FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: What’s My Age Again? blink-182’s Tom DeLonge at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Anna Lee Media

What’s My Age Again? blink-182’s Tom DeLonge at Fifty

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I wanted to mark…

the fiftieth birthday of Tom DeLonge. The guitarist and vocalist of Blink-182 celebrates his birthday on 13th December. The band released their ninth studio album, One More Time..., in 2023. There was a period when DeLonge was not in the band. Departing in 2015, he was prompted to return after bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2021. After a meeting between DeLonge and his former bandmates, the trio overcame lingering disputes, which later led to DeLonge's return. It is great that he is back in the fold. I am going to celebrate his fiftieth birthday by combining some of the best blink-182 songs. Before getting there, I am coming to some biography from AllMusic:

“As the singer/songwriter fronting blink-182, Tom DeLonge was one of the biggest punk rock stars at the turn of the millennium. He parlayed that success into the spacier project Angels & Airwaves, a group heavily indebted to the college rock of U2 and the Cure, which DeLonge formed while blink was on hiatus in the back half of the 2000s. For a while, he kept both a reunited blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves afloat, but after the blink reunion collapsed in 2015, he launched a solo career with the clearinghouse demo To the Stars.

To the Stars appeared two decades after blink-182's 1995 debut Cheshire Cat, but that wasn't the start of DeLonge's musical career. A native of the San Diego suburb Poway, the teenage DeLonge loved skateboarding and punk, learning how to play guitar in his early teens. In his late teens, he formed a group with drummer Scott Raynor and bassist Mark Hoppus, flying through a variety of names before landing on blink-182. They cut a demo called Flyswatter in 1993 and another called Buddha in 1994, signing with Cargo Records later that year. Cheshire Cat, their official debut, arrived in 1995, supported by heavy touring, all of which helped the group take the leap to the major-label MCA in 1996. Dude Ranch, their major debut, came out in 1997 and the single "Dammit," along with the group's slot on the inaugural Warped Tour, helped raise the their profile. Raynor left the band in 1998, replaced by former Aquabats drummer Travis Barker. This new lineup recorded 1999's Enema of the State, the album that turned blink-182 into crossover stars thanks to the hits "All the Small Things" and "What's My Age Again?" Over the next few years, blink-182 was the reigning pop-punk band, with their 2001 album, Take Off Your Pants & Jacket, sustaining the group's momentum.

Despite this success, tensions started to surface in the band when DeLonge cut the 2002 side project Box Car Racer with Barker but not Hoppus. A full-band effort, the eponymous blink-182 came out in 2003, and its darker, artier sound didn't satisfy some of the band's fans. Then came further fractures in the band's relations, highlighted by Travis Barker's decision to film a reality show for MTV called Keeping Up with the Barkers and DeLonge's desire to slow down their schedule so he could spend time with his family. All this led to blink's breakup in 2005.

DeLonge resurfaced in 2006 with a new band called Angels & Airwaves, an ambitious outfit inspired by '80s college rock icons the Cure and U2. A&A released their debut, We Don't Need to Whisper, in 2006, quickly followed by I-Empire in 2007. The next year, DeLonge decided to reunite blink-182 in the wake of Barker surviving a plane crash. A full tour followed in 2009 but the reunion album, Neighborhoods, didn't surface until 2011; during this down time, DeLonge recorded the ambitious, multi-part A&A project, Love Album, Pts. 1 & 2. Neighborhoods performed respectably but softly, leading the band to part from their major label -- now Interscope, after several corporate consolidations -- in October 2012. An indie EP called Dogs Eating Dogs showed up at the end of 2012, then DeLonge turned his attention back to Angels & Airwaves, recording the 2014 album The Dream Walker. Next up was another blink-182 album, but the band fell apart again in early 2015. DeLonge rallied by releasing his first solo album, To the Stars -- a collection split between blink demos and ideas for A&A -- that April”.

Sharing the lead vocals with Mark Hoppus, I am including blink-182 songs that feature either his incredible guitar or vocal work. Maybe you have not heard of the band or are a minor fan. I feel it is important to mark his fiftieth birthday on 13th December. Below is a mixtape of wonderful tracks from the district and…

SIMPLY brilliant blink-182.

FEATURE: She Loves You: Why We Need to Give Proper Respect and Credit to the Women Who Defined and Shaped The Beatles’ Lives

FEATURE:

 

 

She Loves You

IN THIS PHOTO: Anna Sawai will portray Yoko Ono in the 2028-due Beatles films from director Sam Mendes/PHOTO CREDIT: Andie Jane for Vanity Fair

Why We Need to Give Proper Respect and Credit to the Women Who Defined and Shaped The Beatles’ Lives

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IT is exciting learning…

IN THIS PHOTO: Saoirse Ronan will play the exceptional Linda Eastman in Sam Mendes’s Beatles films/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage/Getty Images

about some important casting for Sam Mendes’s new Beatles films coming in 2028. We know who will play each of the Beatles, but we also know who has been cast as some hugely significant women in the band’s life. What has troubled me is how articles refer to them as ‘Beatles wives’ or reducing them to supporting cast. Not important as the band members. Almost like afterthoughts. Whilst many might think of Yoko Ono, Patti Boyd, Maureen Cox and Linda Eastman as the wives/partners of John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, they are so much more than inspiration, muses or lovers. Not only did the band write timeless songs about them. They are as important regarding their career and success as female fans. The screaming and impassioned girls who were devoted to the band. I shall come to that later. Even though there were darker times (fans getting too attached and possessive; fans screaming so loud The Beatles couldn’t hear themselves play), they are unsung heroines and crucial people in the legacy and importance of The Beatles. As are the compelling, fascinating, strong and wonderful women who have just been cast. Let’s hope that they get plenty of screentime and they are explored and as big a part of the dialogue as The Beatles’ members:

“Sam Mendes’ ambitious four-part Beatles film has confirmed the casting of four main female roles.

Sony Pictures officially announced that Mia McKenna-Bruce will play Maureen Cox, with Saoirse Ronan as Linda Eastman, Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono and Aimee Lou Wood as Pattie Boyd. All four had been strongly rumoured to have been in line for their parts, but only now has their participation been confirmed.

Each of the four real-life women played significant roles in the Beatles’ story. Cox met drummer Ringo Starr as a 15-year-old trainee hairdresser in 1962, when the band were still regulars at Liverpool’s Cavern club; they married in 1965 but were divorced 10 years later. Eastman was a photographer who met Paul McCartney in 1967; they married in 1969 and she joined his post-Beatles band Wings and performed regularly with him until her death in 1998. Ono, an artist and musician, met John Lennon in 1966; they were married in 1969 after Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia, and they remained together until Lennon’s death in 1980. Boyd, a successful fashion model, met George Harrison in 1964 on the set of the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night; they were married in 1966 and divorced in 1977 after she had become the object of attentions from Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton, who co-wrote the 1970 song Layla about her.

IN THIS PHOTO: Mia McKenna-Bruce has been cast as Maureen Starkey (née Cox) in The Beatles (the working/current title of Sam Mendes’s four films)/PHOTO CREDIT: Iona Wolff

Mendes said in a statement: “Maureen, Linda, Yoko and Pattie are four fascinating and unique figures in their own right – and I’m thrilled that we’ve managed to persuade four of the most talented women working in film today to join this amazing adventure.”

Currently titled The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, Mendes’ project was first announced in 2024 with the aim of making four separate fiction films, one for each member of the band. In April, the band members’ casting was announced – Paul Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Starr and Joseph Quinn as Harrison – and in May reports emerged that award-winning writers Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan and Jack Thorne had been hired to work on the films”.

The casting news is great! Amazing actors will bring to life some incredible women. When we read books about the band and see documentaries  concerning The Beatles, how much of their story is told? In terms of recognising their importance and the role they played in the success of The Beatles. People have reacted to the casting news and asked why we are not going to see Jane Asher (Paul McCartney’s former girlfriend) and Cynthia Lennon (John Lennon’s ex-wife) portrayed. Two incredibly important women, why are they being side-lined? I do hope that Sam Mendes ensures that Mia McKenna-Bruce, Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai and Aimee Lou Wood will be given big roles and they are not merely there to fill parts and have minimal dialogue or interaction. It made me wonder how much time we spend discussing the women behind The Beatles. At a time when their husbands and boyfriends were in the middle of a global media storm and being mobbed by fans, they often had to deal with attacks from the press, jealousy from fans and being overlooked. How lonely and isolating it must have been for these women a lot of the time.

IN THIS PHOTO: Aimee Lou Wood is going to play Patti Boyd in the forthcoming Beatles films/PHOTO CREDIT: Lulu McArdle for ELLE

However, these women had their own careers and lives. Fascinating, intelligent and supportive partners who have never really received their dues. I do worry that they are going to be side players in the films about The Beatles. Of course, people want to see the band and the films are going to be about The Beatles. However, you cannot ignore just how crucial Yoko Ono, Maureen Cox, Linda Eastman and Patti Boyd are. Ono and Boyd are still with us, so I will be interested to see how they react to the films. Patti Boyd said, when Aimee Lou Wood was rumoured to play her, how pleased she was. I am curious about Yoko Ono. In terms of the way she was treated and what she faced, her experiences were possibly the hardest and worse of any of the women! Not to say it was especially easy for the others, you do feel that Yoko Ono was especially villainised and affected. I want to bring in this article  from 2022, that was published in response to the publication of Christine Barrett-Feldman’s book, A Women’s History of the Beatles. Whilst academics, authors and experts of The Beatles, in the past, were male-heavy, there are more women discussing the band and offering new perspectives. Critically, they are talking about how women shaped The Beatles! Highlighting the importance of their largely female fanbase, through to the wives of the band members, there are these great podcasters and authors who are shining lights on the girls and women who helped make and define The Beatles:

“I’ve been reading books about the Beatles for over a half-century but none have spoken to me like Christine Barrett-Feldman’s A Women’s History of the Beatles. This much-needed book shows us the mission-critical role of women in transforming four talented and ambitious young men into the Beatles, and the myriad ways the Beatles have, in turn, inspired and transformed the lives of women across three generations.

Feldman-Barrett, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Australia’s Griffith University, is a self-described “aca-fan”—an academic who studies a cultural phenomenon of which they’re a fan. Yet you won’t find the pretentious, obfuscating prose often found in academic books on fandom. It’s well-written, respectful of the reader, and acknowledges that fandom is joyful. Focusing on female perspectives gives the book a different kind of energy that is hard to describe.

Similarly refreshing is that the book is authoritative without the attitudes of expertise or ownership that characterize much academic and popular writing about the Beatles. Despite more women of all ages participating in Beatles scholarship and commentary in recent years, Boomer men shaped the discourse and still predominate. In my 2014 book, Beatleness, I described Beatles scholarship as a conversation among male observers, and offered a sociocultural analysis of first-gen Beatles fandom that broadened the conversation; others are broadening it as well.

Scholars such as Katie Kapurch, Holly Tessler, Kit O’Toole, and Erin Weber bring new perspectives, and podcasts such as bc the Beatles and Another Kind of Mind—hosted by millennial women—expand the conversation in that medium. But A Women’s History of the Beatles does something different.

By centering women in the Beatles story, which Feldman-Barrett likens to a fairy tale, it becomes clear how the surround and support of women—fans, friends, and family—made the Beatles possible, and shows us three generations of women—musicians, journalists, academics, fashion designers, ethnomusicologists, tour guides, visual artists, DJs, and TikTok stars— whose Beatles fandom inspired a range of personal and professional pursuits.

A Women’s History of the Beatles is organized thematically rather than chronologically, though it does begin at the beginning, with the foundational support of mothers and aunties, and the unfailing devotion of female fans in Liverpool and throughout Merseyside—to whom the world owes an enormous debt of gratitude.

Feldman-Barrett suggests the Beatles’ rapport with their fans—locally and then globally—was a natural extension of their relationships with the strong, supportive women in their families who “served as role models and mentors.” Indeed, despite prevailing attitudes toward women in their Northern, working-class milieu and tales of sexual adventure on the Reeperbahn and on tour, A Women’s History of the Beatles shows that the Beatles’ “interactions with women were varied, multidimensional, and contextual.”

Many observers say there would have been no Beatles without Brian Epstein; others say George Martin was the sine que non. But after reading this book, it’s clear that Mona Best and Astrid Kirchherr come before either of them. Pete’s Mom provided a venue—even after the unceremonious sacking of her son—that positioned the band to continually expand and energize their loyal local fan base which, in turn, fueled their confidence and determination. This created a positive feedback loop that propelled them to Hamburg and their transformative residencies.

It was during a 1960 residency that the Beatles befriended Kirchherr, whose friend Klaus Voormann persuaded her to go with him to the red light district to see and hear them “mach schau.” Six years later Voormann would design the cover of Revolver, and three years after that would play bass in the Plastic Ono Band. But none of that would have happened were it not for the alluring and enigmatic Astrid, the educated, middle-class girl who wore leather and a Jean Seberg pixie cut. A musician and photographer who says Kirchherr was one of her biggest influences aptly described her as “a woman who went where she wasn’t supposed to go.”

According to Feldman-Barrett, Astrid played the role of fairy godmother in the Beatles’ fairy tale, the kindly, knowing figure who ensures good things will happen. Using her camera as a magic wand, she was the first person to take composed photos of the band; the first person to whom this idea occurred! Her female gaze showed these “Cinderlads” who they were and the Prince Charmings they would eventually be.

Feldman-Barrett writes: “Kirchherr was able to fully identify, document—and then further shape—the Beatles’ magnetic appeal. It is through her black-and-white photographs of the band that we first see the Beatles as objects of desire and Kirchherr as the ‘desiring subject.’” Even readers familiar with the story will come away with a new appreciation for Kirchherr—and gratitude for Voormann’s persuasive ability that October night in 1960.

We’ve heard hundreds of male musicians from David Crosby to David Grohl talk about how the Beatles inspired them. A Women’s History of the Beatles shows us female musicians—some famous, some not—who have been similarly inspired, and corrects the persistent narrative about girl fans liking the Beatles primarily because “they’re cute.” Readers will be surprised to learn about the Liverbirds, the four Cavern girls who started a band and opened for the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones on their early UK tours. (Check out Feldman-Barrett’s A Women’s History of the Beatles playlist here.)

Yoko, who Feldman-Barret says is the preeminent female figure in the Beatles fairy tale, “was not widely received as a virtuous maiden worthy of a princely reward. Instead, she was presented and viewed as a cunning sorceress who had Lennon spellbound.”  She was also a “godmother of punk” whose influence can be heard in numerous punk, post-punk, and riot grrrl bands.

Other important contributions of A Women’s History of the Beatles are the overlooked voices of lesbian fans—who found the Beatles attractive “irrespective of their sexual orientation”—and black fans, like the woman from the south side of Chicago who moved to the UK because of them. Another black fan recalled, “There’s something about how [the Beatles] talk about the world that has always made me feel comfortable in my own skin and made me feel like it’s okay to like what I like and be who I am.”

Beatle wives and girlfriends— Cynthia, Pattie, Jane, Maureen, Yoko, and Linda — are presented as significant figures in their own right. But Feldman-Barrett also zooms out and puts their Beatle relationships in a broader context, showing how they were role models for fans as well as exemplars of changing gender dynamics throughout the decade”.

Other articles like this observe how “There is a cultural tendency to link mainstream music with women, specifically young girls and teenagers. Burdened by societal levies on age and femininity, teenage girls are a scarily undermined social sector. As both women and popular music are deemed simple, female fans are positioned as the appropriate counterpart. One of the most culturally significant bands of the modern era, The Beatles, is a prime example of this undervaluation. The Beatles were fandom-less, unknown and non-credible until teenage girls started paying attention to their art”. In terms of the casting of The Beatles’ wives, let’s explore their influence (this word is going to repeated a lot, so apologies, but I think it is necessary and accurate). Last year, Women’s Weekly paid tribute to the feminist forces behind the greatest and most influential band ever. Patti Boyd had a huge impact:

“English model and actress Pattie Boyd first met her soon-to-be husband, George Harrison, on the set of the 1964 promotional film, A Hard Day’s Night.

“On first impressions, John seemed more cynical and brash than the others, Ringo the most endearing, Paul was cute, and George, with velvet-brown eyes and dark chestnut hair, was the best-looking man I had ever seen. At a break for lunch, I found myself sitting next to him. Being close to him was electrifying,” Pattie would later recall of the fateful meeting.

Whilst Pattie eventually became George’s wife, inspiring songs like Something and I Need You (as well as an infamous rock love triangle with Eric Clapton), one of her biggest contributions to The Beatles is often overlooked.

It’s no secret that LSD played an integral role in The Beatles’ discography, but it was Pattie Boyd’s dentist, John Riley, who first introduced the band to it. The unassuming dentist laced John, Cynthia, Pattie and George’s coffees with the psychedelic during a dinner party in 1965.

“We were just insane… we were just out of our heads… we all thought there was a fire in the lift, but it was just a little red light, and we were all screaming, all hot and hysterical!” John recalled of the night.

Meanwhile George said of the experience: “I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass,” he said. “It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours.”

Pattie also was responsible for The Beatles’ introduction and deep interest in Hinduism and Indian culture. She had been previously introduced to Transcendental Meditation by her sister, and convinced the band to join her to watch a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967. This interaction sparked the famous trip to India the following year which had a monumental impact on the band’s music and direction”.

Linda McCartney/Eastman was massively crucial. Not only in terms of what she gave to The Beatles. The solo work of Paul McCartney, and her role in Wings. She was someone who had a profound effect on McCartney. Let’s hope that Saoirse Ronan is given the chance to fulfil the multiple sides and the sheer brilliance of this incredible woman:

“Though Paul and his long-term girlfriend, Jane Asher, broke up in 1968, the Beatle wasn’t single for long because he quickly met the love of his life, Linda Eastman. The pair met at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in London in May 1967 and again for the launch of The Beatles’ latest record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

From the moment they got together, Paul and Linda became an inseparable force. Though Linda only saw the last few years of The Beatles, she’s credited with guiding Paul through the emotionally tumultuous breakup of the band and the ugly ensuing legal battles that followed.

With a trusty Nikon camera by her side, Linda snapped some of the band’s most candid and authentic moments in the final years of their time as a group. She continued to photograph Paul through his solo career and in the Wings era giving Beatles fans a comprehensive visual narrative to pore over for years to come”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman at a press launch of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, held at Brian Epstein’s house at 24 Chapel Street, London on 19th May, 1967 (Eastman and McCartney first met four days earlier at the Bag O’Nails club. They would marry on 12th March, 1969)/PHOTO COURTESY OF: The Paul McCartney Project

Yoko Ono is the most maligned and vilified of The Beatles’ wives. Still recording today, you would hope more than anyone, her importance is brought into brilliant focus! I am sure that Anna Sawai will do a phenomenal job. She is an extraordinary actor and it is only right that she is given proper flowers and space. That these amazing actors portraying these often forgotten women are not reduced to a few lines or being at the back. How they impacted The Beatles and the legacy they leave is as vital, I think, as the band’s:

“When a married John Lennon step foot into the Indica Gallery in 1966, he wasn’t aware that the woman he was about to meet would irreparably set The Beatles on a different musical path. Yoko Ono’s avant-garde approach to art quickly spilled into John’s creative processes, which undeniably exasperated tensions within the group, but ultimately pushed John to create some of The Beatles’ best music.

“She wanted more, do it more, do it double, be more daring, take all your clothes off,” Paul explained during an interview with Barry Miles for his book Many Years from Now. “She always pushed him, which he liked. Nobody had ever pushed him. Nobody had ever pushed him like that. We all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far out.”

Paul and John had both previously experimented with tape loops and other sound engineering marvels in songs like I’m Only Sleeping and Strawberry Fields Forever. However, the White Album saw John’s experimentalism reach new heights on songs like Revolution 9 which, thanks to Yoko’s influence, is eight straight minutes of unbridled cacophonous mayhem. Unlike John, who was a self-taught musician, Yoko was classically trained which also saw her lend a hand to composing songs like Because and The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.

Though Yoko is often unfairly cast as the villain who broke up The Beatles, it’s well-documented by the band themselves that factors like Brian Epstein’s death and the ravages of fame and time had eaten away at their comradery long before Yoko entered the picture. But what Yoko did do was open John’s mind to endless musical possibilities which made for boundary-pushing art and music”.

I am being pretty liberal when taking from this feature, though it is pertinent and very relevant. I will bring in sections about two women not included (as yet) in Sam Mendes’s films and why their omission would be an oversight. Maureen Starkey is someone who many overlook and do not see as important:

“Maureen Starkey was the most enduring feminine force behind The Beatles. She met Ringo back in 1962 and stayed married to him through Beatlemania, the breakup of The Beatles all the way through to 1975 when the pair divorced.

As a 15-year-old trainee hairdresser in Liverpool, Maureen was a regular at the Cavern Club where she quickly became acquainted with The Beatles and other skiffle groups. It was here where she met Ringo as he was standing on the precipice of unprecedented fame and adoration.

“Richy was just the drummer at the time,” Maureen recalled in a 1988 interview with the French magazine Le Chroniqueur. “I don’t remember when he first asked me out on a date, but he did just after he left the Hurricanes and joined the Beatles.”

Maureen and Ringo became a couple as The Beatles fame soared and the pair married in 1965 after learning they were pregnant with their first child. Along with the other Beatles and their partners, Maureen joined Ringo in India in 1968 where their musical prowess was opened up to unlimited bounds. Though she didn’t directly inspire any officially released Beatles tunes, that’s not to say she wasn’t a muse.

George Harrison, who would later have an affair with Maureen to the horror of his other bandmates, once sang a pointed song titled ‘Maureen’ during the 1969 Get Back sessions. Though he claimed the track was penned by his pal Bob Dylan, sceptics and die-hard Beatles fans argue otherwise. Ringo also commissioned Frank Sinatra to sing a special rendition of The Lady is a Tramp for Maureen’s birthday in 1968 with the song title being changed to ‘The Lady is a Champ’.

Besides this, Maureen was arguably the most die-hard Beatles fan who was present for every stage of the band’s lifespan from Cavern Club rockers to global music phenomenon. Her unwavering adoration is best seen in the Get Back documentary where she can be seen head-banging and cheering on the band during their rooftop performance”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Maureen Starkey

Maybe Jane Asher did not want to be included in the films. She has never spoken about her time with Paul McCartney, and she has remained private. However, her role cannot be diminished: “Some of Paul’s greatest love songs including And I Love Her and Here, There and Everywhere were inspired by his whirlwind relationship with Jane. The pair also had quite the tumultuous relationship which saw Paul pen some of The Beatles’ best melancholy tracks like You Won’t See Me and I’m Looking Through You. But Jane’s impact wasn’t just being a muse, her high-profile career and London abode introduced Paul to a range of new experiences including the theatre – which may have played a part in Paul’s burgeoning interest in fusing operatic orchestras with his rock music”. The same goes for Cynthia Lennon. Often discarded and abused, would it be too troubling, dark and problematic focusing on a woman who was often mistreated horribly by John Lennon?! It would be very harsh if she were left out: “As other girlfriends and wives entered and exited the tightknit foursome, Cynthia proved to be a grounding force that helped them adjust into the fold. Often to the detriment of her happiness and wellbeing, Cynthia also stoically braved loneliness, affairs, single-handedly raising a child, and at times, violence, as John and The Beatles’ career flourished. Eventually, it was John’s spiral into LSD that caused a rift between the pair. “John needed to escape his reality. I understood completely but I couldn’t go along with him.” Cynthia later said of John’s experimenting with drugs. She and Julian Lennon directly and indirectly inspired many great Beatles tracks including You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Across The Universe, Hey Jude and Julia”.

We must not overlook also the role women in music played on The Beatles and their own music. It is wonderful that such a strong quartet of actors are filing the shoes of women who were more than just ‘Beatles wives’. Instead, these women had incredible influence and were instrumental when it came to growth. Inspiring so many incredible and enduring songs, behind closed doors, I think their importance in keeping The Beatles grounded is pivotal. Although articles have been written about the women behind The Beatles and there are great podcasts out there, a lot of books and recent articles do not cover that. In light of Sam Mendes releasing new Beatles films in 2028, I hope that provided impetus for journalists, writers and fans to discuss the significance of women in The Beatles’ story. Not just their wives. The adoring and loyal fans. Women in music who compelled The Beatles. Without these women, then the band would undoubtedly not be as enduring, successful and important as they are. My concern is that the films might not delve too deeply regarding the lives and multiple sides of these fascinating women. We cannot underestimate the role of these women. This article argues why The Beatles’ screaming fans mattered: “The teens who shrieked for John, Paul, George, or Ringo were learning that their desires could matter on a public scale, and later in the sixties that would start changing gender dynamics in ways we’re still adjusting to”. The Beatlemania fandom and teenage hysteria provided a chance for revolution and expression: “If you were a girl, especially one on the cusp of adolescence, Beatles fandom possessed an additional frisson. The critic Barbara Ehrenreich noted in a 1992 essay that while mainstream culture was increasingly sexualised (paging Philip Larkin), teenage girls were still expected to be paragons of purity. "To abandon control – to scream, faint, dash about in mobs – was, in form if not in conscious intent, to protest the sexual repressiveness, the rigid double standard of female teen culture," wrote Ehrenreich. "It was the first and most dramatic uprising of women's sexual revolution”.

Maybe I am going slightly off the main track: that which concerns The Beatles’ wives. However, they form part of a discussion that needs to be reignited and continue. How compelling and influential these people were! We often talk about women like Patti Boyd and Yoko Ono in terms of the songs they provoked. That rather sexist idea of ‘the muse’. Instead, they were these independent and extraordinary women whose roles and significance is much deeper. How they almost had to remain under the radar because of press and fan intrusion. Stabilising, inspiring, evocative, talented, and superlative, there almost should be a film about them. Or a documentary. A perfect opportunity to emphasis and recontextualise their role, I am hopeful Sam Mendes’s casting reflects this desire. By casting these multifarious and multitalented actors who, between them, have appeared in some extraordinary films and T.V. shows, he is preparing to explore the incredible lives of The Beatles’ wives. They are more than that. The Beatles’ She Loves You contains these lyrics: “Yes, she loves you/And you know you should be glad”. That seems insincere and too little when we think of Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey, Patti Boyd and Linda Eastman (and the other women in The Beatles lives that may never make it to the screen). These are the phenomenal women whose roles and importance is…

BIGGER than you can imagine!

FEATURE: Girlbands Forever: The Highs, Middles and Lows: Saluting the Icons, and Looking Ahead to the New Crop

FEATURE:

 

 

Girlbands Forever: The Highs, Middles and Lows

 IN THIS PHOTO: Eternal

Saluting the Icons, and Looking Ahead to the New Crop

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I would urge everyone…

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Mix/PHOTO CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/MTV 2018/Getty Images

to check out a new BBC series, Girlbands Forever. The three episodes available on BBC iPlayer are extraordinary. Featuring an incredible range of contributors, including members of All Saints, Atomic Kitten and Sugababes, we get a real insight into the realities of being a girlband in the 1990s and 2000s. Although we might think of all the highs and success, there were some real lows and grim realities. Starting with the 1990s, this was a decade when All Saints, Eternal and the Spice Girls did battle for chart success. But what was the real cost?! What was happening behind the scenes?! Some of the first words spoken in that episode mentioned how it was all “smoke and mirrors”. The misogyny and male dominance. How harsh and imbalanced it was. I will end this feature by looking at a crop of incredible girlbands who are coming through. I do wonder whether labelling these awesome artists as ‘girl groups’ or ‘girl bands’ was in any way demeaning or infantilising. However, the more I watched of this series, the fuller picture I got. It changed my understanding of what girlbands had to face and what their lives were like.

These hugely powerful and inspiring women perhaps not getting their due. Whilst the BBC series does chart the high and glorious moments, there is an unmasking of what it was really like. I want to start out by highlighting some observations from the women who contributed to the series. I will select four women who were part of incredible girlbands. Those who have left a legacy and inspired so many girls and young women. From this BBC article, we can glean a sense of what it was like. Sugababes’ Heidi Range shared her experiences:

“Not long after you joined the group, the band had their first number one hit. What was it like being catapulted into the limelight?

I grew up singing my entire life and dreaming that one day I would ‘make it’. It was only a matter of weeks from first joining the band, I was standing on stage at the MTV Awards in Frankfurt, presenting Eminem with an award. It was mind blowing how my life had changed overnight. Cut to a few months later and our first single together, Freak Like Me went in straight at Number 1! It was everything I’d ever dreamt of and more.

The lineup changed several times during your time, how did that impact your experience in the group?

Each lineup change happened for different reasons and each time it was difficult to deal with. I was part of the group for almost 11 years and I guess it’s inevitable that within any job over that period of time, people, their circumstances and their needs change and there’s nothing you can do about it if someone chooses that they want something else.

When you look back at your time in the band, what moment stands out as the highlight?

Looking back now, it was all a highlight really. I spent my twenties travelling the world, writing and performing music with so many incredible artists. I am really proud of what we achieved together.

One performance that really stands out for me though was performing at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday in Hyde Park. The night before the concert, all the artists were invited to take a guest to a pre-show dinner with him and I took my Nan. I asked our glam team to do her hair and makeup, she wore a fabulous dress and then we went to the dinner together. It was the most incredible evening and I’ll never forget spending that special time with her.

Another stand out moment was being the first girl band to play the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in 2003. We were terrified and there was a debate taking place on the radio about whether a pop band should be allowed to perform there as we were driving to the site. We thought we might get bottles of pee thrown at us, but it was absolutely mega. As soon as we came off stage, we all wanted to go straight back on and do it all again.

Kelle Bryan of Eternal was asked what her experiences were. A lot of these girlbands were pitched against one another. Although they all had their own sound and personality, I think there was this temptation to lump them together or be reductive. Even though these women reflect on proud moments, there would have been moments of burnout, sexism, misogyny and the blackness of fame at that time that was hugely detrimental and damaging. Something that one hopes would not exist today for girlbands. Though I suspect some of that poison and misogyny still can be felt:

“Eternal were pioneers for UK girlbands, especially as an interracial group, how did that shape your experience?

It shaped the experience the whole way through, from beginning to end. At the beginning I was quite naive to the knock on effects, because Louise was my friend from school, so I never really thought about her as anything other than just my mate. There was a disparity of interest towards Louise as opposed to us.

On stage, Louise was properly lit, we weren't. They would have makeup for Louise but not for us. Those kinds of disparities were very evident. But on the flip side, when we went to America, there were times where they would focus on the rest of us. The whole way through, it was peppered with all kinds of nuances and difficulties, racism and unconscious bias.

Musically, what set Eternal apart from the other girlbands at the time?

When we started there wasn't anyone before us. It was Bananarama, and Mel and Kim were on the scene. At the time, we proved that girlbands could be successful. Then a whole plethora of groups came after us. In the States, there were SWV and En Vogue, we met them when we started doing promotion in America.

It was quite a strange time, because you're not realising that you’re driving things forward for women, you're just doing the best you can to keep sane and keep working. The schedule was brutal, but you don't realise you're starting a trend, making history or starting a legacy. You're too busy working, because it was lots of hard work!

