE of the true music greats…

PHOTO CREDIT: EPA

turns eighty on 31st August. That is Van Morrison. Though not without controversy (his protestations around the COVID-19 lockdowns and his comments around that), you cannot deny he is one of the most influential artists who has ever lived. Because he has a big birthday coming up, I wanted to mark that with a mixtape featuring many of his very best songs. A few deeper cuts thrown in there too. I might not be taking anything from his 2022 album, What’s It Going to Take?, due to the fact it is conspiratorial and him grumbling at the lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions. However, his most recent album, Remembering Now, has been acclaimed and is one of the best of this year. As he has released forty-seven albums, I am not including songs from each. I will take a selection here and there. First, let’s get to some AllMusic biography about Van Morrison:

“Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced what is regarded as perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon. Having penned iconic songs such as "Gloria," "Brown-Eyed Girl," and "Moondance," Morrison has, from the very beginning -- as frontman for Irish blues rockers Them during the early 1960s to a solo career that has lasted more than 50 years -- been subject only to the whims of his own muse. His solo recordings, beginning with the mystical, jazzy folk of Astral Weeks in 1968, cover extraordinary stylistic ground, yet retain a consistency of vision and purity of execution unmatched among his contemporaries. His swinging meld of jazz, pop, folk, blues, and Celtic soul fueled the albums of his Warner Bros. period from the late '60s (Moondance) to the early '80s (Common One). From the late '80s to the end of the century with Mercury, he connected the spiritual power of his musical vision to a re-engagement with his Belfast roots on Irish Heartbeat (accompanied by the Chieftains) and to the blues wails and gospel whispers of his youth on Too Long in Exile, Healing Game, and Back on Top. During the 21st century, his recordings underscored his indelible singing style that bypasses the confines of language to articulate emotional truths far beyond the scope of literal meaning, whether recording pop (Magic Time), country (Pay the Devil), Celtic R&B (Keep Me Singing), folk (Moving on Skiffle), or fingerpopping jazz (You're Driving Me Crazy and The Prophet Speaks, both with organist Joey DeFrancesco). Morrison also cultivated a reputation as an outspoken contrarian in his later years, a side that was showcased on such modern-day protest albums as 2021's Latest Record Project, Vol. 1 and the following year's What's It Gonna Take? Yet, he still found time to celebrate his roots, interpreting rock & roll and R&B classics on 2023's Accentuate the Positive and revisiting his own songs alongside those of singers like Willie Nelson and Joss Stone, as on 2024's New Arrangements and Duets, further underscoring his reputation as both a beloved pillar and an unpredictable rock maverick. In June 2025, accompanied by his quartet and guests, Morrison released Remembering Now.

George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 31, 1945; his mother was a singer, while his father ardently collected classic American jazz and blues recordings. At 15, he quit school to join the local R&B band the Monarchs, touring military bases throughout Europe before returning home to form his own group, Them. Boasting a fiery, gritty sound heavily influenced by Morrison heroes like Howlin' Wolf, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Walter, Them quickly earned a devout local following, and in late 1964 recorded their debut single, "Don't Start Crying Now." The follow-up, an electrifying reading of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go," cracked the U.K. Top Ten in early 1965. Though not a major hit upon its original release, Them's Morrison-penned "Gloria" endures among the true classics of the rock pantheon, covered by everyone from the Doors to Patti Smith. Lineup changes plagued the band throughout its lifespan, however, and at the insistence of producer Bert Berns, session musicians increasingly assumed the lion's share of recording duties. A frustrated Morrison finally left Them following a 1966 tour of the U.S., quitting the music business and returning to Belfast.

After Berns relocated to New York City to form Bang Records, he convinced Morrison to travel stateside and record as a solo artist; the sessions produced arguably his most familiar hit, the jubilant "Brown-Eyed Girl" (originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl"), a Top Ten smash in the summer of 1967. By contrast, however, the resulting album, Blowin' Your Mind, was a bleak, bluesy effort highlighted by the harrowing "T.B. Sheets." The sessions were originally intended to produce only material for singles, so when Berns released the LP against Morrison's wishes, he again retreated home to Ireland while the album tanked on the charts. Berns suffered a fatal heart attack in late 1967, which freed Morrison of his contractual obligations and energized him to start working on new material.

His first album for new label Warner Bros., 1968's Astral Weeks, remains not only Morrison's masterpiece, but one of the greatest records ever made. A haunting, deeply personal collection of impressionistic folk-styled epics recorded by an all-star jazz backing unit including bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay, its poetic complexity earned critical raves but made only a minimal commercial impact. The follow-up, 1970's Moondance, was every bit as brilliant; buoyant and optimistic where Astral Weeks had been dark and anguished, it cracked the Top 40, generating the perennials "Caravan" and "Into the Mystic."The first half of the '70s was the most fertile creative period of Morrison's career. From Moondance onward, his records reflected an increasingly celebratory and profoundly mystical outlook spurred on in large part by his marriage to wife Janet Planet and the couple's relocation to California. After His Band and the Street Choir yielded his biggest chart hit, "Domino," Morrison released 1971's Tupelo Honey, a lovely, pastoral meditation on wedded bliss highlighted by the single "Wild Night." In the wake of the following year's stirring Saint Dominic's Preview, he formed the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, featured both on the studio effort Hard Nose the Highway and on the excellent live set It's Too Late to Stop Now. However, in 1973, he not only dissolved the group but also divorced Planet and moved back to Belfast. The stunning 1974 LP Veedon Fleece chronicled Morrison's emotional turmoil; he then remained silent for three years, reportedly working on a number of aborted projects but releasing nothing until 1977's aptly titled A Period of Transition.

Plagued for some time by chronic stage fright, Morrison mounted his first tour in close to five years in support of 1978's Wavelength; his performances became more and more erratic, however, and during a 1979 date at New York's Palladium, he even stalked off-stage in mid-set and did not return. Into the Music, released later that year, evoked a more conventionally spiritual perspective than before, a pattern continued on successive outings for years to come. Albums like 1983's Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, 1985's A Sense of Wonder, and 1986's No Guru, No Method, No Teacher are all largely cut from the same cloth, employing serenely beautiful musical backdrops to explore themes of faith and healing. For 1988's Irish Heartbeat, however, Morrison teamed with another of his homeland's musical institutions, the famed Chieftains, for a collection of traditional folk songs.

Meanwhile, Avalon Sunset heralded a commercial rebirth of sorts in 1989. While "Whenever God Shines His Light," a duet with Cliff Richard, became Morrison's first U.K. Top 20 hit in over two decades, the gorgeous "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" emerged as something of a contemporary standard, with a Rod Stewart cover cracking the U.S. Top Five in 1993. Further proof of Morrison's renewed popularity arrived with the 1990 release of Mercury's best-of package; far and away the best-selling album of his career, it introduced the singer to a new generation of fans. A new studio record, Enlightenment, appeared that same year, followed in 1991 by the ambitious double set Hymns to the Silence, widely hailed as his most impressive outing in years.

Following the uniformity of his '80s work, the remainder of the decade proved impressively eclectic: 1993's Too Long in Exile returned Morrison to his musical roots with covers of blues and R&B classics, while on 1995's Days Like This he teamed with daughter Shana for a duet on "You Don't Know Me." For the Verve label, he cut 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, a traditional jazz record co-credited to longtime pianist Georgie Fame, and for the follow-up, Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, he worked with guest of honor Allison himself. Morrison continued balancing the past and the future in the years to come, alternating between new studio albums (1997's The Healing Game, 1999's Back on Top) and collections of rare and live material (1998's The Philosopher's Stone and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again).

It wasn't until 2002 that an album of new material surfaced, but in May, his long-anticipated Down the Road was released. Three years later, Morrison issued Magic Time. Pay the Devil, a country-tinged set, appeared in 2006 on Lost Highway Records. That same year, Morrison released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980 and 1974, drawn from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 2008, Morrison released Keep It Simple, his first album of all-original material since 1999's Back on Top. In November of that same year, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live at two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which resulted in 2009's Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl album and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film. His 34th studio album, Born to Sing: No Plan B, recorded in Belfast, appeared in the fall of 2012. In 2015, Morrison made his debut for RCA Records with Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue, which found him sharing the mike on 16 songs with artists such as Michael Bublé, Steve Winwood, Mick Hucknall, and Joss Stone. After signing a deal with Sony Legacy to reissue much of his back catalog, the label issued It's Too Late to Stop Now...Vols. II, III, IV and DVD in June 2016. It consisted of unreleased music from the tour that produced the classic 1973 live album. Later that month, Morrison announced the release of an album of new studio set material. Released in September, Keep Me Singing offered 12 originals as well a cover version of Don Robey's "Share Your Love with Me." A year later, in September 2017, Morrison returned with his 37th album, Roll with the Punches, which saw him mixing new originals with renditions of blues and soul classics that inspired him, from Sam Cooke and Bo Diddley to Little Walter and more. Guitarist Jeff Beck was a prominent guest. It peaked at number five on the Top 200 and number four in the U.K. He followed it less than three months later in December with Versatile, which was recorded in a handful of hotels in County Down. It featured Morrison delivering his own homage to jazz and iconic pop standards including George and Ira Gershwin's "A Foggy Day" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me," Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" (one of two advance singles along with "Makin' Whoopee"), "Let's Get Lost," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and "Unchained Melody," popularized by the Righteous Brothers. The covers are interspersed with six originals, and it topped the jazz album charts and the album remained in the Top Ten for five months. Morrison hit the road with a vengeance. He performed completely sold-out tours across Europe and North America. In April 2018, Morrison issued his 39th album (and fourth in a year-and-a-half) in collaboration with Hammond B-3 and trumpet ace Joey De Francesco and his quartet (drummer Michael Ode, guitarist Dan Wilson, and tenor sax man Troy Roberts). Recorded over just a few days in San Francisco, the set includes jazz and blues standards and reworked jazz versions of a number of songs from Morrison's catalog including "Travellin' Light," "Every Day I Have the Blues," "Miss Otis Regrets," and "The Things I Used to Do." These are juxtaposed with completely revisioned tracks from Morrison's catalog including "All Saints Day," "The Way Young Lovers Do," "Have I Told You Lately," and "Celtic Swing." A week after its release, the album entered the jazz charts in the top spot and remained in the Top Ten for nearly 22 weeks while the group toured the globe. In December, Morrison released his 40th album, The Prophet Speaks. Comprised of six new originals and covers of blues and soul classics from John Lee Hooker, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke, and Willie Dixon, the set was once again recorded with De Francesco's quartet. The following year, Morrison's reissue campaign continued with a triple-disc deluxe version of 1997's The Healing Game. That fall, Morrison released Three Chords and the Truth, a self-produced 14-track offering that included a duet with Bill Medley, the surviving half of '60s white-soul legends the Righteous Brothers, and included jazz guitarist Jay Berliner (the soloist on Astral Weeks). The set also included the song "If We Wait for Mountains," a collaboration with legendary Irish lyricist (and fellow OBE honoree) Don Black.

Van Morrison responded to the COVID-19 quarantines with a series of anti-lockdown protest singles in 2020. These digital tracks set the stage for 2021's Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, a double album filled with politically charged social commentary. Morrison continued down this path on 2022's What's It Gonna Take? He largely retreated from controversy with 2023's double album Moving On Skiffle, a collection of covers and interpretations of classic American folk, country, and blues songs. In August, he released Beyond Words: Instrumental to his fan club, then in November he released his second double-album of 2023: Accentuate the Positive, a collection of rock & roll oldies.

New Arrangements and Duets, an album of previously unreleased big band and duet recordings, arrived in September 2024. Arranged by longtime Morrison bandmembers trumpeter Paul Moran and saxophonist Chris White, the album found the singer revisiting some of his favorite songs with a handful of guests including Willie Nelson, Kurt Elling, Joss Stone, and Curtis Stigers.

In June 2025, Morrison released Remembering Now, his 43rd studio album. Musically it reflected his series of Celtic soul "memory recordings," from the 1980s: "take me back, take me way, way back" lyrically, musically, and spiritually. Morrison was backed by his longstanding quintet -- Richard Dunn (Hammond organ), Stuart McIlroy (piano), Pete Hurley (bass), and Colin Griffin (drums) -- as well as a horn section, with strings arranged by Fiachra Trench (a collaborator since 1989's Avalon Sunset) and performed by the Fews Ensemble led by Joanne Quigley. Other contributors included Michael Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, legendary lyricist Don Black (Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Quincy Jones); and folk singer/songwriter Seth Lakeman. Its first single was a new version of "Down to Joy," composed for director Kenneth Branagh's 2021 film Belfast”.

An artist who has influenced so many other through the decades, I know there will be a lot of love out there for him on 31st August. When he celebrates his eightieth birthday. Even though I cannot see Morrison making a big fuss of it, it will be an opportunity for the media and fans to show their appreciation for his music. I hope we get more music from Van Morrison as he heads…

INTO his ninth decade.

FEATURE: Tango Till They’re Sore: Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs at Forty

FEATURE:

 

Tango Till They’re Sore

Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs at Forty

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RELEASED on 30th September, 1985…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tom Waits in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Gruen

Rain Dogs was the ninth studio album from Tom Waits. Many consider it to be his very best. A concept album around "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is seen as a trilogy of albums including Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years. With new influences and sounds coming into Waits’s work, Rain Dogs was this step in a new direction. Although not a massive commercial successful, Rain Dogs is often ranked as one of the best albums ever. I will get to some reviews of Tom Waits’s 1985 release. However, I want to start off with something from Wikipedia regarding the reception of this masterpiece:

“Comparing the album with its predecessor Swordfishtrombones, NME journalist Biba Kopf wrote that Rain Dogs saw Waits continuing "his continental drift through the crannies and corners of America's varied cultures", and concluded that "the lasting achievement of Rain Dogs is that Waits has had to sacrifice none of his poetry in pursuit of new musical languages to meet its demands." At the end of 1985, the magazine ranked Rain Dogs (jointly with the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy) as the year's best album. In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave Rain Dogs a "B+" grade and said that Waits had "worked out a unique and identifiable lounge-lizard sound that suits his status as the poet of America's non-nine-to-fivers." Anthony DeCurtis penned a mixed assessment for Rolling Stone, finding that "Rain Dogs insists on nosing its way around the barrooms and back alleys Waits has so often visited before."

Retrospectively, Rain Dogs has been noted as one of the most important albums in Waits' career, continuing the new path which he forged from Swordfishtrombones onwards. In a 2002 reappraisal, Rolling Stone critic Arion Berger gave the album five out of five stars, calling it "bony and menacingly beautiful." Berger noted that "it's quirky near-pop, the all-pro instrumentation pushing Waits' not-so-melodic but surprisingly flexible vocals out front, where his own peculiar freak flag, his big heart and his romantic optimism gloriously fly”.

I will move on by sourcing quite a lot of this Pitchfork review of Rain Dogs from this April. It is illuminating when it comes to the background and lead-up to the album. They describe Rain Dogs as “a romantic and carnivalesque masterpiece imbued with the avant-garde sound of New York”. That seems pretty apt:

“The defining image of Tom Waits’ early career is a photograph taken by Mitchell Rose for Rolling Stone at the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood in 1977. The singer-songwriter had been renting a room there for a few years by that point, but the photo looks like he’d moved in an hour ago. Beer bottles litter the coffee table in front of him; a guitar case rests atop an oversized cardboard box. Waits leans forward, hands folded, looking skeptical, maybe a little put-out, but certainly not embarrassed by the shabby condition of his domicile. He’s sitting in a folding lawn chair that hasn’t seen a ray of sunshine since the Nixon administration.

The next year, Waits put out his sixth LP on the Asylum label, Blue Valentine. The imprint, started by David Geffen and Elliot Roberts in 1971, was a showcase for the Southern California talent that was defining the post-Woodstock singer-songwriter landscape. Judee Sill’s debut album was its inaugural release, Jackson Browne’s with his first record a few months later, and by the time Joni Mitchell issued For the Roses on Asylum in the fall of 1972, Asylum sat near the center of a scene that was becoming a movement.

Waits knew some of these people from shared bills and the scene revolving around the Los Angeles club the Troubadour, where he’d been discovered by manager Herb Cohen. But he didn’t quite fit in. The prevailing mode of the early singer-songwriters was personal expression—you were supposed to draw from your life for your material, dotting your lyrics with references to friends and lovers and changing the details just enough to maintain plausible deniability. Waits wasn’t interested in this kind of sharing. Instead, he turned the whole idea on its head and based his life on his songs.

Like so many in his cohort, his early encounters with Bob Dylan blew his mind. Where many of his peers came up playing in garage bands, learning how to play Beatles tunes and “Louie Louie,” he fashioned himself as a solo songwriter from the beginning, and Dylan was his North Star. In the 2009 biography Lowside of the Road, writer Barney Hoskyns describes Waits’ earliest performances at a local folk society’s hootenannies as little more than impersonations, where “he was so in thrall to the staple Dylan persona that he wore a harmonica around his neck without ever putting his lips to it.” But where others copped the style and tried to write lyrics that could be considered poetry, Waits channeled the elder artist’s drive for reinvention. By the time he was making a name for himself at San Diego folk hoots, his middle-class suburban upbringing in Whittier, California, suddenly became irrelevant: Music was a good way to become someone else.

Waits got a record deal and, inspired by the Beats and associated countercultural figures like Charles Bukowski, he wrote about down-and-out characters and ragged street life, delivering his songs in the guise of a shabbily dressed nightclub hipster. “The Tropicana became a kind of stage,” Hoskyns observed, “a backdrop to Waits’ twenty-four-hours-a-day performance.” As the ’70s wound down, the songwriter worried that he’d painted himself into a corner. His work had certainly evolved between 1973’s Closing Time and Blue Valentine growing bluesier and rougher as his smoked-scorched voice deepened. But he felt stuck and worried that he was repeating himself.

His search for a new sound was set aside when Francis Ford Coppola tapped him to write and perform songs for One From the Heart. The film’s music would be central to the film’s story and Coppola had fallen in love with the boozy after-hours milieu the songwriter rendered so well, so Waits sat at the piano and got to work, clocking in at the filmmaker’s office like a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith. While composing, he reconnected with Kathleen Brennan, a script supervisor he’d bumped into a couple of times, and they fell for each other hard. Within a week, they were engaged, and from that point forward, his creative output would be split into “Before Kathleen” and “After Kathleen.” Her greatest contribution may have been the way she bolstered his confidence. If Waits feared letting go of the persona that had defined his recording career, Brennan convinced him that something better was within his grasp. She also expanded his musical palette, schooling him on the work of avant-garde artists that would be important in his next phase—Captain Beefheart, Harry Partch, Gavin Bryars.

While continuing work on the soundtrack, Waits knocked out one last album for Asylum with his longtime producer Bones Howe: Heartattack and Vine hit stores in fall 1980. It’s a strong record on which he pushed his voice further and added thick and mean guitar. But it wasn’t a radical departure from what came before. The chrysalis-like transformation would have to wait until the next record: With his contract up and a new family to support, Waits fired Cohen, split with Howe, signed with Island, and released 1983’s Swordfishtrombones.

Producing himself for the first time, Waits raided the musical junk shop and returned with wheezing accordion, fragile glass harmonica, thwacking talking drums, bubbling marimba, and too many miscellaneous percussion instruments to list. His previous work was informed by theater and cinema, but the songs on Swordfishtrombones were uncannily visual, the colors and textures of the sound framing his newly sharp narratives. Characters included a sailor on shore leave, a fugitive on the run from the law, and a homicidal office-furniture salesman who sets fire to the family home. If earlier songs sometimes felt like a slurring drunk telling you a story in a bar; now, they felt vivid and alive. Swordfishtrombones was recorded in California with local players; it would take a move east to New York City just after the record’s release to complete his metamorphosis.

Waits found a creative community almost instantly. In recent years, the city’s experimental downtown music scene had gone overground, and Waits felt a kinship with some of its players. He befriended saxophonist and composer John Lurie, whose band the Lounge Lizards had, in its early days, deconstructed jazz, celebrating the genre while undercutting it with amateurism in a way that fit with Waits’ own playful reverence. Through Lurie, he met jazz guitarist Marc Ribot. Hal Willner, who was the musical director of Saturday Night Live, gave Waits an education on the carnivalesque music of Kurt Weill and invited him to contribute to Lost in the Stars, a tribute to the German composer.

Waits summoned drummer Stephen Hodges and bassist Larry Taylor from California, both of whom had worked on Swordfishtrombones, and Hodges was astonished by how quickly and thoroughly a cabal had formed around the songwriter. “He seemed like the frigging Pope of New York,” he told Hoskyns. “He was taking care of business. He was all over the place.” The degree to which Waits was feeling his oats can be measured by the fact that he asked Keith Richards to play on his record, and the living legend agreed—after years of telling guitarists he was looking for a Stonesy feel, Waits had the self-assurance to ask the man himself.