What legacy did Eternal leave on the girlband scene?

So there's an artist called Laura Mvula and she's amazing. It sounds weird but, for whatever reason she's inspired by what I did in my career, and she attributes some of her success to us. She invited me to go see her when she was doing a live performance for BBC Radio 2 at Symphony Hall and I went with my kids. I've never witnessed anything quite so outstanding as her performance. I can't tell you how incredible she is. I left her a message thanking her so much for the tickets, and she sent me a beautiful and heartfelt voice message back which really affected me.

Another person who does that kind of thing is Emeli Sandé, and Jessie J did just the other day. I can't bear the compliments because it feels surreal. Back in the day, we were just getting on with it, I was in the trenches. I really wasn't thinking about anyone other than get up, don't cry. When it was at its peak you’re thinking ‘I can’t sleep in this bed because though it's not my bed’ and the jet lag was so hard, we were just surviving.

When you hear kind stuff like that from Laura, you're just like, ‘what?’. I think it's because there weren't very many people like us around at the time, and we had gospel roots and sang harmonies, and the music was very R&B led, and you just couldn’t break through the charts with that kind of music back in the 90s”.

All Saints’ Melanie Blatt and Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton talked about their time in two of the biggest British girlbands ever. Whilst there would have been these moments of sisterhood and commercial highs that they would have dreamed of, Girlbands Forever gives a more balanced view of the actual realities. Not looking through rose-tinted glasses. Lessons that hopefully have been learned. Ones we cannot forget or overlook:

“How did you shape the All Saints’ sound and what made you stand out?

The All Saints sound grew very organically. We were listening to a lot of Hip-hop and R&B from the states, so that was always going to be a huge influence. Shaz and I also grew up listening to all sorts of music from Reggae to Funk to Jungle. Shaz has an amazing talent for writing, and once we met K-Gee, who we spent almost two years in the studio with before we got signed to London Records, it was a match made in heaven and with him we created that All Saints sound.

What’s something from your girlband years that you’re really proud of?

I’m proud of what we achieved without really having a game plan. We loved making music fundamentally and that led to a few years of craziness which changed our lives forever. We didn’t really play the game and I suppose that makes me proud!”.

You became a mother during your time in Atomic Kitten, what are your thoughts on how the music industry deals with motherhood?

I can't really comment on how it deals with it now, because I don't know. I'm hoping people have learned from back then that to keep a young woman away from their baby, is probably not going to end in a very positive way. It's going to end in resentment, postnatal depression, and I'd like to think the duty of care towards women within the industry in general is now a lot more caring and understanding. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, but you're also working with human beings, so let's put the human first before the money.

What was the biggest misconception about Atomic Kitten?

That we were always fighting and there was a lot of bitchiness going on. I was on tour with my sisters. Yes, we argued. Who doesn't argue with their siblings? It came from a place of love and a place of being in each other's pockets 24/7, you're going to annoy each other. You need a bit of space, but you don't get it, so you're going to end up sniping. We always made up with each other, so it wasn't as bitchy as people thought. We were very much sisters.

Looking back, what are you most proud of from your girlband years?

Honestly, that I can still sit here in one piece and be a fully functioning person, because there was a time where I thought, ‘Will I ever recover from this?’. Physically and mentally it is really intense and it's overwhelming, but it just makes you more robust, and now I've come full circle. I've launched my own record label. I'm going to be looking after the next generation of young UK pop acts. I wouldn’t be able to do it properly if it weren’t for the experiences I’ve had. The duty of care is huge for me”.

I was a big fan of girlbands in the 1990s and 2000s. All Saints, Spice Girls, TLC, Destiny’s Child were some of my favourites. Little Mix, Atomic Kitten, Sugarbabes and Mis-Teeq are pioneering and important. I will look at a review for the new series. However, there are some fascinating takeaways from the episodes. How Kerry Katona talked about how hard it was. Melanie Blatt reveals how proud she is of the legacy of what she did with All Saints. Though there was all this toxicity and trauma. How there needed to be this sisterhood to survive. I guess, for people like me, we were looking at things from the outside. What the music press were telling us. It was incredible, seemingly. Although a lot of the language used is problematic and definitely misogynistic, and so much of the imagery and photoshoots exploitative, there was this feeling that everything was perfect and the girlbands were having the time of their lives. We can’t forget about the incredible music and how impactful it was. Bands that have endured to this day and changed so many lives. The U.S. bands like SWV and En Vogue shaped how British bands such as All Saints presented themselves. Melanie Blatt discussing how she looked to the U.S. bands and wanted to do what they did. I think what is common and obvious is how ambitious girlbands were. Even if they came from different musical traditions, there was this desire to make it and fulfil their dreams. You do wonder what the experiences for these girls would have been like if they had been mostly managed by women. Female producers and women calling the shots. It seems like the most positive moments and strength came from within the groups. Although you smile hearing members of All Saints and Eternal discuss their path and the kinship within the groups, there was this bleaker side. Girlbands being marketed on their looks. Told to lose weight to conform to ideals of the press and male gaze. In the process, sending out a bad message to girls who followed the group! Signing contracts and seemingly embarking on this wonderful ride. However, the deeper they get into their careers, that is when cracks appear.

Eternal reached number four with Stay. That was seen as a disappointing chart position. The pressure of bands like this to get to number one. Or they were not relevant and important. How detrimental and demoralising that would have been. If boybands were put under less pressure, there were these other standards for girlbands. Listening to male producers sharing their memories of the time and there are moments that make you wince. Like they have not learned anything themselves. Hearing about how punishing things were. Girlbands being punished to the limit to get to number one. Travelling endlessly, out on diets, told to dress in a certain way and being put on this brutal treadmill that involved endless promotion and personal sacrifice. Louise leaving Eternal because of the pressures and the strain of being in such a high-profile band. When Eternal became a trio, they came under the spotlight in terms of their appearance and weight. Sent to a place in the countryside, where the trio were told what to eat and controlled! That experience was shared by other girlbands. Such a horrible misogyny that many did not know about. Constantly under the spotlight. Everything they did and everywhere they went, they were under this lens. Broadcaster Sara Cox talking about how Britain was rebranding and revitalising in the 1990s under a Labour government. Britpop and the cool bands coming through. Spice Girls the best-known and most popular girlband of that time. Every other girlband having to rival them. I can only imagine what it was like behind closed doors when it came to expectations and workload. Discussion around Girl Power and how that term seemed a little hollow. Eternal pre-dated Spice Girls and perhaps coined that term. Though Kelle Bryan was happy as long as women were getting props and respect!

Before providing further reflections on the three episodes, I want to come to The Guardian and their impressions of the extraordinary Girlbands Forever. Whether you were around in the 1990s and 2000s and grew up with these girlbands, or are approaching them new, it is a must-watch series that takes us inside the highs, middles and lows. Showing the glory, guts and the awful realities. An aspect we do not really talk about as much as we should:

“Of course we want the gossip, fallouts and scandals. Band members interviewed for the three-part series are happy to supply. Kelle Bryan from Eternal reveals they were sent to a facility in the countryside and put on controlled diets to manage their weight (though the head of EMI UK denies all knowledge). Kerry Katona tells how a journalist turned up at her mother’s house with a bag of cocaine to get her to sell a story. Melanie Blatt of All Saints says that when she discovered she was pregnant, she was told to abort.

Girlbands Forever could have been a cynical exercise: see who’s desperate enough to want to be in this, dredge up their worst moments while viewers make assessments about which of them has the nicest house. Instead, it has sensitivity and scope, as interested in charting the social mores these artists created, were crucified by, or changed in some way.

I’m not sure things have improved. Attractive celebrities once took pains to hide their relationships, to maintain an illusion of being sexually available. These days, we’ve exploded the notion of privacy, and realised relationships can be cannibalised on social media for cachet. Progress! Black artists once worked five times as hard for a 20th of the attention. Imagine. The show is refreshingly unequivocal that the addition of a slender, blond, white woman could transform a band’s fortune. While our pop culture lens has widened, it’s hardly pointing in a different direction.

It’s the old footage that breaks your heart. They are such vibrantly talented children. Look at Atomic Kitten meeting Westlife for the first time, all teenage flirtation. Check out the “steely, non-choreography” of the early, surly Sugababes. There is adorable footage of Mutya on a Michael Barrymore show, in which she appears to literally be a baby. I’m glad the doc gets into the Sugababes’ revolving door policy. One of the funniest things to happen in music this century, it’s also a living manifestation of the Ship of Theseus philosophical paradox. Let’s not get into that.

Spice Girls are the silverbacks in the ring, who came from nowhere and conquered the globe with their debut single. None feature here, yet it’s interesting to hear from established artists who floundered in the wake of the Jenny-come-latelies. Some profess to being underwhelmed by Wannabe, while their five-way demographic appeal is presented as a triumph of marketing. “Girl Power? That was EMI power,” scoffs producer Pete Waterman.

The music industry comes out of this badly (though Piers Morgan comes out of it worse than anyone). A repeating pattern we’re shown is that when band members get pregnant, the sentence handed down from male management is the same: you’ve destroyed the band. In this context, seeing Blatt perform at Party in the Park with her pronounced baby bump showing, sexy and defiant as ever, is a punk-rock, sea-change vision. Still the coolest person in the room, she had reservations about appearing here at all. “Hello, I’m Mel from the 90s” is how she introduces herself. Oh, she dope.

Another repeating pattern: talented but frustrated girls break ties with their Henry Higgins founders and succeed in their own way. No matter how these bands started, what they become is up to them. Without always feeling empowered, they were avatars of it for younger generations. They represented the joy of being in a gang of girls, often working-class, travelling the world and living a dream. The world needs that. Plus you can’t go wrong with a TV soundtrack of songs including Never Ever, Sounds of the Underground and Scandalous. You know what to do. Push the button”.

I am going to get to an article from Stylist. They react to the BBC documentary and how girlbands were chewed up and spat out. We learn how All Saints were objectified and subject to tabloid attention. Nicole and Natalie Appleton getting the brunt of that press intrusion. How women were judged and condemned, whereas men in the industry – and men in film – were not subjected to this kind of sexism. Sara Cox talking about how there was this small window of celebration for women and bands like Spice Girls and All Saints. Tabloids turning on them. Commentators from the time like Noel Gallagher and Vivienne Westwood discussing girlbands in disparaging and insulting terms. How they lacked talent and it was all about marketing. How deflating it would have been for these women who worked tirelessly and had incredible talent – only to be cut down and stabbed in the back! Girlbands becoming public property. The press had so much power. A hate campaign launched against Spice Girls. How that impacted the mental health of bands like Spice Girls. By the early-'00s, tastes and trends changed. How girlbands like All Saints split because of tensions and differences. The group fell out and they parted ways. You have to think that the press and industry pushed them to that point. Private lives of celebrities scrutinised more in the 2000s. Girlbands subjected to that. Gossip magazines adding to the bile. Such a toxic decade. There were definite high moments within girlbands. The chemistry and friendship. Enjoying the highs. However, as the 2000s offered up so many girlbands, there was this crowded scene. Bands like Girl Thing fizzled out. Lacking authenticity, they were too similar to Spice Girls. It was a brutal machine! Mis-Teeq offered something real and different. It was interesting seeing the evolution. Girlbands taking influence from Garage and other genres. The reality was the same in the 2000s as it was in the 1990s. Signing a record label was the start of a punishing and unglamorous life. Being sexualised and controlled. Manipulated and almost trapped. Traveling the world and it being this ecstatic high. The loneliness that came with quiet moments. That led to excess and drinking too much.

Gatekeepers in the industry comparing girlbands to others. Especially problematic was Mis-Teeq being compared to Destiny’s Child because they were Black. They were not given the same opportunities as white girlbands. Magazines not putting them on the cover. Labels wary of fan jealousy when a member of a girlband would date a member of a rival boyband. Atomic Kitten’s Kerry Katona warned off of dating Westlife’s Brian McFadden. The tabloids harassing the girlbands and their families. Friends and families selling out and these scandalous and untrue stories being printed. How horrifying that was for women. Mis-Teeq’s label, Telestar, went bust. Atomic Kitten’s Jenny Frost (who replaced Kerry Katona in Atomic Kitten) revealed how she went for success and how her and Kerry Katona had no bad blood. The 2010s saw a change in how girlbands came together and made it. Rather than it being music executives, it was talent shows like The X Factor. Was it better for women?! Quite brutal and competitive, there was this public scrutiny and exposure. However, there was this raft of talent coming through that people could see on the screens and were not hidden. Little Mix the standout success from The X Factor in terms of girlbands. They were the first band to win the competition. Sugababes another prominent band from the 2010s. Overload was a video that was a breakthrough. So different to other videos from girlbands. Perhaps less about high choreography and confidence from singing and not exerting, there was this change. Sugababes more real than a lot of manufactured girlbands who came before. They were not told to smile and be extroverted. They were real but, with that, they were seen as moody and difficult. Labelled as being troublesome or outsiders!

Heidi Range – who replaced Siobhán Donaghy – talking about how Sugababes wanted to be the biggest girlband. How this was their dream. Natasha Hamilton of Atomic Kitten was diagnosed with postnatal depression and her doctor said she needed six to eight months off. She was given two weeks! She was absolutely crippled by that. How she could not wait to get off stage. Women were not allowed a career if they had children. Has that changed at all today?! The expectation that women either had to be childless or, if they did have a child, continue their career and not take any time off. Record labels do not come off well through Girlbands Forever. How they drove women out of girlbands and forced bands to quit and break up. Mutya Buena left Sugababes because she suffered from mental health issues. The fact that she was replaced the following day by Amelle Berrabah. That lack of sympathy and any sort of dignity. It was all a machine. Red Dress originally had Buena’s vocals on it but they were replaced by Berrabah’s. How it was cut-throat. All about sales and keeping momentum going! No consideration towards the personal lives, happiness and health of the women. Berrabah revealed how Sugababes were told to keep moody and not smile because that was their image. They were not allowed to smile and be free. Treated more like puppets than people! Jade Ewen instantly replaced Keisha Buchanan. How gut-wrenching and insulting that would have been for Buchanan! Sugababes lost their original members. It was almost like this rotating line-up. Now, Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena, and Siobhán Donaghy are back as Sugababes. This reformation is amazing, though you feel that is because they are maybe not subjected to the same intensity and scrutiny as the first time around. Able to record and perform together without any backstabbing, label machinations and this tabloid poison. Broadcaster Scott Mills talked about how a girlband like Little Mix had to engage with social media all the time. Something girlbands of the 1990s and 2000s did not really have to do, there was this pressure to keep connecting with fans and keep the hits coming! Perrie Edwards dated One Direction’s Zayn Malik. Fans of One Direction picking Edwards apart. Like girlbands before, them being public property. Torn to shreds and subjected to attacks. They called off their engagement (he dumped her by text). Shout Out to My Ex is a shout-out/hit-back to Zayn Malik. Perrie Edwards emotionally talked about performing in Las Vegas. How exhausted she was. She experienced panic attacks but felt like she had to go on. No sense of care or protection for her. She was taken to hospital and on a drip. Little Mix had to go on without her. The sense of (unfair) guilt that Edwards felt. She said how there was this group dynamic, there was this feeling that you could not let the team down. The upside is that they had each other, though you wonder whether there was any concern or sense of help from the label and management.

Little Mix released Strip. A reaction to the abuse women faced online, it was this empowering statement. Clara Amfo stating how this was a natural thing and really incredible video. Piers Morgan mocking the video. Amfo saying how the video was not for him and how he was being patronising. Little Mix hit back and their fans were unified. Trolls still took their toll. Jesy Nelson left the band because of the trolls. The positives is a lot of these girlbands reforming and performing again after, as Melanie Blatt said, “the first blush of success”. Spice Girls returned to the stage. All Saints recorded new albums. Little Mix found their way back together. Atomic Kitten got back together, as did Sugababes’ original line-up. After all the sh*t they experienced the first time around, the love for each other and those bonds shone through! Final thoughts shared sort of makes me wonder whether the same concerns apply to modern girlbands. How they were too young and inexperienced to know how things would play out. That they didn’t have control and were exploited. How labels would take advantage and did not really look after their best interests. Bands breaking up because they felt they could not continue. Girlbands are vital, as Eternal’s Kelle Bryan said. Misogyny still raging, so that sense of visibility, empowerment and solidarity more needed than ever! Misogyny and violence towards women much more widespread now than back decades ago. How we need to encourage a new wave of brilliant women. Before coming to that, Stylist reacted to Girlbands Forever and what they took away from it:

“Honestly, every clip in this documentary is a reminder of how the music industry chewed women up and spat them out in the name of empowerment. Men assumed control of these young women and issued ominous warnings (“one day, success is going to go away”), and even at the height of ‘girl power’, female autonomy was seen as a business risk. Indeed, no secret is made of how the Spice Girls were – inspired by the success of the TV show Friends – built to be more “universally appealing” than the R&B stylings of Eternal.

Translation? Music industry moguls wanted something whiter, safer and easier to sell.

While some had to fight tooth and nail for every success and others immediately landed a No. 1 hit, it’s little wonder that competition began to simmer between the groups. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that feuds were manufactured and nurtured by the press for column inches.

“We were pretty used to the tabloids being c**ts in general,” says Melanie Blatt frankly.

It’s all too easy to assume that things have got better as time has marched on. That the press has grown more enlightened, that women are no longer demonised for breaking outside the narrow boxes that society assigns them. Sadly, though, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nelly Furtado has stepped back from performing after relentless body-shaming attacks. Jesy Nelson left Little Mix (who appear in a later episode of the docuseries) after years of comparison and online abuse. Taylor Swift and Charli xcx have been plagued by feud rumours since 2018. Lily Allen recently said that she always feels “like I am fighting against a tabloid version of myself”. And just weeks ago, Chappell Roan told The Face she might quit music altogether if the harassment aimed at her and those around her doesn’t stop.

It’s the same poison, albeit administered via a different delivery system. The screaming headlines of the 90s haven’t gone away; they’ve merely been digitised. And, honestly, the damage that was done to women in the public eye by a paparazzi zoom lens? Well, social media now does it faster, louder and so much more personally. Step one foot outside the line, and the mob will be waiting with TikTok reels and cruel Instagram comments.

It’s the same poison, but administered differently

I suppose what Girlbands Forever really shows us is that the problem was never the music: it was how we expected – and still expect – women to behave while making it. They were silently urged to stick to the boringly inoffensive roles that society (ie the patriarchy) has given us. To smile. To be funny, but not funnier than the men in the room. To be ambitious, but apologise for it constantly. To be (and I’m borrowing from Britney Spears here) not a girl, but not yet a woman. And when female artists push back – when they get angry, gain weight, fall pregnant or dare to do something as villainous as visibly age – they are branded a problem to be dealt with.

Every decade, the faces change, but the crime stays the same: being a woman who refuses to shrink herself for comfort. And Girlbands Forever (despite being billed as “a celebration of a time of very special music and talent” by executive producer Louis Theroux) goes out of its way to highlight the pain behind the pop-perfect façade. Because maybe that’s the real legacy of the 90s: not girl power, but girl pressure. A generation of women who were told they could have it all, as long as they stayed within the frame.

Sadly, as Chappell Roan, Nelly Furtado and every woman who’s ever been called “too loud”, “too old” or “too much” knows all too well, the frame hasn’t moved an inch”.

The sisterhood and that sense of girlbands giving voice and solidarity to girls and women. Perrie Edwards (Little Mix) among those who hoped girlbands would live forever. Today, although there is not the same sort of wave of girlbands, there is hope for a revival. British groups like FLO and Say Now burning bright. There is so much to take from Girlbands Forever. Open and revealing, the women who were part of these phenomenal girlbands told their truths. It was so refreshing but also shocking! Positives emerge. How glorious the music was and how there was this sisterhood. I think groups like Say Now and FLO are going to inspire so many other girlbands. FLO released their debut album, Access All Areas, last year. Hugely promising, they look to be girlband legends of the future. Offering a mix of genres and shining and burning with authenticity and power, they are leading a charge. Similarly, Say Now are releasing incredible single after incredible single! I agree that we will always need girlbands. I grew up listening to them and still do today. Girlbands Forever was a wonderful reminder of all the amazing women who released this timeless music against all the odds. From press harassment to misogyny and reductive and demoralising attitudes from labels. Attacked on social media and almost pitted again one another. Women who should have combined and boosted each other were almost baited by the press to go against their sisters. However, the fact that so many of the original queens are back together – whether for a few live dates and nothing more or an album or two -, that is giving inspiration and strength to women who want to form bands and follow their idols. There is probably more stock given to other types of bands now. How girlbands are not as natural and in vogue as once they were, I feel the tide will change. They offer something familiar but alternative. Few bands focus on harmonies and the incredible anthems girlbands produced in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. We can step back a bit and also take strides forward. Girlbands who can take elements from those who came before but add their own personalities and voices into the mix. When you think of all that girlbands have given to music, you have hope that, when it comes to keeping the flame burning and welcoming in the new generation this empire can be built back up…

BRICK by brick.

FEATURE: The Ballad of Houidini and Rosabel: A Kate Bush-Themed Charity Idea for CRISIS and War Child

FEATURE:

 

 

The Ballad of Houidini and Rosabel

IMAGE CREDIT: The Vermilion

A Kate Bush-Themed Charity Idea for CRISIS and War Child

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I have been thinking about…

doing something for charity based around Kate Bush’s music. Two particular charities that Kate Bush is close to and has raised funds for, CRISIS and War Child, are in my mind. You can donate to Crisis here. At this time of year, as we are close to Christmas, you cannot help but think about those who have no home. Those who have to live on the streets. It is such a hard time for those who do not have same luxuries as us. Things that we take for granted. Also, War Child is a very important charity. You can donate here. Kate Bush has recently raised funds for War Child. She released the video for Little Shrew (Snowflake) last year, inspired by images of children displaced asnd affected by the invasion of Ukraine. Recently, Bush has invited fifty-two artists to create art based around lyrics from 1985’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) for a charity auction. On several occasions, Kate Bush has been involved with CRISIS. When there was a Kate Bush pop-up shop in King’s Cross in 2018, Bush announced that £61,000 has been raised. There is charity fundraising related to Kate Bush. Earlier this month, The Sensual World – A Kate Bush Celebration raised money for Cancer vs Cabaret. It was organised by HomeGround and KateBushNews.com. I have been thinking of organising something that would raise money for a couple of charities that Bush has spoken about and raised money for. Where people could donate, though there would be this interactive element. People selecting their favourite Kate Bush song or the one most important to them. It would draw attention to that track and her work in a wider sense, then they could share the post with a link to donate to each charity. Each person who took part would donate to each charity – suggested minimum would be £10 total, though there is no upper limit.

Kate Bush’s constant charity work and commitment is inspiring. Other people starting charity events because of her. I have been thinking about CRISIS and the great work they do. How important it is to donate to them to ensure that they can help give shelter and hope to those who are experiencing homelessness. Trying to affect long-term change. War Child are crucial at a time when many children in Ukraine and Palestine have been devastated by genocide and violence. Not just those two countries. At the moment, we are seeing multiple nations affected by conflict. It is the children that are impacted the most. I think that both charities are so worthy. There would be a hashtag for the endeavour, #KateBushCrisisWarChild, and you would post a link to the Kate Bush song. In terms of words, the person would say why the song is so important to them and then paste the links to War Child and CRISIS, where people can donate. Rather than it being an organised event that is limited to a certain amount of people, the hope is that this could spread further and wider. The idea being that you think about a Kate Bush song that means a lot to you and share it with others. Many might ask what this has to do with the charities. The idea is to raise funds and awareness of them. As Kate Bush has done with her own work and compelling artists to create paintings around her lyrics, this would be a simple way of getting people involved, though with an element of creativity and thought. Although this song is not the most important Kate Bush song to me, it is my favourite. One that I have a lot of thought around. I guess, if I were to start a ball rolling and say why this is so important, I would say the following: “Kate Bush at her vocal, production and lyrical high. A peerless and hugely original song from The Dreaming, I adore Houdini”. It is brief but gives explanation as to why the song sticks in my mind.

I have written about Houidini before. I would say Wuthering Heights and Them Heavy People are more important and affecting. I have a longer relationship with those songs. However, Houidini is my favourite Kate Bush song. In 1982, Kate Bush was pushing her sound and experimentation. The Dreaming is a stunningly ambitious and layered album. Producing solo for the first time, you can hear how much effort and time she put into the album. The penultimate song on The Dreaming, Houidini is classic Kate Bush. In terms of the lyrics, it could only have come from her mind! Here, Kate Bush talks about the inspiration behind the song:

“The side most people know of Houdini is that of the escapologist, but he spent many years of his life exposing mediums and seances as frauds. His mother had died, and in trying to make contact through such spiritual people, he realized how much pain was being inflicted on people already in sorrow, people who would part with money just for the chance of a few words from a past loved one. I feel he must have believed in the possibility of contact after death, and perhaps in his own way, by weeding out the frauds, he hoped to find just one that could not be proven to be a fake. He and his wife made a decision that if one of them should die and try to make contact, the other would know it was truly them through a code that only the two of them knew.
His wife would often help him with his escapes. Before he was bound up and sealed away inside a tank or some dark box, she would give him a parting kiss, and as their lips met, she would pass him the key which he would later use to unlock the padlocks that chained him. After he died, Mrs. Houdini did visit many mediums, and tried to make contact for years, with no luck – until one day a medium called Mr. Ford informed her that Houdini had come through. She visited him and he told her that he had a message for her from Houdini, and he spoke the only words that meant for her the proof of her husband’s presence. She was so convinced that she released an official statement to the fact that he had made contact with her through the medium, Ford.
It is such a beautiful and strange story that I thought I had very little to do, other than tell it like it was. But in fact it proved to be the most difficult lyric of all the songs and the most emotionally demanding. I was so aware of trying to do justice to the beauty of the subject, and trying to understand what it must have been like to have been in love with such an extraordinary man, and to have been loved by him. I worked for two or three nights just to find one line that was right. There were so many alternatives, but only a few were right for the song. Gradually it grew and began to piece together, and I found myself wrapped up in the feelings of the song – almost pining for Houdini. Singing the lead vocal was a matter of conjuring up that feeling again and as the clock whirrs and the song flashes back in time to when she watched him through the glass, he’s on the other side under water, and she hangs on to his every breath. We both wait.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982”.

I love how, to get the mucus/gravelled vocal sound, Bush drank milk and ate chocolate to get that sort of phlegm. This is something that is not advised, though she wanted to get this almost ghostly or demonic growl. You can hear this intensified on the final track from The Dreaminmg, Get Out of My House. Bush’s vocals goes from whispered and quivering to this intense and almost frightening shout in the chorus. The imagery throughout is fascinating. So unconventional and original, few artists around Bush were writing about this sort of thing. Her production on the song is superb. The gorgeous and sweeping strings were written and arranged by Dave Lawson and Andrew Powell. We get brief vocal from Gordon Farrell, who says “Houidini”; Del Palmer says “Rosabel believe”. Standout drums from Stuart Elliott. One of the standouts from an album still underrated and misunderstood, I think few songs can match the beauty and potency of Houidini. I do want to get something together where money can be raised for CRISIS and War Child that would involve Kate Bush’s music. I do not have a tonne of followers, so I worry that it might not get that much traction. However, if the charities themselves collaborated, then it could get wider attention and awareness. Kate Bush fans getting a chance to share that standout Kate Bush and say why. For me, I would have to go with my favourite: the spectral and…

SPECTACULAR Houdini.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Anna von Hausswolff

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Svensson

Anna von Hausswolff

__________

THIS is someone whose music…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ines Sebalj

I have loved for years, and I compelled to come back to her. I have included her in features before, though I have never spotlighted her. As her extraordinary new album, ICONOCLASTS, is out and is one of the best-reviewed of the year, I want to shine a light on Anna von Hausswolff. I am going to end this feature with a review for ICONOCLASTS. Before that, there are a couple of interviews from recently that I want to introduce. I want to start out with an interview from Interview, where Iggy Pop (who is a guest on ICONOCLASTS) chatted with Anna von Hausswolff. It was a really interesting interview. A lot of mutual respect and curiosity. I have chosen a few segments from their conversation here:

“POP: Oh, that’s beautiful. I’m curious about Iconoclasts, the name of the record you made. How did you come up with that name?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: One of the first songs that I wrote for the album is “The Iconoclast,” and that song became the starting point. The album is about questioning something and breaking out from something. It could be an illusion, a system, a relationship. I wanted the title to just represent the questioning and the breaking out of worship, worship of a lifestyle, worship of thought, and finding something new.

POP: There must be something in the stars right now because that’s happening up and down levels of society. The boundaries and nationalities right now are often very silly.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: I think worship can be such a beautiful thing. It can give you so much hope and inspiration. Worship of love, worship of certain people. But when it comes to people in general, you have to be very careful because it could so easily lean over to something extreme, something that is not grounded in who your true self is. We have such a tendency to become obsessed with things or obsessed with people.

POP: It’s becoming evident, probably through social media, that there are certain people who seem to be doing so well. Meaning, if you count up the numbers or look at the size of the yacht or how many jets or how much they can influence a government. And then there are people who just aren’t getting anywhere and they feel that way. I am an old git who loves very, very much the mid-60s to 1970s, which was titled loosely to the free jazz movement. And the first cut on the record, “Struggle With the Beast,” reminds me of the period where John Coltrane would take a Broadway show tune like “My Favorite Things,” and elevate it with very beautiful music. I’d never heard you work with saxophones or anything like that. How was that recorded? Who are the saxophonists?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: For the whole album, and that track in particular, I collaborated with the saxophonist called Otis Sandsjö.

POP: That’s a good player, really.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: He is brilliant. And like almost everyone I work with, he’s someone that I know from my past, from school or my childhood. Before I made this album, I wrote music for a theater play in Stockholm called The Lower Depths, a play by Maxim Gorky. It was the first time I arranged for Woodwind.

POP: You can read music?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: Very badly, but I know the basics, and I think it’s very convenient to work in Logic. Logic has so many tools where you can work intuitively with a MIDI synth and you can play directly. And then you can add layers and it will convert it into notes.

POP: It’s a killer. There are several times, I think, on Facing Atlas—and then on the one we did, “The Whole Woman,” but also on “Young Aging Women”—where suddenly there are melodies that are very close to certain kinds of pop ballads, trying to lift the chorus and everything. You can write that stuff. Hats off.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: I think I wanted, with this album, to stay a little bit true to who I was at the beginning of my musical career and what sort of music I was interested in, aside from all of the rock and experimental music. When I started playing music, it started with me and my sister and our friend. We were singing together. It was a lot of R&B, a lot of soul, a lot of pop. And we were also dancing hip-hop. So, I wanted to bring in more movement, and I wanted to have these very clear, simple pop lines that would just stem directly from the heart somehow. I would not give it too much thought or intellectualize it too much.

POP: For a listener, it’s pretty rare to hear those sorts of things without being accompanied by some horrible productions beating you over the head. On “The Whole Woman,” my favorite lines are when you say, “I’m not afraid to go down to the harbor” and “See you again to tell you the whole truth.” Do you go down to the harbor?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: Yeah, I do a lot. Whenever I need to air out some emotions, the harbor is my place. The ocean is my go-to spot when I need to calm myself or when I need to get out of my own head. I think the harbor is also, for this song, a place to say farewell at the same time, to clean yourself from your past”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fredrik Bengtsson

A slight detour, perhaps, I did like this feature from The Quietus, where Anna von Hausswolff chose a selection of albums that were important to her. Her favourites. Why these albums are important to her. I have chosen a few to highlight here, as I feel you can detect a bit of each of them in ICONOCLASTS:

“Nils Frahm - Spaces

I became familiar with Nils Frahm through the label Kning Disk, who released my Singing From The Grave and Ceremony records. Kning Disk’s Mattias Nilsson had released The Bells by Nils. That is a very minimalistic classical piano record. When I heard his music for the first time, I fell in love instantly. I had just finished high school, where I had studied classical piano. The classical music world can be really restrained and pretentious. You are supposed to play in a certain way and it is not supposed to be too simple. Simplicity is not anything that you should strive to achieve – or at least that was my impression when I had studied classical music at school.

So, it was a relief to hear The Bells by Nils Frahm. He had a background in classical music but he still allowed himself to play these simple patterns over and over again. He would let the music breath and have a lot of space between each note. At the time, that was very inspiring to hear for me. I then followed him and heard Spaces, which was released in 2013. I heard it when I was touring and was surprised by how much he had progressed, in going from those really simple songs to these huge, grand compositions with a lot of electronic beats. He has took his own way of writing classical music and has combined it with electronics in a very organic way. It felt very new and very special.

I think there are some field recordings and some live recordings on the album. It’s interesting, because all of the songs fit beautifully together. What I am extremely impressed by is his way of making everything sound so organic, even though he is processing sounds through lots of effects pedals or is playing synthesisers on a programmed arpeggio song. That is rare for people who are working with electronics, in the way that he does.

I was his support act for a show in Amsterdam and we have kept in contact by email. He told me a while ago that he built a ‘touring organ’. I was very jealous. I wonder if he treasures his touring organ. I need to steal his touring organ. I then saw him play a show in Paris with his touring organ and he played songs from Spaces, but then he played many new songs on the organ. The new songs were even better. Therefore, his next album may knock Spaces out of this list.

Nico - Desertshore

I got this record from my dad as a birthday gift, but before that I had heard it via my sister. My sister presented this record to me when I was 16 or 17 and then I got it from my dad in my 20s. It was nice to get again from him as I had forgotten how good it was. I remember listening to it a lot when I was 16, but I wasn’t mesmerised in the way I was when I heard it when older.

Nico is probably one of the most influential songwriters for me, when it comes to vocal delivery. She is very brave in the way that she uses her voice and, of course, I am very impressed by the depth of her voice. It is raw, honest, and very authentic. It doesn’t feel like she is putting on a costume and I believe in every single word she is singing. I think it takes a very musical person to deliver such honesty in such complex pop songs. Even though there is complexity to this album, it still feels quite accessible. In addition, there is a very intriguing ambience to this record with lots of interesting sounds. I think it was co-produced by John Cale.

Nico is without doubt one of my most important role models, alongside Diamanda Galás. Diamanda Galás isn’t on this list because I prefer her in a live format than I do on record. With Nico, I love how she delivers her lyrics and I like the rawness in her. She seemed to be a very uncompromising person.

Paul Giovanni & Magnet – The Wicker Man

I have never made a score for a film, but I like to think I am doing a score for a film when I make an album. With a film soundtrack, the artist has to think more of how the pieces are connected to each other and how the album evolves dynamically throughout each song, instead of each song having its own disconnected and separate dynamic from the other songs like a typical pop record. I think that’s why I like to put soundtracks on my favourite album list, because as a whole they are amazing as opposed to an album with five amazing songs and then the rest could be kind of crap.

For The Wicker Man, the music is by Paul Giovanni and Magnet. I think this version of the band Magnet was created for this album. I don’t know if Magnet exist or made anything else apart from this soundtrack. The music is inspired by Scottish, English and Irish tunes and, for me, overshadows the film in its greatness. I like the film as well – it is a very eccentric horror film and at times it almost becomes a musical. I like how the music is so entwined with the film, so they become as one.

I like the record so much because it connects to the places, culture and the people in The Wicker Man. Magnet and Giovanni have taken something old and made something personal and new from it. I like how music traditions can be passed from one generation to another and be changed a little by each transmittance. I realise that now that film is quite old, but for me it still feels contemporary”.

I want to come to an interview from The Line of Best Fit from last month. The Swedish musician and composer talked about her new album. We also learned more about a frightening experience four years ago where von Hausswolff was in a church in Nantes and, outside, there was protest from right-wing Catholic fundamentalists who had barricaded fans away from her gig. When it comes to ICONOCLASTS, Anna von Hausswolff “found kindred spirits in rebels and disruptors to create her most urgent work yet”:

“In a break from von Hausswolff’s own tradition, ICONOCLASTS wears its central themes close to its turbulent surface rather than letting them linger in the depths. “A lot of these songs are about love, in various ways, but I wanted the album to feel like a battle cry,” she says, clenching a fist in her lap. “It felt urgent to me to express a sense of wanting things to change and actually taking steps towards that change. It’s so easy to say what you believe but then not really live by those beliefs or follow those rules. For me, I know I have my morals and my ethics, but I don’t always act by them.”

In a way, it's a continuation of a lifetime’s effort to try and unlearn the habit of people pleasing, which she says is still a constant struggle – but it’s bigger than that, too. ICONOCLASTS is a call for greater agency on every level: passivity is out and breaking free of structures and bonds that no longer serve us is very much in. On “Facing Atlas”, a song about the perils of committing too fully to one viewpoint or side, she invokes the hapless Greek Titan condemned to forever hold up the sky as a symbol of what not to become. “The foolish hope of great eternal beauty,” she sings, as if taunting herself. “This shit breaks my heart.” She’s sorry, too, on eco-banger “Stardust”, which sings of a life “vaporised into the sky” and vehemently howls “it’s time to make mistakes” – or time at least to care enough to try.

“I’m not an activist. I’m not a politician. I’m a musician, an artist, and I think that art should be allowed to not always play by the rules of what’s correct and what’s not correct,” she says, so long as it comes from a place of considered intention. At an hour and a quarter long, von Hausswolff’s sixth album is a lot to digest but not a moment of it goes to waste. Even when “The Iconoclast” screams its way into a void part-way through its 11-minute runtime, those few beats of silence carry just as much weight and speak just as loudly.

These days, von Hausswolff has made peace with the fact that she’s sometimes a little pitchy when she sings. After all, it’s seldom through perfection that our real truths our told, but through the heat and charge of the moment. Few people know that better than ‘godfather of punk’ Iggy Pop, who lends his bombed-out vibrato to pop ballad “The Whole Woman”, ICONOCLASTS’ most outwardly straightforward love song. “He felt like a dad to me,” she says, remembering their first meeting years ago. “He had an energy about him that felt like family.” And while the song was originally written as a conversation between lovers, von Hausswolff sees it now as something much more open. Still a love song, but not necessarily a romantic love. Perhaps a conversation between two sides of the same person, even. There’s an almost ritualistic feel to it, as if calling on the power of the sea to wash away the pettiness of life and find new common ground.

This idea of rising above the daily circus of bullshit is one she returns to a few times throughout our conversation, and it all comes back to hip hop, specifically Kendrick Lamar. “I feel like he’s one of those artists who’s so good at not dwelling in the darkness but rising above it, putting a spotlight on problems and openly encouraging change,” she explains, crediting the rapper for inspiring her to want to be a bigger, grander version of herself, and to stand her ground in the process. “He might actually have been the most important artist for ICONOCLASTS, even if you can’t hear it in the music.”

When it comes to world building and musical horror, few have done it better in recent years than Ethel Cain, who joins von Hausswolff on “Aging Young Women”, ICONOCLASTS’ second luminous ballad, a song about the chances that slip away with time and the angst that comes with their passing. Introduced to Cain’s music by her sister Maria, von Hausswolff says she didn’t fully click with it at first. She wasn’t in the right emotional space to receive it. But then came the breakup, and suddenly everything fell into place. “Once I started really listening it felt very genuine to me and I fell in love,” she says. “Something about Ethel really resonated with me, emotionally, musically, and artistically. Her music felt healing, and the music I was writing was also a way of healing, so I wanted to honour her and have her on this song.”

“I’m always drawn to female artists who use dark aesthetics but aren’t afraid to balance that darkness with a little bit of light, to show both sides. Artists like Chelsea Wolfe, Pharmakon, and Emma Ruth Rundle. I can’t listen to their music all the time because it needs a certain time and space. But, like with Ethel's music, once you find that time and space, it's going to be beautiful”.

I am going to end with a five-star review from The Guardian for ICONOCLASTS. Featuring incredible guests spots from Iggy Pop and Ethel Cain, this spectacular album “pivots from drones to spectacular pop melodies”. It is clear that Anne von Hausswolff is a truly mesmerising artist. I have known about her music  for years and she has not dropped a step. Her sixth studio album, her latest work, might well be her very best. An artist that seemingly gets better with every release:

“Iconoclasts is a long album – it lasts the best part of an hour and a quarter – but it still feels crammed with sound. There are heaving synthesised drones that, in their intensity, occasionally evoke the sound of Fuck Buttons’ 2009 masterpiece Tarot Sport; explosions of fizzing noise; cinematic orchestrations; and drum patterns that marry a ritualistic-sounding thunder to rhythms that variously recall the pulse of dance music, the glitterbeat stomp of glam, and even reggae. Von Hausswolff is less inclined to erupt into shrieks and ululations than she once was, but her singing still has a blazing forcefulness that cuts through the echo she is frequently doused in.

It’s music that feels as if it’s in constant motion, amplified by the fact that the melodies, rich and beautiful as they are, seldom adhere to any standard verse-chorus structure: the songs here usually end up somewhere very different from the place they started. Indeed, its maximalism might be too overwhelming to take in one long sitting.

But if it is too much, it’s too much of a good thing: with their sense of movement, their twists and turns, their radiant tunes, their emotive power, these songs are exhausting because they’re exhilarating. For an album with a worldview summed up by a striking line from Facing Atlas that declares life on Earth “full of shit and full of evil”, that ponders ageing and paralysing depression, and on which it is frequently unclear whether the songs are dealing with something personal or with current events (“the sky is crashing down upon the ships of freedom … the life we had has vaporised into the sky”), its overall mood is a kind of frazzled euphoria. The songs surge and build, the bursts of noise feel cathartic. It’s as if the music is fighting against the tone of the lyrics, urgently pressing forward despite everything. “I’m breaking up with language,” Von Hauswolff sings on Stardust, “in search of something bigger.” In the strange, unique, expansive, impassioned and experimental take on pop presented on Iconoclasts, she seems to have found it”.

I am going to wrap up there. I am surprised that I have not spotlighted Anna von Hauswolff yet. I have included her for Modern-Day Queens, as she is one of the greatest musicians in the world. A phenomenal composer and a hugely consistent songwriter, you can check out her tour dates here. She has a couple of U.K. dates in January, so catch her if you can. ICONOCLASTS is a masterpiece that everyone needs to hear. Her music is so atmospheric and evocative. You put it on, close your eyes, and let it carry you…

INTO this extraordinary place.

___________

Follow Anna von Hausswolff

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Svensson

Official:

https://www.annavonhausswolff.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/annavonhausswolff

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/AnnavonHausswolff

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1eiXrvua27VlWgZ9kiaIn6?si=3Mv3VzzTTSOOPm5n0QV-kA

FEATURE: Spotlight: Oklou

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Furmaan Ahmed for NME

Oklou

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THIS is a brilliant French artist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Steph Wilson

who I have included I a feature recently, though I have not spotlighted her yet. Oklou (Marylou Mayniel) released her debut studio album, choke enough, earlier in the year. Despite the fact that she has been recording music for over a decade, I do think that now is a time when Oklou is getting a lot more attention and reaching new people. I am going to get to some recent interviews with her. Even though I am not keen on the format of this one from Stereogum - rather than it being a string of questions and answers, it is a bit random and hard to make sense of as there are questions and answers and headers and answers - there is some interesting information that I want to include:

“From the art she puts out as Oklou, it’d be easy to imagine Marylou Mayniel as a forest nymph casting surreal enchantments on classic pop songs or a cupid studying romance’s metamorphosis. She embodied the former, alongside collaborator Casey MQ, while making 2017’s For The Beasts EP, and the latter on 2020’s Galore mixtape. In between, she released 2018’s The Rite Of May EP, a holographic fusion of found sound, trip-hop, classical, and daydreamy synth-pop. It’s no surprise she’s opened for fellow pop folklorist Caroline Polachek and worked alongside innovative artists from NUXXE Collective and PC Music. Each adventure has further solidified her as a modern day mythmaker, conjuring a new realm with experimental electronic and pop music.

On her debut, Mayniel masters playfulness with looming unease. “Forces in everything/ Speak louder than me,” she earnestly sings during the chorus on “Obvious.” Over cherubic horns and a reggaeton-inspired beat, she watches flowers grow and submits to the greater powers at play that feel beyond human comprehension. It exemplifies how Choke Enough feels simultaneously like the manic spiral of an existential crisis and opening a small door to another world that you discovered in the back of a closet, while spring-cleaning.

I’m curious about the differences in escapism of what you’re exploring on Choke Enough versus Galore?

OKLOU: Yeah, the two are totally different. There’s been this need for me in these recent years, without even talking about music, to get closer to real life and what’s happening around me. I don’t know how much of it’s related to me growing up or or also just a post-Galore effect. Because indeed, as you said, Galore, the story that I wanted to tell [she makes a soaring sound] I had to go very far in the universe. I enjoyed it, but I choose to tell the story in a certain way. I was like, Okay, I want to tell this story in the most beautiful way I can even if some aspect of the experience I’m relating to is not beautiful at all. So I have this like a hyper-romantic prism on what I had experienced at the time in the context of a relationship.

Then after that, my life changed. I met someone new as well. My focus changed. The conversations with my friends also changed. It felt like a new movement, a new way to look at things and to get involved in things. It impacted me a lot, especially on my capacity to use my imagination. I was a bit torn actually, because I was so interested in these real life subjects, sometimes very political as well. And then I was going to the studio, and I was like, “Oh yeah, let’s make magic.’ It’s really hard when you think about real life stuff.

It could be easy, I guess, sometimes to actually use art in that regard. But I find it hard for myself to disconnect and reconnect and disconnect. I chose to stay connected to my social life and spiritual, not in the way of beliefs, but what was interesting to me.

It resulted in hours of discussions with Casey, which is my main collaborator. Hours of discussion. It was almost funny, because at some point for each track we’re talking about the concept of the lyrics, etc, for like an hour, two hours, and then at the end of the conversation, we were almost systematically in a dead end of the conversation. We were turning in circles, provoking questions and realizing that there’s no answer at all. [Laughs] So that was really special. It was actually kind of tiring. It’s what happened. It’s really part of the creative process. So it’s, I think, relevant to mention.

How did thoughts on motherhood and family impact the conceptualization of the album?

OKLOU: As far as the thoughts on motherhood, when I wrote the lyrics to “family and friends,” first of all the pregnancy was a total surprise. I had the album to release and the tour to do.

It’s a different kind of birth.

OKLOU: Exactly. But my evocation of motherhood in the context of “family and friends” illustrates, in my opinion, the moments where I’ve been thinking about, why do I feel like I’m necessarily gonna have kids one day? I think, like a lot of women, our age and our generation, are asking themselves these questions — what do I really want to experience? I’ve been growing up in a family where every woman is a mother, and there’s no question about that. And every father is doing the barbecue on Sunday. You know, everything is very like women and men and family driven. It’s great, because my family is good people, and everybody’s saying I have this chance to have a functional [family] having grown up in a functional and loving environment.

But what was not there though was questioning everybody’s posture in the family. I think I’ve become more and more aware of how conditioned we were as women in my family.

It’s been a few years that there’s been this pretty natural conversation in myself regarding the path I want to take in my life, and how much I actually want to be a mother just because all these women before me have done that.

“family and friends,” the chorus is me wondering if it’s even worth asking myself all of these questions. It’s very schizophrenic in that sense. I keep going back and forth between thinking too much if I feel good and enjoying my life as it is, how much you know you have to put yourself in this discomfort of actually questioning everything. What good does that really make for yourself and for people around you?

Your relationship with time is more about marinating and incubating ideas? Or is that delay in a project about perfectionism, wanting to have something fully realized before you put it out?

OKLOU: This is very important, actually, because it’s something also that is dysfunctional, in my opinion, within the industry and what you’re being asked to do. There is so much content, so much information, and so many things being shared. Often I find myself like, I really want this thing that I share to be worth it, to be beautiful, to be incarnated, because I feel, especially in hard times, it’s overwhelming, and things are being shared for the wrong reasons. Many things that are not actually art-focused enough. For me, it’s a shame. I feel bad when I do things in that regard, to run after a result. It’s incompatible with the concept of the industry, obviously, but it’s what’s been at stake recently for me. It’s all about the choices you make at the end of the day”.

I am going to move to an interview from FADER. Oklou’s latest album might be her best and most personal. Answering life’s big questions on choke enough, I do wonder how she follows this album. Such an accomplished work, choke enough is one of the best albums of this year. One that everyone should listen to:

“Was starting a family something you'd generally been thinking about?

It's not so much about starting a family, but [the song] definitely holds thoughts around the options that are being presented to me as a human being, as a woman, as an artist. It holds a lot of questioning. I start the song by talking about a very precise memory I have of a conversation with a teacher that was around what you wanna do in life and what you're supposed to do in life and what it means to use your qualities. I use this as a jumping off point for the rest of the track.

When you get older, these questions you asked yourself when you were younger gain so much more weight.

To be fair, my spirit when I was younger felt more free from these questions than these last few years for me. I felt more the weight of these options recently in my life, than when I was 19. After my last project, which was emotionally draining, very intense, very focused, very precise, there's many things in my life that have changed. I think for a natural reason just because I'm a growing up human. But, eventually I had to write lyrics and I can only talk about my life. So if my experiences are the inspiration, what is my experience at this moment? I was trying to answer that question in this album.

Are you listening to classical music often?

I have to admit ever since I started working on the album, I've been listening to very few music actually. There's one playlist I've been listening to on Spotify which is mainly just '70s music of Japanese composers doing new age stuff. I really like that.

How did you know you wanted Bladee to be on the record?

It's been a while actually that I wanted to do something with either him or Ecco2K, who I've been a big fan of also for a while. We actually met a few times and you know, quick exchanges, "Ah, we can do something together." When I was writing the album in Los Angeles, [Casey MQ and I] we went to see a show of Drain Gang. I was really touched by the commitment of the fans. I think it gave me the impulse to actually write to [Bladee and Ecco2k]. But Benjamin was the one to answer my proposition.

What's coming up for you this year? Obviously you have this other project you're working on…

Two releases this year! [laughs] Well, the album is the first big thing which I'm very excited about. And then [I’ll] focus on how I'm gonna share this music with people. I work with a stylist, his name is Pierre, and we've been working on my character for this new album. I think I wanted to get back to something a bit more real in the aesthetic than what I've been exploring in these last years. [Galore] was really fantastic and witchy. I need to get back on Earth a little bit, and putting my vision on, “What is actually going on?” I'm [in my] 30s”.

Last month, Pitchfork spoke with Oklou around the release of the Deluxe Edition of choke enough. They note how “In the afterglow of her magnificent album, choke enough, and the birth of her first child, Marylou Mayniel decamps to the southwest of France”. If you have not heard Oklou and her incredible music, then make sure that you listen to her now, as she is simply phenomenal:

“Mayniel and her elder brother, Clovis, each played piano from a young age; she remembers hearing him practice while she played Barbies, and going to her first lessons at a local music teacher’s home. “She used to have animals in the garden,” she says. Later, she studied cello and piano at conservatory school, and taught herself to play her brother’s guitar with tab sheets printed from the internet. (The siblings also have two older half-sisters.) As a teenager in Poitiers, Mayniel gravitated to Le Confort Moderne, part of a network of government-­supported cultural venues called SMAC (scène de musiques actuelles), where she met like-­minded friends and saw touring bands perform—memorably, the obliteratingly loud Sunn O))).

Around 2013 she began recording and uploading music of her own, much of which remains online: a beat tape, Avril, and assorted features on chill-out house tracks credited to her old alias, Loumar; a SoundCloud account under Avril Alvarez, a pseudonym based on her birth month, April. In 2014 she moved to Paris, where she became a founding member of a women’s DJ crew, These Girls Are on Fiyah. This is the period when the Oklou discography properly begins, with For the Beasts, and a second EP, The Rite of May, released in 2018, during what became a two-year stay in London, where Mayniel collaborated with the artist Malibu, along with NUXXE collective cofounders Sega Bodega and Shygirl.

A lot of artists in her position, I point out, would’ve wiped their early 2010s internet presence by now. “I just love archives,” she replies. “And I could put it private, but….” She trails off to reflect. “I don’t see why I should take it [down]. Some of it is not good, but it’s normal. It’s part of the process. I’m not ashamed of it.” The matter-of-fact rebuff feels very French, very Oklou.

Unlike Galore, much of which can be played on piano—the song “rosebud” is “literally like a Bach style”—Mayniel perceives choke enough as being synthetic. She rooted her concept of each track in the sonorities of a particular synth chord. “The sound I used to start the creation is gonna tell me which notes I should play, you know?” she explains. “When I play from a guitar or piano, the sound is really always the same, and it’s a great sound, but I’m interested in the texture of sounds that I cannot just stick to.”

She also reoriented her production style around loops, editing and resurfacing sounds and rhythms culled from her files, from Casey’s files, and from professional beat packs until nearly every song developed its own collection of character motifs. The first sound on the album is a lonely, irregular pulse, like a line of Morse code: a drum pattern that she filtered almost beyond recognition. “Me and her both have a similar kind of relationship to drums,” explains Harle, “which is like, we’d prefer them to not be there, but if they have to be there, they might as well have a note in them.” (He hints they have a heap of unreleased work together, including one new song coming soon.)

Mayniel’s favorite choke enough song, coproduced with Casey MQ and another friend, French DJ Lucien Krampf, is the title track. She landed on the word choke, she explains, in the same way as many of her lyrics, which she writes in English: based on the gibberish syllables she invents to model melodies on demos. The rest of the song was harder, because its muted hybrid of pop and electronic conventions doesn’t build up or drop; instead it scrolls by, like a video game background. “I struggled a lot making my point” with the production, she says. “I knew that I didn’t want to take that path of like, club music, but also without saying too much, I was kind of being pressured by people I worked with, being like, Oh, you should…. I was questioning my intuition: Oh, maybe I’m wasting the potential of the track. And so it took me years before I finally felt confident enough to be like, No, I should just follow my gut.”

True Panther’s Bein recalls a point about a year and a half into the recording process, when, conscious of passing time, he asked Mayniel how the label could help her get the songs finished. “She said, ‘You know, for me, in order to finish this, I have to reach a level of loneliness that is really difficult for me to summon, and I don’t actually know when it is that I’m gonna summon it,’ ” he recalls. The album took another year, but Mayniel tells me later that she’s not sure she found true loneliness; eventually, she just had to call it.

Part of why choke enough feels so uncannily familiar, I believe, is that it succeeds at bringing real-life existentialism into the paradoxical condition of feeling permanently online. “Obsessed with living in the present,” Underscores mutters on “harvest sky,” a song inspired by Mayniel’s memories of bonfire celebrations for la Fête de la Saint-Jean, the feast of Saint John the Baptist, which traditionally falls around the summer solstice. What else but the loop, the complete cycle, the refresh, to take us back to ourselves?

Yet if you don’t know what to look for, each song is a sleek, self-contained whole; like Apple used to boast of its tech products, “it just works,” straight out of the box. Months later, I’m still unlocking new features: foggy background samples, pregnant pauses, birdlike screeches that underline the drama of the moment, in much the same way, I notice, as the birds in The Plague Dogs, the film.

These birds were never real, though. The keening tone heard on an interlude, and again on “forces,” is man-made, some kind of equipment that Mayniel recorded in her neighborhood. And “blade bird,” choke enough’s elegiac, acoustic closer, adapts the concept of a Basque-­language poem and folk song, “Txoria Txori” (“The Bird’s a Bird”), which laments a love that cannot be possessed. Mayniel first encountered the poem in a novel, Les Gens de Bilbao Naissent Où Ils Veulent, by Spanish writer and filmmaker María Larrea. “When I read the translation, it really resonated a lot with me, and I guess with the history of my parents,” she says.

“I thought it was beautifully placed, that feeling of falling in love with people because they’re beautiful, because they’re so free, but then they’re so free that you can’t have them, really.” At first I pictured a little bird pierced by a dagger, like a traditional tattoo, but months later, I pictured a bird made of blades, wings cycling like the thin, muscular arms of a wind turbine—a loop.

In the back rooms of the internet there used to be all kinds of amateur splendor: hand-curated YouTube music channels, niche Tumblr art archives, strangers’ Flickr galleries, pseudonymous SoundClouds. The underground pop of the 2010s used to get so excited about being online, using shrinky-dink artifice to delight in poking fun at a culture that could feel shallow and strange but also organic and endlessly renewable. Turns out the internet isn’t really forever. Mayniel spends less time on all forms of social media these days: “I’m bored. I don’t know how to use it anymore.” Touch grass, they say: choke enough is an online album looking for the ground.

The ground looks a little different under each of us. A week later, I call Mayniel back to check some details and get a glimpse of hers: Home in a comfy chair, holding baby Zakaria, who’s nursing while Mayniel talks. The heat wave’s finally broken, and the sun’s shining in”.

The French musician has been releasing music for years now, though I thought it was the right time to spotlight her. Oklou is hitting a peak at the moment and she is not widely known. Not in the U.K. anyway. One of these artists who will continue to grow and put out amazing albums, go and follow Oklou. She is someone who is not going away…

ANYTIME soon.

______________

Follow Oklou

PHOTO CREDIT: Gil Gharbi

Official:

https://oklou.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/oklou_/

Twitter:

https://x.com/oklou_

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6fFcUOFcbjeIuEomuUthkw?si=GSiNpIxlRkCGakJlso1Faw

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPmfaXPGbC03r30Q5eR5atw

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Oklou93/

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Marvin Gaye

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

Marvin Gaye

__________

IN this The Great American Songbook…

PHOTO CREDIT: George Rose/Los Angeles Times

I am going to compile a mixtape featuring twenty songs from one of the all-time best singers. Marvin Gaye had the nicknames ‘Prince of Motown’ and ‘Prince of Soul’. An incredible artist who helped shape the sound of Motown, I am going to come to their biography of the great Marvin Gaye. Born in Washington D.C. in 1939, artists influenced by him or who have cited him as an inspiration include D'Angelo, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Outkast, Musiq Soulchild, Maxwell, Drake, and Tyler, the Creator. Here is Motown’s biography of a true great:

“Marvin Gaye broke the rules. Sure, Berry Gordy Jr set them, and sometimes – in the 1960s, often – the singer fell into line. But the enigmatic and headstrong “Prince of Motown” constantly sought to chart his own course, even when plagued by a divided soul. Marvin’s ultimate legacy is one of the most socially conscious, celebrated and timeless works of 20th century popular art: his 1971 album, What’s Going On.

FAST FACTS

First Hit: “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”

Biggest Hit: “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”

Top Album: What’s Going On

Career Highlight: Asserting an independent voice within the machine, to make the masterwork that is What’s Going On

Born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. in Washington, D.C., in 1939, he sings in church as a child, becoming a soloist in the choir and learning to play piano and drums. In 1955, at odds with his father and unhappy at home, he quits high school and joins the Air Force. A subsequent honorable discharge notes that Marvin is unable to adjust to “regimentation and authority.”

Marvin loves the sound and ethos of doo-wop singing. Back in his hometown, he forms a group, the Marquees, to exult in the harmonies of the genre. (He also adds an “e” to his name.) Good fortune brings them into the orbit of a successful combo, the Moonglows, led by the man who is to be Marvin’s lifetime musical mentor, Harvey Fuqua. Marvin becomes one of the Moonglows, then finds himself at Motown in 1960 through Harvey’s closeness with Berry Gordy’s sister, Gwen.

Alongside duties as a drummer for the Miracles, Marvin begins recording in the style of the Sinatra-style crooner he longs to be. Berry Gordy produces The Soulful Moods Of Marvin Gaye, his debut album; it is not a commercial success. “I had a game plan that wasn’t working,” Marvin tells author David Ritz. He adapts to commercial demands, and co-writes his first – and autobiographical – hit, “Stubborn Kind Of Fellow.”

Marvin begins a consistent occupancy of the R&B and pop charts of the 1960s with hits penned by others, such as “Can I Get A Witness” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” from the Holland/Dozier/Holland team, and “I’ll Be Doggone” and “Ain’t That Peculiar” from Smokey Robinson. He also proves to be an ideal partner, climbing the best-sellers by way of disc duets with Mary Wells, Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell.

At Motown, Marvin’s popularity helps to offset his stubborn tendencies, especially when he proves to have the perfect voice for a mystical re-rendering of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” produced by Norman Whitfield. The song has already been a hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips, but Norman – who could be headstrong himself – wants Marvin’s interpretation to be heard. When airplay finally forces its release in November 1968, this becomes Motown’s single greatest hit of the decade, a seven-week chart-topper ablaze with the white heat of Marvin’s voice, the voodoo rhythms of the Funk Brothers, and the vindicated wisdom of Norman Whitfield.

As the ’70s dawn, Marvin no longer bows to Motown’s commercial imperatives. He wants to make music to reflect troubled times: a divisive Asian war, the disillusion of a generation of young people, and the continuing struggle by millions of Americans for racial justice. Marvin pours this and more into the melting pot that is What’s Going On, collaborating with others and drawing together the finest of Motown musicians. After the album’s release in May 1971, its huge success elevates expectations for Marvin. Berry Gordy did not favour his star’s provocative dissent, but acknowledges that he was wrong.The 1970s see Marvin build on his creative freedom, with a film score (Trouble Man), more duets (with Diana Ross) and a pair of sexually charged albums, Let’s Get It On and I Want You, which are commercial home runs as well as personal diaries of a conflicted man, torn between carnality and faith. There are also two in-concert LPs, including Live At The London Palladium, which is augmented by a definitive dance smash, the studio-sculpted “Got To Give It Up” in 1977.

Marvin continues to make his personal life public through song, never more evident than in 1978’s Here, My Dear, a sprawling double-album chronicling his divorce from Anna. His alienation from Motown is the undercurrent of 1981’s deeply philosophical In Our Lifetime, by which time Marvin’s woes – with the IRS, among other pursuers – see him relocate to Europe.

Refreshed by exile in Belgium, Marvin returns to prominence (and to his homeland) with 1982’s Midnight Love, the first album for his new label, Columbia. It is prefaced by “Sexual Healing,” a chart-busting and Grammy® -winning single. Marvin tours amid this renewed appetite for his talents, and scores a televised coup in early ’83 with a magnetic performance of the national anthem at the NBA’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles. Yet on April 1, 1984 – one day before his 45th birthday – the superstar is shot to death by his father in the aftermath of a heated argument. Following a star-studded funeral, his ashes are scattered in the Pacific Ocean”.