And he knew how to get what he wanted in the studio. “He really has a good ear, not just for this note or that note, but for understanding how the sound is framing the lyric,” Ribot said in a later interview. “What decade is it, what continent is it on, what kind of room is it in?” Rain Dogs has much in common with Swordfishtrombones—antiquated instruments, metal-on-metal percussion, stomping cabaret numbers alternating with wispy instrumentals. But it has a grungier and more scuffed-up aesthetic that puts guitar, both by Waits himself and Ribot, out front. The latter’s style takes in Cuban syncopation, Southwestern twang, free-jazz skronk, and bluesy rock, but above all it forces you to confront the elemental materials of his instrument, with its electrified hum, heavy wood, and vibrating steel. To hear Ribot play is to understand that a guitar is a machine.

Rain Dogs is more of a band record than its predecessor—it sounds like people playing together in a room, and you notice their interplay at least as much as the arrangements. And everything revolves around the drums. After signing to Island, Waits became one of a few artists in the period—see Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp of King Crimson—who experimented with a drum setup with few or no cymbals. Even if indirectly, some of this tendency came from the rapidly expanding interest in “world music” in the U.S. and UK in the 1980s, which made work from percussion-heavy traditions more accessible. And some can be traced to earlier strands of experimental rock, specifically the stand-up bashing of Maureen Tucker and the angular rhythms of Captain Beefheart.

For an artist with roots in jazz and rock, deemphasizing cymbals changes the recording’s character. The hi-hat and ride reinforce perception of the rhythm’s grid, allowing the ear to hear the precise meter more clearly, serving as an aural version of dot-and-dash notation on paper. A kit where cymbals are used sparingly can sound heavier, looser, and more rhythmically free—the drums on Rain Dogs roll, tumble, and lurch rather than simply marking time. “Tom always wanted orchestra accuracy with back-alley blues—it had to be loose, and had to be accurate,” said Hodges in a podcast interview. Amplifying the low-end was his use of a 32-inch bass drum better suited for a marching band, the rumble and quake of its diaphragm lending darkness and drama”.

I will come to some reviews to round things off. This classic interview from 1985 finds Tom Waits sharing a cab ride with Chris Roberts to discuss Rain Dogs. I have selected a section from the interview that was especially interesting. There are some wonderful 1985 interviews with Tom Waits that I would urge people to seek out:

“You constantly draw on the potent and jarring imagery of ‘handicaps’ – deaf, dumb, blind, lame – bandages – and the photo on the cover of Rain Dogs isn’t exactly a Dagwood and Blondie cartoon…

"Ah yeah, it does kinda have that Diane Arbus feel to it. His name is Andrews Peterson – it’s a drunk sailor being held by a mad prostitute, I guess. She’s cackling and he’s sombre. It did capture my mood for a moment. It’s just like – uh – isolated. Maybe this comes from living in New York a little bit – you kinda have to invent an invisible elevator for yourself just to live in: A guy goes to the bathroom on the tyre of a car, then a $70,000 car pulls up alongside an’ a woman with $350 stockings pokes her foot out into a puddle of blood and sputum, an’ the rain comes down, an’ a plane falls off the sky… it just gets a little… you start to just kinda focus on what you have to do an’ where you have to go. I always gravitate towards abnormal behaviour when I’m out on the street, so I have to be careful, cos it’s everywhere! I might never get to where I’m going!"

So does Rain Dogs (swimming, as it is, alongside your current thespian activities) signal a new era for Tom Waits?

"I hope so – just in terms of discovery and ideas. I’m trynna get away from that jazz thing. I live where the Nigerian overlaps Louisiana now. I’m trynna listen more to the noise in my head. My writing process has changed. Like when it’s rainin’ – again! – you have to make sure you have enough things to catch it in. I’m realisin’ the possibilities in arranging, exploring."

While Rain Dogs features some unearthly meddlings with the bizarre, there’s also a clutch of more conformist AOR songs like ‘Downtown Train’, ‘Hang Down Your Head’ and ‘Blind Love’. Which is not to detract from the poignant poetry of ‘9th And Hennepin’, ‘Gunstreet Girl’, the resigned ‘Tango Till They’re Sore’ and the shimmering ‘Time’. There are 19 titles in all.

"I never owned my songs, and now I do. It’s like – I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. So now I send my songs out there, tell them to stick together an’ look out for their brothers. Aw… I usually just try to design something that has purity of purpose. Some are just sketches, some are more developed."

So what’s Keith Richards like?

"A wild animal. A real gentleman."

As a family man, are you thinking more in terms of career these days?

"You can’t, without driving yourself crazy. You can’t perceive it correctly. You just have to stay interested, keep a sense of humour, stay civilised and curious, an’ y’know, enjoy life’s rich pageant. Some are more afraid of success than of failure. It’s hard to get on the radio, an’ without that you can’t affect things an’ ‘catch the young’. It’s all business y’know? I don’t know – maybe I have been a cult for too long, but you do what you do. So many come along as a big sensation an’ then tomorrow nobody gives a shit about them – keep it movin’ pal! I stay a little… outside the glass.

"I think I’d like to take a crack at a wider audience, but with that comes responsibility. If you’re too big you get self conscious, if you’re too obscure you feel nervous. So it’s hard. The main thing is songs. You take off your hat an’ the birds fly out of your head – some homing pigeons, some crows, some never get off the ground, some never even hatch. I don’t wanna sound too sentimental, cos I’m really not. Make some money here, fine…"

Another of your favourite words seems to be ‘demented’….

"Aw… I’m not as demented as I’d like to be. We all have to prescribe to certain conventions and it’s difficult to dismantle this world and rebuild it the way you’d like. Some are completely unselfconscious and gone; I admire that. When I’m an old guy I’ll sit on the porch with a shotgun, and a skirt, and an umbrella, an’ if you hit your baseball in my yard you’ll never see it again."

The Times once described you as ‘the greatest living beat poet’, and you’re still alive. Is there a place for poetry in today’s civilised world or is it an outmoded medium?

"Everybody’s in a hurry. They even rush you in the barber’s. You have to get the most expensive coffin, not just a pine box, so it must be better on the other side. I’m gonna stick around though; you gotta police your area, you have to be in charge.

"I don’t know – all that stuff is vicariously important to me. See, Ginsberg is still alive, Burroughs, Robert Frank… it’s like a party. The ’50s was Chuck Berry, the Korean War, McCarthy… I love the idea of Kerouac. I love the sound of his name, the way it throws a rock through the window and lets you out."

Is cool important to Tom Waits?

"Well, I lose it all the time, so…"

I cannot vouch for this.

Music remains his first love. "I guess it’s where I feel most comfortable." The developing involvement with film and theatre doesn’t occupy as large a part of his daily thoughts as some gratuitous written attempts to justify Tom Waits as an ‘artist’ may have led you to believe. His roles to date have been small if successful – "I study acting a little. I’m trynna learn" – and he says of Coppola: "It’s hard to break new ground when people are watching your every move”.

Let’s go back to 2011. That is when Drowned In Sound published this article about Rain Dogs. It coincided with Rain Dogs Revisited coming to London’s Barbican Hall on 13th July, 2011. This is an album that I have heard a few times but wanted to know more about ahead of its fortieth anniversary:

“Rain Dogs sprawls majestically. The title refers to domestic dogs losing their natural scent tracks back home after a heavy rainstorm: an appropriate moniker for an album which continually casts its eye on downtrodden New York characters cast adrift from normality by events beyond their control, huddling together for an unlikely and unsteady camaraderie. It perfectly encapsulates the point where Waits’ penchant for beautiful, cinematic and poetic ballads confronts the sonic invention and envelope-pushing that he garnered from being introduced to Captain Beefheart, Kurt Weill and other diverse musical manuscripts by his new wife Kathleen Brennan. The influence of the latter is vital in understanding Waits’ development and confidence in relocating his sound into previously uncharted territory: "My wife's been great” Waits admitted to Playboy Magazine in 1988. “I've learned a lot from her. She's Irish Catholic. She's got the whole dark forest living inside of her. She pushes me into areas I would not go, and I'd say that a lot of the things I'm trying to do now, she's encouraged" The influence of Brennan in catalysing the dramatic reactions occurring in his mid-to-late 1980s records resulted in the opposing edges of his music becoming deeply and wonderfully embedded within each other on the album, glowing white-hot with friction.

Take the first half of the album that I described before. You rattle - pinball style, from one inn and doorway of a darkened alley of rogues and miscreants before suddenly, the window of heartbreak opens into the stunning emotional left-right of ‘Hang Down Your Head’ and ‘Time’. Waits is well known for being obtuse and ramshackle. What many don’t realise is that he’s arguably the finest writer of ballads in the last 30 years. He understands tenderness and he understands how to use it effectively without treading onto mawkish ground. A perfect example is the magnificent ‘Downtown Train’, a song which, on that first album listen years ago, I looked ahead and already knew from the Rod Stewart cover version. What did I expect? I expected gruff, angular and prickly. What did I get? A masterclass in how to do a shining melodic anthem while all the time comprehensively eschewing cliché: the art of how to write a so-called “big song”. This is Waits all over. He’ll work you hard, but he’ll reward you in spades afterwards. And for every moment that horrified people look over at you and mouth “What the bloody hell is THAT?” there’ll be another song that you could play to your grandmother and have her nod in sage approval. But with Waits being Waits, there’s always something positioned just that little bit off centre to hold the interest of the curious and the demanding. Listen to the growls and marauding brass strutting their way around ‘Tango ‘till They’re Sore’. Sway to the taut, clipped funk of ‘Walking Spanish’. And admire the Chinese Tangram puzzle intricacy of ‘Diamonds and Gold’, slotting together obtuse pieces with consummate ease. These are the hallmarks of a composer and musician at the pinnacle of their art: experimenting wildly while remaining coherent and gleefully expressive.

The pivotal addition to the roving group of musicians behind the album’s tapestry of sound was guitarist Marc Ribot, whose razor-wire treble lines act as the perfect foil to Waits animalistic mumbles, scats and growls and provides apt musical reflections on the song narrative. A perfect example is the angry, kaleidoscope guitar solo on ‘Jockey Full of Bourbon’, like a drunkard attempting to aim a gun

through the hazy fury of inebriation. Also featured on the album is Rolling Stones lead guitarist Keith Richards, adding his characteristic Telecaster bite to ‘Big Black Mariah’ and ‘Union Square’ (according to Richards, Waits informed him of the style he wanted him to play by wordlessly gyrating in front of him). The forceful, poly- rhythms of Michael Blair and Stephen Hodges add a jarring, unsettling tone to the proceedings with thick, sensual percussion running scared from skeletal marimba. Yet much of the real atmosphere is laid down by the dark, sweeping curtains of New Orleans brass that flit about in the wind of the record. Waits had experimented musically for many years, but it was on this trio of records that he fully began exploring the way that a record’s sound and feel could be tailored to perfectly fit the subject matter. Lyrically, the album contains some of his most vivid images, ranging from the rambunctious rag-tag characters permeating the gloom of ‘Singapore’ and ‘Cemetery Polka’, through to his chiselled-in-dirt poetry depicting scattered human wreckage found in the titular track, and so profoundly expressed, as Larry Taylor’s upright bass dances around in the background, within the spoken words of ‘9th and Hennepin’:

“And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty. Ah,
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix”

Within the album (as in so many of his records), one of Waits greatest skills is the ability to draw you pictures with his words, gradually sketching in the details without ever resorting to pretension and cliché. Some of the lyrics from ‘Time’ are some of the most striking and evocative lyrics of his entire career, including this incandescently beautiful image taken from the final verse:

“Well, things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl
The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the streets
And when she's on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot
And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet”

By the end of the record, through the pistol smoke, whiskey and tears, you feel that Waits emerges triumphant. The glorious cacophony of accordion, striding gleefully into a marching Dixie jazz band parade on ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ could be seen as either a celebratory party, or an upbeat funeral procession. Either way, Waits seems to have found a realisation waiting for him on the other side:

“Well I see that the world is upside-down
Seems that my pockets were filled up with gold
And now the clouds, well they've covered over
And the wind is blowing cold
Well I don't need anybody, because I learned, I learned to be alone

Well I said anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys
Well I’m gonna call my home”

Rain Dogs, within all its ramshackle yet perfectly aligned mayhem, is arguably the album where Waits’ penchant for ironically juxtaposing the grim and the gorgeous of society is presented in its most vivid colour and shape. As I was soon to discover following that memorable day, having stepped off the coach at Newcastle into a new and beautiful world of music, Waits has never made a bad record, and there are some that would challenge Rain Dogs for the title of his finest album (Mule Variations is equally as good, if not better in terms of overall quality). But in terms of creating a musical landscape where the freaks, the criminals and the crazy share ground with the heartbroken and sensitive under a sky of brilliant invention, it is a record like no other. He’s an artist where it isn’t simply a case of putting a record on and letting it spin ambiguously in the background. He’s someone who metaphorically strong-arms you into attention. But it’s worth every second of introspection. And in my eyes, Rain Dogs is the door into the oddly-lit attic of his mind that is most perfectly shaped for you to slip inside. And if you can stay strong amongst the weird shapes and sounds for just a little while, you’ll probably never feel the need to step out again”.

I will end with two reviews for Rain Dogs. There is this universal acclaim and love for one of the defining albums of the 1980s. Definitely among Tom Waits’s very best. His genius and unique songwriting brilliance in full display! If you have not heard the album then make sure that you do so. This is what AllMusic noted about Rain Dogs in their review:

“With its jarring rhythms and unusual instrumentation -- marimba, accordion, various percussion -- as well as its frequently surreal lyrics, Rain Dogs is very much a follow-up to Swordfishtrombones, which is to say that it sounds for the most part like The Threepenny Opera being sung by Howlin' Wolf. The chief musical difference is the introduction of guitarist Marc Ribot, who adds his noisy leads to the general cacophony. But Rain Dogs is sprawling where its predecessor had been focused: Tom Waits' lyrics here sometimes are imaginative to the point of obscurity, seemingly chosen to fit the rhythms rather than for sense. In the course of 19 tracks and 54 minutes, Waits sometimes goes back to the more conventional music of his earlier records, which seems like a retreat, though such tracks as the catchy "Hang Down Your Head," "Time," and especially "Downtown Train" (frequently covered and finally turned into a Top Ten hit by Rod Stewart five years later) provide some relief as well as variety. Rain Dogs can't surprise as Swordfishtrombones had, and in his attempt to continue in the direction suggested by that album, Waits occasionally borders on the chaotic (which may only be to say that, like most of his records, this one is uneven). But much of the music matches the earlier album, and there is so much of it that that is enough to qualify Rain Dogs as one of Waits' better albums”.

I am going to finish with Far Out Magazine and their take on Rain Dogs. Every feature and review provides different angles and personal takes on a remarkable work from one of music’s most beloved artists. I wonder if and when Tom Waits will follow 2011’s Bad As Me:

“He seems to be a reporter that has also lost all subjectivity. He has slunk well into the weird underworld which he set out to chronicle but – like an undercover investigator who takes up junk to bust a drug gang but fails to kick the habit and becomes aligned with mob life – Waits is now firmly holed up in the streets of the seedy city for good. His reams of unfurling scribbles have never found a more fitting album that Rain Dogs.

Even the album’s backstory seems to confirm this. Waits wrote the record in the belly of the beast in a basement room on Horatio Street in New York City, a place he lovingly describes as “kind of a rough area, Lower Manhattan between Canal and 14th Street, just about a block from the river … It was a good place for me to work. Very quiet, except for the water coming through the pipes every now and then. Sort of like being in a vault.”

He wanted to capture that rumbling city above on the record, so he set about making field recordings—capturing the mechanical hum of the urban dispossessed. This roars forth with the opener ‘Singapore’, an industrial track in the true sense of the word that uses horns and marimbas to transfigure the clang of banging pipes into music. This rumble exists down by the docks, where everyone is “mad as hatters”. They have seen the great scenes of the world from the “sewers of Paris” to the ports of “Singapore” on a boat captained by a “one-armed dwarf” with a penchant for throwing dice down the wharf.

But Waits doesn’t stay there long on his staggering journey. In no time, he’s barking about a poor cursed family on ‘Cemetery Polka’ and then suddenly, nine tracks into his cavalcade, he takes pause with ‘Time’ and finds a quiet spot to get reflective. It’s a beautiful moment amid the mania that highlights the humanity behind all the madness that goes before it and the continued meshuga yet to come. In part, that typifies some of the brilliance of this record: Waits isn’t just journeying through the gutter and transcribing it into music, he takes his time to get to the heart of it.

In this regard, the album seems similar to the Velvet Underground’s bruised banana debut that came before it. While much jazzier and musicologically meandering, it tells much the same beat-inspired tale of cities. In fact, these comments that David Bowie used to describe early Lou Reed are very fitting for Rain Dogs: “[He uses] cacophony as background noise and to create an ambience.” Alongside that both songwriters take inspiration from things “like Hubert Selby Jr, The Last Exit from Brooklyn and also John Rechy’s book City of the Night,” and are boldly unafraid to take pop traditions down a more literary route.

Much like the Velvet Underground, when approached from the frothing surface, Waits’ record seems like the depths of cultural degeneracy. Upon first listen, there is something perturbing about the opening onslaught of ‘Singapore’, ‘Clap Hands’ and ‘Cemetery Polka’ with more conventional jazzy folk being pushed down the tracklisting. These headier numbers kick up the perverse dirt of some dingy dive bar, suddenly whisking the sticky taverna into unwelcome life. While the dissonance of the down-tuned instruments creates the same vibe as the feeling you get when you visit a pub for the first time that you feel you don’t belong in.

After a while, as the album sprawls out, it becomes clear that indeed there are certain bars unfit for every person. The seafarers reside in the realm of sea-shanties down by the quay, while the arty rejects do their best Humphrey Bogart impression in the sepia bars where ‘Time’ rings out, the young hopefuls look for brighter horizons like drunken Bruce Springsteen’s on ‘Downtown Train’, and the friskier fellows sling back Havana cocktails in the sweaty ‘Jockey Full Of Bourbon’. Every cobbled stone is touched upon in Rain Dogs and it results in a masterful album that plays more like a book than a usual twelve-inch, and what a read it proves to be!

But that literary feat is lifted to loftier heights through the perfect energy of the music. You don’t have to pore over the wondrous lyrics to work out Waits’ world, like all the best page-nine tales, you can get a sense of them in a glossed-over leaf through. And that triumph comes down to his unique approach in the studio. As he said of Keith Richards’ involvement on the record: “He’s very spontaneous, he moves like some kind of animal. I was trying to explain ‘Big Black Mariah’ and finally I started to move in a certain way, and he said, ‘Oh, why didn’t you do that to begin with? Now I know what you’re talking about.’ It’s like animal instinct.” That’s what makes Rain Dogs so relatable and joyous—not because we know the streets he sings of, but because the smells and auras also seem to waft up from the whirling record on its hour-long merry-go-round”.

On 30th September, Tom Waits’s remarkable Rain Dogs turns forty. I know there will be celebration, retrospection and dissection nearer the date. Whether you are a Tom Waits fan or not, this is an album that I think everyone should hear. Hard to ignore or not love. So fascinating, I wonder whether a short film or piece has been shot based on this album. Released in 1985, this hugely important and brilliant work is one of the greatest albums…

OF the decade.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Seven: 1983 and a Need for a Rebuild

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin

Seven: 1983 and a Need for a Rebuild

__________

BEFORE going on to talk about…

And Dream of Sheep, this is a slight pause for breath. One that Kate Bush needed after the release of The Dreaming in 1982. That album was marked by long days in the studio. Bush hardly resting at all. The first album she produced alone, it was maybe a chance for Bush to prove herself. The Dreaming is a remarkable album and one that did well in the charts. However, it did not sell as many units as The Kick Inside in 1978 and EMI might have felt it was a disappointment. Bush threw herself into promotion and was intense when it came to this album. It was clear that something needed to change. She was definitely not going to bring another producer in. She knew that she could produce her next album and ideas were starting to form and take shape not that long after The Dreaming was released. However, she did suffer nervous exhaustion and has to rest. It would be three years after The Dreaming until Hounds of Love was released. A lot was achieved in that time. As I have said in other features, Kate Bush had a bespoke studio built at East Wickham Farm. This was her family home and where she spent her childhood and a lot of her teenage years. It was a place that was so important and provided solace and comfort. Bush also took up dance again and got in better shape. Bush and her boyfriend Del Palmer (who was her engineer and played on her albums) moved to a 17th-century farmhouse near Sevenoaks. I will come to an article that looks at what Kate Bush was doing in 1983. I have written about this before but, as I am celebrating forty years of Hounds of Love, it is important to look at 1983 and how important a year that was.