This feature celebrates great American artists whose catalogue is among the best in music. I could not leave Marvin Gaye out! A hugely influential singer and songwriter, Gaye’s legacy and impact will remain and spread for generations to come. There is no doubting the fact that he is one of the most important artists…

IN music history.

FEATURE: New Director Cuts: The ‘Missed’ Singles and Potential Short Films

FEATURE:

 

 

New Director Cuts

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989

The ‘Missed’ Singles and Potential Short Films

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AS Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Miranda Richardson in the 1993 short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve

recently turned thirty-two, I have been thinking about the short film that was released around the album, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. That was a short that Bush wrote, directed and starred in that drew in songs from The Red Shoes. Arguably, it was the first visual album. Something that no doubt inspired artists who followed. We can see Kate Bush as the first female artist at least to release something close to a visual album. It makes me wonder about other albums and short films that could have come from them. Also, there are a couple of songs from The Red Shoes that should have come out as single. It is inevitable that fans have their own theorises regarding ‘missed’ singles. Those that would have worked. I have written about this before. The first three albums from Bush have that opportunity. She did bring The Kick Inside and Lionheart’s tracks to life for 1979’s The Tour of Life, and numbers from Never for Ever were also included, in addition to appearing on 1980’s Never for Ever. Even though I don’t think you could have improved on The Tour of Life or made a short film from songs on The Kick Inside and Lionheart (1978), there were songs on each album that begged to be singles. Ones that could have had these remarkable videos that rank alongside the best Kate Bush videos. Moving, Them Heavy People and The Kick Inside all had live performances. Kate Bush recorded videos for them in that context. I am not sure that the budget was for her videos on her debut but, as effective and distinct as Wuthering Heights and The Man with the Child in His Eyes are, there was scope for something a bit more cinematic or different. Moving was released as a single in Japan but no official video. Them Heavy People was released as a single and had a live video accompanying it, whilst Moving has its live performances.

I highlighted these songs as it would be amazing to see fuller stories for them. Moving, this dreamy and beautiful song was brought to life on the stage, though I think that it could have made as successful U.K. single. One that would have charted high and could have been released after The Man with the Child in His Eyes. In terms of international singles, The Kick Inside would have been interesting. I am not sure what form the video would have taken, though I feel releasing it in Europe would have been a good commercial move and could have got the album more focus there. Them Heavy People was a single  A live recording of this song was the lead track on the On Stage E.P. which reached number ten in the UK Singles Chart in 1979. The live video is great, though this song deserved to be released as a U.K. single in 1978 and had a video where Bush brought the lyrics to life. Maybe teachers, philosophers and ‘heavy people’ surrounding her. Bush immersed in books in this fantasy. I think, if Them Heavy People was released in 1978, it could have perfectly fitted with Moving, The Man with the Child in His Eyes and Wuthering Heights. I am not sure if EMI limited Bush to two U.K. singles and wanted to put more emphasis on the album rather than single. Lionheart has three songs not released as singles that could have had this amazing videos: Fullhouse, Kashka from Baghdad and Coffee Homeground. Hammer Horror and Wow were released as U.K. singles, though there should have been a third. In terms of potential, Coffee Homegropund would have been the most successful. Set in a café and involving this fascinating cast of characters where Bush sings “Pictures of Crippin/Lipstick-smeared/Torn wallpaper/Have the walls got ears here?/Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna/In the coffee “. You could have this incredible visual. Maybe the mixed critical reaction to Lionheart might have meant an additional singles would be a waste, though I do feel that a third U.K. single could have boosted the album sales and also highlighted one of the more underrated tracks from it.

Never for Ever not only has a couple of ‘missed’ singles. It also begs for a short film. Delius (Song of Summer) and The Wedding List were not released as singles. The former weas performed live on T.V. and Bush recorded the latter for her 1979 Christmas special. I love the video for The Wedding List and feel like it could have formed part of a short film. One that follows a woman and her relationship,. Babooshka being about a wife accusing her husband of deceit and trying to trick him. The Wedding List where she gets remarried and the groom is shot down. Maybe a revenge kill? The two songs could link. All We Ever Look For this reflective and philosophical point before The Wedding List. The night before the wedding. Breathing, where the bride was made pregnant and is trying to keep her foetus safe where there is nuclear war and threat around. That would be a four-song short film. There is potential for a larger plot and having a concept that starts with Delius (Song of Summer), we move to Babooshka, then end with Night Scented Stock. Breathing before that. How about 1982’s The Dreaming? An album never brought to the stage or with any numbers included in a Christmas special, I have said before how Houdini and Get Out of My House could have been singles. They would have been more successful that There Goes a Tenner, The Dreaming and Night of the Swallow (released in Ireland). The Dreaming and Hounds of Love are the two albums that seem to have the most cinematic potential. In terms of a plot for The Dreaming, it could be a mix of fantasy and reality. A woman, at the start, searching for knowledge and looking at regrets, it would end with her descending into madness. All the Love feeding into Sat in Your Lap. Then we move into Suspended in Gaffa. The heroine then caught in a dream state as we get Leave It Open, Houidini and Night of the Swallow being played out and representing her turmoil and heartbreak. She would break out of sleep but then descend into paranoia as we end with Get Out of My House.

Of course, it would need to be fleshed out a bit more, though there are links between songs and potential on all of her albums. You might feel that the fact music videos were made for several of the songs means a short film would be redundant. However, I feel something similar to The Line, the Cross and the Curve could have happened for several of her albums. Maybe not for Hounds of Love, as its second side, The Ninth Wave, is in itself a short film and cinematic. I have written about how this should have been released as a short film. I don’t think you could have released any more singles from the album. That is not true of 1989’s The Sensual World. An album where Bush wanted to write more from a woman’s perfective and wanted a more feminine album, a film plot around that could have been fascinating. The Sensual World, The Fog, Deeper Understanding, Rocket’s Tail and This Woman’s Work could have been woven together into a short film. I do think that The Fog would have been a great single. Also, Rocket’s Tail would have been a commercial success. Maybe harder to put together in a cohesive story, I do like the idea that The Sensual World gets this wider exposure. The Red Shoes has had its short film, but I have written before how Lily would have been a better single than the album’s final single, And So Is Love. 2005’s Aerial has A Sky of Honey as its second disc. I am writing about this a lot as Aerial turned twenty on 7th November. I have said how that suite should be made into a short film. Or something visual that brings the songs to life. Bush did perform A Sky of Honey for Before the Dawn (her 2014 residency), though most of us will never see that. Also, when we think of 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, there is a short film there.

You could have all seven tracks put together in this story, though the album is sixty-five minuets long, so you would need shorter edits. Either that or putting together four songs form the album, say, Snowflake, Lake Tahoe, Snowed In at Wheeler Street and Among Angels. I do think it would be more satisfying having all the songs together, just cutting them down so that everything could be included within about thirty/thirty-five minutes. In terms of their length, Kate Bush did not have many options for singles. Wild Man was released, though I think Misty and Among Angels would have been popular, albeit edited down. In any case, 50 Words for Snow definitely has a terrific short film in it. So do many of Kate Bush’s albums! I have been thinking about this as The Red Shoes turned thirty-two on 1st November. Remembering the short film that was premiered on 13th November, 1993 but has a wider release on 6th May, 1994, it made me wonder, and my mind wander, regarding other short films. How Bush writes in this cinematic way. You can see plots and stories. Weaving songs together and getting something new. Maybe people will have their own views, though I think some of my suggestions could fit. The cinematic power of Kate Bush as this amazing writer and producer. It goes to show that there are…

NO limits to her brilliance.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential November Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Mavis Staples releases Sad and Beautiful World on 7th November/PHOTO CREDIT: Elizabeth De La Piedra

Essential November Releases

__________

EVEN though…

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Jessie J’s Don’t Tease Me with a Good Time, due for release on 28th November

November and December are quieter when it comes to new album releases, there are a few really interesting ones out this month I want to guide people to. I am going to take guidance from this website when it comes to releases and dates. There are ones that I am not going to mention that you will want to seek out. 7th November is the busiest week. Let’s start out with Hatchie’s Liquorice. You can pre-order the album here. I am a fan of this Australian artist, so I am curious to see what Liquorice offers:

“The cover of Liquorice, the third album from Australian indie pop artist Hatchie, features a closely cropped portrait of Harriette Pilbeam laughing, her smudged red lipstick suggesting the glorious aftermath of a kiss. Captured during a spontaneous backyard photo shoot using a dinky digital camera, the image encapsulates a record that is rough around the edges and joyfully undone with themes of longing, lust, and regret. Pilbeam began writing Liquorice in earnest while living in Brisbane over 2022-2023, and later at a home shared with Agius in Melbourne, ultimately completing the demos in mid-2024. As a musician who has previously worn her influences on her sleeve, Pilbeam strove to write from scratch without any specific musical influences in mind; allowing songs to breathe for weeks, rather than rushing ideas.

She found herself drawn to the melodic simplicity of her early songs and embraced her musical insecurities: “I wanted to see my limitations as strengths that inform my style.” After working with producers Jorge Elbrecht (Caroline Polachek, Japanese Breakfast, Sky Ferreira) and Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan) on Giving the World Away, Pilbeam wanted to complete Liquorice with a single collaborator, ideally a non-male producer who also fronts their own musical project. In September 2024, Pilbeam and Agius returned to Los Angeles to work with Melina Duterte, who records indie rock under the name Jay Som and has production credits on an assortment of projects including the Grammy-winning boygenius album the record. “My last album ended up being really dark and introspective and that is one part of me, but there was this whole other side that I felt like I wasn't expressing,” Pilbeam says. “I’m a hopeless romantic and a very silly person, sometimes to a fault.” Now 32 and married, Pilbeam found that “eternal feelings” of yearning and heartache quickly rushed back as she reflected on her experiences as a younger woman.

At the same time, she channeled her fondness for tragic romance movies where the characters do not necessarily find a happy ending together. Liquorice is preoccupied with the finite forever. These songs capture the overwhelming, exhilarating, and transforming side-effects of infatuation, even if the entirety of the love story only lasts for one magical night. Like the rich flavors of the twisty, titular candy - sweet, salty, and bitter all in one bite—Liquorice validates how longing and obsession are intertwined in the self-discovery of young womanhood”.

Mavis Staples’s Sad and Beautiful World is available to pre-order. There is not a lot of information about this album, so I am going to source a recent interview from The Guardian, where readers posted questions for Staples. In a career that has lasted over seventy-five years, this is an artist that is still so powerful and relevant. Do go and order her new album, as it is going to be one of the most important and moving of this year:

“Can you speak about the array of songs and artists on your new record? What kind of message and lyrics do you want to sing at this point in your life? steve_bayley

The first song I got for the album was Human Mind, written by Hozier and Allison Russell, and that really set the tone for the entire record. It starts: “I deal in love baby, in good words from above … and I ain’t giving up.” I cried when I was trying to sing it for the first time. Then the next song was Beautiful Strangers by Kevin Morby. All the songs are part of me and what I’ve been singing about my whole life. There’s some about war, fighting, love … some about hard times, like the farmer whose losing his farm. Things that are going on in the world today, so Sad and Beautiful World is the perfect title.

You were influential in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Do we need another civil rights movement now, 50 years later? AD2023

When I did my album of freedom songs with Ry Cooder [We’ll Never Turn Back, 2007] we sang a song called 99 and 1/2. You know, 99 and a half won’t do … we gotta make a hundred. We gotta keep on pushing because the struggle is still alive.

In my mind Stax Records was a true band of sisters and brothers pushing boundaries and creating magic, with a shared vision of art, liberty and righteousness. Is that the reality? Mr_202

It was a pleasure working at Stax because they had all these great people such as David Porter and Isaac Hayes. We called Otis Redding “the footballer” because he was so huge, but he was one beautiful spirit. They had a mixed [race] band in Booker T and the MG’s. In the early 60s, two white guys and two black guys working together was not supposed to happen, but in Stax no one looked at colour. Anybody could walk into your session and sit and listen. It was like a family and, now they’ve got a museum, a lot of teenyboppers can see Stax today.

Is this the darkest time you’ve lived through or am I foolish to believe it is? babylonfalling

It is pretty dark. There are some things going on in the US that are not pleasing to me, but I keep my head up. I turn on a light, you know, I don’t dwell on it. If someone needs me out there, I’ll be out there, but I leave that darkness out of my home and out of my life. You can’t let them bring you down”.

Midlake’s A Bridge Too Far is also out on 7th November. You can pre-order the album here. If you have not heard of this legendary American band, then do go back and check out their incredible catalogue. Their latest album is set to be one of their best. Rough Trade have provided a bit of information about A Bridge Too Far. I am intrigued to see what we get with this album:

“Beloved for their cinematic songwriting and atmospheric blend of folk, rock, and psychedelia, Midlake returns with their sixth studio album, A Bridge To Far -- a sweeping, soul-stirring meditation on resilience and hope.

Lead singer Eric Pulido describes the record as a reminder that, regardless of circumstance, there is a place -- "not made of stone" -- where one can find solace and strength. It's a call to persevere, to "go bravely arm in arm and climb upon," inviting listeners to transcend the darkness through connection and belief. This is Midlake at their most inspired and intentional, weaving together mythic storytelling and emotional clarity with the signature textures that have made them a touchstone in modern independent music.

Recorded in the band's hometown of Denton, TX at The Echo Lab with acclaimed producer and mixer Sam Evian, A Bridge To Far captures the warmth and wildness of the band's earliest recordings while pushing into luminous new territory. The first single, "The Ghouls," arrives as a haunting and propulsive introduction to the record's themes--equal parts spectral and cathartic”.

About four more albums from 7th November before I move to the following week. One that you will definitely want to get is ROSALÍA’s Lux. Pre-order the album here. This NME article tells how this new album is going to be multilingual. It is really fascinating. One of the biggest artists in the world always doing something different. ROSALÍA definitely is in a league of her own. If you have not heard her music either, then I would urge you to check her out, as she is a brilliant artist:

“Rosalía has revealed that she sings in 13 different languages on her new album, ‘Lux’.In a new interview with the New York Times, the musician revealed that she spent two years learning how to write and sing convincingly in other languages. The album features Rosalía’s native Spanish but also Catalan, English, Latin, Sicilian, Ukrainian, Arabic, German and more.

Fans were expecting something completely different to her last after Rosalía shared in August that her next album would not sound like her last LP. She told ELLE: “The rhythm [of the music industry] is so fast. And the sacrifice, the price to pay, is so high. The driving force that leads you to continue making music, to continue creating, has to come from a place of purity.”

Details of the new album emerged earlier this month (October 21), when Rosalía confirmed her new project, ‘LUX’, would be released in November, the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Motomami’. The album – her fourth studio record – will be released on November 7 via Columbia Records, and you can pre-order/pre-save it here.

Speaking about her multi-lingual approach to the album, the musician told the New York Times: “It’s a lot of trying to understand how other languages work…it’s a lot of intuition and trying to be like, ‘I’m going to just write and let’s see how these will sound in another language.’”

She told the publication she had spent a lot of time on Google translate as well as speaking with professional translators — “If I rhyme this with this, does this make sense?” — she said she would ask them. She also worked with teachers who coached her phonetically on how to pronounce words and phrases.

Speaking about her desire to understand new cultures through the language learning on the album, she explained: “I love traveling, I love learning from other humans. Why would I not try to learn another language and try to sing in another language and expand the way I can be a singer or a musician or an artist? The world is so connected.”

PHOTO CREDIT: The Lede Company

The orchestral ‘Berghain’– taking its name from the iconic techno club in Berlin – has lyrics in German, Spanish and English and heavy classical influences.

Rosalía’s voice is at the forefront in the first half as she sings in German and Spanish over dramatic strings. About halfway through, Björk – who Rosalía also worked with on the 2023 charity single ‘Oral’ – comes in singing, “The only way to save us is through divine intervention,” and Yves Tumor takes over for the outro, repeating, “I’ll fuck you till you love me.”

The German lyrics sung by the choir, “Seine Angst ist meine Angst, Seine Wut ist meine Wut, Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe, Sein Blut ist mein Blut,” translate to “His fear is my fear, his rage is my rage, his love is my love, his blood is my blood.”

In her interview with the New York Times, Rosalía also opened up about working with Björk on the song, saying: “She is my favourite woman and artist. I think we met through Pablo, El Guincho [Rosalía’s former producing partner]. We went to have some tapas in Barcelona. And I thought that she was the most fascinating human I’ve ever met because her train of thought was so different than I’ve ever seen before. It was just an instant crush of admiration.

“We stayed in touch and I just felt like with this album, if this was such a strong, demanding musical exercise, if I was doing it good enough, maybe, I would send it to her, and if it was in the right level, maybe then she couldn’t say no.”

In the three years since she released ‘Motomami’, her third album, Rosalía shared a collaborative EP with Rauw Alejandro – her then-fiancé – and released the standalone single ‘Tuya’ in 2023, and worked with artists including Ralphie Choo and BLACKPINK’s Lisa.

The singer, who had a cameo in the 2019 movie Pain And Glory, is also set to venture into acting by joining the cast of HBO’s Euphoria for its upcoming third season. She said earlier this year, “This is my first job, eh? Well, I’m learning, I’m figuring it out. I’m trying not to forget my lines, but it’s been really inspiring being beside these amazing actors and actresses. My first time, figuring it out, trying to have fun with it, play around, improvise.”

NME gave ‘Motomami’ five stars, writing: “Rosalía isn’t so much carving out her own lane as building her own ultra-modern, super-bendy sonic motorway. It’s one you’ll want to hurtle down again and again”.

Go and pre-order Stella Donnelly’s Love and Fortune. This is an artist that you may not be familiar with. I would say go and hear her. She is remarkable. The Guardian recently spoke with her about Love and Fortune. An album that captures the pain of being rejected by a friend, this album is also one where Stella Donnelly reconnected with music. Rekindling that passion and love. I have been following her for a while, and this album sounds like it will be incredible:

“We have a language for coping with romantic heartbreak, learned from movies and songs – but there are fewer mirrors in art for coping with the end of platonic bonds. On her third album, Love and Fortune, Donnelly has captured the dull ache of being rejected by a friend who once knew her best of all. It might become the record ghosted friends turn to when they find a person they knew intimately for years no longer wants to hear from them.

When it happened to her, Donnelly felt powerless, realising “no amount of questioning or reaching out is going to work. I’d never come up against that in my life.” Any tensions in other friendships she’d had previously could be talked through; this time, she was having a conversation with herself.

“It’s so heavy and, for me, never resolved,” she says. “Ever.”

As much as the 33-year-old tried not to write about it, it sprang up each time she touched an instrument. She writes of letters left unsent on the track Friends, hiding herself away and not showing up to gigs she thinks her friend might also go to on Ghosts. “It’s as much an offering as it is a journal, in a way,” Donnelly says of the album.

We’re chatting over kombucha in the garden of Ceres, a farm and nursery in Melbourne’s East Brunswick. Around us flit magpies and other species that Donnelly, a keen ornithologist, notes by name. Birds are a symbol for evolution on the record: over plaintive, soft keys on Please Everyone, she recalls birdwatching with her former friend as sweet recorded chirps arrive on the track. “Wherever you may be, I hope it’s kind to you,” she sings. By the time we get to the album closer, Laying Low, she’s calmer, singing of the feathers left behind when someone flies away. By then, she’s learned, trying to grab them would be a fool’s errand.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nick McKinlay

Donnelly is quick, eager and delightful in conversation, but she has been struggling in interviews, she says, “because I’m so busy trying to protect the other person in all of this. But then I have gone and written this record.” When a freak sun shower prompts us to scurry away for cover, it also gives her respite from having to tiptoe around her words. When we settle again out of the rain, she apologises for “giving politician answers”, explaining the last thing she wants to do is twist a knife in someone else’s side with a more uncensored version of events.

After writing her past two records on tour and on deadline, Donnelly wrote Love and Fortune in her head and on her bike around Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Six months ago, after being diagnosed as neurodivergent, she learned what self-care looks like for a person with a sensitive mind. “It’s just understanding that I need a little extra help here and there with things, and that a motorcycle riding past really loudly on the street can be a day-ruiner for me. I’m just a lot kinder to myself now, about everything.”

“Take back my little life … I set myself on fire for someone else’s game,” she sings on W.A.L.K, a song about caring for herself like she would a beloved pet. Tending to her most basic needs became a new daily devotion.

“I think, up until this year, I’d been really hard on myself because I was just like, ‘Why can everyone else do this and I can’t? Why can everyone else cope with life?’” she says.

She now has “hindsight kindness” for the past versions of her. The ones that couldn’t cope as well, who pushed through the discomfort of touring and sat in bed waiting for a text back – then chastised herself for doing it. “Finally allowing myself to just write a whole fucking album about this big thing that had happened to me made me accept that that’s kind of who I am: I’m this annoying person that writes songs about their personal life. I had to reconcile with the fact that that’s who I am, and grow to love that person”.

I will move to The Mountain Goats’ Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan. I can’t find too much online about this album, so I will have to rely on Rough Trade and what they have published about Mountain Goats’ new album. I have heard a couple of songs from it and it is one of those albums that needs to be in the collection. Even if you have not heard of the group, I think you should dive in and explore an album that is going to be one of those under-reviewed gems:

“The Mountain Goats, led by singer-songwriter John Darnielle, have built a prolific and influential career in indie music since the early 1990s.

Known for their vast discography of storytelling and literary lyricism, Darnielle is regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in modern songwriting. Their work has a deep emotional resonance with their avid and loyal fanbase, built over the past 30 years. Today, we find Darnielle awoken from a dream where he titled an album Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, with no sense of sonic direction in the dream, then proceeded to write the entire album based off of this arbitrary title.

Produced by the Mountain Goats’ multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, who also co-wrote several songs, the record is embracing, inviting, and overflowing with melody and orchestration that extends far beyond the boundaries of their past work”.

Whitney’s Small Talk seems like it is going to be among this year’s est. You can pre-order it here. New Music City spoke with Max Kakacek, a founding member and guitarist of Whitney, ahead of the release of Small Talk. It sounds like it is a masterpiece, so an album that you will want to pre-order and ensure you do not miss out on:

“Three years ago, Whitney released their third record, “Spark” (2022), an album that left fans and critics bemused and, at times, downright cruel. (Hello, Reddit.) The record was created mainly in isolation during lockdown, a period in which both Julien Ehrlich (drums and vocals) and Max Kakacek (guitar) were navigating painful breakups. The pair had grown disillusioned with their chosen instruments and felt experimentation would render inspiration. “Spark” represents a more pop-adjacent exercise by the soft-rock duo, and it’s a decent experiment. But this proposition did not sit well with many Whitney loyalists who, like me, had been so enchanted by “Light Upon the Lake” back in 2016, with its inventive blend of indie soft rock and folk backed by orchestral textures akin to micro-chamber music. “Candid” (2020) and “Forever Turned Around” (2019) are good albums, but the bar had been set so high with “Light Upon the Lake” that fans have eagerly, and perhaps impatiently, been seeking a follow-up that tickles the itch that Whitney’s first record unveiled. As Kakacek says of the “Spark” era: “We felt really boxed in by our instruments… So we completely shifted focus. In hindsight… It didn’t really capture the soulfulness of the project.”

Three years on from “Spark,” “Small Talk” has already generated pre-release buzz, and with good reason: It is phenomenal. Of their four studio albums, it is the clear tour de force and, upon release, could join Chicago’s canon of indie music in the same breath as Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (2002)—a profound, persistently revered and proud patch of Chicago’s soft-rock fabric. It is fast and slow at once, clocking in at thirty-six minutes and eleven songs. The opening track, “Silent Exchange,” is stunning. Beginning with meandering, isolated yet purposeful piano, Ehrlich’s gently piercing vocals enter with “Write my name / in a line of gas… bite my tongue / and they ask how I’ve been / ’cause I can’t talk / without crying again.” Kakacek’s guitar is gently introduced before a characteristic violin and horn section builds the track into something beautifully melancholic and grand. It is a mesmerizing start. “Silent Exchange” is followed, logically, by “Won’t You Speak Your Mind,” a faster track that leans on Kakacek’s guitar a bit sooner, leading into Whitney’s horn section quicker, with more capriccio. Themes of desperate, painfully disconnected communication associated with collapses of intimacy and love are clear throughout the record.

While prereleased tracks like “Damage,” “Dandelions” and “Darling”—likely the hit of the record—continue to dissect the pain of post-relationship chaos, “In the Saddle” offers a slightly psychedelic and redemptive arc to the record. It’s a song to which Julian Ehrlich’s previous work with Unknown Mortal Orchestra can clearly be connected. Thematically, “Back to the Wind” further substantiates themes of defiant hope within the album with simple poetic dexterity: “Back to the wind now feel so strong / No reflection in the glass babe I’m gone… swept in the wind turning brown / floating through the street upside down.” It’s not laureate-level prose—it’s accessible, clever and quick, and for me, it initiated an interesting meditation: Wind does not exist without that which it displaces. You cannot hear it without the rustling of trees or the buffeting of ears. You cannot see it without the leaves it carries. But there it always is, powerfully, if recklessly, forcing progress. “Back to the Wind” posits embracing the painful winds of change in a clear, hopeful way.

In the process of producing “Small Talk,” Whitney embraced first-instinct energy. “It was more like, trust your intuition immediately,” Kakacek says. “The first iteration of each song would eventually be the final product.” That openness bled into a pattern of retaining several “happy accidents.” “On ‘Islands,’ I layered a mono-synth part four times live—some notes were ‘wrong,’ but the tension felt desperate and sad,” Kakacek says. “We tried to redo it once and stopped immediately. Whatever happened that night wasn’t repeatable.” The approach also felt cyclical for the band, a return to the group’s roots. “It felt like we were coming back to a home base… letting the weird nuances of being a little naive in our recording process be a part of the songs again [as they were in 2016]”.

There are two albums from 14th November I want to cover off. Austra’s Chin Up Buttercup is the first. This is an artist that I am relatively new to, but I do love the sound of what the album will deliver and I would advise others to investigate it. You can pre-order it and check out an album that is going to be terrific:

“I’m so chaotic in love,” sings Katie Austra Stelmanis on “Amnesia,” the cinematic opening track of Chin Up Buttercup, the fifth album by her alter ego and longtime pop project Austra. You know Austra’s astonishing voice – singular and operatic, it betrays a fearlessness and sophistication. She’s the woman you’d be afraid to approach in a bar. Her voice draws you like a siren to the dance floor as the beats build toward the hypnotic chorus of “my life is not the same without you in my arms.” Listen closely and you’ll hear a vulnerability that sets this album apart from her earlier work. This is a grief album you can dance to. 
Stelmanis and co-producer Kieran Adams shared a mutual love of pop divas, Eurodance and hard-to-find techno. Madonna’s 1998 album Ray of Light, produced by William Orbit, was a key influence in the later stages of album making: “Ray of Light was produced almost entirely on a Juno-106 and a Korg MS-20 which we’d been using, so the reference point was aligned,” says Stelmanis. The album sounds like a mix of hypnotic dance floor anthems and elegant melodies to soothe your broken heart”.

I am actually going to now move to Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover’s What of Our Nature. You can pre-order it here. That comes out on 21st November. Not too much available about this album, so I am going to come to The Line of Best Fit and their feature from on 15th October. A little more insight regarding what the album is about and the artists involved. These are artists I am also fairly new to, so I am curious to hear what comes from What of Our Nature:

“The announcement comes alongside Haley Heynderickx's signing with Fat Possum Records, with the collection being the result of shared songwriting duties between Heynderickx and Max García Conover.

On new single "Fluorescent Light", Heynderickx offers a critique of commercialism, while on "Boar", García Conover chronicles the pair's first time meeting. What Of Our Nature follows Among Horses III (Fifth Edition), which Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover released in 2023.

What of Our Nature was developed over the course of a year, with Heynderickx and García Conover exchanging songs with one another from across the US while reading the work of Woody Guthrie. The album was produced by Sahil Ansari, recorded to tape across five days while in a barn in Vermont.

Tracklist:

Song for Alicia
Mr. Marketer
Boars
Cowboying
In Bulosan’s Words
This Morning I Am Born Again
Fluorescent Light
Buffalo, 1981
to each their dot
Red River Dry”.

Two more albums to get to. On 21st November, Keaton Henson’s Parader is released. You can pre-order it here. An extraordinary songwriter from London. He is a hugely prolific artist. His previous album, Somnambulant Cycles, was released last year. Such an amazing talent who is consistently brilliant, I feel Parader will offer so many gems and memorable moments:

“Keaton Henson is shedding the “quiet boy” persona that has defined much of his career. Embracing the grunge-infused sounds of his youth on new album Parader, the elusive songwriter melds emotional darkness, melancholy, and seething frustration as he reckons with the hauntings of his past: “I was nervous about being too loud, but then it sort of just came out.”

What unravels across Parader’s 12 tracks is an introspective autopsy of time as it distorts and folds to inhabit the songwriter’s present. “There are these disjointed snapshots,” he shares, “memories across time popping up amongst this collection of thoughts about what it feels like to be this age and a musician.”

“Parader has legitimate confidence, it’s not me pretending to be anything I’m not,” Henson admits. “It’s maybe just me accepting that part of me is this. It's louder and it has those bigger, louder, rasher sounds, but not from a performative point of view. Maybe I'm accepting that that is a part of me as well.” As the record closes out, final track ‘Performer’ brings us full circle to the question of the album’s title – the two intrinsically linked. As he sings, “I’ll show my scars to you no matter who you are,” Henson acknowledges the emotional pains of being a musician in the public eye, with the relentless march of time a grudging ally in delivering his stories: “I am the parader. The person who parades around showing their wounds for a living”.

One of the biggest albums of the year comes from Jessie J. It arrives on 28th November. Don't Tease Me With a Good Time. Go and pre-order the album. Following on from 2018’s This Christmas Day, it is exciting to hear a new album from Jessie J. At the moment, she is awaiting treatment for breast cancer, so it is a very challenging time. Some of these lows and challenges she has experienced will go into the album. It is going to be a very personal album, but one that mixes emotions:

“Jessie J’s sixth studio album Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time - her first in nearly eight years - is a bold kaleidoscope of emotions, capturing the raw highs and lows of the last decade. Recorded over the past five years in Los Angeles, the album is emotional, unfiltered, and unapologetic, it’s music that wears its heart on its sleeve and demands to be felt at full volume. Working with a close-knit group of collaborators, Jessie J teams up with Ryan Tedder (One Republic, Beyonce, Adele), Jesse Boykins III, Los Hendrix (SZA, Brent Faiyaz), Marty Maro (John Legend, Anitta) and more, to create a body of work that effortlessly blends old-skool alt-R&B, upfront pop, and contemporary R&B.

The 16-track album includes standout singles ‘Believe In Magic’, the deeply personal ‘No Secrets’, and the euphoric anthem ‘Living My Best Life’, teasing the album’s broad sound and subject matter. The album closes with the power-ballad ‘Award Goes To’, which Jessie J gave a showstopping live performance of earlier this year at the BAFTA Television Awards”.