After The Dreaming was released, Bush reconnected with family she had not seen in over a year. She went to films and bought herself a VW Golf. She spent time with her cats and Del Palmer. She went for walks and listened to a lot of music. Bush also ate fewer takeaways, which was a bad habit when recording The Dreaming. She ate at least one healthy meal a day. Thanks to Graeme Thomson and Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush for that information. The move to the countryside, Bush recalled, was one of her best decisions. It did seem idyllic! All of these positive moves affected the sound and recording of Hounds of Love. I want to come to this article, where we learn more about Kate Bush’s 1983:

“In 1983 Kate Bush was in need of a change in her personal and professional life. Her last album, The Dreaming, released in September the previous year, took a heavy toll and considerable amounts of energy to complete. Ensconced within the confines of a recording studio for hours on end during the many months it took to complete the record, the result was what many saw as an experimental and difficult album. Bush said of that album: “It was very dark and about pain and negativity and the way people treat each other badly. It was a sort of cry really.” While the album climbed to #3 in the UK album charts, it did not do that well in sales numbers, and the singles it produced did not fare well either. A change was in order, and it took a three-pronged approach: new house, new studio, new dance teacher. All three contributed to her next album in varied ways, and the result was the classic, fantastic and timeless album Hounds of Love.

Kate Bush experienced a period of deep fatigue after the release of The Dreaming: “I was just a complete wreck, physically and mentally. I’d wake up in the morning and find I couldn’t move.” Taking a U turn from the hustle and bustle of promotion activities, photo shoots, interviews and life in the media, she purchased a house in Kent and retired to domestic bliss in the country. Song writing became a very different experience: “The stimulus of the countryside is fantastic. I sit at my piano and watch skies moving and trees blowing and that’s far more exciting than buildings and roads and millions of people.”

Musically, the most important contribution of the new house on her next album was a newly built recording studio. Her style of work, ever experimental and in seek of unique ways of expression, was tough on the wallet when using commercial studios. At £90, the going rate for one hour of recording at Abbey Road, The Dreaming cost her and EMI an arm and a leg. Her wish to self-produce her albums and control her artistic destiny with no compromise was another reason for the new studio. In an interview at the time she talked enthusiastically and quite proficiently about her new recording space: “We have a Soundcraft mixing deck, a Studer A-80 tape machine, lots of outboard gear, and Q-lock. We normally use 48 tracks now, even if it’s for a vocal idea or something. 24 tracks doesn’t seem to go anywhere with me. And the Fairlight, of course. We have a room simulator called a Quantec, which is my favorite. It would be lovely to be able to draw the sort of room you wanted your voice to be in. I think that’s the next step.”

That Fairlight she mentioned was possibly the most important piece of gear in that studio. Developed in Sydney, Australia, the Fairlight CMI was an innovative synthesizer, sampler and a digital audio workstation that once released in 1979 was famously adopted by Peter Gabriel. Bush first used it on the album Never for Ever, making it world-famous with the sound of breaking glass on the single Babooshka. During the work on The Dreaming she used the instrument a lot more, and by 1983 she decided to purchase one of her own and make it her go-to tool for music writing: “Most of the songs were written on Fairlight and synths and not piano, which was moving away really from the earlier albums, where all my material was written on piano. And there is something about the character of a sound – you hear a sound and it has a whole quality of its own, that it can be sad or happy or… And that immediately conjures up images, which can of course help you to think of ideas that lead you on to a song.”

When it came to that new house in the countryside, Bush said how they (her and Del Palmer) stumbled across it. The back door was open and they were able to sort of wander in. This force that was attracting them to this house! The positive stimulus of the countryside is instrumental for Hounds of Love. Not only near Sevenoaks but in Ireland, where Bush spent a lot of time writing and recording. Those some of the stress and energy of London was beneficial for The Dreaming, Bush would not have been able to record Hounds of Love if she still lived there. Bush waxed lyrical about watching the skies and trees rather than hordes of people and traffic. How she was doing much better. People would call her up and she would be gardening! Spending the summer of 1983 out of the house – something she had not done in years -, there was not a lot of promotion or media attention. The exception being on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, 29th July, 1983, when she was asked by  D.J. if there was any gossip about her fella. Bush did reveal that she was dating a man named Del. She had kept his name private pretty much up until then. This revelation was quite big! Bush more comfortable uncovering the fact she was in this domestic bliss. That she could discuss certain things about her private life to the media now. Bush retained her London home in Eltham, but she did not spend much time there. If she was there, then she was be dancing in her dance studio. It was a space filled with natural light and wooden flooring. Dance was important and something she spent a lot of 1983 doing. Beforehand, she would have to hastily assemble routines or rehearse rather quickly when in transit.

Bush did not do much dance after 1979’s The Tour of Life. She missed the interaction with dance tutors and that discipline. In London, she took dance classes with Dyane Gray-Cullert – a Detroit-born instructor – who had a background in the Martha Graham technique – which did impact her writing. Graeme Thomson notes how The Dreaming is a “subterranean album , dark and twisted”. The positivity and energy she now had was partly because of dance. She could channel this into her music. There was bleakness and darker colours on The Dreaming. Something that maybe didn’t completely suit her. In the summer of 1983, Kate Bush wrote to her fan club and said that 1983 was like 1976 in many ways. In terms of happiness and work-life balance. Bush had been singing and dancing in the day and singing and writing at night. Influenced by her friend, Peter Gabriel – who had recently built his own studio -, Bush deigned a 48-track studio with assistance from her father, Dr. Bush. Del Palmer was becoming more invested in engineering. Bush had this technology and kit in her new studio but had not really been too hands-on to that point. This would shift with Hounds of Love. The studio weas completed in the autumn of 1983. She did not have to stress about heavy studio bills and being on the clock. Here, she could relax and create in this supportive environment. Out of the window, she could look into the garden and grounds where she played a s child. Her family were always visiting and provided support and hospitality. Musicians and friends would pop in and hang and chat about music! There was this communal vibe. Something that was lacking from her previous album. All of this love and relaxation led to an album that, whilst it had stressful moments, seemed smoother and happier. Bush’s father would ask if anyone wanted a takeaway. Her mother, Hannah, would come in with tea and cakes. It was ideal!

“Working from home with a piano, a Fairlight, a Linn drum programme and her voice, recording onto an eight-track Soundcraft desk and tape machine, Bush and Palmer  worked up much of the album in the Kent countryside between the summer and autumn 1983”. Rather than there being demos that were referenced but then scrapped and re-recorded, the demos from the home studio transformed into the masters. That early flash of inspiration could be retained. Crucially, 1983 was when Bush wrote Running Up That Hill. Originally called A Deal with God, this classic was composed in her music room whilst she looked out of the window to the valley below. It is clear how important 1983 was. In terms of changes. A new home, more time with family and friends. Her own studio being constructed. Writing of the album happening at this time. Many assumed Kate Bush’s 1983 (and 1984) was her resting all the time and not writing music. In fact, she was overhauling her life and almost returning to a sense of balance and contentment she had not experienced for many years. Family and home vital when it came to recording of her fifth studio album. It is the year I was born, and I like the fact that I was technically around when Bush was laying the groundwork for Hounds of Love! Rather than her leaping into a new album exhausted and with little direction, Hounds of Love’s creation and evolution seemed like one of the most creative and pleasant experience she faced. It was a very happy time in many ways. It gives us an understanding of why Hounds of Love sounds like it does. From the exhaustion that Bush faced when completing The Dreaming, with Hounds of Love, there was this magnificent and much-needed…

JIG of life.

FEATURE: For Now I Know That I'm Needed, For the Symphony: The Richness and Importance of Instruments in Kate Bush’s Music

FEATURE:

 

 

For Now I Know That I'm Needed, For the Symphony

The Richness and Importance of Instruments in Kate Bush’s Music

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IT has been around five years…

since I last explored this subject. I wanted to revisit it because, at the moment, I am engaged in a multi-feature tribute to Hounds of Love. That turns forty on 16th September. It is not only the range of instruments that have been used in Kate Bush’s music. It is the depth and richness that is created. Even if you feel The Kick Inside and Lionheart was mostly piano-based, it is the beauty and emotion that she summons from the instrument that makes the songs so arresting and enduring. Of course, one could say that the most impactful and effective instrument Kate Bush has at her disposal is her voice. That wouldn’t be an exaggeration! The first few albums from Kate Bush was largely about the piano and putting that firm in the mix. However, look at the credits of her first two albums and you can see a celeste, beer bottles, tenor saxophone and boobam on The Kick Inside. It is the way Kate Bush could meld the traditional and more esoteric and make them work. We saw evidence of this in The Kick Inside, though I think that was more about showcasing her voice and the piano. On her second studio album, there was a little bit of a mix-up regarding the sound palette. We can find strumento de porco, mandocello and pan flute (played by her brother Paddy), joanna strumentum and Hammon organ. Kashka from Baghdad, in my view, is the standout on Lionheart when it comes to instrumentation. Pulling together some lesser-heard sounds into a song and making it work. Sitting on an album that looked back to her debut album and the prominence of piano, guitar and a more traditional texture – In the Warm Room and Symphony in Blue – and placing them with the unusual and sonically fascinating Hammer Horror, Coffee Homeground, In Search of Peter Pan and Oh England My Lionheart.

I always see Kate Bush as someone who composed and then fitted lyrics around the music. As a producer, she had a lot more control and freedom when it came to compositions. Maybe age and growing ambition connected to Kate Bush extending her music and introducing these rarer instruments. They were present in 1978, though 1980’s Never for Ever and 1982’s The Dreaming was the moment that compositions and the range of sounds at her disposal defined, heightened and evolved her music. Look at the cast of musicians that appear on Never for Ever. The Fairlight CMI itself offered a library of sounds and effects. Bush using various different players for different songs. Quite a few electric, acoustic and bass guitar sounds. A variety of synthesisers and pianos. Many artists would pair instruments from different countries to songs that have a flavour of that part of the world. However, Bush brought a viola da gamba (a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played da gamba (i.e. ‘on the leg’) in for The Infant Kiss. A koto for All We Ever Look For (Japanese plucked half-tube zither instrument, and the national instrument of Japan) and a bodhrán (a frame drum  used in Irish music ranging from 25 to 65 cms (10–26 inches) in diameter, with most drums measuring 35–45 cms (14–18 inches) on Army Dreamers. Some beautiful keys, strings and percussion weaving around and supporting these unusual instruments that were heard in other forms of music. Whether that was Folk or traditional music of nations in Asia and Europe. Never for Ever was a huge success and reached number one in the U.K. I think the colours and sonic layers you find in these songs not only made the album more nuanced and engaging. It also inspired Kate Bush’s lyrics and imagination.

The Dreaming took the palette and colour scheme in a darker and edgier direction. The Fairlight CMI was employed more and did create its own sonic universe. Used on almost every track on the album (played by Kate Bush), it gave her more opportunities and possibilities. Turning songs almost into short films. Without employing a load of musicians, she could have this array of effects and different touches in songs. Something traditional musicians might not be able to achieve. Even if the cast of musicians was perhaps smaller than it was for Never for Ever, The Dreaming does include penny whistle and uilleann pipes on Night of the Swallow, mandolins and strings on Suspended in Gaffa and bullroarer on The Dreaming. Perhaps less wide-ranging than Never for Ever and Hounds of Love, what strikes me is the manpower for The Dreaming. In addition to percussion from the Fairlight CMI, Bush used several bass players, guitarists and percussionists. Not just to up the power and potency. It is the individual talents of each player too. Hounds of Love is forty in September. Even if the Fairlight CMI played its biggest role yet, Bush did not rely on the digital and electronic. The cast increased once more. Rather than it being instruments making up the majority of contributions, there was more in the way of vocal elements. A lot of layers and characters. Including Bush’s own family. The Richard Hickox Singers. Drums, bass and guitars still working seamlessly with the Fairlight CMI. John Sheahan on whistles and fiddles. Liam O'Flynn on Uilleann pipes. If the Dreaming’s use of voices was used more in a tense or slightly darker way, there is more space and openness on Hounds of Love. Images of hills, landscapes, the countryside, the sea and the expanse of the open sky. Emphasis on sonic mood and colours of blue and purple. Expanse and air. The Sensual World of 1989 is a softer and less intense album. It is very warm and sensual. Passionate and curious.

However, that is not to say Bush toned down her musical horizons. If The Richard Hickox Singers provided one of the biggest vocal hits on Hounds of Love, it was the Trio Bulgarka who did so on The Sensual World. Their native language (Bulgarian) brought into a British album. Not something that was common. The Celtic harp used to great effect on The Fog and Between a Man and a Woman. Songs that might have suffered or lacked resonance if they were based around the piano and guitars. Irish instruments, valiha, whip and tupan offering something special and more unusual. Those might be the wrong words! However, I do think they provide a scent and rich energy that mixes once again with a unity of drums, guitars and bass. Rather than rely on a standard band, Bush would use different musicians to ensure each album was different from the last. The Red Shoes is perhaps the first album since Lionheart where there is less in the way of huge variety or the ‘exotic’ in terms of the soundscape. However, Paddy Bush does deliver valiha, singing bowls fujara, musical bow, whistle and mandola. Eat the Music features a valiha and kabosy. The latter is a box-shaped wooden guitar commonly played in the music of Madagascar. Tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone on Rubberband Girl and trumpet and flugelhorn on Why Should I Love You? is a welcome return to brass and horns. Not elements we had heard a lot of pre-1993. 2005’s Aerial and 2011’s 50 Words for Snow once again have their own sounds. Aerial has orchestration and bird song. Vocals always crucial to Kate Bush. Usually human, here there was more nature and the avian. I think strings and percussion define Aerial more than piano or less traditional instruments. Renaissance guitar, electric upright bass and viol are deployed to extraordinary effect. Percussion from Steve Sanger, Stuart Elliott and Peter Erskine.

50 Words for Snow is cooler and has more winter than any other album. Far fewer musicians involved than her previous albums. I think that Bush wanted to create a more stripped-down album after 2005’s Aerial – Director’s Cut came out in 2011, before 50 Words for Snow, though it was Bush re-recording older songs – and there was a sort of return to The Kick Inside. Perhaps her most ‘traditional’ album ever in terms of that core of piano, drum, guitar and bass. The only exception being bells played (by Del Palmer) on Wild Man. Other than that, there are no songs that have any instrument other than piano, drum, guitar and bass. Keyboards, double bass in there. The album’s finale, Among Angels, is only Kate Bush at the piano. Not often did she ever do that. You can see how Bush’s albums changed in terms of the instruments used and what impact they made. I think as important as anything, it is the way Bush chose her players and what instruments she used in which songs. Even if 50 Words for Snow is her most ‘conventional’ when it comes to instruments, it is amazing how Bush created this amazing and evocative atmosphere and the otherworldly with the piano and her voice for the most part. I do love how she could sprinkle in instruments for other countries alongside the more familiar. She made it work! You do not get this much today with mainstream artists. I don’t think they are as musically and compositionally ambitious and interesting as Kate Bush. They should take a lead from her. What will her next album be? Similar to 50 Words for Snow or a return to a broader album such as Hounds of Love or Aerial? You never know with Kate Bush. She could completely shock people and bring in electronic Dance aspects or Disco vibes! Maybe a longshot, though she never repeats herself, so you can’t write that off. It is always a huge pleasure and privilege to get…

<

LOST in these incredible worlds.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Jade Bird

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

Jade Bird

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CURRENTLY playing in the U.S. and…

with some interesting dates ahead, it is a good time to feature Jade Bird. I spotlighted her back in 2018, so I have left it a long time to return to her! Having achieved and done so much since then, I want to focus more on her most recent interviews. Her latest album, Who Wants to Talk About Love?, was released last month. It follows 2021 Different Kinds of Light. I want to start off with an interview from NME from last month. They wrote how Bird picked apart and rebuilt her life whilst working on her third studio album:

“While working on new music after her second album, 2021’s ‘Different Kinds Of Light’, Jade Bird found herself in a “really strange” space. The year before, she had moved from the UK to Austin, Texas with her fiancé during the pandemic, but doubts had started to creep in about where her life was headed. “I was breaking up with my ex sort of subconsciously,” she recalls, “and it was really quite horrific, the relationship.”

After their actual breakup, Bird picked up the pieces and moved once again, this time to Los Angeles, in search of stability and creative spark. “It felt like the time to go, not only creatively but community-wise,” she says. “I was kind of in the middle of this record, and a lot of the producers I wanted to work with were actually in LA. So, I kind of thought, why not just plant myself in the middle to make it all a bit easier?”

After putting years of work into this new album and going through all this personal upheaval, has it shifted the way you view love and how you answer the question that the album’s title poses?

“I think the biggest thing that’s shifted is, I think, when I was looking for love, I thought that I was supposed to find the opposite of myself. That stemmed from this opinion that I was too much or I was feisty, or I needed the water to the fire.

“And now having fallen in love again, and fallen in love for real this time, I realised that perhaps it’s finding someone who can relate to you and resonate with you – maybe that makes them actually similar to you. For example, my boyfriend [producer Andrew Wells] has got the same birthday as me, and he produced the record, so that kind of says it all.

“You can’t be more understood than by the love of your life, so that allows me a lot more creative freedom and confidence. When I heard ‘Stick Around’ back [when it was completed], I was like, there is nothing else I can do. That was the final stage of where that song was supposed to be. And for someone like me that focuses on the songwriting so much, to get that in the production [side of music creation] is just really sick.”

Would you say this has also changed the way you tackle songwriting now?

“I think that process is actually weirdly similar. I definitely write less. When I was a kid, I sort of believed in the craft and I believed I had to get my 10,000 hours in. And I always had this thing of, ‘I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough.’

“And now, I kind of settle that I put my time in and when I sit down and the emotion’s right, I’ll be able to say what I wanna say. Instead of writing 12 songs – that was in the pandemic, I was trying to write a song a day and I was like, ‘These are real crap.’” [laughs]”.

I will end with a review of Who Wants to Talk About Love? It is one of the best albums of this year. There are a couple of other interviews I want to cover before getting to a review. Clunk spoke with Jade Bird about how she channelled her rage, heartbreak and more into the new album. Who Wants to Talk About Love? is something that everyone should hear. Jade Bird is one of our very best artists. Someone I have been a fan of for many years now:

“Kieran: How has it felt to play the new songs live?

Jade: Really cathartic, I think, because they’re all from such like I mean, pretty deep moments just in my life that I was actually felt probably at my most alone for when I was writing these songs. And then you come out the other side and im literaly playing them in real time while still processing the meaning behind them myself. For example, like the one ‘Wish You Well’ that finishes the album. It’s about me and my dad. We haven’t spoken in years. So when I play that song live it’s real time processing of like the forgiveness that I’m trying to get to in the song. Sometimes I’ll cry or have a reaction after playing these songs/ It’s because it truly is the most cathartic thing ever playing them.

Kieran: Yeah, right, And you’re doing it on a public forum as well, which must double those emotions?

Jade: Yeah, I think I’ve always been extremely blessed that the people who like my music are genuinely the warmest, kindest people. Like I can’t express that enough.So I do tend to get this feeling like I feel safe to be that open. I don’t think every artist is that lucky, so yeah, it’s pretty special.

Kieran: I think now more than ever audiences really resonate with the person on stage. There’s more than a two way connection with artists thanks to social media.

Jade: I think it’s interesting to explore because like you know, I follow a lot of artists who are bigger than myself. And I think sometimes I’ve noticed more now than ever, that boundary seems to be being almost crossed because I think people feel like they know that person so much more because of how much we spend on social media. I’m kind of fortunate in that aspect.I don’t think I’m, I’m big enough to ever feel unsafe for like that’s the case with myself. But it is kinda weird to watch that all happen in real time. And yeah, I’ve seen videos of Cairo and stuff and I’m just like, oh wow. You know, it is interesting where we’re at with fandom.

Kieran: Speaking on your new music actually, your new album ‘Who Wants To Talk About Love?’ is out very soon! How are you feeling about having an album that is so personal out there?

Jade: Yeah, I’m just really excited. I think it was like, I’ve been through so much in this past, like, four year period that I honestly never thought I would get to the end. I never thought I would actually have this album. It’s been so, it’s been so many progressions of it, so many iterations. I’m just super grateful and, like, really, I feel really confident.I feel like this is exactly how I wanna be represented, representing myself as an artist through my work. And if people connect with this, they really are connecting exactly with me, and who I am right now. I couldn’t, I couldn’t be more excited really for that.

Kieran: Sonically, did you take any influence from other artists? Or was there someone you were listening too at the time that you thought, I like what they’ve done there?

Jade: I think because it’s such a long period of time, it’s really hard for me to pinpoint. And I know it sounds crazy, but I sort of, I wanted to get the best version of myself on this record. And it maybe wouldn’t have made much sense to try and replicate anything. So I finally found like my sound in me. Um, but I was obviously a huge music fan and I was kinda, I remember Tom Petty, I really got into his music during the middle of this album but in the past I’d struggled to connect with it. Sometimes that happens, you know like an artist is like incredible, but you just personally don’t have that connection. And then I found ‘Wildflowers’ and that was a big one. I actually think I am finding more influences now that the record is finished. Inspiration is coming back for me and I am trying stuff that I am hearing”.

The final interview I am keen to explore is from Music Week. In this interview, Jade Bird talked about how brutal studios can be, what change she would like to see happen in the industry, and not wanting to be pigeon-holed and easily defined as an artist. I can’t wait to see where she heads from her and how her career takes off. With a huge American fanbase, I can see her moving out of the country anytime soon:

“Heavily tipped when she broke in 2017, UK-born, LA-based singer Jade Bird has ploughed her own furrow ever since. Here, she holds court on hype, why studios can be “brutal” and her third LP, Who Wants To Talk About Love?...

Having hit the Top 10 with your debut album, how do you reflect on your breakthrough now?

“There’s a freedom now where the industry feels like anarchy. Everyone gets caught up in monthly listeners, but nothing’s adding up. People that have a bunch of monthly listeners can’t sell out shows and vice versa, so the measurement of success is changing and, honestly, all I care about is being able to play shows for the rest of my life. There’s something freeing about the fact that ‘week one’ no longer matters and a record can have a life whenever, so it’s never over. That’s such a positive about where we are now, especially being a woman, where you’re made to think that at a certain point you’re meant to pack up.”

You’ve spoken before about not wanting to be sonically pigeon-holed – how does the new album open up new ground?

“I’m really proud that the songwriting is quintessentially me and it’s a style [people] can’t replicate because, when you’ve worked on something for 10 years, you get a tone. The production has been really interesting too, because on this record I got to work on it the most in-depth. I was so involved, so even the sonics of it sound so much like me because I was there making every decision.”

Did it take a while to feel like you could have your voice heard as a woman in those studio spaces?

“Oh my God, yes! I’ve been in some rooms recently where, if I hadn’t had a 10-year career and I was 19 again, I’d be in tears. They made me feel like, even though I’ve written the song, that those ideas weren’t good, that I should be grateful to be there. Now, being a bit older and working with a lot of younger female artists, I just want to give any strength I have because these rooms can be brutal.”

How much progress has there been since you started?

“It’s hard to tell because Luka [Kloser] and Elvira [Anderfjärd] just did the new Addison Rae record and that’s the coolest thing ever. You see artists like Charli XCX, or Sabrina Carpenter and [songwriter] Amy Allen – who are a powerhouse duo – and women are fronting pop music in an undeniable way. But then we’re still struggling with stats for producers and still maybe not addressing the root cause.”

What are the biggest hurdles facing artists right now?

“Touring is where artists have always made money. With record sales, you’ve got a history of artists being screwed over even before things went digital, but touring is becoming more expensive and harder to make a profit on. So if you take that out, and you’re taking digital out, where else is it supposed to come from? Label advances? And do you want the kind of music where labels are just putting a bunch of money in all the time? It’s a dangerous game where we’re all supposed to eventually go on Patreon. We’re edging towards artists being a subscription service, which is pretty dark…”

So, what would be the one change you’d make to the industry?

“That you can’t play a show if you’re gonna make a loss. If you’re selling out a show, there has to be some stipulation that’s like, ‘OK, you will make this amount.’ It just seems so obscene that you can play shows and the costs wipe you out, even though you’ve sold it out. There needs to be some way – whether it’s through the big companies or through unions – that artists can turn a profit like they used to”.

I will finish things off with one of the positive reviews for Who Wants to Talk About Love? An artist you can see growing and changing between albums, I think that this is her best work yet. The Line of Best Fit provided an insightful and thoughtful review for Jade Bird’s third album. A remarkable release from a singular and extraordinary songwrtiter:

“She now returns four years on from her last album. After moving from Austin to LA and going through a painful breakup, the scars are clear to see on “Who Wants To Talk About Love” a moving and introspective LP that has a searing honesty to it.

This album sees a return to more familiar surroundings for Jade, after experimenting with 2024’s EP, Burn the Hard Drive, which included a surprise detour into the world of synths and a collaboration with Mura Masa.

Bird has discussed how she began writing about her parents’ strained relationship and breakup but saw herself going through a similar situation herself. “Stick Around” has a rawness to it initially, just Bird’s haunting vocals and guitar as she sings about whether her ex really loved her It’ll strike a chord with many, and it’s this emotional openness that makes this such an affecting album.

Bird’s songwriting and style have drawn obvious comparisons to Americana, but on this record, it feels like she’s put her stamp on it, honing both her songwriting and overall sound. She started writing the title track, "Who Wants," at sixteen about her parents' relationship, but the track has evolved into something new considering her own experiences.

“Avalanche” further explores the weight of the breakup as she sings of being crushed by an avalanche and needing a search party. It is buoyed by some haunting vocals that really linger, creating a powerful atmosphere.

There are flashes of more of an indie styling which is another strand of Bird’s sound. “Dreams”, in particular, is more of an upbeat, electric track with a rougher vocal, showing a different side to other parts of the album. It is even more enriching for it and captures the balance of her sound wonderfully. This track was written at a point when the relationship was beginning to crumble and while the sound is propulsive, there is a vulnerability at its heart.

With many tracks sub three minutes, the storytelling is short and sharp, painting a clear picture of Jade’s mental state while keeping a brilliant sense of flow and rhythm to the album.

While an examination of a failed relationship, there is a sense of optimism on the likes of “Save Your Tears” and “How To Be Happy”, Bird is finding a way to forge a new path and escape her past. It is a forward-thinking and sounding record that takes its pain and hurt and makes something moving and richly rewarding.

This record is Jade Bird’s strongest to date, an expansion of her sonic influences and an intimate depiction of the aftermath of a breakup and the trials and tribulations that come with that. This honesty is refreshing and will connect with many. She’s found a way to expand her sonic palette, drawing on her influences to create something fresh and captivating”.

Maybe I could have included her in my Modern-Day Queens feature. Where I celebrate the best female artists around. However, as I featured Jade Bird in 2018, I felt I should update that feature and sort of catch up with her as it were. I do hope that we hear many more albums from her. Such a wonderful musician, make sure that you follow her on social media and check out Who Wants to Talk About Love? It is without doubt one of 2025’s…

BEST albums.

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Follow Jade Bird

Official:

https://www.jade-bird.com/

TikTok:

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

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/jadebirdmusic

Twitter:

https://x.com/JadeBirdMusic

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7D8LuVnlyu91ndcPe70j7S?si=Xfird-6HSI2EqU6EhKywTQ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6sRi0TuAnixUvUbhuj9YNg

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Tracks from the Best Albums by Women in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Maren Morris’s D R E A M S I C L E

Tracks from the Best Albums by Women in 2025

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I can’t quite recall…

IN THIS PHOTO: Folk Bitch Trio/PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Laidlaw for NME

whether I have done this playlist already. That concerns songs from the best albums by women released this year. Regardless, I will end with a mix of great tracks from albums released by female artists. There is a great range from some wonderful talent. Featuring some huge mainstream acts through to some newer talent, 2025 has been this incredibly strong year for music. We are only in August, though you know we are not done yet when it comes to huge albums and women continuing their domination! This playlist is selection from some amazing queens. You might not know of a few of these albums/artists, so I hope there is a new discovery or two in there! These songs are taken from some of the…

IN THIS PHOTO: Oklou

BEST of this year.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential September Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Cardi B’s second studio album, Am I the Drama?, comes out on 19th September

Essential September Releases

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NEXT month is hugely busy…

IN THIS PHOTO: Sophie Ellis-Bextor releases her new album, Perimenopop, on 12th September/PHOTO CREDIT: Bekky Calver

for new albums. Some of the biggest of the year are due out. I shall try and include as many as I can but, if you want an idea of what else is out, then check out this website. I am going to take four from 5th September. Some real gems to kick us off! Let’s start out with Big Thief’s Double Indemnity. A band I really like, their new album looks really interesting. I particularly love the cover. You can pre-order the album here:

“Big Thief release their sixth studio album, Double Infinity, on 4AD. Double Infinity is the follow-up to 2022’s Grammy-nominated album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, recorded last winter at the Power Station, New York City.

For three solid weeks, the trio would ride bicycles on frozen streets between Brooklyn and Manhattan, meeting in Power's Station's warm wood-panelled room. Together with a community of musicians (Alena Spanger, Caleb Michel, Hannah Cohen, Jon Nellen, Joshua Crumbly, June McDoom, Laraaji, Mikel Patrick Avery, Mikey Buishas), they would play for nine hours a day, tracking together – simultaneously – improvising arrangements and making collective discoveries.

Double Infinity was produced, engineered, and mixed by longtime Big Thief collaborator Dom Monks. “How can beauty that is living be anything but true?” Adrianne asks as she drives nose against the future with childhood mementos on ‘Incomprehensible’. She understands, “everything I see from now on will be something new.” The silver hairs on her shoulders are new as well. Yet fear of aging is cracked by proof. If a life is shaped by living, “Let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair.” Being born, then staying a while, remains the greatest mystery. Adrianne claims her place and time. “Incomprehensible, let me be”.

Also out on 5th September is David Byrne’s new album, Who’s the Sky? This is one that you will definitely want to pre-order. It is going to be a typically brilliant work from the Talking Heads lead. Based on what has been released from Who’s the Sky? so far, it seems the album will sit alongside the very best from this year. A David Byrne work of brilliance I am looking forward to hearing more from:

“Byrne was inspired to enlist Ghost Train Orchestra for the album after hearing their 2023 tribute album to the blind New York composer and street poet Moondog, and later that year jumped on stage with the group during a Brooklyn performance. Enticed by the 15-member Ghost Train’s varied instrumental lineup – which includes drums, percussion, guitar and bass along with strings, winds and brass – he thought to himself, “what if that’s what these new songs of mine sounded like?”

Byrne asked if they’d want to serve as his band for the Who Is the Sky? sessions, and they quickly agreed. Mixed by Mark “Spike” Stent and mastered by Emily Lazar, the finished product is about both hiding and revealing, or as Byrne puts it, “a chance to be the mythical creature we all harbor inside. A chance to step into another reality. A chance to transcend and escape from the prison of our ‘selves.’”

These concepts are heavily incorporated in the Who Is The Sky? album package, which was designed by Shira Inbar and finds Byrne nearly obscured by radiating, colored patterns and psychedelic, spiky outfits designed by Belgian artist Tom Van Der Borght.

“At my age, at least for me, there's a ‘don't give a shit about what people think’ attitude that kicks in,” Byrne says. “I can step outside my comfort zone with the knowledge that I kind of know who I am by now and sort of know what I'm doing. That said, every new set of songs, every song even, is a new adventure. There's always a bit of, ‘how do I work this?’ I've found that not every collaboration works, but often when they do, it's because I'm able to clearly impart what it is I'm trying to do. They hopefully get that, and as a result, we're now joined together heading to the same unknown place”.

Two more albums to cover from 5th September. The first is the final album from Saint Etienne. International is going to be this bittersweet album. It is a new release from a band who always produce the very best music. However, it is the last album that we will get from them. A bit of an emotional realisation. You can pre-order International here. Because it is such an important album, you will want to add this to your collection:

“After Saint Etienne's 35-year excursion through pop, International is their final album-length statement. A dreamlike drift with friends and collaborators, International features cameos from the higher echelons of pop — 80s chart heroes, electro, acid house and all points in-between — from Vince Clarke to Nick Heyward, Confidence Man to Erol Alkan, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Doves and Xenomania, through to the lesser known, but equally exhilarating Augustin Bousfield and Flash Cassette.

Saint Etienne are the 90s band who never left us, never imploded, and never adhered to clichéd excess. They are a testament to getting along, getting on with creating something new and, of course, getting away with it. RT LP and RT CD with bonus four track remix CD featuring International Spanish Song, "Almost (Electro Mix)", "Walk Away From her Things", and "Break Down".

Before moving on to releases from 12th September, there is one more from 5th September. Suede’s Antidepressants is another huge album that you will want to grab a copy of. Go and pre-order it here. I want to come to an interview from MOJO, where the band discussed the upcoming album. Lead Brett Anderson and guitarist Richard Oakes are mentioned or featured in this part of the interview:

“Although ten years his future bandmates’ junior, Oakes was imbibing the music that Antidepressants draws upon – the bands Anderson and Oakes were out downing snakebite to – via his older sister’s record collection.

“My teenage influences – Keith Levene, John McGeoch, The Fall, Wire – didn’t really have a place in the writing in the early years. And I had to wait,” says the guitarist of initially having to fit into the Bowie-meet-Ballard blueprint laid out by Anderson and Butler. “When we did Autofiction, suddenly I felt it did have a place. The frame of mind when we started writing Autofiction was, Let’s try and play to our strengths, be a band in a room again. One of the most prominent features of the band is the guitars. That’s why my presence is a lot more obvious than it was. It certainly wasn’t me elbowing my way to the front – because I’m just not that guy.”

Songs on Antidepressants include Disintegrate, Sweet Kid, the Bowie-in-Berlin inspired Dancing With The Europeans, and the fractious Broken Music For Broken People, which was also the album’s working title.

“Thematically, it’s a lot different from Autofiction. More paranoid and neurotic,” says Anderson of his lyrics on Antidepressants. “This sense of being a citizen in a benign yet oppressive world. But also I like the joy in defying that control. Broken Music For Broken People is a the-weak-shall-inherit-the-earth song – a song of defiance.”

While Antidepressants finds the band in an alienated, post-punk hinterland, Suede’s tenth album could have landed them in a very different place indeed. In the Covid-initiated hiatus between Autofiction’s recording and its release, Suede wrote what they thought would be its follow-up – a ballet soundtrack, the polar opposite to the record they’d just finished. Such was the glowing response to Autofiction, however, that the project was binned. Yet, two of its grandiose mood pieces – Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star and Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment – were repurposed as endpieces for each half of Antidepressants.

“I always feel like we can stretch Suede and get arty and do unusual things,” says Anderson, “but it always snaps back to being a rock band”.

Let’s move to a few albums from 12th September. Four from this week to cover off. Pleasingly, the first one is from Adam Buxton! The comic and podcaster releases his debut album, Buckle Up. Go and pre-order it here. Whilst many might be expecting a comedy album, they are songs that are sincere and emotional - though there is also humour too. Influences including LCD Soundsystem and Talking Heads. It sounds like a fascinating and effective combination:

“British Writer, comedian and podcast host Adam Buxton releases his debut music album Buckle Up on Decca Records. The album sees Buxton collaborating with Metronomy’s Joe Mount (as lead producer) and The Vaccines’ Pete Robertson.
When Decca approached Buxton to make his first solo album, five years ago, the label didn’t realise they were dealing with a “master of self-deluded overcomplication”. He told them he wanted “Berlin-period Bowie and Eno going for lunch with Radiohead and Nina Simone at Brian Wilson’s beach brasserie.” He told them he wanted a Bulgarian choir, too. Then he enlisted Metronomy’s Joe Mount as producer: “I hoped it would be a Metronomy record with my voice!” None of these plans materialised.
Instead came Buckle Up, fifteen songs in which Buxton is inescapably, and beautifully, himself. “You inhabit the uncanny valley between funny and sincere,” advised Greenwood, “and I’m not sure anyone’s ever made that work.” Buxton has come to accept that the uneasy balance between funny and sincere might be what he does best. “That encapsulates everything I’ve ever done,” he admits. “Efforts to be thoughtful undermined by silliness, and vice versa”.

One of my favourite artists around is Baxter Dury. I am looking forwards to the release of Allbarone on 12th September. You can pre-order the album here. Even though I am not overly-keen on many of the album covers from September-due releases – including Baxter Dury’s album -, the music within this particular album is going to be world-class. He always delivers stunning music with witty and compelling lyrics:

“Baxter Dury releases his tenth studio album Allbarone via Heavenly Recordings. The album was produced by Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence and The Machine), his first album he’s worked on in over five years.

It was Sunday, June 28th, 2024, and Baxter had just stopped from a rapturously received set on The Park Stage at Glastonbury festival. After towelling himself down, a familiar figure approached him backstage. It was Paul Epworth, the lauded producer/songwriter whose creations have draped themselves across the airwaves of the 21st Century more successfully than others.

They agreed to meet back in Epworth’s North London Church Studios in late November, not long after Baxter had finished touring his last album. Their first day in the studio working on this new eighth solo Baxter Dury album was an eye-opener for Baxter, though, and not just because of the comfortable surroundings of The Church, which has hosted the likes of Frank Ocean and Adele.

Together they dreamt up Allbarone's nine-track tour-de-force, stripping everything away and building Baxter’s most melodically direct, futuristic collection in intense three-hour daily shifts throughout December and January. "It’s kind of a character arc that goes through the whole thing, two personalities," he explains. "It’s very critical of people, this album, whoever they are, maybe some bloke with a moustache and sockless loafers in Shoreditch or a fat old Chiswick gangster lording it up in a really comfortable middle-class part of London."

"I don’t want to say it’s contemporary," he summarizes. "Because I sound like a **** using that word. But it does sound really contemporary. It doesn’t sound like a Harrods hamper band made it. It doesn’t sound like a band made it all. Which is what I wanted most of all. It’s just something that’s brand new for me. It’s quite exciting, really." Which in Baxter Dury-speak is as good as proclaiming "I’m top of the world!”.

Two more albums from 12th September before moving on to a packed 19th and 26th September! The first of two is King Princess’s Girl Violence. This might be an artist you have not come across yet. I would definitely recommend that you check out her music. She is a stunning talent whose latest album, Hold On Baby, was released in 2022. This New York City-born artist should be on your radar. You can pre-order Girl Violence here:

“Girl Violence is the third album from New York artist King Princess (Mikaela Straus), marking her most personal and unapologetic work to date. Written after walking away from a long-term relationship, a major label deal, and a city that dulled her spark, the album captures the chaos, clarity, and catharsis of starting over.

Across bold pop anthems and intimate confessionals, Straus explores the nuanced, messy and magnetic dynamics of loving women. The result is a record that’s emotionally feral, sonically fearless, and deeply self-assured.

Since her breakout with “1950” - a Platinum-certified anthem with over a billion streams - King Princess has carved out a singular space in modern pop. On Girl Violence, she turns the page, taking full creative control and delivering her most striking and uncompromising vision yet”.

Let’s round off albums from 12th September with Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Perimenopop. This legendary artist has been on the scene for almost a quarter of a century. Not to freak her out, but I remember when she featured on Spiller’s Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) back in 2000. That single turned twenty-five on 14th August. I have marked that with a separate feature. You can order Perimenopop here. Ellis-Bextor has a string of tour dates ahead. In fact, May and June were pretty packed. Before some dates in September and October, she has a bit of a rest. Here is some more information about her upcoming album:

“The new record follows 2023’s ‘HANA’ and features previously released tracks ‘Freedom of the Night’, ‘Relentless Love’ and ‘Vertigo’.

“With ‘Taste’, I collaborated with MNEK and Jon Shave to write a playful, flirtatious pop song about chemistry,” Ellis-Bextor explains. “What can really make you want to be around someone is when their taste, what they like in life, is something you become addicted to. You want to experience all delights with them and share it with them as everything they introduce you to feels just right. All your senses feel alive and awake – like the full flavour of life is realised. Chef’s kiss”.

19th September is a seriously busy week for new albums! Though I cannot feature them all, there are four that I want to shine a light on. I am kicking off with Cardi B’s Am I the Drama? Perhaps one of this year’s most anticipated albums, I am going to move to an article from Variety around the announcement of her second studio album. Go and pre-order Am I the Drama? here:

“More than seven years after the release of her Grammy-winning debut album “Invasion of Your Privacy,” Cardi B has announced that the follow-up is finally coming.

The rapper revealed that her sophomore album “Am I the Drama?” is slated for release on September 19. She announced the record on social media, along with the album cover, which shows her posing against a flock of crows.

Cardi was typically unsubtle about signaling that the album was finally on the way. In an Instagram post on Sunday, she said in a voiceover as glamorous images of herself surrounded by (fake) crows rolled by: “Seven years and the time has come. Seven years of love, life and loss. Seven years I gave them grace, but now, I give them hell. I learned power is not given, it’s taken. I’m shedding feathers and no more tears. I’m not back, I’m beyond. I’m not your villain, I’m your tyrant. The time is here. The time is now.” She recently told her followers that she had delivered the album to her label, Atlantic.

Last week, Cardi premiered the new track “Outside,” during a performance at Cannes Lions. The song officially released last Friday, includes a dig at her ex-husband Offset and name-drops her new squeeze, New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs.

Cardi opened her performance in Cannes with “Bongos,” a song she shares with Megan Thee Stallion, and also delivered “Bodak Yellow,” “I Like It,” “Money,” “Up,” and her and Megan’s smash hit from 2020, “WAP.”

Cardi’s second album has been anticipated for many years — there was even speculation around the time of “WAP,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100. But although she has dropped more than a dozen singles and guest appearances, including spots with Lizzo, Bruno Mars, Shakira, Anitta, Kanye West, Ed Sheeran, Lil Yachty, Glorilla and more”.