These are some of the best albums out this month. There are others, though I wanted to highlight a few that I feel you should order. Ranging from Jessie J to Mavis Staples through to Midlake and ROSALÍA, it is a broad and interesting month for music! So many greats in there. Even though December is a quiet month for album, I am sure I will put together a feature that spotlights the best…

NEXT month.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Rita Ora at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachell Smith for Glamour

Rita Ora at Thirty-Five

__________

THIS feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rita Ora at the 77th Emmy Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

centres on one of the biggest Pop artists in the world. The amazing Rita Ora released her debut album, Ora, in 2012. Her third and most recent album, You & I, was released in 2023. Not only had Ora released a load of her incredible solo singles. She has also collaborated with other artists through the years. On 26th November, she turns thirty-five. I wanted to mark that with a playlist featuring many of her biggest tracks, together with deeper cuts and collaborations. Giving you an idea of the extent and breadth of her talent. Before getting there, AllMusic have provided a biography of the amazing Rita Ora:

“With her soulful vocals and joyful energy, British-Albanian singer and songwriter Rita Ora crafts crowd-pleasing pop hits that dip into the worlds of electronic and R&B. Making her debut in the late 2000s, she quickly rose to the top of the U.K. charts with her first album, Ora, earning the distinction of artist with the most U.K. number ones in 2012. Even after years of label issues threatened to halt her career, she remained on the charts and issued the triumphant sophomore effort Phoenix in 2018, followed by the Bang EP in 2021. After a switch to the BMG label, Ora returned in 2023 with another pop-kissed, dancefloor-friendly set, You & I.

Born Rita Sahatçiu in Pristina, SFR Yugoslavia (modern-day Kosovo), to Albanian parents, she fled the country with her family in 1991, relocating to England, where she was raised in Notting Hill. An attendee of the famous Sylvia Young Theatre School, she sang from an early age and honed her skills performing in pubs and at open mikes. In 2007, she made her first official appearance, guesting on Craig David's single "Awkward"; the next year, she joined Tinchy Stryder on his single "Where's Your Love." Ora's big break arrived in 2009, when an open-mike performance attended by one of Jay-Z's A&R men landed her a deal with the rapper's label, Roc Nation. While working on her debut album, she provided the vocals for DJ Fresh's 2012 drum'n'bass hit "Hot Right Now," which topped the charts in the U.K. She returned to the number one spot that same year with her debut solo single, "R.I.P.," the first taste of her first full-length, Ora, which went straight to the number one spot on the U.K. album chart.

Six years would pass before a proper sophomore follow-up, as Ora remained mired in label issues (eventually leading to a messy split with Roc Nation in 2016). Yet she remained on the charts with a consistent string of singles and collaborations, notably 2014's "Black Widow" with Iggy Azalea (her first Top Ten appearance in the U.S.), 2015's "Poison," 2017's Top Ten hit "Your Song," and 2018's "For You," a duet with Liam Payne for the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack that topped charts across Europe and was a modest hit in the U.S. Ora's official sophomore full-length, the aptly titled Phoenix, finally arrived in late 2018 on Atlantic Records. The album featured a star-studded list of producers -- including Alesso, Avicii, Benny Blanco, and Cashmere Cat -- and she also recruited Julia Michaels ("Keep Talking"), Rudimental ("Summer Love"), and Cardi B, Bebe Rexha, and Charli XCX on the single "Girls."

In 2020, Ora returned with the single "How to Be Lonely," followed closely behind by a set of remixes for the track. The next year saw the arrival of the Bang EP, which included collaborations with KHEA, David Guetta, Imanbek, and Gunna. The EP made a strong chart showing on the U.S. Dance chart, and the following year, she signed with BMG Records. After "Barricades," a 2022 collaboration with Netsky, Ora returned in January 2023 with the pulsing dance track "You Only Love Me." She followed with "Praising You," a reworking of Fatboy Slim's 1998 classic "Praise You." The song was a hit, landing Ora in the semifinal medley at Eurovision and climbing to number one in Italy and the U.S. A third dancefloor-friendly single, "Don't Think Twice," arrived weeks before the release of her third album, You & I. Another dose of euphoric escapism, the set featured production by Cirkut, Oak Felder, and more.

Ora followed with collaborations with Joel Corry and MK (the dancefloor-filling "Drinkin'"), Robin Schulz and Tiago PZK ("I'll Be There"), Keith Urban ("Shape of Me"), and Gryffin ("Last of Us"). In 2024, she began the rollout of a series of solo singles, starting with the disco-kissed "Ask & You Shall Receive." "Heat" and "Joy" followed in 2025”.

Celebrating her thirty-fifth birthday on 26th November, I think a  lot of people will wonder whether we will get a fourth studio album from Rita Ora. She released her latest single, All Natural, in September. On 29th November, Ora plays in Austria. She will then by in Switzerland on 25th January. I hope that there are a lot of other tour dates planned, as she is an incredible live performer. I am ending with a great mix of her wonderful music, as I offer a salute to her…

AHEAD of her birthday.

FEATURE: Björk at Sixty: Inside Five Incredible Albums from the Icon

FEATURE:

 

 

Björk at Sixty

IN THIS PHOTO: Björk in an outtake from the photoshoot for the cover of her 1995 sophomore album, Post/PHOTO CREDIT: Stephane Sednaoui

Inside Five Incredible Albums from the Icon

__________

AS the amazing Björk…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jesse Kanda

turns sixty on 21st November, I am writing a couple of features celebrating her work. I want to use this opportunity in order to highlight my five favourite albums from her. There is a lot of competition, as the Icelandic artist has released ten studio albums. They are all beyond wonderful! However, there are five that stick in the mind. I am going to dive deeper into them. I know there will be celebration and features written about Björk ahead of her birthday, as she is one of the most inventive and original artists we have ever seen. Let’s hope that Björk follows 2022’s Fossora, as we definitely need more of her magic. Whether you are a fan of not, you cannot deny that Björk is like nobody else! Below are five of her phenomenal albums that mean…

A lot to me.

_____________

Debut

Release Date: 5th July, 1993

Labels: One Little Independent Records/Elektra

Producers: Nellee Hooper/Björk

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/bjrk/debut-1#50410545545547

Standout Tracks: Venus as a Boy/Big Time Sensuality/Violently Happy

Key Cut: Human Behaviour

Review:

“LET'S ADMIT it, the Sugarcubes resided in a border town south of Obscure and just north of Wacky. They juddered and lurched like difficult children, throwing toys against walls, scratching non-existent itches. They were the Euro B-52's. But there was, above everything, that voice, an alien screech that coughed up puffin feathers, cracked, screeched and soared like nothing you'd heard before.

Five years on and 'Birthday' still sounds ridiculously stark and extraordinary because of it. But, then, as you found yourself consumed by its strange beauty, in walked Einar The Irritant barking a bizarre psycho-babble rap, bringing even the most goo-goo eyed back down to earth with an ugly bump.

Is should, therefore, come as some relief to find Bjork left to journey alone without the ideas of a group cluttering up the landscape. The surprise, though, is that she has fashioned an album as elaborate, unique and fresh as 'Debut'. It's hard not to bellyflop straight into the deep end, cry, "Album of the year, end of story", and float off on a sea of hyperbole. 'Debut' takes you to strange, uncharted places. No group could make an album like this - too many ears to please. But, although this is very much Bjork's album (you get the impression that these are songs she's carried in her mind, like secrets, for years), the contribution of producer Nellee Hooper is vital. The man behind Soul II Soul's symphonies, he has managed to throw manifold ideas into this exotic soup without making it sound cluttered and overdone.

With his involvement and Bjork's previous solo dalliance with 808 State it would be easy to assume she's become a fully fledged house diva. Not so; 'Debut' may walk the same side of the street but it wanders into jazz, film soundtracks, pop too. Heck, there's even a couple of songs Babs Streisand wouldn't blink at covering. And then there's the just plain weird (natch).

The first three tracks are built from hypnotic loops. On 'Human Behaviour' a swampy kettle drum jazz vibe circles around Bjork's rasping larynx, trying to find a melody but eventually settling for the search. 'Crying' swims on a niggling piano riff, while the wonderful 'Venus As A Boy' creates an Arabic mantra. Here, as on most of the album, the tonsil gymnastics are kept to a minimum, but it's still a vastly disarming sound: a voice only a lifetime of Marlboro abuse or a guttural foreign language where people have names like Gudmundsdottir could create.

There's a bonkers part in 'There's More To Life Than This', though, where she sounds positively possessed. Allegedly recorded live in the Milk Bar toilets, a muffled house beat chunders away somewhere in the distance amid giggling chatter, then a door is closed and Bjork is left to sing alone about nicking boats and sneaking off into the night. This woman is quite patently barmy.

But even this is ill preparation for 'Like Someone In Love'. Accompanied only by 80-year-old harpist Corki Hale, it's the kind of tearful ballad you'd expect to find in the sad interlude of some crackly old black and white Judy Garland film. More fun, madness and surprise follows - the pulsating grind of 'Big Time Sensuality' and 'Violently Happy' plus the sweet unearthly breeze of 'One Day' which ripples along to baby gurgles and ambient fizzes.

This is an album that believes music can be magical and special. It will either puzzle you or pull you into its spell. And if you fall into the latter category, 'Debut' will make every other record you own seem flat, lifeless and dull by comparison. 9/10” – NME

Post

Release Date: 13th June, 1995

Labels: One Little Independent Records/Elektra/Mother/Polydor

Producers: Björk/Nellee Hooper/Graham Massey/Tricky/Howie B

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/bjrk/post-1#50483973914955

Standout Tracks: It’s Oh So Quiet/Isobel/Maybe

Key Cut: Army of Me

Review:

“This uncanny passion for sound is felt everywhere on Post. It’s in the scorched industrial march of “Enjoy,” in the grandeur of the strings on “You’ve Been Flirting Again.” It’s in the crackling trip-hop melancholy of “Possibly Maybe,” in the cool free jazz that rustles beneath “The Modern Things,” in the gleaming harpsichord of “Cover Me” (the vocals of which were recorded in a cave full of bats). And it’s especially present in the deliriously fun big-band blast of “It’s Oh So Quiet”—Björk’s madcap cover of the wartime tune from Hollywood star Betty Hutton, which she recorded with a 20-piece orchestra, manifesting her deep-rooted love for musicals. In a 1995 “AOL Chat” interview, a fan asked Björk where the idea for “It’s Oh So Quiet” came from, and she said that her live music director Guy Sigsworth “found it in a truck stop”—on a cassette comp—“and it became the tour anthem of last tour. Turned us on before the gigs.” It’s a cover that only a true pop maniac would go through with and only a pop maestro could pull off. The song explodes from Björk’s pin-drop whispers to throat-shredding wails—alongside blaring brass, the sheer loudness of Björk’s singing is a visceral delight. “Oh, what’s the use of falling in love?” Björk sings on the comedown, before raving up with an answer again.

Of course, Björk’s music is a testament to what is possible when logic and practical sense are not guiding principles. But she hardly withdrew. Björk said she had a total of three days off in 1993 and 1994 combined—she had become a legitimate star. In the face of the chaos of fame, “Army of Me” summons resilience, as if Björk knew exactly what she would be up against in the years to come. (In 1996, a fan tried to mail a bomb to her house.) She said “Army of Me” was written as an ultimatum to her own brother, to regain control of his life, lest he “meet an army of me.” Björk scratches at the depths of her voice, and the industrial backbone of the song, the crashes and shrapnel, fortify the task. “Army of Me” is proof that being the most obvious misfit in the room often requires being the toughest, too.

The double-time techno of “Hyperballad” begins with a glint. But it hones its strength. It’s a work of surrealism, narrating the tale of a woman who wakes up early at the top of a mountain, and throws “car parts, bottles, and cutlery” off its edge. She wonders what it would be like to throw herself off, too, her body slamming against the rocks, her eyes open all along—as a kind of catharsis, an emotional purging, in order to deal with people later: “I go through all this/Before you wake up/So I can feel happier/To be safe up here with you.” Her melody rises and tumbles, a slow spiral; the suspended rapture of the beat catches her in air.

If Debut’s “Human Behavior” was an ultimate outcast anthem—“If you ever get close to a human and human behavior, be ready, be ready to get confused”—then “Hyperballad” feels like a triumphant appeal to exist cooperatively alongside other people. Björk did this not only in her hyper-collaborative albums but in her entire project of making pop music, trying to reach all kinds of people at once. “Everything’s geared toward self-sufficiency. Fuck that,” Björk told punk historian Jon Savage in Interview. “For me, the target is to learn how to communicate with other people, which is the hardest thing, after all. What you should be doing is learning how to live with other human beings.” Car parts, bottles, cutlery, technology, and political superpowers are no match against this outreaching feeling, this ethos of interconnectedness that lives inside “Hyperballad,” inside of Björk in general, and it is an instinct inherent, ever crucially, in the survival of humanity.

“All the modern things/Like cars and such/Have always existed,” Björk sings on “The Modern Things.” “They’ve just been waiting in a mountain/For the right moment.” Not unlike the 23-year-old who dissected a television with love and awe, there’s a fantastic tinge of hope to this idea and to the whole of Post, an invitation into her profound exploration of places not yet traveled, to acknowledge the magic in the fact that there are sounds you might love that you can’t currently fathom. Twenty-five years later, you don’t need to scroll far through Björk’s Instagram feed to find the most audacious young popular artists alive, the likes of Arca and Rosalía, heeding that call, crowning her “queen.”

With Post, Björk set the bionic foundation for one of the most consequential careers in pop history. Here is where Björk became a perennial gateway drug, not to one sound but to the unknown, which is to say the future. She would soon leave London for the south of Spain and then New York, recording her two towering masterpieces—1997’s Homogenic, which Missy Elliott once gleefully likened to “Mozart at a rap show,” and the introverted microbeats of 2001’s Vespertine—crystallizing the totality of her vision. What other artist could successively collaborate with Wu-Tang Clan, interview Estonian minimalist legend Arvo Pärt, and appear on “MTV Unplugged” accompanied by a man playing a table of drinking glasses? In another era, maybe Bowie, which is just right—it was Bowie, after all, who inspired Björk’s immortal swan dress. By the end of the ’90s, the world would know the only answer: Björk” – Pitchfork

Vespertine

Release Date: 27th August, 2001

Labels: One Little Independent Records/Elektra

Producers: Björk/Nellee Hooper/Graham Massey/Tricky/Howie B

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/bjrk/vespertine-1#50410543481163

Standout Tracks: Undo/Frosti/Sun in My Mouth

Key Cut: Cocoon

Review:

“After cathartic statements like Homogenic, the role of Selma in Dancer in the Dark, and the film's somber companion piece, Selmasongs, it's not surprising that Björk's first album in four years is less emotionally wrenching. But Vespertine isn't so much a departure from her previous work as a culmination of the musical distance she's traveled; within songs like the subtly sensual "Hidden Place" and "Undo" are traces of Debut and Post's gentle loveliness, as well as Homogenic and Selmasongs' reflective, searching moments. Described by Björk as "about being on your own in your house with your laptop and whispering for a year and just writing a very peaceful song that tiptoes," Vespertine's vocals seldom rise above a whisper, the rhythms mimic heartbeats and breathing, and a pristine, music-box delicacy unites the album into a deceptively fragile, hypnotic whole. Even relatively immediate, accessible songs such as "It's Not Up to You," "Pagan Poetry," and "Unison" share a spacious serenity with the album's quietest moments. Indeed, the most intimate songs are among the most varied, from the seductively alien "Cocoon" to the dark, obsessive "An Echo, A Stain" to the fairy tale-like instrumental "Frosti." The beauty of Vespertine's subtlety may be lost on Björk fans demanding another leap like the one she made between Post and Homogenic, but like the rest of the album, its innovations are intimate and intricate. Collaborators like Matmos -- who, along with their own A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, appear on two of 2001's best works -- contribute appropriately restrained beats crafted from shuffled cards, cracking ice, and the snap-crackle-pop of Rice Krispies; harpist Zeena Parkins' melodic and rhythmic playing adds to the postmodernly angelic air. An album singing the praises of peace and quiet, Vespertine isn't merely lovely; it proves that in Björk's hands, intimacy can be just as compelling as louder emotions” – AllMusic

Biophilia

Release Date: 5th October, 2011

Label: One Little Independent Records

Producers: Björk/16bit

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/bjrk/biophilia#50408804778315

Standout Tracks: Crystalline/Cosmogony/Hollow

Key Cut: Mutual Core

Review:

“9/10. The 18th-century poet and artist William Blake once wrote, “Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death.” Blake was a controversial figure who rejected organised religion, but in his art and writing he yearned to find a sense of wonder in the world that science was increasingly defining and exploiting for profit around him.

Even as she proves his statement too simplistic for the 21st century, echoes of Blake’s sentiment can be found in Björk’s multidisciplinary approach to ‘Biophilia’. Existing as iPad apps and a traditional record, it represents her refusal to accept barriers between scientific rationalism and the marvel of the natural world, between different creative disciplines – the expressiveness of music versus the strict language of coding. By turning hours of research on DNA (‘Hollow’), lunar cycles (‘Moon’) and gravity (‘Solstice’) into sublime music, and having the grace to allow this to be shaped by the leading lights in application design, Björk has created one of the boldest artistic statements of our time.

Yet after the excited reception granted to the tech side of ‘Biophilia’, could releasing its music as a mere album seem rather arcane? Well, no. Science and education are at their most easily digestible when given with a sweetener. As you hear the choir, the complex Tesla synth, pendulum harps, gameleste, harpsichord and of course Björk’s voice and words, she creates a gift for your imagination, a tool more powerful than any iPad.

So while it might be a celebration of everything from the inconceivable vastness of cosmology to the microscopic formation of crystals and the way a virus spreads, musically the joy here is in simplicity. These songs were all written upstairs in a small room in Björk’s house in Reykjavik before being developed in a beach hut in Puerto Rico. Within them, Björk seems not like some crazed scientist, shrieking amid the erupting test tubes in her lair, but a fragile, very human narrator entirely devoted to telling her story. On ‘Mutual Core’, her voice cracks against the increasing, insistent power of the electronic rhythms, as if recognising our human insignificance in the face of geology: “As fast as your fingernail grows/The Atlantic ridge drifts”. On ‘Thunderbolt’ the tense buzz of the Tesla synth is bracing, yet Björk, with choir around her, sings, “Craving miracles, craving miracles”. ‘Moon’, by contrast, sounds innocent, the gentle harp plucks akin to a child’s mobile spinning slowly. On ‘Sacrifice’ you can hear the fizz of electricity in the drum’n’bass-inflected rhythm.

But it’s ‘Cosmonogy’ that’s the bright star around which the other songs revolve. Björk’s voice glows and fades like distant bursts of light; rich horns, cymbals and choirs sit above a deep, hollow sub bass. Of the moment that’s flabbergasted scientists for centuries, Björk puts it simply: “Then there was a certain bang”, and in an instant the moment of creation becomes more than just a physics freakout. The refrain “Make me wonder”, voiced beautifully by the choir, feels like an insistence that for all science might explain, we never lose our childlike sense of marvel.

In interviews, Björk often says “to cut a long story short”, either before or after launching into a digression that can take in Icelandic politics, geothermal energy, musicology and pissed karaoke before ending up miles from where she began. In a way, ‘Biophilia’ is like this, a wonderful distillation of ideas, playful and serious, intimate yet the most fantastic journey. It is that rarest of things, a record so particular to Björk’s own artistry that no-one could ever hope to replicate it. In these wide-eyed hymns for a secular, scientific age, Björk Guðmundsdóttir has got the whole world in her lungs” – NME

Utopia

Release Date: 24th November, 2017

Label: One Little Independent Records

Producers: Björk/Arca/Rabit

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/bjrk/utopia-1#50483971686731

Standout Tracks: The Gate/Utopia/Tabula Rasa

Key Cut: Blissing Me

Review:

“To talk of Björk’s Utopia as a rebirth is no stretch. On the cover of her ninth solo album she emerges as though from an iridescent caul. Her forehead has been modified into a uterine shape; pearls fall from fallopian flowers.

It wouldn’t be a stretch either to note that after the austere, extreme Vulnicura – the 2015 album that marked the pain and fury of Björk’s separation from the father of her daughter – Utopia harkens back to the nature love of older albums such as Biophilia and Vespertine, and the default lust for life Björk has exhibited throughout her long career.

The sounds here are airy and lush, suggesting naturescapes and freedom. (On the bloopy, wonderful Claimstaker, Björk actually sings: “The forest is in me”.) Birdsong from as far afield as Venezuela and Iceland, and its human analogue, flute music, define the sonics. On the cover, Björk not only holds a flute, she has two holes drilled into her throat and, startlingly, next to them sits a dead, or underdeveloped, chick.

Themes emerge gradually. The Gate describes obliquely, in music and words, Björk’s passage from the darkness of the Vulnicura emotions back into the light of love. Blissing Me hints at a new affair – texting each other too much, the electricity of touch. The song Courtship, perhaps the most overtly “pop” song here, makes plain Björk’s recent claim that Utopia is her “Tinder album”: “He turned me down,” she winks. “I then downturned another.”

There is another, more overarching concept: Björk’s aural vision of utopia is a faraway isle peopled by women and children, a sensual and sensible place unlike our own troubled world. Again, jungle birds and flutes feature, the flutes played by an all-female Icelandic ensemble assembled by Björk for the purpose.

There are traces of the bad old world. Sue Me riffs hard on male wrongdoing. “He took it from his father who took it from his fatherrrr,” she sings. “Let’s break this curse, so it won’t fall on our daughterrrr and her daughterrrs.” You can’t ever quite separate the work of Björk from the work of her collaborator, Arca, the Venezuelan-born, London-based Alejandro Ghersi, who also worked on Vulnicura, but his dark digital hand is slightly more evident here, in the unanchored beats and sinister, pitch-shifted vocal presence.

The electrifying Tabula Rasa is even more specific, speaking of Björk’s “deepest wish”. “We are swollen from hiding his affairs,” Björk mourns as flutes sigh. She wants to wipe the slate clean. “Tabula rasa for my children/ Not repeating the fuck-ups of the fathers/ For us women to rise and not just take it lying down.” Later, the discussion widens out, away from the personal. “Embarrassed to pass this mess on to you,” Björk aches. Eventually, rain falls.

Traditionalists might still wonder where all the nice steady beats have gone, why so little music here is anchored. The dominant message, though, is of limitlessness, of hope and, on Future Forever, of “a matriarchal dome” with “musical scaffolding” – The Observer

FEATURE: Spotlight: Kelly Moran

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Karlsson

Kelly Moran

__________

I realise that I am a little late…

to the brilliance of Kelly Moran. The American composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn released her album, Don’t Trust Mirrors, last month. I am going to finish this feature by sourcing a review of it. Before that, I think it is best to get to some interviews. You can buy Don’t Trust Mirrors here. Prior to coming to some interviews, here is some biography concerning a hugely accomplished musician that I have recently discovered:

“Kelly Moran is a pianist and producer who has spent her career excavating the sonic possibilities of the piano. An accomplished and highly sought-after composer, she has collaborated with an array of visionary contemporaries including FKA twigs, Yves Tumor, Kelsey Lu, Oneohtrix Point Never, and the Avalanches.

As a solo artist, Moran's critically acclaimed albums, Bloodroot (2017) and Ultraviolet (2018), have explored a variety of extended piano techniques like John Cage-inspired prepared piano and exercises in improvisation. Her unique strand of experimental piano compositions, which conjure hypnotizing textures and dramatic compositional arcs, have been included on year-end lists across classical, avant-garde, electronic, and metal genres.

In 2018, Moran was signed as a Yamaha Artist and began composing with Yamaha’s technologically-enhanced pianos, most notably the Disklavier player piano. Her releases Vesela (2023) and Moves in the Field (2024) showcase deeper sensitivity to the piano, with Moran merging her human restraint with the limitless possibilities of the Disklavier”.

I will get to some press from this year. However, there are segments of this Toneglow interview from last year that are especially interesting. A really deep and memorable interview that is quiet revealing and extensive, for anyone who has not heard Kelly Moran and previous albums such as 2018’s Ultraviolet and last year’s Moves in a Field, I would urge you to listen to them:

“What is significant to you about having an audience when you’re performing? What does it provide for you?

It does everything for me. It completely changes everything, and it makes everything feel so special because I’m not just doing something for myself. That’s a theme I’ve been thinking about a lot throughout the past couple years. As an artist, sometimes it feels very self-centered because I’m channeling how I’m feeling and I’m making art and I’m trying to express something. I used to tell myself that if no one listened or came to my show, it was just the act of making it that was what this was for, but I think that was a cope for thinking that no one cared about me. Once people started listening to my music and coming out to my shows, I started to realize it was about connection and communion in a room. I’m doing this thing for you; I’m not just practicing for myself. I’m making these sounds in real time for you.

I play a lot of festivals, and I hope this doesn’t come off like I’m knocking people who trigger sounds and don’t play instruments live, but I feel like there is something to be said for when we’re in a room together and I am making the sound for you. You are hearing me craft it from the attack to its release, and you’re part of it because I’m feeling the energy of the room and that’s when I know when to lift the pedal up or release from a song or when to give more. You feel everything together, and I think that this collective feeling is what gives meaning to art and makes it powerful. That connection is so important for me. And so that’s why it’s so disappointing on Instagram Live—you can’t feel that energy.

Do you approach playing the piano with a perfectionist’s mindset? Are you striving to be the best possible pianist?

Definitely not. I do think I’m more like that now than I was back then. When I was younger, I was very driven to play piano but I didn’t have stage parents who put a lot of pressure on me. No one in my family was a musician; I kind of randomly asked my mom for a piano one day after I saw someone play one on TV. She just indulged me (laughter). I’ve always been very self-motivated to make music and I think a lot of it comes from the fact that music is a form of self-soothing for me. I had some turbulent events in my childhood and I found a lot of solace in playing the piano. It wasn’t so much a drive for achievement or perfectionism or anything—it was just really fun for me. When I was about 12 years old, I got my first job playing piano as an accompanist for a voice teacher. I was making like $10 an hour, which is so much in 2001.

You mentioned earlier that you played piano and then played all these other instruments as well. Do you feel like playing these other instruments shaped the way you approach piano? Like, if you hadn’t played these other instruments, do you feel like that would’ve affected your relationship with the piano, or do you think that’s entirely separate?

That’s definitely not separate at all. I started playing the string bass when I was in fourth grade and it was just because our orchestra needed a bass player and I was really tall, so I was like, sure (laughter). You can bow a double bass, and I remember eventually realizing, “Oh, I can also bow inside a piano.” There are certain things you learn with instruments that translate to others. Like, learning how to do harmonics on a string instrument helped me to do harmonics on the piano.

It’s funny—part of the reason I collected so many instruments growing up is because I don’t have the longest attention span. As much as I loved music, I could never practice the piano for more than an hour and a half without taking a break or doing something else. I loved to play piano and then play clarinet and then play the bass. It was fun to mix it up. And because piano was such a solitary activity, playing these other instruments gave me a chance to socialize and play with other people. I played in rock bands with other people, or played in symphony band and orchestra in school. It can be really isolating and lonely to be very serious about an instrument when you’re young. It’s not like you have to, but I ended up spending a lot of time by myself playing piano”.

I want to come to an interview with The New York Times from last year. We learn how Kelly Moran introduced the prepared piano (a piano whose sound is altered by placing objects like screws, bolts, rubber erasers, or paper between and on its strings) to a whole new audience. When personal upheavals hit, she then abandoned it and found a new voice. This is what Grayson Haver Currin writes In his header of the interview. There are some sections of the interview that caught my eye:

“Moran stumbled into her breakthrough, “Ultraviolet” from 2018, during an acid trip while house-sitting for her parents. She had been wrestling with a difficult commission for the toy pianist Margaret Leng Tan and needed time out of mind. She swallowed three hits disguised as SweeTarts and romped outside through the woods, and then sat down at her childhood piano — prepared with screws and bolts interspersed among its strings, in the simplified spirit of John Cage, so the notes would have mechanical attack but also seem to float.

“I had been so stressed, but this allowed me to flow,” Moran said, her silver makeup and Smashing Pumpkins shirt sparkling in the studio light. “My brain was organizing musical information in a completely different way. I’d finish a piece, laugh hysterically, and do another one.”

Those improvisations catalyzed Moran’s career, earning her a deal with the electronic label Warp and making her a rising experimental star. The ecstatic inquisitiveness and anxious honesty of “Ultraviolet” helped introduce the prepared piano to new audiences. In 2019, she even joined FKA twigs’s acoustic band.

Moran was first paid to play when she was 11 as the accompanist for a hometown vocal instructor, and it made her realize her calling as a professional musician. After studying piano and composition in Michigan and California, she returned to New York and strung together gigs as a dance accompanist while playing in rock bands (including Voice Coils, alongside Mitski) and investing in the city’s burgeoning noise and metal scenes. (“Black metal is just Minimalism for guitars,” she said at one point, laughing.

With the acclaim of “Ultraviolet,” though, Moran was now jet-setting across the globe, playing major festivals by day and dancing to techno by night. She hoped to funnel the pops and plinks of her prepared piano into uncanny dance tracks, its idiosyncrasies radiating inside rhythmic loops. “I wanted to have something people could move to,” she said.

But early in 2020, Moran realized she was stuck, personally and musically. Anticipating another year of touring, she bailed on her Brooklyn apartment and moved in with her mother as her parents were preparing to divorce. The pandemic (and as a result, little income) meant she’d be staying. As a child, Moran’s relationship with her mother was fraught, so the piano had become not only a harbor but her way to be heard”.

Prior to coming a review for Don’t Trust Mirrors, there is one more interview worth getting to. One from this year. Coinciding with the release of her extraordinary new album, Moran spoke with Last Donut of the Night about figure skating, working with Bibio on her the album, and working out her comfort zone. I am compelled to follow Moran, as I have missed out on her so far and Don’t Trust Mirrors struck me in a way that made me want to discover as much as possible and pass her music to others:

“Let's talk more about the financial realities of being a musician for you.

Prior to COVID, I remember being really cocky and being like, "Damn, this rules. I'm gonna be able to be a touring musician and make bank this way. This is great." I got humbled just a few months later when all that dried up. Things have definitely come back—festivals and everything are a thing again, musicians are able to tour—but the cost margins are just so difficult because flights are more expensive. We have inflation in the U.S. Hotels are expensive. In general, everyone I know right now is struggling financially, so that also applies to when people are tightening their wallets and if they're spending money on shows or music. People really don't buy records the way that they used to, so musicians have to come up with ways to trick people into paying us for our work through merch or live shows.

I have to keep being savvy about keeping myself afloat, and the past year has been probably one of the most difficult years for me, because right now I'm living alone in New York City. I'd been living with my best friend and her son for a year and a half, but I had to move out because he needed to take my bedroom and I ended up moving out a lot earlier than I thought I'd have to. It's been incredibly financially difficult for me, because now I'm paying twice as much in rent as I was—and New York rents are not very freelance-artist-friendly. I'm also a single woman, so I'm not splitting it with anyone and I'm trying to pay my rent on my artist gigs.