I would recommend that people pre-order Kojey Radical’s Don't Look Down. The London-born artist released his debut album, Reason to Smile, in 2022. I am excited to see what Kojey Radical has in store for the follow-up. You can pre-order your copy of Don’t Look Down here. He is a major talent indeed:

“Over the past decade, East London artist Kojey Radical has cemented himself as one of the most creative and unique voices in British music. His debut album Reason to Smile (2022) was released to critical acclaim, and saw him emerge as one of the defining voices in UK culture.

Now, the 32-year-old he releases his second album Don’t Look Down. “I wanted to make this album more personal and more honest,” he says, “we have to be able to accept that the messenger has flaws and all.

16-tracks long, Don’t Look Down is a musically rich and deeply introspective reflection on the shifting tides, lows, and joys that have passed through his life since his emergence into the public eye. Sonically, the album provides the most experimental and eclectic music of his career, with influences ranging from golden age Hip Hop to disco, grime to Indie, Jazz to Ska.

Together, these strings combine to give a pertinent insight into Kojey’s inner world, and a timestamp documenting the feelings, emotions, and experiences that arise when many reach the milestone of their 30s”.

Two more albums from 19th September to get to before diving into the hectic 26th September! One of this country’s finest young artists, Lola Young’s I’m Only F**king Myself is an album that you will want to pre-order. You can do so here. I have selected The Basic Bitch Edition rather than The Punching Bag Edition, as I think the album cover is funnier and more appropriate given the title:

“The return of Lola Young with this year's massive POP album. Standard LP: Pressed on 140g nude pink vinyl, this edition comes with a 12x12 insert and includes the hit single ‘One Thing’. It’s sweet, subtle, and a little sarcastic, perfect for those days when you need to scream into the void and still look cute doing it. Call it “basic,” call it iconic, either way, it’s yours to define.

This is for anyone who’s ever rolled their eyes and then turned the volume up. Who even decides what’s basic, anyway? Exactly. CD: Packaged in a sleek digipack, this CD includes the hit single ‘One Thing’ and feels like the emotional glue holding everything in place. It’s for the ones still burning CDs in their cars and holding on to something physical in a world that won’t stop glitching.

Easy to play, hard to ignore. Whether you’re spiraling in your bedroom or cruising at midnight, this is the version that stays with you. Indies LP: Exclusively available at indie stores, this 140g marbled vinyl comes in a matte-finish sleeve with a 12x12 insert. Featuring the hit single ‘One Thing’, this edition doesn’t pull punches, it wears the bruises proudly.

It’s for the emotionally weathered, the quietly strong, and anyone who’s ever had to laugh through the pain. Emotional baggage isn’t included, but if you know, you know. Raw, rare, and real, this one’s just for you”.

The final 19th September-due album you need to look out for is from the Irish band, NewDad. Altar is going to be an extraordinary album you will want to grab a copy of. You can pre-order it here. This is a band I am really excited about. They are going from strength to strength. Their high-profile fans including Robert Smith of The Cure:

“NewDad, fronted by enigmatic songwriter and vocalist Julie Dawson, are an alternative three-piece from Galway, Ireland. Their influences vary from legendary bands like The Cure, Pixies, R.E.M., and My Bloody Valentine, to more contemporary acts, such as Big Thief and Beabadoobee.

NewDad make music that confronts the horrors of the modern world. Julie's lyrics find beauty in her pain, with a unique perspective on her generational despair that resonates broadly. With writing that regularly evokes imagery of water and religion, she reflects on the band’s upbringing on the West Coast of Ireland through her songwriting.

Altar is the second album from Ireland’s next great guitar band, and the third album from their prolific frontwoman Julie Dawson in less than 2 years. It’s a grungey alt-rock future classic that jolts between anger-fueled anthemics on the one hand, and darkly intimate and melancholic introspection on the other. They’ve built a dedicated cult following with their acclaimed debut Madra and if they’re good enough for the godfather of goth they’re good enough for you…

“I liked the NewDad album, that’s been on in my car for a long time” (Robert Smith)”.

There are eight albums from 26th September I need to cover off, so let’s get down to it! I will start with Cate Le Bon’s Michelangelo Dying. She is someone I always have time for. I love her music. You can pre-order the album here. If you need some details about her new release prior to making a decision, then this is what Rough Trade say about an album I feel will slot alongside the best-reviewed of this year when we look back in five months or so:

“Its creation led by pure emotion, Cate Le Bon’s seventh record Michelangelo Dying usurped the album she thought she was making. The product of all-consuming heartache, her feelings overrode her reluctance to write an album about love, and in the process became a kind of exorcism.

What emerges is a wonderfully iridescent attempt to photograph a wound before it closes up — but which in doing so, picks at it too. Musically, there is a continuation and expansion of a sound — a machine with a heart — that has taken shape over her last two records (2019’s Reward and 2022’s Pompeii) as Le Bon has increasingly taken control of the playing and producing herself.

As guitars and saxophones are pushed through pedals and percussion and voices are fed through filters, an iridescent, green and silky sound emerges, with flashes of the artistic singularities of David Bowie, Nico, John McGeoch and Laurie Anderson surfacing and disappearing below the waterline throughout.

What we’re left with is an ever-changing, continuous entity, a kind of song cycle. Each iteration reflects and progresses the last, “each one a shard of the same broken mirror” — shifting, glinting, concealing and revealing, depending on how it is turned in the light.

There are ultimately, Cate asserts, “No revelations. No conclusions. There is no reason. There is repetition and chaos. I eventually allowed myself a vacant mind to experience it without resistance and without searching for a revelation or order to any of it.”

An exercise in the viscerality of life, of love, of humanity for both listener and artist, Michelangelo Dying knows what it is to hold, to be held, and to be exquisitely, profoundly alone. “The characters are interchangeable” concludes Cate, “but at the end of it all, it’s me meeting myself”.

Number two of eight is Coach Party’s Caramel. A band I championed years ago and have since played huge stages and supported Queens of the Stone Age, the Isle of Wight group are bound for huge things. I am really looking forward to Caramel. You can pre-order it here:

“Coach Party return with 2nd album Caramel. It is a melody-packed, infectious record born from the shared experiences and unity of the band's four members: Jess Eastwood, Steph Norris, Guy Page, and Joe Perry.

Produced by the band's own Guy Page, Caramel channels the introspection and bite of bands like Hole, Sprints, Turnstile, and Amyl and the Sniffers. Clocking in at 33 minutes, it's a sharp, melody-driven record that expands on the themes of their 2023 debut Killjoy — heartbreak, identity, and finding your voice.

The band has built a reputation for intense, sweat-soaked live shows, touring with the likes of Queens of the Stone Age, Wet Leg, and Royal Blood, and making festival appearances at Glastonbury and Rock en Seine. With Caramel, they push their sound further than ever—hook-heavy, emotionally honest, and made for the big stage”.

Joy Crookes’s Juniper is an album that is going to be in my collection! Following 2021’s Skin, Juniper is going to be another phenomenal release from the Lambeth-born artist. You can pre-order Juniper here. I am a fan of Crookes and am really looking ahead to 26th September and this album. Here is some information about what we can expect:

“A stunningly candid and fearless body of work, the album reaffirms Joy as one of the UK’s most vital and original voices. A once-in-a-generation talent, Crookes delivers a record that is both emotionally raw and sonically rich; humorous, heartbreaking, and profoundly human.

Following the success of her 2021 debut Skin, which earned BRIT and Mercury Prize nominations, went Top 5 in the UK charts, and drew acclaim from The Guardian, NME, and many more, Joy set out to make an album that pushed her further both musically and personally. Juniper is the result: a project defined by its depth and dynamism.

Written with a stripped-back approach and produced by long-time collaborators including Blue May (Kano, Jorja Smith), Tev’n (Stormzy), and Harvey Grant (Arlo Parks), Juniper features standout guest appearances from Vince Staples on the incendiary ‘Pass The Salt’ and Kano on the bittersweet confessional ‘Mathematics’.

Crookes describes the record as “more nuanced” than Skin: “With Juniper, every situation is visceral and I’m very much in it. It’s me in the centre of it all.” The title itself nods to resilience (an evergreen that thrives in harsh conditions) and the album dives deep into themes of body politics, mental health, queer love, anxiety, industry hypocrisy, and the ecstasy (and terror) of falling in love.

Lead singles like ‘Pass The Salt’ and ‘I Know You’d Kill’ showcase Joy’s lyrical agility – blending poetic detail with razor-sharp wit. Meanwhile, the euro-pop inspired ‘First Last Dance’ channels euphoric melodies to mask deep emotional struggle, and the cinematic ‘Perfect Crime’ sees Joy fully self-actualize in the style of a Western showdown.

On ‘Paris’, the closing track, Joy reflects on a formative queer relationship: “Something I feared so much finally, actually felt like love.” It’s a sentiment echoed across Juniper – a record that captures the beauty and brutality of emotional openness.

The album arrives after a period of personal upheaval for Crookes, including a mental health crisis that shadowed the album’s creation. “I was in the trenches,” she says. “But the studio became my solace. What you hear is live and direct from that time.” Despite the darkness, Juniper radiates warmth, levity, and life, powered by Joy’s ever-restless creativity and artistic excellence”.

I might include one or two more albums that I mentioned for this week as I have noticed some I overlooked. Mariah Carey’s Here for It All is the next one on the list. The sixteenth studio album from the music icon, here is where you can pre-order it. This People article from last month provides some more information about an album that is hotly anticipated:

“Are you ready for more new Mariah Carey music?

In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden on Monday, June 30 in Los Angeles to celebrate 10 years of the streaming service, the Songbird Supreme teased her upcoming sixteenth studio album.

Carey, 56, revealed the project will feature details about her life, which includes her 14-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan. "Definitely when the album is released, there’s a lot of who I am today, and the last 10 years, the last 14 years [in it]," she said. "It’s an interesting situation when you have kids, and it’s a whole ‘nother paint job. It’s a whole different thing."

While the "Fantasy" vocalist admittedly didn't want "to tell too much about the new album," she further teased the body of work with a lyric — "It's a special occasion / Mimi's emancipation" — from her hit 2005 The Emancipation of Mimi single "It's Like That."

"What is next? The album coming out. I don’t wanna tell too much about it because I just don’t want to reveal the whole thing," said Carey, before revealing: "It’s finished."

She detailed the project will have either "11 songs, or 12" and hinted at its contents: "We got some Mariah ballads."

Last month, Carey kicked off her new era with the single "Type Dangerous," which she then performed at the 2025 BET Awards — where she was honored with the BET Ultimate Icon Award. The song debuted at No. 95 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Before fans get the full new album, she told Apple Music, "A second single is coming soon."

"I’m very excited about it," Carey said. "It’s very summer-y. I like the beat as well."

The new album will mark her first since 2018's Caution, which featured songs like "GTFO," "With You" and "A No No."

While accepting the BET Ultimate Icon Award on stage last month, Carey reflected in her speech, "My life and career have been quite the adventure. I will spare you the long, drawn-out saga tonight. It's all in my book [The Meaning of Mariah Carey] anyway."

"It took me a while, but I finally realized life is far too short to live for anyone else's approval, which is something I always did," she said. "So I decided to own who I am. My extraness, my fabulousness, my and yes, my success and my iconicness."

Carey continued, "I'm so grateful for you all to celebrate it with me tonight. Thank you so much. I just want to encourage everyone out there to believe in yourself. Love and respect yourself. Be a diva, be a boss, be anything you wanna be. But be iconic while you're doing it”.

Patrick Watson’s Uh Oh is out on 26th September. You can pre-order it here. It sounds like it is going to be a really interesting album. There are some details provided by Rough Trade that give you some insight and illumination:

“What is life but an endless series of “uh oh”s? From our earliest childhood accidents to our most overwhelming adult anxieties, it’s a little phrase that looms large throughout our existence. Just ask Montreal indie-pop maestro Patrick Watson who was recently faced with the biggest “uh oh” a professional singer could endure.

One morning in the winter of 2023, Patrick woke up to discover that his voice—the angelic instrument that propelled 2006’s carnivalesque art-rock opus Close to Paradise to the Polaris Music Prize winner’s podium —had gone completely kaputt.

“Obviously, I like singing for people, but I was really enjoying my Modular [synth] and diving into instrumental music”—a natural inclination for Patrick, who’s composed over 15 film scores to date. “But then I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to write songs for all these different singers that I really want to hear sing—I’ll find my way out of this situation that way.’ Because my voice wasn’t supposed to come back. And when it did, I just thought having all these other singers was still a cooler idea for a record than me singing.”

I am not going to drop any details in, but Robert Plant’s Saving Grace is out on 26th September. You can pre-order it here. Three more albums to go. I shall move on to Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving. That is out on 26th September. You can pre-order it here. Even though there is not a lot of information available about The Art of Loving, this interview from last year does mention it:

“Speaking of fashion, I'm thinking of Glastonbury, your style, your stage outfit with Chapova Lowena. It was such a moment. If you could collaborate with another brand for a look, do you have a brand in mind or a moment?

Yeah,  good question. I mean, that look was just so perfect, and one of my favourite things I've ever been able to wear. I really like the idea of working with British designers. I think that's really fun. I really like Wales Bonner and Martine Rose. But is there anything coming up? I don't know, maybe, like a big show in the States or something, a show in LA or something would be fab to do something quite extravagant you know, but we'll see.

You also have impeccable taste outside styling, with music. I see your Spotify playlist, Sweet Things that you post on your Instagram. How do you go about creating and choosing these artists for that playlist?

Honestly, I'm always listening to music. Like, aside from making it, I'm just like obsessed with it, and I kind of use Spotify like I would imagine some people use Tiktok – I'm not really a Tiktok person, but I'll just sit on Spotify all night and just like, look for stuff, like virtual crate digging. I'm a big fan of YouTube. Like, there's loads of cool stuff on YouTube that you can find, just random old soul records. I like a lot of old stuff. I'm quite bad for that. it's just, it's just a hobby of mine. Really, I just love music.

I would love to talk about your latest song, Touching Toes. It's such a delicate love song about letting someone into your space and recognising the moment when you know it's love. Why did you choose Touching Toes to mark the end of this chapter?

Honestly, I got a good guitar given to me by my manager after Messy was finished and out, and I've been writing a lot on the guitar, and I wrote Time and Touching Toes  on it, but especially Touching Toes, I really held onto it for a moment, because it felt quite vulnerable. And I was a bit like," I don't know, maybe I don't need to share this one". Maybe this is just a sweet song for me, but I think it just felt like a good, a good closer to this couple years of music. And I like how close up it is. I really like how intimate it feels. It just felt like a sweet way to end this bit of music and be close with people that like listening.

Even watching the music video with just you and the guitar, seeing you so vulnerable, it was so beautiful, simple.

Yeah, I'm always into less is more and simplicity. I was just listening to a lot of acoustic music, and I just thought, why not? I could do that.

And besides Laneway Festival, what have you got coming up that you're quite excited about?

What can I say? *Laughs* I'm making new music. I'm working on my second album, which is going to be great, hopefully. More shows, I can't say where, but more shows next year and other places in the world. And I think I'm just looking forward to the next year of my life. This year's been crazy, and I think next year will be crazier still”.

Two more to get to. SPRINTS’ All That Is Over arrives on 26th September. The Irish band are extraordinary and I really admire their music. You definitely need to pre-order this album. Below is some more details about one of the biggest releases of this year:

“There’s a palpable flurry of momentum surrounding SPRINTS. The Dublin band have enjoyed a whirlwind year, marked by back-to-back wins and rapid ascent. They unveiled their Top 20 debut album Letter to Self in January 2024, picked up two RTÉ Choice Award nominations for Best Irish Album and Breakthrough Irish Artist, opened for IDLES and Pixies, and delivered feverishly talked-about sets at Glastonbury, End of the Road, and All Together Now.

Since the album’s release in 2024 – met with 5-star reviews from NME, DIY, and Dork, and acclaim from Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan – the four-piece have taken their visceral live show across the globe. Along the way, they’ve become an essential new name in contemporary rock, known for urgent, compassionate songwriting shaped by personal tales of trauma and resilience.

Now, SPRINTS are turning that relentless energy into new material. SPRINTS about the new album: "All That Is Over" feels like a second chance at a first album. Gone are the shackles of insecurity, and we have confidently stepped into what we feel is our best work yet. It’s loud, emotive, boisterous, and a lot of fun. This is an album about love, lust, art, and passion. It is a rejection of the narratives they will try to spin to force those already marginalized to suffer more. It is the repelling of criticism, critique, and the combat of the modern world. This is renaissance and rebellion because within the disillusionment with the world, the fatigue, there is still hope. There is still love, music, and art and a chance to start again and that’s where you’ll find us. In between hope and a hard place. Welcome to our cowboy gothic”.

I am going to end by recommending an album from an American Pop queen. Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun is the final album from 26th September that I want to highlight. It is going to be an immense album that will get a lot of attention. Here is where you can pre-order it:

“Multi-platinum chart–topping global pop powerhouse Zara Larsson kicks her boldest era yet into overdrive with her heavily anticipated new album Midnight Sun. Created over the last year with frequent collaborator MNEK, alongside producer Margo XS and songwriter Helena Gao, this album is her best work to-date. Its storytelling bursts with truth and vulnerability, plumbing the depth and growth of Zara’s artistry and journey over nearly 20 years in the public eye. It’s an album unafraid to show all sides of the 27-year-old: lovestruck, wistful, ambitious, cocky, flippant, and uncertain, often in the same breath”.

September is the busiest month of the year so far when it comes to fantastic albums. I have covered most of the best, though there are still others that you may want to investigate and order. From Sophie Ellis-Bextor to Cardi B through to Adam Buxton and Olivia Dean, there is something on offer for pretty much anyone! It goes to show that September is…

A jam-packed month!

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Six: Cloudbusting

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IMAGE CREDIT: Mal Bray

Six: Cloudbusting

__________

THIS feature…

takes me to the last song on the first side of Hounds of Love. I am doing a twenty-feature run to mark the album’s fortieth anniversary on 16th September. I am looking At Cloudbusting today and will then do a feature about 1983 and Kate Bush recharging. Then I shall start working through the tracks on the second side, The Ninth Wave. The second single from Hounds of Love, Cloudbusting was released on 14th October, 1985. I would have though Bush would release the title track before Cloudbusting. However, I can see why she wanted Cloudbusting to follow Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). One of her most popular songs, it features the late Donald Sutherland in the video. I shall come to a feature soon that explains why Donald Sutherland became involved in the video for Cloudbusting. He and Kate Bush got on so well. The part in the video where she sheds tears was for real, as this was Sutherland essentially leaving the set and video. Bush playing Peter, the son of Sutherland’s Wilhelm Reich. The shot of Sutherland being arrested and taken away in a car and driven off was his actual goodbye I think. Bush’s real emotions coming through in the video. It is a magical video from an album that sported a few of them! I will start out with some interview archive, where Bush discussed Cloudbusting. Like all of the song features for Hounds of Love, I will refer to Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 book, Hounds of Love. I will also reference Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Let’s start out with some archive from the Kate Bush Encyclopedia -

“‘Cloudbusting’ is a track that was very much inspired by a book called A Book Of Dreams. This book is written through a child’s eyes, looking at his father and how much his father means to him in his world – he’s everything. his father has a machine that can make it rain, amongst many other things, and there’s a wonderful sense of magic as he and his father make it rain together on this machine. The book is full of imagery of an innocent child and yet it’s being written by a sad adult, which gives it a strange kind of personal intimacy and magic that is quite extraordinary. The song is really about how much that father meant to the son and how much he misses him now he’s gone.

Conversation Disc Series, ABCD 012, 1985

It’s a song with a very American inspiration, which draws its subject from ‘A Book Of Dreams’ by Peter Reich. The book was written as if by a child who was telling of his strange and unique relationship with his father. They lived in a place called Organon, where the father, a respected psycho-analyst, had some very advanced theories on Vital Energy; furthermore, he owned a rain-making machine, the Cloudbuster. His son and he loved to use it to make it rain. Unfortunately, the father was imprisoned because of his ideas. In fact, in America, in that period, it was safer not to stick out. Sadly, the father dies in prison. From that point on, his son becomes unable to put up with an orthodox lifestyle, to adapt himself. The song evokes the days of happiness when the little boy was making it rain with his father.

Yves Bigot, ‘Englishwoman Is Crossing The Continents’. Guitares et Claviers (France), February 1986

If I’ve got this right,he believed that sexual energy was positive, usable energy that he tied in with his concept of orgone energy. He upset a lot of people selling orgone boxes, saying they could cure cancer and stuff. He ended up being arrested and put in prison. I knew nothing about Wilhelm when I read the book,which was his son’s experience of all this, written from a child’s point of view with a tremendous innocence and sadness. Years ago, I just went into a shop and picked it off the shelf, and really liked the title and the picture on the front. I’d never bought a book before which I hadn’t known anything about;I just felt I’d found something really special. And nine, 10 years later, I re-read it and it turned into a song. When it was finished, I wrote a letter to Peter Reich saying what I’d done. It was important to me in some way to have a sense of his blessing because his book really moved me. He sent me back such a lovely letter. It was an incredible feeling of returning something he’d given to me.

Mat Snow, ‘Follow That!’. Q/HMV special magazine, 1990”.

I won’t quote all of Leah Kardos’s information about Cloudbusting. However, it is a fascinating part of the book. I love how there were live strings recorded for this song by the Medici Quartet (who were extended to a sextet via overdubbing). “Their parts were arranged for the ensemble by Dave Lawson, who had helped realize the string arrangements for ‘Houdini’ on The Dreaming. Aside from a brief moment when the sextet stretch out in curvaceous countermelody during the second verse (‘On top of the world’ at 1’16”), the group mostly remains focused on the obsessive staccato bounce”. There are a lot of interesting observations around the instruments and vocal layers. Bush, as producer, layered up her own voice but also the tones of Brian Bath, John Carder Bush (her brother) and Del Palmer (her engineer and then-boyfriend). “Paddy Bush’s basso profundo can also be heard harrumphing along with the bouncing pulse of the coda”. Bush was not quite sure how to end the song. The cloudbuster sound that you hear was a decoy to mask the “petering out of the drums and strings”. Bush came up with the idea of this steam engine closing the song. Del Palmer was the steam. “And we got a whistle on the Fairlight for the “poop poop”. There are some haunting images and memories on Cloudbusting “Watching a parent forcibly taken away. Peter Reich, now a man, is haunted by memories of his dad (‘Every time it rains, you’re in my head’) and still clings to the feeling of magic that he felt as a child (‘I just know that something good is going to happen’)”. I am going to end with a bit more from Leah Kardos and some detail from Graeme Thomson. However, the video is worth talking about. Last year, CLASH published a feature that explored why Donald Sutherland became involved in the video for Cloudbusting:

“The song is a pivotal moment on the English artist’s internationally successful ‘Hounds Of Love’ album, and came back with a memorable video. The lyrics took inspiration from the 1973 Peter Reich memoir A Book of Dreams, with the song honing in on the relationship between Peter and his father, the psychiatrist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich.

The video was shot by Julian Doyle, and dreamed up by Kate Bush working in tandem with Monty Python co-founder Terry Gilliam. In the striking clip, Donald Sutherland takes the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Kate Bush plays Peter.

Initially, however, the actor had absolutely no interest in the shoot. Approached multiple times, he set back multiple rejections – until Kate Bush personally knocked on his door to ask.

“I wanted it to be a piece of film rather than a video promotional clip,” Bush told MTV in 1985. “I wanted it to be a short piece of film that would hopefully do justice to the original book and let people understand the story that couldn’t really be explained in the song. So we wanted a great actor. We thought of Donald Sutherland.”

The 1985 edition of the Kate Bush Club newsletter contains the full story, with Donald Sutherland detailing his initial refusal. “Barry Richardson, who was the hairdresser on Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, asked me if I’d do a music video with Kate Bush. I told him no and we went on to other conversations,” Sutherland said.

Learning that he was staying at the Savoy Hotel in London, Kate Bush decided to intervene. “I opened it. There was no one there,” he recalled. “I heard a voice saying hello and I looked down. Standing down there was a very small Kate Bush. Barry had told her where I lived. What can you do?”

Kate Bush explained the song’s lyrics and narrative in detail, emphasising the connection to Wilhelm Reich – whose work Donald Sutherland was familiar with while filming Bernardo Bertolucci’s Novecento. “Everything about Reich echoed through me,” he explained. “He was there then and now he was here. Sitting across from me in the person of the very eloquent Kate Bush. Synchronicity. Perfect. She talked some more. I said okay and we made ‘Cloudbusting.’”

“She’s wonderful, Kate Bush. Wonderful. I love that I did it,” Sutherland continued. “I remember being in the car and the hill and them taking me, taking Reich, away and looking back through the back window of the car and seeing her, seeing Reich’s son Peter, standing there. And I remember the first morning on set seeing her coming out of her trailer smoking a joint and I cautioned her, saying she shouldn’t smoke that, it’d affect her work, and she looked at me for a second and said she hadn’t been straight for nine years and I loved her.”

For her part Kate Bush told MTV: “Whenever we were acting, he was my father. I just had to react to him like a child. He made it very easy”.

Leah Kardos writes how Cloudbusting is one of “those rabbit-hole songs that can lead listeners to an inspirational source text (A Book of Dreams) and further on to the wild worlds of Reich and his maverick research. But the song also functions meaningfully in the larger structure of Hounds of Love. It transports us to the world of dreams and nightmares. It is the sound of the rain promised in the clouds of ‘The Big Sky’. After successfully mastering the watery weather at the end of ‘Cloudbusting’, the tables are quickly turned when the listener flips the record over. In moments, Bush will be at the mercy of the elements, helplessly adrift in a drowning dream”. I never realised how water on the first side leads to the endless expanse of the ocean on the second side. The childlike glee of the sky and potential flood-creating black in the sky. The idea of busting clouds to make it rain. All this curiosity and wishing leads to this nightmare extreme. Another fascinating thread one could explore around Hounds of Love. The elements and nature and how elemental and instrumental they are. Graeme Thomson notes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush how Bush was haunted by A Book of Dreams. “She had contacted Peter Reich to explain her motives in writing ‘Cloudbusting’ and to express the wish that she hoped that he approved of the song; in a neat, serendipitous touch, she received his reply while they were working on the track at the farm”. That was East Wickham Farm, in a studio Bush had built by her family home.

Haydn Bendall (he was the chief engineer at Abbey Road Studios for the recording of The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes). Peter Reich sent a letter back approving of the track when Bush was recording her vocal. Bendall tells how it was a privilege witnessing Kate Bush standing in front of a microphone: “We’re used to effects in the studio and computer graphics in films, but when you’re faced with raw talent it’s still stunning. She’s quite softly spoken and laughs a lot and is very joyous, but she takes on these different personae when she is singing – she’s an actress as well as a singer”. Graeme Thomson writes how Cloudbusting is a “wonderfully balanced song, both sad and strangely ecstatic, and filled with a real understanding of a child’s love for a parent; for don’t we all, as children, want to believe that our parents can perform miracles and cosmic sleigh of hand?”. Thomson notes how Cloudbusting could be an ode to her own inspiring and supportive father. Also, when it was performed live for 2014’s Before the Dawn residency, it was a tribute to her own son, Bertie. Her family and the love and support of her family runs right through Hounds of Love. Her own siblings and parents appear at various moments. Cloudbusting might be inspired by another family and does not seem personal, though I think that it had personal meaning for Kate Bush. That takes us to the end of side one of Hounds of Love. I will flip to The Ninth Wave soon. Before that, I will return to Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush when discussing 1983 and why that was a reset moment for Kate Bush. Reaching number twenty in the U.K., I always think Cloudbusting deserved better commercially. I would advise people to read this feature about the story of Hounds of Love. Until the next fortieth anniversary feature for Hounds of Love – before its anniversary on 16th September -, I would encourage everyone to listen to…

ONE of Kate Bush’s greatest tracks.

FEATURE: Oh, Leave Me Something to Breathe: Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Oh, Leave Me Something to Breathe

Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Five

__________

I feel as though…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris

I have covered all of the songs on Never for Ever before. Rather than readdress them for this feature, I am going to look more at the promotion and build-up around the album and its impact. Cover a little of what I have before but, as Never for Ever turns forty-five on 8th September, I am coming back. Updating my previous features. Let’s start out with some timeline before getting to a couple of promotional interviews. Let’s take things back to June 1980. A few months before Never for Ever was released, Bush released its second single. It is one of her best-known songs:

“June 23, 1980

Babooshka is released. Because the technicians at the BBC are on strike, the video cannot be shown. Babooshka, however, is Kate's most successful single since Wuthering Heights.

Kate takes a few weeks out to rest from her exertions on the album.

August, 1980

Kate puts down the first ideas for a new album, beginning the two-year project that would produce The Dreaming [which remains to this day the single greatest piece of music of the twentieth century (OK, so this chronology was transcribed by a Kate fanatic. Surprised?)].

September 8, 1980

Never For Ever is released. Kate undertakes a very heavy promotional schedule.

September 11, 1980

The album's head is wetted at a huge party for dealers in Birmingham. Kate is meanwhile engaged in a personal appearance tour, signing albums in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester (where she kisses over 600 fans), Birmingham and London (where the queue awaiting her stretches over 100 yards outside the record shop and down Oxford Street).

September 16, 1980

The album enters the official chart at number 1. Kate is the first British solo female artist ever to reach the number 1 position on the British album charts.

September 1980

During this same month, Kate promotes the forthcoming album (Never For Ever) in Germany and France. First, in Germany, she performs the famous "Mrs. Mopp" version of Army Dreamers, one of at least three quite different visual presentations that Kate has prepared for the song, on RockPop, along with a solo performance of Babooshka. Then she visits Venice, Italy, to perform a new version of Babooshka with her dancing partner Gary Hurst for a live broadcast which also features Peter Gabriel. After that, she returns to England to film the official video for Army Dreamers. While in England she polishes the final mix of Warm and Soothing.

Army Dreamers, the third single from Never For Ever, is released.

Back in London again at the end of the month, Kate attends a concert by Stevie Wonder. The energy of the event has a profound effect on Kate, and on the following day she puts down the first full demo version of Sat In Your Lap, the key to her next album, The Dreaming”.

I wanted to use this anniversary feature to give people an idea of the promotion and lead-up. How busy a time it was. A bit about the impact and importance of Never for Ever. Perhaps I should have written another feature that focuses in on the songs. I waver on this point. However, I think we can get a good sense of the album and what it is about from the interview. I have picked parts from two of my favourite examples. Sound International published an interview in September 1980. Pre-Never for Ever, there was this heavy association between Kate Bush and this idea of a strange thing. An odd creature with this high voice. Never for Ever made a lot of people stand up and respect her as a songwriter. An important breakthrough:

“There is a surprising amount of variation between the different media accounts of Kate's beginnings in the 'biz' so I shall endeavor to set the record straight. First attempts to get a reaction from record companies were made by a friend of Kate's armed with n early demo of some of her songs. He met a blanket of rejection until 1975 when he played the tapes to an old friend from Cambridge by the name of Dave Gilmour. The Floydian guitarist reinforced his reputation for giving help to new acts by advising Kate to cut finished masters of her best three songs for presentation to companies. The tapes are often referred to as "demos" but after exhaustive research (I read the sleeve notes on The Kick Inside) I can reveal that he Gilmour financed recordings provided two of the tracks which were to appear on Kate's first album some two years later. They were "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" and "The Saxophone Song". I asked Kate about all this as the album has a continuity that makes the two-year "gap" surprising.

"Yes, they do fit very well on that album, don't they? Maybe there's a few reasons for that. But the thing that I notice is the difference in my voice, that's the only thing that gives it away for me. They probably fit well because Andrew (Powell) was the arranger on all the tracks. I wonder how many people would notice that because no-one comment on hearing any difference, you're the first person to mention that. No-one's commented on that before so it's very interesting."

When Gilmour took Kate into Air Studios to record "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" and "The Saxophone Song" she was 16. When Gilmour played the tapes to an EMI executive they wanted Kate. EMI treated her well from the word go, though the media (true to form) stereotyped the situation with a standard: Big company manipulates and exploits the young innocent etc, etc.

The company did not rush Kate into completing an album although she has some 100 songs already written. Instead they advised her to get a lawyer, an accountant, and advanced her L3,000. Around that time an aunt of Kate's died and left her some money. Finding herself able to forget about immediate monetary problems she went about developing various aspects of her abilities. Lindsay Kemp had an ad in Time Out offering his services as a teacher of mime and dance. Kate responded and she was soon receiving group instruction for 50p a day from the magister artis. She was fascinated by singing in a high register and worked on singer higher and higher notes. She wrote more songs.

It was two years exactly before she returned to Air Studios to record the rest of the material for her debut album The Kick Inside. Virtually the last song she wrote for the album was "Wuthering Heights" - "The Man With The Child In His Eyes", for example, had been written some five years earlier. Apart from the general supportive role her family plays, they make individual specific contributions to her music and business affairs. As well as taking care of business, J also photographs Kate. His shots can be seen on the "Babooshka" sleeve as well as on the back of her new album. Paddy has played mandolin, guitar, mandocello, panpipes, and sung back-up on her albums. Kate says that her father remains a doctor first and foremost but ... "mulls over anything with negative and legal aspects."

She undoubtedly is a very together person. My impression is that she does use her family as a sounding board and frequently takes their advice. On the other hand I think she frequently listens carefully to their advice before she goes on to do exactly what her instincts had told her in the first place! There again, she does not display any of the signs of an ego which forces her to do thing her way for the sake of it. Her satisfaction comes from being good at what she does. Obviously the fact that she produced her new album - albeit with the technicalities handled by John Kelly - is the major point of interest. Before talking her about that I asked about her relationship with Andrew Powell who produced her first two albums.

"Dave knew Andrew. I don't know how, and he thought Andrew was a very competent arranger and would be quite capable of taking care of the production side. So we went into Air Studios, I was about 15 or 16 at the time."

Was she terrified? "Yes, I was very nervous. It's a big studio. Andrew was fantastic. He was completely in control of it. I was just a schoolgirl doing my exams at the time and reeled at the prospect of someone just working on my songs. The musicians did their own thing and Andrew wrote some beautiful strings. We managed to get it to EMI and they leapt at it. Then there was the situation obviously where I was only 16, totally naive to the business and everything and EMI were wondering what to do with me.

"They could either send me out into the world with the songs I had - a 16-year old - or hang on. I was more then happy to hang on because I didn't feel that I was ready. Although I was waiting to make an album for at any minute, after about six months I realised that it was a long-term project so I stated getting on with my own things. I decided to leave school and go fully into the business. Then I got a little group and we played around in pubs. After that came the album. And Andrew, of course, because he had done so well on the earlier tracks, was the first guy we thought of.

"As soon as I started the first album, already three years had passed from the demos (sic) to the album and I obviously gathered a lot more self confidence. I was beginning to understand what I wanted in my music. The songs were obviously maturing and I was getting around and understanding the business more. Andrew did a fabulous job on the album, he really did. Even at that stage I could feel that there were areas where he was taking the music that perhaps if I had been in control, I wouldn't. That's understandable. He was the producer and therefore - he was very good and always listened to what I wanted - he would obviously plant his feelings there.

Kate helped out with some vocals on Peter Gabriel's recently acclaimed album and I presume it was through Peter that she met Larry Fast. "We managed to get Larry before he flew off and he's a fantastic guy, wow. He's wonderful. He finished off "Breathing" for us. We got to the point where there was a deadline coming up for the release of the song as a single. So far up to then we'd been working on the tracks quite generously. When we had a guitar overdub to do we'd do all the guitar tracks for the album as you logically would. As we had a deadline for "Breathing" we put aside all the other tracks and worked on the one song until it was complete. Larry came in for a day and he was wonderful. We were all gathering such and intense vibe working on the one very nuclear song. We'd been working on it until about five or six in the morning each day for about a week. It was very intense in the studio and very nuclear. It felt just like a fallout shelter."

For those unfamiliar with Studio Two at Abbey Road it is a huge studio with a high ceiling. The control room looks down from a top corner giving a false impression of being underground. Also the decor is basic and deliberately unchanged since the days when the studio's prime users were the Beatles. "Larry came in in the middle of all this nuclear intensity and he was wonderful, " said Kate. "He's put on some incredibly right animation sounds. You see, I think of synth players like that. It's probably wrong because I'm thinking just in terms of my music. I see them as such an animation thing, they seem to complete the picture so beautifully. It's like they put on the colour on the track sometimes.

"So Larry was there for a whole day just working on the one track and built up some beautiful stuff, just sort of underneath the back of the arrangement. It was such a pleasure to work with him because I've always wanted to but he's such a busy many. I really hope I can work with him again. His standards are ridiculous, I mean he works to the clock. He'd say: 'Gosh, that took me 10 minutes and it's only supposed to take two!' and gets really upset. He's such a professional and he works so hard, I think a lot of people can learn from him" (see interview, SI March '80).

Kate wanted to put together the promo film for "Breathing" - and did. It became a visual presentation of the subject matter, and showed her as the unborn child at the time of nuclear attack. "We decided to make it very abstract. I had the image of me being a baby in the womb yet not a baby because it's like a spiritual being, surrounded by water and fluid in a tank because that's what a baby does, floats around inside this beautiful place."

Keith Macmillan is the man who has been interpreting Kate's ideas and actually getting them on film for the great part of the 2 1/2 years she has been releasing records. He explained one or two problems to her with this particular idea. Like she might drown. Also no insurance company would underwrite the risk. Kate has total faith in Macmillan and was happy to leave it with him to come up with an idea for overcoming the problems.

"He went away, he's got fantastic guys working with him who get all the props together. So he came up with he idea of inflatables which when filmed through would give a watery effect. So I would be inside one which would be inside maybe one or two others.

"Then we had a problem with the costume because an embryo is of course naked but we couldn't make it sexual because of the innocence and sincerity of the thing. And we had a few problems with that because it is very difficult to look clothed but not clothed. Because we were working with inflatables which were basically just plastic we decided to use the same material which would be pretty cool for an embryo because it would just be flesh that was amongst all the other. So we just wrapped polythene all around me and then the whole thing became this sort of transient stuff that wasn't either costume or inflatables. The next thing with the video was to get from the break into the end where the baby has come out of the womb. Because of the fallout the first thing that would happen is that the baby would be put straight into a protective suit, probably sprinkled with Fuller's earth. [??? Does anyone know what this is?]

"Again we tried to do that in an abstract way so that I would burst out of the bubble and land somewhere outside that was very weird. Then the two guys with the suns - the anti-nuclear sign - hand me the fallout suit as the symbolism of being in the outside world full of fallout. The end was getting as many people as I could in water - again water because that was the whole visual them - and say: 'What are we going to do without clean air to breathe?'

"It took us two days of filming, one to do the studio lot and one to do the end sequence with all our friends in the water and for the nice quiet scene at the end. It was really quite an epic compared with all the other videos I've done. It wasn't that extravagant or expensive, not that long and not that anything. But as I said it felt so important because that one song for me - and quite a few people who are close - was like a mini-symphony or something. So everything had to go into it even if it wasn't going to be a big hit and that's how we felt about it. OK, people say: 'It didn't get into the top five.'

"But I'm so pleased with how it went because for the subject matter I was dealing with, you know my previous associations with the public: that I'm a very harmless unpolitical songwriter."

"Singing is such an important thing for me. I have such a strange thing about it, probably like every other artist. I really often feel that I can't sing. I know I can sing but when I hear the track back it's not what I want, it's just not. I don't get paranoid but I do get very, very worried about it because it's so important to me that I express the perfect emotion of the word because they are telling a story, and unless I feel that I fulfil the character perfectly, I should get someone else to sing it. Especially as people have been kind enough to give me awards as a female singer that I have to try so hard to make it good for them.

"I think maybe I should relax a bit more about it, I am getting a bit paranoid. I love singing, it's just that when I hear it back on tape it is never quite perfect enough for me. But I'm sure you understand that. So many artists, like Eric Clapton, he probably thinks his solos could be better. He probably wouldn't say it but I'm sure that he feels that. But I wouldn't stop singing because I love it. All I need is for someone to say: 'That's great.' And then I can go: 'Really?' Then I feel all right, especially in the studio”.

The second promotional interview for Never for Ever was by Mike Nicholls for Record Mirror. He noted how Kate Bush “just spent six months producing a new collection of ten songs. Of these, four were recorded beforehand and another five already written before her long sojourn at Abbey Road Studios”. There is one track missing – as Never for Ever has eleven tracks -, but it does show how she was afforded more time to record and prepare news songs. 1978’s Lionheart came nine months after her debut, The Kick Inside. Bush had only the opportunity to write three new songs for that album:

“Since our last rendezvous at the beginning of the year, I'd heard that her father and brothers, ostensibly the greatest influences in her family-orientated life, were great believers in the Russian "magician" George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. Thinking it might assist our dialogue, I spent some time before the interview swotting up on the guy, who in the early part of this century ran a school for wealthy mystics, that preached stuff like "We had better torture our own spirit than suffer the inanities of calm," and "Any unusual effort has the effect of shaking the mind awake."

Now there seems to be a certain amout of overlap between these observations and Kate's remarks about "shocks of emotion", but, perhaps fortunately for your good selves, she didn't seem into having a protracted natter about G. I. Gurdjieff (classic initials, what?)

Besides, it wouldn't entirely have suited the circumstances of our discourse. On a marginally sunny day, it seemed absurd to be cooped up inside some dusty office at EMI, particularly when outside their West One premises there is a little park. Now you might think that in talking to Kate Busdh in central London one runs the risk of attracting inquisitive stares from God knows how many passersby--especially when, during a photo-session on the same piece of greenery last year, Cliff Richard was besieged by scores of drooling school-kids.