Talk to me about working with Bibio on this record.

I've been a huge fan of Bibio ever since I was in college. He's been one of my favorite artists, like, ever. When I got signed to Warp, he was one of the first people to reach out to me and be like, "Hey, welcome, your music is great." And I was like, "Oh my God, I love you." We started this really adorable email friendship—a million messages in the thread. We both love cats and we nature, so we have a lot in common and have very similar sensibilities.

When I played End of the Road in 2019, I hit up Stephen because I had a little gap between my shows, and he was like, "Oh, if you're ever in the area, you should visit and come stay with us." So I ended up staying with him and his lovely wife for three or four days at the English countryside. He was like, "I bought this cottage with the money I got from this Apple sync, and hopefully something like that happens to you." So it was very aspirational, being at his home”

I will finish with a positive review from CLASH. Those who have reviewed Don’t Trust Mirrors have shown such praise and affection for it. If you have not heard this stunning artist and composer, then go and listen to her music. It is great that she is going to play in London on 5th and 6th February. It will be wonderful to have her in the capital, where she will be given such a warm welcome:

“Kelly Moran’s remarkable artistry flows through a series of groundbreaking albums, with her prepared piano techniques allowing her to conjure heady, techno transformatives and crushing metal sounds in equal qualities. A vivid, often beautiful composer, her fascinating work reaches a new apex on ‘Don’t Trust Mirrors’, an assured work framed engrossing ideas.

The arpeggiating pulses that open ‘Echo In The Field’ feel as though you’re immersed in a techno rave, the rivulets of sound coalescing then disrupting. The crunching chords that slice through these beatific passages carry a kind of rock adjacent weight, a heaviness that her chosen instrument isn’t often asked to conjure. It’s a bold opening statement, quietly moving in its patient assertions of beauty.

The piece sets the tone for the album as a whole. There’s a questing spirit to Kelly Moran’s music, one that imbues ‘Don’t Trust Mirrors’ with a heady sense of energy. ‘Prism Drift’ is all sharp edges and percussive ticks, while the church bell tones of ‘Sans Sodalis’ open up into something truly moving.

‘Lunar Wave’ and ‘Chrysalis’ are potent examples of audio world-building, Kelly Moran’s painterly approach trusting each note to play its role. There’s a real drama to these performances, the sense of an artist pushing themselves further and further. Transformative and often moving, pieces like ‘Above The Vapours’ have a perfume-esque quality, an arresting formlessness that pours out of the speakers.

‘Don’t Trust Mirrors’ features Warp labelmate Bibio, and the track balances two spirits propelled by curiosity. Indeed, in spite of its cerebral nature there’s often a playful quality to ‘Don’t Trust Mirrors’ – ‘Systems’ is a tinkling waterfall of sound, while closer ‘Cathedral’ offers a place of solitude, re-framing Kelly Moran as an avant-garde anchoress.

An artist on a real creative roll, this is Kelly Moran’s second full length project in 18 months. Where some peers may let quality control dip, the American pianist has instead doubled down, re-establishing her creative boundaries in the process. A hypnotic experience, ‘Don’t Trust Mirrors’ is a record to lose yourself in”.

I will wrap up now. Two albums in as many years, you do wonder what will come next year. Someone whose true voice and creative is in full flow, I do love how her sound has evolved and how influential she is. I know there are so many composers and pianists coming through who will look up to Kelly Moran. She makes such transfixing, absorbing and beautiful music that is so individual and original. A rare talent we should behold, the fantastic Kelly Moran is a…

GIFT to the music world.

____________

Follow Kelly Moran

PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Karlsson for The New York Times

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/kellymoran__

Twitter:

https://x.com/kellymoran

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1SFqXNEGetmMW6VPZseNqy?si=aayqhQ9-S2WgxA5eN7S9Vg

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FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: The Albums That Inspired Some of Our Best Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

The Albums That Inspired Some of Our Best Artists

__________

WHEN speaking about Kate Bush…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Holland in 1978 whilst promoting The Kick Inside

I have written about her influence and how she continues to be relevant. That will never change. For this feature, I have been thinking about particular albums. Although we can compartmentalise and look at the albums that inspired various artists, there is this more general influence. How can we explain why Kate Bush remains so relevant and fascinating? It is clear that her music is so different to anything else that has come before or arrived since. It has reached so many different corners of popular culture. I saw an article published last month that explained why Kate Bush is so relevant:

“A common struggle an artist faces is striking the balance between captivating their audience, while maintaining the resemblance of what they need to express. It is a struggle that both students and established professionals face. We place bets on our own work, assuming that it will be our magnum opus, but it is hard to predict which pieces will truly connect with the outside world.

Kate Bush released her debut album The Kick Inside in 1978, when she was 19 years old, and counteracted these overlying struggles with a persona that is expressive and even confusing. The first thing that stands out to a listener is her unique voice, a high-pitched and almost otherworldly sound that can be appealing or bizarre, depending on the taste of the listener. But the true value that these qualities hold in Kate Bush’s work is its timelessness. By creating something so unordinary, she has been able to cement herself in multiple ages of music and connect with audiences of varying generations.

Kate Bush’s top streamed song, “Running Up That Hill,” took 37 years to become the number one song, setting a record for the longest time between number one songs in the UK. With her first number one in the UK being “Wuthering Heights.” Both of these songs have something in common — they transport the listener to another era.

“Running Up That Hills”’ rise in popularity 37 years later was a result of its appearance on Stranger Things, a show known for its 80’s nostalgia. The song was suggested by Winona Ryder, the actress who played Joyce in Stranger Things, and also had a prominent acting career within the 80’s itself. “Wuthering Heights” is named after the 1847 novel of the same title by Emily Brontë. It had a similar resurgence in protest to the creation of the new and controversial Wuthering Heights adaptation, which was deemed inaccurate to the original plot of the novel by fans; especially in comparison to the emotion in Kate Bush’s song.

What many people fail to realize is that every artist is embodying a character in every song they release. Whether that is a popstar singing about their ex-lover or a jazz musician without any lyrics in their composition at all. They are often tapping into a certain piece of their life, or even someone else entirely while basing the emotions on their own empathy and experiences. They then recollect this story to the audience, in an attempt towards connection.

“Babooshka” and “Army Dreamers” excel in their storytelling by simultaneously excelling in their lyricism, the natural tragedy in Kate Bush’s voice, and other sound cues that tell the story nonverbally. The former tells the story of a woman creating an alternate persona to test her husband’s fidelity, while the latter tells the story of a young soldier as an overarching criticism of war and its casualties. Kate Bush can connect with the desire or the hopelessness or the longing of the character she is embodying in her work.

Kate Bush’s work is the background music you need when you are doing something mundane and want to connect with a time beyond your reach, whether that is 1978 or 1770’s Yorkshire. When “Running Up That Hill” reached one billion streams in 2022, Kate Bush responded.

“I have an image of a river that suddenly floods and becomes many, many tributaries — a billion streams — on their way to the sea. Each one of these streams is one of you. Thank you so much for sending this song on such an impossibly astonishing journey. I’m blown away,” said Bush”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Fiona Apple in 1997/PHOTO CREDIT: Joe McNally for LIFE

Do certain albums of Kate Bush inspire artists more than others? It is inarguable that Hounds of Love has influenced so many artists through the decades. As it is talked about a lot now, it is going to connect with new acts. I wonder whether this is the one album that will be the most enduring. In terms of its popularity, a wave of artists coming through now will discover Hounds of Love. A lot of artists who were born in the 1970s or 1980s would have heard it when they were young. It makes me think about the generational thing. Artists hearing these Kate Bush albums new when they came out, whilst others experienced them later on. Are overlooked albums like The Red Shoes or Lionheart influential at all? Do we hear about artists speaking about these works and how they have affected them? I have been thinking about the studio albums and how they impact certain artists. Maybe it is an age thing. Beth Orton called The Kick Inside one of her favourite albums. Fiona Apple said in an interview with Pitchfork in 2020: "I used to sing and play a bunch of her songs from The Kick Inside at my piano when I was a kid: 'Feel It' and 'Moving' and 'The Kick Inside' and 'Wuthering Heights'". In 2014 Sarah McLachlan said (of The Kick Inside) that she "loved" the album and was "really attracted to her voice and songs". These were either very young or only just born (in the case of Fiona Apple) when The Kick Inside came out. It is understandable why this album would be the most powerful to them. However, why are other artists who were born the same time as Apple, Orton and McLachlan gravitate towards other Kate Bush albums?

I think, in the case of the three women, perhaps it was a sound or vibe that struck them. More piano-based and similar to music that they would make early in their careers. Even if they are also quite experimental artists, you can match The Kick Inside and its aesthetic with a few of the artists who cite it as important. If some artists do not specifically state which Kate album has influenced them, maybe there is an aesthetic or something else that resonates. Halsey explained that her song, I Never Loved You, was inspired by Kate Bush, and she has paid visual tribute to the aesthetic of the Never for Ever era by recreating a specific photoshoot (one with Clive Arrowsmith in 1981). Of course, a lot of artists discover Kate Bush albums when they are teens or older. It may be how well that album did in the country they live in. The earliest few Kate Bush albums did not get much attention in the U.S., so it is understandable later albums would strike American artists more, whereas those in Europe, the U.K. or Australia would have been on board from the start. Björk, Big Boi, Steven Wilson, Lady Gaga, MARINA, St. Vincent and Julia Holter have said how The Dreaming (1982) made a big impact on them. In the case of The Dreaming, these artists have cited the innovative percussion and experimental production. A bold and forward-thinking album that Kate Bush produced, you can feel elements of that boldness and experimentation in the music these artists release. Hounds of Love is going to be name-checked by a lot of newer artists. In terms of those who have already named it as a source of influence, Björk, Florence + the Machine, FKA twigs, James Blake, Caroline Polachek, Japanese Breakfast, Brian Molko (Placebo) and members of Suede make the list. Can we drill down to why this 1985 album inspired them the most? Is it Kate Bush’s incredible production or something in the songs?

I am interested in the relationship between the Kate Bush albums and the other artists they inspire. It does make me think about the later albums. Everything from, say, 1993’s The Dreaming to 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. I am sure that these album have affected particular artists, though we are perhaps speaking about a different generation. Unless artists talk about Hounds of Love, they speak about Kate Bush’s influence in general terms. By drawing focus to specific albums, I think that it would generate attention and retrospection. I was thinking about The Kick Inside in preparation for some features due early next year. I was not aware about some of the artists who were influenced by it. It makes me revisit a subject and proposal that I have explored before. That is a Kate Bush tribute album. Or a way of uniting artists who have been affected by her music. Maybe Kate Bush might balk at the notion of artists coming together and celebrating her. It would not only be a way of them directly paying tribute to this artists. It will also engage new artists or those who have not yet discovered Kate Bush. I would like to link the studio albums and dissect why and what it is that landed. Whether it was the production and songwriting or the year they were released – or the age of the artist at the time. In terms of the breadth of her influence, it is clear that Kate Bush is one of the most important and enduring artists…

WHO has ever lived.

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Belair Lip Bombs

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Laidlaw for NME

The Belair Lip Bombs

__________

THIS time around for Spotlight…

I am spending time with an Australian Indie Rock band formed in Frankston, Victoria in 2017. The Australian group, The Belair Lip Bombs consists of lead vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Maisie Everett, guitarist Mike Bradvica, bassist Jimmy Droughton and drummer Daniel Devlin. The band released their debut L.P., Lush Life, in 2023. On 31st October, they put out the incredible Again. Their first album on Third Man Records, it has been acclaimed. The band seen as a great hope for the future. I will end this feature with a review of Again. Before getting there, there are some great interviews from this year that I want to cover. Currently touring Europe, the band head to the U.K. from 24th November, before a string of dates next year that sees them take in their native Australia, and the U.S. You can check out their live dates here. Prior to getting to more in-depth interviews, there is one from Rough Trade from August:

“Maisie Everett, Mike Bradvica, Jimmy Droughton and Daniel "Dev" Devlin are Melbourne's The Belair Lip Bombs. Over the last 8 years, the "limerance-rock" four-piece have released two EPs and a debut album, honing a sound that channels classic rock icons like The Rolling Stones and Television through an indie lens influenced by The War on Drugs and Stephen Malkmus. In 2025, the group are ready to reintroduce themselves to a global audience - and boy do they have the material to back it up.

For round two, neatly titled Again, the Lip Bombs enlist the production credits of Nao Anzai (The Teskey Brothers), and Joe White (longtime Rough Trade favourites Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever), to perfect their gleaming melodies, all the while retaining the scrappy spirit that's seen them garner a loyal local following for the best part of a decade. The 10 tracks reveal a natural expansion of their sound, delivering something grander and brighter, packing pitch-perfect energy and euphoria that really makes you wanna get up and groove out.

For fans of:  The Strokes, The B-52s, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, The Beths and Television

We're excited to announce The Belair Lip Bombs as part of Rough Trade On The Rise, our dedicated curation putting a spotlight on the emerging music we are the most excited for you to hear, to follow and become a fan of. Read on to discover more about the band in their own words and don't miss brilliant new album Again, on Third Man Records.

5 records you listened to prior to making your album?

3D Country by Geese
Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay
Two Star & Dream Police by Mk.Gee
Bayou Country by Creedence Clearwater Revival

5 tips or words of wisdom you'd offer an artist entering the industry in 2025?

Embrace playing on musically diverse lineups.
Learn to truly believe in yourself.
Protect your mental health.
Be patient and be utterly yourself.
Don’t stop learning about your craft just because you can play a few chords and write a song. LEARN EVERYTHING.

5 essential items on your tour rider?

A steam inhaler
Sharpies + paper
Universal adapters
Goats cheese
Guinness”.

The Guardian spoke with The Belair Lip Bombs last month. With the release of the incredible Again, this band are going to gain a whole wave of new fans. Their extensive international tour dates will also add to that. 2026 is going to be a year when they will hit a new level. They are getting a bit of airplay in the U.K., though there are stations that have not connected with their music. Anyone who has not discovered the band need to follow them and see what all the excitement is about:

“The Belair Lip Bombs hail from Frankston, a suburb of Melbourne situated on the Mornington Peninsula, and cut their teeth playing at Singing Bird Studios, an all-ages venue and recording space around which a small, tight-knit community of bands has emerged. The band recorded their first two EPs – which were noisier and looser than either of their albums – there, and still see it as a vital community resource. “You kind of had to move to Melbourne if you wanted to play, so it’s great that something like Singing Bird existed for us,” Devlin says. “It’s pretty important for new bands that are coming up.”

The leap the band made between their 2019 EP, Songs To Do Your Laundry To, and Lush Life is remarkable – the songs became punchier and more driving; and Everett’s lyrics became more acerbic and deeply memorable, a quality she hones further on Again.

“From the first two EPs to Lush Life, I was growing up a bit – transitioning from being a teenager to being in our 20s,” Everett says. “People in the band were getting into relationships and going through breakups and we all did a lot of travelling.

The Belair Lip Bombs stand out in the Melbourne scene, if only because their sound – sharp, clean and direct as it is – is a far cry from the post-punk or art rock that many of the bands in the city tend to play. “The Melbourne sound or whatever, I wasn’t really introduced to it until I was in my early 20s,” Everett says.

Everett says the band “spent years writing songs” before Lush Life, in contrast to Again, where a lot more time was spent working out songs, restructuring and redefining them in the studio. Even so, the songs on Again feel even more clarified, evidenced by the deft intensity of tracks such as Again and Again and Price of a Man. Working with Joe White, from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “helped us tighten all the screws”, Everett says.

Devlin adds: “It was just nice having him in the room to support us – to build a bit of confidence in the band. When you’re trying to write a record that you know is coming out on a label for the first time, it was a little bit stressful – so it was nice having someone else there that could ease the pressure.”

Everett says: “You can’t really trust the opinions of your bandmates when you’re all fucking stuck in a room for 12 hours a day, right? Having a fifth person there to round everything out really helps.”

As so many other rising Australian bands have done before them, do they plan to move overseas now? “Spacey Jane, they all live in LA or whatever – it’s like, is that the only way? I don’t know,” Everett says. “We’ve been living in Melbourne so far … and everything’s sort of worked out!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Laidlaw for NME

I am going to end with NME and their take on More. However, NME chatted with them recently about their hooky and unpretentious Rock. The first Australian act signed to Third Man Records, expect them to dominate the festival scene in 2026. A band that you cannot afford to miss out on:

“Where ‘Lush Life’ was more indebted to the post-punk and psych-rock that’s trendy across Australia, ‘Again’ is straightforward and hooky. Opener ‘Again And Again’ is a bouncy, Strokes-y standout, while ‘If You’ve Got The Time’ has a Stones strut. ‘Another World’ and ‘Cinema’ have dreamier tones, while ‘Hey You’, with its throaty bass and hazy guitar, feels like peak Kings of Leon. On all of them, the live energy of the four-piece is palpable.

“We write all of our songs together as a band in a room,” Everett says. “I think there’s a lot of bands out there that’ll do the thing where they’ll write a song at home, demo it and send it to their bandmates, but I think we’re good at feeding off each other’s energies.”

“I try not to go too crazy with overdubs and all of that sort of stuff,” Bradvica adds. “The rock music I grew up on is just like, one guitar and it sounds like five. That’s what I try to do.”

In the past, Everett has jokingly described the band’s music as “limerence rock”, limerence being a pop-psychology buzzword that means a state of intense infatuation. While she’s now a little more cautious about defining it (“I don’t wanna pigeonhole it too much – I don’t even know what my songs are about half the time)”, it still seems as good a descriptor as any. She declares “I’ve been telling everybody I’m fine / But I’ve been thinking ‘bout you every night” (in ‘Again and Again’) and “I wanna be the one that you riff with / I wanna be the one that you kiss” (in ‘Another World’). This is cool music, but never nonchalant, particularly because the Lip Bombs are determined to write good hooks.

“Especially guitar bands that do pop nowadays, it’s so boring,” Bradvica protests. “I don’t wanna feel like an ‘old man yelling at cloud’, but it’s like, there’s no hook, no one really sings anymore. [We were] consciously trying to make pop music and still make stuff interesting.”

Ahead of ‘Again’’s release, the band tested out a few such songs on their recent first full tour of the US, supporting fellow Aussies Spacey Jane. They’ve been learning a lot about winning crowds over in unfamiliar places. “Sometimes [you get a good reaction in] the cities that you least expect it. It’s like, places that aren’t even on your radar, and there’ll be a really receptive audience,” Everett says. “We did a show in Portland, Oregon, which is somewhere I’ve never even thought of before in my life until we were there, and for whatever reason, the audience was really into it.”

That’s an experience the Lip Bombs will be having more and more in the coming months, with month-long tours of the UK and Europe, and North America on the books – and more besides, hopefully. “Hopefully the album is well-received and it all goes well, and it allows us to be able to tour more and go overseas again,” Everett says, as nighttime darkness starts to tint her Zoom window. “We’ll do all that and then probably start writing the next album, and do it all over again, I think.” This is typically understated, but as far as we’re concerned, there’s nothing cooler than the idea that the Belair Lip Bombs will keep showing up with great songs, again and again and again and again”.

I will end with a review from NME for one of the year’s best albums. Again is one that you need to add to your collection. It is clear that The Belair Lip Bombs are one of the most promising young bands in the world. Their second album confirms them as an act you cannot miss out on. It will be exciting to see what next year holds in store. If you have not seen the band play live, then make sure you catch them. They are an extraordinary stage act. One that are going to be at a raft of summer festivals in 2026:

“The band’s second album ‘Again’, despite its title, is not a once-more go-around of ‘Lush Life’. Instead, it looks at that LP’s already-versatile nature and maps out new terrain for the ambitious indie rockers to explore. Such boldness is present in lead single ‘Hey You’, which buzzes with urgency due to its hypnotic Rhodes loop and the pounding, persistent drumming of new drummer Daniel Devlin (formerly of Delivery). It, paired with the satisfying rock-out finale of ‘Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair)’, showcases the band in full flight – reminding listeners that the Lip Bombs are a rock band first, indie band second.

Despite the aforementioned line-up change between ‘Lush Life’ and now, the band feel more sure of themselves from a musical standpoint. Lead guitarist Michael Bradvica, in particular, is an assertive presence throughout. His Nile Rodgers-style “chucking” on ‘Cinema’ gives the track both groove and depth, while his deft playing on the vulnerable, emotive ‘Smiling’ almost creates a dialogue of sorts between himself and vocalist Maisie Everett with transfixing results.

For her part, Everett has continued to develop her heartfelt vocal delivery on ‘Again’, making especially strong use of it in the album’s quieter, more pensive moments. Piano ballad ‘Burning Up’ might be the biggest sonic departure of the band’s young career thus far, and certainly feels like a considerable risk even when they’ve already established an eclecticism within their sound. For those that don’t talk over the quiet songs, however, a remarkable new side to the band can be found blossoming and blooming over the song’s four-minute runtime.

Rummaging through the wreckage of a relationship, Everett devastatingly assesses herself as “a prick in your thumb” and her former flame “a bruise in [her] lung”. “We were made for each other,” she sighs, “but we gotta blow out the flame.” With the churning guitars and swinging drumsticks traded in for E-bows and jazz brushes, the band aim for the heartstrings and don’t miss.

At an already exciting time for Australian music as a cultural export – from the rise of punk and hardcore acts like Amyl & The Sniffers and Speed, to the continuing arena dominance of Tame Impala and Rüfüs Du Sol – there’s unquestionably a space for The Belair Lip Bombs to thrive globally. ‘Again’, to paraphrase U2, feels like them auditioning to be the biggest band in the world”.

It is going to be interesting seeing how The Belair Lip Bombs develop in years to come. They have accomplished so much already, so what will be the next step? Coming to the end of a successful year, next year might be their most important yet.  Looking around at the band in the current scene, and it is clear that there are…

FEW better than them.

_____________

Follow The Belair Lip Bombs

Official:

https://thebelairlipbombs.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/lipbombs/

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3VqxjKAHnQG-Ywl6Ri88lg

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6viWvP8YChO4DcOi1BpNvT?si=Fh3mU_ruQ_yfhY5QkNY27g

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lipbombz/

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Tyla

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Rafael Pavarotti for British Vogue

Tyla

__________

I have featured Tyla…

on a few occasions on my blog. I included her in my Spotlight feature in 2023. Her debut album, Tyla, was released on 22nd March, 2024 and received positive reviews. A Deluxe Edition, TYLA +, was released on 11th October, 2024. I hear that a second studio album is not too far away. Because of that, it is a perfect time to come back to the brilliance of Tyla. Also, Tyla has once more been nominated for a GRAMMY. The South African-born artist released her second E.P., WWP, back in July. It has been a busy time for someone who has some dates in Asia ahead. She is playing at the Ariake Arena in Koto City, Japan on Tuesday (11th November). Her new single, CHANEL, is among her very best. I want to come to some recent interviews with Tyla. For those who do not know about her brilliance. In August, Variety spoke with a global artist who discussed her upcoming second album. Why she is rejecting the Pop machine:

“Since the release of her critically revered self-titled debut album last year — and the global success of “Water,” the smash single that started it all — Tyla has been fixated on how to follow it.

It’s no small challenge. The song, built on a foundation of amapiano — a subgenre of South African house music — but infused with pop and R&B melodies and accented by elements of Afrobeats, was unlike anything else on pop radio at the time. Despite the recent success of many African artists, “Water” has a directness that made it a breakthrough song for the diaspora.

It became a near-instant hit after Tyla and her choreographer, Litchi, posted videos of the singer doing a Bacardi-inspired dance on TikTok in August 2023. In it, she glides across the floor while pouring water over her swaying hips and singing, “Make me sweat, make me hotter, make me lose my breath, make me water.” The move went viral, and Tyla did too — everything from her dancing to her look.

Born on Jan. 30, 2002, as the second-youngest of the four siblings, Tyla Laura Seethal grew up in a loud, lively, music-filled household. Her father would sing to wake the kids up before school, and on Sundays he’d blast everything from country to R&B radio while cleaning the house. Her mother had multiple occupations, from candle-making to real estate and even acting in commercials.

Tyla signed with Epic Records in 2021 after a bidding war that saw Epic chief Sylvia Rhone posting billboards in Johannesburg featuring the singer’s image with the message “Epic Records, love Sylvia Rhone.” It was the only way to secure the singer’s attention despite travel restrictions tied to the pandemic.

It was a lot for a 19-year-old to absorb. “When I got signed, a lot of opinions came in,” she recalls, “and it was a very overwhelming experience.” She tried a number of different musical styles over the course of many songwriting sessions and content-creation workshops, some of which tried to steer her into a bubblegum-pop direction. Those songs “didn’t feel like me at all,” she says, remembering one session where the songs pitched to her “were the most generic compositions you could ever think of.”

Adding to the pressure were cultural mores whereby women are in submissive roles — “You stay out of men’s conversations, the men eat first,” she says — making it even more challenging for a young woman to take charge. “I remember being in my hotel room and my managers were calling me, ‘Come down, we need to cut the song,’” she recalls. “I was crying and thinking, ‘This is not what I want. I didn’t get signed to do this,’” she says of the push to record songs that didn’t reflect her vision. “They had to [coax] me out of that room. “But,” she continues with a deep sigh. “I think through doing that, I realized how much more I love African music. It made me more persistent in keeping my ideas.” So she cut out the noise and honed in on the sounds she felt in her heart.

When it came to crafting the thematic material of her new album, Tyla had more than a few life lessons to bring. “I had to grow up fast, especially for someone coming from a strict family,” she notes. “It was a constant challenge to learn.”

One of those challenges related to her ethnic identity. Her background — a combination of Zulu, Irish and Mauritian-Indian heritage — became an unexpected point of controversy as her fame surged, fueled in part by the resurfacing of a 2020 TikTok in which she refers to herself as a “Coloured South African.” In a June 2024 interview, Charlamagne Tha God asked her to explain the “debates that they be having about your identity,” and she declined to answer, furthering the drama.

But although the term “Colored” can be triggering for Black Americans, a painful reminder of the country’s ongoing racist history, in South Africa, the term is more nuanced, often used to reflect a mixed-race heritage. In a statement posted online, just hours after the Charlamagne interview, Tyla said, “I don’t expect to be identified as Coloured outside of [South Africa] by anyone not comfortable doing so because I understand the weight of that word outside [of South Africa]. But to close this conversation, I’m both Coloured in South Africa and a Black woman.”

“That [controversy] was really confusing for me,” she admits. “I understood both sides of the story, but I was left asking, ‘OK, but what do I do now?’ When who you are is challenged, especially when it’s all you’ve ever known, it shakes you. You want to stand your ground, because if you don’t, someone else will try to define it for you.”

That tension — the constant negotiation between personal identity and public perception — is one many artists know intimately. For those who move between cultures, like Tyla, identity isn’t just personal; it becomes part of their artistic appeal, adding depth and global resonance to their work”.

I want to move on to an interview from British Vogue. Full name Tyla Laura Seethal, there are sections of an in-depth interview that caught my eye. We learn more about Tyla’s upbringing and the controversy around how she discovered her racial diversity. British Vogue sat down with Tyla as she “adjusts to life as the Queen of popiano, Funmi Fetto travels from London to her home town of Johannesburg, where she discovers a 23-year-old on the cusp of global domination”:

“From the outside looking in, Tyla’s rise to fame has been nothing short of phenomenal, seemingly exploding out of nothing and nowhere. That’s not how she sees it. “Since I was little, when anyone asked me what I wanted to become, I always said, ‘I’m going to become a singer,’” she tells me, a determination in her voice, in between delicate mouthfuls of pap, boerewors sausage and chutney, a quintessential South African meal she cooked herself as part of her Vogue video shoot and packed up for the car ride.

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Michael Jackson, Aaliyah, Beyoncé and Britney Spears: these were the artists that soundtracked her childhood in Johannesburg, where she grew up, the second of four siblings to parents of Zulu, Indian, Mauritian and Irish descent. But it was the Barbados-born Rihanna who really moved the needle for Tyla and to whom she is most often compared. “Coming from somewhere outside the States, I really looked up to her,” she says. “I used to think you’re only going to become famous if you’re born in America. She made me realise there is another way.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Rafael Pavarotti for British Vogue

Young Tyla would sing everywhere. “For my family, for competitions, on talent shows, on Instagram…” The latter is where she was spotted, in 2019, by photographer and music producer Garth von Glehn, who would introduce her to manager Colin Gayle (the British-born Jamaican behind Africa Creative Agency, known for taking African musicians global and bringing the likes of 50 Cent and Ne-Yo to the African continent). “He wanted me to come in to record in a studio,” Tyla recalls. “So I met him – my parents came with me – and I recorded my first song that day.” Following that, she was “literally going between school and the studio, school, studio, school, studio…” The

The UK, in particular, has long embraced and been influenced by the South African music scene. Reading-raised DJ Charisse C, the South African amapiano powerhouse and NTS radio presenter, explains that amapiano’s success in the UK stems from a long-standing relationship with South African dance music. “It goes back to the times when sounds like bacardi and songs like DJ Mujava’s ‘Township Funk’ were really instrumental to shaping and influencing underground club culture in the UK.” Which, ironically, resonated deeper when lockdown hit. “On social media, people were seeing the ways in which South African people were connecting to dance music at home and the viral videos of them dancing at parties. That spirit of joy really connected with people.”

Hence the level of fame Tyla is now operating in hits far beyond her home turf. But it can be lonely – and, at times, intimidating. Once, not long after the launch of her first single, “Getting Late”, she was accosted by three middle-aged men at a US airport. “They were like, ‘We know you. You’re Tyla,’” she recalls. “‘We should go for a drink.’ I was alone because my friend went to go get something and there’s these big men asking me all these questions. It was scary.” She now has security with her at all times, which means she can no longer do the things she once took for granted. “Sometimes I even cry over it,” she admits. “I just miss being able to walk. Or sit in the park. Or go to Nando’s.” The last time she tried, she went to order “and they all started singing ‘Make me sweat…’”

She can “probably walk around, but I have to be in disguise because I don’t like when people record me”, she continues. “It’s not like I don’t love my supporters or anything – ask for a picture, we can take one – but when people secretly try to take videos or photos… How do you have the right to just do that? It feels like it should be illegal”

I am ending with an interview from last month. One of Glamour’s 2025 Women of the Year, this artist and fashion icon has the sound and look of a new generation. An artist ready to stand alongside the most popular and biggest artists of today. In a fascinating Glamour interview, we learn new sides and dimensions of Tyla. If this talent is not in your life, then make sure that you bond with her now. Someone who is primed for global domination and huge longevity:

“Tyla is still defining where she’s going to go for this sophomore album. “[Making WWP,] I didn’t feel like I wanted to commit to anything as yet. I wanted to still play around,” she says. If the element that represents her first album is water, then the EP is definitely fire. “We wanna party” is a carefree statement often chanted by crowds in clubs in her home country, but a deeper look at the lyrics in the dance-floor-ready tracks reveals a tension often felt by the singer—she’s trying to create a carefree world while under intense and sometimes ruthless public scrutiny.