But rate-payers (no quips about EMI's ability to retain this status, thank you very much) are allocated a key to the gardens, so Kate and I spent a chatty couple of hours locked within these leavy confines, and I was too much a gentleman to throw away the key.

Since the interview was for promotional purposes, it was hardly surprising that she was happiest talking about the new songs. And because these are the latest instalment of her life, questions were answered conscientiously and, of course, enthusiastically. With promotion being an extension of her work and hence her life, etc., it was illuminating to see how she handled interruptions to it. These came first from a couple of scruffy pubescents who athletically scaled the spiky railings to see if she really was who they thought she was, and then from a slightly lunched-looking gardener who reckoned it was us that had done the climbing.

Kate dealt with both in untypically peremptory fashion, even though in retrospect the distractions added a little light to the generally serious, if nonetheless enjoyable, shade of the proceedings.

Light and dark, good and bad. Both types of emotions flow out of Kate Bush and into her songs. Visually, it's all there on the sleeve of Never For Ever. Nick Price's Hieronymus Bosch-style cover shows a confused mass of bats and swans. The latter symbolise good, and on their backs ride the bad--all of them billowing out of Kate's dress, which is handsomely decorated with the clouds of her imagination.

The good emotions have produced songs like All We Ever Look For and Blow Away-- the one about liveing for music and being naively optimistic about death. The idea is that when she (or the musician she is purportedly singing about) dies, he will go and join all the other musicians in the sky. Hence, references to Keith Moon, Sid, Buddy Holly and even Minnie Riperton, who died around the time the song was being conceived.

It was based on an article she read in the Observer about people who had temporarily "died" through cardiac arrests. Apparently several members of the public interviewed about this experience reckoned they felt their spirits leave their bodies and go through a door, where they were re-acquainted with dead friends and relatives. When their hearts were resuscitated, it was almost with reluctance that they stepped back out of the room and returned to their bodies.

"So there's comfort for the guy in my band," Kate explains, "as when he dies, he'll go 'Hi, Jimi!' It's very tongue-in-cheek, but it's a great thought that if a musician dies, his soul will join all the other musicians' and a poet will join all the Dylan Thomases and all that."

Hmmmm. The darker side of her emotions shows the lady as down-to-earth as her surname befits. In fact, it's more than realistic: it's downright sinister. Hence The Wedding List and its obsession with revenge.

What happens here is that at the point two people are about to be married, the bridegroom gets shot. Who by is irrelevant, but the bride's need for vengeance is so powerful that all she thinks about is getting even with the villain. Since his death is the best wedding gift she could have, he goes right to the top of the (wedding) list.

"Revenge is a terrible power, and the idea is to show that it's so strong that even at such a tragic time it's all she can think about. I find the whole aggression of human beings fascinating--how we are suddenly whipped up to such an extent that we can't see anything except that. Did you see the film Deathwish, and the way the audience reacted evey time a mugger got shot? Terrible--though I cheered, myself."

Another film Kate saw recently was the highly publicised Elephant Man, which, though directed by loony humourist Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, and History of the World Part I), is ultimately a tragic movie. [Both Nicholls and Kate were mistaken on this point. The film was directed by David Lynch (Eraserhead, Dune, Blue Velvet). Mel Brooks merely produced Elephant Man, mainly because he was able to cast his wife, Anne Bancroft,in a leading role. Given Kate' increasing involvement in the craft and business of film direction since the time of this interview, however, it's unlikely that she still retains this misconception.] Ever ready to seek out the introspective angle, she philosophises as follows:

"I thought, 'How weird for a comedian to do such a serious film,' but if you think of the syndrome of the comedian who is hilarious onstage but really manic-depressive at home, it figures."

Of the few artists in her field whom she has met [Few?], she cites Peter Gabriel as one who is able to separate his public and private personas.

"Offstage he's very normal, and that's the kind of thing I believe in." Kate helped out with the backing vocals on his excellent recent album, and describes the experience of walking into someone else's work as "lovely--especially after the pressure of going out under your own name.

"I was thrilled to do it, and it's not often that I meet people in the same position that I can relate to. It' not like relating to people at EMI, as they're on a completely different side of the fence."

Does she not meet many artists at these notorious record-biz ligs?

"Well, I don't go to parties very often. Only if I'm invited (shame!) or I've got time, or there's someone there I want to meet. Often I don't like the hype of the situation and that worries me a lot--because there are things I do which I feel are hyped, but because there is a good motivation in there, I think you should do them. But it's a drag that there always has to be a forced situation."

Meeting Gabriel came about via different circumstances, but he's obviously had a profound effect upon Kate, and on the album sleeve he is thanked for "opening the windows". At the end of the interview, she offered (honest!) to sign my copy of Never For Ever, and included in the lengthy inscription 'Thank you for making me think.'"

I don't know about that--it seemed very much a case of vice-versa, and she does seem to do quite enough thinking already. As she pointed out herself, "I'm learning things all the time, and the more I learn, the more I see there is to learn, and that's so fascinating."

The more open the road, the broader the horizon, and each time I meet Kate Bush, the more there seems to be found out about her. There's more to the picture than meets the eye; and, particularly in her case, that's...fascinating?”.

I am going to round off in a second. However, Never for Ever was this shift. In terms of the sound and production. Andrew Powell, who produced her first two albums, was out. Bush co-produced with Jon Kelly. The newly-acquired Fairlight CMI was used in some parts of the album and would open windows and doors going forward. Used more widely on 1982’s The Dreaming. Bush creating this new sound and direction for her third studio album. No surprise that all of this resulted in her first number one album. Bush set a third record when Never for Ever was released. She was the first woman in Pop history to have an entirely self-penned song reach number one in the U.K. charts (Wuthering Heights, 1978); the first woman to write a million-selling debut album (The Kick Inside, 1978) and the first woman to have an album debut at number one in the U.K. (Never for Ever). Even though I think Never for Ever remains underrated and not considered as highly as it deserves, there is no doubt that it is held in high affection by many. I will end with a couple of reviews. In 2018, Drowned in Sound recognised the songwriting brilliance throughout Never for Ever:

“You listen to all of these records in sequence and good as The Kick Inside is, it’s just very apparent that the songwriting has gone up a gear with Never Forever. Strident, diverse, and intense Never Forever is the last Bush album with batshit mental prog art, the last album with an outside producer (though she co-produced with Jon Kelly), and the last record before she started using her beloved Fairlight synthesiser/sampler. It was also her third album in three years, that preempted the first meaningful gap in her career - you could point at the ways in which it predicts The Dreaming and call it a transitional album, but the truth is Never for Ever feels like the [apotheosis] of Leotard-era Kate Bush. The songs are just dazzlingly strong and distinctive. There are singles: ‘Babooska’ is a lot of fun, and the closing one-two of the eerie ‘Army Dreamers’ and the apocalyptic ‘Breathing’ is remarkable. But there’s a hell of a lot of little-remembered gold amongst the album tracks: the breakneck ‘Violin’ and tongue-in-cheek murder ballad ‘The Wedding List’ are really extraordinarily good pieces of songwriting. (8)”.

Based greatly on the success of Never for Ever, Kate Bush was voted Best Female Artist of 1980 in polls taken in Melody Maker, Sounds and the Sunday Telegraph. In 2020, Rolling Stone included Never for Ever in their 80 Greatest Albums of 1980 list. I will end by sourcing part of a feature from 2022 by PROG, who wrote how Kate Bush changed her career forever with the magical Never for Ever:

“Like her public persona at this time, Never For Ever is an album that still has one foot in ‘old showbiz’ (EMI protégé, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop guest, a target for prime-time TV parodies); yet the other displaying her development (working with established artists such as Roy Harper and Peter Gabriel, and the album’s unsettling subject matter). Commercially, her previous long-player, Lionheart, hadn’t been a roaring success, and its singles had not set the charts ablaze. It was time to change course.

Never For Ever was an album of firsts for Kate Bush: her first co-production; her first release after renegotiating her EMI deal; her first time recording at Abbey Road, and her first use of the (then brand new to the country) sampling synthesiser Fairlight CMI, which was so to shape her material for the next decade.

Bush’s new-found confidence and step away from the machine (something she was soon to perfect) was to inform Never For Ever – an album influenced by death, technology, relationships and a 21-year-old simply bursting with ideas. “There are 10 tracks, and if there is a main theme, it’s about human communication and its difficulties,” Bush wrote in September 1980, a few months after her 22nd birthday. Although largely stylistically different, Never For Ever fitted into the pattern of the day for art rock experimentation crossing borders and genres. It is blessed with the same spirit as Robert Fripp’s Exposure, David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), Fear Of Music by Talking Heads, and Peter Gabriel’s third album. Never For Ever may not be the masterpiece that 1985’s Hounds Of Love is frequently cited as being, but, for many, it remains their favourite Kate Bush album, and one that unquestionably paved the way for future triumphs.

Never For Ever was Kate Bush’s first studio recording after her groundbreaking The Tour Of Life in spring 1979, which had turned the notion of a live concert on its head. Fully choreographed by Anthony Van Laast, the sold-out 28-date tour was a visualisation of her first two albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart. Much was made of it costing between £200,000 and £250,000 and employing 40 people – it was just at the very cusp of the touring industry being taken seriously. There was a BBC TV Nationwide special on the tour to coincide with the opening night at Liverpool Empire. Reporter Bernard Clark asked Bush, “Do you have a problem now: what next – how are you going to follow the success?” There seemed to be a feeling that, after only a year in the spotlight, Bush had achieved her goals. “You’re now just over 21 and you’ve made it,” Clark probes. “What is there left to do now?” Bush offered her gracious smile and replied: “Everything. I haven’t really begun yet.” How right she was”.

Released on 8th September, 1980, Never for Ever was such a pivotal moment for Kate Bush. Able to produce for the first time and given much freedom, you can feel her bringing new technology into her albums. That slight move from the piano sound of her first two albums. A sonic shift and songs that felt different and had a new shape. More political in places, but just Bush taking a step away from what she had done before. A number one album that set a record and gave her new confidence and fans, I do hope that there are other features published about this album on its anniversary. A remarkable moment in music history that people need to talk about more, go and spend some time with this…

STAGGERING gem of an album.

FEATURE: The Stonehenge Equation: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and the Issues with Following a Classic

FEATURE:

 

 

The Stonehenge Equation

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues and the Issues with Following a Classic

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THIS feature will be split…

IN THIS PHOTO: (L-R): Michael McKean (David St. Hubbins), Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls) and Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel) with (bottom right) Rob Reiner (‘Marty’ Di Bergi) in Spinal Tap II: The End Continues/PHOTO CREDIT: Kyle Kaplan

into a couple of different parts. I want to spend some time with the forthcoming sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. Released (in the U.K.) on 12th September, this film follows from the 1984, This Is Spinal Tap. That film is considered to be among the funniest of all time. Perhaps the funniest film ever. It is always risk follow up a classic. Think about other comedy films like Airplane! and its sequels. I also think that greatness should be left. Even if the first Spinal Tap was a success and is seen as a comedy work of genius, it seems like the sequel is going to fall very short of that standard. I am basing that on the trailer. However, with one sort of okay joke in there, I do worry about the film and how it will be received. Maybe the trailer does not do it justice. However, the story tells of David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnell, and Derek Smalls (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer) forced to reunite for one final concert. It is a tempting plot to explore. You can understand why the film has happened. With many real-life bands reuniting after years for various reasons – money, nostalgia or celebrating anniversaries – it does feel natural a film like this has come about. However, the Rob Reiner-directed film has this expectation already attached. The trailer left me somewhat cold. I was not expecting it to be as great as the first Spinal Tap film. There are some cameos in there (including Paul McCartney) and there will be some great new songs. I do think that the film will be subject to mixed reviews. I sort of wish they had left This Is Spinal Tap alone. The first film is a classic because it seemed fresh and real. Not many mocumentaries at that time. Its charm and brilliance down to the improvisation and how you felt like you were watching a real band falling apart.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is not a case of rehashing the first film and trying to modernise it. The arc and reason behind the film is logical. How this band who split are back together for a final gig. That is relevant and relatable. However, I think a lot of the comedy that worked well in the 1980s might not now. That the appeal will translate now. I want to be wrong about Spinal Tap II: The End Continues but I have a suspicion that it might fall a bit flat. As much as anything, I have such love for comedy classics. How incredible they are and how they made me feel. Sequels rarely match the originals. There will be more teasers and bits of the film released. So we get a clearer picture. I do like how we have Rob Reiner directing and the band are together. That there have been no changes or compromises there. So the pedigree is there! If Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is a success, might we see sequels of decades-old comedies coming about? Will that necessarily be a bad thing? At such a horrific time where we need laughter, relief and also some familiarity, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues does seem to hit the spot. I hope it will! Like the famous Stonehenge scene in the 1984 film – Nigel Tufnel suggests staging a Druid-themed show and asks the band’s manager, Ian Faith, to order a Stonehenge trilithon. However, Tufnel mislabels its dimensions, and the resulting prop is only 18 inches (46 cm) high rather than 18 feet (5.5 m) –, something that should be epic and grand is rather underwhelming and misjudged. The talent on display, including the new members of the cast, is undeniable. However, I wonder what the reason for the film is, beyond getting together these beloved characters. I hope the wait is worth it. I get a feeling Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is going to be meagre compared to its predecessor. It brings back the question as to whether it is too much of a risk trying to follow up a classic. A masterpiece comedy. At a moment when comedy films seem like a rarity and the ones we do have are pretty hit and miss, I feel there is a demand and niche when it comes to music-based comedies. However, something new and not a sequel. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues might please some of the critics and fans of the original, and yet I feel it is going to be a vastly inferior follow-up to a film released…

FOUR decades ago.

FEATURE: The Art of Nostalgia: Robbie Williams’s BRITPOP and Redressing Professional Loss

FEATURE:

 

 

The Art of Nostalgia

Robbie Williams’s BRITPOP and Redressing Professional Loss

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MAYBE it should be its own type of art…

IN THIS PHOTO: Robbie Williams at Murrayfield, Edinburgh, earlier this year/PHOTO CREDIT: Alan Rennie/Shutterstock

but, when it comes to a genre that seemed to help define music in the 1990s, could there be an exhibition of Britpop figures? The reason I mention this is because Robbie Williams releases his thirteenth solo studio album, BRITPOP, on 10th October. The title refers to the genre/style of music that was around in the 1990s. A term applies to British artists who produced this music that was largely celebratory and anthemic. Not necessarily talking about the pride of being British. It was more a sound of Pop that was positive and uplifting. Think of bands like Oasis, Blur, Elastica and Cast. Some band resent being labelled as ‘Britpop’. I am not sure whether Pulp would every be comfortable being defined as a Britpop band. Regardless, there is this rose-tinted glasses view of that time. Sure, a lot of the music was great, though culture and society was not necessarily that great in many ways. Perhaps we overrate and overhype Britpop. That said, it has not really dated because, at times like this, we do need that blast of nostalgia and happiness. We can never go back to the 1990s and the Britpop era. Maybe we shouldn’t. However, I can understand why an artist like Robbie Williams would want to focus on that time and style of music. One he sort of missed out on. Apart from him showing up at Glastonbury in 1995 in a red tracksuit and being on stage, there was not a lot of professional growth. He would release his debut solo album, Life Thru a Lens, in 1997. It strayed away from Britpop and was different to the music of Take That. Williams left the band in 1995. It was quite a traumatic year. The recent biopic, Better Man, documents Williams’s time in Take That, the fallout and the move to his solo career. It is very honest when it comes to Williams’s struggles in the band and the strained relationships. The fame and excess. Williams turning to drink and drugs and ultimately having to leave Take That because he could not continue. At a time in British music that was all about pomp and celebration, things were a lot darker for Robbie Williams.

There will be interviews nearer October. Robbie Williams discussing BRITPOP and his memories of 1995. This is not Williams necessarily trying to live in the past. Instead, he wants to embrace a genre/scene that happened around him. In a period where he was wrestling with addiction and personal issues, there was this explosion happening. I am looking forward to the album. There is one track, Morrissey, that raised eyebrows. I know Morrissey is important to Williams, though it feels uncomfortable celebrating or spotlighting someone who is so controversial and has been accused of racism so many times. A musician who perhaps should not be lauded. Though I am not sure what Robbie Williams’s song will contain in terms of its angle and approach. Regardless, it is admirable that Williams wants to redress some professional loss. Go back a time when he should have been riding a musical high. Instead, he was witnessing British music bloom and conquer but he was not part of it. If he remained with Take That throughout 1995 and beyond then I wonder what his life would have been like. If he had gone solo that year, would he have released a Britpop-sounding album? Williams recently shared his British Pop playlist. He clearly loves that time. It is going to be fascinating seeing what we will get from BRITPOP in October. However, whilst his new album might lioness and spotlight this time of British music, will he be able to capture some its sound? Is Britpop something we can and should recapture in 2025? Is that term problematic or meaningless?

In sonic and musical terms, there was a lot of good created. I wonder whether that term comes with baggage and issues. Britpop has been criticised due to its nostalgia, insularity, and a lack of diversity. While it was a commercially successful and culturally impactful movement, its narrow focus on certain aspects of Britishness and its exclusion of other voices and styles have led to criticism. I am all in favour of joyfulness and this sense of uplift. So long as we do not ignore and paste over the horrors of today and ignore addressing that, we do need music that is take the best elements of Britpop – its sound and some of the attitudes from artists of that time – but moves forward. More inclusivity and range. A new-style Britpop that is more gender and racially balanced. The sound broader and more modern. I do feel that living too much in the past is a bad thing. Aside from the face BRITPOP’s album cover is brilliant and is very clever and raises conversation, is Williams able to produce something that is personal and memorable without relying on copying other artists or replicating the Britpop sounds? I can understand why he wants to address that time. He missed out on so much of that period and was not in a band or solo through its glory years. His debut album was almost a deliberate attempt to be less Britpop and more ‘serious’. Williams wanting to leave his mark as a more original artist that was not chasing trends and tying to be like a lot of the artists who were ruling Britpop. I do reckon he will deliver a great album, but one that maybe does not quite capture Britpop’s benefits and sprinkles in something distinct and unique – perhaps too much of the throwback? However, from reviews of his recent live shows, this incredible entertainer is at the top of his game.

It is especially tempting today to escape into Britpop and a revisit and revise the sound. A lot of modern artists incorporate elements and shades of a glorious time. One that had its problems and drawbacks, though there was also this sense of hope and pride. However, there was a lot of exclusion and issues. Articles like this and this that discuss the downsides of the movement. Maybe attitudes have softened and shifted since these articles were published. Albums from that time celebrating big anniversaries. Bands like Oasis and Pulp reforming. Supergrass taking their 1995 debut album, I Should Coco, on tour. However, I think that we can’t get too bogged down in nostalgia. Britpop had its place and saw some world-class and decade-defining albums come out. However, now, it seems like a sign of the past. Something we cannot return to or revive. A moment that we tend to over-romanticise and forget the problems. Is it possible even to produce Britpop-influenced music without it sounding inferior or outdated? Do the youngest generations – who were either not born or very young in the 1990s – going to appreciate it? Will BRITPOP appeal to Robbie Williams loyal fanbase and also bring in new listeners? The singles released so far sound like a blend of Britpop’s swell and grandeur but something that distinctly sounds like Robbie Williams. One of the reasons for writing this feature was to look at the issues and positives of nostalgia. Britpop has been so in focus this year. There does need to be a new book or documentary perhaps that looks at the highs and lows. For Robbie Williams, BRITPOP is a chance to go back to the 1990s and release music that he wished he had done. Music he is a fan of. Not overlook his personal and professional struggles. He wants to make something celebratory and fun. I do wonder whether there will be more pastiche than the personal. Whether he can strike a balance and release an album that is nostalgic but also has enough original thought so that it is his work and not a pale nod to the past. Getting that balance right is…

AN artform in itself.

FEATURE: Two Faced: Linkin Park, Nu Metal and Shifting Perspectives

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Two Faced

IN THIS PHOTO: Linkin Park

Linkin Park, Nu Metal and Shifting Perspectives

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I am glad that…

PHOTO CREDIT: Warner Records

various music scenes and genres have changed in terms of gender disparity of misogyny. Music definitely has an issue with this still. Even though there are incredible women like Doechii in Hip-Hop, this is still a side of the music spectrum that has a sexism issue. One where women are still not as embraced as respected as they should. Rock, Metal and its sub-genres, too. I do feel that it is a real concern. Whether it is a general thing or not. The idea of women leasing loud bands. Playing guitar or being in a role seen as ‘a man’s place’. I grew up in the 1990s and there was a lot of misogyny and sexism in the music industry. A lot of exploitation of women. It continued into the 2000s. Many of the Rock and Nu Metal bands of the time were men. You did not see many women leading bands in that scene. Now, things have shifted. Nu Metal might seem very niche, though this applies to Rock, Alternative and Metal. Great solo artists like Rina Sawayama and Poppy adopting and adapting its fury. Have a lot of the attitudes from the '00s held on? It takes me to a recent interview with Linkin Park from The Guardian. The U.S. Rock/Nu Metal band were previously led by the late Chester Bennington (who died in 2017). They are not fronted by Emily Armstrong. Though a lot of the new and old faithful Linkin Park fans have embraced Armstrong, there are still factions who are unsure of the new line-up – simply because Emily Armstrong is a woman:

“Shinoda takes a different tack to public criticism, but ends up in the same place. After the Wembley show, he posted a picture of himself in a T-shirt emblazoned with the opening lines of a snide news story about the band’s decision to downsize the venue of their LA show. “There are times when I’m not above being a little petty,” he grins. The T-shirt was “not meant to be mean at all”, he clarifies, and the music outlet in question “are not the only ones who’ve said it. Lots of people have said this band is fumbling: ‘Look how stupid they are, look how bad they’re doing.’ Well, according to the data, we’re not, but you can believe whatever you want to believe.”

When it came to Armstrong, Shinoda felt people’s complaints were also disingenuous. “There were people who lashed out at Emily and it was really because she wasn’t a guy.” Fans, he thinks, were “used to Linkin Park being six guys and the voice of a guy leading this song. They were just so uncomfortable with what it was that they chose a ton of things to complain about. They’re pointing in 10 different directions saying: ‘This is why I’m mad, this is why the band sucks.’”

In the months since Linkin Park 2.0 launched, the reaction from fans has softened and Armstrong has been widely embraced. But devotees are still clearly looking for traces of Bennington in the band’s work. Many interpreted Let You Fade, a bonus track on From Zero’s deluxe edition, as a tribute to the singer, but “it wasn’t written that way,” says Shinoda. “People even pulled out the fact that there’s numbers in the song [that align with] Chester’s birthday. I was like: whoops. That’s not intentional.”

At any rate, From Zero does hark back to the band’s original sound: rock-rap fusion vocals, hip-hop record-scratching, highly accessible melodies and enough gristle (grinding guitar and screaming; anxious and indignant lyrics) to both intensify and offset them. Serendipitously, nu-metal is back in a big way, “thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst”, as per the New York Times, with bands such as Deftones enjoying a massive resurgence and acts including Fontaines DC, 100 gecs and Rina Sawayama incorporating the genre into their work”.

With peers including Korn, Slipknot and System of a Down, the nu-metal cohort was novel and outrageous enough to precipitate a mild moral panic – yet sexist lyrics in the work of groups like Limp Bizkit really were a problem. Linkin Park always seemed less aggressive and intimidating than their peers, and Shinoda always disliked the macho aspect. “Chester connected with it a little more than the rest of us did, but not by much.” His band, he feels, featured “more lyrics that were introspective. It wasn’t like: ‘Hey, I’m gonna kick your ass.’ It was like: ‘Somebody kicked my ass and I’m so frustrated.’ In high school, I wasn’t kicking anybody’s ass. That was not happening.”

Nowadays, nu-metal’s aesthetic has been freed from its more unsavoury elements by a streaming generation who simply don’t remember it; it’s just another fun retro style to rehabilitate. Even Shinoda is less disgusted. “Genres are so blended and music is so all over the place, I don’t hate nu-metal any more”.

There is a lot to reflect on., I am pleased that a band like Linkin Park don’t have to be part of a boys club. Nu Metal – if that is the genre Linkin Park are part of – has always been associated with men and male rage. The band would not like to be defined by genre or labelled. In any case, for the sake of this point, we are seeing slow changes. What was once dominated by men and where sexism reigned is starting to evolve. Incredible bands of the moment comprised of women or led by them. We should be in a time where gender is not discussed because there is equality and respect. That it is second nature for genres to be equal and barrier-less. However, we are still not there. That reservation from some Linkin Park fans to accept a female lead. I know there were other reasons some objected to Emily Armstrong – due to her links to Scientology and her attending a a hearing in support of Danny Masterson, an actor and Scientologist who was eventually convicted of rape. Armstrong has severed ties with him and looks back at that decision with regret -, a lot of it comes down to age-old misogyny and this rigid view of what certain types of music should be defined by. Who is on the microphone. Even bands like HAIM get criticism and sexism because they play their own instruments and are accused or faking it.

IN THIS PHOTO: SPRINTS/PHOTO CREDIT: David Willis

Bands like SPRINTS – led by Karla Chubb, as part of the Irish band, she has been subjected to sexism and abuse - have to face misogyny and hatred. Nodding back to that article from The Guardian that I mentioned. Concerning women coming through and adding their own energy and rage to genres like Nu Metal. These closing words stood out:

“But back in the nu-metal heyday of the late 90s and early 00s, it was rarely a woman expelling her rage into the mic. Although many women were fans, onstage you would be hard-pressed to name more than a handful of performers beyond Evanescence and Kittie, while the moshpit, manned as it was by a ratking of pummelling arms and flying wallet chains, was not a place where many women felt comfortable. “It was definitely a masculine genre,” says Sawayama. “Metal itself lends itself to toxic masculine tropes, but it’s also almost taking the piss out of a very masculine expression of emotion.” Using this to exorcise her own anger felt right. “There’s a lot to be angry about in this world; for me, raging against microaggressions and satirising them worked with the whole genre.”

Taking a traditionally masculine style and twisting it into something current feels very now, and while reclaiming nu-metal may be a small one, it’s still a step towards unpicking music’s boys club. Let’s just hope it doesn’t pave the way for ska-punk to make a comeback”.

I wanted to use that interview with Linkin Park as a jumping off point. Their new album, From Zero, is brilliant. Rather than betraying their roots of disrespecting the memory of Chester Bennington, it is a rebirth and restart. A band who have kept their old fans and are recruiting new ones. A lot of support for them. However, there is still this sorting whiff of sexism that applies to so many other bands similar to them with women in the mix. This mentality and mindset that women still the potency and authenticity of that music. There is a line in Linkin Park’s best-known song, In the End, that seems to apply to genres like Nu Metal and a change in practice. Women, if not fully accepted, definitely adding something incredible to the genre: “Things aren't the way they were before”. Having lived through the '00s and a lot of the discrimination and sexism that pervaded, that is not a time that…

WE want to return to.

FEATURE: Going Into the City: Lost for Words: In Recognition of the Brilliant Robert Christgau

FEATURE:

 

 

Going Into the City: Lost for Words

PHOTO CREDIT: Jane Bruce

In Recognition of the Brilliant Robert Christgau

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THIS is not tied…

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ip/Redux (via The New Yorker)

to any piece of news or a big birthday. Instead, I want to spend some time with Robert Christgau because he considered to be the most prolific music journalist ever. I myself have published thousands of features. I think around five-thousand. Millions of words. I am not sure of the exact amount. Robert Christgau has published many thousands more reviews and articles than me. Known for his incredible capsule album reviews and music criticism, he is one of the most important and prominent music journalists ever. He is eighty-three now and I hope he keeps writing for many more years. He was born in April 1942 and he began his career in the late-1960s. Christgau is notable for his early support of Hip-Hop, Riot Grrrl, and African popular music. He was the the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice for thirty-seven years. We don’t really spend some time considering the huge importance of music journalists. I often feel you can make a film around Robert Christgau. If not him at the centre then someone playing him. Focusing on him in a film maybe set in the 1970s. Following the music of the time and putting a story around him. I do think that musicians are undervalued and underpaid. Music journalists undervalued and under-respected. Many cannot afford to work independently and there are so few opportunities for people to work professionally. It is to be respected that someone like Robert Christgau is about and still producing excellent work. I would love to work for as long as him. Even though I can never catch him in terms of his output and prolificacy, he is someone I aspire to. A critics that should be portrayed on the screen. Robert Christgau has written several books. I will come to a couple of them soon.

I want to start off with an article from Medium. They spent an hour with Robert Christgau in 2018. Someone who has been writing for over five decades and had reviewed, at that point, more than fifteen-thousand albums, he says how it is too late to stop now. It is impossible to give up that lifestyle. If you write non-stop and are committed to music journalism, then what is the alternative? It is such a seductive thing! Let’s hope Christgau never feels that need to slow down as he is inspiring so many music journalists:

“He proclaims himself with no shyness “the dean of american rock critics”. And though it sounds arrogant, he rightfully deserves the title. Robert Christgau along with Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, starting in the 60s, and they are considered to be “the holy trinity” of rock ctitics ever since. If Lester Bangs achieved that through gonzo temperament and Greil Marcus with an exemplary analytical and detailed writing, Robert Christgau distinguished himself from the rest for his critic libels, his flash album reviews (usually between 20–150 words) that became his trademark. Using a language that combines academic with slang, loads of humor and without going easy with anyone, he also created his own rating system: a scale from A-E with +/-, honorable mentions with stars (*, **, ***) but also…duds, which mean his wish for a blow-up (and extermination) for the specific album that gets it.

This review “brand” as he calls it, was named Consumer Guide and blossomed from 1969 to 2006 in Village Voice (where he was also an editor). He continued his review “shots” in MSN Music and you now can find him in Noisey and his Expert Witness column, and he has also appeared through the years in magazines like Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone and Creem.

Robert Christgau has written for about 15000 albums in 50 years, with a writing that has preexisted profitable to day, in a time when statuses and tweets “rule the world” –one of his most notorious reviews counts one word: “Melodic.” (for Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water). But he can also be impressive in longform. In his new book, Is It Still Good To Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967–2017 (Duke University Press –some more review collections and his memoir Going Into The City have been published before), that gathers many of his longer essays, with an interesting introduction and prologue.

This new publication was the motive for an hour long “video encounter” between Athens and New York, during which Robert Christgau in a good mood and almost adolescent impetus, talked about his writing process, music journalism in the digital era, declaring that he’ll go on undismayed, as long as the most important thing of his life is by his side: his wife…

On the introduction of your book you say that you love collections.

Yes, I do. I’m actually doing a second one that’s gonna be pieces I wrote about books and it’s gonna come out in six months. I’m not advertising because I’m afraid people are waiting to review it. But I read collections almost every year. Like by great baseball writer, Roger Angell and people older than me.

Do you think that collections work with today’s perception of information?

Precisely. Collections are a way to put information in order and a physical form that is organized and says “You may think you have to work on your fingertips but one fuck up can blow it all out”. People who believe that this thing is gonna go on and on and is never gonna be some sort of a major attack and glitch on it, are crazy. It’s going to be killed some day. Not necessarily killed, but damaged, seriously damaged. And some information is going to disappear, it’s gonna be gone. If it’s on paper, it will still be doing.

So, how do you wish Is It Still Good To Ya? to work for the readers?

The idea with a collection is sort of to begin with a kind of bang. In this case there’s both an introduction and a prologue that has to do with when my father died. There’s a lot of mortality in this book. On the end there are old pieces I wrote on Prince, David Bowie and Leonard Cohen. In the case of Prince and David Bowie their deaths were very surprising. And Leonard Cohen’s was also actually unexpected. I have a t-shirt that says “Trump killed Leonard Cohen”. In any case, I do believe that Trump killed Leonard Cohen. I do believe that Leonard Cohen looked at Trump and said “It’s not worthy any more”. In Cohen’s case, this was a man of pessimistic temperament and my guess is not an all together healthy psychochemistry and couldn’t deal with that dark future.

You also say that collections need all the status they can get. I flip the scheme: do collections give to the content a status they need and can get?

Oh, yes. You know, I got this very good organized website. I don’t believe that website is destined to live on perpetuity. I believe that there’ll still be libraries though, well, paper is not the world’s most prominent mean.

You are a very idiosyncratic writer. Did you find yourself, at any point of your career, to get into the hesitation of style over content?

I always thought that the two things were joined. What I did with my students was that I would tell them to read non fiction writing every week. And I would write in the board in big letters “What are you going to write about?”. Subject is very important. If you’re going to write non-fiction the style means nothing or very little. The content justifies the effort you need to put into the writing itself. Of course there are exceptions to this but I was gonna show these kids technical stuff about writing. But I wanted to show was “Students, this is big deal”. If you wanna write non-fiction you have to be interested in the world. Which they didn’t. Nevertheless and moreover, I would also say that a writer’s style is going to serve the content with a certain flavor to accent certain things about it.

Which gives the writer’s point of view…

Exactly. For example, my version of Bob Dylan is very different from most people’s version of Bob Dylan, even though, we talk about the same great artist. But I’m skeptical about him and not an impassionate fan. Most people write about Dylan, for instance, my friend Greil Marcus, my acquaintance Jonathan Lethem, these are people who hang on his every word. My writing is built into a kind of hitting around, joking, snorky irony that sometimes inflect my choices of language. So, my Dylan is not anybody else’s Dylan. And with an artist as complicated as Dylan that’s not weird. This is not a man who sets himself out to be known, he sets himself out to be unknown. And then millions of his followers try to get him anyway. They simply don’t respect what it is that he does.

About the digital era of journalism, nowadays everything tends to be quicker, the texts are smaller and music comes easily in any platform you can listen to it. Except for the initiate readers that will read music journalism anyway, what do you think is really the position and functionality of music criticism today?

I think it’s sadly and tragically dismissed. And that’s partly a function of the technology itself. There’s a lot of studies that indicate that people retain staff they read on paper better than what they read on the screen. There’s a word I made up for what happens with digital journalism, “externality”. I believe that writing on music is experienced inside your head, is not a physically present in the world, it has a different kind of authority and prominence and you absorb it differently. The second thing is the economic. Nobody is getting paid. The internet has greatly reduced the cash that is valued on both recorded music and the written word. One of the thing this means is that the typical music journalist has to produce two or three snippets of info a day. To write them, maybe read it once and publish them”.

Going Into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man was published in 2015. An essential book, you can read more about it here. I am not sure whether I have missed a T.V. or film project that has featured Robert Christgau in some form. However, thinking about his decade-old book, it is time to adapt it in some form. This is what Waterstones said about a tremendous and engrossing read:

“One of our great essayists and journalists-the Dean of American Rock Critics, Robert Christgau-takes us on a heady tour through his life and times in this vividly atmospheric and visceral memoir that is both a love letter to a New York long past and a tribute to the transformative power of art. Lifelong New Yorker Robert Christgau has been writing about pop culture since he was twelve and getting paid for it since he was twenty-two, covering rock for Esquire in its heyday and personifying the music beat at the Village Voice for over three decades. Christgau listened to Alan Freed howl about rock 'n' roll before Elvis, settled east of Manhattan's Avenue B forty years before it was cool, witnessed Monterey and Woodstock and Chicago '68, and the first abortion speak-out. He's caught Coltrane in the East Village, Muddy Waters in Chicago, Otis Redding at the Apollo, the Dead in the Haight, Janis Joplin at the Fillmore, the Rolling Stones at the Garden, the Clash in Leeds, Grandmaster Flash in Times Square, and every punk band you can think of at CBGB.

Christgau chronicled many of the key cultural shifts of the last half century and revolutionized the cultural status of the music critic in the process. Going Into the City is a look back at the upbringing that grounded him, the history that transformed him, and the music, books, and films that showed him the way. Like Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City, E. B. White's Here Is New York, Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel, and Patti Smith's Just Kids, it is a loving portrait of a lost New York. It's an homage to the city of Christgau's youth from Queens to the Lower East Side-a city that exists mostly in memory today. And it's a love story about the Greenwich Village girl who roamed this realm of possibility with him”.

Before rounding things off, I am going to come to a Vice piece from 2015. Robert Christgau speaking about Going Into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man and his experiences. A fascinating life. Although I don’t think all of his writing is available online, you can get a real sense of the scope and importance of this journalist:

“No matter the publication, Christgau’s voice is consistent and undeniable; his prose filled with verbose descriptors, far-flung references and the hyperbolic musings of a man who writes to understand himself and the art he consumes. A contemporary of rock critics Greil Marcus, Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Lester Bangs, Christgau is the best and most relevant music writer still writing, largely because he stays so in step with what’s happening in modern music without waxing nostalgic about decades gone. Earlier this year, for example, he devoted an entire column to the Bandcamp releases of former Das Racist member Kool A.D.

Though Christgau’s voice is so distinct that a bit of his personality bleeds into everything he types, Going into the City is Christgau’s first work that deliberately puts his own trajectory in the spotlight. He previously published column compilations and record guides for the 70s, 80s and 90s, but where his prior tomes were hand-crafted by Christgau the critic, Going into the City examines Christgau the man. In close to 400 pages, he discusses his early life and first forays into journalism, his horrid and successful romantic relationships (sprinkled with oddly worded tales of sexual encounters, like, “After some expense-account Chateaubriand she took me home and made me come with skillful rapidity”), and his indelible commitment to documenting the music of his times, which through perseverance and a little luck have managed to stretch from the subversive rock of the late 60s to the pop-rap of the present.

Flaws, delusions, and hangups are abound, but aside from one celeb story of a night spent with John and Yoko, The City is a highly personal peek into the origin story and working life of a living legend who’s still an adept enough writer to explain why he’s a legend. The result is a portrait of a highly opinionated, sometimes-mean, oftentimes-horny, and always-thoughtful critic of our culture.

Noisey: Let’s start with your life as a music fan, and how it informed your career as a rock critic.
Robert Chrisgau: 

I’m not a musician, I can’t read music, but I came from a family of music fans. Not mad music fans, but people who like music. Both of my parents can play the piano. They were very good dancers, which I am not. And my grandfather loved music a lot and he had a big influence on me. One of the most fun-loving people I met in my life. I was just drawn to music. I was drawn to records, early… The first single I ever bought was “Secret Love” by Doris Day and the second was “Sh-boom” by The Crew Cuts. I still love “Secret Love” by Doris Day, “Sh-boom” a little less.

You mention some work in sports and news writing in your first few years out of college. News writing can be very direct and concise. Is that something that later informed your style as a music writer?

I actually think I learned to write concisely working for an encyclopedia company in Chicago. I had to write about [Russian author] Isaac Babel in 11 lines. That’s like 90 words. So I learned how to squeeze a lot into a small space. I don’t remember how long those high school sports features I turned out for the newspaper were. They were about 400 words, I don’t know. But in any case, it didn’t feel like I had to leave a whole lot out to write about these high school guards who I knew for about 15 minutes over the phone. But I learned. I learned how to make [the stories] hookier. It was a skill I had to master. It was because I read journalists who I really loved, like A.J. Liebling and the sportswriter Red Smith, who were great stylists inside the journalistic medium. So I always tried to be a little classy, a little funny… But both of my daily newspaper gigs, at the Star-Ledger for a little over a year and Newsday for two years, they both taught me to be productive and practical about getting stuff done.

I think that’s what comes from a newspaper background—that feeling that a story needs to get done regardless of outside factors or circumstances.

That’s right, but I would like to think my standards are higher than most newspaper writers, even the really good ones. Or not necessarily higher, but different. I make different kinds of demands of myself than they do. One of them is: avoid cliches at any cost. And: if somebody else said this, don’t say it again. Say it a little different.

One of the things you’re best known for is your capsule record reviews.

It’s my legacy. I used to think I’d written 14,000, but I did some figuring it out. I’m at around 13,400. 14,000 including duds and stuff, but I don’t think that counts. I’ve gone through over 16,000 records and I’ve written capsule reviews of at least Honorable Mention length of 13,400.

Tell me about the process of how you approach a record you’re reviewing. How do you listen to it? How many times? Do you take notes as you sit with it?

I completely immerse and I play things over and over again. Things happen to you somatically when music goes through your head, and then one day you say, “Oh, I know that!” If I play something three, four, or five times, even if I like its looks, and I don’t have that moment where I say, “Oh, I know that!”, then I figure there’s something wrong with it. Unless a lot of people tell me I’m wrong, and then I try some more. Then there are things that sound so drab and no one else writes about that I can’t even get through it once. That happens a fair amount. But I don’t write a full capsule review of anything I haven’t heard five times. It’s usually closer to ten”.

When do you think you’ll stop writing about music?

Probably never. But I may not write at the same pitch. And I may not necessarily do these Consumer Guide-style reviews forever. But on the other hand, I don’t intend to stop writing, while I can still write. But I may not write as much. I wouldn’t mind working less. [Laughs] I really wouldn’t”.

2019’s Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading “establishes Christgau as not just the Dean of American Rock Critics, but one of America's most insightful cultural critics as well”. Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism 1967-2017 is another book to get. This “definitive collection also explores pop's African roots, response to 9/11, and evolution from the teen music of the '50s to an art form compelled to confront mortality as its heroes pass on. A final section combines searching obituaries of David Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen with awed farewells to Bob Marley and Ornette Coleman”. I am excited to see what comes next for Robert Christgau. You can check out his work here. Still writing reviews and articles, I think we will see more books and essays from him. Someone determined to keep writing for as long as possible, Christgau is surely among the most influential music journalists ever. Definitely one of the most prolific. I don’t think anyone will catch him. Seeing this great brought to the screen would be a dream. Hopefully that will be realised…

ONE day soon.