As happens for almost all young females in the spotlight, her public appearances have been judged. Sometimes the judgment feels flimsy (e.g., she wasn’t dancing closely enough with Usher at one of his concerts), but other times it’s more fraught, often spurred by the fact that Tyla refers to herself as “coloured” and has done so in a 2020 TikTok and in interviews. This led her to be pressed on the radio show The Breakfast Club by cohost Charlamagne tha God. Then, when WWP was released, some commentators, like Black news media outlet The Root and rapper turned broadcaster Joe Budden, focused on making comparisons between the physical sales of her debut album versus the EP to prove the point that her comments have turned Black listeners off. She’s not letting it get in her head, though.

“I just wanted to have a good time. I wanted to go out, I wanted to party, I wanted to say anything and everything. I realised that people just like to talk—that’s just my life now,” she says. Tyla briefly changed her Twitter bio to “Entitled uppity African,” echoing an insult leveled at her by media commentator Armon Wiggins. “Instead of social media clapbacks—[which] I’ve been doing—I just wanted to sing about it and turn it into something fun and pop.”

Even though she’s creating a public persona, Tyla still feels that internally very little has changed.“When I’m at home, I’m who I’ve known for 23 years of my life, and when I’m out in the world, I have to do all these things that are not normal. It still feels like me but like I’m playing a game. Like I’m in a virtual world.”

The unusual thing now is that the eyes of the world are watching her live out her young years. In August, after a picture circulated of her allegedly being carried out of a party in Brazil—a scene many may have experienced in their early 20s—she tweeted an iconic photo of a young Beyoncé slumped in the back of a car. The club brings her so much inspiration for her music, but her fame adds a new complex dynamic.

“When I’m on stage, I really do not care. I want people to look at me. I want everyone to be entertained. But when I’m off the stage, I’m kind of shy,” she says. “I don’t want people watching me party. I want to be in my own world. I remember in the beginning it was very weird for me, because it felt like an overnight switch. It was very drastic.”

The singer admits she likes to keep her circle tight, especially when it comes to getting advice on how to navigate fame. “Being very honest, I don’t really speak to people besides my family and very tight people. I’m kind of just figuring it out by myself. I’m very private,” she says. She unwinds from working by taking trips to get back in touch with nature, finding quality time with herself to bike over the Brooklyn Bridge, journal, and “doodle” (although a quick web search will show that word is modest, as her paintings could be hung in the Louvre.) “I want to be in a chill outfit, barefoot, no makeup, to just feel like myself”.

Let’s finish there. The remarkable Tyla is going from strength to strength and is releasing the best music of her career. When her second album is released, it will draw spotlight and scrutiny. I think it will confirm that she is one of the most important artists of her generation. There are some who do not know about Tyla and her brilliance, though that is going to change…

VERY soon.

_____________

Follow Tyla

PHOTO CREDIT: Delali Ayivi

Official:

https://www.tylaworld.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tyla/

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8HOgNWipVorrlBH8oN2R-A

Twitter:

https://x.com/Tyllaaaaaaa

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3SozjO3Lat463tQICI9LcE?si=-lBOlmqaTb25PFr9hY3CyA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Tylasings

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Diana Vickers

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Leo Cackett

Diana Vickers

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MY Modern-Day Queens feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex James for OK!

celebrates remarkable women right across the industry. They might be artists who have been around for a couple of years or a lot longer. Diana Vickers is a Lancashire-born artist who was the semi-finalist on The X Factor in 2008, finishing in fourth place. Vickers has released two studio albums so far: 2010’s Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree and 2013’s Music to Make Boys Cry. Both incredible albums, I am focused on her now as she released a brilliant single, Ice Cream, in August. Her new single, Pretty Boys, was released last week. It is almost like two sides to the artist. Ice Cream more joyous and sweet; Pretty Boys is spikier and more hard-edged. I am excited by the prospect of a new album from her. I am starting out with an interview from last year that Diana Vickers had with OK! Appearing in a new production, I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical, she also spoke about the highs and lows of appearing on The X Factor as a teenager:

“The 33 year old from Blackburn, who has opened up exclusively to OK! about her hilarious new lead role in I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical – a show complete with musical numbers like I’m Gwynnocent, money guns and a giant vagina candle – also reflected on her life-changing time on the show which shot her to fame.

Diana admits that she’s happy, over 15 years later, that after what’s been a difficult journey at times, that she has been accepted into the theatre community and isn’t just “that girl off The X Factor”. But she is also the first to agree that Simon Cowell ’s seminal talent show was a huge springboard for her career. Diana was mentored by Girls Aloud’s Cheryl in the Girls category and came fourth, in the same year as Alexandra Burke, JLS and her former boyfriend Eoghan Quigg.

Looking back at her time on The X Factor, Diana does admit there was one element of it that she did find difficult, the ‘pressure’” to finding herself suddenly a known name, overnight - and be judged on her performances by grown-ups sitting on a panel.

She says: “I was really young, and being judged in front of a lot of people – all these adults, telling you their opinions. But I really enjoyed it. And even back then I was able to say, ‘Diana, it’s just a TV show,’ which was healthy. I took it all with a pinch of salt. I remember I’d get quite nervous onstage. Even now, I’m super-confident but I have an anxious side, which people are surprised about.

She adds, recalling some of the crazier times on the show: “But yeah… I have some mad memories, Kate Moss running about backstage, Britney Spears appearing, Beyoncé… It was a whirlwind.”

The actress also believes it was her self-belief and drive that saw her even have the guts to audition on The X Factor - and continues to push her on today. “I don’t feel like I’ve changed, I still have that drive,” she says, thoughtfully”.

There are a couple of great new interviews with Diane Vickers. Speaking with MiS Magazine, they highlighted an artist who, with Ice Cream, “delivers a camp, queer-pop anthem that nods to her early hits while embracing a new era of playful freedom”. Even though Vickers has no immediate plans for an album or anything extensive, she did talk about the urge and necessity of putting out a camp single. One that is for her L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fanbase. Vickers was also asked about being part of a comedy duo and her experiences on The X Factor:

“After nearly 12 years, you’re back with Ice Cream. What made now the right moment to return to solo music?

I performed at Mighty Hoopla a couple of years ago, and it really reignited this sort of fire in me where I wanted to sort of make music again, just absolutely love my LGBTQIA+ community and their reaction and response to me. I was like, wow, there is definitely a market, an audience here for me. And I do a lot of gay gigs at the moment. I’ve sort of been doing that circuit and just had a really, really great response. And I was like, well, I’m doing this circuit. I’d absolutely just love to do some new music as well. So, it’s definitely for the gays, theys and the girlies.

Your new single feels like a wink to your early hits but with a fresh, queer-pop energy. How did you shape its sound and vibe?

Yeah, I’m glad that you think it’s queer anthem. The minute I said hi, I’m back. Did you miss me? I was like, ok, this is gonna be camp and then ice cream came out. I’ve been listening to a lot of Kylie. I think Queen Kylie for me. I was just sort of listening to a lot of her and that. Yeah, that definitely inspired me a lot.

Fans have been calling for your comeback for years. How does it feel to finally give them the summer anthem they’ve been waiting for?

Yeah. I saw a meme that went viral recently and it was saying we don’t get a song of the summer this year because we’ve been bad and I saw that go and sort of circulate. I was like ohh wait but little do they know it feels really, really, really good. I was, like, super excited as well because I knew I was playing at Manchester Pride on the weekend of release and I was like, OK, it’s the week, the summer week of the defrosting of ice cream. I’m melted and I’m ready to serve.

Gen Z are rediscovering you through TikTok while millennials see you as a nostalgic indie-pop icon. How do you navigate speaking to both audiences at once?

Gosh, I hadn’t even really thought about the whole Gen Z. I was in an interview the other day thinking, you know, millennials remember you, but then you got this whole little audience are gonna look at you. Like, I literally didn’t think about them. It’s quite overwhelming because obviously when I released music, or even when I was on when I released my first album, I didn’t even have Instagram or TikTok, and so even now doing the new formula with it all is really overwhelming. And I’m like, oh my God, am I doing it right and yeah, hopefully, they’ll connect with it. You know, it’s fun and pop and camp and playful. So, I’m really hoping that the millennials and the Gen Z love it and up for it.

Looking ahead, what can we expect after Ice Cream — more singles, maybe a full album, or something completely unexpected?

I do have an absolute banger up my sleeve. I really wanted to come out with Ice Cream. I thought that was really camp and fun for the gays, theys and girlies, but I definitely have another banger. That’s an undeniable one in my eyes up my sleeve and I would love to get that out there. And then, yeah, let’s just see. I want to focus on my acting and other projects, and my dream would just sort of do a play, do a musical, do a TV show, do a movie and then bam, out of nowhere, queer banger for you all when you least expect it”.

Diana Vickers is definitely busy right now. In addition to the comedy duo, Ki and Dee, and her new podcast, Just Between Us, it is also great that we have new music from a fantastic artist. Numéro Magazine spoke with a multi-talented artist who “is stepping back into her pop star identity, this time on her own terms”. It would be amazing if there was more music from Diana Vickers. An artist that I have been following for years, Ice Cream (and Pretty Boys), let’s hope, marks a productive new phase:

“Your debut album shot straight to No. 1. How do you look back on that era of your career now?

I look back on it really fondly. It was such an exciting time, but also a lot of pressure for someone young. I was so proud of myself when the album hit number one, because it’s not always a given when you come from a reality TV show. There’s a stigma attached, and it could’ve gone either way. I’d done the West End before even releasing the album, so I really wasn’t sure what to expect. But the way it was received was amazing, and I just remember being so proud of myself.

Songs like ‘Once’ and ‘The Boy Who Murdered Love’ are still cult favourites. Do you feel pressure to recreate that sound, or are you eager to evolve?

Honestly, I don’t feel pressure to recreate anything. I love good pop, I credit myself with knowing how to write a proper pop song, but this time I wanted to do something different. Something a bit camper, a bit sexier. I didn’t want to mimic the past, I just wanted to make a really great little banger.

Your career spans music, theatre, comedy, and now podcasting. Do you see all of these as connected, or do they feel like separate creative worlds?

They’re connected in some ways, because I think that cheekiness runs through everything I do, but I also see them as quite separate. I’m literally about to do a play where I play an 11-year-old boy and an older male police officer in a show about the witch trials that’s a completely different world to releasing a pop single. But that’s what I love, slipping into all these different hats and creative spaces. And then something like the Gwyneth Paltrow musical I did, it was so fun and camp, and honestly really inspiring too. Those moments definitely fed into me wanting to embrace that side of myself again with the music.

Your new podcast ‘Just Between Us’ launched straight to #2 in the UK. Why do you think listeners have connected with it so strongly?

I think it’s because, for a long time, it was still pretty taboo for women to talk openly about sex and pleasure. The podcast gives people a safe, honest space to connect with those conversations. We have ordinary people calling in with their real issues, and listeners really resonate with that. Everyone has questions or challenges in their sex and love life, so hopefully it feels like a warm, safe hub where they can go, “Oh my gosh, this is me. I feel seen”.

With two incredible recent singles out, there is a lot of love for her. Twin ace singles in the form of Ice Cream and Pretty Boys, we are seeing these different sides to Diana Vickers. Speaking about the track, this is what Vickers commented: “After my type always turned out to be a toxic narcissist, and after spending a few hours in a therapist’s chair, I decided it was time for a change. Honestly, I recommend turning to nice guys—they just do it better. ‘Pretty Boys’ is about reclaiming your power and stepping into your most confident, sexy energy. In the video, I channel my inner Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct-uncompromising, dangerous, and fully in control of the situation”. I wanted to spotlight Diana Vickers, not only for music, but everything else does. An acclaimed a stage actor, a comic and a podcaster, it has been a busy year for this incredible talent. Someone who I know will put out more new music when she is ready. With an adoring and dedicated fanbase, it is clear that Diana Vickers is…

AN outstanding queen.

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Follow Diana Vickers

PHOTO CREDIT: Leo Cackett

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/dianavickersofficial/

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9GLxuOs2e0ZFpdLgGc4erg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/DianaVickers

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1iAIMKbNptAohP5KbxuGR0?si=3bPrjQ_ERD-GcgupeDxXbA

FEATURE: Brick By Brick: Industry Plants: The Case of Say Now, and Misogyny That Still Exists

FEATURE:

 

 

Brick By Brick: Industry Plants

IN THIS PHOTO: Say Now/PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Ibram

The Case of Say Now, and Misogyny That Still Exists

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THIS is a conversation that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale (left) and Hester Chambers were accused of being industry plants early in their career/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Backham

we should not be having. One that only applies to women. I think the last time that I wrote about it was when discussing The Last Dinner Party. The London band were accused of being industry plants. Because they came onto the scene seemingly full-formed with these remarkable songs and growing fanbase. They were not and never have been industry plants. By that, we are talking about an artist/group who, despite presenting themselves as independent or self-made, are secretly backed by major record labels and industry connections. This backing gives them advantages like funding and professional opportunities that are out of reach for truly independent artists, leading to a rapid rise in popularity. I have never seen a male artist accused of that! There would be no point in an industry plant. What it is designed to do. It does seem to be the case that, when you get an incredible female group that pretty quickly establish themselves and are exceptional, that they must be funded by a label and have cheated their way in. The Last Dinner Party pointed out discrepancies with the term ‘industry plants;’ and what it means: “Now, they’ve spoken out against these claims, arguing that “there’s no definition” for what an industry plant is, and that the charge is typically levelled at “just young women who are successful.” “The Beatles were industry plants,” bassist Georgia Davies told The Guardian. “If that’s your definition – ‘the industry helps you’ – then every single artist who’s been aligned with a record label is the same”. Even if we can sort of question what an industry plant means, there is no getting around the fact that women are the ones who face the accusation.

This takes us to the amazing Say Now. I would suggest to everyone to go and follow them. Formerly known as needanamebro (which, to be fair, is an awful name (though it was a placeholder); they announced themselves as Say Now in 2023. They have been around for a little while and have been building their name(s) and music. It is not like they have released a debut single that went to number one, had this vastly expensive video and they came online with millions of fans. They then went on a world tour and got airplay all over the place. I wrote about them in 2023 before they became Say Now. The group (Ysabelle Angeli, Amelia Onuorah and Madeleine Haynes) have released some incredible singles this year, including Can’t Keep a Beat and Supermarket. It is quite rare in this day to see a girl group succeed. Maybe that is an outdated term for what they are. There is not the same vibrant and competitive scene that there was when I was growing up in the 1990s. There were some in the 2000s too. As solo Pop artists are more popular and common, there are really not that many girl groups at the forefront. I think that one of the reasons why Say Now are being called industry plants is because they are being noticed and it is unusual. A girl group catching on and getting this love. It is down to their hard work and talent, so naturally the industry would be suspicious. Some that are labelling them as industry plants. In a recent interview with NME, Say Now talked about bringing back the chaotic energy of U.K. groups. Having found a sweet spot in their sound, there is this forward momentum. They also addressed the accusations of being label plants:

“Quite obviously, we stand for diversity,” Haynes says proudly. “I think it’s really nice for young girls – well, young anyone growing up – to see that representation you might not get in other groups.”

Because they’re signed to a major label, Atlantic Records, and hail from the same management stable as One Direction and Little Mix, Say Now have frequently faced a predictable accusation: “You’re industry plants!” These rumours were fuelled, perhaps, by the fact that they launched publicly in 2022 with the witty but slightly gimmicky temporary moniker: needanamebro.

“Honestly, in the beginning, we had it all the time,” Onuorah says, sounding more amused than exasperated. “And we’d always be like: ‘Guys, if we were industry plants, we’d have a Number One single by now.’” The trio released three trip-hop-flavoured singles as needanamebro – ‘Better Love’, ‘Not A Lot Left to Say’ and ‘Netflix (Better Now Without You)’ – before settling on an official name and rebranding as Say Now in July 2023.

Today, they dismiss any suggestion that this might have halted their early momentum. “A name change will always have some sort of controversy around it,” Angeli acknowledges, “but because we asked our fans to help us decide, it defo helped with that transition.” The trio received “over 500 submissions”, including some “really, really bad ones”, but plumped for Say Now, a name that Haynes came up with during a band brainstorm.

Say Now love sitting down with pen and paper to plot their next move. Earlier this year, they held an “emergency band meeting” where they decided to refine their musical direction – a pivotal moment in their trajectory. “We were like, ‘We’re sat on all these songs that are so, so good. Why haven’t we released them?’” Haynes says. “They feel so Say Now so let’s just put them out, even if it’s scary because they’re more R&B than what we’ve released in the past.”

Next up: a multi-song “project” planned for early next year. “We have so much music, but we just need to put it together. And we’re writing all the time,” Onuorah says. “We’ve found a sweet spot now where it feels like we’re really embracing R&B melodies, but with pop production that’s fun and upbeat.” US girl group icons Destiny’s Child are a vocal touchstone. “They’re so known for their incredible riffs, and we always try to embody that too,” Haynes says.

Still, there’s zero chance of Say Now forgetting their roots. “I think British girl groups have a kind of authenticity,” Haynes says. “We’re very outspoken and slightly more rough-cut. Less polished.” And if that means getting chucked out of Asda every now and then, well, so be it”.

I do hope that we end this habit of doubting and mistrusting successful women. Those who are hugely talented and have this confidence. Instead of them being planted by a label, they are instead like any other artist. As I said, Say Now are not industry plants. The Last Dinner Party are not either. Women have to face enough challenges and barriers as it is. They do not need to be diminished or called out falsely. Say Now dealt with industry plant rumours with good humour. They shouldn’t have to! There was a lot of discussion around industry plants last year. What the terms means, why the term is misused and why fans hate industry plants. This article explores this subject more and looks at some of the women who have been accused of being label plants:

“Billie Eilish: Due to her rapid rise to fame and the polished nature of her debut, some speculated that she had significant industry backing. However, Eilish and her team have consistently credited her success to her unique style and organic growth through platforms like SoundCloud.

Lana Del Rey: After her breakout with “Video Games,” some questioned the authenticity of her image and backstory, suggesting she was a creation of the music industry. Del Rey has been open about her struggles and journey in the industry, countering these claims.

Halsey: Halsey’s rise to fame, particularly after she collaborated with The Chainsmokers on “Closer,” led to some labelling her as an industry plant. She has spoken about her grassroots beginnings and the hard work that went into building her career.

Lizzo: Lizzo’s sudden mainstream success, especially with her album “Cuz I Love You,” led to some speculation about industry backing. However, Lizzo had been actively making music and performing for years before her breakthrough”.

Social media platforms have made it easier than ever to witness the struggles and successes of these independent artists. Fans can now follow an artist’s journey from their early stages, often involving years of hard work, setbacks, and gradual growth. This direct connection and the transparent view into an artist’s development foster a deeper appreciation for their efforts and achievements. In contrast, industry plants are often seen as bypassing this struggle, gaining unfair advantages through connections and financial backing. This can be perceived as undermining the meritocratic ideal that the best talent, regardless of background or connections, should have the opportunity to succeed.

The visibility of hardworking artists on social media, who may struggle to gain recognition despite their talent, underscores the perceived injustice of the industry plant phenomenon. It’s a narrative of authenticity versus manufactured success, resonating deeply in a culture that increasingly values genuine artistic expression and the democratisation of opportunity in the music industry.

Every talented band who isn’t getting paid their dues in the industry will have been told, ‘all you need is one lucky break’ by well-meaning fans and politely agreed, meanwhile knowing that all they really need is millions in marketing money at their disposal. So is it any wonder that artists who rise to fame and get all the backing they could possibly need are posited as the natural enemy of the average independent artists tolling the dilapidated fields of the music industry? The same goes for promoters who pour their blood, sweat and tears into promoting an artist only to be ignored by the gatekeepers such as the BBC and NME”.

I want to delve a little deeper before wrapping up with Say Now. In 2023, DAZED wrote about the latest group who were seen as being label plants. Picture Parlour had to face backlash and these false accusations. Even if some men have had to face the industry plant claims, it is mostly women and bands fronted by women. This has to stop! At a time when women are dominating music, this kind of slur and misogynistic practise is detrimental and insulting:

“Maybe we’ve forgotten that hype can be generated elsewhere, in real world spaces, at gigs we haven’t attended. It’s not so implausible that a band could generate hype and get discovered by a high-profile management agency, simply by playing live. The existence of ‘industry plants’, rather than being a conspiracy theory, is how the music industry has always operated – the term could apply to just about any band who get scouted and then heavily promoted. While Picture Parlour weren’t dreamed up in an executive boardroom, it’s clearly true that the music industry decides to throw its weight behind certain bands and not others. Some artists make it big organically, after years of slogging away, while others are plucked out of obscurity and chosen for stardom (or as close to ‘stardom’ as you can get as a rock band in 2023.)

According to Stuart Bennet, associate director at Deacon Communications, a music PR agency, the backlash against Picture Parlour has been over-the-top. “They seem to have plugged away in bands for years and hit a hot streak with this one,” he says. “I think it’s good to be skeptical about what you’re being fed and challenging the dynamics within the music industry. There are undoubtedly elements of privilege and power that come into which bands are picked up. But in this case, it seems a bit misdirected towards a band who essentially seem to have done something rather normal.”

When you look back at the ‘industry plant’ controversies of the last few years, it’s notable that most of them (including Wet Leg, Panic Shack, The Last Dinner Party, Tramp Stamps and now Picture Parlour) have involved bands that are fronted by women. For a certain kind of male rock fan, it’s a more plausible explanation than believing these bands made it off the back of their own talents – particularly as “being young and good looking” is often a core feature of the complaint. Bands fronted by men, which have had similar trajectories and make music of similar quality, aren’t accused of being industry plants at the same frequency, although it has been known to happen – the “private school”/ “rich parents” allegation seems to be more gender-neutral.

But according to Chardine Taylor Stone, a Black Feminist scholar and the drummer with punk band Big Joanie, it’s reductive to dismiss concerns about ‘industry plants’ as inherently sexist. There are a wider range of disparities at play: as she points out, it’s comparatively rare to see Black women or Black artists generally on the cover of NME. “The industry saw the rise of underground feminist women bands but rather than support those grassroots bands as they are, an industry of men decided to water that movement down and support the kind of women they find less threatening: nice young white middle class women,” she tells Dazed. “Criticising that is not misogyny, it’s exposing the industry's sexism, it draws attention to how the industry patronises audiences and how it only allows women to prosper if they fulfill certain beauty standards and don’t cause too much of a fuss”.

Even back in 2022, there were articles written about industry plants and how it is a misogynistic myth. That same year, Wet Leg discussed with Rolling Stone the notion that they are seen as industry plants. Sexism and misogyny at the root of it all. Still alive and well today! Say Now are where they are because of their determination, talent and vision. I don’t think we will see an end to women in music being seen as industry plants. It is an outdated and problematic term that has misogynistic roots. Say Now will succeed in spite of this labelling, but the industry needs to address this and endure that women feel secure coming into music and do not have to face witch hunting or conspiracies! Rather than words over deeds, the industry should not just say it now, they also need to…

DO it now!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Annie & The Caldwells

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Carl Martin

Annie & The Caldwells

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I am glad that…

Annie & The Caldwells are coming to the U.K. early next year. The American group released their simply exceptional album, Can’t Lose My (Soul), earlier this year. A six-track work of wonder from the family band. Before I get to interviews with the group and a review for Can’t Lose My (Soul), I want to highlight their biography from their official website:

“Annie Caldwells says, “My family is my band,” and so naturally the history of the band—and their music—dovetails with the family’s real life. ANNIE & THE CALDWELLS are a family that plays a powerful disco soul from West Point, Mississippi. When Annie was 16 years old, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, she played in a band with her brothers (they were called the Staples Jr. Singers, a group of teenagers with a single album recorded in the 1970s). One day, the Staples Jrs. were singing on a church program in West Point, when a guitarist who played with one of Annie’s brothers in another band heard her and said, “Who — is that?” That moment Annie met Willie Joe Caldwell, Sr., her husband of the last fifty years, and the co-founder and guitarist for the Caldwells who supports his family’s high-flying vocals with fuzzy, psychedelic riffs.

Annie and Joe got married so young that their parents had to sign for them. They started their own family, and Annie opened a store on Main Street in West Point called Caldwell Fashions—which has been a beloved staple for women dressing for COGIC (Church Of God In Christ) convocations and church anniversaries since the ’80s. Things changed for the Caldwells when their eldest daughter was old enough to be invited to sing at a high school talent show. The Caldwells were shocked that their daughter was singing the blues—“the blues!” for Annie, means any music of any genre that doesn’t speak the gospel.

“We thought, if we don’t do something, the devil’s going to get her,” Annie said. “We decided we better get these children because people wanted them to sing in places where they played the blues, and I didn’t want that.”

So Annie and Joe started their own group, which pulled from the music their kids loved — The Gap Band, Chaka Kahn, Bootsy Collins. “We started singing ‘Is My Living in Vain’ by the Clark Sisters,” Annie said, illustrating how the group infuses gospel with grit and street savvy. Two decades later, the constellation of family members in The Caldwells is more or less the same: Annie is backed by their daughters Deborah Caldwell Moore and Anjessica Caldwell and goddaughter Toni Rivers; their eldest son Willie Jr. is on the bass and youngest son Abel Aquirius is on the drums. Their real troubles and experiences—as an intergenerational family run by women—are at the center of their music: Memories of a daughter’s birth or a brother’s recovery from an illness spill into transcendent moments onstage.

“I feel like the message is often for me first,” Annie said about the songs she writes. “But so many ladies come up crying and say, ‘I feel like what you were saying was for me.’”

“What does it mean to seek God as a woman?” Danielle Amir Jackson, who wrote the liner notes for Annie & The Caldwells’ new record Can’t Lose My (Soul) (out via Luaka Bop on March 21), asked Annie’s daughter Deborah this potent question after listening to her song, “Wrong.” Deborah is a hairstylist in West Point—she styles the group's hair in jazzy side swoops before their shows. Between Deborah’s work and Annie’s styling of the girls in royal blues and purples, gabardine fabric and peplum accented by gold jewelry and bright-red nails, the Caldwell sound is married to a vision of opulent feminine power, unflinching, honest witness, and devotion.

She wrote “Wrong” as a testimony after a tumultuous period in her marriage to her beloved late husband. Reeling from a betrayal, Deborah believed that getting revenge on her husband might improve the balance of tensions between them — but getting revenge only left her feeling depleted.“Being a married woman / experiencing heartache and pain,” Deborah sings in a performance that is raw and direct.  “Girls, I was wrong.”  The song is a confession, and just as it happened in real life, her family’s voices answer her call: “Wrong! Wrong!,” her mother and sister sing behind her. That’s the family dynamic at work.

“I sing about my life. I don’t just sing to be singing,” Deborah said. “A lot of women liked it and a lot of men didn’t like it. The women can relate. But we wouldn’t be in this position if men didn’t put us in this position.”

Can't Lose My (Soul), is twenty years in the making. They recorded it in West Point down the street from Annie and Joe’s house—at a church where Joe plays guitar every other Sunday, and where his father used to be a deacon. It was produced by Ahmed Gallab, the artist Sinkane, who together with the engineer Albert DiFiore drove a mobile rig down from Nashville and turned the back room of the church into a control room.

As a producer, Gallab saw his role there as making sure that “each song felt as powerful, as raw, and as genuine as the family dynamic behind it. The goal was always to stay true to the feeling behind the music,” which is why “everything was tracked live, in their church, together as a family.”

From a practical level, a big part of Gallab’s job was to get out of the way. When the band was in a groove, he would stick his head out of the control room and frantically swing his arm around like a pinwheel and stage whisper, “Keep going!” and “More! more! more!”

“Hearing Annie’s voice for the first time was like witnessing something rare,” Gallab said of the recording session, “Like you’re in the presence of a force of nature that’s been here long before you. It’s visceral, almost like it’s coming from her soul. You can feel every part of her life, every little piece of her journey, in each note she hits. It’s pure talent: no effort, no pretense, just real and raw.”

“And working with Deborah was like tapping into pure fire,” he said. “She's feisty, no doubt! That spark, that intensity she brings, spills right into her music. The tough love that these girls gave each other. Calling each other out when one wasn’t in key. It was pretty funny.”

In November 2024, ANNIE & THE CALDWELLS travelled to Utrecht in the Netherlands to perform at the prestigious Le Guess Who? Festival, where MOJO caught their showstopping performance and reviewed it as, “The most exciting, most dynamic family of faith imaginable: their rhythm section (dad and two sons) would give the Family Stone a run for its money; the front line (mum and daughters) have unquenchable sass and spirituality, and the crowd doesn’t need persuading to crash the stage and be saved by songs. It feels like 2025 may already be their year.” Amen to that!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Eric Welles Nystrom

I love Annie and the Caldwells. They are this electric and jaw-dropping is this family group that spans generations. I can’t think of any other that does this. Annie Caldwell (vocals), her husband Willie Joe Caldwell Sr. (guitar), their daughters Deborah Caldwell Moore and Anjessica Caldwell (vocals), and their sons Willie Jr. (bass) and Abel Aquirius (drums). The band also includes their goddaughter, Toni Rivers (vocals). It is a wonderful blend of ages and dynamics. You can feel the harmony and closeness in the music! How there is this obvious connection and chemistry. I want to head back to an interview from The Guardian from Boxing Day last year. I only discovered Annie & The Caldwells earlier this year. It has been amazing learning more about them. A phenomenal group that are “now sending audiences into ecstasy with disco-tinged soul gospel”, make sure that they are on your radar:

“Annie and the Caldwells’ appearance looks extraordinary: a mother and her three middle-aged daughters, clad in matching multicoloured harlequin-print dresses, belting out raw, disco-tinged soul gospel in the midst of a delirious stage invasion by ecstatic, dancing punters.

“It was just beautiful,” says Annie Caldwell down the phone from her home in West Point, Mississippi. “The lord, you know, he’s not just in the church buildings, he’s going to highways and byways – wherever he sends us, we’re willing to go, because a lot of people aren’t going to come to church. I heard people say that they felt something they never felt before, and that makes them believe more in what we believe in, and that is lord God almighty.”

Eagle-eyed viewers with an interest in obscure gospel might recognise Annie Caldwell from the Staples Jr Singers, the band she formed with her brothers in the 70s, whose solitary 1975 album When Do We Get Paid was rescued from obscurity and reissued to wild acclaim in 2022. Annie and the Caldwells are the band she subsequently formed in the 1980s with her guitarist husband, Willie, after hearing their daughters rehearsing for a talent show: they were singing secular material, which she didn’t like the sound of. “I said: let me get those girls before the devil gets them!”

With the band rounded out by their sons on bass and drums and Caldwell, a dress shop owner by day, in charge of the band’s wardrobe (which she accurately describes as “jazzy”), they spent decades performing in churches around Mississippi and occasionally recording demos, a few collections of which are on Spotify. Then David Byrne’s label Luaka Bop – which had reissued the Staples Jr Singers album – suggested they make an album proper. “We recorded it in a little church on the corner of the street from where I live,” Caldwell says. “There was so much power and spirit within that place, and I thank God for that – he really came in and started blessing us.”

It is a fantastic album – funky, gritty and powerful, packed with incredible singing and potent songs that cast a stark eye over life’s hardships. Nevertheless, it must be odd, releasing a debut album 40 years after you start performing. But Caldwell seems unfazed. “Ever since I was young, God let me know that this was going to happen,” she says. “I have to give him praise and thank him that he remembered me after all these years”.

It is clear that music is family for Annie & The Caldwells. I want to move to an interview from Bandcamp from earlier in the year. There is this fascinating backstory when we look at this group. I have not included all of the interview and edited it down, though I wanted to include as much as possible. Anyone who has not heard Can’t Lose My (Soul) needs to listen to it right now. I am glad that they have support in the U.K. and have gigs here. I do hope that their music gets shared and there is more backing and airplay, as they deserve to be huge:

“Annie was raised by a mother who was also a head. Annie’s parents “got saved” when she was nine years old, back when she was just Annie Brown from Aberdeen, Mississippi. They joined the Church of God, a Pentecostal denomination, where her father became a deacon and her mother a minister at a time when very few Black churches in the South allowed women to wear the cloth. Even though the Brown’s church was among the more progressive in the community, her mother never got the opportunity to lead her own congregation. Instead, she ministered at several local churches and took her family on the regional gospel circuit. It was on those tours that Annie and her siblings began singing and playing music. “I never went to music class in school, “ she says. “My momma and my daddy was in the church. I thank God that I heard a lot of great singing when I was coming up. I relate myself to some of their songs, because the music was so sweet—Mavis [Staples] singing songs like ‘Somebody Save Me.’ Those songs stick with me today.”

As their popularity grew, the siblings took up the name the Staples Jr. Singers, inspired by their frequent comparisons to the American gospel and R&B group The Staple Singers. When Annie was only 13, the Staples Jr. Singers (with her brothers A.R.C., Bobby, Cleveland, and Edward) self-funded their 1975 album When Do We Get Paid. The group managed to sell a few hundred copies—mostly on the front lawn outside their house. That record found its way into crate-digging infamy, with original copies fetching up to $700 on Discogs. In 2022, Luaka Bop reissued When Do We Get Paid and requested a follow-up, which became 2024’s Searching.

But that’s only half of Annie’s story.

When Annie was in high school, the family band dropped the Staples name, performing instead as the Browns. After a performance at a church in West Point, Mississippi, roughly 20 miles south of Aberdeen, a young man named Willie Caldwell approached Annie’s youngest brother Ronnel to ask about the girl in the band with that special voice. Caldwell had a family band background of his own as a guitar player and singer in a church group with his brothers. Before long, he and Annie were married. Caldwell asked for Annie to move to West Point with him, a decision that weighed heavily on her. “I didn’t wanna leave my brothers,” she says. “I didn’t wanna tell them that I was leaving to make my own family. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of things that was joyful. The good days outweigh the bad ones.”

Annie and Willie started a family right away, naming their firstborn Willie Caldwell Jr. The Caldwells eventually had a total of five children. The boys Willie Jr. and Abel both learned to play from their father. Annie says that Junior was five when he “started pecking at the drums” at rehearsals and at church. By age seven, he was playing alongside his father, while Annie and her daughters Anora and Deborah sang. When Abel was old enough to play drums, Willie Sr. taught Junior to play bass. A family band was taking shape. “Music really comes from both sides of the family,” Annie says. “I guess that’s why it is what it is now.”

Just like their mother, Annie’s daughters sang in talent shows. But when Annie and Willie Sr. saw their daughter Deborah drifting toward secular music, they got serious about making Annie & the Caldwells a real band. Rather than forbidding secular music outright, the group instead adjusted the message of songs by Bootsy Collins, Rufus & Chaka Khan, and the Gap Band to reflect their own beliefs. So Bootsy’s “I’d Rather Be With You” became a message of devotion to a Higher Power by including an “Oh, Lord” between repeats of the refrain. Then, Bootsy gives way to Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody,” changing the lyrics to declare, “Ain’t nobody…love me like Jesus.”

Following in the footsteps of her mother, Annie took her family band on the road, providing custom stage attire for her daughters. Annie & The Caldwells recorded two albums for the Memphis blues and soul label Ecko Records, 2013’s Answer Me and 2018’s We Made It. As Deborah Caldwell Moore grew into her role in the band, she began writing originals. Complications in her marriage inspired an R&B slow jam called “Rough Spot.” That personal perspective on heartache and forgiveness was further explored on “Wrong,” the lead single for the group’s Luaka Bop debut. “I thank God that they was into the music, just like we was,” Annie says. “A lot of times children go another way. They see the parents doing something and don’t want much to do with that.”

Annie’s youngest daughter Anjessica was once that type of child. She says she resisted joining her siblings in the band until she was 15. She loved music, but wanted a life outside the family tradition. It took her older sister Deborah, who works in a hair salon and styles all the sisters, to offer an ultimatum: “Sing, or you can’t get your hair did.” Anjessica chose singing. “I’m stuck like tuck now,” she says, admitting that her love for the band continues to grow.

The Caldwell Singers have been together for over 30 years now. Annie says they never limited their performances to strictly Pentecostal churches—she’s always willing to take their act wherever they’re welcomed. “God don’t have no denomination,” she says. That same belief encouraged them to sign with Luaka Bop and record their new album with Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab, aka Sinkane.

Annie always trusted that God had a plan for the Caldwells. For her, the support from Luaka Bop for both the Staples Jr. Singers and The Caldwells is a blessing that has allowed the families to take their message to overseas festivals. But no matter where the success takes them from here, the lineage of musicians within the Browns and Caldwell families remains strong. The sons and grandchildren of Edward and R.C. Brown played on Searching, while Annie’s goddaughter Toni Arlanza Rivers and Deborah’s daughter Hikemia Moore sang backup on the Caldwells record. When asked if there’s a next generation of Caldwells interested in singing, the proud grandmother in Annie shares that her granddaughter called her after getting a microphone for Christmas to sing “Dear Lord (You’ve Been Good To Me)”.

Prior to getting to a review, I want to finish up by sourcing from this interview from Woman & Home. Annie Caldwell remarks how it has been an astonishing year and the group have had so many adventures. They have a big fan in Elton John. He admired their debut album and advised people to go and buy it. You do not have to be a fan of Gospel or be familiar with the music they play. It is joyous and mesmerising and crosses all musical barriers! It is an album that everyone needs to hear:

“The family recorded their album, Can’t Lose My (Soul) all live in their local church and the uplifting tunes, based on personal experience, have been likened to the slinky grooves of Gloria Gaynor and the funk of James Brown.

“It can get emotional as we sing about what we’ve been through, but the energy when we perform together is powerful and we all build off what each other’s doing. It’s just been such a privilege and a blessing to have been given this opportunity,” she says.

“I’d never been on a plane before until last year and now we’ve played in festivals in Australia, Spain, Holland and the UK. Every performance ends up being my favourite as I love seeing the crowds dancing and getting such energy from our music. I always want to go immediately back to the stage and do it all over again.”

When she’s not performing, Annie still runs Caldwell’s Fashions, a dress shop in West Point, Mississippi, so she and her daughters had a lot of fun designing the outfits for the tour with matching multi-colored harlequin print dresses that set the tone for their energetic performances.

Luckily, Annie’s granddaughter, Hikemia, was on hand to run the shop while the band was touring in Europe.

“I still fuss over all my family, even though most of them are all grown up now, but we love being together on tour,” she explains. “I have nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, so there wasn’t room for them to join us, but I loved FaceTiming them from all over, telling them about our adventures.

"They just wanted to know when we were all coming home!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Adam Wissing

The album has been an out-and-out success, receiving great reviews in The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Boston Globe and MOJO Magazine, not to mention from some famous faces in the music industry, including Candi Staton and Sir Elton John.

“It was incredible when Elton said he thought our album was a great record and told people to go out and buy it,” Annie recalls. “It goes to show you never know who’s hearing your music until they come out and say it.

“We also get messages from so many people through Instagram and Facebook who are fans and say they find our lyrics and music relatable and inspiring. All that positive feedback gives me huge energy to go on and make more music.”

With such success already under their belts, the next 12 months are going to be equally action-packed for The Caldwell family with the release of their new album and more performances around the world.

“I used to get nervous performing, but that feeling left a long time ago. Now there's simply joy from getting out on stage together as a family. We get along so well and there’s a lot of laughter,” Annie says.

“We’re off to Japan, Brazil and Europe again soon, which has me so excited. It’s an absolute whirlwind but I feel so blessed that we’ve been given this chance and we’re making the most of every moment.

“Ever since I was young, I felt that God let me know that this was going to happen one day. I'm just thankful that He remembered me after all these years”.

I am going to return to The Guardian and their five-star review for Can’t Lose My (Soul). Lauding the extraordinary harmonies and the fact that this album lifts you from despair and is life-affirming. The group are playing huge festivals and getting all this plaudits. It might be strange for them but, if they did not have the talent to back it up, then they might otherwise have been overlooked. As it is, they are this insanely talented group that are rightly getting rewards and celebration! Let’s hope that it continues for years more:

“The vocals are raw but perfectly pitched; there’s a kind of telepathic interplay between Annie Caldwell’s lead and the harmonies of her daughters during the improvised sections of the lengthy title track and Don’t You Hear Me Calling. So is the band, who somehow contrive to sound both extremely tight and yet spontaneous: if, as Deborah Caldwell has claimed, the band “don’t practise”, then their performances here are an advert for the honing effect of playing in church every other Sunday.

They’re also musically diverse. For all Annie Caldwell claims to have co-opted her daughters into the band after hearing them singing blues – “I said: let me get those girls before the devil gets them,” she told me last year – there’s a distinct blues undertow to the title track. Dear Lord deals in tough funk, equipped with a liquid bassline that Bootsy Collins would have been proud of. I’m Going to Rise bears the influence of southern soul, the emotional edginess of the vocals cushioned by the wah-wah lushness of the music. Their uptempo tracks, meanwhile, sit in the vicinity of disco: you can detect something of Chaka Khan’s late 70s solo albums about I Made It and Wrong, the latter track momentarily shifting its gaze from the heavens to infidelity – albeit laying the blame at Satan’s door – to the accompaniment of a fabulous cyclical guitar lick that’s begging to be sampled (disco legend and sometime house producer Nicky Siano has already remixed it).

These are great, powerful, moving songs, made all the more potent by the fact that they’re recorded live, without an audience, in a church in the band’s hometown of West Point, Mississippi. The plain production makes Can’t Lose My (Soul) feel as if it’s happening before your eyes, adding a vividness and urgency, particularly in extempore moments. Mercifully, it steers clear of the kind of faux-antiquing that’s often applied to 21st-century soul music rooted in the past, as if trying to convince you that you’re listening to a long-lost album.

The lyrics steer clear of the hellfire and brimstone sermonising to which southern gospel can be prone: they never stint on describing hard times – bereavement, grief, a miraculous escape from a house fire (“God spoke to death, he told death: behave!”) – but their message is ultimately one of hope. You don’t need to share the Caldwells’ faith to find something powerful and inspiring in that, particularly given the current climate, which can easily incline you towards hopelessness; something steeped in tradition seems apropos right now. You should listen to Can’t Lose My (Soul) purely on musical terms. Moreover, it’s an album you might need”.

You might not have heard of Annie & The Caldwells. That is fine. However, I would urge you to listen to Can’t Lose My (Soul). Not only one of the absolute best debut albums from this year, it is up there with anything else released. Maybe it has flown under the radar of some websites, though I have seen other reviews and they are all ecstatic. There is no doubting the credentials and quality of the album and Annie & The Caldwells. If you let this group pass you by, then you will…

LOSE out on something incredible.

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Follow Annie & The Caldwells

PHOTO CREDIT: Annie Forrest

Official:

https://annieandthecaldwells.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/annieandthecaldwells

YouTube:

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

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/annieandthecaldwells

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BppdGjQTbu2POldX0l9Dn?si=W3v522g1RY6AOu9LHnk2tg

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Nell Mescal

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

Nell Mescal

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I am excited…

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

to revisit an artist that I spotlighted in 2023. The terrific Nell Mescal is an artist I have been following for a long time now. Her incredible E.P., The Closest We’ll Get, was released on 24th October. It is a spectacular work from an unmistakable artist. Someone who very much has this distinct and incredible sound. Because I am updating my previous feature, I am going to bring in some recent interviews with Mescal. So we can learn more about someone you really need to know about. Before coming to 2025 interviews, I want to go back to last year and this from The Independent. Putting out her debut E.P., Can I Miss It for a Minute?, there was a lot of curiosity around this incredible artist. Born in  Maynooth, County Kildare, Mescal relocated to London in 2021 to fully commit to and pursue music:

“When Nell Mescal was in her early teens, she dreamt of going to boarding school. Growing up in her small hometown of Maynooth, Ireland, she fell in love with Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers series of novels – their depictions of cosy dormitories, spectacular sea views and ivy-covered walls.

It was a far cry from the reality, where she struggled with bullying at her local school and eventually dropped out before taking her exams, aged 18. It was around this time that her eldest brother, Paul, was rocketing to international fame as the charming, sensitive Connell in Normal People, the BBC’s pitch-perfect adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel. Four years since the show first aired, Paul is now a bona fide A-lister, nominated for an Oscar for his quietly soulful turn in Aftersun and soon to be stepping into Russell Crowe’s sandals as the lead in Ridley Scott’s keenly awaited Gladiator sequel.

Mescal, the youngest of three siblings, isn’t doing too badly herself. At 21, she’s released her debut EP, Can I Miss It for a Minute? and performed this month to a massive crowd on the same bill as Shania Twain at BST Hyde Park festival. It speaks to her clout that both Peter Mensch and the reclusive Cliff Burnstein – co-founders of the legendary management company Q Prime, to which Mescal is signed – were in the audience at her sold-out show at London’s Omeara in January.

PHOTO CREDIT: David Reiss

She moved to London not long after dropping out of school to pursue music. Her parents – a retired police officer and a primary school teacher – trusted her decision. “They’d seen Paul do it and were like, well, he’s survived it,” she recalls. We’re sitting in one of her locals in north London, where she shares a flat with her older brother Donnacha, who works in recruitment. (“We’re friends, too, which is so nice, but it’s also OK if I scream at him for not filling the dishwasher.”) She and Paul look remarkably alike: her eyes are huge and round, a bright blue ocean beneath thick Keira Knightley brows. She has the same aquiline nose, the same strong jaw. Her profile wouldn’t look out of place on a Roman coin.

It was a difficult first year, living in a strange city with no friends: “It was so scary – there were some fun moments, but it was very lonely.” She was placed in writing rooms and started playing live, which was when things changed. Mescal channelled her feelings into her 2023 single “Homesick”, which has something of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” about it in the yearning synths and racing guitar riffs. She struggled to find someone who could record her voice in a way that felt right, eventually landing on producer and mixer Duncan Mills (LCD Soundsystem, Florence and the Machine).

Songs on Can I Miss It for a Minute? sit comfortably in the indie-folk or folk-pop spheres; Mescal says her sound is indebted to artists such as Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker (she trails off before name-checking the third and final member of boygenius, her brother’s ex, Phoebe Bridgers). There’s a dreamy, romantic quality to “Yellow Dresser”, with its soft piano notes and Mescal’s lilting voice. “Electric Picnic” is wonderful, incorporating subtle Americana elements with a slide guitar and deft picking on the banjo.

“[London] definitely feels like home now,” she says, “which is weird – I’m always afraid of saying that. Obviously, my home is Ireland, but I’ve created a life here that I really enjoy.” She considers that chapter, a fraught couple of years trying to find her way in the city, closed.

What will she write about next? “I tend to get these emotional blocks,” she explains. “I could write about my mum being sick, but now is not the time.” (Mescal’s mother, Dearbhla, shared that she was in remission from cancer in June). “Writing about it is [still] too hard,” she continues. “But I also don’t want to feel like I’m avoiding it because of that.”

Mescal is charming in her candour. I imagine she’s had a few tips from Paul, who was equally frank in his 2020 interview with The Independent. There is that same polite but firm resistance to the more superficial trappings of celebrity, even if Mescal still loved accompanying her brother to the Oscars last year”.

I guess it was investable that there would be talk of her brother, Paul Mescal, and comparisons. The better known of the siblings, we need to instead focus on Nell Mescal and her beautiful music. An artist who will succeed in her own right and should not even be viewed as living in the shadow of her brother. Back in September, Nell Mescal sat down with Nouse on the first day of the Leeds Festival (where she was playing). She was asked about her upcoming E.P. I am going to end with a review for The Closest We’ll Get. For the Nouse interview, Alexandra Pullen asked the questions:

“AP: Who would you say are some of your lyrical or songwriting inspirations?

NM: I have so many. I think Adrianne Lenker is a huge huge inspiration for me. I actually got to work with her producer Philip Weinrobe on my next music which was the most exciting thing ever to be listening to a record I love so much and the lyrics I love so much and then getting to record something that just felt like something I would listen to was really really lovely. So, Adrianne Lenker. There’s so many people. I love Stevie Nicks.

AP: Love Stevie Nicks, she’s incredible. Off the back of that, who would be your dream artist to collaborate with?

NM: Maybe Stevie, you know. I keep on saying her today but she’s great. Maybe Stevie or maybe Amble, the Irish folk band. They’re really sick.

AP: You’ve got your EP coming out in October! Could you tell us a little bit about that?

NM: Yeah, so the EP is called The Closest We’ll Get and the title track is out now. It’s an EP about two people who are in the grey area of friendship and something more and not quite being brave enough but maybe sometimes trying to [be] and missing the mark a little bit. It’s a little bit sad but I’ve tried to bring the vibes up a bit.

AP: I love that! We’re from the University of York so do you have any advice for upcoming artists or student bands looking to get into the industry?

NM: I think, honestly, just keep going. Keep trying because it can be really difficult. I’ve been there. I started releasing music when I was 16. If you just keep on going you learn and you know yourself so much better. You become so much more confident. Just keep going.

AP: Thank you for that. Final question, last summer was notorious as ‘BRAT summer’, or ‘Chappell Roan summer’. So, what is your song of the summer for 2025?

NM: My song of the summer for 2025 is ‘Carried Away’ by Nell Mescal!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tia Johnson

I want to move now to a recent interview with Rolling Stone UK. We learn how Nell Mescal travelled to America to record her E.P. and discovered her voice in the meantime. Although her previous singles and E.P.s are tremendous, her latest E.P. is very much her most complete and extraordinary statement so far. One that sounds more like her than anything else. This is something that we observed in the interview:

“But it’s on her latest EP The Closest We’ll Get where Mescal comes into her own like never before. It’s her first release since signing to Atlantic Records and a sprinkling of star power comes courtesy of Grammy-nominated producer Philip Weinrobe and – a personal hero of Mescal’s – Adrienne Lenker.

“It was an amazing experience and one that was really changed the way we work,” Mescal explains.

Part of that, she explains, came from the fact that Weinrobe would work diligently between the hours of 10am-6PM on the EP and once those hours were elapsed, a day’s work was done. She says that working with Weinrobe felt like a “dream,” but it should also be noted that Weinrobe was preparing to pack up his upstate New York studio, Sugar Mountain, and head to pastures new. Such was the impact of Mescal’s music upon Weinrobe that he stayed around long enough for this EP to be the final project made at Sugar Mountain. “It was just the most magical experience,” Mescal beams.

Give the EP a single listen and you’ll understand what Weinrobe saw in the songs. Mescal tells me that the title track is a heart-rending listen, but there’s beauty to be found in the way she discusses situation-ships and the fizzling out of half relationships. “But if I’m only your half-drunk, sometime lover, Then I guess that’s more than nothing,” comes her emotional revelation.

Similarly, there’s a symmetry of sorts to be found in the searing ‘Middleman’, which she wrote it about a relationship she found herself in several years ago. It was only upon revisiting it for these sessions Mescal she realised that the person being addressed in the song, the one who needed to make bold decisions, was herself.

It’s heady stuff, Mescal explains, but it helps she’s found a pocket of North London where she lives with her brother Donnacha, a force of much-needed levity, she explains, and her A-List brother Paul. Though understandably reluctant to be drawn on the latter, she does tell RSUK that she’s been writing music with the actor, partly stemming from his need to inhibit the mindset of one of the greatest songwriters in history (Paul McCartney) for Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics.

But the bottom line for Mescal on this EP, ultimately, is that it marks the rise of a star who can lift your heart and break it within the next couple of minutes. With a rising online fan base behind her too and a sold out UK tour, it’s an exciting next chapter for a truly unique voice”.

I am finishing off with a review from Northern Transmissions. If you have not yet discovered the music of Nell Mescal, then do go and follow her. I cannot wait to see what next year has in store for her! I have loved her music for years now, and I want to get as many people headed her way. Mescal is touring the U.K. at the moment, before she heads to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in December:

“If you were to look for Nell Mescal, you’d probably find her in nature, drawing inspiration from the beautiful scenery that surrounds that. There’s a sliver of undeniable mysticism which resides in her songwriting – the kind of attribute you’d be right to assume made Taylor Swift’s fans fall in love with folklore.

Mescal was born to be a storyteller, no doubt about it. Her latest extended play, The Closest We’ll Get, is a poignant collection of stories which feel like they were penned by a poet who yearns to be heard. The EP’s title track embraces its core theme of two people swaying between platonic kinship and the aftermath of it becoming something more. Accompanied by Philip Weinrobe’s folk-inflected production, which employs a captivating, somewhat orchestral string arrangement, ‘The Closest We’ll Get’ sees Mescal confess her unconditional devotion in a way that seems extremely intimate, but never timid.

In fact, you could argue that confessional lyricism is the Irish musician’s strongest suit, but it’s actually her gentle, mellifluous vocal that makes the lyrics work so well. The project’s lead single ‘Carried Away’ is a great example of this, with Mescal’s performance sort of guiding the song’s rather eager instrumental. Her voice pierces through the recording, almost as if she’s singing right in front of you – a folkloric quality that contributes to the EP’s charming character.

The only sticking point is that the record’s opener, ‘Middle Man’, doesn’t really benefit from its comparatively tame production. The musical arrangement here isn’t flawed by any means, however, it sounds slightly disjointed from the hard-hitting lyrical content, especially in the bridge (“Grow up, find a girl / From your childhood / White dress, she’ll get cold feet / You’ll get angry / It gets scary”). ‘Middle Man’ doesn’t quite take off as much as it leaves you hoping it eventually would – its composition appears better suited for a track that isn’t as lyrically daring as this one”.

Such a hugely talented artist with so many years ahead of her, go and listen to her music now. The Closest We’ll Get sits alongside the best E.P.s of this year. I can see an album and some big stages waiting for her very soon. In a packed scene with so many artists you can choose from and follow, Nell Mescal is…

ONE of the best around.

____________

Follow Nell Mescal

Official:

https://www.nellmescal.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/nellmescal/

Twitter:

https://x.com/nellmescal_

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7i5X816UIV5xa9QZ-eWJZw

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/nellmescalofficial/?locale=en_GB

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4jRq9On9S1F6JkTebaZHqE?si=lkWzzxRnSWyAHvuIplD45A

FEATURE: Groovelines: Whitney Houston – How Will I Know

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Whitney Houston – How Will I Know

__________

THERE is a reason why…

I am covering this song, other than the fact that it is a classic! The penultimate single from her eponymous debut album, Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know is one of her great songs. It was released as a single on 22nd November, 1985, so I want to mark its fortieth anniversary. Among the iconic singles from a much-missed icon, I will explore the song a little bit for this Groovelines. Reaching number one on the U.S. chart, How Will I Know was written by George Merrill, Shannon Rubicam and Narada Michael Walden. In interviews, Whitney Houston revealed her scepticism about releasing the song as a single. How Will I Know was recorded in one take and perhaps was not seen as a natural single. In 2020, Billboard celebrated Whitney Houston's self-titled debut and gave their opinions about the tracks. This is what they said about How Will I Know:

“How Will I Know”: Where “Someone Like Me” faltered, “How Will I Know” succeeds. The spunky pop track slinks with charm as a shy Houston obsesses over how to discover if a lover shares her feelings. What makes “Know” work is, as with Houston’s other classic uptempo records, producer Narada Michael Walden‘s skill in blending a bubbly personality and the dynamic voice. It’s hardly a surprise that Walden and the songwriting team, George Merill and Shannon Rubicam, later teamed for another smash record in “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” Houston may not sing the most original lyrics here, but with every burst and run up the octave ladder, she reminds listeners, “Oh yeah, I’m the real deal.” And unlike, well, any other Houston song, “How Will I Know” is linked to its music video. That hair. That dress”.

It is interesting what Medium wrote about How Will I Know in 2017. The song was originally meant to be for Janet Jackson. Although Whitney Houston was not that eager to record the song, her mother, Cissy Houston, sang backing vocals. It is an amazing blend where mother and daughter provide this incredible energy and spirit to a dazzling and timeless song! One that I feel Houston came to peace with and performed live quite a bit. We sadly lost her in 2012, though songs like How Will I Know demonstrate why she was a seismic talent and one of the greatest artists who has ever lived:

“In 1985, George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam were signed to A & M records as the group Boy Meets Girl. Although they would have their own hit “Waiting For A Star To Fall” in 1988, their first major break came in 1985 when A & M executive John McCain sought their songwriting talent. McCain — a key player in pairing Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis — asked the duo to write a song for Jackson’s Control album.

After completing “How Will I Know” they were confident they’d written a flawless record for Jackson and were optimistic when they handed a demo recording of the song to McCain. Unfortunately, Janet and her team decided to go in a different direction. “Janet and her management passed on the song. We were pretty upset because we thought it was perfect for her at the time,” Merrill said in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.

Despite their disappointment, a second chance came when Gerry Griffith entered the picture. Griffith, who worked in the A & R department of Arista Records at the time, was searching for a hit record that fused pop and R & B together. “We had a lot of R & B-based tunes, we had a few ballads, but we didn’t have a pop crossover song, Griffith said.

As Griffith sought out potential songs for his new artist Whitney Houston, Merrill and Rubicam’s publishing company sent him “How Will I Know”. “Our publishing company played it for Gerry Griffith when he was in Los Angeles gathering material for the unknown Whitney Houston. He loved it, sent it to Clive (Davis), and Clive said, ‘We must have it,’” Rubicam told the website Songfacts.

Eager to find the right person to pair with his newfound potential hit, Griffith sought the services of super producer Narada Michael Walden, who would later produce Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”. Walden, who was hard at work on Aretha Franklin’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who? album, was hesitant to take on a project with the then unknown Houston. “I had no idea who Whitney Houston was; none of us knew who Whitney Houston was,” he later admitted to Billboard.

Despite his initial hesitation, Walden decided to give it a shot. But it wasn’t long before the song hit another snag when Merrill and Rubicam refused to let Walden make changes to their song. Frustrated by their refusal and still unsure of what a massive success Houston would become, Walden came very close to calling off the whole project. “We didn’t know Narada and we had never spoken to him before. We weren’t used to the idea of someone changing our song,” Rubicam said. “Now it’s easier to let go, but at that time it was hard to be flexible.”

“Clive Davis heard the mix and immediately proclaimed it a 10, which is outrageous for him, because he doesn’t like anything!” — Narada Michael Walden

Eventually a compromise was reached and Walden agreed to produce the song, earning himself a songwriting credit in the process. Once they were in the studio together, Walden was stunned by Houston’s efficiency. “She did ‘How Will I Know’ in one take. Maybe I’d fix one thing here and one thing there, but the majority of it is one take,” he explained to Songfacts.

Merrill and Rubicam’s friends happened to be recording Walden and Houston’s session and gave the songwriting duo a preview of the magic that was taking place over the phone. “They said, ‘Guys, you’ve got to hear this.’ They played it over the phone, and I swear, her voice, hearing the first take of ‘How Will I Know’ on the phone we knew we were on to something special, too,” Merrill recalled”.

I will wrap up soon. However, Stereogum shared their thoughts about How Will I Know for The Number Ones series. Awarding it nine out of ten, I thought it was important to source most of what they wrote, as they make some interesting observations about a huge Whitney Houston single still played frequently to this day. Insatiable and something that has not aged at all, it almost didn’t reach her. Songwriters George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam did not want to give the song to Houston as they had not heard of her and it seemed like a risk. The more established Janet Jackson seemed like a more natural and safer choice. She had released her debut album three years before Houston. I don’t think anyone could have sold the song like Whitney Houston! It is among the all-time great vocal performances:

“Ultimately, though, “How Will I Know” probably does a better job showing off Houston’s voice than anything else on that first album. Houston just goes off on this thing. It’s amazing to behold. Houston sells the emotion of the song, sounding like she’s utterly caught up in this dazzling, exciting, world-ending crush. She also nails every little melodic turn. Singers with Houston’s insane gifts sometimes get so caught up in their voices that they can lose the thread of the song. Houston even does that sometimes. On “How Will I Know,” though, she nails it.

But even in the context of a song as fast and bubbly as this one, you can still hear the power and control in her voice. There’s a lot of gospel in her delivery, in the unearthly joyous yelps and whoops and out-of-nowhere high notes. (There’s a whole lot of gospel in those backing vocals, too.) And while Houston never fully cuts loose on “How Will I Know,” she also keeps her abilities in full view. You can hear that voice bursting its way out of the song, ready to dive and curl and soar. The biggest note — the “how will I knoooooow” just as the sax solo kicks in — is enough to give a motherfucker goosebumps.

For the “How Will I Know” video, Houston worked with director Brian Grant, who’d already made videos for hits like M’s “Pop Muzik” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical.” Grant’s “How Will I Know” video is ludicrous, with Houston roaming around a psychedelic-pastel hall of mirrors and looking genuinely taken aback everytime the ridiculous ’80s dancers pop out at her. (Arlene Phillips, a future host on various UK dance-competition shows, did the choreography.) It’s pure, overwhelming ’80s cheese, but Houston’s movie-star smile does a whole lot to make it work.

“How Will I Know” had a job to do, and it accomplished its mission. Houston had already landed her first #1 pop hit with the ballad “Saving All My Love For You,” but “How Will I Know” is her first true crossover moment — the point where it becomes obvious that she’s an unstoppable no-shit pop phenomenon. I can’t help but admire the meticulous logic of Arista’s whole project with that first Houston audience. First, they made sure R&B fans knew what Houston could do. Then, with “Saving All My Love For You,” they turned her into an adult-contempo titan. Finally, Arista made kids love Whitney Houston, too. Those kids embraced “How Will I Know,” and the track knocked “That’s What Friends Are For,” the big hit from Houston’s cousin Dionne Warwick, out of the #1 spot. (If Warwick had made “That’s What Friends Are For” six months later, Houston absolutely would’ve been on it, and the song might have been even bigger.)”.

 Whitney Houston's How Will I Know cemented her legacy as a global Pop phenomenon and, in the process, created history as it was the first music video by a Black female artist to receive heavy rotation on MTV. On 22nd November, this globe-straddling chart success turns forty. Perhaps the defining song from her 1985 debut album, I wanted to investigate and dive into How Will I Know. It is a song I first heard when I was a child, and I have loved it ever since. One of the greatest things that the legendary Whitney Houston…

EVER recorded.